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Poems to celebrate the winter season.A wonderful bedside companion for a frosty winter’s evening, with poems to immerse yourself in the season. From William Shakespeare to John Keats to Katherine Mansfield, the finest poets that ever put pen to paper describe this beautiful and sometimes terrible season.With one entry for every day through winter, from 1st December until 28th or 29th February, this is the ideal book to take you through the darker months and find joy and comfort in nature.In December ‘Gaunt in gloom’ begins James Joyce’s ‘Nightpiece’. In January, there’s a ‘certain slant of light for Emily Dickinson, while ‘the dull dead wind is out of tune’ for Oscar Wilde. And in February, the last month of meteorological winter, William Morris muses ‘From this chill thaw to dream of blossomed May’.This beautiful and collectable anthology of poems derives from the popular A Poem for Every Night of the Year and also features wintry poems by Alice Oswald, Edward Lear, Emily Brontë, William Wordsworth, Ted Hughes and many more.

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Lance Butler claims that Victorian language was too immersed in Christianity for the modern reader to deduce a simple story about "loss of faith" in Victorian culture. At the same time, the forces that gave rise to doubt were sufficiently strong to mean that Victorian language also contained elements that disturbed faith. Thus the poets, novelists, and sages of the period were structuring a discourse that simultaneously relied on religion and undermined it. Contents: Introduction; Endemic Doubt in Victorian Literature; Dickens, Carlyle and Hell on Earth; The Discourse of Religion among Victorian Doubters; Disbelieving Religiously: the 1870's and the Need for Compromise; "A Christianity in Harmony with our Whole Nature"; Truth's Holy Sepulchre: George Eliot and the Case of Daniel Deranda; A Possible Messiah: Henry Drummond's Analogy of Religion; Failed Violence in Victorian Fiction; "Unless the World is to Perish": Hardy and Christian Discourse.^R

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A powerful guide for seeking out the best acquisition and merger targets As increasingly more companies look to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as a source of new growth and revenue, there is an even greater chance that these M&As will go bad. This insightful guide focuses on one of the most often debated and key issues in mergers and acquisitions-why some deals fail miserably and why others prosper. It provides a complete road map for what potential buyers should look for when picking a target and what characteristics of sellers they should steer clear of, as well as pitfalls to avoid during the M&A process. Real-world examples are provided of high-profile failures-Quaker Oats, United Airlines, Sears, and Mattel-and high-profile successes-General Electric and Cisco. Patrick A. Gaughan (New York, NY) is President of Economatrix Research Associates and a professor of Economics and Finance at the College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is actively engaged in the practice of business valuations for mergers and acquisitions, as well as other related applications.

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As a literary subject, Christmas has inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas, to fanciful flights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression is represented in this wonderfully engaging collection. Goblins frolic in the graveyard of an early Dickens tale; a love-struck ghost disrupts a country estate in Elizabeth Bowen's 'Green Holly'; devils, witches, Cossacks and peasants cavort in Gogol's 'The Night Before Christmas'. The plight of the less fortunate haunts Chekhov's 'Vanka' and Willa Cather's 'The Burglar's Christmas', but takes a boisterously comic turn in Damon Runyon's 'Dancing Dan's Christmas' and John Cheever's 'Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor'. From Nabokov's intensely moving story of a father's grief in 'Christmas' to Truman Capote's hilarious yet heartbreaking 'A Christmas Memory', from Grace Paley's Jewish girl in the Christmas pageant in 'The Loudest Voice' to the dysfunctional family ski holiday in Richard Ford's 'Creche' - each of the stories is imbued with Christmas spirit of one kind or another, and all are richly and indelibly entertaining.

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In the 1890s, French poet and playwright Alfred Jarry founded pataphysics, the absurdist “science of imaginary solutions,” a concept that has been nominally recognized as the precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Theater of the Absurd, among other movements. Over a century after Jarry “made the gesture of dying,” Katie L. Price and Michael R. Taylor argue that it is time to take the comedic intervention of pataphysics seriously.’Pataphysics Unrolled collects critical and creative essays to create an unauthorized account of pataphysical experimentation from its origins in the late nineteenth century through the contemporary moment. Reaching beyond the geographic and cultural boundaries normally associated with pataphysics, this volume presents rich readings of pataphysical syzygy, traces the influence of pataphysics across disciplines and outside of coteries such as the Collège de ’Pataphysique, and asks fundamental questions about the field of modern and contemporary studies that challenge distinctions between the modern and the postmodern, high and low culture, the serious and the comic. Touching on disciplines such as literature, art, architecture, education, music, and technology, this book reveals how pataphysics has been a platform and medium for persistent intellectual, poetic, conceptual, and artistic experimentation for over a century.In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Charles Bernstein, Marc Décimo, Adam Dickinson, Johanna Drucker, Craig Dworkin, Catherine Hansen, James Hendler, John Heon, Ted Hiebert, Andrew Hugill, Steve McCaffery, Seth McDowell, Jerome McGann, Anne M. Mulhall, Marcus O’Dair, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Orchid Tierney, and Brandon Walsh.

