Biography: writers Books

Book SynopsisThe life of William Apess (1789--1839), a Pequot Indian, Methodist preacher, and widely celebrated writer, provides a lens through which to comprehend the complex dynamics of indigenous survival and resistance in the era of America's early nationhood. Apess's life intersects with multiple aspects of indigenous identity and existence in this period, including indentured servitude, slavery, service in the armed forces, syncretic engagements with Christian spirituality, and Native struggles for political and cultural autonomy. Even more, Apess offers a powerful and provocative voice for the persistence of Native presence in a time and place that was long supposed to have settled its ""Indian question"" in favor of extinction.Through meticulous archival research, close readings of Apess's key works, and informed and imaginative speculation about his largely enigmatic life, Drew Lopenzina provides a vivid portrait of this singular Native American figure. This new biography will sit alongside Apess's own writing as vital reading for those interested in early America and indigeneity.

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Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson boarded a train in Concord, Massachusetts, bound for a month-and-a-half-long tour of California—an interlude that became one of the highlights of his life. On their journey across the American West, he and his companions would take in breathtaking vistas in the Rockies and along the Pacific Coast, speak with a young John Muir in the Yosemite Valley, stop off in Salt Lake City for a meeting with Brigham Young, and encounter a diversity of communities and cultures that would challenge their Yankee prejudices.Based on original research employing newly discovered documents, The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson maps the public story of this group's travels onto the private story of Emerson's final years, as aphasia set in and increasingly robbed him of his words. Engaging and compelling, this travelogue makes it clear that Emerson was still capable of wonder, surprise, and friendship, debunking the presumed darkness of his last decade.

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Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson boarded a train in Concord, Massachusetts, bound for a month-and-a-half-long tour of California—an interlude that became one of the highlights of his life. On their journey across the American West, he and his companions would take in breathtaking vistas in the Rockies and along the Pacific Coast, speak with a young John Muir in the Yosemite Valley, stop off in Salt Lake City for a meeting with Brigham Young, and encounter a diversity of communities and cultures that would challenge their Yankee prejudices.Based on original research employing newly discovered documents, The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson maps the public story of this group's travels onto the private story of Emerson's final years, as aphasia set in and increasingly robbed him of his words. Engaging and compelling, this travelogue makes it clear that Emerson was still capable of wonder, surprise, and friendship, debunking the presumed darkness of his last decade.

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Book SynopsisAfter years of studying piano as a young woman in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson curated her music book, a common practice at the time. Now part of the Dickinson Collection in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, this bound volume of 107 pieces of published sheet music includes the poet's favorite instrumental piano music and vocal music, ranging from theme and variation sets to vernacular music, which was also enjoyed by the family's servants.Offering a fresh historical perspective on a poetic voice that has become canonical in American literature, this original study brings this artifact to life, documenting Dickinson's early years of musical study through the time her music was bound in the early 1850s, which tellingly coincided with the writing of her first poems. Using Dickinson's letters and poems alongside newspapers and other archival sources, George Boziwick explores the various composers, music sellers, and publishers behind this music and Dickinson's attendance at performances, presenting new insights into the multiple layers of meaning that music held for her.

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Book SynopsisIn the 1960s, Charles Wright’s (1932–2008) star was on the rise. After dropping out of high school and serving in the Korean War, the young Black writer landed in New York, where he was mentored by Norman Mailer, signed a book deal with a leading publisher, and was celebrated by the likes of Langston Hughes and James Baldwin. Over the decades to follow, Wright would lead a peripatetic and at times precarious life, moving between Tangier, Veracruz, Paris, and New York, penning a regular column for the Village Voice, living off the goodwill of his friends, and battling addiction and, later, mental health issues. As W. Lawrence Hogue shows, Wright’s innovative fiction stands apart, offering a different vision of outcast Black Americans in the postwar era and using satire to bring agency and humanity to working-class characters. This critical biography—the first devoted to Wright’s significant but largely forgotten story—brings new attention to the writer’s impressive body of work, in the context of a wild, but troubled, life.Trade Review “This fascinating biography of Charles Wright covers Morocco, Mexico, Europe, and points in the United States where he encounters sections of society rarely attended to. Hogue does an excellent job of making us understand Wright’s importance, his failures, his struggles, and the major contribution of his work to American and African American literary culture.”—Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s “Though Charles Wright left little in the way of papers behind, Hogue’s dogged pursuit of leads has given us the most complete documentary record of this important Black writer—someone whose queer, surreal, and satirical fiction no doubt anticipates the main currents of Black studies in the second decade of the twenty-first century.”—Kinohi Nishikawa, author of Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary UndergroundTable of Contents Preface Chapter One: The Missouri Years Chapter Two: Arriving in New York City Chapter Three: The Messenger Chapter Four: The Years in Tangier Chapter Five: The Return to New York and the publication of The Wig Chapter Six: The Seventies and the Village Voice Chapter Seven: After Absolutely Nothing to Get Alarmed About and the Hodenfields Chapter Eight: The Eighties Chapter Nine: The Nineties Chapter Ten: The Two Thousands Works Cited Notes

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Book SynopsisIn the 1960s, Charles Wright’s (1932–2008) star was on the rise. After dropping out of high school and serving in the Korean War, the young Black writer landed in New York, where he was mentored by Norman Mailer, signed a book deal with a leading publisher, and was celebrated by the likes of Langston Hughes and James Baldwin. Over the decades to follow, Wright would lead a peripatetic and at times precarious life, moving between Tangier, Veracruz, Paris, and New York, penning a regular column for the Village Voice, living off the goodwill of his friends, and battling addiction and, later, mental health issues. As W. Lawrence Hogue shows, Wright’s innovative fiction stands apart, offering a different vision of outcast Black Americans in the postwar era and using satire to bring agency and humanity to working-class characters. This critical biography—the first devoted to Wright’s significant but largely forgotten story—brings new attention to the writer’s impressive body of work, in the context of a wild, but troubled, life.Trade Review “This fascinating biography of Charles Wright covers Morocco, Mexico, Europe, and points in the United States where he encounters sections of society rarely attended to. Hogue does an excellent job of making us understand Wright’s importance, his failures, his struggles, and the major contribution of his work to American and African American literary culture.”—Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s “Though Charles Wright left little in the way of papers behind, Hogue’s dogged pursuit of leads has given us the most complete documentary record of this important Black writer—someone whose queer, surreal, and satirical fiction no doubt anticipates the main currents of Black studies in the second decade of the twenty-first century.”—Kinohi Nishikawa, author of Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground

