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The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It
By Carl Sandburg, Harriet Pincus. 1978
The Rag Doll was blessed with many friends ― the Wisk Broom, the Furnace Shovel, and the Coffee Pot among…
them ― but when it came time to marry, she chose the Broom Handle. On the day of their wedding, the bride and groom were attended by a fantastical procession of well-wishers: the Spoon Lickers, the Tin Pan Bangers, the Easy Ticklers, the Musical Soup Eaters, and other whimsical characters, all marching along in a manner befitting their extraordinary names. This tale of wedding pomp and madcap mirth comes from poet Carl Sandburg's classic book of American fairy tales, The Rootabaga Stories. Marvelous drawings by Harriet Pincus, a noted illustrator of children's books, enhance the tale. Out of print for years, the book is now available in a new edition that introduces the story and its gloriously antic art to a new generation of parade-lovers, wedding-goers, and everyone who enjoys a fanciful celebration.Time's Covenant
By Eric Ormsby. 2007
Jason and the Argonauts
By Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Aaron Poochigian, Apollonius Of Rhodes. 2009
The first new Penguin Classics translation of the Argonautica since the 1950sNow in a riveting new verse translation Jason and…
the Argonauts (also known as the Argonautica), is the only surviving full account of Jason's voyage on the Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece aided by the sorceress princess Medea. Written in third century B.C., this epic story of one of the most beloved heroes of Greek mythology, with its combination of the fantastical and the real, its engagement with traditions of science, astronomy and medicine, winged heroes, and a magical vessel that speaks, is truly without exact parallel in classical or contemporary Greek literature and is now available in an accessible and engaging translation.The Acorn-Planter: A California Forest Play
By Jack London. 2012
Jack London was an American novelist, journalist, social-activist and short-story writer whose works deal romantically with elemental struggles for survival.…
At his peak, he was the highest paid and the most popular of all living writers. Because of early financial difficulties, he was largely self educated past grammar school. London drew heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike during the Gold Rush and at various times was an oyster pirate, a seaman, a sealer, and a hobo. His first work was published in 1898. From there he went on to write such American classics as Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, and White Fang.La cautiva/ El matadero
By Esteban Echeverría. 2018
Edición definitiva de dos textos fundacionales de la literatura argentina (El matadero es considerado el primer cuento argentino), con prólogo…
del escritor y crítico literario Martín Kohan, y nota preliminar a cargo de Alejandra Laera. «Ella va. Toda es oídos; / sobre salvajes dormidos / va pasando; escucha, mira, / se para, apenas respira, / y vuelve de nuevo a andar. / Ella marcha, y sus miradas / vagan en torno azoradas, / cual si creyesen ilusas / en las tinieblas confusas / mil espectros divisar.»La cautiva La cautiva y El matadero ocupan un lugar fundacional en la literatura argentina. Escritos por Esteban Echeverría a fines de la década de 1830, en ellos se diseña, respectivamente, el espacio del desierto inabarcable y el de la violencia política, dos motivos que recorren la poesía y la narrativa de todo el siglo XIX. La cautiva utiliza los recursos del Romanticismo para idealizar la civilización, corporizada en la protagonista, y demonizar al indio, haciendo de la frontera la cifra del encuentro con el Otro. En cambio, el lenguaje crudo de El matadero -publicado de manera póstuma y considerado con el tiempo el primer cuento argentino- pone en escena el enfrentamiento social y, con su crítica al rosismo, inaugura el uso político de la ficción. «Para Esteban Echeverría [...] la cultura popular adquiere ese doble signo: recelo ideológico y seducción estética. No obstante, en El matadero esta cuestión asume una inflexión particular; porque la cultura popular se despliega en él bajo su forma más crispada e intensa: la de la violencia.»Del prólogo de Martín KohanUna excursión a los indios ranqueles
By Lucio V. Mansilla. 2018
Edición definitiva del clásico de Lucio V. Mansilla, con prólogo de Alan Pauls y nota preliminar a cargo de Alejandra…
