Biography: writers Books
Luath Press Ltd A Traveller in Two Worlds: The Tinker and the
Book SynopsisThe Tinker and the Student is the second volume of David Campbell’s biography of acclaimed Scottish storyteller Duncan Williamson. This volume chronicles Williamson’s life from the time he met his second wife, the young American student Linda Jane Headlee, until his death in November 2007. Campbell recounts how Linda played a pivotal role in bringing Williamson’s stories out of the travelling world to the wider community, and in doing so shows the impact that Williamson made on the lives of the people he came into contact with.Trade ReviewDavid Campbell opens the door to a world crammed with anecdotes, folklore and memories. SCOTS MAGAZINE on A Traveller In Two Worlds The second part of A Traveller in Two Worlds, this book completes David Campbell's life of a man who loved a good story more than life itself, and who always told it from the heart. EDINBURGH LIFEThis second volume, candid and touching, the best kind of memoir.. SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
£13.49
Headpress The Law Of Chaos: The Multiverse of Michael
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£13.29
Honno Ltd Absolute Optimist: Remembering Eluned Phillips
Book SynopsisThis is an affectionate and yet critical biography of Eluned Phillips (1914 - 2009), an unsung heroine of Welsh literature.
£11.39
Enitharmon Press Edward Upward: Art and Life
Book SynopsisThe novelist and short story writer Edward Upward (1903-2009) is famous for being the unknown member of the W. H. Auden circle, though was revered by his peers -- Auden, Day Lewis, Isherwood and Spender -- for his intellect, high literary gifts and unswerving political commitment. His lifelong friendship with Christopher Isherwood was forged at school and university, with each regarding the other as the first reader of his work. At Cambridge they invented the bizarre village of Mortmere, which with its combination of reality and fantasy had an important role in shaping the dominant British literary culture of the 1930s. Upward, immortalised as 'Allen Chalmers' in Isherwood's Lions and Shadows, was an early influence on W. H. Auden and author of the influential political novel Journey to the Border, published in 1938 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. But his writing career faltered while he was devout member of the Communist Party. After leaving the party in 1948 he again wrote novels and short stories until shortly before his death at the age of 105. In this illuminating, meticulously researched biography Peter Stansky tells the fascinating story of Upward's conflict between art and life. At the same time he colourfully provides significant insight into English society during the twentieth century and explores the special nature of English radicalism.Trade Review'[Upward's] unique blending of the past, in art as well as in politics, still has lessons for the future.' - Frank Kermode; 'As a painter of hallucinatory dreamscapes - a kind of prose Magritte - Upward at his finest still has no peer.' - Independent
£21.25
Luath Press Ltd Mrs Jekyll and Cousin Hyde: The True Story Behind
Book SynopsisThe hidden controversy and heartbreak behind Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is revealed in this fascinating work of literary detection. What was the real reason Robert Louis Stevenson dedicated his dark masterpiece to his cousin Katharine de Mattos? Why was Katharine’s own tale of duality published under a pseudonym? When Fanny Stevenson ‘stole’ another story idea from Katharine, why did RLS explode with Hydelike rage at the cousin for whom he had once been ‘the one that loves you – Jekyll, and not Hyde’? Featuring the full text of Katharine’s tale of duality, Fanny’s stolen story and another tale revealing Katharine’s grief at losing her cousin’s love forever, Mrs Jekyll & Cousin Hyde sheds new light on one of the greatest Victorian authors.Trade Review.
£9.49
Luath Press Ltd Barnhill: A Novel
Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell left post-war London for Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the Isle of Jura, to write what became Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was driven by a passionate desire to undermine the enemies of democracy and make plain the dangers of dictatorship, surveillance, doublethink and censorship.Typing away in his damp bedroom overlooking the garden he curated and the sea beyond, he invented Big Brother, Thought Police, Newspeak and Room 101 – and created a masterpiece.Barnhill tells the dramatic story of this crucial period of Orwell’s life. Deeply researched, it reveals the private man behind the celebrated public figure – his turbulent love life, his devotion to his baby son and his declining health as he struggled to deliver his dystopian warning to the world.Trade ReviewThrough a literary lens, Bissell does for Orwell what Johnny Depp did for J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. He brings the man most vibrantly alive. Alastair McIntoshBissell fills out and explores more deeply Orwell’s character and his relationships with those around him. It’s a very believable portrayal, digging beneath the surface of a man who could be awkward, opinionated and intransigent in an attempt to see what made him tick. The Herald on Sunday... a truly excellent and compelling novel, one which provides a perceptive insight into the wretchedness experienced by Orwell as he attempted to finish 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' before his life expired. The author has succeeded in transcending the aura surrounding both Barnhill and Orwell himself, in a book that wholly subsumes the reader in those last years of literary and moral anguish… Possibly the best book you'll read this year. The Ileach
£12.34
New Vessel Press Fanny Von Arnstein: Daughter of the Enlightenment
Book SynopsisA beautifully written account of a major figure in the history of European Jewry, women's emancipation and cultural patronage.
£16.19
New Vessel Press The Madeleine Project: Uncovering A Parisian a
Book SynopsisA graphic novel for the Twitter age, encapsulating one woman's attempt to live a life of love and meaning along with a contemporary quest to prevent that existence from slipping into oblivion.
£20.69
Random House USA Inc Year of the Monkey
Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Riveting, elegant, humorous—this picaresque voyage through Patti Smith’s dreams and life, blending fiction and reality, conjured characters and actual ones” (The New York Times) is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times. Illustrated by Smith’s signature Polaroids.Following a run of new year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, in which she debates intellectual grifters and spars with the likes of a postmodern Cheshire Cat. Then, in February 2016, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. For Smith—inveterately curious, always exploring, always writing—this becomes a year of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert, from a Kentucky farm to the hospital room of a valued mentor, Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape in a haunting, poetic blend of fact and fiction. As a stranger tells her, “Anything is possible. After all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.” But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Including a new chapter, Epilogue of an Epilogue, and ten new photos, Year of the Monkey “reminds us that despair and possibility often spring from the same source” (Los Angeles Times).