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Book SynopsisThis first biography of Susan Sontag (1933-2004) is now fully revised and updated, providing an even more intimate portrayal of the influential writer's life and career. The authors base this revision on Sontag's newly released private correspondence - including emails - and the letters and memoirs of those who knew her best. The authors reveal as never before her early years in Tucson and Los Angeles, her conflicted relationship with her mother, her longing for her absent father, and her precocious achievements at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. Papers, diaries, and lecture notes, many accessible for the first time, spark a passionate fire in this biography.The authors follow Sontag as she abruptly ends an early first marriage, establishes herself in Paris, and embraces the open lifestyle she began as a teenager in Berkeley. As a single mother she struggled with teaching at Columbia University and other colleges while aiming for a career as a novelist and essayist. Eventually she made her own way in New York City after acquiring her one and only publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.In her later years Sontag became a world figure, a tastemaker, dramatist, and political activist who risked her life in besieged Sarajevo. Love affairs with men and women troubled her. Diagnosed with cancer, she responded with determination, and her experience with illness inspired some of her best writing. This biography shows Sontag always craving ""more life"" at whatever cost and depicts her harrowing final decline even as she resisted terminal cancer. Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated presents in candid and stark relief a new assessment of a heroic and controversial figure.Trade ReviewRollyson and Paddock's determined research, especially the interviews they conducted...make this book a valuable resource." - The Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisMichael Gorra asks provocative questions in this historic portrait of William Faulkner and his world. He explores whether William Faulkner should still be read in this new century and asks what his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the American Civil War, the central quarrel in America’s history. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such iconic novels as Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury, creating in Yoknapatawpha County the richest gallery of characters in American fiction, his achievements culminating in the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature. But given his works’ echo of "Lost Cause" romanticism, his depiction of black characters and black speech, and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South, Faulkner demands a sobering reevaluation. Interweaving biography, absorbing literary criticism and rich travelogue, The Saddest Words recontextualises Faulkner, revealing a civil war within him, while examining the most plangent cultural issues facing American literature today.Trade Review"Michael Gorra is one of the finest critical minds at work in literature today, and this masterly reassessment of William Faulkner could not be more timely. Faulkner is a central figure in American fiction and, indeed, in American history, a voice as resonant in today's troubled world as it was in his own time. Gorra asks hard questions about the novelist and the man, and is unflinching in answering them. This is a momentous and thrilling book." -- John Banville"Gorra’s complex and thought-provoking meditation on Faulkner is rich in insight, making the case for the novelist’s literary achievement and his historical value — as an unparalleled chronicler of slavery’s aftermath, and its damage to America’s psyche." -- 100 Notable Books of 2020 - The New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisCombining a breadth of scholarship, insightful critical thinking, and an engaging personal interaction with Mary Hallock Foote's substantial collection of illustrations and writings, Megan Riley McGilchrist provides a significant contribution to western literature and the lives of western writers. Exile, Nature, and Transformation in the Life of Mary Hallock Foote opens a window into the remarkable, little-known nineteenth-century personal history of accomplished American author and illustrator, Mary Hallock Foote, a woman both of her time, and ahead of it. When Mary gave up a successful career as an illustrator in New York to follow her husband, a mining engineer, to the West, she found herself in a new, unfamiliar, and often challenging world—sometimes feeling like an exile. The thousands of pages of her unpublished letters, which form the foundation of this book, give rare insight into the process of acculturation and eventually the transformation that she experienced. This wide-ranging analysis also examines the role that nature and Mary's lifelong connection with the natural world played in her adaptation to the western mining towns where she spent much of the rest of her life. In many ways, Mary's life mirrored that of author Megan Riley McGilchrist, whose parallel exile began in 1977 when she left America for England. Drawing equivalences with Mary's life as an exile and her own life as an expatriate American woman, Megan provides a meditation on her own transformation, as much as on Mary's. Megan demonstrates what it has been like to be a twenty-first-century American expatriate, Californian-turned-Londoner—to find common ground in the life of a nineteenth-century woman.Comprising elements of biography, literary analysis, history, and personal history, and containing many unpublished excerpts from Mary's voluminous correspondence, Exile, Nature, and Transformation in the Life of Mary Hallock Foote offers insight into the ways Mary perceived the world around her. It also provides insight into the experiences of exiles of any time—people who have left a familiar environment to embark on a new life in a new and not necessarily comfortable setting.Trade ReviewThis is the kind of book more literary and cultural critics should be writing: A book that offers rich and deep analysis but in a novelistic way, a book that fully demonstrates how reading-whether novels, letters, illustrations-fully enriches our understanding of our own lives." - Melody Graulich, professor of English and American studies, Utah State UniversityTable of Contents The Backstory Correspondences Transformation CHAPTER ONEIn Exile Seeing Landscape: a personal view Reflection Nature in Exile The Nostalgia of the Exile: A personal view Understanding Exile Reflections on Transformation: An interpretation Transformation Interpretation of Landscape What If? CHAPTER TWONew Almaden Echoes of Ancient Greece Parallels CHAPTER THREELeadville CHAPTER FOURMexico Mary in Mexico CHAPTER FIVEIdaho Mary and Helena: a retrospective view Reflection Living in a New Landscape Mirror Images CHAPTER SIXGrass Valley Mary and Angle of Repose Resolution EPILOGUE WORKS CITED ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Book SynopsisTimothy Findley (1930-2002) was one of Canada's foremost writers--an award-winning novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who began his career as an actor in London, England. Findley was instrumental in the development of Canadian literature and publishing in the 1970s and 80s. During those years, he became a vocal advocate for human rights and the anti-war movement. His writing and interviews reveal a man concerned with the state of the world, a man who believed in the importance of not giving in to despair, despite his constant struggle with depression. Findley believed in the power of imagination and creativity to save us. Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley is the first full biography of this eminent Canadian writer. Sherrill Grace provides insight into Findley's life and struggles through an exploration of his private journals and his relationships with family, his beloved partner, Bill Whitehead, and his close friends, including Alec Guinness, William Hurt, and Margaret Laurence. Based on many interviews and exhaustive archival research, this biography explores Findley's life and work, the issues that consumed him, and his often profound depression over the evils of the twentieth-century. Shining through his darkness are Findley's generous humour, his unforgettable characters, and his hope for the future. These qualities inform canonic works like The Wars (1977), Famous Last Words (1981), Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), and The Piano Man's Daughter (1995).Trade Review"Written with great sensitivity and attention to detail, Grace’s comprehensive biography succeeds in giving a complete picture of its subject as an individual and an artist." - Publishers Weekly"A meticulously researched deep dive into a troubled and fascinating life—passionate, engaged, often messy, vastly rewarding." - Margaret Atwood"Memory and remembering were central to Timothy Findley’s life and work—and equally to Sherrill Grace’s outstanding biography of the celebrated Canadian author. Drawing impressively and insightfully on a vast archive of letters, photos, journals, diaries, and interviews, and on her own towering talents as one of Canada’s foremost literary scholars, Grace presents a compelling portrait of a complex man and brilliant multifaceted writer—himself a master of auto/biography—whose professional and personal experiences tracked the far-reaching changes of late-20th-century Canada’s social and cultural landscape." - - Christl Verduyn, Mount Allison University"A tactful, sensitive, generous, storyteller, Sherrill Grace recounts the life of one of Canada’s greatest storytellers, illuminating his life and work, the people he knew and the cultural times in which he performed that life so passionately. We follow him as he learns his craft through writing and through living that intense, well-examined, if often tormented, life. At once learned and elegant, this immensely readable biography is a glorious summing up of all the themes of his work and life." - Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto, author of The Canadian Postmodern"A powerful, eye-opening portrait of the artist as an anguished man who tried desperately to live by his motto: Against despair." - Jerry Wasserman, Emeritus Professor of English and Theatre, UBC, editor of Modern Canadian Plays"Sherrill Grace brings thoughtful attention to both the man and the work, the latter of which notably marked the national literature by its particular obsessions and inventions." - Andrew Pyper, author of The Demonologist and The Homecoming

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Book SynopsisMahala's biography gives insight into the life and writing of Can Themba (1924–1967), an iconic figure of the South African literary world and Drum journalist who died in exile Can Themba: The Intellectual Tsotsi, a Biography brings to life the iconic South African writer and journalist, Can Themba, (21 June 1924 – 8 September 1967) who died while exiled in Swaziland in 1967. Best known for his classic short story, ‘The Suit’, Themba has been somewhat of an enigma, with very little known about his personal life. This biography brings forth the voices of those who had personal interactions with him, shining the light on different aspects of his life including education, literature, journalism and political fraternities. It features interviews with prominent individuals including his former students, Abdul Bham, Pitika Ntuli, and Mbulelo Mzamane; journalistic mentees Juby Mayet and Joe Thloloe; as well as friends, colleagues and contemporaries Parks Mangena, Peter Magubane, Jurgen Schadeberg, Don Mattera, and Nadine Gordimer; in addition to artists and academics Mothobi Mutloatse, Muxe Nkondo and Njabulo S. Ndebele. Also featured in this biographical text are veteran political figures such as Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Lindiwe Mabuza and Ahmed Kathrada. Themba’s intellectual acumen, scholarly aptitude and witticism are some of his most revered characteristics amongst those who had interactions with him either in person or through comprehensive reading of his works. Mahala is a master storyteller and deftly weaves together the threads of Themba's dynamic life. In this edifying biography Mahala recreates the sparkle and pathos of Sophiatown of the 1950s and the Drum era. Can Themba’s successes and failures, as well as his triumphs and tribulations reverberate on the pages of this long-awaited biography.Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Death and Birth of a Scribe Chapter 1 A Knock on the Door Chapter 2 The Poet Laureate of Fort Hare Chapter 3 The Teacher of Life and Letters Chapter 4 From Marabastad to Sophiatown and beyond Part II: Living Fast, Dying Young Chapter 5 The Drum Seduction Chapter 6 Occasions for Loving Chapter 7 Drumming Up a Storm Chapter 8 Destruction and Demise Chapter 9 The Road to Swaziland: A Kind of Suicide Part III: The ‘Intellectual Tsotsi’: The Identities, Politics and Intellectual Legacy of Can Themba Chapter 10 Black Englishman or Detribalised African? A Quest for Shared Identities Chapter 11 A Politico in a Poet Chapter 12 The People’s Intellectual Part IV: Dances with Texts: the Writings of Can Themba Chapter 13 No Ordinary Storyteller Chapter 14 Intertextuality and the Making of Mr Shakespeare Chapter 15 ‘The Suit’ For All Seasons Part V: The Immortality of Can Themba Chapter 16 Re-Membering the Fragments Postscript: The Three Burials of Can Themba Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn this new interpretation of the life and work of the American poet, short-story writer and novelist "Charles Bukowski", David Stephen Calonne examines Bukowski's writings, colourful life and the desperate conditions of his lifestyle, looking at the literary traditions that influenced him and discussing his unique place in world literature. Bukowski was born in Germany and raised in the United States, a schism that Calonne shows to be crucial in the writer's development. From the influence of Germany's literary and intellectual traditions to the writer's traumatic childhood, this book explores the effect the writer's hybrid identity had on the themes and content of his work. Exploring several unknown works of fiction and poetry created in the early years of his career, the many volumes of poetry published with Black Sparrow Press, major works of fiction like "Post Office" and "Factotum", as well as feature films such as the Mickey Rourke-starring "Barfly", Calonne catalogues and dissects the many versions of Bukowski created by the writer and his followers. A concise yet comprehensive new account, "Charles Bukowski" will interest the wide audience already familiar with this prolific, influential figure, as well as being an invaluable introduction to those new to Bukowski's work and who wish to know more.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a fresh and unbiased account of the life and work of an enigmatic, challenging writer who continues to polarize opinion today.

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Book SynopsisSamuel Langhorne Clemens, born on 30 November 1835 in Monroe County, Missouri, was never one to let the facts get in the way of a good story. A natural-born storyteller, Mark Twain freely adapted the incidents of his life and the stories he heard as a youth to embellish his fiction, as well as his travel writing and autobiography. However, this presents a problem to the modern biographer: in accounts of Twain's life, how does one tell what is true and what is just a colourful yarn? In this new account of a gifted, charismatic character, Kevin J. Hayes reviews Twain's life, from his early journalism to his masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, from the travelogue Life on the Mississippi to his final work, the sprawling, episodic Mark Twain's Autobiography and the public-speaking engagements that took him around the world. Synthesizing new information and sifting through the evidence, Mark Twain is a fresh, clear-sighted account of a crucial American writer.

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Book SynopsisBefore he had turned 21, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) upended the house of French poetry and left it in shambles. What makes Rimbaud's poetry important, argues Seth Whidden, is part of what makes his life so compelling: rebellion, audacity, creativity and exploration. Almost all of Rimbaud's poems were written between the ages of fifteen and twenty. Against the backdrop of the crumbling Second Empire and the tumultuous Paris Commune, the poet took centuries-old traditions of French versification and picked them apart with an unmatched knowledge of how they fitted together. Combining sensuality with pastoral, parody, political satire, fable, eroticism and mystery, Rimbaud's works range from traditional verse forms to prose-poetry and the two first free-verse poems written in French. By situating Rimbaud's writing in Africa as part of a continuum that spans his entire life, this book offers a corrective to the traditional split between his life as a poet and his life afterwards. Written for general readers and students of literature alike, Arthur Rimbaud presents the original damned poet who continues to captivate readers, artists and writers all over the world.