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If you are looking for the intersection of past practices, current thinking, and future insights into the ever-expanding world of Entrepreneurship education, then you will want to read and explore the third volume of the Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy. Prepared under the auspices of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), this compendium covers a broad range of scholarly, practical, and thoughtful perspectives on a compelling range of entrepreneurship education issues.The third volume spans topics ranging from innovative practices in facilitating entrepreneurship teaching and learning inside and outside the classroom, learning innovation, model programs, to the latest research from top programs and thoughts leaders in Entrepreneurship. Moreover, the third volume builds on those previous as it continues to investigate critical issues in designing, implementing and assessing experiential learning techniques in the field of entrepreneurship.This updated volume provides insights and challenges in the development of entrepreneurship education for students, educators, mentors, community leaders, and more. Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy - 2018 is a must-have book for any entrepreneurship professor, scholar or program director dedicated to advancing entrepreneurship education in the U.S. and around the world.Contributors include: S. Ahluwalia, N. Alabduljader, S. Alpi, B. Aulet, C. Bandera, S.H. Barr, L. Berçot, T. Best, C. Bodnar, C. Brush, K. Byrd, J.C. Carr, B.J. Cowden, P. Dickson, M. Dominik, K. Ellborg, A. Eminet, Y.J. English, G. Gonzalez, B. Graham, L. Gundry, A. Hargadon, J. Hart, G. Hertz, T.R. Holcomb, B. Honig, A. Huang-Saad, J.A. Katz, E. Koester, S. Kogelen, P. Kreiser, A. Kukreti, Y. Lee, J. Libarkin, E. Liguori, R.V. Mahto, C.H. Matthews, W. McDowell, T.L. Michaelis, P. Mitra, K. Passerini, L. Pittaway, J.M. Pollack, K. Pon, R.S. Ramani, J. Reid, L. Ross, Y. Rubin, N. Sebra, S. Sen, L. Sheats, P. Shekhar, B.R. Smith, G.T. Solomon, S. Solomon, S. Terjesen, S.W. Thiel, B. Thomsen, O. Voula, M.K. Ward, A.H. Wrede, L.J. Zane, Y. Zhang, A. Zimbroff

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An innovative novel featuring an astonishingly wicked female villain, Wilkie Collins's Armadale was regarded by T.S. Eliot as 'the best of [his] romances'. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by John Sutherland.When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money - and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as 'One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction'. She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian 'sensation novels'.John Sutherland's introduction illustrated how Wilkie Collins drew on scandalous newspaper headlines and on new technology particularly the penny post and the telegraph - to lend extra pace and veracity to his tale. This edition also contains notes, further reading and an appendix on stage dramatisations of Armadale.Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep. Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868).If you enjoyed Armadale, you might like Collins's No Name, also available in Penguin Classics.

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A witty, intricately-plotted exploration of a sudden fall from grace, the Penguin Classics edition of Wilkie Collins's No Name is edited with an introduction and notes by Mark Ford.Magdalen and her sister Norah, beloved daughters of Mr and Mrs Vanstone, find themselves the victims of a catastrophic oversight. Their father has neglected to change his will, and when the girls are suddenly orphaned, their inheritance goes to their uncle. Now penniless, the conventional Norah takes up a position as a governess, but the defiant and tempestuous Magdalen cannot accept the loss of what is rightfully hers and decides to do whatever she can to win it back. With the help of cunning Captain Wragge, she concocts a scheme that involves disguise, deceit and astonishing self-transformation. In this compelling, labyrinthine story Wilkie Collins brilliantly demonstrates the gap between justice and the law, and in the subversive Magdalen he portrays one of the most exhilarating heroines of Victorian fiction.In his introduction Mark Ford examines themes of identity and illegitimacy within Victorian society and compares No Name to Collins's more 'sensational' fiction. This edition also includes notes and a bibliography.Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was born in London in 1824, the eldest son of the landscape painter William Collins. In 1846 he was entered to read for the bar at Lincoln's Inn, where he gained the knowledge that was to give him much of the material for his writing. From the early 1850s he was a friend of Charles Dickens, who produced and acted in two melodramas written by Collins, The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep. Of his novels, Collins is best remembered for The Woman in White (1859), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868).If you enjoyed No Name, you might like Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, also available in Penguin Classics.

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For decades Alan Powers has studied bird vocalizations, developing the remarkable ability to imitate birds’ songs and get them to respond and even change tunes. Through his years of study, he has discovered that birds can teach us important lessons about the world and about ourselves. As Powers explains, by communing cross-species we reach out to the timeless interconnected web of all life past and present--what Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno called in Latin the Uni-versus, the “Whole turned into One.” Sharing his journey to learn birdtalk and his profound observations about the poetic, spiritual, and healing influences of birdsong, Powers explores the ancient language of birds and the depth of meaning birds convey. He explains how bird speech sounds like song to us, but birdtalk is urgent and nuanced, whether about predators or the weather. He details how he began learning birdtalk, listening to one bird each summer, learning their many vocalizations and variations. Discussing specific techniques, he shares insights into the birdtalk of many species, including the complex and intelligent speech of Crows, the emotional depths of Loons, the mimicry of Blue Jays, and the beautiful song of the Wood Thrush. Exploring the intertwined metaphysics of bird and human languages, Powers looks at the long-standing tradition of “avitherapy” throughout history, literature, and the arts. He shares insights into birds from Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, reveals how birds appear in love songs throughout the world, and examines how famous writers such as Keats, Catullus, St. Francis of Assisi, and the French historian Jules Michelet found that talking to birds improves their state of mind. He also explores how song-talk with birds restores peace, calms anxiety, and enhances health.

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One of the most recurrent and controversial subjects of nineteenth–century discourse was work. Many thinkers associated work with honest pursuit of doing good, not the curse accompanying exile from Eden but rather “a great gift of God.” Sincerely undertaken work comprised a mission entailing a commitment to serve others and promote a better future for all. Satisfaction with what work could do for individuals had its counterbalance in the anger and dismay expressed at the conditions of those whom Robert Owen, in 1817, first called the “working class.” What working–class people confronted both at the labor site and at their lodgings was construed as oppressive, and the misery of their lives became the subject of sentimental poetry, government report, popular fiction, and journalistic expose. Perhaps as heated as the discussion about conditions of lower–class workers was the conversation about separate spheres of work for men and women. This conversation, too, found its way into the literature and public discourse of the day. In The Voice of Toil, the editors have collected the central writings from a pivotal place and time, including poems, stories, essays, and a play that reflect four prominent ways in which the subject of work was addressed: Work as Mission, Work as Opportunity, Work as Oppression, and (Separate) Spheres of Work. The resulting anthology offers a provocative text for students of nineteenth-century British literature and history and a valuable resource for scholars. The text includes readings from John Wesley, William Blake, Elizabeth Gaskell, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, William Morris, Joanna Baillie, Friedrich Engels, Matthew Arnold, Angela Burdett–Coutts, John Stuart Mill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Bernard Shaw and many others.