£12.75
Books on Demand Toujours Brave
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£11.97
Culturea Napoléon
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£17.60
tredition Im Duft der Maronen
£999.99
Böhlau-Verlag GmbH SchriftstellerLexikon der Siebenbürger Deutschen
£72.00
Böhlau-Verlag GmbH Krise und Utopie
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£451.39
De Gruyter Peter Huchel
Book Synopsis Wolf Biermann lernte von ihm das »Schweigen zwischen den Worten« und widmete ihm mit »Ermutigung« sein berühmtestes Lied. Joseph Brodsky erkannte an seinem Gesicht, dass er einen wirklichen Dichter vor sich hatte. Und Marcel Reich-Ranicki zählte ihn zu den ganz großen Lyrikern des 20. Jahrhunderts: Peter Huchels (1903–1981) Erscheinung hinterließ Eindruck bei denen, die ihm begegneten, die Wirkung seiner Verse auf Leser und Autoren ist ungebrochen. Dass sie nichts von ihrer Kraft verloren haben, verdankt sich Huchels Treue zu seinen Anfängen, zu Mensch, Natur und Landschaft seiner märkischen Heimat. Dort wächst er auf dem Gutshof der Großeltern auf, dorthin kehrt er nach Jahren in Paris, Wien und Berlin, nach Krieg und Gefangenschaft zurück und begründet als Chefredakteur den legendären Ruf der Zeitschrift »Sinn und Form«, des »geheimen Journals der Nation«. Und dort wird er nach seiner Absetzung und Isolierung zum widerständigen Einzelgänger, zum Mythos. Matthias Weichelt gelingt in einem luziden Essay die Verschränkung von Einzigartigkeit und Zauber des dichterischen Werkes mit Huchels Leben, das im Jahre »neunzehnhunderttraurig« beginnt und von den Ambivalenzen und Katastrophen des Jahrhunderts gezeichnet ist.
£19.00
Harrassowitz Verlag Die Bibliothek des Freiherrn Wolfgang Heribert
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£57.80
Harrassowitz Verlag Mori Mari 19031987 A Japanese Author and Her Literary Alter Egos
£66.30
Herder Verlag GmbH Rainer Maria Rilke
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£23.40
Universitätsverlag Winter Johann Anton Leisewitz 17521806
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£52.70
Herzsprung-Verlag Schnee, der auf die Felder fällt: Geschichten und
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£12.00
Papierfresserchens Mtm-Verlag Und was ich dir noch sagen wollte ... Band 2
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£12.75
Herzsprung-Verlag Eins, zwei, drei - Erziehung ist doch (keine)
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£11.25
Papierfresserchens Mtm-Verlag Neubrandenburg - Vier-Tore-Stadt feiert 775.
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£999.99
Papierfresserchens MTM-VE Mein Opa ... und ich
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£9.98
Papierfresserchens MTM-VE 1300 Geschichten aus Fritzlar
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£999.99
Papierfresserchens Mtm-Verlag / Herzsprung-Verlag Leben pur Frühlingsgefühle
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£11.61
Papierfresserchens Mtm-Verlag Meine Geschwister ... und ich
£12.18
Papierfresserchens Mtm-Verlag Fehlgeschlagen Die Kunst des Scheiterns
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£11.24
Anagrama H. P. Lovecraft
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£15.94
Adrian Aguilar Truman Capote Erweiterte Biografie
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£21.37
Bloomsbury Academic The World Is Not Enough
£18.99
Oxford University Press Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy XI
Book SynopsisFor over 100 years, the British Academy has published Biographical Memoirs - extended obituaries - of its deceased Fellows. Collectively these memoirs make up a chapter in the intellectual history of Britain, and are used as a source by biographers and historians. These memoirs have previously been published annually within the Proceedings of the British Academy, most recently as separate volumes within the series. New Biographical Memoirs will now be made available online by the British Academy as an open-access resource; but they will still also be published in an annual hardback volume, though no longer in the Proceedings series.This latest annual volume celebrates the lives of 24 scholars: Raymond Allchin, Carmen Blacker, Ian Brownlie, John Burrow, Pierre Chaplais, Kenneth Dover, Philippa Foot, Norman Gash, John Gould, Margaret Gowing, John Griffith, Rupert Hall, Marie Boas Hall, Ian Jack, George Kane, Neil MacCormick, Robert Markus, John North, Roy Porter, Tony Quinton, Geoffrey RTable of ContentsFRANK RAYMOND ALLCHIN ; CARMEN ELIZABETH BLACKER ; IAN BROWNLIE ; JOHN WYNN BURROW ; PIERRE CHAPLAIS ; KENNETH JAMES DOVER ; PHILIPPA RUTH FOOT ; NORMAN GASH ; JOHN PHILIP ALGERNON GOULD ; MARGARET MARY GOWING ; JOHN ANEURIN GREY GRIFFITH ; ALFRED RUPERT HALL & MARIE BOAS HALL ; IAN ROBERT JAMES JACK ; GEORGE KANE ; DONALD NEIL MacCORMICK ; ROBERT AUSTIN MARKUS ; JOHN DAVID NORTH ; ROY PORTER ; ANTHONY MEREDITH QUINTON ; GEOFFREY EDWIN RICKMAN ; ALFRED WILLIAM BRIAN SIMPSON ; ROBERT McLACHLAN WILSON ; ROBERT IVOR WOODS
£85.50
The University of Chicago Press Camus Portrait of a Moralist Emersion Emergent
Book SynopsisDecades after his death, Albert Camus (1913-60) is still regarded as one of the most influential and fascinating intellectuals of the twentieth century. This biography explores the connections between his literary work, his philosophical writings, and his politics. It also highlights the contemporary relevance of an extraordinary man.Trade Review"A model of a kind of intelligent writing that should be in greater supply. Bronner manages judiciously to combine an appreciation for the strengths of Camus and non-rancorous criticism of his weaknesses.... As a personal and opinionated book, it invites the reader into an engaging and informative dialogue." - American Political Science Review "This concise, lively, and remarkably evenhanded treatmetn of the life and work of Albert Camus weaves together biography, philosophical analysis, and political commentary." - Science & Society "Bronner succeeds in explaining Camus' unique sense of personal responsibility and his lucidity, tolerance, and honesty." - Library Journal"
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Mark Twain Gods Fool
Book SynopsisAfter laughing their way through his classic and beloved depictions of nineteenth-century American life, few readers would suspect that Mark Twain's last years were anything but happy and joyful. They would be wrong. This title reveals that Twain ended his life as a frustrated writer plagued by paranoia.Trade Review"Certainly one of the most reliable and readable books in the whole huge library of Twain biographical studies. Hill makes sense of a confusing and often contradictory set of data. This is a notable, graceful, convincing book." - "New Republic" "Fills a great, long-standing need for a thoroughly researched book about Mark Twain's twilight years.... Splendidly, grippingly written and excellently documented.... Likely to be a standard work for as long as anyone can foresee." - "Choice"
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Alice in Space
