Search results for ""Author Charles Dickens"

'In Little Dorrit, Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached' George OrwellA masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens's maturity. It follows Arthur Clennam who, returning to England after many years abroad, takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother's seamstress, who was born and raised in the Marshalsea where her father has long been imprisoned for debt. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr Pancks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, to the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office and Merdle, an unscrupulous financier. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Stephen Wall and Helen Small

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Following their acclaimed Ghost Stories and Weird Women, award-winning anthologists Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton present a new eclectic anthology of ghosty tales certain to haunt the reader long past the closing page.In Haunted Tales, the reader will enjoy discovering masterpieces like Algernon Blackwood’s terrifying “The Kit-Bag,” Oscar Wilde’s delightful “The Canterville Ghost,” and F. Marion Crawford’s horrific “The Screaming Skull,” as well as lesser-known gems by some of literature’s greatest voices, including Virginia Woolf’s “A Haunted House,” H. G. Wells’s “The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost,” and Rudyard Kipling’s “They.” Haunted Tales also resurrects some wonders that have been woefully neglected, including Dinah Mulock’s “M. Anastasius” (which Charles Dickens called “the best ghost story ever written”); E. F. Benson’s “The Bus-Conductor” (the source of one of the most iconic lines in horror); and E. and H. Heron’s “The Story of the Spaniards, Hammersmith” (the debut adventure of Flaxman Lowe, fiction’s first psychic detective). Whether the stories are familiar or overlooked, all are sure to surprise and astonish the reader long past the closing of this book’s cover.

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Military Men of Feeling considers the popularity of the figure of the gentle soldier in the Victorian period. It traces a persistent narrative swerve from tales of war violence to reparative accounts of soldiers as moral exemplars, homemakers, adopters of children on the battlefield, and nurses. This material invites us to think afresh about Victorian masculinity and Victorian militarism. It challenges ideas about the separation of military and domestic life, and about the incommunicability of war experience. Focusing on representations of soldiers' experiences of touch and emotion, the book combines the work of well known writers - including Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Yonge - with previously unstudied writing and craft produced by British soldiers in the Crimean War, 1854-56. The Crimean War was pivotal in shaping British attitudes to military masculinity. A range of media enabled unprecedented public engagement with the progress and infamous 'blunders' of the conflict. Soldiers and civilians reflected on appropriate behaviour across ranks, forms of heroism, the physical suffering of the troops, administrative management and the need for army reform. The book considers how the military man of feeling contributes to the rethinking of gender roles, class and military hierarchy in the mid-nineteenth century, and how this figure was used in campaigns for reform. The gentle soldier could also do more bellicose social and political work, disarming anti-war critiques and helping people to feel better about war. This book looks at the difficult mixed politics of this figure. It considers questions, debated in the nineteenth century and which remain urgent today, about the relationship between feeling and action, and the ethics of an emotional response to war. It makes a case for the importance of emotional and tactile military history, bringing the Victorian military man of feeling into contemporary debates about liberal warriors and soldiers as social workers.

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'Dickens's finest work in the genre of the detective story was his last' The TimesEdwin Drood is contracted to marry orphan Rosa when he comes of age, but when they find that duty has gradually replaced affection, they agree to break off the engagement. Shortly afterwards, in the middle of a storm on Christmas Eve, Edwin disappears. Beyond this there are further intrigues: the dark opium underworld of the sleepy cathedral town of Cloisterham, and the sinister double life of choir-master Jasper, whose drug-fuelled fantasy life belies his appearance. Dickens died before completing Edwin Drood, leaving generations of readers to try and solve its tantalizing mystery.Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Paroissien

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Secret Shepperton explores the history of the town from its early origins as an Iron Age settlement nestling on the banks of the River Thames. It’s the place where Caesar crossed the river in AD 54. Subsequent river finds reveal that this area regularly encountered invaders, such as the Saxons, who grazed sheep here and consequently called it Shepperton. It’s always been a place that attracts artists, such as Turner and Constable, and writers such as Charles Dickens and J. G. Ballard, who wrote the Unlimited Dream Factory in which his protagonist gains energy by phagocytizing the people of Shepperton. In H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the Martians destroy Shepperton and turn the Thames into a boiling inferno with their heat rays. In the twentieth century Shepperton was dubbed the playground of London and Richard D’Oyly Carte bought an island here to build a mini version of his Savoy Hotel. In 1931, Sir Richard Burbridge, Chairman of Harrods, sold his Shepperton mansion to Norman Loudon at a time when ‘the pictures’ were in their infancy but a new fad was catching on – films with sound. This was the forerunner of Shepperton Studio, still operating today and known throughout the world as the ‘Hollywood of England’.

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A powerful, uplifting and moving story of a teenage girl's battle against losing her sight and keeping her friendships.Mafalda is thirteen and has been blind since she was ten. Her best friend is the cheerfully rule-breaking Filippo, and she is accompanied everywhere by Ottimo Turcaret, her devoted cat. Mafalda is always looking on the bright side, thinking of things she can do both now and in the future despite her loss of sight. But other things are worrying her too: her father who has lost his job and is now in the depths of depression, refusing to leave his bed; and the horrible girl in school, Debbie, who seems very interested in Filippo . . . So now Mafalda has to start thinking what Filippo really means to her . . .Then two new adults come into her life: Elsa, a homeless young woman, and Nino, the elderly upstairs neighbour with an awful temper and a great passion for Charles Dickens. Little by little, Mafalda learns their stories, and how their lives had also been shaped by brave and difficult choices. A moving sequel to THE DISTANCE BETWEEN ME AND THE CHERRY TREE

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HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Charles Dickens's classic tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge's encounters with the ghosts of Christmas past, present and yet to come.

