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G.B.S.: A Postscript
By Hesketh Pearson. 2017
This book, first published in 1951, is a Postscript to Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality—Hesketh Pearson’s biography of Bernard…
Shaw, published in 1942, which became the standard work on Bernard Shaw. It was unique among other books on the same subject because Shaw himself gave every possible help to his biographer, allowing him to quote whatever he wished from published and unpublished correspondence. Shaw answered every question put to him and willingly revealed a great deal of information about his own life that had not been available hitherto.G.B.S. A Postscript continues the story from the point at which the biography left off. It describes the intimate discussions and not infrequent but always friendly disagreements which took place while it was bring written.Hesketh Pearson was in constant touch with Shaw throughout the last decade of his life, and, with Shaw’s knowledge, kept the biography up to date, noting down immediately after their occurrence accounts of their many discussions. Shaw subsequently recalled many things about his past which had previously escaped him, and so many fresh sidelights on Shaw and his contemporaries are included here. Not the least illuminating feature of this book is the obituary which Shaw himself contributed.The Moneyman
By Thomas B. Costain. 2017
THE THRILLING STORY OF A GREAT CONSPIRACY AND A GREAT LOVE IN THE COURT OF KING CHARLES VIIHis name was…
Jacques CoeurIn the fashionable court of France’s Charles VII he was the King’s “moneyman.” He was also a powerfully rich and jealously feared merchant prince.He exerted enormous influence over King Charles, partially because of his great wealth which enabled him to help support the war against England and partially through his friendship with and influence over the King’s mistress, the ailing Agnes Sorel.When it became obvious that Agnes Sorel would have to be replaced, it was Jacques Coeur who chose her successor—the astonishingly beautiful sixteen-year-old Valerie.What Jacques Coeur couldn’t have known was that his choice of this lovely girl was to weave the first strands in a fatal net of love and intrigue.Ebony and Ivory
By Llewelyn Powys, Edward Shanks. 2017
First published in 1923, this book is a wonderful collection of short stories and sketches from the British novelist Llewelyn…
Powys—who also happens to be the younger brother of John Cowper Powys, another renowned British novelist of the twentieth century.“When Llewelyn Powys puts pen to paper, something miraculous happens with words. And that’s literature.”—New York Herald Tribune“This writer has a great gift of saying the essential thing in a few words. Not one of these essays extends beyond half-a-dozen pages yet how full of good matter they are.”—C. K. Shorter“Llewelyn Powys is a poet in the loving, absorbing, indwelling quality of his experience.”—Basil de SelincourtSpiritual Values in Shakespeare
By Ernest Marshall Howse. 2017
The Moral Qualities Revealed in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The TempestEight…
masterpieces of the theater are explored in light of the universal moral problems they dramatize. Dr. Howse finds that while each play indicates moral responsibility it also invites the reader’s independent judgment on the complex questions posed by human nature. He draws upon the important Shakespearean criticism and comment to substantiate his conclusions.Teachers, classes, ministers, Shakespeare readers—all will find new depth and insight in the works of the world’s greatest dramatist.“Here is a useful, carefully thought, richly developed study which will add depth to any man’s learning and breadth to any minister’s preaching.”—The PulpitA Life of Matthew G. Lewis
By Louis F. Peck. 2017
Matthew Lewis (17775-1818), author of The Monk—one of the most famous of gothic novels—is attracting increasing attention for his own…
talent and his pre-eminence in the gothic school. The gothic mode, aside from its intrinsic interest, is important because of its distinct influence in British, continental, and American literature. Yet a full-length biography of Lewis has not appeared since 1839.For the nonspecialist seeking an introduction to Romanticism and the Regency, Lewis is a valuable man to know, with his varied literary interests—poetry, the novel, drama—and his wide acquaintance: royalty, the peerage, literary celebrities like Byron, Scott, Shelley, Sheridan, and the theatrical world. As a writer he showed uncanny anticipation of popular literary trends and a talent for the spectacular. This new biography, based on information which has appeared since 1839 and on new material, presents the whole man, not a selection of eccentricities. It includes treatment of all his works and a section of newly edited correspondence.Steps Going Down
By John T. McIntyre. 2017
STEPS GOING DOWN by Philadelphian writer John T. McIntyre is the work of a mature and seasoned talent, instinct with…