Book SynopsisAlice in Space reveals the contexts within which the Alice books first lived, bringing back the zest to jokes lost over time and poignancy to hidden references.Trade Review"The title of this wonderful work--alert and witty in its attention to details, capacious and learned in its opening up of the realms of knowledge Carroll lived among and engaged with--evokes outer space and rightly so. Alice travels underground and through a mirror and beyond any earth we know. But she inhabits other zones, too. She lives in our minds. She reads the signs of a foreign world and is herself read by others. All of this comes richly alive for us in Beer's writing. We are as close to 'adamant eager Alice' as we shall ever be."--Michael Wood, author of Literature and the Taste of Knowledge "While Lewis Carroll's importance to the history of children's literature has long been recognized, this book convincingly establishes Carroll and the Alice books at the very heart of Victorian literature and culture. Here we learn how the Alice books engage in active conversations with the ideas of great minds like Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, Max Muller, John Stuart Mill, and Emily Bronte. Beer brilliantly reveals Carroll to be, like his famous protagonist, always curious, always enquiring."--Jan Susina, author of The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature "Offering sensitive and judicious insights into Lewis Carroll--the man, the mathematician, and the writer--Beer takes us on a vertiginous voyage through the wonderlands of his creation. She explores the scientific and ethical questions of his time and reveals how the comic--and dark--fantasy of the Alice books often conveys the subtlety of his dissenting views. Beer always writes with stylish, consummate eloquence. Alice in Space exemplifies how flights of passionate sympathy and imagination can also be acts of scrupulous inquiry and immaculate research."--Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights "Just when we all thought we knew the Alice books, along comes Gillian Beer, who opens up not just new doors, but whole new corridors and gardens down in Carroll's sideways world. Alice in Space is a joy: playful, brilliant, and wise."--Rebecca Stott, author of Darwin's Ghosts: In Search of the First Evolutionists
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Lydia Maria Child
Book SynopsisNow in paperback, a compelling biography of Lydia Maria Child, one of nineteenth-century America's most courageous abolitionists. By 1830, Lydia Maria Child had established herself as something almost unheard of in the American nineteenth century: a beloved and self-sufficient female author. Best known today for the immortal poem Over the River and through the Wood, Child had become famous at an early age for spunky self-help books and charming children's stories. But in 1833, Child shocked her readers by publishing a scathing book-length argument against slavery in the United Statesa book so radical in its commitment to abolition that friends abandoned her, patrons ostracized her, and her book sales plummeted. Yet Child soon drew untold numbers to the abolitionist cause, becoming one of the foremost authors and activists of her generation. Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life tells the story of what brought Child to this moment and the extraordinary life she lived in respoTrade Review"Moland wants us to think hard about what we owe each other as citizens and human beings. In that sense she has produced a call to arms, an almanac for activists, as well as an ample, honest, and immensely readable book." * Wall Street Journal *“[Lydia Maria Child was] a remarkable woman who needs to be remembered as one of the nineteenth century’s most influential Abolitionists. . . . A work of exemplary scholarship, Moland’s definitive biography of Child is extremely well written and invites both an academic and general readership." * Booklist *“After the 2016 presidential election. . . Moland discovered Child, a woman, she later learned, ‘unwilling to accept the conventional wisdom of her time and unable to abide by its norms.’ . . . Moland began to wonder, ‘What could the example of her life teach me?’ And 'does the world need another white hero?' Moland’s Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life answers. . . . 'We might not need more white heroes,' she writes, 'but I have come to believe that white Americans like me need more examples like hers.'" * New York Review of Books *“Lydia Maria Child was one of the few great intellectual freedom fighters in nineteenth-century America. Moland’s magisterial book takes us in and through Child’s rich world and life in an exemplary manner. Don’t miss this powerful text on a giant still so relevant to our bleak times.” * Cornel West, author of 'Race Matters' *“This is a biography on a mission. As Moland shows us, to discover Child is to discover ourselves, revealing the best and worst of who we are. Moland is at her best when eviscerating the flawed arguments of Child’s opponents, arguments that, she reminds us, are ubiquitous even today. This is a brilliantly written book: stylish, witty, barbed yet sympathetic.” * Laura Dassow Walls, author of 'Henry David Thoreau: A Life' *“Moland’s exuberant new biography gives us a Lydia Maria Child for the twenty-first century: a woman of fierce intelligence and astonishing ingenuity who never gave up the struggle to right the wrongs of enslavement and its legacy of race prejudice. Moland writes with a philosopher’s instinct to question both herself and the evidence she uncovers, yielding an intimate portrait that is also a history of America’s centuries-long reckoning with its founding principles.” * Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of 'Margaret Fuller: A New American Life' *"Readers will find this an affecting, emotional story." * Open Letters Review *"Throughout this thoughtful, soulful work, one feels the author alternately energized by seeing her own ideological proclivities echoed in her story, validated in finding the political predicaments of her own time anticipated, and disturbed when her 19th-century subject fails to fully embody 21st-century values... Like a salvage crew, Moland has scoured an important lost life from the fathomless depths of the past." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"There are dozens of wonderful stories in this stew of a book. . . . Lydia Maria Child may or may not be 'truly living' in another world now, but in the pages of this book she is certainly alive, vibrant and inspiring." * The Nation *"Moland's biography is ambitious, but she does an exceptional job of establishing how Lydia Maria Child continues to speak to us two hundred years later." * The New England Quarterly *"Moland’s highly readable biography depicts Child as a woman who approached abolitionism with a religious sense of duty. She may have abandoned her churchly faith, but she never gave up her pursuit of transcendent truth. This biography ought to restore Child’s name to the pantheon of American reformers." * Christian Century *"Moland provides a thorough, much-needed examination of 19th-century American author and activist Lydia Maria Child. . . Moland’s work provides valuable insight into this era and one of its greatest activists. Recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Personal Prologue 1 By an American 2 A Love Not Ashamed of Economy 3 Let Us Not Flatter Ourselves 4 Of Mobs and Marriages 5 How Does it Feel to Be a Question? 6 On Resistance 7 The Workshop of Reform 8 On Quitting and Not Giving Up 9 First Duties First, and How to Do Your Second Duties Too 10 Keep Firing 11 On Delicate Ears and Indelicate Truths 12 A Warning or an Example 13 No Time for Ovations 14 Truly Living Now Epilogue Acknowledgments Illustration Credits List of Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index