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Dickens' celebrated novel of innocence betrayed and then triumphant. It recreates the London underworld populated by such characters as Fagin, Bill Sikes, Nancy and the Artful Dodger, who are contrasted with the friends and family of the orphaned Oliver.

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'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick HornbyPatrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell.West Kensington - grey area of rot, and caretaking, and cat-slinking basements. West Kensington - drab asylum for the driven and cast-off genteel!' Patrick Hamilton was acutely conscious that his third novel (first published in 1928) was longer and 'much grimmer' than his previous and well-received productions. Twopence Coloured is the story of nineteen-year-old Jackie Mortimer, who leaves Hove in search of a life on the London stage, only to become entangled in 'provincial theatre' and complex affairs of the heart with two brothers, Richard and Charles Gissing. The novel, unavailable for many years, is a gimlet-eyed portrait of the theatrical vocation, and fully exhibits Hamilton's celebrated gift for conjuring London - the 'vast, thronged, unknown, hooting, electric-lit, dark-rumbling metropolis.

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Ebenezer Scrooge es un viejo agrio, avaro y cruel que no cree en la generosidad, el buen humor y el cariño, sólo en los negocios y el dinero. Pero todo cambia cuando una noche, la víspera de Navidad, recibe la visita de un espectro conocido y los espíritus de las Navidades pasadas, presentes y futuras...El clásico navideño de Dickens en una nueva edición con las ilustraciones en color de Quentin Blake, el célebre ilustrador de Roald Dahl, y traducción íntegra. Una preciosa y divertida versión del viejo Scrooge y sus fantasmas!Considero a Dickens el mejor novelista del siglo XIX. LEV TOLSTÓI

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Encuadernación: rústicaColección: Tus libros-SelecciónEdad: a partir de 12 años"Canción de Navidad", escrita por Dickens bajo la influencia de sus ideas sociales y quizá concebida como una fábula moral para una época y una sociedad determinadas -Inglaterra en la "era victoriana"-, es una historia capaz de conmover a los lectores de cualquier edad. Con este relato fantástico, Dickens crea el prototipo del avaro, gruñón y egoísta -Ebenezer Scrooge- y, además, impregna para siempre estas fechas del "Espíritu de la Navidad".

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A heartwarming and inspirational Christmas novel in the tradition of The Christmas Box, Grace, The Gift, and Finding Noel. The New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and The Walk series returns with a holiday novel of hope, love, and redemption.Dear Reader, When I was in seventh grade, my English teacher, Mrs. Johnson, gave our class the intriguing (if somewhat macabre) assignment of writing our own obituaries. Oddly, I don't remember much of what I wrote about my life, but I do remember how I died: in first place on the final lap of the Daytona 500. At the time, I hadn't considered writing as an occupation, a field with a remarkably low on-the-job casualty rate. What intrigues me most about Mrs. Johnson's assignment is the opportunity she gave us to confront our own legacy. How do we want to be remembered? That question has motivated our species since the beginning of time: from building pyramids to putting our names on skyscrapers. As I began to write this book, I had two objectives: First, I wanted to explore what could happen if someone read their obituary before they died and saw, firsthand, what the world really thought of them. Their legacy. Second, I wanted to write a Christmas story of true redemption. One of my family's holiday traditions is to see a local production of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I don't know how many times I've seen it (perhaps a dozen), but it still thrills me to see the change that comes over Ebenezer Scrooge as he transforms from a dull, tight-fisted miser into a penitent, "giddy-as-aschoolboy" man with love in his heart. I always leave the show with a smile on my face and a resolve to be a better person. That's what I wanted to share with you, my dear readers, this Christmas—a holiday tale to warm your season, your homes, and your hearts. Merry Christmas

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Two interesting items: The author's article in New York Archives A letter regarding foundlings in The Riverdale Press In the nineteenth century, foundlings—children abandoned by their desperately poor, typically unmarried mothers, usually shortly after birth—were commonplace in European society. There were asylums in every major city to house abandoned babies, and writers made them the heroes of their fiction, most notably Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. In American cities before the Civil War the situation was different, with foundlings relegated to the poorhouse instead of institutions designed specifically for their care. By the eve of the Civil War, New York City in particular had an epidemic of foundlings on its hands due to the rapid and often interlinked phenomena of urban development, population growth, immigration, and mass poverty. Only then did the city's leaders begin to worry about the welfare and future of its abandoned children. In Abandoned, Julie Miller offers a fascinating, frustrating, and often heartbreaking history of a once devastating, now forgotten social problem that wracked America's biggest metropolis, New York City. Filled with anecdotes and personal stories, Miller traces the shift in attitudes toward foundlings from ignorance, apathy, and sometimes pity for the children and their mothers to that of recognition of the problem as a sign of urban moral decline and in need of systematic intervention. Assistance came from public officials and religious reformers who constructed four institutions: the Nursery and Child's Hospital's foundling asylum, the New York Infant Asylum, the New York Foundling Asylum, and the public Infant Hospital, located on Randall's Island in the East River. Ultimately, the foundling asylums were unable to significantly improve children’s lives, and by the early twentieth century, three out of the four foundling asylums had closed, as adoption took the place of abandonment and foster care took the place of institutions. Today the word foundling has been largely forgotten. Fortunately, Abandoned rescues its history from obscurity.