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Increasingly in the last decade, macropolitics—a consideration of political transformations at the level of the state—has become a focus for cultural inquiry. From the macropolitical perspective afforded by contemporary postcolonial studies, the essays in this collection explore the relationship between politics and culture by examining developments in a wide range of nineteenth-century writing. The dozen essays gathered here span the entire era of colonization and discuss the British Isles, Europe, the United States, India, the Caribbean, and Africa. Addressing the works of Wordsworth, Shelley, Dickens, Melville, Flaubert, Conrad, and Charlotte Brontë, as well as explorers’ reports, Bible translations, popular theater, and folklore, the contributors consider such topics as the political function of aesthetic containment, the redefinitions of nationality under the pressure of imperial ambition, and the coexistence of imperial and revolutionary tendencies. New historical data and new interpretive perspectives alter our conception of established masterpieces and provoke new understandings of the political and cultural context within which these works emerged. This anthology demonstrates that the macropolitical concept of imperialism can provide a new understanding of nineteenth-century cultural production by integrating into a single process the well-established topics of nationalism and exoticism. First published in 1991 (University of Pennsylvania Press), Macropolitics of Nineteenth-Century Literature is now available in paperback. Offering agenda-setting essays in cultural and Victorian studies, it will be of interest to students and scholars of British and American literature, literary theory, and colonial and postcolonial studies.Contributors. Jonathan Arac, Chris Bongie, Wai-chee Dimock, Bruce Greenfield, Mark Kipperman, James F. Knapp, Loren Kruger, Lisa Lowe, Susan Meyer, Jeff Nunokawa, Harriet Ritvo, Marlon B. Ross, Nancy Vogeley, Sue Zemka

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The one hundred sites in this guide are in all six New England States, dating from the early 17th century to the threshold of our time and the architectural styles reflect those popular over a period of four centuries. The sites are varied and were the homes of leaders and literati, merchants and millionaires, poets and Pilgrims, philosophers and farmers, and seafarers and Shakers. Each chapter lists the museum’s location, web address, and telephone number and provide a description of the historical occupants as well as an in-depth look at the house's place in national and architectural history. Sites include: Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford CT Sarah Orne Jewett House, Souther Berwick ME Emily Dickinson Museum, Amherst MA Robert Frost Farm, Derry NH The Breakers, Newport RI

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Carlos is the talented heir to a notable family in fin-de-siecle Lisbon. He aspires to serve his fellow man in his chosen profession of medicine, in the arts and in politics. But he enters a society affected by powerful international influences - French intellectual developments, English trading practices - that trouble and frustrate him and in the end he is reduced to a kind of spiritual helplessness. Carlos' good intentions decline, amiably, into dilettantism; his passionate love affair itself begins to suffer a devastating constraint. "The Maias" tells a compelling story of characters whose lives become as real and engrossing as any in Flaubert, Balzac or Dickens. This is his masterpiece, a novel of intellectual depth, historical compassion and great wit. Hailed as a masterpiece in the Paris of Flaubert, Balzac and Zola, this remains Eca's most popular novel.

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Flamboyant Matthew Cannonbridge was touched by genius, the most influential mind of the 19th century, a novelist, playwright, the poet of his generation. The only problem is, he should never have existed, and recently divorced 21st century don Toby Judd is the only person to realise something is wrong with history.Cannonbridge was everywhere: he was by Lake Geneva when talk between Byron, Shelley and Mary Godwin turned to the supernatural; he was friend to the young Dickens as he laboured in the blacking factory; he was the only man of note to visit Wilde in prison. His extraordinary life spanned a century. But as the world prepares to toast the bicentenary of Cannonbridge’s most celebrated work, Judd’s discovery leads him on a breakneck chase across the English canon and countryside, to the realisation that the spectre of Matthew Cannonbridge, planted so seamlessly into the heart of the 19th century, might not be so dead and buried after all...

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In 1995 Alice’s mother collapsed with pneumonia. She never fully recovered and was eventually diagnosed with ME, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Then Alice got ill. Their symptoms mirrored their mother’s and appeared to have no physical cause; they received the same diagnosis a few years later. Ill Feelings blends memoir, medical history, biography and literary non-fiction to uncover both of their case histories, and branches out into the records of ill health that women have written about in diaries and letters. Their cast of characters includes Virginia Woolf and Alice James, the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson, John Ruskin’s lost love Rose la Touche, the artist Louise Bourgeois and the nurse Florence Nightingale. Suffused with a generative, transcendent rage, Alice Hattrick’s genre-bending debut is a moving and defiant exploration of life with a medically unexplained illness.

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Sunday is fun day with these 72 medium-difficulty puzzles, featuring fun facts in the answer section. If you’ve got a sharp pencil and a sharp mind, you’ll love solving these super Sunday-sized crosswords. Originally appearing in the Long Island newspaper Newsday, they were crafted by an all-star lineup of constructors and edited by puzzle expert Stanley Newman. Each puzzle features a fabulous theme—including Dickens, Frosty the Snowman, the Chinese zodiac, and US presidents—and every clue has been vetted for accuracy. Fun facts in the back of the book shed light on select answers.Looking for crossword puzzle books for adults, spiral bound to make completing your morning puzzle without bending the spine a breeze? Look no further! The Sunday Crosswords books series from Puzzlewright Press will keep your mind sharp for many mornings and weekends to come.