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Book SynopsisA quiet chat with Casanova turns into a catalogue of racy encounters set in 18th-century Venice and other cities … and we can even ask questions! You’ll find out just how he got himself both in and out of some extremely sticky situations, from debt and imprisonment, to confrontations with jealous husbands and even heartbreak. Renowned as a great lover and seducer, Casanova was far more than a bed hopping rake. He founded the world's first national lottery, discussed theories of taxation with Frederick the Great, debated the merits of the Gregorian calendar with Catherine the Great, talked theology with Pope Clement XIII, lectured on Horace and Homer, and gave a public recital of his own poem on the Passion of the Christ. He was also an accomplished swindler, an extraordinary wit, a brilliant philosopher, a formidable duellist, and a notable spy. The impressive scale of Casanova's many gifts – and vices – is brought brilliantly to life in this innovative biography. A concise biographical essay is followed by a scintillating dialogue that is as historically rigorous as it is entertaining. As Dita Von Teese says in her Foreword: "In my most amorous fantasies, I spend languid days and glittering nights with a true 'Casanova'— a man with a heartfelt passion for life, a thirst for knowledge and adventure, and of course a lust for refined romance." Be seduced by this brilliant book.

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Book SynopsisA brilliant new biography of the mystic poet and artist William Blake - and the first to explore both his struggle to make a name for himself in a society unable to appreciate his genius and his startlingly original quest for spiritual truth.'And did those feet in ancient time ...' The hymn 'Jerusalem', with its famous words by William Blake, stirs our hearts with its evocation of a new holy city built in 'England's green and pleasant land'. Equally popular, and adored by children, is the address to 'Tyger Tyger burning bright,/ In the forests of the night.' Writing of this calibre - heartfelt, vivid and profound - makes Blake one of the best-loved poets writing in English. Yet he was also a visionary artist. To follow Blake into his fascinating labyrinth of thought and feeling you need a guide who not only is deeply knowledgeable about Blake's life and times, but also shares Blake's values. That guide is Tobias Churton. Until now, Blake the guru has been lost under a myriad of inadequate biographies, college dissertations and arts commentaries, by people who have missed the luminescent keys to Blake's symbolism and liberating spirit and the essence of his titanic spiritual effort. In Jerusalem Churton creates an enthralling tapestry out of the threads of Blake's spiritual quest, as well as his struggle to put bread on his table. He conjures a superb portrait of Blake's London, and in particular the rivalries of the cultural community in which the poet-artist was usually misunderstood, and often cruelly abused. For some, Blake is a 'romantic poet' whose plain language, simple verse forms and sympathy with everyday humanity is deeply moving. To others, he is a revolutionary, an angry Cockney rebel with ideas about free sex. This biography, the first to show Blake in all his glory, is essential for those who seek spiritual awakening and an antidote to both materialism and to the commercialization of wonder.

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Book SynopsisAs the first black author in America to make his living exclusively by writing, Langston Hughes inspired a generation of writers and activists. One of the pioneers of jazz poetry, Hughes led the Harlem Renaissance, while Martin Luther King invoked his signature metaphor of dreaming in his speeches. In this new biography, W. Jason Miller illuminates Hughes’s status as an international literary figure through a compelling look at the relationship between his extraordinary life and his canonical works. Drawing on unpublished letters and manuscripts, Miller addresses Hughes’s often ignored contributions to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and his complex and well-guarded sexuality, and repositions him as a writer, rather than merely the most beloved African American poet of the twentieth century.Table of ContentsPrologue 1 Motherless Child, 1901-19 2 I, Too, am America, 1919-24 3 A Bone of Contention, 1924-30 4 In the USSR, 1930-33 5 Let America Be America Again, 1933-40 6 Aimee B. Simple, 1940-45 7 F. B. Eyes, 1945-50 8 Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1950-53 9 Seeing Red, 1953-60 10 Bright Tomorrows, 1960-62 11 I Dream a World, 1962-7 Epilogue References Further Reading Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisThe first popular biography of a pioneering feminist thinker and writer of medieval Paris. The daughter of a court intellectual, Christine de Pizan dwelled within the cultural heart of late-medieval Paris. In the face of personal tragedy, she learned the tools of the book trade, writing more than forty works that included poetry, historical and political treatises, and defenses of women. In this new biography-the first written for a general audience-Charlotte Cooper-Davis discusses the life and work of this pioneering female thinker and writer. She shows how Christine de Pizan's inspiration came from the world around her, situates her as an entrepreneur within the context of her times and place, and finally examines her influence on the most avant-garde of feminist artists, through whom she is slowly making a return into mainstream popular culture.

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Book SynopsisHenry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867) earned his place in literary history as a perceptive diarist from 1811 onwards. Drawing substantially on hitherto unpublished manuscript sources, this book discusses his formal and informal engagement with a wide variety of English and European literature prior to this point. Robinson emerges as a pioneering literary critic whose unique philosophical erudition underpinned his activity as a cross-cultural disseminator of literature during the early Romantic period. A Dissenter barred from the English universities, Robinson educated himself thoroughly during his teenage years and began to publish in radical journals. Godwin’s philosophy subsequently inspired his first theory of literature. When in Germany from 1800 to 1805, he became the leading British scholar of Kant, whose philosophy informed his discussions of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and August Wilhelm Schlegel. After his return to London, Robinson aided Hazlitt’s understanding of Kant and, thus, Hazlitt’s early career as a writer. His distinctive comparative criticism further enabled him to draw compelling parallels between Wordsworth, Blake, and Herder, and to discern ‘moral excellence’ in Christian Leberecht Heyne’s Amathonte. This also prompted Robinson’s transmission of Friedrich Schlegel and Jean Paul in 1811, as well as a profound exchange of ideas with Coleridge. In this new study, Philipp Hunnekuhl finds that Robinson’s ingenious adaptation of Kantian aesthetic autonomy into a revolutionary theory of literature’s moral relevance anticipated the current ‘ethical turn’ in literary studies.Trade Review'The study of Romantic criticism has gained new dimension with Philipp Hunnekuhl’s stunning exposition of Henry Crabb Robinson’s early reviews, essays, and translations. Robinson wrote with profound insight into Kantian transcendentalism, attended Schelling’s lectures, and even met with Goethe. Hunnekuhl demonstrates how Robinson established himself as the first true comparatist among the Romantic critics.'Frederick Burwick, Emeritus Professor at the University of California Los Angeles'The genre of Hunnekuhl's superbly researched monograph is hard to pin down: it is a historical as well as a biographical work that is simultaneously a study of the development of Romantic philosophy and the study of a genuinely Romantic theory of literature that combines German aesthetic autonomy and English political ethics. What is more, Hunnekuhl unearths archival material – manuscripts such as letters and diaries – and makes it available in an appendix. Thus, this important study provides material for future investigations of early 19th-century literature at the same time that it paints a complex picture of the way that key cultural concepts are generated and disseminated in the period of European Romanticism.'Ralf Haekel, Anglistik'This monograph uses Robinson’s extensive published works to unpick the influence he had on his contemporaries and further into the nineteenth century. Through the study of an author whose interests bridged languages, this is an exceptional case study of comparative literature. This monograph leaves us excitedly awaiting future opportunities to continue exploring the complexities of not just Robinson’s critical role as literary intermediary and disseminator in the Romantic period, but also comparative literature studies.'Charlotte May, The Charles Lamb Bulletin'Henry Crabb Robinson’s diary, 1811–67, is familiar terrain for British and German Romantic scholars. Philipp Hunnekuhl’s goal in Henry Crabb Robinson, Romantic Comparatist is instead to review Robinson’s life and work in the years 1790 to 1811, thereby retracing Robinson’s emergence as a comparatist and his formative impact on British and German Romantic authors. This task covers Robinson’s publications and manuscripts as well as his social interactions.'John Claiborne Isbell, European Romantic ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction. Henry Crabb Robinson: Romantic Comparatist, 1790–1811 1. Radical Self-Education and First Authorship 2. The Godwinian Critic 3. Kant, Aesthetic Autonomy, and Literary Ethics 4. Moral Discourse in A.W. Schlegel, Schiller, Goethe, and Lessing 5. Hazlitt, Napoleon, and Literary Disinterestedness 6. ‘Matters of Religion & Morality’: Herder, Wordsworth, and Blake 7. Friedrich Schlegel, Coleridge, and the Ethics of Amathonte Conclusion: Or, a New Outlook for Nineteenth-Century Comparatism