life, rich with experience, yet spectacularly exciting, and most magnificently modern in spirit. It is something more than the product of literary craftsman of the first order: it is a recreation of the very pulse of the life of men and women today. Seldom has so memorable a novel appeared, or one which reveals more powerfully the shape of human living and experience.First published in 1936, John T. McIntyre’s novel was selected as the American Contender in the All-Nations Prize Novel Competition, sponsored by the Literary Guild, Warner Brothers, and publishers in some eleven foreign countries.“In John T. McIntyre’s novel I think we have come upon a fresh note in American fiction, a book that may serve as a reviving influence in a field with which most readers have become impatient. Mr. McIntyre has contrived to represent a new, hard deflated, American mood with superb realism. His book comes to us with sirens screaming, at 80 miles an hour.”—William Soskin“I had read no more than two or three pages of STEPS GOING DOWN when I stopped thinking of it as a novel and began to feel it as a history of actual persons. There is hardly a page without an act, thought, or speech which is as natural as experience.”—Carl Van DorenArctic Doctor
By Joseph P. Moody. 2017
Arctic Doctor is an account of the true adventures of Joe Moody, the heroic young medical doctor whose practice covered…
600,000 square miles of Canada’s East Arctic. Headquartered at Chesterfield Inlet on the west coast of Hudson Bay, Joe Moody made “routine” calls to his 2,000 Eskimo patients that required to take perilous trips by aircraft, dog sled, and canoe; to direct complicated surgery by telephone; and to confront Eskimo practices of infanticide and the “assisted suicide” of the age.Dr. Moody’s book is an exciting and suspenseful account of his years in the East Arctic—years of courageous effort on behalf of his profession, years devoted to scientific and human observation of the most fruitful kind, and years of heady adventure rarely matched in the annals of northland fiction.Amy Lowell
By Clement Wood. 2017
Originally published in 1926, this book by Clement Wood is a critical study of the creative work and influence of…
noted American poet Amy Lawrence Lowell (1874-1925), whose “glittering verses, her militant prefaces and critical studies, her constant packed platform appearances had elevated her to a commanding place,” and had earned her a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, Amy Lowell, who was sister to astronomer Percival Lowell and Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell, published her first work in 1910 in Atlantic Monthly. This was followed two years later by her first published collection of her poetry, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.An avid adherent to the “free verse” method of poetry, Amy Lowell became one of the major champions of this method of poetry-writing. Throughout her working life, she was a promoter of both contemporary and historical poets. Her 1921 book Fir-Flower Tablets was a poetical reworking of literal translations of the works of ancient Chinese poets, notably Li Tai-po (A.D. 701-762). Her writing also included critical works on French literature. At the time of her death in 1925, she was attempting to complete her two-volume biography of John Keats, of whom she wrote: “the stigma of oddness is the price a myopic world always exacts of genius.”Out On a Limb
By Louise Maxwell Baker. 2017
At the age of eight, Louise Baker lost her right leg above the knee as a result of a road…
accident; she was on her very first bike ride. With a grand sense of humor and great spiritual courage, she faced life with a seemingly irreconcilable handicap. OUT ON A LIMB, her personal story, is not only one of the most stimulating and amusing books; but even more, it will be a revelation to all who have at any time been faced with personal disaster.Louise Baker mastered her tragedy and had a whale of a lot of fun doing it. One moment, she would play the part of a dare-devil female parachute, the next, a fearless alpine skier whose foot had been frozen rescuing a snowbound child—she had to fabricate the most fantastic tales to crush the typical little boy question, “Hey, Lady! Where’s your leg?”She made her very crutches a part of woman’s vanity—using different colors for different ensembles. She did everything a normal woman could do and more: competed with other reporters on a news beat, discovered her own and highly unconventional means of holding her beaux in college, went to live with her new husband in the wilds of Arizona, set out on a hilarious trip to Europe. Whenever the world seemed totally against her, she could console herself with Webster’s definition of “handicap”: “A race…in which an artificial disadvantage is imposed on a superior contestant.”OUT ON A LIMB has a special significance for these times. Louise Baker’s story is told with sympathy and an understanding for all who have suffered similar misfortunes. Her life was not one colored with unhappiness, but filled with energy and purpose—the picture of a woman who enjoyed each day to the fullest.Keeper of the Flame
By I. A. R. Wylie. 2017
THE WOMAN HE LOVED WAS SWORN TO GUARD THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT LEADER—HE WAS HONOR-BOUND TO DESTROY IT…The governor…