Laera. «Si me hubieran dicho que los indios me iban a enseñar a conocer la humanidad, una carcajada homérica habría sido mi contestación. Como Gulliver, en su viaje a Liliput, yo he visto al mundo tal cual es en mi viaje a los ranqueles.» Originariamente publicadas como folletín, en 1870, en el diario La Tribuna, las cartas que componen este libro son el particular relato de la expedición de Lucio V. Mansilla Tierra Adentro y de su encuentro con los indios ranqueles. Con una minuciosidad por momentos cercana a la obsesión, en ellas el autor toma nota de los detalles de la geografía pampeana y describe lúcidamente los hábitos, costumbres y comportamientos del mundo indígena, ese gran Otro de la literatura argentina. Una excursión a los indios ranqueles no solo es la historia del contacto entre dos culturas, sino un clásico que, escrito con anterioridad a la constitución del Estado, supo advertir en la nación todas sus fatales contradicciones. «Pero pronto el desierto empieza a poblarse, primero con los ranqueles, luego con lo que Mansilla hace con ellos, ve en ellos, piensa y escribe sobre ellos [...] forzado a menudo a constatar, no sin perplejidad, las diversas lecciones de civilización que los ranqueles tienen para dar a los cristianos».Alan PaulsThe Pleasant Nights - Volume 2
By Don Beecher. 2012
Renowned today for his contribution to the rise of the modern European fairy tale, Giovan Francesco Straparola (c. 1480-c. 1557)…
is particularly known for his dazzling anthology The Pleasant Nights. Originally published in Venice in 1550 and 1553, this collection features seventy-three folk stories, fables, jests, and pseudo-histories, including nine tales we might now designate for 'mature readers' and seventeen proto-fairy tales. Nearly all of these stories, including classics such as 'Puss in Boots,' made their first ever appearance in this collection; together, the tales comprise one of the most varied and engaging Renaissance miscellanies ever produced. Its appeal sustained it through twenty-six editions in the first sixty years.This full critical edition of The Pleasant Nights presents these stories in English for the first time in over a century. The text takes its inspiration from the celebrated Waters translation, which is entirely revised here to render it both more faithful to the original and more sparkishly idiomatic than ever before. The stories are accompanied by a rich sampling of illustrations, including originals from nineteenth-century English and French versions of the text.As a comprehensive critical and historical edition, these volumes contain far more information on the stories than can be found in any existing studies, literary histories, or Italian editions of the work. Donald Beecher provides a lengthy introduction discussing Straparola as an author, the nature of fairy tales and their passage through oral culture, and how this phenomenon provides a new reservoir of stories for literary adaptation. Moreover, the stories all feature extensive commentaries analysing not only their themes but also their fascinating provenances, drawing on thousands of analogue tales going back to ancient Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic stories.Immensely entertaining and readable, The Pleasant Nights will appeal to anyone interested in fairy tales, ancient stories, and folk creations. Such readers will also enjoy Beecher's academically solid and erudite commentaries, which unfold in a manner as light and amusing as the stories themselves.The Aeneid
By Virgil, Bernard Knox, Robert Fagles. 2006
The city of Troy has been ransacked by conquering Greeks and lies in smouldering ruins. A warrior, Aeneas, manages to…
escape from the ashes. He will go on to change the history of the world . . . The Aeneid tells the story of an epic seven year journey that sees Aeneas cross stormy seas, become entangled in a tragic love affair with Dido of Carthage, visit the world of the dead - all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods - and finally reach Italy, where he will fulfil his destiny: to found the Roman people. A sweeping epic of arms and heroism, dispossession and defeat, and a searching portrait of a man caught between love, duty and fate, The Aeneid brings to life a whole human world of passion, nobility and courage. This is the much-anticipated new version of Virgil's epic poem from the translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad. With this stunning modern verse translation Robert Fagles reintroduces the Aeneid to a whole new generation, and completes the classical triptych at the heart of Western civilization. It retains all of the gravitas and humanity of the original, as well as its powerful blend of poetry and myth. With an illuminating introduction to Virgil's world from noted scholar Bernard Knox, this new Aeneid gives a vibrant, contemporary voice to the literary achievement of the ancient world.The Odyssey
By Homer. 1994
Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American…