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Book SynopsisAn Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched.The Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most sophisticated writers of the twentieth century, suffered from sexual impotence. This emotionally overwhelming condition shaped his literary experience in ways that have not been understood. Until now Borges has largely been considered an asexual author who could not read, think, or write about desire and sex, but in this book historian Ariel de la Fuente shows that sexuality was a major preoccupation for him, both as a reader and as an author. De la Fuente has conducted an extensive literary investigation in Borges’s figurative erotic library and presents for the first time a study of the relationship between Borges’s sexual biography, his erotic readings, and the writing of desire and sex in his work. The author explores relevant literary questions while employing a historical method and the book is truly an interdisciplinary study at the intersection of history with Latin American, European, and Eastern literatures, poetry, philosophy, and sexuality. Argued with clarity, Borges, Desire, and Sex offers an unexpected perspective on the literature and figure of a world-wide influential author.Trade Review'It is remarkable that there remains under-explored an area of Borges scholarship, yet the central questions posed here are important, original, and compelling.'William Rowlandson, University of Kent'This is a work of exceptional originality. The historical rather than literary perspective has brought to the fore entirely new readings, both regarding the interplay between Borges’s life and his work, and between his reading and creative output. At the moment it stands almost alone in its approach and methodology. This work will become a mandatory tool in the development of future research.'Evelyn Fishburn, University College London, author of A Dictionary of Borges'The author offers a detailed argument…assembling strong evidence for his case, while opening new avenues of investigation of Borges’s life and works…For [its] novel investigations of key [Borges’s] works, for highlighting the erotic focus of some of Borges’s readings, for offering a timely reminder of the importance of Stoic philosophy in the Argentine writer’s thinking, as well as for its exposition of the sexual dimensions of Borges’s poetry on the arrabal, among other merits, the book is very valuable. In the end, it serves to bring to light the important role that sex and desire played in [Borges’s] life and work.' Bill Richardson (National University of Ireland), Variaciones Borges'De la Fuente makes a compelling argument not merely for the importance of sexuality in Borges’s work, but for its extent. The author marshals his evidence and presents it clearly… Borges, Desire, and Sex makes a major contribution to our better, more complete understanding of the man and his work. I recommend it highly.' Earl Fitz (Vanderbilt University), Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y El CaribeTable of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: On Borges’s SexualityChapter 2: Biography in Literature and the Reading of Desire and Sex in BorgesChapter 3: Borges’s Erotic Library: The Poetry ShelfChapter 4: Sir Richard Burton’s Orientalist Erotica: The Thousand Nights and a Night and The Perfumed GardenChapter 5: Schopenhauer and Montaigne, Philosophy and SexChapter 6: Desire and Sex in Buenos Aires: Borges’s Poetry on the ArrabalChapter 7: Stoicism and Borges’s Writing of WomenChapter 8: Emma Zunz: Sex, Virtue, and PunishmentChapter 9: La intrusa: Incest and Gay ReadingsWorks Cited

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Book SynopsisDown to the Sunless Sea explores the time Coleridge spent in Gibraltar, Malta, Sicily and mainland Italy, where he had planned to recover his health, escape the clutches of opium and gain inspiration from the landscape; however, the reality would prove very different. After his short sojourn in Gibraltar, Coleridge arrived in Malta, where he became acquainted with the British Governor, Alexander Ball. He settled into Maltese life, initially taking on the role of acting Under-Secretary. Travelling to Sicily, Coleridge embraced the island's landscapes but was shaken to find the opium poppy was an important local crop. The Mediterranean would not prove the solution to his addiction. He visited the Consul, G. F. Leckie, and was invited to stay with him at a house on the site of Timoleon's Greek villa. The poet visited the antiquities of Syracuse and at the opera house encountered the soprano, Anna-Cecilia Bertozzi, nearly succumbing to her charms. Back in Malta, he was offered rooms in the Treasury building (now the Casino Maltese) and took up the post of Public Secretary. Legal pronouncements in Italian bear Coleridge's signature. Leaving behind these matters of state, he drifted through the Italian peninsula, engaging with a coterie of artistic ex-pats when in Rome. His listless, half-hearted, and financially embarrassed attempts at the Grand Tour included a narrow escape from French troops. Coleridge's Mediterranean sojourn impacted on his life and writing, not to mention his health, which saw a marked decline, leading to his final years in Highgate under the roof of a friendly doctor. Down to the Sunless Sea is a literary reflection on the fact that the sun-filled Mediterranean was not the tonic he had first imagined.Table of ContentsThe Illustrations. ONE: Departure on the Speedwell. TWO: Strategising for Nelson in Malta. THREE: Sicily and the Prima Donna. FOUR: A Hand in Maltese Affairs. FIVE: The Grand Tourist Returns Home. SIX: Lectures and Legacy. Notes. Bibliography. Index

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Book SynopsisRupert Brooke died in April 1915, on the eve of the Gallipoli landings. During the First World War Brooke was the iconic poet-soldier, adored and mimicked by readers and would-be writers—both in and out of uniform—with an international following that has neither been examined nor explained since. The general shift in attitudes toward war and the manner in which the war poets are presented meant that Brooke was recast as the exemplar of pre-war innocence, forever swimming in faintly saccharine, nakedly patriotic streams born of his famous poems. Rupert Brooke in the First World War takes a celebrity of the war who became an idol for fellow writers, politicians, literary elites and the general public, and tells the story of his life and famously romantic death, providing readers a fuller sense not only of the human being and his singular life and circumstances, but also of the world he inhabited, and the passions and tastes of men and women living through a period of great upheaval.Trade Review‘Miller is an expert guide to the journalistic efflorescence of war writing… Miller’s book is a valuable reminder of his [Brooke’s] continuing significance for students of the period.’ Roger Ebbatson, Dymock Poets and Friends‘Miller's succinct study both evokes and deconstructs the myth of "England's poet-soldier." Her narrative is supported and enlivened by relevant quotations and illustrations. Though she espouses no allegiance to a specific critical school, her work is close in spirit to Pierre's Bourdieu's Rules of Art...especially in its investigation of the factors that led to Brooke's immediate and long-lasting canonization. Students and scholars of either the life and poetry of Rupert Brooke or World War I will find Alisa Miller's book to be discerning and instructive.’ Yann Tholoniat, Michigan War Studies 'Miller states in conclusion that her book ‘is an attempt to assess and understand a particular cult figure in the context that created him. And it tries to collate and consider the language, people, and institutions that encouraged them – and him – to be read in the way that they were’ (p. 225). She succeeds admirably in this task, and her book should be of interest to anyone interested in not only Brooke or poetry more generally but also the cultural and institutional underpinnings that helped make the war possible and take the precise form it did.' Tim Dayton, First World War StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionI. LifeChapter 1: YouthChapter 2: The IdyllChapter 3: Self-mobilisationChapter 4: EnlistmentChapter 5: War and WaitingChapter 6: The War SonnetsChapter 7: TransportII. AfterlifeChapter 8: Patriotic PoetryChapter 9: Public DeathChapter 10: SyndicationChapter 11: ImageChapter 12: PatronsChapter 13: ReadersChapter 14: Poet-soldiersChapter 15: Careful CriticsChapter 16: ExportConclusionBibliography