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'What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?' Ebenezer Scrooge is a bad-tempered skinflint who hates Christmas and all it stands for, but a ghostly visitor foretells three apparitions who will thaw Scrooge's frozen heart. A Christmas Carol has gripped the public imagination since it was first published in 1843, and it is now as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe or plum pudding. This edition reprints the story alongside Dickens's four other Christmas Books: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. All five stories show Dickens at his unpredictable best, jumbling together comedy and melodrama, genial romance and urgent social satire, in pursuit of his aim 'to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land'.

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'Enlivens the standard tale of swashbuckling adventure, adding feminist spice ... Rich and immersive' SUNDAY TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH'Remarkable' HILARY MANTEL'A vivid, narrative-packed splice of historical fiction' DAILY MAILA Wild & True Relation opens during the Great Storm of 1703, as smuggler Tom West confronts his lover Grace for betraying him to the Revenue. Leaving Grace's cottage in flames, he takes her orphaned daughter Molly on board ship disguised as a boy to join his crew. But Molly, or Orlando as she must call herself, will grow up to outshine all the men of Tom's company and seek revenge - and a legacy - all of her own. Woven into Molly's story are the writers - from Celia Fiennes and George Eliot to Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens - who are transfixed by her myth and who, over three centuries, come together to solve the mystery of her life. With extraordinary verve , Sherwood remakes the eighteenth-century novel and illuminates women's writing and women's roles throughout history.'Breathlessly swashbuckling' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Vividly imagined, relentlessly entertaining, rich and resonant in scope and context, it's both a thrilling adventure and a vital witness to women's voices' EMMA STONEX, author of The Lamplighters'A young writer of immense talent' ANDREW MILLER'A breathtaking feat of historical fiction and utterly astounding. It is wise, urgent and entirely compelling. I was bereft when it ended' WYL MENMUIR'This book is a rarity - a novel as remarkable for the vigour of the storytelling as for its literary ambition. Kim Sherwood is a writer of capacity, potency and sophistication' HILARY MANTEL'A thrilling adventure novel' FIONA MOZLEY

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FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF WHAT I LOVED AND A WOMAN LOOKING AT MEN LOOKING AT WOMEN'A luminous collection of mind-expanding pieces on literary and philosophical themes . . . A book to renew one's faith in the literary essay' Robert McCrum, Observer'Thoughtful, sensuous essays . . . her enthusiasms are oddly infectious' Daily TelegraphIn this illuminating and absorbing collection of essays, Siri Hustvedt explores many of the themes that preoccupy her novels: identity and memory, sexuality and mortality, psychology, love and the power of imagination. But here she offers her personal experience - as daughter, sister, mother and wife, student, reader and writer - to illustrate fundamental aspects of our lives as individuals and social beings in the modern world. She draws, too, on the work of Henry James, F Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens, probing their insights into human nature.Wise, honest and luminously intelligent, this is a book that invites us to look afresh at ourselves and the universe we inhabit.'One of the most talented voices in contemporary fiction . . . Hustvedt brings the same visual power, sensuality and intelligence to her collection of essays' Los Angeles Times Book ReviewPRAISE FOR SIRI HUSTVEDT:'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' Salman Rushdie'It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear' Hilary Mantel'Her novels have received a deserved acclaim. But to my mind, she is even more to be admired as an essayist . . . in this regard I feel that she resembles Virginia Woolf ' Observer'Few contemporary writers are as satisfying and stimulating to read as Siri Hustvedt' Washington Post

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The 1854 text, edited by Sylvère Monod, is accompanied here by explanatory footnotes. Contextual pieces by critics and theorists of Dickens’ time bring readers examples of their views on industrialism, education and utilitarianism. Included are eight new critical essays.

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The Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay beyond it. Though they were as much a part of the cultural and literary fabric of the age as imperial confidence, the best of them still retain their original power to surprise and unsettle. The editors map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the twentieth century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James, this selection also emphasizes the key role played by women writers - Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs Craik, Rhoda Broughton, and Charlotte Riddell, among many others - and offers one or two genuine rarities for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savour. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and R. L. Stevenson. The editors also provide a fascinating introduction, detailed source notes, and a chronological list of ghost stories collections from 1850 to 1910.

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Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens's tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.

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When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770. From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters, especially in the late 1800s, when Europe and America enjoyed a decades-long oyster craze. In a dubious endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray said that eating a New York oyster was like eating a baby. Travellers to New York were also keen to experience the famous New York oyster houses. While some were known for their elegance, due to a longstanding belief in the aphrodisiac quality of oysters, they were often associated with prostitution. In 1842, when the novelist Charles Dickens arrived in New York, he could not conceal his eagerness to find and experience the fabled oyster cellars of New York City's slums. The Big Oyster is the story of a city and of an international trade.Filled with cultural, social and culinary insight - as well as recipes, maps, drawings and photographs - this is history at its most engrossing, entertaining and delicious.

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This book takes a fascinating look at the iconic figure of the Native American in the British cultural imagination from the Revolutionary War to the early twentieth century, and examining how Native Americans regarded the British, as well as how they challenged their own cultural image in Britain during this period. Kate Flint shows how the image of the Indian was used in English literature and culture for a host of ideological purposes, and she reveals its crucial role as symbol, cultural myth, and stereotype that helped to define British identity and its attitude toward the colonial world.Through close readings of writers such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, and D. H. Lawrence, Flint traces how the figure of the Indian was received, represented, and transformed in British fiction and poetry, travelogues, sketches, and journalism, as well as theater, paintings, and cinema. She describes the experiences of the Ojibwa and Ioway who toured Britain with George Catlin in the 1840s; the testimonies of the Indians in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; and the performances and polemics of the Iroquois poet Pauline Johnson in London. Flint explores transatlantic conceptions of race, the role of gender in writings by and about Indians, and the complex political and economic relationships between Britain and America.The Transatlantic Indian, 1776-1930 argues that native perspectives are essential to our understanding of transatlantic relations in this period and the development of transnational modernity.