of a New England state has died suddenly in an unwitnessed automobile accident. He was the coming man, widely mentioned for the presidency, a champion of the underprivileged, and especially of the younger generation, who had formed Robert Forrest clubs the country over. The shock and the sorrow over his death is nationwide. Steve O’Malley, ace war correspondent, whose passion for truth has got him kicked out of all the warring countries abroad, is at a loose end at home and is assigned by his paper to the job of writing the life of the man as he really was. Disastrously, he falls in love with Forrest’s young wife. What he finds, the development of the love affair, the rumble of great events in the background, make a tale of rare intensity.Forbidden City
By Muriel Molland Jernigan. 2017
A fictionalized account of the Empress Dowager of China, Tsu Hsi, last of the Manchus.She was one who “ate life,”…
one for whom all the power of the Dragon throne could not give her what she sought. This is the story of Nala, born to luxury, who was sent at sixteen to the Summer Palace, to be the Emperor’s concubine, and who lived to wrest the throne from the dying monarch. It is the story of Jung Lu, the Manchu Lord who gave her the only love she was ever to know, and whose quiet and wise counsel gave her the wisdom to rule. It is the story of a country, a people, a way of life, and a hatred born of misunderstanding which carried tragic consequences. For nothing Jung Lu could say or do could soothe her hatred of the “foreign devils” and their woman ruler who dared to call herself by a name that meant “victorious.” For the first time the full picture of the Empress Dowager of China, Tsu His, last of the Manchus, is drawn to life.From her seat on the Dragon throne she commanded an Empire. The decisions she made still leave their mark on the world. Few women in history have held as much power. Yet the days were never long enough for all she wanted to do.Mrs. Jernigan tells the strange story of Tsu His’s love for her Prime Minister, which defied tradition, with smooth-paced narrative power, in an absorbing novel, full of pageantry and turbulence. FORBIDDEN CITY is a vivid portrait of one of the least-known but one of the most remarkable figures of history.Life Was Simpler Then
By Loula Grace Erdman. 2017
In this charming book of personal recollections, the author, Loula Grace Erdman, returns to her childhood in western Missouri and…
recreates the way of life as she then knew it. There is, for instance, and amusing section on the series of hired men who helped on the farm, followed by chapters on spring house cleaning, on family reunions, on church attendance, on the Chautauqua. It was a time where there was a second table for the children at dinner parties, when a helpful, omniscient Central was at the other end of the telephone wire, when harvesting ice or making apple butter was a neighborhood affair. It is only yesterday in a small American town.These lively reminiscences are touched here and there with humor and pathos and everywhere with that nostalgia which springs from the near resemblance of the author’s recollections to our own. Of Ms. Erdman’s many successful books, Life Was Simpler Then is likely to be remembered most fondly—and longest.All the Voices
By Murray Gitlin. 2017
Originally published in 1960, this novel tells the moving and thought-provoking story of an extraordinary white man married to a…
unique black woman.Coming from an ignorant and unambitious farm family, Claude Depler, after several years of unsuccessful job-hunting, finally makes a name and a place for himself as head of a community center in Chicago. Here he meets and marries an outstanding black woman whose name is nationally recognized as an enlightened and vigorous advancer of the American Negro’s interests. The larger part of their married life is spent in Milan, where Claude is now an administrator of a post-war refugee program.Their soul- searching inner struggles and their quest for peace of mind and heart, intimately involved with the problems of racial discrimination, are sensitively developed by the author.The Story of the Gypsies
By Konrad Bercovici. 2017
With this book, first published in 1928, Romanian-born American author Konrad Bercovici has written a sympathetic, thorough, and fascinating account…
of an extra-ordinary people. Long an admirer of the Gypsies, he was determined to penetrate their mysteries. He listened to their legends, traced their history, and here presents all that he knows and could learn from others about their origins, customs and lives down through the centuries and throughout the world.Mandrake Root
By Frederic Wakeman. 2017
This is the story of two journeys. The first is the cruise of the sailing yacht Cybele. The second is…
the journey into a woman’s past. After ten years of marriage, Roger and Emily Stratton decide on a second honeymoon. He is a writer and has bought a tiny sailing yacht for a Caribbean cruise.A few days out of port they are anchored off an uninhabited island when the scheme begins to rumble around in Roger’s mind: Perhaps, even after ten years of marriage, there is a way, some way, to make his and Emily’s love what he has always dreamed it would be.Three days later they go ashore and Roger broaches his plan to Emily:“Suppose you and I pledge each other to tell the complete and utter truth, including all our past, good, bad or heretofore unspeakable,” he said. “Suppose we spend the rest of this cruise prying and probing into every past act no matter how reprehensible...no matter how hurtful or deadly or disgusting it seems at the time....If we really do a full job, in complete honesty with each other, I believe with all my heart that we can build ourselves the finest love any couple could want.”Emily agrees. She believes her behaviour has been no better or worse than that of any of the other women in her circle who pride themselves on their civilized sophistication. Nor does she have any idea of just how much she has to hide, or of what she will finally be driven to reveal. In her innocence, she adds to Roger’s plan with the suggestion that their confessions will be wonderful material for his next novel.In MANDRAKE ROOT, Frederic Wakeman tells a story which reaches to the heart of many, many marriages. His novel is a mature and painstaking consideration of what went wrong in a marriage and how two people tried to save their failure.