£26.60
Columbia University Press Virginia Woolf
Book SynopsisWinner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt award for biography, this remarkable portrait sheds new light on Virginia Woolf’s relationships with her family and friends and how they shaped her work. Forrester weaves a colorful, intense drama that forces readers to rethink their understanding of Woolf, her writing, and her world.Trade ReviewVirginia Woolf was the object of considerable mystery. Viviane Forrester not only tells us about this mystery but clarifies it. At the beginning, the biographer announces that she will shatter equivocal and false portraits. She does precisely that. The result marks a decisive break in the knowledge we thought we had of this English writer. Forrester crosses the threshold of truth. Without reproving those who wrote before her, knowing what was said and how, Forrester provides a staggering analysis of the youth, marriage, work, and world of Woolf. She tracks, close up, the internal defense mechanisms and means of protection that veil the truth. In a style as poetic as the novelist/poetess deserves, Forrester throws light on the life and the death, Woolf's two tragedies, and reveals the price of her scintillating work. -- Alice Ferney Le Figaro Over the years, Viviane Forrester has read and annotated all the journals of Woolf, the five volumes of her correspondence, including, among other things, the letters from her father, Leslie Stephen, and those from her sister, Vanessa Bell, whom Virginia idolized and envied her entire life. Such a considerable quantity of fragments of a vast, complex mosaic, assembled here by the biographer, provides a new vision of Woolf. We discover her close up, fleeing, uncatchable, by turn fragile, ferocious, resplendent, or perverse... In a lively and limpid style, Forrester attacks first the myths that have calcified around Woolf. First among them, that of her 'madness.' Under the sharp pen of Forrester, therefore, Virginia is not mad, nor is she a martyr. -- Lila Azam Zanganeh LE MONDE An engrossing, intimate, and deeply empathetic portrayal of a brilliant and enigmatic woman. Kirkus Reviews Nimbly moving from one fragmentary impression to another, Forrester challenges the idea (proposed by Woolf's nephew, Quentin Bell, in his biography of her) that Woolf was afflicted with mental illness and suicidal impulses when she was a teenager. Instead, Forrester offers the portrait of a woman who strove to strip away any illusions and capture the rhythms of reality in her writings. Publishers Weekly Intriguing... Illuminating... Readers interested in Virginia Woolf, the Bloomsbury circle, and early twentieth-century modernist writers will require this biography. Library Journal [A] brilliant, provocative biography. -- Jocelyn McClurg USA Today [Virginia Woolf: A Portrait] offers unexpected insights and useful challenges to settled ideas about Woolf, her friendships, her marriage, and her imagination. -- Anne Fernald Open Letters Monthly A provocative portrait, richly woven with Woolf's distinctive voice and Forrester's faithful echo. -- Maureen McCarthy Star TribuneTable of ContentsPart 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Abbreviations Notes Works Cited Index
£69.26
Columbia University Press Memories of Mount Qilai
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewYang Mu's memoir provides rich insight into the author's personal experience, merging human psychology, history, geography and Taiwan's topography into a thick portrait of life in Taiwan during the middle of the twentieth century. -- Paul Manfredi, Pacific Lutheran University Memories of Mount Qilai is a landmark in Taiwanese literature as well as in modern Chinese prose. It has reinvented the genre of literary autobiography by welding together a paean to the beauty of indigenous landscapes and peoples, a penetrating look at the social and political transformations in postwar Taiwan, an honest and moving bildungsroman, and, above all, a poetic language that is supple and sinewy at the same time. Written by one of the greatest poets writing in Chinese in our time, Memories of Mount Qilai is a Mount Everest in world literature. -- Michelle Yeh, University of California, Davis Yang Mu is one of the greatest living poets in the Chinese language. His Memories of Mount Qilai is a key work in which he recounts his formative years in Hualien. Memory and identity are indelibly linked; subtle observations of inner states of mind and the outer world are captured in his neoclassicist, poetically charged prose. A classic of autobiographical writing from Taiwan. -- Goran Malmqvist, member of the Swedish Academy From the pen of one of the foremost poets writing in Chinese today, Yang Mu's Memories of Mount Qilai plumbs the interior depths of the man and exterior highlights of his homeland, Taiwan. Its musings are at different times humorous, curious, sickened, and angry. No other book like it exists in modern Chinese, and as such it typifies the unique character of this fine author. -- Christopher Lupke, Washington State University Beautifully rendered into English by the translation team of John and Yingtsih Balcom. This is an impressive feat considering that the power of Yang's prose emerges from its subtle descriptions and lyrical imagery. Taiwan ReviewTable of ContentsTranslator's Preface Acknowledgments Mountain Wind and Ocean Rain Return to Degree Zero Long Ago, When We Started
£38.25
Columbia University Press Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry
Book SynopsisKonstantin Batyushkov was one of the great poets of the Golden Age of Russian literature. Peter France interweaves Batyushkov’s life and writings, presenting masterful new translations of his work with the compelling story of Batyushkov’s career as a soldier, diplomat, and poet and his tragic decline into mental illness at the age of thirty-four.Trade ReviewFor fans of Russian poetry, and especially for Russophone poets, Batyushkov (1787–1855) is a vital figure who wrote exquisite verse and helped to usher in what is known as the Golden Age of Russian poetry. . . . Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry interweaves translations of poetry (plus excerpts from prose essays and personal letters) with history and biography. . . . Poets and general readers should appreciate this volume as much as teachers and scholars who can now quote elegant translations. -- Sibelan Forrester * Los Angeles Review of Books *Writings From the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov is far from a straightforward anthology of poems. It is a biographical essay into which are dispersed more than sixty translations, in whole or in part. (The original Russian is not included.) The reader comes to the poetry by way of the prose. The latter ranging from France’s informative narrative to Batyushkov’s own essays and letters. -- Jim Kates * The Arts Fuse *[Konstantin Batyushkov] did for the Russian language what Petrarch did for Italian. -- Alexander PushkinKonstantin Batyushkov was one of the great Russian poets of the nineteenth century, and Peter France has done a superlative job in bringing his work to an English-speaking audience. The volume deserves praise for its careful yet mellifluous translations of verse and for a biography that provides a rich cultural and historical context. -- Michael Wachtel, Princeton UniversityPeter France’s book is a unique journey into Batyushkov’s turbulent and tragic life, expertly placed within the context of the equally turbulent Russian nineteenth century. Just as importantly, France's virtuoso translations introduce Batyushkov in English poetic language as it exists now. -- Ilya Kutik, Northwestern UniversityThis selective anthology of Batyushkov’s poetry with commentary by Peter France is a welcome complement to Ilya Z. Serman’s study of the poet’s life and works. -- Carrol F. Coates, Independent Scholar * Slavic and East European Journal *The translations of shorter poems are often equimetrical and also reproduce rhyme. . . The longer poems are rendered with a grace and clarity that takes them beyond the standard of cribs. Comments on form supplement translation helpfully. Nothing, one imagines, could work better in classes on Russian poetry of the Pushkin period. * Slavonic and East European Review *Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. Vologda to St. Petersburg2. War and Peace3. The City and the Country4. Back to War5. The Return of Odysseus6. Arzamas and the Essays7. To Italy8. Into the DarkIndex
£27.00
Columbia University Press Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry
Book SynopsisKonstantin Batyushkov was one of the great poets of the Golden Age of Russian literature. Peter France interweaves Batyushkov’s life and writings, presenting masterful new translations of his work with the compelling story of Batyushkov’s career as a soldier, diplomat, and poet and his tragic decline into mental illness at the age of thirty-four.Trade ReviewFor fans of Russian poetry, and especially for Russophone poets, Batyushkov (1787–1855) is a vital figure who wrote exquisite verse and helped to usher in what is known as the Golden Age of Russian poetry. . . . Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry interweaves translations of poetry (plus excerpts from prose essays and personal letters) with history and biography. . . . Poets and general readers should appreciate this volume as much as teachers and scholars who can now quote elegant translations. -- Sibelan Forrester * Los Angeles Review of Books *Writings From the Golden Age of Russian Poetry by Konstantin Batyushkov is far from a straightforward anthology of poems. It is a biographical essay into which are dispersed more than sixty translations, in whole or in part. (The original Russian is not included.) The reader comes to the poetry by way of the prose. The latter ranging from France’s informative narrative to Batyushkov’s own essays and letters. -- Jim Kates * The Arts Fuse *[Konstantin Batyushkov] did for the Russian language what Petrarch did for Italian. -- Alexander PushkinKonstantin Batyushkov was one of the great Russian poets of the nineteenth century, and Peter France has done a superlative job in bringing his work to an English-speaking audience. The volume deserves praise for its careful yet mellifluous translations of verse and for a biography that provides a rich cultural and historical context. -- Michael Wachtel, Princeton UniversityPeter France’s book is a unique journey into Batyushkov’s turbulent and tragic life, expertly placed within the context of the equally turbulent Russian nineteenth century. Just as importantly, France's virtuoso translations introduce Batyushkov in English poetic language as it exists now. -- Ilya Kutik, Northwestern UniversityThis selective anthology of Batyushkov’s poetry with commentary by Peter France is a welcome complement to Ilya Z. Serman’s study of the poet’s life and works. -- Carrol F. Coates, Independent Scholar * Slavic and East European Journal *The translations of shorter poems are often equimetrical and also reproduce rhyme. . . The longer poems are rendered with a grace and clarity that takes them beyond the standard of cribs. Comments on form supplement translation helpfully. Nothing, one imagines, could work better in classes on Russian poetry of the Pushkin period. * Slavonic and East European Review *Table of ContentsContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. Vologda to St. Petersburg2. War and Peace3. The City and the Country4. Back to War5. The Return of Odysseus6. Arzamas and the Essays7. To Italy8. Into the DarkIndex
£15.29
Columbia University Press Jacques Schiffrin
Book SynopsisIn this first biography of Jacques Schiffrin, the founder of Pléiade Editions in Paris and cofounder of Pantheon Books in New York, Amos Reichman tells the story of a great publisher and his travails across two continents.Trade ReviewA fitting tribute to a man who did so much for literature—and who could have done even more, had he been allowed. * Foreword Reviews *In Jacques Schiffrin: A Publisher in Exile, from Pléiade to Pantheon, Amos Reichman provides a fine account of the events in the turbulent life of a gifted man who sought only to practice his trade in peace and tranquility -- William Cloonan, Florida State University * H-France Review *Despite fleeing first Tsarist Russia and then Nazi-occupied France, Jacques Schiffrin succeeded in being a major literary influence on two continents, establishing first the best edition of French classics and then a key publishing house in New York which would flourish still more under his son. It is splendid that we now at last have a lively and informative biography of this remarkable man. -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial AfricaJacques Schiffrin, exiled from his native Russia after the Revolution, created a great career as an innovative publisher in Paris but had to start all over again as a refugee in New York in the 1940s, aged almost 50. Bravo to Amos Reichman for writing the first biography of this attractive yet tragic figure, whose life embodies the shocks and displacements caused by the catastrophic history of the twentieth century. -- Susan Rubin Suleiman, author of The Némirovsky Question: The Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in Twentieth-Century FranceExile is often a state of alienation. Sometimes it can be an adventure, a successful negotiation between old and new worlds. Amos Reichman skillfully recounts one such miracle, providing—through the melancholic, inspired figure of Jacques Schiffrin—a transatlantic microhistory of publishing and literary production from the 1930s through the 1950s that is precise and informed, rich and, at times, funny. -- Emmanuelle Loyer, Sciences-Po ParisAmos Reichman’s Jacques Schiffrin is a sensitively written and deeply researched version of an important story. Reichman’s account beautifully captures the pathos of exile. -- Evan Brier, University of Minnesota DuluthReichman's archival work brings a fresh perspective on a major yet little-known publisher and offers a sophisticated overview of the literary and cultural landscape in France before and during the Second World War. -- Lise Jaillant, Loughborough UniversityBeautiful book written with love and dedication, pretty warm, for everyone. Highly recommended. * Al Femminile Blog *Reichman provides a fine account of the events in the turbulent life of a gifted man. * H-France Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsForeword, by Robert O. PaxtonIntroduction1. From War to Exile2. A Publisher in New York3. The Impossible ReturnEpilogueNotesArchives ConsultedIndex