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Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted room-mate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechook. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own 'great expectations' in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him towards maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.

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"Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night," wrote the poet Rupert Brooke. Before the age of electricity, the nighttime city was a very different place to the one we know today - home to the lost, the vagrant and the noctambulant. Matthew Beaumont recounts an alternative history of London by focusing on those of its denizens who surface on the streets when the sun's down. If nightwalking is a matter of "going astray" in the streets of the metropolis after dark, then nightwalkers represent some of the most suggestive and revealing guides to the neglected and forgotten aspects of the city.In this brilliant work of literary investigation, Beaumont shines a light on the shadowy perambulations of poets, novelists and thinkers: Chaucer and Shakespeare; William Blake and his ecstatic peregrinations and the feverish ramblings of opium addict Thomas De Quincey; and, among the lamp-lit literary throng, the supreme nightwalker Charles Dickens. We discover how the nocturnal city has inspired some and served as a balm or narcotic to others. In each case, the city is revealed as a place divided between work and pleasure, the affluent and the indigent, where the entitled and the desperate jostle in the streets.With a foreword and afterword by Will Self, Nightwalking is a captivating literary portrait of the writers who explore the city at night and the people they meet.

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Lyme, Connecticut, early nineteenth century. Elisha Ely Morgan is a young farm boy who has witnessed firsthand the terror of the War of 1812. Troubled by a tumultuous home life ruled by the fists of their tempestuous father, Ely's two older brothers have both left their pastoral boyhoods to seek manhood through sailing. One afternoon, the Morgan family receives a letter with the news that one brother is lost at sea; the other is believed to be dead. Scrimping as much savings as a farm boy can muster, Ely spends nearly every penny he has to become a sailor on a square-rigged ship, on a route from New York to London—a route he hopes will lead to his vanished brother, Abraham. Learning the brutal trade of a sailor, Ely takes quickly to sea-life, but his focus lies with finding Abraham. Following a series of cryptic clues regarding his brother's fate, Ely becomes entrenched in a mystery deeper than he can imagine. As he feels himself drawing closer to an answer, Ely climbs the ranks to become a captain, experiences romance, faces a mutiny, meets Queen Victoria, and befriends historical legends such as Charles Dickens in his raucous quest.

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With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank. The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate. Dickens was conscious of the ‘many friends’ the novel had won for him, and ‘the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow’, and it remains one of the most familiar and well-loved of his works.

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Life in a workhouse during the Victorian and Edwardian eras has been popularly characterised as a brutal existence. Charles Dickens famously portrayed workhouse inmates as being dirty, neglected, overworked and at the mercy of exploitative masters. While there were undoubtedly establishments that conformed to this stereotype, there is also evidence of a more enlightened approach that has not yet come to public attention. This book establishes a true picture of what life was like in a workhouse, of why inmates entered them and of what they had to endure in their day-to-day routine.A comprehensive overview of the workshouse system gives a real and compelling insight into social and moral reasons behind their growth in the Victorian era, while the kind of distinctions that were drawn between inmates are looked into, which, along with the social stigma of having been a workhouse inmate, tell us much about class attitudes of the time.The book also looks at living conditions and duties of the staff who, in many ways, were prisoners of the workhouse. Michelle Higgs combines thorough research with a fresh outlook on a crucial period in British history, and in doing so paints a vivid portrait of an era and its social standards that continues to fascinate, and tells us much about the society we live in today.

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"Five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has even been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." --Samuel Johnson Ghosts are woven into the very fabric of life. In Britain, every town, village, and great house has a spectral resident, and their enduring popularity in literature, art, folklore, and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify, and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts--the fears they provoke, the forms they take--are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age. The ghost is no less than the mirror of the times. Organized chronologically, this new cultural history features a dazzling range of artists and writers, including William Hogarth, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Susan Hiller and Jeremy Deller; John Donne, William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Percy and Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Muriel Spark, Hilary Mantel, and Sarah Waters.

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Setting off on foot from Winchester, Ken Haigh hikes across southern England, retracing one of the traditional routes that medieval pilgrims followed to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Walking in honour of his father, a staunch Anglican who passed away before they could begin their trip together, Haigh wonders: Is there a place in the modern secular world for pilgrimage? On his journey, he sorts through his own spiritual aimlessness while crossing paths with writers like Anthony Trollope, John Keats, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, and, of course, Geoffrey Chaucer. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part literary history, On Foot to Canterbury is engaging and delightful. “My father didn’t need this walk, not the way I do. For him it would have been a fun way to spend some time with his son. He had, I begin to realize, a talent for living in the moment… Perhaps a pilgrimage would help me find happiness. Perhaps I could walk my way into a better frame of mind, and somehow along the road to Canterbury I would find a new purpose for my life. It was worth a shot.” Audio edition from PRH available from Audible, Kobo, Google, and Apple Books.