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Dear Reader,There is nothing to be found in A Series of Unfortunate Events' but misery and despair. You still have time to choose another international best-selling series to read. But if you insist on discovering the unpleasant adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, then proceed with cautionViolet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky.In The End, the siblings face a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.In the tradition of great storytellers, from Dickens to Dahl, comes an exquisitely dark comedy that is both literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted.Despite their wretched contents, A Series of Unfortunate Events' has sold 60 million copies worldwide and been made into a Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey and a Netflix series directed by Nei

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Dear Reader,There is nothing to be found in A Series of Unfortunate Events' but misery and despair. You still have time to choose another international best-selling series to read. But if you insist on discovering the unpleasant adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, then proceed with cautionViolet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky.In The Grim Grotto, the siblings face mushrooms, a desperate search for something lost, a mechanical monster, a distressing message from a lost friend, and tap dancingIn the tradition of great storytellers, from Dickens to Dahl, comes an exquisitely dark comedy that is both literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted.Despite their wretched contents, A Series of Unfortunate Events' has sold 60 million copies worldwide and been made into a Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey and a Netflix series starring Neil Patrick

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GCSE Literature Boost: A Christmas Carol uses academic criticism and theory to relight your literary passion for this classic text and put a newfound excitement in your pedagogy. Beginning with a whistlestop tour of literary theory and criticism from 400BC to the late 20th century, Hughes explains how you can introduce your GCSE English students to themes most often reserved for undergraduate courses, improving their understanding of the text and broadening their knowledge of the subject as a whole.Written in easily digestible chunks, each chapter considers a main theme or section of Charles Dickensâ A Christmas Carol through different critical lenses summarising the relevant academic theories, and shows how you can transfer this knowledge to the classroom through practical teaching ideas. Features include: Case studies showing how English teachers have used academic theory in practical ways. Ideas for teaching linked to GCSE assessment objectives

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'There is no Light without Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe'So proclaims Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and the man with a commission to build seven London churches to stand as beacons of the enlightenment. But Dyer plans to conceal a dark secret at the heart of each church - to create a forbidding architecture that will survive for eternity. Two hundred and fifty years later, London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sites of certain eighteenth-century churches - crimes that make no sense to the modern mind . . . 'Chillingly brilliant . . . sinister and stunningly well executed' Independent on SundayPeter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949. A novelist, biographer and historian, he has been the literary editor of The Spectator and chief book reviewer for the The Times, as well as writing several highly acclaimed books including a biography of Dickens and London: The Biography. He lives in London.

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Notorious outlaw Lawrence Grey has been captured near El Paso. Marshal Neilan has a proposal for him. Neilan will set Grey free if he tries to locate John Ray, a man who was last known to be living in San Vicente, Mexico. The men Neilan sent previously have disappeared or quit the job. Brick Forbes of Pittsburgh is worth millions. Ray once did him a kindness. Now that Forbes is desperately ill, he wants to leave his fortune to Ray rather than to his own relatives. Grey agrees to Neilan’s proposal and goes to San Vicente, where he promptly saves the life of Mexican general Miguel O’Riley during a bombing attempt. The general makes inquiries and learns that the stranger who saved his life is called John Lawrence and that he is studying Spanish. Another American named Dickson Jarvis, employed by Forbes’s relatives, informs O’Riley that Lawrence is actually a wanted outlaw on both sides of the border. Later, Jarvis is murdered. Lawrence has his own audience with General O’Riley and asks him for a guide into the mountains. O’Riley sends for Oliver Slade, a man who strangely resembles the one who killed Jarvis. This proves only the beginning of an intrigue in which Lawrence’s life is threatened continually from all sides.

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"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But behind the melodrama lies a thoroughly modern figure whose extraordinary life is an electrifying study in self-invention. Born in 1806, Barrett Browning lived in an age when women could not attend a university, own property after marriage, or vote. And yet she seized control of her private income, defied chronic illness and disability, became an advocate for the revolutionary Italy to which she eloped, and changed the course of cultural history. Her late-in-life verse novel masterpiece, Aurora Leigh, reveals both the brilliance and originality of her mind, as well as the challenges of being a woman writer in the Victorian era. A feminist icon, high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery, and international literary superstar, Barrett Browning inspired writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf. Two-Way Mirror is the first biography of Barrett Browning in more than three decades. With unique access to the poet’s abundant correspondence, “astute, thoughtful, and wide-ranging guide” (Times [UK]) Fiona Sampson holds up a mirror to the woman, her art, and the art of biography itself.

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How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontes, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

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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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The Body Economic revises the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Britain by demonstrating that political economists and the writers who often presented themselves as their literary antagonists actually held most of their basic social assumptions in common. Catherine Gallagher demonstrates that political economists and their Romantic and early-Victorian critics jointly relocated the idea of value from the realm of transcendent spirituality to that of organic "life," making human sensations--especially pleasure and pain--the sources and signs of that value. Classical political economy, this book shows, was not a mechanical ideology but a form of nineteenth-century organicism, which put the body and its feelings at the center of its theories, and neoclassical economics built itself even more self-consciously on physiological premises. The Body Economic explains how these shared views of life, death, and sensation helped shape and were modified by the two most important Victorian novelists: Charles Dickens and George Eliot. It reveals how political economists interacted crucially with the life sciences of the nineteenth century--especially with psychophysiology and anthropology--producing the intellectual world that nurtured not only George Eliot's realism but also turn-of-the-century literary modernism.

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In a careful examination of personal and collective histories, David Keplinger’s Ice indexes the findings from memory’s slow melt—stories and faces we’ve forgotten, bones hidden in frost.“I am asking how much more / I have to learn from this,” Keplinger writes. “You are asking that same question.” In these poems, he turns to our predecessors for guidance in picking apart the forces that govern modernity—masculinity, power, knowledge, conquest. Cryptic visitants arrive in the form of Gilgamesh, “searching for a way to stay in pain forever”; a grandmother mending socks, “her face in the dark unchanging”; Emily Dickinson, lingering at her window; a lion cub, asleep in ice for millennia.With each comes a critique of the Anthropocene, our drive to possess the unpossessable. With each comes also the discovery of what—and who—we’ve harmed in the discovering. Ice shelves collapse. Climate change melts layers of permafrost to reveal a severed wolf’s head. A pair of grease-smudged reading glasses calls up a mother’s phantom. “I am sorry / for the parts you gave me / that I’ve misshapen,” Keplinger writes.So is there “a point to all this singing”? Our ancestors cannot answer. The wolf’s head can’t, either. But sometimes, “out of the snow of confusion,” something answers, “saying gorgeous things like yes.” And the flowers “open up / their small green trumpets anyway.”