Academy of Arts and Letters presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation. "Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. " So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in The New York Times Review of Books hails as "a distinguished achievement. " If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once the timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. @IthacaStateOfMind Uh oh. This cave is a giant's lair. He has a taste for cheese, and my companions. He also has only one eye. Trying to keep from laughing. Got him drunk. Put a hot poker in his ONE EYE when he blacked out. That will show him - if he could see. LOL. Time to leave. Damn. Poseidon pissed. How was I supposed to know One-Eye was his son? What Olympian whore did he sleep with to get an issue like that? From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less .Yevgeny Onegin
By Alexander Pushkin, Anthony Briggs. 2016
The aristocratic Yevgeny Onegin has come into his inheritance, leaving the glamour of St Petersburg's social life behind to take…
up residence at his uncle's country estate. Master of the nonchalant bow, and proof of the fact that we shine despite our lack of education, the aristocratic Onegin is the very model of a social butterfly - a fickle dandy, liked by all for his wit and easy ways. When the shy and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him, Onegin condescendingly rejects her, and instead carelessly diverts himself by flirting with her sister, Olga - with terrible consequences.Yevgeny Onegin is one of the - if not THE - greatest works of all Russian literature, and certainly the foundational text and Pushkin the foundational writer who influence all those who came after (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, etc). So it's no surprise that this verse novella has drawn so many translators. It's a challenge, too, since verse is always harder to translate than prose. (Vikram Seth, rather than translating Onegin again, updated it to the 1980s in San Franciso in his The Golden Gate). A.D.P. Briggs is arguably the greatest living scholar of Pushkin, certainly in the UK, and as such he's spent a lifetime thinking about how to translate Pushkin. Briggs is an experienced and accomplished translator, not only for Pushkin (Pushkin's The Queen of Spades) but for Penguin Classics (War and Peace, The Resurrection) and others. Briggs has not only been thinking about Pushkin for decades, he's been working on this translation for nearly as long. It's a landmark event in the history of Onegin translations and this edition is accompanied by a thoughtful introduction and translator's note.From the Trade Paperback edition.Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby (The cambridge Edition Of The Works Of F. Scott Fitzgerald Ser.)
By F. Scott Fitzgerald. 1925
"Reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's Trimalchio, an early and complete version of The Great Gatsby, is like listening to a familiar…
musical composition played in a different key and with an alternate bridge passage... There is a tradition in Fitzgerald studies that The Great Gatsby became a masterpiece in revision. This judgment is correct. Fitzgerald improved the novel in galleys; The Great Gatsby is a better novel than Trimalchilo. But Trimalchilo is a remarkable achievement, and different enough from Gatsby to merit consideration on its own. Trimalchilois a direct and straightforward narration of the story of Jay Gatsby, NIck Carraway, Jordan Baker, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle and George Wilson. The handling of plot details is sure-handed; the writing is graceful and confident. Trimalchilowill provide readers with new understanding of F. Scott Fitzgerald's working methods, fresh insight into his characters, and renewed appreciation of his genius." From the introduction.Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror)
By Guy Wernham, Conte De Lautreamont. 1965
This macabre but beautiful work, Les Chants de Maldoror, has achieved a considerable reputation as one of the earliest and…
most extraordinary examples of Surrealist writing. Maldoror is a long narrative prose poem which celebrates the principle of Evil in an elaborate style and with a passion akin to religions fanaticism. The French poet-critic Georges Hugnet has written of Lautréamont: "He terrifies, stupefies, strikes dumb. He could look squarely at that which others had merely given a passing glance." When first published in 1868-69, Maldoror went almost unnoticed. But in the 1890s the book was rediscovered and hailed as a work of genius by such eminent writers as Huysmans, Léon Block, Maeterlinck, and Rémy de Gourmont. Later still, Lautréamont was to be canonized as one of their principal "ancestors" by the Paris surrealists. This edition, translated by Guy Wernham, includes also a long introduction to a never-written, or now lost, volume of poetry. Thus, except for a few letters, it gives all the surviving literary work of Lautréamont.Amphitryon