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Pawfect Love combines adorable photos of unlikely animal pairs with affectionate quotes to share with the one you love--differences and all! With over 150 pages of fur-cuteness, grown-ups and kids will love this coffee table book. From a bunny snuggling with a duck to a kitty playing with a deer to a puppy having fun with a hamster, these furry pairs remind us that not being exactly the same is part of what makes a relationship great.Spotlighting topics such as commitment, happiness, and togetherness, the quotes are by an array of beloved writers, such as: C.S. Lewis, Katharine Hepburn, and Donald Miller Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Oscar Wilde, and many more Delightful photos from the mother-son photography team Warren Photographic humorously communicate the lighter side of your heart's affection in this fun and unique gift book. Pawfect Love is a fun gift for: couples on their engagement, wedding day, or anniversary a significant other on Valentine's Day, a birthday, or any ordinary day people who love animals and animal photography One of the best things about love is enjoying each other's uniqueness. Our animal friends have discovered this already! So here's to our differences! We wouldn't want it any other way--paws down.

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Especially evident in Victorian-era writings is a rhetorical tendency to liken adults to children and children to adults. Claudia Nelson examines this literary phenomenon and explores the ways in which writers discussed the child-adult relationship during this period. Though far from ubiquitous, the terms "child-woman", "child-man", and "old-fashioned child" appears often enough in Victorian writings to prompt critical questions about the motivations and meanings of such generational border crossings. Nelson carefully considers the use of these terms and connects invocations of age inversion to developments in post - Darwinian scientific thinking and attitudes about gender roles, social class, sexuality, power, and economic mobility. She brilliantly analyzes canonical works of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, William Makepeace Thackeray, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson alongside lesser - known writings to demonstrate the diversity of literary age inversion and its profound influence on Victorian culture. By considering the full context of Victorian age inversion, "Precocious Children and Childish Adults" illuminates the complicated pattern of anxiety and desire that creates such ambiguity in the writings of the time. Scholars of Victorian literature and culture, as well as readers interested in children's literature, childhood studies, and gender studies, will welcome this excellent work from a major figure in the field.

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''The great poet of the city. He was created by London' Peter AckroydOur Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees: young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social-climbing Veneerings; and the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg. Dickens's last completed novel is richly symbolic in its vision of death and renewal in a city dominated by the fetid Thames, and of the corrupting power of money.Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Adrian Poole

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The implicit link between white women and "the dark races" recurs persistently in nineteenth-century English fiction. Imperialism at Home examines the metaphorical use of race by three nineteenth-century women novelists: Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and George Eliot. Susan Meyer argues that each of these domestic novelists uses race relations as a metaphor through which to explore the relationships between men and women at home in England. In the fiction of, for example, Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, as in nineteenth-century culture more generally, the subtle and not-so-subtle comparison of white women and people of color is used to suggest their mutual inferiority. The Bronte sisters and George Eliot responded to this comparison, Meyer contends, transforming it for their own purposes. Through this central metaphor, these women novelists work out a sometimes contentious relationship to established hierarchies of race and gender. Their feminist impulses, in combination with their use of race as a metaphor, Meyer argues, produce at times a surprising, if partial, critique of empire. Through readings of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Mill on the Floss, Daniel Deronda, and Charlotte Brontë's African juvenilia, Meyer traces the aesthetically and ideologically complex workings of the racial metaphor. Her analysis is supported by careful attention to textual details and thorough grounding in recent scholarship on the idea of race, and on literature and imperialism.

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The implicit link between white women and "the dark races" recurs persistently in nineteenth-century English fiction. Imperialism at Home examines the metaphorical use of race by three nineteenth-century women novelists: Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and George Eliot. Susan Meyer argues that each of these domestic novelists uses race relations as a metaphor through which to explore the relationships between men and women at home in England. In the fiction of, for example, Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, as in nineteenth-century culture more generally, the subtle and not-so-subtle comparison of white women and people of color is used to suggest their mutual inferiority. The Bronte sisters and George Eliot responded to this comparison, Meyer contends, transforming it for their own purposes. Through this central metaphor, these women novelists work out a sometimes contentious relationship to established hierarchies of race and gender. Their feminist impulses, in combination with their use of race as a metaphor, Meyer argues, produce at times a surprising, if partial, critique of empire. Through readings of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Mill on the Floss, Daniel Deronda, and Charlotte Brontë's African juvenilia, Meyer traces the aesthetically and ideologically complex workings of the racial metaphor. Her analysis is supported by careful attention to textual details and thorough grounding in recent scholarship on the idea of race, and on literature and imperialism.

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Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B. Cook Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). Following the success of Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a 'literary gentleman'. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nickleby, taking in the eccentric Crummles and his travelling players, the Mantalinis, the Kenwigs and many more. Combining these with typically Dickensian elements of burlesque and farce, the novel is eminently suited to dramatic adaptation. So great was the impact as it left Dickens' pen that many pirated versions appeared in print before the original was even finished. Often neglected by critics, Nicholas Nickleby has never ceased to delight readers and is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic masterpieces of nineteenth-centure literature.

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A revelatory resituation of Van Gogh’s familiar works in the company of the surprising variety of nineteenth-century art and literature he most revered Vincent van Gogh’s (1853–1890) idiosyncratic style grew out of a deep admiration for and connection to the nineteenth-century art world. This fresh look at Van Gogh’s influences explores the artist’s relationship to the Barbizon School painters Jean-François Millet and Georges Michel—Van Gogh’s self-proclaimed mentors—as well as to Realists like Jean-François Raffaëlli and Léon Lhermitte. New scholarship offers insights into Van Gogh’s emulation of Adolphe Monticelli, his absorption of the Hague School through Anton Mauve and Jozef Israëls, and his keen interest in the work of the Impressionists. This copiously illustrated volume also discusses Van Gogh’s allegiance to the colorism of Eugène Delacroix, as well as his alliance with the Realist literature of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Although Van Gogh has often been portrayed as an insular and tortured savant, Through Vincent’s Eyes provides a fascinating deep dive into the artist’s sources of inspiration that reveals his expansive interest in the artistic culture of his time.Published in association with the Santa Barbara Museum of ArtPublished in association with the Santa Barbara Museum of ArtExhibition Schedule:Columbus Museum of Art (November 12, 2021–February 6, 2022)Santa Barbara Museum of Art (February 27–May 22, 2022)