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Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot and Organicism provides the first comprehensive account of Eliot’s preoccupation with agrarianism, organicism and the environment. Jeremy Diaper elucidates and contextualizes several facets of Eliot’s organic thinking, ranging from composting and soil fertility, to regionalism, nutrition and culinary skills. Through detailed examination of Eliot’s engagement with organic issues, this book offers environmental readings of Eliot’s poetry and plays and demonstrates that agrarian concerns emerge as a notable theme in his literary output – from his earliest notebook of poems known as Inventions of the March Hare to Murder in the Cathedral. This book also analyzes Eliot’s prose to illuminate his engagement with the key environmental debates which were taking place during the 1930s-50s. Diaper offers a thorough analysis of Eliot’s social criticism and explores his perturbation regarding the decline of agriculture in After Strange Gods, The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. T. S. Eliot and Organicism breaks new ground by demonstrating that a thorough understanding of Eliot’s engagement with environmentalism is vital to our interpretation of both his poetry and prose. It establishes that one of the twentieth century’s most eminent literary figures should be remembered for his important role in the emergence of the organic husbandry movement and for his wide-ranging comments on a variety of environmental and organic issues. Trade Review‘The most valuable part of T. S. Eliot and Organicism is its thorough trawling through the files of the New English Weekly and the Christian News-Letter, two publications which Eliot supported and contributed to, especially once the Criterion had closed. This yields ample evidence of parallels between that of Eliot's work and a number of prominent writers on agriculture and its place in a good society.’ Stefan Collini, The Times Literary Supplement‘Jeremy Diaper's lucid and detailed study locates Eliot at the heart of the early organic movement ... this book will prove essential reading not only for students of organicism, but for all those with a general interest in the culture of mid-twentieth-century England as reflected in the work of its greatest modernist poet.’ Richard Moore-Colyer, Rural History‘Jeremy Diaper’s argument in T. S. Eliot and Organicism goes way beyond such circumstantial considerations, though, presenting a wealth of evidence to show that Eliot attached great importance to farming and to a thriving rural culture and economy… Diaper’s monograph offers a convincing case for T. S. Eliot’s major role in propagating the organicist philosophy.’ Philip Conford, Agricultural History Review‘T. S. Eliot and Organicism’s profound reconsideration of Eliot’s organic thinking will undoubtedly inspire future approaches to ecocriticism and Eliot Studies.’ Clint Wilson, Time Present'Jeremy Diaper has drawn a meticulous portrait of Eliot as ecocritic avant la lettre... His work establishes a solid historical basis for future environmental readings of Eliot – the poet of soil, air, and water.'Frances Dickey, Essays in Criticism'Certain readers may be unfamiliar with the relevant contexts that shaped Eliot's 'agricultural sensibility' and in this respect one of the delights of the book, as well as the lucidity of Diaper's prose, is the meticulous positioning of the author in relation to various agrarian, agricultural and environmental concerns... Overall, Diaper's book is written with sharp clarity, is logically structured and meticulously historicised, and, even though some of the close readings may induce further questions and critical responses, the implications are far reaching'.Scott Freer, The Journal of The T. S. Eliot Society (UK)'Diaper’s meticulously researched exploration of Eliot’s engagements with the organicist movement of the 1930s invites us to reconsider the author many still associate with modernism at its most anthropocentric. We find instead a poet invested in the practicalities of food, dirt, sustainable human habitation, and the webs of politics and economics in which it is all entangled. Diaper compellingly argues that it is impossible to understand Eliot’s social criticism and poetics, and even his faith, aside from his concern for the fate of actual, living loam... This touchstone work will be referenced in any future ecocritical study of Eliot. Beyond this, the book is an important contribution to the ongoing greening of modernist studies. The last decade produced several works on the more-than-human investments of modernism, each of which has had to argue vigorously for the validity of combining modernism and ecocriticism. One hopes that we’re finally now in a moment when we can do away with the anxious justifications tucked into our prologues and intros. Indeed, Diaper’s book perhaps signals that such a moment is here'.Julia E. Daniel, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment'T.S Eliot and Organicism is a valuable contribution, not simply because of its original take on Eliot's legacy, but also due to its highlighting an early-twentieth-century movement that is rarely considered at length"Karina Jakubowicz, Journal of Modern LiteratureTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Formation of Eliot’s Agricultural Sensibility 2. The Criterion: A Platform for Agricultural Perspectives 3. The Material and Spiritual Soil of the New English Weekly 4. A Christian Community: T. S. Eliot and the Christian News-Letter 5. The Cultivation of Culture Conclusion: Organic Eliot Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe Dinner at Gonfarone’s is organised as a partial biography, covering five years in the life of the young Nicaraguan poet, Salomón de la Selva, but it also offers a literary geography of Hispanic New York (Nueva York) in the turbulent years around the First World War. De la Selva is of interest because he stands as the largely unacknowledged precursor of Latino writers like Junot Díaz and Julia Álvarez, writing the first book of poetry in English by an Hispanic author. In addition, through what he called his pan-American project, de la Selva brought together in New York writers from all over the American continent. He put the idea of trans-American literature into practice long before the concept was articulated.De la Selva’s range of contacts was enormous, and this book has been made possible through discovery of caches of letters that he wrote to famous writers of the day, such as Edwin Markham and Amy Lowell, and especially Edna St Vincent Millay. Alongside de la Selva’s own poetry – his book Tropical Town (1918) and a previously unknown 1916 manuscript collection – The Dinner at Gonfarone’s highlights other Hispanic writing about New York in these years by poets such as Rubén Darío, José Santos Chocano, and Juan Ramón Jiménez, all of whom were part of de la Selva’s extensive network.Trade Review'Peter Hulme’s The Dinner at Gonfarone’s is a masterful, well-written literary history of the origins of modern literary pan-Americanism that offers the first in-depth biography in English of the early life and work of its seminal figure, Salomón de la Selva.' Jonathan Cohen, author of A Pan-American Life: Selected Poetry and Prose of Muna Lee'The Dinner at Gonfarone’s is a brilliant pioneering study of the transcultural origins of literary Nueva York. Hulme is able to recreate and delineate an important community of American writers in the continental sense of the word, thereby illuminating a relatively unknown aspect of New York’s cultural history.' Steven F. White, Professor of Hispanic Studies, St. Lawrence UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Setting the Scene: New York in 1914The Hispanic PresenceThe Poetic WatersModernity and Modernism2. American Geopolitics in the New Century (1898-1914)The Famous StatesPan-AmericanismRoosevelt’s VisionThe Shakespearean Allegory3. The Changing of the Poetic Guard (1915)Growing up in New York!Rubén Darío in HospitalBefriending Pedro, Loving EdnaThe First Dinner4. New York through Spanish Eyes (1916)Courting ArcherThe Recently Married PoetEdwin Markham on Staten IslandWilson’s Crime in Santo DomingoA Tale from Faerieland5. Goading the Bull Moose (1917)Confronting RooseveltMamita SchaufflerChicago!Introducing Edna6. The Pan-American Dream (1918)Is America Honest?Translating PoetryTropical TownFalling in Love AgainFighting for England7. The Last Dinner (1919)Nueva York!A Soldier ReturnsThe Dinner at Gonfarone’sThe Gulf of MisunderstandingNicaragua Has MeAftermathLeaving New YorkIn MexicoLater lifeTaking accountBiographiesAcknowledgementsSelect BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThis collection places the fiction of Bram Stoker in relation to this life, career and status as a late Victorian. It centres on various aspects of his interests and career, such as politics, the legal system, his role as Irving's stage manager, and analyses his work in relation to these.Trade Review‘Bram Stoker and the Late Victorian World provides an important and fascinating angle from which to view Stoker’s work and his fiction.’ Marion McGarry, Irish Studies Review‘Gibson and Müller bring a fresh perspective to the well-trod field of Stoker studies by examining the author in the context of the Late Victorian world he was writing… This collection of essays successfully fills in a picture of the man and his fiction, and I recommend it to anyone wanting to expand their understanding of Bram Stoker, his world, and his literary legacy.’ Jeanette Laredo, Supernatural Studies Association'Much of the pleasure and strength of this collection is in the range of Stoker’s works analyzed... Readers familiar with Stoker will find this volume filled with discussions both familiar and new that will have a positive impact on Stoker studies.'Robert Finnigan, Victorian Review'[Bram Stoker and the Late Victorian World] has sustaining pockets of original research that make it a positive contribution to the critical industry now rapidly growing up around Stoker.'Roger Luckhurst, Victorian Studies'The collection overall offers a broad-based exploration of the shifting and sometimes complex historical and cultural contexts of the entire corpus of Stoker’s short fiction and novels... a valuable contribution to Gothic studies.'R. D. Morrison, Choice'The book offers enlightening insights and some fascinating detail and is a worthwhile approach when looking at the history and life of Stoker. [...] Bram Stoker and the Late Victorian World provides an important and fascinating angle from which to view Stoker’s work and his fiction.'Marion McGarry, Irish Studies Review

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Book SynopsisHenry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867) earned his place in literary history as a perceptive diarist from 1811 onwards. Drawing substantially on hitherto unpublished manuscript sources, this book discusses his formal and informal engagement with a wide variety of English and European literature prior to this point. Robinson emerges as a pioneering literary critic whose unique philosophical erudition underpinned his activity as a cross-cultural disseminator of literature during the early Romantic period. A Dissenter barred from the English universities, Robinson educated himself thoroughly during his teenage years and began to publish in radical journals. Godwin’s philosophy subsequently inspired his first theory of literature. When in Germany from 1800 to 1805, he became the leading British scholar of Kant, whose philosophy informed his discussions of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and August Wilhelm Schlegel. After his return to London, Robinson aided Hazlitt’s understanding of Kant and, thus, Hazlitt’s early career as a writer. His distinctive comparative criticism further enabled him to draw compelling parallels between Wordsworth, Blake, and Herder, and to discern ‘moral excellence’ in Christian Leberecht Heyne’s Amathonte. This also prompted Robinson’s transmission of Friedrich Schlegel and Jean Paul in 1811, as well as a profound exchange of ideas with Coleridge. In this new study, Philipp Hunnekuhl finds that Robinson’s ingenious adaptation of Kantian aesthetic autonomy into a revolutionary theory of literature’s moral relevance anticipated the current ‘ethical turn’ in literary studies.Trade Review'The study of Romantic criticism has gained new dimension with Philipp Hunnekuhl’s stunning exposition of Henry Crabb Robinson’s early reviews, essays, and translations. Robinson wrote with profound insight into Kantian transcendentalism, attended Schelling’s lectures, and even met with Goethe. Hunnekuhl demonstrates how Robinson established himself as the first true comparatist among the Romantic critics.'Frederick Burwick, Emeritus Professor at the University of California Los Angeles'The genre of Hunnekuhl's superbly researched monograph is hard to pin down: it is a historical as well as a biographical work that is simultaneously a study of the development of Romantic philosophy and the study of a genuinely Romantic theory of literature that combines German aesthetic autonomy and English political ethics. What is more, Hunnekuhl unearths archival material – manuscripts such as letters and diaries – and makes it available in an appendix. Thus, this important study provides material for future investigations of early 19th-century literature at the same time that it paints a complex picture of the way that key cultural concepts are generated and disseminated in the period of European Romanticism.'Ralf Haekel, Anglistik'This monograph uses Robinson’s extensive published works to unpick the influence he had on his contemporaries and further into the nineteenth century. Through the study of an author whose interests bridged languages, this is an exceptional case study of comparative literature. This monograph leaves us excitedly awaiting future opportunities to continue exploring the complexities of not just Robinson’s critical role as literary intermediary and disseminator in the Romantic period, but also comparative literature studies.'Charlotte May, The Charles Lamb Bulletin'Henry Crabb Robinson’s diary, 1811–67, is familiar terrain for British and German Romantic scholars. Philipp Hunnekuhl’s goal in Henry Crabb Robinson, Romantic Comparatist is instead to review Robinson’s life and work in the years 1790 to 1811, thereby retracing Robinson’s emergence as a comparatist and his formative impact on British and German Romantic authors. This task covers Robinson’s publications and manuscripts as well as his social interactions.'John Claiborne Isbell, European Romantic ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction. Henry Crabb Robinson: Romantic Comparatist, 1790–1811 1. Radical Self-Education and First Authorship 2. The Godwinian Critic 3. Kant, Aesthetic Autonomy, and Literary Ethics 4. Moral Discourse in A.W. Schlegel, Schiller, Goethe, and Lessing 5. Hazlitt, Napoleon, and Literary Disinterestedness 6. ‘Matters of Religion & Morality’: Herder, Wordsworth, and Blake 7. Friedrich Schlegel, Coleridge, and the Ethics of Amathonte Conclusion: Or, a New Outlook for Nineteenth-Century Comparatism

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Book SynopsisThe daily journal of a giant of German literature, touching subjects ranging from everyday life to the political and social conditions in East Germany as viewed from West Berlin. Max Frisch (1911–91) was a giant of twentieth-century German literature. When Frisch moved into a new apartment in Berlin’s Sarrazinstrasse, he began keeping a journal, which he came to call the Berlin Journal. A few years later, he emphasized in an interview that this was by no means a “scribbling book,” but rather a book “fully composed.” The journal is one of the great treasures of Frisch’s literary estate, but the author imposed a retention period of twenty years from the date of his death because of the “private things” he noted in it. From the Berlin Journal now marks the first publication of excerpts from Frisch’s journal. Here, the unmistakable Frisch is back, full of doubt, with no illusions, and with a playfully sharp eye for the world. From the Berlin Journal pulls from the years 1946–49 and 1966–71. Observations about the writer’s everyday life stand alongside narrative and essayistic texts, as well as finely-drawn portraits of colleagues like Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Wolf Biermann, and Christa Wolf, among others. Its foremost quality, though, is the extraordinary acuity with which Frisch observed political and social conditions in East Germany while living in West Berlin. Trade Review"Frisch is remembered for innovative plays and experimental prose on the themes of identity, self-delusion, anti-Semitism, and the clash between cultural heritage and materialism. Frisch moved to Berlin in 1973, and it was there that his increasingly autobiographical writings began to reveal a tormented soul teetering on the brink of self-loathing. . . . The Berlin journal is distinguished by a Kafkaesque combination of real-life events, musings, dreams, distant memories and preliminary sketches." * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. From Notebook 1 (1973?)2. From Notebook 2 (1973–74)