£22.50
Columbia University Press German Jew Muslim Gay The Life and Times of Hugo
Book SynopsisHugo Marcus (18801966) was a man of many names and many identities. In German, Jew, Muslim, Gay, Marc David Baer uses Marcus's life and work to shed new light on a striking range of subjects, including German Jewish history and anti-Semitism, Islam in Europe, Muslim-Jewish relations, and the history of the gay rights struggle.Trade ReviewThis biography succeeds in contextualizing his ideas, while leaving the man himself, rightly perhaps, still somewhat in the shadows. * Times Literary Supplement *Offers a full look at a writer and thinker who successfully lived in and moved among different worlds. * Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review *Baer delivers an inspiring story that changes our perception about larger historiographical issues. -- Javier Samper Vendrell * German History *This extraordinary biography of Hugo Marcus reads like an amazing detective novel of twentieth-century history. Baer recreates the life and times of a gay Jewish intellectual in Germany who converts to Islam and whose life is saved from the Nazis by the Muslim community of Berlin. The story is a thrilling page turner that upends our assumptions about Jewishness, homosexuality, Muslim-Jewish relations, orientalism, and the challenges of modernity. -- Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth CollegeThat identity is fluid is no surprise in the twenty-first century: that such fluid identities collided with changing realities in the rapid transition from Imperial to Republican to Nazi Germany in the early twentieth century may also not surprise the reader. Yet the story of Hugo Marcus seems unique: we have other accounts of gay Jews fighting their double stigmatization as well as the lives of German Jews attracted to or indeed converting to Islam during this period. Yet in the tale of Hugo Marcus, elegantly told by Marc David Baer, we have a biography that links complex questions of identity to institutional histories and their dislocation in the German-speaking world. Ending with his ashes strewn on a paupers' grave in Bern, Marcus’s tale is moving, exemplary in its uniqueness for the transitions of German Jewish intellectuals and perhaps indicative of paths yet to be followed by other marginalized individuals in our ever darkening age of rising antisemitism, Islamophobia, and homophobia. -- Sander Gilman, coauthor of Are Racists Crazy? How Prejudice, Racism, and Antisemitism Became Markers of InsanityPerhaps most significant among the important contributions of Baer’s brilliant biography of the queer, German-Jewish convert to Islam, Hugo Marcus, is the new perspective he offers on the history of Jewish-Muslim relations. Not only Marcus’s engagement with Islam but also that of other Jewish converts to Islam—as well as that of Jewish 'Orientalists'—allow Baer to demonstrate the mutual 'Semitic' affinity of Jews and Muslims. -- Robert Beachy, author of Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern IdentityIt is indubitable that any reader of this extraordinary biography will be rewarded with a profound insight into the nature of religious passion and its intersection with sexual desire, in particular among marginalized, oppressed, persecuted, and exiled individuals such as Marcus. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *The book reveals fascinating facets of Marcus’s life as a Jewish, Muslim, and gay German. Yet Marcus belonged to all and none of these categories. If anything, his life and death are a testament to the failure of compartmentalizing identity and intellectual history. * German Historical Institute London Bulletin *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Goethe as Pole Star1. Fighting for Gay Rights in Berlin, 1900–19252. Queer Convert: Protestant Islam in Weimar Germany, 1925–19333. A Jewish Muslim in Nazi Berlin, 1933–19394. Who Writes Lives: Swiss Refuge, 1939–19655. Hans Alienus: Yearning, Gay Writer, 1948–1965Conclusion: A Goethe Mosque for BerlinNotesBibliographyIndex
£76.00
University of Illinois Press Black Poets of the United States
Book SynopsisAcclaimed upon its initial American release,Black Poets of the United Statescontinued to spark comment and analysis for years afterward. Jean Wagner's masterpiece delves into the vital union of racial and religious feeling in the Black poets who emerged from 1890 to 1940.Beginning with an analysis of slavery's impact on the Black psyche and religious feeling, Wagner examines the evolution of Black lyrical expression to the end of the nineteenth century. He then moves into a focused study of Paul Laurence Dunbar and his contemporaries, emphasizing their struggle against prevalent stereotypes that stemmed from minstrelsy, popular song, and southern white writing. His look at the twentieth-century Black Renaissance explores the works, themes, concerns, and experiences of poets Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Sterling Brown, and Langston Hughes.Deeply sensitive and remarkably comprehensiveBlack Poets of the United Statescombines encyclopedic knowledge with Trade Review"A monumental work."--Langston Hughes"A matchless study. . . . the best full length study of Black American poetry that has seen print. Wagner has evaluated the major poets from 1890 to 1940 (Dunbar to Hughes) with a superior critical discernment that is wedded to a sociological and psychological approach. . . . The distinguishing factors in Wagner's study are his aggressive grappling with two-sided issues; his lucid, metaphorical prose style; his thorough research; and judicious, carefully reasoned conclusions."