Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 61 - 80 of 4274 items
By Will Tosh. 2016
Male Friendship and Testimonies of Love in Shakespeare's England reveals the complex and unfamiliar forms of friendship that existed between men…
in the late sixteenth century. Using the unpublished letter archive of the Elizabethan spy Anthony Bacon (1558-1601), it shows how Bacon negotiated a path through life that relied on the support of his friends, rather than the advantages and status that came with marriage. Through a set of case-studies focusing on the Inns of Court, the prison, the aristocratic great house and the spiritual connection between young and ardent Protestants, this book argues that the 'friendship spaces' of early modern England permitted the expression of male same-sex intimacy to a greater extent than has previously been acknowledged.By Jonathan Bate. 2015
Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He was one of Britain's most…
important poets, his work infused with myth; a love of nature, conservation, and ecology; of fishing and beasts in brooding landscapes.With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter-writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron. His lifelong quest to come to terms with the suicide of his first wife, Sylvia Plath, is the saddest and most infamous moment in the public history of modern poetry.Hughes left behind a more complete archive of notes and journals than any other major poet, including thousands of pages of drafts, unpublished poems, and memorandum books that make up an almost complete record of Hughes's inner life, which he preserved for posterity. Renowned scholar Jonathan Bate has spent five years in the Hughes archives, unearthing a wealth of new material. His book offers, for the first time, the full story of Hughes's life as it was lived, remembered, and reshaped in his art. It is a book that honors, though not uncritically, Hughes's poetry and the art of life-writing, approached by his biographer with an honesty answerable to Hughes's own.By Candida Lawrence. 2004
In light of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, the remarkable personal story that comprises…
Fear Itself becomes a cautionary tale.Unwittingly exposed to low-level radiation in the 1940s, Candida Lawrence has lived courageously with its effects throughout her life. Fear Itself traces her years struggling to have a child and her slow waking to the secrets that governments and institutions withheld from the women of her generation. The task for her-and for women who have shared her experience-has always been to believe herself into wholeness and to survive her losses and her illnesses until there is nothing left to fear. As always, Lawrence's writing is filled with smart, gentle anger, sweet sadness and the most private sense of what is vital and important.In Fear Itself, Lawrence's deeply felt remembrances grant us an honest account of what it is to live in an unstable world. It is a truly personal account that sheds wide light on the world's ongoing nuclear decisions.What personal life story could be more timely?By Edmund White. 2001
If there is anyone worthy of producing an intimate biography of the enigmatic genius behind Remembrance of Things Past, it…
is Edmund White, himself an award- winning writer for whom Marcel Proust has long been an obsession. White introduces us not only to the recluse endlessly rewriting his one massive work through the night, but also the darling of Parisian salons, the grasper after honors, and the closeted homosexual-a subject this book is the first to explore openly. From the frothiest gossip to the deepest angst, here is a moving portrait to be treasured by anyone looking for an introduction to this literary icon.By Mark Twain, Hamlin Hill, Robert Gray Bruce. 1871
Cast in the form of a walking tour through Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy, A Tramp Abroad sparkles with the…
author's shrewd observations and highly opinionated comments on Old World culture, and showcases his unparalleled ability to integrate humorous sketches, autobiographical tidbit, and historical anecdotes in consistently entertaining narrative.By Washington Irving. 2012
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 - November 28, 1859) was an American author of the early 19th century. Best known…
for his short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle (both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon), he was also a prolific essayist, biographer and historian. Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving is said to have encouraged authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving was also the U.S. minister to Spain 1842-1846.By Robert Peters. 1993
No nostalgic tale of the good old days, Robert Peters’s recollections of his adolescence vividly evoke the Depression on a…
hardscrabble farm near Eagle River: Dad driving the Vilas County Relief truck, Lars the Swede freezing to death on his porch, the embarassment of graduation in a suit from welfare. The hard efforts to put fish and potatoes and blueberries on the table are punctuated by occasional pleasures: the Memorial Day celebration, swimming at Perch Lake, the county fair with Mother’s prizes for jam and the exotic delights of the midway. Peters’s clear-eyed memoir reveals a poet’s eye for rich and stark detail even as a boy of twelve. “Peters misses nothing, from the details of the town’s Fourth of July celebration to the cause and effect of a young cousin’s suicide to the calibrations of racism toward Indians that was so acceptable then. It is a fascinating, unsentimental look at a piece of our past. ”—Margaret E. Guthrie,New York Times Book Review “It’s unlikely that any other contemporary poet and scholar as distinguished has risen from quite so humble beginnings as Robert Peters. Born and raised by semiliterate parents on a subsistence farm in northeastern Wisconsin, Peters lived harrowingly close to the eventual stuff of his poetry—the dependency of humans on animal lives, the inexplicable and ordinary heroism and baseness of people facing extreme conditions, the urgency of physical desire. . . . Sterling childhood memoirs. ”—Booklist “Robert Peters has written a memoir exemplary because he insists on the specific, on the personal and the local. It is also enormously satisfying to read, and it is among the most authentic accounts of childhood and youth I know—a Wisconsin David Copperfield!”—Thom GunnBy John Leland. 2007
Legions of youthful Americans have taken On the Road as a manifesto for rebellion and an inspiration to hit the…
road. But there is much more to the book than that. In Why Kerouac Matters, John Leland embarks on a wry, insightful, and playful discussion of the novel, arguing that it still matters because it lays out an alternative road map to growing up. Along the way, Leland overturns many misconceptions about On the Road as he examines the lessons that Kerouac?s alter ego, Sal Paradise, absorbs and dispenses on his novelistic journey to manhood, and how those lessons?about work and money, love and sex, art and holiness? still reverberate today.By Frank Conroy. 1967