By Molière, Richard Wilbur. 2010
"Richard Wilbur's translations of classic French drama are among the undiscovered treasure of our recent literature."-The Hudson ReviewMolière's late, elegant…
comedy, based on Plautus' Roman version, alludes to the love affairs of the French king. This is the fourth and final volume of Theatre Communication Group's series (with cover designs by Chip Kidd), completing trade publication of these vital theatrical works. ncludes Richard Wilbur's translation notes.Richard Wilbur is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a former poet laureate of the United States. His verse translations of Molière's plays have been performed for audiences throughout the world.From Sarajevo With Sorrow
By Goran Simic, Amela Simic. 2005
From Sarajevo, with Sorrow restores all that is offensive, despairing and necessary to our understanding of war by capturing the…
poems' original power and humanity. This collection contains both previously unpublished poems, written "under the candlelight" of the siege, and new poems returning to the sniper's alleys and bunkers of Sarajevo. This is a disturbingly resonant, timely and important collection.The Bungler
By Molière, Richard Wilbur. 2010
"A mischievous new translation by the poet Richard Wilbur, [The Bungler] is great good fun and should open the gate…
for the play to be presented with the regularity it deserves."--Bruce Weber, The New York Times"My notion of translation is that you try to bring it back alive. Speak-ability is so important. . . . I came to see that a line that simply says 'I love you,' at the right point in the show, is entirely adequate, that a great deal of verbal sophistication is not necessarily called for."--Richard WilburPoet Richard Wilbur's translations of Molière's plays are loved, renowned, and performed throughout the world. This volume is part of Theater Communications Group's new series (with cover designs by Chip Kidd) to complete trade publication of these vital works of French neoclassical comedy. The Bungler is Molière's first recognizably great play, and the first to be written in verse. The charming farce is set in Sicily and born of the great Italian tradition of the commedia dell'arte: Loyal valet Mascarille schemes to win the lovely Celie away from rival Leadre, and into the arms of his master Leslie. Molière himself originated the role Mascarille, self-described as "the rashest fool on earth," who naturally bungles the job along the way.Richard Wilbur is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a former Poet Laureate of the United States. His publications include six volumes of poetry and two collections of selected verses, a collection of prose, and two books for children.School for Husbands and The Imaginary Cuckold, or Sganarelle
By Richard Wilbur, Jean Baptiste De Moliere. 2009
"My notion of translation is that you try to bring it back alive. . . . If you take on…
a text which is somehow appropriate to you and which you may already love, what you want to do is to be as perfectly the slave of it as you can be."--Richard WilburOriginally inspired by a revelatory Comédie-Française production of The Misanthrope in 1948 Paris, Richard Wilbur has made translating Molière part of his lifework. These two comedies of marriage and misunderstanding are gathered here in a single volume that is part of TCG's new series (with design by Chip Kidd) to complete trade publication of these vital theatrical works.Lovers' Quarrels
By Richard Wilbur, Jean Baptiste De Molière. 2009
"I came to see that a line that simply says 'I love you,' at the right point in the show,…
is entirely adequate, that a great deal of verbal sophistication is not necessarily called for. . . . Speak-ability is so important. That's something I slowly had to learn about poetry, and something I had to work on always with Molière."--Richard WilburLovers' Quarrels is Molière's second full-length verse play, animated with deception and tangles of love.Richard Wilbur is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former Poet Laureate of the United States. His verse translations of Molière's plays have been performed for audiences throughout the world.The Five: A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the-Century Odessa
By Michael R. Katz, Michael Stanislawski, Vladimir Jabotinsky. 2005
"The beginning of this tale of bygone days in Odessa dates to the dawn of the twentieth century. At that…