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La intriga parte de un extraño asesinato y se alimenta de una sociedad corrupta e hipócrita.Cuando en una respetable mansión de Bedford Square se encuentra el cadáver de un hombre asesinado, el más experto y conflictivo policía victoriano de Londres, Thomas Pitt, acude inmediatamente al lugar de los hechos. Tanto la casa como una cajita de rapé encontrada en el cuerpo pertenecen al muy respetado general Balantyne, amigo de Charlotte, la esposa de Pitt, y ampliamente conocido en los mejores círculos sociales. A medida que se va involucrando en la investigación de este asesinato y en un caso de chantaje, Pitt se verá inmerso en medio de una terrible lucha para salvar lo que siempre ha intentado preservar: la integridad de la policía de Bow Street. Con un extraño asesinato y una corrupta e hipócrita sociedad victoriana, Anne Perry construye una novela de intriga que impresionaría al propio Charles Dickens. New York Times Books Review

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Test your knowledge, practise your skills and feel ready for 2021 assessments and 2022 exams. Test and build your knowledge of every part of the text with a huge range of questions, activities and exercises. Find out what you really know about key characters, themes, contexts and quotations before tests and assessments. Perfect your responses, practise writing great answers and find out how to score the best grades you can. Learn to apply what you've learned and get vital experience of test and assessment-style questions. York Notes are the long-established experts in English Literature, and we take your success seriously. So whether you're studying A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens for GCSE at home, online or in the classroom, York Notes is your best bet for the best grades. The biggest and most in-depth available, this A Christmas Carol Workbook from York Notes is simple to use and will help you practise, improve and test all your skills and knowledge so you can build your confidence, stay motivated and feel ready to impress in any test, assessment or exam. Why not combine this Workbook with a York Notes Study Guide or Practice Tests Book for A Christmas Carol? They're the best way to make sure you're on track for success. Just search for 9781447982128 for the Study Guide and 9781292195407 for the Practice Tests.

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Maybe Jesus was joking, the disciples didn’t know what they were doing and the New Testament is a lot funnier than you might think. You would think it weird if someone suddenly ascended into heaven, right? Reading between the lines, do we detect a touch of rivalry between Peter and John? And surely the lack of parables in the latter’s mystical tome is simply crying out to be redressed . . . In this sparklingly witty book, BBC sitcom writer James Cary gives us a new and liberating way of looking at the gospel as he entertainingly relates it to a modern context, with references ranging from Charles Dickens to The Vicar of Dibley. Cheerfully playing around with the text, he takes the Bible seriously but allows us to laugh at our own petty vanities and foibles – and be enlightened in the process. The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer is ideal for anyone wanting to liven up their Bible reading and looking for new ways to be thrilled by this sacred text. It’s also perfect for priests, pastors, youth leaders and all those involved in ministry and giving sermons, as James Cary shows using comedy and humour is a brilliant way to communicate the gospel. Warm, funny and full of brilliant insight and Christian humour, The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer will make you laugh out loud and shake your head in awe. You’ll never read the Bible the same way again.

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Key Stage 2 Comprehension provides a unique collection of stimulating texts that appeal strongly to both boys and girls, together with questions that both build and stretch comprehension skills and widen vocabulary. Comprising four one-per-child activity books and providing more than 72 texts in total, the series encourages children to pay close attention to literal meaning, make inferences and deductions, observe how writing is structured and identify literary devices. A separate Teacher's Guide is also available. Book 4 reflects the broadening interests and word power of young people who will soon move to secondary school, or have now done so. It includes: non-fiction texts covering the discovery in Russia of a long-extinct mammoth, shells and their origins and the life of explorer Robert Scott, the poignant 'last letter' from Scott to his widow, classic poetry from Rudyard Kipling, Edward Thomas, Edward Lear and William Wordsworth, a short extract from the play 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare, riveting fiction from R.L. Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens and absorbing autobiographies and biographical fiction from Roald Dahl and Alison Prince.

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A curious gem of 19th-century gothic fiction Cecil Dreeme is one of the queerest American novels of the 19th century. This edition, which includes a new introduction contextualizing the sexual history of the period and queer longings of the book, brings a rare, almost forgotten, sensational gothic novel set in New York’s West Village back to light. Published posthumously in 1861, the novel centers on Robert Byng, a young man who moves back to New York after traveling abroad and finds himself unmarried and underemployed, adrift in the heathenish dens of lower Manhattan. When he takes up rooms in “Chrysalis College”—a thinly veiled version of the 19th-century New York University building in Washington Square—he quickly finds himself infatuated with a young painter lodging there, named Cecil Dreeme. As their friendship grows and the novel unfolds against the backdrop of the bohemian West Village, Robert confesses that he “loves Cecil with a love passing the love of women.” Yet, there are dark forces at work in the form of the sinister and magnetic Densdeth, a charismatic figure of bad intention, who seeks to ensnare Robert for his own. Full of romantic entanglements, mistaken identity, blackmail, and the dramas of temptation and submission, Cecil Dreeme is a gothic novel at its finest. Poetically written—with flashes of Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde—Cecil Dreeme is an early example of that rare bird, a queer novel from the 19th century.

