Search results for ""Author Lucy Rollin""

Book SynopsisFrom earliest childhood the nursery rhyme, one of the most captivating genres in our popular culture, has transmitted powerful messages to the child who hears it. These meanings may not be the ones adults perceive or intend, for such didactic precepts as the beneficial need of self-control, social order, and academic responsibility also can be weighted with the sadistic, angry connotations that lie deep in the human spirit. In Cradle and All nursery rhymes are shown to be both the instruments that tell children of the mortal hunger for the forces in the natural world that oppose them. Thus in bearing a double load of meanings, nursery rhymes remove the blinders and push children toward the life of contrasts that abound in their culture. This fascinating examination of the pervasive influence of nursery rhymes reveals patterns of psychological and cultural meaning in a broad range of rhymes, grouping them according to basic subject matter: animal rhymes, courtship and marriage rhymes, lullabies and amusements, and didactic rhymes. Combining the tools of psychoanalysis, literary criticism, folklore studies, cultural history, and cultural anthropology, Cradle and All explores meanings and motives that lie deep in many rhymes that are the fundamental literature of the nursery. This illuminating study also assesses attempts to sanitize rhymes by removing elements that some deem as needlessly violent, antisocial, and sexist. Cradle and Allis unique in its analytical treatment of a large number of rhymes grouped in broad subject areas. In its diverse and comprehensive approach it will appeal to all who enjoy the lore of childhood literature.

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Book SynopsisThis classic novel of childhood is set in fictional St. Petersburg, a town based on Mark Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Twain’s recounting of Tom Sawyer’s many escapades is by turns nostalgic, satiric, wise, and hilarious. While this novel is often considered mainly as the precursor to Twain’s great work The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is abundantly worth considering for its own deft and loving transformation of autobiography into fiction.In addition to the full text of the novel based on the first American edition, complete with a selection of the original illustrations by True Williams, this Broadview edition provides a wide range of appendices that place the novel in the context of 1840s rural America as well as 1870s literary America. These include materials on the composition and marketing of Tom Sawyer, selections from other “boy books” of the period, and historical documents relating to temperance, children’s literature, and schools.Trade Review“Broadview’s new edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer offers students access not only to the text of Mark Twain’s classic 1876 novel but to the 19th-century world that inspired it. Lucy Rollin’s excellent introduction traces Sam Clemens’s path from Hannibal to Hartford, where his childhood memories came to life in the form of an oddly disjointed, episodic, and irresistible tale of romance and adventure. The edition’s four appendices offer an even more detailed picture of the novel’s cultural context, including rich excerpts from rival ‘boy books’ by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Charles Dudley Warner, and William Dean Howells, as well as primary material of the sort a small-town American child might have grown up with in the 1840s. This volume is a magnificent teaching tool, which offers even experienced readers of Mark Twain a compelling reason to return to his first important work of fiction.” — Henry B. Wonham, University of OregonTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionMark Twain: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the Text and IllustrationsThe Adventures of Tom SawyerAppendix A: Composition, Marketing, and Reviews of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Composition From Twain’s “Boy’s Manuscript” (c. 1870) From “Unpublished Chapters from the Autobiography of Mark Twain,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine (August 1922) The Tom Sawyer manuscript Twain’s Correspondence with William Dean Howells (1875–76) Marketing: Advertisement of Subscription Books (1876) Contemporary Reviews William Dean Howells, Atlantic Monthly (May 1876) Anonymous, New York World (1 January 1877) Anonymous, New York Times (13 January 1877) Appendix B: Twain’s Memories of Hannibal Letter to Will Bowen (6 February 1870) Hannibal in 1848 From Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883) From Twain, “Chapters from My Autobiography,” North American Review (2 November 1906) From Twain, “Villagers of 1840–43” (1897) Slavery in Hannibal From Twain, “Chapters from My Autobiography,” North American Review (1 March 1907) Advertisement for Slaves (1848) Appendix C: Bad Boys and Boy Books Bad Boys From B.P. Shillaber, Mrs. Partington’s Knitting Work, and what was done by her plaguy boy Ike (1880) From Twain, “The Story of the Bad Little Boy” (1865) Boy Books From Thomas Bailey Aldrich, The Story of a Bad Boy (1869) From Charles Dudley Warner, Being a Boy (1877) From William Dean Howells, A Boy’s Town (1890) Appendix D: A Small-Town American Childhood in the 1840s School From McGuffey’s Eclectic Spelling Book (1846) From the Friends Infant School (1838) Sunday School From “The Sunday-School Child” (1845) From “The glass of whiskey” (1845) The Temperance Movement: Announcement in the Hannibal Gazette (17 June 1846) Games: From The Boy’s Story Book for Winter Evenings (1838) The Circus: Advertisement in the Hannibal Gazette (October 1847) The Minstrel Show Song from “Bone Squash Diavolo” (1835) Dialogue, “Mosquitoes” (1902) Reading Lawrence Lovechild, “The Deceitful Little Boy” (1840) From Samuel Griswold Goodrich (“Peter Parley”), “Bill Vacant and Henry Hawkseye,” Robert Merry’s Annual, for all seasons (1840) From Jacob Abbott, Rollo Learning to Read (1855) From Stephen Percy, Robin Hood and His Merry Foresters (1845) From Ned Buntline, The Black Avenger, Story of the Spanish Main, The Weekly Novelette (1859) Select Bibliography

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