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Would you take the second chance you've always dreamed of?'A wonderful fresh new talent' Katie Fforde It's been ten years since Emma Stevens last laid eyes on Jake Murray. When he left the small seaside village of South Quay to chase the limelight, Emma's dreams left with him.Now Emma is content living a quiet and uneventful life in South Quay. It's far from the life she imagined, but at least her job at the local hotel has helped heal her broken heart.But when Jake returns home for the summer to escape the spotlight, Emma's feelings quickly come flooding back. There's clearly a connection between them, but Jake has damaged her heart once already - will she ever be able to give him a second chance?Escape with this perfect, heartwarming summer romance, for fans of Sue Moorcroft and Miranda Dickinson.Readers love THE SUMMER OF TAKING CHANCES:'I highly recommend if you are looking for a perfect summery story' NetGalley reviewer'A lovely escapism read' NetGalley reviewer'I haven't been able to put this one down! It's absolutely gorgeous and I highly recommend' NetGalley reviewer'Enjoyable reading' NetGalley reviewer'Great characters and a really good storyline' NetGalley reviewer

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Twelve essays in literary theory, philosophy, and religion – about atheism, freedom, and "the Jesus thought experiment" – connect, but don't conclude. A recurring theme is the "nothing" at the heart of the deep atheism of George Eliot, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy, who approach "nothing" with a directness lacking in their English-speaking philosophical contemporaries. How does being in the world – Thomas Nagel's "what-it's-likeness" – and how do values – Alasdair MacIntyre's justice and misericordia – fare in the face of the mindless "It" that hardy finds at the heart of things? A pivotal essay compares the theism of Paul Ricoeur and the atheism of Daniel Dennett – the subtitle is a response to the latter's latest book.Writing and Freedom defends (a strong version of) free will as necessarily interpersonal: my freedom is nothing but my acceptance of yours. This is how Milton, Rossetti, and Dickinson treat their readers, and how scientists and philosophers ideally treat each other. Moreover, both "nothing" and "freedom" are fundamental to biblical and religious narratives (Mark and Newman). God, being "out of all relation" with the finite, cannot be known from the text of the world. Yet as "nothing," God may be said to grant unconditional autonomy to his creatures, and therefore to be present in his absence. It is round "nothing," therefore, that atheists and theists endlessly circulate. But that is what the deep atheism of European thinkers – Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and Zizek – say we all do anyway, however excitedly we pretend to ourselves that we don't.

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A hilarious and satirical debut novel exploring religious hypocrisy in an Irish grade school. Combining the spirit of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim with a bawdy evisceration of hypocrisy in old-school Catholic education, The Brothers' Lot is a comic satire that tells the story of the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means, a dilapidated Dickensian institution run by an assemblage of eccentric, insane, and often nasty celibate Brothers. The school is in decline and the Brothers hunger for a miracle to move their founder, the Venerable Saorseach O'Rahilly, along the path to Sainthood. When a possible miracle presents itself, the Brothers fervently seize on it with the help of the ethically pliant Diocesan Investigator, himself hungry for a miracle to boost his career. The school simultaneously comes under threat from strange outside forces. The harder the Brothers try to defend the school, the worse things seem to get. It takes an outsider, Finbar Sullivan, a young student newly arrived at the school, to see that the source of the threat may in fact lie inside the school itself. As the miracle unravels, the Brothers' efforts to preserve it unleash a disastrous chain of events. Tackling a serious subject from the oblique viewpoint of satire, The Brothers' Lot explores the culture that allowed abuses within church-run institutions in Ireland to go unchecked for decades. The novel inhabits a space where Angela's Ashes meets the work of Flann O'Brien and Mervyn Peake, while providing a look at a regrettable era that still haunts many countries across the globe.

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The heart-warming and uplifting Sunday Times bestseller from Giovanna Fletcher'This book is beautiful' ZOE BALL'Lovely, very moving. Giovanna's books are very very relatable' LORRAINE KELLYIt's always darkest before the dawn . . .________After Mike loses Pia, his partner of seventeen years, best friends Vicky and Zaza rally round.But the truth is, in Pia's absence, they all need more than a little help . . .Just-engaged Zaza fears the next step. Mum Vicky has lost sight of herself. And Mike can't figure out how to start again.Luckily, Pia left a list of loving instructions to help them cope.Which is why they find themselves trekking in Peru. Stumbling up mountains. Lost in sweltering rainforests. As friendships and hope fray, they cling to their faith in Pia.Soon they learn anything is possible when you're walking on sunshine.________'Heartfelt, uplifting. Her best yet' SUNPraise for Giovanna Fletcher:'Tons of charm and genuine warmth' Star'A heartbreakingly beautiful story about friendship and unrequited love. I was totally and utterly captivated' Paige Toon'A gorgeous, gloriously romantic read with buckets of charm - I absolutely loved it!' Jill Mansell'Warm and romantic, this charming read will certainly brighten up your day' Closer'A gorgeously tender, funny and big-hearted novel with wonderful characters you'll fall in love with' Miranda Dickinson'Wonderfully warm and cosy. The perfect comfort read to curl-up with and enjoy' Ali McNamara