--New York Times Book ReviewTable of ContentsFOREWORD xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix PREFACE xxi Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 3 1. The Negro in the United States 4 Slaves and Free Men 5 The Negro “Inferior and Subservient” 9 The Mark of Oppression 14 2. The Origins of Black Poetry 16 Written Poetry in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 16 Folk Poetry 26 PART ONE: PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR AND HIS TIME 37 Chapter Two: THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN TRADITION IN DUNBAR’S TIME 39 1. The Minstrels 40 2. The Plantation Tradition in Poetry 48 Irwin Russell 51 Joel Chandler Harris 59 Thomas Nelson Page and Armistead C. Gordon 62 3. The South’s Revenge 66 Chapter Three: PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR 73 1. Biography 73 Childhood Years 73 Early Successes 75 Fame and Its Drawbacks 77 The End 79 2. Dunbar and the Plantation Tradition 80 Dunbar and the Plantation 81 Dunbar and the South 88 The Poet and His Theme 92 3. Race Consciousness and History 95 Past and Present 96 The Search for Heroes 98 Dunbar and Racial Injustice 101 4. The Poet of the People 104 The Problem of Dialect 105 Dunbar and the Negro Popular Temperament 111 The Themes of Dunbar’s Popular Poetry 115 5. The Lyricism of HEARTBREAK 118 Pessimism and Religious Doubts 121 Chapter Four: DUNBAR’S CONTEMPORARIES 127 1. James Edwin Campbell 129 The Theme of Interracial Love 130 The People in Campbell’s Poetry 133 2. Daniel Webster Davis 138 3. J. Mord Allen 141 PART TWO: THE NEGRO RENAISSANCE 147 Chapter Five: THE NEGRO RENAISSANCE 149 1. New Forces 151 The Role of W. E. B. Du Bois 151 Black Migrations 153 Radicalism and the New Spirit 155 The Rehabilitation of the Negro Past 157 2. The Problem of Self-Definition 160 The Discovery of the Negro and of Negro Art 162 Cultural Dualism and Its Problems 165 Art or Propaganda? 170 3. The Poetry of the Renaissance 172 The Poets and Their Public 173 The Poets and Their Themes 177 Poets in Conflict 190 Section A: IN SEARCH OF THE SPIRITUAL 195 Chapter Six: CLAUDE McKay 197 1. Biography 198 The Jamaican Years 198 The Years in the United States 201 Years of Vagabondage 201 Home to Harlem 203 2. The Jamaican Sources 204 Authenticity of Form 204 Realism of the Peasant Portraits 206 Primacy of the Earth 211 Rejection of the City 215 3. The Lyricism of Militancy 222 Racial Pride 223 Hatred 225 Target of Hatred: Evil 230 The Limits of Hatred 235 4. Exoticism and the Theme of Africa 236 5. Harlem and Negro Art 243 6. The Spiritual Journey 247 Chapter Seven: JEAN TOOMER 259 1. The Destiny of Jean Toomer 260 2. The Poetry of CANE, or, the Pilgrimage to the Origins 264 3. Beyond Race: “Blue Meridian” 272 Chapter Eight: COUNTEE CULLEN 283 1. Cullen’s Life 284 A Mysterious Childhood 284 The Productive Years 287 The Last Years 291 2. The Dictates of the Psyche 291 The Burden of Inferiority 293 Death the Liberator 297 Pride as Solace 299 3. Race and the African Homeland 301 Race in Cullen’s Poetic Universe 302 A Black among Whites 308 Garvey and the African Heritage 315 Africa as a Pagan Symbol 320 4. Christ as Symbol and Reality 329 Christ as a Sign of Self-Contradiction 330 Mysticism and Spiritual Experience 339 “The Black Christ”: A Spiritual Testament 341 Section B: IN SEARCH OF THE PEOPLE 349 Chapter Nine: JAMES WELDON JOHNSON 351 1. Biography 352 From Florida to Broadway 352 In the Service of Country and Race 354 2. Dunbar’s Disciple 356 Poetry in Dialect 356 Religious and Patriotic Conformism 358 3. Johnson and the New Spirit 365 4. Folklore and Race: Their Rehabilitation 372 The Condemnation of Dialect 375 The Experiment of God’s Trombones 377 Chapter Ten: LANGSTON HUGHES 385 1. Biography 386 The Restless Years 386 Early Successes 389 A Literature of Commitment 391 2. From Racial Romanticism to Jazz 393 Racial Romanticism 394 Rebellion: Through a Glass Jazzily 400 3. The Poetry of the Masses 416 The Social Setting of the Blues 417 Class Consciousness 426 Religion and the Masses 437 4. American Democracy: Promises and Reality 444 The American Dream 446 The Poet and Reality 454 5. Toward a Synthesis 461 Conclusion: Langston Hughes and Harlem 473 Chapter Eleven: STERLING BROWN 475 1. Folk Strength and Folk Frailties 476 2. The Tragic Universe of Sterling Brown 481 The Whites’ Conspiracy 482 The Black Man and His Fate 483 The Inanity of Faith 490 3. Means for Survival 496 Chapter Twelve: CONCLUSION 505 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX 513 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SUPPLEMENT 537 INDEX 547
£18.04
University of Illinois Press Zane Grey
Book SynopsisThe first accurate and thorough biography of the man behind the myths of the Old WestTrade Review"Although fans of Zane Grey may be taken aback to discover certain characteristics or traits of this famous writer, what emerges from Pauly's text is an honest and straightforward account of the charms and foibles of a man who defined and lived his life as he saw fit."--Journal of the West
£26.09
University of Illinois Press The Picshuas of H. G. Wells
Book SynopsisH G Wells (1866-1946) was a literary lion throughout his career, publishing more than one hundred books, including classics such as "War of the Worlds", "The Invisible Man", and "The Time Machine". This title provides glimpses into Wells' moments of his personal and professional conflict and triumph.
£81.90
University of Illinois Press Oscar Wilde in America
Book SynopsisOscar Wilde's grand U.S. tour, captured in dozens of newspaper interviewsTrade Review"A generous and welcome sampling."--New York Review of Books "Highly recommended."--Choice"[A] rewarding, absorbing, and necessary book."--The Gay and Lesbian Review "Wilde was a source of fascination and provocation, and these assembled portraits reveal the rawness and the refinements, the pride and the anxieties, of American culture in the making during this important period. A vital and valuable book."--Eric Haralson, editor of Reading the Middle Generation Anew: Culture, Community, and Form in Twentieth-Century American Poetry"This stimulating work is an invaluable record of Wilde's speech, appearance, and demeanor. An excitingly fresh study of interest both to Wilde specialists and to general readers."--Donald Mead, chairman of the Oscar Wilde Society and editor of The Wildean: A Journal of Oscar Wilde StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction; Interviews; 1 "Oscar Wilde's Arrival," New York World, 3 January 1882; 2 "Oscar Wilde," New York Evening Post, 4 January 1882; 3 "Our New York Letter," Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 January 1882; 4 "The Theories of a Poet," New York Tribune, 8 January 1882; 5 "The Science of the Beautiful," New York World, 8 January 1882; 6 "A Talk with Wilde," Philadelphia Press, 17 January 1882; 7 "The Aesthetic Bard," Philadelphia Inquirer, 17 January 1882; 8 "What Oscar Has to Say," Baltimore American, 20 January 1882, 4; 9 "Wilde and Forbes," New York Herald, 21 January 1882, 3; 10 "An Interview with the Poet," Albany Argus, 28 January 1882; 11 "Oscar Wilde," Boston Herald, 29 January 1882; 12 "The Aesthetic Apostle," Boston Globe, 29 January 1882; 13 Lilian Whiting, "They Will Show Him," Chicago Inter-Ocean, 10 February 1882; 14 "A Man of Culture Rare," Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 8 February 1882; 15 "Wilde Sees the Falls," Buffalo Express, ca 9 February 1882; rpt Wheeling Register, 27 Feb 1882; 16 "The Apostle of Art," Chicago Inter-Ocean, 11 February 1882; 17 "Truly Aesthetic," Chicago Inter-Ocean, 13 February 1882; 18 "Wilde," Cleveland Leader, 20 February 1882; 19 "With Mr Oscar Wilde," Cincinnati Gazette, 21 February 1882; 20 "Oscar Wilde," Cincinnati Enquirer, 21 February 1882; 21 "Utterly Utter," St Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 February 1882; 22 "Speranza's Gifted Son," St Louis Globe-Democrat, 26 February 1882; 23 "Oscar As He Is," St Louis Republican, 26 February 1882; 24 "Oscar Wilde," Chicago Tribune, 1 March 1882; 25 "Philosophical