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Book SynopsisYves Bonnefoy’s final poetic work, a collection of reflections about poetry, legacy, and life. The international community of letters mourned the recent death of Yves Bonnefoy, universally acclaimed as one of France’s greatest poets of the last half-century. A prolific author, he was often considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize and published a dozen major collections of poetry in verse and prose, several books of dream-like tales, and numerous studies of literature and art. His oeuvre has been translated into scores of languages, and he himself was a celebrated translator of Shakespeare, Yeats, Keats, and Leopardi.Together Still is his final poetic work, composed just months before his death. The book is nothing short of a literary testament, addressed to his wife, his daughter, his friends, and his readers throughout the world. In these pages, he ruminates on his legacy to future generations, his insistence on living in the present, his belief in the triumphant lessons of beauty, and, above all, his courageous identification of poetry with hope.Trade Review"Undoubtedly one of the major French poets of the last six decades. . . . Illuminating and deeply moving." * World Literature Today *Table of ContentsTOGETHER STILL URSA MAJOR What’s that Sound? And that, Again? Ursa Major Farther, Higher! Yes, Hello? You, Again! Star Seven THE BARE FOOT Inside, Outside? The Milky Way The Bare Foot, the Things Voices in the Treetops TOGETHER MUSIC AND MEMORY POEMS FOR TRUPHÉMUS The Room, the Garden A Café The Paintings Other Paintings Light, in an Empty Room BRIEFWEGE After the Fire Nisida Briefweg, in Warbende PERAMBULANS IN NOCTEM I In the Painter’s Studio The Translator’s Task The Walk in the Forest Hours in This Journal I Don’t Keep II Arms that Open At the Dawn of Time In the Other Trunk The Other Stairway The Low Door So Many Good Things! Perambulans in Noctem Bibliographic Notes In Memoriam: A Translator’s Note

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Book SynopsisPamela Colman Smith's illustrations for the Rider Waite tarot deck are known to millions worldwide, but her work took her from art galleries in New York and Europe to salons with luminaries of the English suffrage movement, the Irish literary revival, and friendships with Bram Stoker, W.

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Book SynopsisEssays on the many key aspects of medieval literature, reflecting the significant impact of Professor Derek Brewer. Derek Brewer (1923-2008) was one of the most influential medievalists of the twentieth century, first through his own publications and teaching, and later as the founder of his own academic publishing firm. His working life of some sixty years, from the late 1940s to the 2000s, saw enormous advances in the study of Chaucer and of Arthurian romance, and of medieval literature more generally. He was in the forefront of such changes, and his understandings ofChaucer and of Malory remain at the core of the modern critical mainstream. Essays in this collection take their starting point from his ideas and interests, before offering their own fresh thinking in those key areas of medieval studies in which he pioneered innovations which remain central: Chaucer's knight and knightly virtues; class-distinction; narrators and narrative time; lovers and loving in medieval romance; ideals of feminine beauty; love,friendship and masculinities; medieval laughter; symbolic stories, the nature of romance, and the ends of storytelling; the wholeness of Malory's Morte Darthur; modern study of the medieval material book; Chaucer's poetic language and modern dictionaries; and Chaucerian afterlives. This collection builds towards an intellectual profile of a modern medievalist, cumulatively registering how the potential of Derek Brewer's work is being reinterpreted and is renewing itself now and into the future of medieval studies. Charlotte Brewer is Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford; Barry Windeatt is Professor of English in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Contributors: Elizabeth Archibald, Charlotte Brewer, Mary Carruthers, Christopher Cannon, Helen Cooper, A.S.G. Edwards, Jill Mann, Alastair Minnis, Derek Pearsall, Corinne Saunders, James Simpson, A.C. Spearing, Jacqueline Tasioulas, Robert Yeager, Barry Windeatt.Trade ReviewChapter 12, 'The Ends of Storytelling' . . . by [Helen] Cooper is exemplary for its simplicity and clarity. Few scholarly works are so fascinating that they thrust the reader ahead of himself to find out what is coming next. Cooper has written a page-turner. * STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEACHING *Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Modern Medievalist's Career Derek Brewer: Chaucerian Studies 1953-1978 - Derek Pearsall Brewer's Chaucer and the Knightly Virtues - Alastair J Minnis Class Distinction and the French of England - Christopher Cannon Time in Troilus and Criseyde - A C Spearing *** Virtue, Intention and the Mind's Eye in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde - Mary Carruthers Falling in Love in the Middle Ages - Jill Mann The Idea of Feminine Beauty in Troilus and Criseyde, or Criseyde's Eyebrow - Jacqueline Tasioulas 'Greater Love hath no Man': Friendship in Medieval English Romance - Corinne Saunders Gowerian Laughter - Robert F. Yeager Derek Brewer's Romance - James Simpson Malory and Late Medieval Arthurian Cycles - Elizabeth Archibald The Ends of Storytelling - Helen Cooper Manuscripts, Facsimiles and Approaches to Editing - A S G Edwards Words and Dictionaries: OED, MED and Chaucer - Charlotte Brewer Afterlives: The Fabulous History of Venus - Barry A Windeatt Afterword - Eric G. Stanley Bibliography

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Book SynopsisArturo Barea (1897-1957) is often seen as merely a spontaneous writer with a passion against injustice. In fact, he set out deliberately to write concretely and sensuously: about himself in order to understand his mid-life nervous breakdown; and about his generation as a way of explaining the underlying causes of the Spanish Civil War. With acute psychological insight, this self-taught boy from the slums, who left school aged 13, drew a unique portrait of Spanish society in the early twentieth century. His trilogy "The Forging of a Rebel" was well-received by George Orwell, "An excellent book -- Senor Barea is one of the most valuable of the literary acquisitions that England has made as a result of Fascist persecution"; and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "One of the best novels written in Spanish." He is unusual in that he was one of the first Spanish working-class writers, one of the first autobiographers in Spain, and someone who published mainly in English though all his attention was focused on Spain. In this ground-breaking biography, based on numerous interviews with people who knew Barea, Michael Eaude revisits Barea's writing qualities and deficiencies in the context of stimulating intersections of literature and politics, and of Spain and England. He evaluates all his major works, including The Track, the story of Barea's time as a sergeant during the 1920s colonial war in Morocco; The Forge, the story of city and country, school and work, in the first years of the twentieth century, told through the eyes of a child; The Clash, the story of Barea's experience as a censor during the Civil War; The Broken Root, his last novel, about exile and an imagined return to Madrid; and his short stories and essays. He also puts into perspective Barea's more than 800 talks for the BBC, and rebuts slanders that Barea did not write his own books. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies

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Book SynopsisArthur Hallam's early death was the subject of Tennyson's celebrated poem In Memoriam. As a result of its popularity, Hallam became a legendary figure, very much accepted on Tennyson's terms as being almost divinely gifted and of immense promise. While this representation of Hallam has remained generally accepted, A Life Lived Quickly' seeks both to supplement and challenge it, offering a more detailed and objective portrait of the man. That Hallam has a difficult relationship with his father (himself a famous literary figure), suffered a mental breakdown during his first year at Cambridge, and pursued an extremely fraught love affair with Tennyson's sister in the face of opposition from both families, are important but largely unknown aspects of his life. The author also repudiates the often-made suggestion that Hallam and Tennyson may have had a homosexual relationship. As well as examining Hallam's published writings, the book makes liberal use of his letters, of which a collected edition has been in existence since 1981, and includes treatments of hitherto unpublished poems and more recently discovered letters. Apart from presenting Arthur Hallam as a complex and interesting character in his own right, the book offers insight into the literary culture of early nineteenth-century England. In devoting attention to Hallam's time at Eton and Cambridge, the book also deals in detail with the experience of being educated in those unreformed institutions.Table of ContentsNaturally Disputatious: Father & Son, 1811-1822; An Unreformed Education: Eton College, 1822-1827; A Farewell to the South: Italy, 1827-1828; 'Cambridge I hate intensely': Trinity College, 1828-1829; Living Awfully Fast: The Apostles & Somersby, 1830-1831; A Young Man of Letters, 1831-1833: The Last of Cambridge Mainly in London; A Creature of Great Promise: Death & Transfiguration; Notes, Bibliography & Index.