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'Heartwarming historical fiction ... The perfect stocking filler for fans of Nancy Revell, Daisy Styles and Margaret Dickinson' Eastern Daily Press___________________Manchester, 1941Christmas is the season for family and friends, and this year the railway girls will need each other more than ever.Cordelia appears to have the perfect life. When her daughter Emily arrives home unexpectedly, she can't wait to introduce her to her friends. But when things don't go to plan, Cordelia must decide where her loyalty lies.Things aren't going too smoothly for Alison either. Her beloved boyfriend has yet to propose, but there's a charity fundraiser dance and she's dressed up specially. Surely, tonight must be the night.Colette's friends are envious of her devoted husband; he meets her after every shift on the railway, and accompanies her around town. But Colette has a secret, one that will change her life - if only she knew who to confide in.With the festive season fast approaching, the railway girls are hoping for some Christmas magic... ___________________ Readers LOVE the Railway Girls:'Make yourself a cuppa and find a comfy spot on the sofa because you are not going to be able to put this down''I simply cannot wait for the next one - I am hooked!''Gives a vivid picture of women's lives in wartime Manchester''Dramatic, intriguing and sprinkled with plenty of wit and heart''It's just like catching up with old friends'

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Finalist for the SIBA Book AwardA loamy volume of verse thematically inspired, Working the Dirt celebrates Southerners' connections to the land. The selected poems share themes of gardening, farming, and the rich Southern soil. The approximately one hundred poets, known and lesser-known, living and dead, include: Fred Chappell, Walter McDonald, A. R. Ammons, Robert Morgan, Wendell Berry, Henry Taylor, Tom Dent, Jesse Stuart, Jim Wayne Miller, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Marion Montgomery, James Whitehead, C. D. Wright, George Scarbrough, Ahmos Zu-Bolton II, Thad Stem, Jr., William Sprunt, Donald Justice, Thomas Rabbitt, James Dickey, Rick Lott, John Allison, Edwin Godsey, Richard Jackson, Nikki Giovanni, Alvin Aubert, Margaret Walker, Emily Hiestand, Robert Gibbons, John Stone, Coppie Green, Bonnie Roberts, Coleman Barks, Anne George, Edward Eaton, Margaret Gibson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jack Butler, R. H. W. Dillard, Jane Gentry, Rodney Jones, Dannye Romine, Miller Williams, George Garrett, Sandra Agricola, Patricia Hooper, Gerald Berrax, Gibbons Ruark, Catherine Savage Brosman, Loretta Cobb, and Pattiann Rogers.

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A History of Zinnias brings forward the fascinating adventure of zinnias and the spirit of civilization. With colorful illustrations, this book is a cultural and horticultural history documenting the development of garden zinnias—one of the top ten garden annuals grown in the United States today.The deep and exciting history of garden zinnias pieces together a tale involving Aztecs, Spanish conquistadors, people of faith, people of medicine, explorers, scientists, writers, botanists, painters, and gardeners. The trail leads from the halls of Moctezuma to a cliff-diving prime minister; from Handel, Mozart, and Rossini to Gilbert and Sullivan; from a little-known confession by Benjamin Franklin to a controversy raised by Charles Darwin; from Emily Dickinson, who writes of death and zinnias, to a twenty-year-old woman who writes of reanimated corpses; and from a scissor-wielding septuagenarian who painted with bits of paper to the "Black Grandma Moses" who painted zinnias and inspired the opera Zinnias.Zinnias are far more than just a flower: They represent the constant exploration of humankind's quest for beauty and innovation.

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A cultural revolution in England, France, and the United States beginning during the time of the industrial and political revolutions helped usher in modernity. This cultural revolution worked alongside the better documented political and economic revolutions to usher in the modern era of continuous revolution. Focusing on the period between 1847 and 1937, the book examines in depth six of the cultural "battles" that were key parts of this revolution: the novels of the Brontë sisters, the paintings of the Impressionists, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, the Ballets Russes production of Le Sacre du printemps, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Using contemporaneous reviews in the press as well as other historical material, we can see that these now-canonical works provoked outrage at the time of their release because they addressed critical points of social upheaval and transformation in ways that engaged broad audiences with subversive messages. This framework allows us to understand and navigate the cultural debates that play such an important role in 21st century politics.

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Welcome to the George Inn near London Bridge; a cosy, wood-pannelled, galleried coaching house a few minutes' walk from the Thames. Grab yourself a pint, listen to the chatter of the locals and lean back, resting your head against the wall. And then consider this: who else has rested their head against that wall, over the last 600 years? Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims almost certainly drank in the George on their way out of London to Canterbury. It's fair to say that Shakespeare will have popped in from the nearby Globe for a pint, and we know that Dickens certainly did. Mail carriers changed their horses here, before heading to all four corners of Britain -- while sailors drank here before visiting all four corners of the world... The pub, as Pete Brown points out, is the 'primordial cell of British life' and in the George he has found the perfect case study. All life is here, from murderers, highwaymen and ladies of the night to gossiping pedlars a

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A critical re-evaluation of the imaginative transformations of Romanticism by major American writers The study traverses the traditional critical boundaries of prose and poetry in American and Romantic and Post-Romantic writing Reasserts the significance of Second-Generation Romantic writers for American literary culture Reassessing the indebtedness of major American writers to British Romanticism This book provides innovative readings of literary works of British Romanticism and its influence on twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literary culture and thought. It traverses the traditional critical boundaries of prose and poetry in American and Romantic and post-Romantic writing. Analysing significant works by nineteenth-century writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson, as well as the later writings of William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison and Wallace Stevens, the book reasserts the significance of second-generation Romantic writers for American literary culture. Sandy reassesses our understanding of Romantic inheritance and influence on post-Romantic aesthetics, subjectivity and the natural world in the American imagination.