Oscar," Chicago Times, 1 March 1882; 26 "David and Oscar," Chicago Tribune, 5 March 1882; 27 "Oscar Wilde in Omaha," Omaha Weekly Herald, 24 March 1882; 28 "Oscar Wilde: An Interview with the Apostle of Aestheticism," San Francisco Examiner, 27 Mar 1882; 29 "Oscar Wilde's Views," San Francisco Morning Call, 27 March 1882; 30 "Lo! The Aesthete," San Francisco Chronicle, 27 March 1882; 31 "Oscar Arrives," Sacramento Record-Union, 27 March 1882; 32 Mary Watson, "Oscar Wilde at Home," San Francisco Examiner, 9 April 1882; 33 "Oscar Wilde," Salt Lake Herald, 12 April 1882; 34 "Oscar Wilde," Denver Rocky Mountain News, 13 April 1882; 35 "Art and Aesthetics," Denver Tribune, 13 April 1882; 36 "What Mr Wilde Says about Himself," Manchester Examiner and Times; rpt New York Tribune, 11 June 1882; Chicago Tribune, 17 June 1882, 3; 37 "Aesthetic / An Interesting Interview with Oscar Wilde," Dayton Daily Democrat, 3 May 1882; 38 "Oscar Wilde's Return," New York World, 6 May 1882; 39 "Oscar Wilde in Montreal," Montreal Witness, 15 May 1882; 40 "Oscar Wilde: The Arch-Aesthete on Aestheticism," Montreal Star, 15 May 1882; 41 "Oscar Wilde," Toronto Globe, 25 May 1882; 42 "The Aesthete at the Art Exhibition," Toronto Globe, 26 May 1882; 43 "Oscar Wilde / Talks of Texas," New Orleans Picayune, 25 June 1882; 44 "Oscar Wilde: Arrival of the Great Aesthete," Atlanta Constitution, 5 July 1882; 45 "Oscar Dear, Oscar Dear!" Charleston News and Courier, 8 July 1882; 46 "Loveliness and Politeness," New York Sun, 20 August 1882; 47 "The Apostle of Beauty in Nova Scotia," Halifax Herald, 10 October 1882; 48 "Oscar Wilde Thoroughly Exhausted," New York Tribune, 27 November 1882; Appendix Wilde's lecture "Impressions of America"; Bibliography of Wilde interviews; Works Cited
£81.90
University of Illinois Press Shouting Down the Silence
Book SynopsisFrom the publication of his second novel, A Bad Man, in 1967 to his death in 1995, Elkin was tormented by the desire for both material and artistic success. This book presents a complete biography of Stanley Elkin, a pre-eminent novelist who consistently won high marks from critics.Trade Review"A fine exploration of [Stanley Elkin's] complex personality."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch"A thoroughly reliable portrait of a neglected novelist."--Kirkus Reviews"In a biography of focus and fire, Dougherty portrays Elkin ... in all his courage, persistence, and molten creativity and makes an open-and-shutcase for Elkin’s scouring, epoch-defining, and life-embracing books."--Booklist"A very fine literary biography as well as an extremely impressive work of literary scholarship. Dougherty does a remarkable job of presenting Elkin's more challenging texts in accessible terms, while eloquently and insightfully telling the story of Elkin's persistence in creating literature against the context of his battle with physical afflictions. Shouting Down the Silence accurately depicts Elkin as the hero of American letters he always refused to acknowledge himself as being.”--Peter J. Bailey, author of Reading Stanley Elkin"Recommended."--Choice
£29.70
University of Illinois Press Denise Levertov
Book SynopsisThe powerful interconnections of poet Denise Levertov's life and workTrade ReviewHonorable Mention in Biography, Georgia Author of the Year Awards, 2013. "Aptly titled A Poet's Life, this biography gives due attention to Levertov's work and the woman who wrote it."--Washington Times"This absorbing book is must reading for lovers of American literature, particularly by women, and contemporary poetry. Essential."--Choice"Brings alive the writer's lifetime vocation as a 'celebrant of Mystery'. . . . Greene, who has written lives of other spiritual thinkers like Evelyn Underhill and Maisie Ward, shows from Levertov's private diaries and journals the close connection between her personal struggles, her poetic maturaltion and her spiritual transformation."--America Magazine"Dana Greene's biography of Denise Levertov is fully informed and very readable. But what distinguishes this account is that Greene has assimilated the biographical facts and a reading of Levertov's poetry and prose into a full and rounded understanding of the course of Levertov's life and her poetic development as a pilgrimage and quest, religious in its origins. The result is an authoritative portrait of one of the central figures in American poetry of the last fifty years."--Albert Gelpi,coeditor of The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov"Gracefully written and eminently readable, this book provides a much-needed biography of Denise Levertov. Offering an impressive and compelling account of the crucial events of Levertov's life, Dana Greene illuminates invaluable connections between the poet's interior life and her work."--Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, author of Saint Sinatra and Other Poems"At the heart of Dana Greene's portrait of Denise Levertov is the poet's conviction that the essential human faculty is the imagination and that the artist's life is 'one of obedience to vocation.' Considering each stage of the poet's life, Greene writes with clarity and grace of Levertov's intertwined active outer life and her contemplative, imaginative, emotional inner life. A thoughtful, sensitive, sensible reading of Levertov's life and work."--Harry Marten, author of Understanding Denise Levertov"This impressive study is the first complete biography of [Denise Levertov]."--Library Journal"This compelling study deftly blends personal details with consideration of the poet's craft."--Kirkus Reviews "Greene's book is filled with 20th-century poets--and Catholic spiritual leaders who peopled the church before, during and after the Second Vatican Council. To be read and savored."--National Catholic Reporter "Greene has done us all a service with this much awaited and essential portrait of a major figure in American Literature. . . . Greene does a brilliant job of identifying this lifelong spiritual quest of Levertov as a central movement of her life, and connects these deep personal ties to family to the poems, thus revealing the life through the work and the work through the life. . . . Greene creates exactly the kind of biography that Levertov would have wanted--and we so needed."--New York Journal of Books "Greene succeeds in showing how Levertov's poetic development was a kind of spiritual quest. . . . a complete and balanced view of the life of this major literary figure."--Today's American Catholic "Greene's admiration for, and empathy with, Levertov is clear throughout this very readable book."--The Tablet "Greene establishes with thorough, compassionate authority the most important facts of the life of Denise Levertov: She was a woman of her time, and a poet for all time."--The Rumpus “[Green’s] prose is lucid and her narrative skillfully paced; her readings of the work are sound.”—London Review of Books "A bolder, more unified interpretation of Levertov's psychological-poetic development as the growth of a major figure in American poetry. The result is a more coherent, heroic, and triumphant narrative of the life of a "quintessential romantic," which makes compelling reading."--Resources for American Literary Study
£26.09