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Book SynopsisThis is a double biography of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, best-selling Regency poet known to her contemporaries as 'the female Byron', and her husband George Maclean, British administrator on the Gold Coast, known as the Father of Modern Ghana. L.E.L.'s reading public adored her writing and poetry and made her the best-selling female author of her time. As an early media celebrity her life was the subject of society gossip, so her sudden death in Africa shocked the nation (a 'melancholy catastrophe' ran one headline) and led to rumours of suicide or murder. Her husband's name was henceforth blackened by London society, which unwittingly superimposed the plots of L.E.L.'s fictions upon the circumstances of her death. Despite the fact that Maclean cleared 200 miles of Western African coast of British slave trading, made peace with the warlike Asante, instituted a judicial system still in use in many African democracies, and encouraged successful and fair trading, the scandal unjustly ruined his career. According to the inquest L.E.L.''s death was caused by her improper use of a prescribed medicine, but the rumour mongers discounted the difficult circumstances of life on the Gold Coast in the mid 1800s, and hinted that "Mrs Maclean, only recently married, owed her death to the revengeful passions of the natives, who poisoned the wife in order to have vengeance on the husband". Among those who enjoyed her work or recognised her influence were Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti and her brother, Dante Gabriel. It might be said that, to reflect fully the aesthetics of early nineteenth-century poetry, one has to consider, together, the works of William Wordsworth, Felicia Hemans, and Letitia Elizabeth Landon.Trade Review"It is not only the most important publication on L.E.L. since Cynthia Lawford's news, but also a tour de force on the cultural turmoils of Great Britain...A storehouse of valuable research and superbly coordinated information, Poisoned Lives is also a lively, literate, engaging story, rendered with the craft and flair of an artful novelist." - Susan J. Wolfson, Princeton University, The Wordsworth Circle, Volume XLII, Number 4, Autumn 2011Table of ContentsPrologue; The End; Letty: Childhood; George: Childhood; Letitia: Starting Out; George: Starting Out; Letitia: Making a Name; George: Making a Name; Letitia: Changing Tack; George: Changing Tack; Letitia: Coming Together; George: Coming Together; Together; Death at the Castle; The Inquest; The Affair of the Dos Amigos; The Commission of Inquiry; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisIn the 1890s Oscar Wilde enjoyed one of the most high-profile reputations in Britain; yet, virtually overnight, he was plunged into disgrace and ruin. What were the reasons for this extraordinary reversal of fortune? Ashley Robins explores Wilde's motivation in prosecuting the Marquess of Queensberry, and elaborates on the precarious legal situation that effectively quashed any prospect of a withdrawal from the lawsuit without dire consequences. He examines the medical and psychiatric aspects of Wilde's two-year imprisonment and reveals -- for the first time and based on the original Home Office records -- the machinations among prison officials and doctors to cover up Wilde's state of health. Wilde's medical history is presented with an expert evaluation of his terminal illness, including a resolution of the syphilis controversy. Robins details Wilde's tangled matrimonial affairs during his imprisonment and goes on to disclose the manoeuvres adopted by friends to secure his early release, citing hitherto unpublished letters to show that bribery of prison personnel was seriously contemplated. The issue of homosexuality is discussed not only in relation to Oscar Wilde but from the broader historical, legal and biological perspective. The author portrays Wilde's character and behaviour through the images he projected onto society, by the strong but mixed public reaction to him, and by the quality of his interpersonal relationships with his wife, family and close friends. Finally, Wilde's personality is assessed using internationally accepted diagnostic criteria; and, in an unusual and innovative experiment, a group of Wildean scholars completed a psychological questionnaire as if they were doing so for Oscar Wilde himself. Drawing on these findings and on his own extensive psychiatric experience, Ashley Robins concludes that Wilde had a disorder of personality that culminated in the final and tragic phase of his life.

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Book SynopsisIn the 1890s Oscar Wilde enjoyed one of the most high-profile reputations in Britain; yet, virtually overnight, he was plunged into disgrace and ruin. What were the reasons for this extraordinary reversal of fortune? Ashley Robins explores Wilde's motivation in prosecuting the Marquess of Queensberry, and elaborates on the precarious legal situation that effectively quashed any prospect of a withdrawal from the lawsuit without dire consequences. He examines the medical and psychiatric aspects of Wilde's two-year imprisonment and reveals -- for the first time and based on the original Home Office records -- the machinations among prison officials and doctors to cover up Wilde's state of health. Wilde's medical history is presented with an expert evaluation of his terminal illness, including a resolution of the syphilis controversy. Robins details Wilde's tangled matrimonial affairs during his imprisonment and goes on to disclose the manoeuvres adopted by friends to secure his early release, citing hitherto unpublished letters to show that bribery of prison personnel was seriously contemplated. The issue of homosexuality is discussed not only in relation to Oscar Wilde but from the broader historical, legal and biological perspective. The author portrays Wilde's character and behaviour through the images he projected onto society, by the strong but mixed public reaction to him, and by the quality of his interpersonal relationships with his wife, family and close friends. Finally, Wilde's personality is assessed using internationally accepted diagnostic criteria; and, in an unusual and innovative experiment, a group of Wildean scholars completed a psychological questionnaire as if they were doing so for Oscar Wilde himself. Drawing on these findings and on his own extensive psychiatric experience, Ashley Robins concludes that Wilde had a disorder of personality that culminated in the final and tragic phase of his life.

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Book SynopsisThe world-renowned Peruvian poet César Vallejo (1892-1938) was also a journalist, essayist, novelist and would-be dramatist. The study of his life and work has encountered problems since the 1950s, stemming from the fact that half of his writing was published posthumously under editorship of doubtful accuracy. The matter is further complicated in that his non-poetic work has been neglected in favour of his verse. A Struggle between Art and Politics reviews the evidence -- literary and historical -- now reliably to hand, and assesses the often conflicting body of opinion his work has generated. Three essential questions are pertinent: Where should Vallejo be placed in the canon of twentieth-century modernism? What effect did his mid-life conversion to Communism have on his writing? How should his prose fiction, journalism and essays be assessed in relation to his poetry? There are few writers whose literary output follows the twists and turns of their lives more closely than César Vallejo's. This new, comparative study maps his career onto the cultural, social, political and historical backdrop to his life in Peru, France, Spain and Russia, and analyses his writings in the light of his life circumstances. Vallejo's journey from Peru, the cultural "periphery", to the "centre" of inter-war Paris, his experience of European capitalism during the Depression, and the confrontation of Communism and Fascism, ultimately played out in the Spanish Civil War, forced him to wage a personal struggle to reconcile art with life and politics. This challenge is fought out in different ways in his various writings, but nowhere more movingly, passionately and humanely than in his posthumous poetry.Trade Review"Bob Brittons book brings Cesar Vallejo fascinatingly to life-illuminating both the key moments and the more intimate details. Britton interweaves the life and the creative drive of this extraordinary poet with such fresh insights that you return to Vallejos work with a renewed thirst." -- Adam Feinstein, Biographer & Translator of Pablo Neruda"Complete with its own excellent translations of all material quoted from Vallejo (an achievement which deserves recognition in its own right: his translation of Trilce I is better than most), plus a judicious, non-partisan survey of scholarship on Vallejo, the book will stand as a fine, accessible guide to one of the twentieth centurys great poets." -- Adam Sharman, University of Nottingham

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Book SynopsisThe world-renowned Peruvian poet César Vallejo (1892-1938) was also a journalist, essayist, novelist and would-be dramatist. The study of his life and work has encountered problems since the 1950s, stemming from the fact that half of his writing was published posthumously under editorship of doubtful accuracy. The matter is further complicated in that his non-poetic work has been neglected in favour of his verse. A Struggle between Art and Politics reviews the evidence -- literary and historical -- now reliably to hand, and assesses the often conflicting body of opinion his work has generated. Three essential questions are pertinent: Where should Vallejo be placed in the canon of twentieth-century modernism? What effect did his mid-life conversion to Communism have on his writing? How should his prose fiction, journalism and essays be assessed in relation to his poetry? There are few writers whose literary output follows the twists and turns of their lives more closely than César Vallejo's. This new, comparative study maps his career onto the cultural, social, political and historical backdrop to his life in Peru, France, Spain and Russia, and analyses his writings in the light of his life circumstances. Vallejo's journey from Peru, the cultural "periphery", to the "centre" of inter-war Paris, his experience of European capitalism during the Depression, and the confrontation of Communism and Fascism, ultimately played out in the Spanish Civil War, forced him to wage a personal struggle to reconcile art with life and politics. This challenge is fought out in different ways in his various writings, but nowhere more movingly, passionately and humanely than in his posthumous poetry.Trade Review"Bob Brittons book brings Cesar Vallejo fascinatingly to life-illuminating both the key moments and the more intimate details. Britton interweaves the life and the creative drive of this extraordinary poet with such fresh insights that you return to Vallejos work with a renewed thirst." -- Adam Feinstein, Biographer & Translator of Pablo Neruda"Complete with its own excellent translations of all material quoted from Vallejo (an achievement which deserves recognition in its own right: his translation of Trilce I is better than most), plus a judicious, non-partisan survey of scholarship on Vallejo, the book will stand as a fine, accessible guide to one of the twentieth centurys great poets." -- Adam Sharman, University of Nottingham

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Book SynopsisThe fictional nautical story was extremely popular in the period stretching from the mid 1820s to about 1850. The best known writer in this field was undoubtedly Frederick Marryat, but the stories of Matthew Henry Barker (1790-1846), 'The Old Sailor,' rivalled those of his contemporary in popularity. Both authors are in the first rank of writers of nautical fiction, but it is generally acknowledged that Barker's descriptions of the man-of-wars man, the forecastle Jack Tar, are without equal. Although several biographies of Marryat have been published, very little relating to Barker's life and works is readily available. A Nautical Story Writer sets out the life and works of Barker, a journalist, novelist and Whig. Part One provides a detailed biography of his life, sea service, adventures and engagement with friends and politicians. Part Two details his published works, alerting to material erroneously credited to the author. Paul Marshall's book is based, in part, on information collected from institutions in the UK and USA. An additional primary source has been a substantial archive of material related to the Barker family, which consists of correspondence between Barker and his friends and business associates (e.g. William Jerdan, Frederic Shoberl, Effingham Wilson, Edward Duncan), along with a variety of family documents. Although Barker is an author from the classic period, his written observations will be of interest to readers of the Horatio Hornblower novels of C. S. Forester, and the Aubrey-Maturin series of Patrick O'Brian. The extensive bibliographic information provided makes this work an essential acquisition for university libraries and antiquarian booksellers.