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Critics of American exceptionalism usually view it as a destructive force eroding the radical energies of social movements and aesthetic practices. In A Desire Called America, Christian P. Haines confronts a troubling paradox: Some of the most provocative political projects in the United States are remarkably invested in American exceptionalism. Riding a strange current of U.S. literature that draws on American exceptionalism only to overturn it in the name of utopian desire, Haines reveals a tradition of viewing the United States as a unique and exemplary political model while rejecting exceptionalism’s commitments to nationalism, capitalism, and individualism. Through Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William S. Burroughs, and Thomas Pynchon, Haines brings to light a radically different version of the American dream—one in which political subjects value an organization of social life that includes democratic self-governance, egalitarian cooperation, and communal property. A Desire Called America brings utopian studies and the critical discourse of biopolitics to bear upon each other, suggesting that utopia might be less another place than our best hope for confronting authoritarianism, neoliberalism, and a resurgent exclusionary nationalism.

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Motherhood. Not for the faint hearted or blasé, it’s a state of being that tries one’s patience, purpose and peace. Sequel to 10 Women Who Overcame their Past, Dayspring Macleod’s 10 Women Who were Spiritual Mothers is set to be yet another poignant read. In tackling themes from purity to patience, each focused narrative allows the reader an insight into the lives of women whom they may have heard of but not known well. From Katherine Parr, sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, to Sharon Dickens and Lisa Harper, the ten women represent a spectrum of life delivered via the prism of motherhood. This book isn’t only for mothers. It’s for those who are heartbroken, single, bereft or at peace in later life. Discipleship is a key theme, be it with the children who litter your hallways with Nerf Pellets or friends undergoing the ups and downs of infertility. As a woman who knows the support of women in her own life, Macleod has gracefully painted a canvas of joy in sorrows, peace and panic and Christ’s love triumphant.

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‘Begins as a compelling psychological mystery [and] turns to the supernatural... A well-plotted, original, nightmare blend of madness and monsters.’ Guardian The Regent Hotel in Birmingham is a place of lush glamour, where guests sip absinthe cocktails on velvet banquettes and obliging waiters are always on hand. Yet behind its glittering façade, you might find monsters lurking in the shadows... On a cold February evening, Nora Dickinson checks in. A psychoanalyst with a dubious past, Nora has battled not to let her own demons overcome her. But when a terrible snowstorm cuts The Regent off from the outside world, the entire hotel’s grip on reality slips – and the nightmares Nora’s worked so hard to control begin to bare their teeth. Kate Mascarenhas’s latest novel offers her readers a horrifying ride through murder, madness and the darkest recesses of the mind. 'A delicious piece of art deco Gothic' Natalie Marlow ‘Dark, complex and beautifully plotted' Rebecca Netley ‘Immersive, unique... with a dark supernatural core’ Essie Fox ‘An atmospheric, claustrophobic novel... mesmerising’ Elizabeth Lee

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A NEW YORK TIMES 2023 SUMMER READ Meet Tony: the first Indian to set foot on American soil. Among the settlers, slaves, and indentured servants that make the treacherous journey across the Atlantic to the New World in the early 1600s — for some, an exciting opportunity, for others, a brutal abduction — there is also Tony. As a child, his homeland on the Coromandel Coast of India becomes a trading outpost for the English; as an orphaned teenager, he finds himself kidnapped from the streets of London and bound to servitude on a Virginia plantation. But Tony is not giving up on his dreams just yet. Under the rule of a sadistic plantation owner, he forms a tender bond with a young boy who will haunt his nightmares; on an exploration inland alongside a trader and Native Americans, he realises the world is vaster and more mysterious than he could have imagined; and in Jamestown, he finally earns himself a position as a physician’s apprentice, an ambition he has long harboured. The East Indian is a Dickensian-style yarn about family, friendship, and finding oneself in the seeds of a new world.

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Dear reader, There is nothing to be found in Lemony Snicket’s 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' but misery and despair. You still have time to choose another international best-selling series to read. But if you insist on discovering the unpleasant adventures of the Baudelaire orphans, then proceed with caution… Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky. In The Austere Academy the siblings face snapping crabs, strict punishments, dripping fungus, comprehensive exams, violin recitals, S.O.R.E. and the metric system. In the tradition of great storytellers, from Dickens to Dahl, comes an exquisitely dark comedy that is both literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted. Despite their wretched contents, 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' has sold 60 million copies worldwide and been made into a Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey. And in the future things are poised to get much worse, thanks to the forthcoming Netflix series directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. You have been warned. Are you unlucky enough to own all 13 adventures? The Bad Beginning The Reptile Room The Wide Window The Miserable Mill The Austere Academy The Ersatz Elevator The Vile Village The Hostile Hospital The Carnivorous Carnival The Slippery Slope The Grim Grotto The Penultimate Peril The End And what about All The Wrong Questions? In this four-book series a 13-year-old Lemony chronicles his dangerous and puzzling apprenticeship in a mysterious organisation that nobody knows anything about: ‘Who Could That Be at This Hour?’ ‘When Did you Last See Her?’ ‘Shouldn’t You Be in School?’ ‘Why is This Night Different from All Other Nights?’ Lemony Snicket was born before you were and is likely to die before you as well. He was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He grew up near the sea and currently lives beneath it. Until recently, he was living somewhere else. Brett Helquist was born in Ganado, Arizona, grew up in Orem, Utah, and now lives in New York City. He earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Brigham Young University and has been illustrating ever since. His art has appeared in many publications, including Cricket magazine and The New York Times.

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The Recollections of Sir James Bacon, a leading light in the evolution of English law during the 19th century, casts an unexpectedly amusing and high-spirited light on turbulent times. Celebrated in his maturity as a witty judge whose decisions were rarely challenged, he was born in humble circumstances, one of ten children. His Recollections describe a happy and industrious, albeit Dickensian, childhood that began with leaving school for work at age twelve and ended with him enshrined as one of highest officials in the land. Enterprising and gifted, Sir James's story carries us through his early writings and journalism, through his legal career, to his arrival at the pinnacle of government. Sir James also chronicled the colorful panoply of British society in his times: social and political crises, friends imprisoned for gambling debts, travels to Europe in the era of reaction and revolution, the celebrated legal cases he witnessed, and the fascinating Britons he knew. This fresh account, published after 150 years in the family archive, is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Britain, the evolution of its unparalleled legal tradition, and the extraordinary figures who made it possible.