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'An absolutely riveting book - reading it makes you intelligent, full of brilliant anecdotes - and very hungry indeed.' - Richard Curtis 'This brilliantly conceived and well-researched book is a source of real delight.' - Dr Annie Gray, BBC Radio 4's The Kitchen Cabinet 'Superbly written, a complete joy to read, and just about the perfect present for anyone even vaguely interested in food.' - Mark Diacono'A gastronomic delight. You can savour it a course at a time, or you may consume the whole banquet in one sitting. It's delicious either way - utterly scrumptious, in fact!' - Mike LeighThis fascinating miscellany of menus from around the world will educate as well as entertain, delighting both avid foodies and the general reader.Each menu provides an insight into its particular historical moment - from the typical food on offer in a nineteenth-century workhouse to the opulence of George IV's gargantuan coronation dinner. Some menus are linked with a specific and unforgettable event such as The Hindenburg's last flight menu or the variety of meals on offer for First, Second and Third Class passengers on board RMS Titanic, while others give an insight into sport, such as the 1963 FA Cup Final Dinner or transport and travel with the luxury lunch on board the Orient Express. Also included are literary occasions like Charles' Dickens 1868 dinner at Delmonicos in New York as well as the purely fictional and fantastical fare of Ratty's picnic in The Wind in the Willows.

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Board: AQA Examination: English Language & Literature Specification: GCSE 9-1 Set Text covered: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Type: Revision Cards New GCSE Grades 9-1 Revision Cards with free revision app, perfect to support your revision for the closed book AQA GCSE English Literature exam. Perfect for last-minute revision; Clear information with at-a-glance chronology of the text A tight focus on key events, characters, themes, context, language and structure. With lots of quiz cards to help you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding you can't go wrong. These cards can be used alongside our best-selling Study Guides with matching colour coded sections or they can be used independently as a stand-alone revision resource. Snap it! Read it, snap it on your phone, revise it...helps you retain key facts The accompanying free app uses cutting-edge technology to help you revise on-the-go to: Use the free, personalised digital revision planner and get stuck into the quick tests to check your understanding Download our free revision cards which you can save to your phone to help you revise on the go Implement 'active' revision techniques - giving you lots of tips and tricks to help the knowledge sink in

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Michael Gove is one of the most recognisable faces in British politics - and one of the most divisive. Whether it's taking on the education `blob', acting as a frontman for the Brexit campaign or orchestrating one of the bloodiest political assassinations in the history of British politics, Gove is a man who makes things happen. But it was almost so different, and his story, from being born into care to standing for the leadership of the Conservative Party, could have come straight from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. A charming man to his friends, and a cold-blooded zealot to his enemies, Gove provokes a reaction from everyone, be it loyalty, anger, respect or fury. Love him or hate him, it's impossible to deny Gove's impact on the UK over the past ten years, and, with Brexit still up in the air, he will continue to play a key role in the future of the country. Political journalist Owen Bennett's groundbreaking biography takes in original research as well as interviews with current and former Cabinet ministers, ex-colleagues from the BBC and The Times, and numerous other key players in Gove's life story. Lively and insightful in equal measure, Michael Gove: A Man in a Hurry reveals what turned the adopted son of an Aberdeen fishing family into one of the key political figures of the decade.

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From spooky stories and real-life ghost hunting, to shows about murder and serial killers, we are fascinated by death - and we owe these modern obsessions to the Victorian age. Death and the Victorians explores a period in history when the search for the truth about what lies beyond our mortal realm was matched only by the imagination and invention used to find it. Walk among London’s festering graveyards, where the dead were literally rising from the grave. Visit the Paris Morgue, where thousands flocked to view the spectacle of death every single day. Lift the veil on how spirits were invited into the home, secret societies taught ways to survive death, and the latest science and technology was applied to provide proof of the afterlife. Find out why the Victorian era is considered the golden age of the ghost story, exemplified by tales from the likes of Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Oscar Wilde and Henry James. Discover how the birth of the popular press nurtured our taste for murder and that Jack the Ripper was actually a work of pure Gothic horror fiction crafted by cynical Victorian newspapermen. Death and the Victorians exposes the darker side of the nineteenth century, a time when the living were inventing incredible ways to connect with the dead that endure to this day.

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A curious gem of 19th-century gothic fiction Cecil Dreeme is one of the queerest American novels of the 19th century. This edition, which includes a new introduction contextualizing the sexual history of the period and queer longings of the book, brings a rare, almost forgotten, sensational gothic novel set in New York’s West Village back to light. Published posthumously in 1861, the novel centers on Robert Byng, a young man who moves back to New York after traveling abroad and finds himself unmarried and underemployed, adrift in the heathenish dens of lower Manhattan. When he takes up rooms in “Chrysalis College”—a thinly veiled version of the 19th-century New York University building in Washington Square—he quickly finds himself infatuated with a young painter lodging there, named Cecil Dreeme. As their friendship grows and the novel unfolds against the backdrop of the bohemian West Village, Robert confesses that he “loves Cecil with a love passing the love of women.” Yet, there are dark forces at work in the form of the sinister and magnetic Densdeth, a charismatic figure of bad intention, who seeks to ensnare Robert for his own. Full of romantic entanglements, mistaken identity, blackmail, and the dramas of temptation and submission, Cecil Dreeme is a gothic novel at its finest. Poetically written—with flashes of Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde—Cecil Dreeme is an early example of that rare bird, a queer novel from the 19th century.