“Why anyone would read the Kinsey Report when this is available passes understanding.”—Pasadena Star-NewsA Free Agent
By Frederic Wakeman. 2017
AN EXCITING, POWERFUL NOVEL ABOUT A DEDICATED UNDERCOVER MAN FOR WHOM THE COLD WAR IS A RED-HOT, EXPLOSIVE REALITY!From New…
Guinea to Athens to Africa, this sweeping, powerful novel traces the exciting and always dangerous career of a hero of our time.First as a dive-bomber pilot, then as an undercover agent, Mark Marklay daily risks his life for his country. And he freely accepts the blind obedience demanded of him even when it means blotting out private scruples or leaving his beautiful Greek wife in the middle of their honeymoon.But he is forced to re-evaluate his marriage, his life and the entire Cold War struggle when he is betrayed and captured while on a dangerous mission in Africa—and is confronted with evidence that the informer has been his own wife!“…impressive beyond anything Wakeman has done before. It fulfills an obligation to entertain without bypassing the mind or overlooking chances to kick sacred cows when they stray onto the path.”—The New York Times Book ReviewA Day of Pleasant Bread: A Christmas Story
By David Grayson. 2017
Stranger at Killknock
By Leonard Wibberley. 2017
A story of spiritual values, about a devoted young priest in an Irish fishing village who battles with the Celtic…
superstitions of the villagers…The Irish meaning of the name of the village—Killknock—is “the church on the mountain.” It is a little place, no more than two hundred souls and all but one of them Catholic. A poor and ancient fishing village, it is devoutly Christian while still believing in old Celtic myths, legends and superstitions. Who the stranger was, no one knew. But certainly he was a worker of miracles, or at least a great healer, for he made sixty-year-old Caitlin look like a girl again and gave Feeney back his hearing. Some of the villagers, noting that the stranger had scars on his hands and feet as though nails had once been driven through them, had unvoiced suspicions.“All the stranger said was:“I thought that my business here would take care of itself. But it did not. And so I have come to attend to it personally.”“A beautiful and lyrical story, blessed with the simplicity of truth and faith…If you have a heart, it will reach out to you, and give you the comfort of the seas and the mountains…”—The Associated Press“Let the stranger arrive in a primitive Irish fishing village where ancient nature-worship blends with revealed religion, and you have a situation calling not only for the gift of the word but for profound wisdom as well....It is evident that Leonard Wibberley has both.”—San Francisco Chronicle“It is easily the best fiction that Wibberley has yet written, a story which deserves that much-abused adjective—unforgettable.”—Los Angeles TimesThe Pilgrim Soul
By Anne Miller Downes. 2017
The Pilgrim Soul, which was originally published in 1952, tells the legend of Dolly Copp of the White Mountains of…
New Hampshire. As a young bride she moved with her husband Hayes to their homestead in the virgin forests of 19th century New Hampshire. Together, they built a farm, raised a family, and warmly opened their home to many travelers who passed by their door.“Anne Miller Downes has re-created in novel form the New England historical legend of Hayes & Dolly Copp.”—Saturday Review.The Times of Melville and Whitman [1st Edition]
By Van Wyck Brooks. 2017
In this volume, first published in 1947, Pulitzer Prize winning author Van Wyck Brooks gives a superb recreation of a…
segment of American literary history, namely the period from approximately the 1840’s through to the 1890’s. Those were the days of Melville, Whitman, Mark Twain, Lanier, Bret Harte, Audubon, John Muir and a host of other major and minor writers.No other American critic quite possesses Brooks’ gift for making you see and feel and experience the life and times of these literary men and women. And the balanced critical evaluation that gives this book its statute is clothed in such vigorous and beautiful writing that the reader is unaware of the lifetime of research and study encompassed in this volume.Aside from the critical value, the narrative skill and the many beautiful prose passages, in The Times of Melville and Whitman Brooks gives the reader a vivid historical picture of what life was like in the last half of the nineteenth century. It is this ability to recreate the social background of the times that gives such richness to Brooks’ criticism.He has again made a major contribution to American letters with a book that is a real work of art—vigorous, balanced, erudite, and a pleasure to read.