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Book SynopsisA.E. Housman's poetry (especially A Shropshire Lad) remains well-known, widely read and often quoted. However, Housman did not view himself as a professional poet, always making quite clear that his 'proper job' was as a Professor of Latin. Housman's fame as a poet has often obscured the fact that he was the leading British classical scholar of his generation, and a Cambridge Professor. It has also sometimes been suggested that Housman's two areas of activity are the sign of a flawed or 'divided' personality. A.E. Housman: A Single Life argues that there is no fundamental tension between Housman the poet and Housman the scholar, and his career is presented very much as that of a working academic who also wrote poetry. The book gives a full account of what Housman described as 'the great and real troubles of my early manhood', and in particular his unrequited and life-long love for his undergraduate friend Moses Jackson. It resists the temptation to classify Housman too exclusively as a melancholic, and is sceptical about Housman's reputed rudeness and misanthropy, pointing out that, though Housman was famously aloof in manner, he was notably loyal and generous, courteous in his daily dealings and generally liked by those who knew him. He also possessed a highly developed sense of the absurd and a ready and often disconcerting wit, features which characterised not only his letters and miscellaneous writings, but also, famously, much of his scholarly work.

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Book SynopsisThe first full-length biography of Christopher Okigbo, the most anthologized modern African poet, giving an extended narrative and rounded account of his life and times. Christopher Okigbo, once described as 'Africa's most lyrical poet of the twentieth century' was killed in September 1967, fighting for the independence of Biafra. The Sunday Times described his death as 'the single most important tragedy of the Nigerian civil war'. The manner in which Okigbo died typified the passionate, tortured and dramatic quality of his life. Widely considered along with Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe as part of modern Nigeria'sgreatest literary triumvirate, Okigbo's death promoted him to cult status among subsequent generations of African writers. This is the first full biography of the Nigerian poet. It places Okigbo within the turmoil of his generation and illustrates the aspects of his life that gave rise to such an intense poetry. How did his experience in the prestigious, English-type boarding school, Umuahia, where he was known more as a sportsman than a scholar, influence his life and later choices? Why was he sacked from the colonial service, and how did that lead him towards a search for private recovery, and ultimately towards poetry? What led him to take up arms? In other words, how didhis eclectic pursuits as high school teacher, university librarian, publisher, gun-runner and guerrilla fuel his poetic drive? OBI NWAKANMA, journalist and poet, is Associate Professor of English, University of CentralFlorida Nigeria: HEBN (PB)Trade Review[This] chronicling of the forces that helped to shape Christopher Okigbo's life, his sensibility, and poetry is commendable. Hopefully, the biography will help to expand interest (both locally and internationally) in Okigbo and his work. * JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY *An impressive work. The author comments that we so far have few biographies of African writers; and I doubt if there has been another of this thoroughness and care. [...] An exemplary work of scholarship, written with deep affection and without illusion. * AFRICAN LITERATURE TODAY 29 *Benefiting greatly from interviews of people who intimately knew Okigbo, Nwakanma's book is a compelling read. . Nwakanma succeeds in contextualizing Okigbo's poetry and resurrecting the man to claim his rightful place as a modern (not just African) poet. Okigbo, it seems, is still thirsting for sunlight. * AFRICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY *Nwakanma's authoritative biography of Christopher Okigbo makes an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Nigerian creative writing from 1960 onwards, but is also a fitting tribute to the man. There is no comparable critical or biographical study of Okigbo. [...] It is hugely well-informed and is an indispensable reference not only to the work of a fine poet [...] but also to the sometimes dangerous times in which he lived. * LUCAS BULLETIN *One need go no further than this volume to learn what there is to know about Okigbo and his tragically shortened life and literary career. Those interested in supporting an international curriculum, whether or not they are directly involved with African literature, will want this volume. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *Puts Okigbo in the context of African writing and politics, giving detailed descriptions of his personal and public life. * DAILY NATION (Nairobi) *A powerful narrative of a brilliant, mischievous, wandering soul trying to find himself, and eventually doing so through the creative act of writing poetry. [...] But this book, for all, or maybe because of his craziness, shows why he is placed securely among the greats. * BUSINESS DAY LAGOS *Table of ContentsPreface Chronology A river goddess, his mother's death & a headmaster father: Ojoto 1930-45 Sportsman, actor & 'effortless genius': Umuahia 1945-50 Cricket, classics, politics & urbane dissipation: Ibadan 1950-56 Colonial civil servant, covert businessman & bankrupt: Lagos 1956-58 Poetry gives purpose to his voice: Fiditi 1958-60 A librarian ravenous for literature & women: Nsukka 1960-62 Gentleman, poet & publisher: Cambridge House, Ibadan 1962-66 Aftermath of a coup, running arms & advancing to death: Biafra 1966-67 Epilogue

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Book SynopsisOxford held a special place in Evelyn Waugh’s imagination. So formative were his Oxford years that the city never left him, appearing again and again in his novels in various forms. This book explores in rich visual detail the abiding importance of Oxford as both location and experience in his literary and visual works. Drawing on specially commissioned illustrations and previously unpublished photographic material, it provides a critically robust assessment of Waugh’s engagement with Oxford over the course of his literary career. Following a brief overview of Waugh’s life and work, subsequent chapters look at the prose and graphic art Waugh produced as an undergraduate together with Oxford’s portrayal in Brideshead Revisited and A Little Learning as well as broader conceptual concerns of religion, sexuality and idealised time. A specially commissioned, hand-drawn trail around Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford guides the reader around the city Waugh knew and loved through locations such as the Botanic Garden, the Oxford Union and The Chequers. A unique literary biography, this book brings to life Waugh’s Oxford, exploring the lasting impression it made on one of the most accomplished literary craftsmen of the twentieth century.Trade Review'A decent guide for those longing to fall in love with the Brideshead dream for the first time.' - The Times 'A fascinating exploration of the effect which man and city had on each other.' - The Tablet 'An enjoyable and informative introduction to the Oxford of AP's years … highly recommended.' - Anthony Powell Society Newsletter 'Handsomely produced volume … Superlatively well illustrated … its overall effect is to emphasise Waugh's talent as a comic draughtsman.' - The Oldie 'This succinct and highly perceptive book …, although not part of the Oxford Complete Works, can be regarded as a useful companion volume to it, or can simply be enjoyed on its own.' - British Art Journal

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Book SynopsisDo you know when César Vallejo was born? Was he a communist or a lapsed Catholic, or both? Do you know what he died of? Did you know that a new collection of hand-written manuscripts has been recently discovered in Montevideo? You may not know the answer to all these questions (some of them may be unanswerable) but this book will help you to identify and compare the competing answers. It describes and evaluates the manuscripts, editions, books, collections of essays, articles, translations, and doctoral theses written about Vallejo by a wealth of scholars since Vallejo's death on Good Friday 1938.Trade ReviewThe first English-language guide to Vallejo scholarship... Hart's interest and expertise in the subject are clear here... a helpful, well-organised text that is enjoyable and easy to use. CHOICE Will be a great aid to anyone with an interest in Vallejo.... Highly recommended. BULLETIN OF SPANISH STUDIES Es una obra de referencia imprescindible para cualquier investigador de la obra vallejana. * IBEROAMERICANA *

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Book SynopsisThis is the first biography of Latin America's most important poet. the Peruvian César Vallejo. It traces the important events of his life and evaluates his poetry, fiction, theatre, political essays and journalism. This is the first biography of Latin America's most important poet, the Peruvian César Vallejo, who was born in an Andean village, Santiago de Chuco, on 16 March 1892 and died in Paris on 15 April 1938. It traces the important events of his life - becoming a poet in Peru, falling in love with Mirtho in Trujillo, writing Trilce which would transform for ever the avant-garde in the Spanish-speaking world, fleeing to Paris in the summer of 1923 afterbeing accused of burning down Carlos Santa María's house in Santiago de Chuco, falling in love with Georgette Philippart and then with communism, writing his Poemas humanos (Human Poems) and then, shortly before hisdeath, writing his moving poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War, España, aparta de mí este cáliz (Spain, Take this Chalice from Me). This book also provides an objective evaluation of Vallejo's poetry, fiction, theatre, political essays and journalism. Stephen M. Hart is Professor of Latin American Film, Literature and Culture, School of European Languages, Culture and Society, University College London.Table of ContentsPrologue Korriscosso's Birth (1892-1917) The Fires of Love (1917-1923) The City of Light (1923-1928) The Soul's Practical Dream (1928-1932) A Death Foretold (1932-1938) Epilogue Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAlong with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) is an iconic figure of the Beat generation. In this revealing study Phil Baker traces this cult writer's life - from the New York underworld of the 1940s to Mexico and the South American jungle, Tangier and the writing of Naked Lunch, Paris and the Beat Hotel, 1960s London, and small-town Kansas - in order to investigate his work as an autobiographical explorer of altered consciousness and inner space, reporting back from the frontiers of his experience. After accidentally shooting his wife in 1951, Burroughs felt it was his destiny to struggle with the 'Ugly Spirit' that had possessed him. His early absorption in psychoanalysis gave way to Scientology and demonology, and he came to believe in an increasingly magical universe, sending curses and operating a 'wishing machine'. His paranoid vision and his lifelong preoccupation with freedom and its opposites - all forms of addiction and control - finally evolved into a concern with ecology and an all-out ethical conflict between good people who live and let live, or 'Johnsons', and those who impose themselves on others, wrecking the planet in the process. Drawing on newly available material, and rooted in Burroughs's vulnerable emotional life and seminal friendships, this insightful book provides a lucid and powerful account of his career and significance.Table of Contents1 St Louis Blues 2 The Hidden Antagonist 3 New York, New York 4 Go South, Young Man 5 A Slip of the Gun 6 Tangier and the Naked Lunch 7 Paris: Cut-ups at the Beat Hotel 8 Burroughs 1960-65: Undesirable Alien 9 Swinging London, 1966-73 10 Holding the Bunker 11 Kansas 1981-97: Adios Muchachos References Bibliography Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisEzra Pound informs the reader about the life and work of Ezra Pound, the most controversial poet of the 20th century. Marsh gives insight into Pound's great achievements in poetry, his promotion of and generosity to a wide range of modernist figures and his descent into obscurity.

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