First published in 1967, Stop-Time was immediately recognized as a masterpiece of modern American autobiography, a brilliant portrayal of one…
boy's passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. Here is Frank Conroy's wry, sad, beautiful tale of life on the road; of odd jobs and lost friendships, brutal schools and first loves; of a father's early death and a son's exhilarating escape into manhood. .By John Safran. 2014
An unlikely journalist, a murder case in Mississippi, and a fascinating literary true crime story in the style of Jon…
Ronson.A notorious white supremacist named Richard Barrett was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 2010 by a young black man named Vincent McGee. At first the murder seemed a twist on old Deep South race crimes. But then new revelations and complications came to light. Maybe it was a dispute over money rather than race--or, maybe and intriguingly, over sex.John Safran, a young white Jewish Australian documentarian, had been in Mississippi and interviewed Barrett for a film on race. When he learned of Barrett's murder, he returned to find out what happened and became caught up in the twists and turns of the case. During his time in Mississippi, Safran got deeper and deeper into this gothic southern world, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder--white separatist frenemies, black lawyers, police investigators, oddball neighbors, the stunned families, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime--and the people involved--seemed to be. In the end, he discovered how profoundly and indelibly complex the truth about someone's life--and death--can be.This is a brilliant, haunting, hilarious, unsettling story about race, money, sex, and power in the modern American South from an outsider's point of view.By Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg. 2010
The first collection of letters between the two leading figures of the Beat movement Writers and cultural icons Jack Kerouac…
and Allen Ginsberg are the most celebrated names of the Beat Generation, linked together not only by their shared artistic sensibility but also by a deep and abiding friendship, one that colored their lives and greatly influenced their writing. Editors Bill Morgan and David Stanford shed new light on this intimate and influential friendship in this fascinating exchange of letters between Kerouac and Ginsberg, two thirds of which have never been published before. Commencing in 1944 while Ginsberg was a student at Columbia University and continuing until shortly before Kerouac's death in 1969, the two hundred letters included in this book provide astonishing insight into their lives and their writing. While not always in agreement, Ginsberg and Kerouac inspired each other spiritually and creatively, and their letters became a vital workshop for their art. Vivid, engaging, and enthralling, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters provides an unparalleled portrait of the two men who led the cultural and artistic movement that defined their generation. .By William Dean Howells. 2012
He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave…
him to starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his wares.By William Dean Howells. 2012
In those walks of ours I believe he did most of the talking, and from his talk then and at…
other times there remains to me an impression of his growing conservatism. I had in fact come into his life when it had spent its impulse towards positive reform, and I was to be witness of its increasing tendency towards the negative sort.By Scott Mcconnell. 2010
An extensive collection of never-before-published interviews reflecting on Ayn Rand's life and character. Drawing on 100 never-before-published interviews, Scott McConnell…
presents a unique portrait of a larger-than-life literary giant and a fascinating individual, Ayn Rand. Focusing on the private Rand, McConnell talked to the author's family, friends, fans, and associates, as well as Hollywood stars, university professors, fiction writers, and many more. Arranged in chronological order, these interviews cover a broad range of years, contexts, relationships, and observations on one of the most influential- and controversial-figures of the twentieth century. From Ayn Rand's youngest sister to the woman who inspired the character of Peter Keating in The Fountainhead, the subjects interviewed offer fresh, sometimes surprisingly candid, affectionate, and intriguing insights into a complex and remarkable writer, philosopher, and human being. .By Charles Margerison. 2011
Most people enjoy reading in some form or other, be it newspapers or a heavy novel. This unique short story…
collection from The Amazing People Club explores the lives and achievements of some of the world's most influential writers, including Charles Dickens. Find out why he wrote his books and what inspired the characters which would become famous. Get a unique insight into the amazing life of William Shakespeare and his relationship with Anne Hathaway, his dreams of becoming a playwright in London, and how he worked to produce great plays like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. His story contrasts wonderfully with Mark Twain's, who has been deemed the 'father of american literature'. Get to know Twain as he travelled through the USA, from tiny towns in Missouri to the streets of New York. Each story comes to life through BioViews®. These are short biographical narratives, similar to interviews. They provide an easy way of learning about amazing people who made major contributions and changed our world.By Louisa May Alcott.
By Marty Gervais. 2006
My Town brings together more than 70 snapshots of the people and places that have called Windsor home. More than…
this, they have made Windsor, for better and for worse, the city it is today. Some of these faces you will recognize; others will have slipped beneath the radar. Marty has sought them out and made their stories his own.By Molly Peacock. 1998
You can ask that a book tell you a compelling story, that it dazzle you with vivid writing, that its…
emotional content be pure and stirring, that the issues it tackles be timely, relevant, and put forth with candour and a tonic dose of humour. Paradise, Piece by Piece is such a book. Molly Peacock is an award-winning writer, and Paradise, Piece by Piece describes the coming of age of a poet and the flowering of her art. It is a self-portrait that speaks to the most intimate questions a woman can ask of herself and answers them with courageous introspection. It is the story of a child who had to grow up too soon; of the complicated web of relationships in which she, like all of us, defines herself - loyal friends, quirky relations, and tempestuous lovers; of the lifelong labour of self-determination, and finding ultimate fulfilment.Peacock's language is emotionally charged, full of wit and dead-on accuracy. Her skill with narrative and character, her ability to write a vibrant scene, make her memoir as compelling as good fiction. Paradise, Piece by Piece is a virtuoso performance.By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell.
By Rudyard Kipling.