time we used to refer to the first years of this period as the 'springtime,' meaning a social and political awakening. For my generation, these years also coincided with our own personal springtime, in the sense that we were all in our youthful twenties. And both of these springtimes, as well as the image of our carefree Black Sea capital with acacias growing along its steep banks, are interwoven in my memory with the story of one family in which there were five children: Marusya, Marko, Lika, Serezha, and Torik."--from The Five The Five is an captivating novel of the decadent fin-de-siècle written by Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), a controversial leader in the Zionist movement whose literary talents, until now, have largely gone unrecognized by Western readers. The author deftly paints a picture of Russia's decay and decline--a world permeated with sexuality, mystery, and intrigue. Michael R. Katz has crafted the first English-language translation of this important novel, which was written in Russian in 1935 and published a year later in Paris under the title Pyatero.The book is Jabotinsky's elegaic paean to the Odessa of his youth, a place that no longer exists. It tells the story of an upper-middle-class Jewish family, the Milgroms, at the turn of the century. It follows five siblings as they change, mature, and come to accept their places in a rapidly evolving world. With flashes of humor, Jabotinsky captures the ferment of the time as reflected in political, social, artistic, and spiritual developments. He depicts with nostalgia the excitement of life in old Odessa and comments poignantly on the failure of the dream of Jewish assimilation within the Russian empire.What Is to Be Done?
By Michael R. Katz, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, William G. Wagner. 1989
"No work in modern literature, with the possible exception of Uncle Tom's Cabin, can compete with What Is to Be…
Done? in its effect on human lives and its power to make history. For Chernyshevsky's novel, far more than Marx's Capital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution."--Joseph Frank, The Southern ReviewAlmost from the moment of its publication in 1863, Nikolai Chernyshevsky's novel, What Is to Be Done?, had a profound impact on the course of Russian literature and politics. The idealized image it offered of dedicated and self-sacrificing intellectuals transforming society by means of scientific knowledge served as a model of inspiration for Russia's revolutionary intelligentsia. On the one hand, the novel's condemnation of moderate reform helped to bring about the irrevocable break between radical intellectuals and liberal reformers; on the other, Chernyshevsky's socialist vision polarized conservatives' opposition to institutional reform. Lenin himself called Chernyshevsky "the greatest and most talented representative of socialism before Marx"; and the controversy surrounding What Is to Be Done? exacerbated the conflicts that eventually led to the Russian Revolution.Michael R. Katz's readable and compelling translation is now the definitive unabridged English-language version, brilliantly capturing the extraordinary qualities of the original. William G. Wagner has provided full annotations to Chernyshevsky's allusions and references and to the, sources of his ideas, and has appended a critical bibliography. An introduction by Katz and Wagner places the novel in the context of nineteenth-century Russian social, political, and intellectual history and literature, and explores its importance for several generations of Russian radicals.Struwwelpeter in English Translation
By Heinrich Hoffmann. 1995
First published in 1845. Struwwelpeter (variously translated as "slovenly" or "shock-headed" Peter) has become widely recognized as one of the…
most popular and influential children's books ever written. Heinrich Hoffmann was a Frankfurt physician. Unhappy with the dry and pedagogic books available for children at the time, he wrote and illustrated Struwwelpeter as a Christmas present for his three-year-old son. The book relates in verse and pictures the often gruesome consequences that befall children who torment animals, play with matches, suck their thumbs, refuse to eat, fidget at meals, etc.Written in rhyming couplets and illustrated by the author, the book was an immediate success. It has since gone through hundreds of editions and been published in almost every European language. The present volume reprints 25 color plates from a German edition (including a bonus plate done for the 100th edition in 1876) with the reset text of a standard English translation. Also included are the full German text and an afterword with a brief biography of the author and note on how the book came to be written.Children, bibliophiles, antiquarians--any lover of time-honored tales for children--will welcome this new edition of the classic German story. Content is optimized for tablet.