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Age range 4 to 8Abridged to read in 5 minutes or less, this is an invaluable collection of lavishly illustrated nursery rhymes, fables, and tales for young children!Perfect for a quick read together at bedtime or anytime, these famous stories and nursery rhymes will captivate your child with their playful illustrations of cute animals and engaging storylines—and best of all, they can be read in just five minutes! Whether you're on the go, trying to calm kids down before bed, or just need an activity to beat boredom, this treasury of tales is sure to be a welcome addition to any child's library. Crack it open, and enter a world of magic, imagination, and wonder with your little ones.Included are well-known and time-honored stories such as: The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop) The Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen) Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo (Mother Goose) Hickory, Dickory, Dock (Mother Goose) The Itsy Bitsy Spider (Mother Goose) Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Joseph Cudnall) The Three Little Pigs (Joseph Jacobs) Puss in Boots (Giovanni Francesco Straparola) The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) And many more!

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The financial and economic collapse that began in the United States in 2008 and spread to the rest of the world continues to burden the global economy. David Kotz, who was one of the few academic economists to predict it, argues that the ongoing economic crisis is not simply the aftermath of financial panic and an unusually severe recession but instead is a structural crisis of neoliberal, or free-market, capitalism. Consequently, continuing stagnation cannot be resolved by policy measures alone. It requires major institutional restructuring.“Kotz’s book will reward careful study by everyone interested in the question ofstages in the history of capitalism.”—Edwin Dickens, Science & Society“Whereas [others] suggest that the downfall of the postwar system in Europe and the United States is the result of the triumph of ideas, Kotz argues persuasively that it is actually the result of the exercise of power by those who benefit from the capitalist economic organization of society. The analysis and evidence he brings to bear in support of the role of power exercised by business and political leaders is a most valuable aspect of this book—one among many important contributions to our knowledge that makes it worthwhile.”—Michael Meeropol, Challenge

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First published in 1985, Between Men was a decisive intervention in gender studies, a book that all but singlehandedly dislodged a tradition of literary critique that suppressed queer subjects and subjectivities. With stunning foresight and conceptual power, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's work opened not only literature but also politics, society, and culture to broader investigations of power, sex, and desire, and to new possibilities of critical agency. Illuminating with uncanny prescience Western society's evolving debates on gender and sexuality, Between Men still has much to teach us. With a new foreword by Wayne Koestenbaum emphasizing the work's ongoing relevance, Between Men engages with Shakespeare's Sonnets, Wycherley's The Country Wife, Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Tennyson's The Princess, Eliot's Adam Bede, Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., and Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, among many other texts. Its pathbreaking analysis of homosocial desire in Western literature remains vital to the future of queer studies and to explorations of the social transformations in which it participates.

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This is the 11th and final part of the facsimile reprint series of the leading English newspaper published in Yokohama throughout the Meiji era. It represents a complete collection, provided by the Yokohama Archives of History and other institutions. Playing an important role for Meiji Japan’s exchange with western society, the journal contains articles on politics, commerce, and economics, and also on the cultural activities of early Japanologists and the Asiatic Society of Japan. Contributors include George Aston, Ernest Satow, Basil Hall Chamberlain, F. V. Dickins, Henry Dyer, William Anderson, Lafcadio Hearn and many others. It is an indispensable primary source for any scholar of Modern Japan.The Japan Weekly Mail published during this period is in particular important for its coverage of Japanese foreign activities following the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. The collection is a vital primary source for all scholars and students seeking to make sense of Japan’s military movements in the early twentieth century.

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Teachers of literature make judgments about value. They tell their students which works are powerful, beautiful, surprising, strange, or insightful—and thus, which are more worthy of time and attention than others. Yet the field of literary studies has largely disavowed judgments of artistic value on the grounds that they are inevitably rooted in prejudice or entangled in problems of social status. For several decades now, professors have called their work value-neutral, simply a means for students to gain cultural, political, or historical knowledge. ​Michael W. Clune’s provocative book challenges these objections to judgment and offers a positive account of literary studies as an institution of aesthetic education. It is impossible, Clune argues, to separate judgments about literary value from the practices of interpretation and analysis that constitute any viable model of literary expertise. Clune envisions a progressive politics freed from the strictures of dogmatic equality and enlivened by education in aesthetic judgment, transcending consumer culture and market preferences. Drawing on psychological and philosophical theories of knowledge and perception, Clune advocates for the cultivation of what John Keats called “negative capability,” the capacity to place existing criteria in doubt and to discover new concepts and new values in artworks. Moving from theory to practice, Clune takes up works by Keats, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Bernhard, showing how close reading—the profession’s traditional key skill—harnesses judgment to open new modes of perception.

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Stepney had tidal mills along the Thames by 1086. In the Middle Ages it provided a land market for Londoners and courtiers. By Tudor times Poplar, Ratcliff and Shadwell were the most populous parts, where shipbuilding, victualling and recruitment had produced a rootless workforce. Subdivision of the large parish had started and ultimately was to leave only Ratcliff and, inland, Mile End Old Town and Mile End New Town. The growth of all the hamlets is traced to c. 1700, besides economic development to c. 1550 and their local government, religious life and charities. Bethnal Green, in the north-west, a parish from 1743 and metropolitan borough from 1900, is described to the present day. It contained Stepney's manor house, offered country retreats by the 16th century, and was settled from the south-west in the 17th when silkweaving preceded the Huguenots. Harsher economic conditions, jerry-building and the spread of factories aggravated poverty and stimulated the concern of outsiders, including Dickens, who advised on the model Columbia market. From the 1890s council housing transformed the scene. This book is intended for local historians, professional and amateur, social, economic, architectural, ecclesiastical, landscape and family historians.

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