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Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee’s military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a natural talent for hexing and one bad eye, and all she wants is to be left alone—especially by outsiders. But Sarah’s world gets turned on its head at the Nashville Tobacco Fair when a Yankee wizard-priest tries to kidnap her. Sarah fights back with the aid of a mysterious monk named Thalanes, who is one of the not-quite-human Firstborn, the Moundbuilders of the Ohio. It is Thalanes who reveals to Sarah a secret heritage she never dreamed could be hers. Now on a desperate quest with Thalanes to claim this heritage, she is hunted by the Emperor’s bodyguard of elite dragoons, as well as by darker things—shapeshifting Mockers and undead Lazars, and behind them a power more sinister still. If Sarah cannot claim her heritage, it may mean the end to her, her family—and to the world where she is just beginning to find her place. Praise for Witchy Eye and D.J. Butler: “. . . you can’t stop yourself from taking another bite . . . and another . . . and another. . . . I didn’t want to stop reading. . . . Kudos!” —R.A. Salvatore, New York Times best-selling author “Excellent book. I am impressed by the creativity and the depth of the world building. Dave Butler is a great storyteller.” —Larry Correia “Witchy Eye is an intricate and imaginative alternate history with a cast of characters and quirky situations that would make a Dickens novel proud.” —Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times best-selling author of Eternity's Mind “Butler’s fantasy is by turns sardonic and lighthearted; ghoulish shadows claw into the most remote areas and heroism bursts out of the most unlikely people. Sarah is the epitome of the downtrodden hero who refuses to give up until she gets what she needs, and her story will appeal to fantasy readers of all stripes.”—Publishers Weekly “This is a breathtaking heroic saga that pays off in a really satisfying way. Between a world so deep you could get lost in it and a massive, distinct cast, Witchy Eye seems poised to bring Butler’s work to a wider audience. . . . With a book like this one, it’s an audience he definitely deserves.” —BarnesandNoble.com “David’s a pro storyteller, and you’re in for a great ride.” —Larry Dixon “. . . a fascinating, grittily flavored world of living legends. Hurry up and write the next one, Dave.” —Cat Rambo, author of Beasts of Tabat “This is enchanting! I’d love to see more.” —Mercedes Lackey, New York Times best-selling author “Goblin Market meets Magical Musketpunk . . . A great ride that also manages to cover some serious cultural terrain.” —Charles E. Gannon, author of the thrice-Nebula nominated Caine Riordan series “Witchy Eye is a brilliant blend of historical acumen and imagination, a tour-de-force that is at once full of surprises and ultimately heartwarming. This is your chance to discover one of the finest new stars writing today!” –David Farland, New York Times best-selling author “A gritty, engrossing mash-up of history, fantasy, and magic. Desperate characters careen from plot twist to plot twist until few are left standing.” —Mario Acevedo, author of Rescue from Planet Pleasure. “Captivating characters. Superb world-building. Awesome magic. Butler fuses fantasy and history effortlessly, creating a fascinating new American epic. Not to be missed!” —Christopher Husberg, author of Duskfall “[A] unique alternative-history that is heavily influence by urban and traditional fantasy and steeped in the folklore of the Appalachians. . . . Fans of urban fantasy looking to take a chance on something with a twist on a historical setting may find this novel worth their time.” —Booklist

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The field of lesbian studies is often framed in terms of the relation between lesbianism and invisibility. Annamarie Jagose here takes a radical new approach, suggesting that the focus on invisibility and visibility is perhaps not the most productive way of looking at lesbian representability. Jagose argues that the theoretical preoccupation with metaphors of visibility is part of the problem it attempts to remedy. In her account, the regulatory difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality relies less on codes of visual recognition than on a cultural adherence to the force of first order, second order sexual sequence. As Jagose points out, sequence does not simply specify what comes before and what comes after; it also implies precedence: what comes first and what comes second. Jagose reads canonical novels by Charles Dickens, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Daphne du Maurier, drawing upon their elaboration of sexual sequence. In these innovative readings, tropes such as first and second, origin and outcome, and heterosexuality and homosexuality are shown to reinforce heterosexual precedence. Inconsequence intervenes in current debates in lesbian historiography, taking as its pivotal moment the fin-de-siècle phenomenon of the sexological codification of sexual taxonomies and concluding with a reading of a post-Kinsey pulp sexological text. Throughout, Jagose reminds us that categories of sexual registration are always back-formations, secondary, and belated, not only for those who identify as lesbian but also for all sexual subjects.

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Night Boat to New York: Steamboats on the Connecticut, 1824-1931, is a portrait of the vanished steamboat days–when a procession of stately sidewheelers plied between Hartford and New York City, docking at Peck’s Slip on the East River in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. At one time, Hartford could boast two thousand steamboat arrivals and departures in a year. Altogether, some thirty-five large steamboats were in service on the Connecticut River in these years, largely on the Hartford to New York City route. These Long Island Sound steamers, unlike the tubby, wedding cake dowagers of Western waters, were long, sleek craft, with sharp prows cutting a neat wake as they cruised along. Departing each afternoon from State Street or Talcott Street wharf in Hartford, the “night boats” reached New York at daybreak, inaugurating a pattern of city commuting that continues to this day. Steamboating not only brought people and goods—Colt’s firearms and Essex’s pianos—down river to New York for export to world markets, but also helped America’s inland “spa Culture” transplant itself to the seashore, making steamboating not just convenient transportation but also a social phenomenon noted by such writers as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. No wonder crowds wept in the fall of 1931, when the last steamboats, made obsolete by the automobile, churned away from the dock and headed downriver—never to return.

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