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The Figure In The Carpet
"The Figure in the Carpet" is a short story (sometimes considered a novella) by American writer Henry James first published in 1896. It is told in the first person; the narrator, whose name is never revealed, meets his favorite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention of all the author's works. "The Figure in the Carpet" has evaded definitive interpretation. In his book ''Henry James'' (1913), Ford Madox Ford wrote that after it was published, James's contemporaries set themselves on a quest for the Figure as an identifiable physical entity. In the preface to his ''A Choice of Kipling's Verse'' (1941), T. S. Eliot wrote, "Nowadays, we all look for the Figure in the Carpet." It is possible that James's Figure is a palpable object that, like a talisman, facilitates interpretation of his own work. Plot The narrator, a writer for a literary newspaper, prides himself on his astute review of Hugh Vereker's latest novel. Vereker inadvertently dismisse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between ''émigré ''Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include '' The Portrait of a Lady'', ''The Ambassadors'', and ''The Wings of the Dove''. His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the ''Jungle Book'' -logy, duology (''The Jungle Book'', 1894; ''The Second Jungle Book'', 1895), ''Kim (novel), Kim'' (1901), the ''Just So Stories'' (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay (poem), Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.Rutherford, Andrew (1987). General Preface to the Editions of Rudyard Kipling, in "Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies", by Rudyard Kipling. Oxford University Press. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and lu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Way It Came
''The Way It Came'' is a short story published in 1896 in London by American writer Henry James. The unnamed female narrator recounts her obsession with the mystical coincidence of two friends who seem destined to meet and who apparently do unite in spirit after death. Calling the story's original title "colourless", James renamed it ''"The Friends of the Friends"'' in 1909, revising it for inclusion in the New York Edition. Plot "The Way It Came" begins with a frame story prologue, a 'cover note' by a magazine editor who judges a diarist's 'fragment' to be as fantastic as it is stylistically suspect. Because the diary is undated, its author leaving no names or initials to identity herself or her two friends, the editor advises that there is little public benefit to publishing such a sensationalisic account unless some corroborative clue to the characters' real-life identities can be found. The (unnamed) narrator mentions to her (unnamed) male friend that his experience of "see ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Next Time (short Story)
"The Next Time" is an 1895 short story by Henry James. Plot summary Mrs Highmore asks the narrator to look through a book by Ralph Limbert which she deems artistic. The author works as a journalist for ''The Blackport Beacon'' to support his family. His attempts at writing trashy/journalistic pieces is to not avail, and he gets dismissed from his job for it. He is writing another novel entitled ''The Major Key'' - although it is said to be a good book it won't sell much, not enough for him to get married on. He goes on to publish other books without commercial success. He subsequently takes up work for another newspaper which sets out to let him be more artistic. The narrator comes across a good review on his latest book from an American newspaper. Yet, as Mrs Highmore tells the narrator, Ralph gets dismissed again after having an argument with his editor over his elitist writings, the narrator's nagging advice, and comedian Minnie Meadows. The narrator reflects that Limbert is n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glasses (short Story)
"Glasses" is an 1896 short story by Henry James. A young woman whose only asset is a supremely beautiful face is about to make a society marriage. That is, until her fiancé discovers that, being virtually blind, she needs thick glasses which ruin her looks. Plot summary The anonymous narrator, a bachelor artist, visits Folkestone and sees a young woman with an astonishly beautiful face. From a friend, the widowed Mrs Meldrum who has to wear disfiguring glasses, he learns that she is Flora Saunt, an orphan. She has an admirer in Lord Iffield, heir to a country estate but not very bright. Another admirer, also well off, is Geoffrey Dawling, who is intelligent and sympathetic but not good looking. Flora agrees to sit for a portrait by the narrator, who discovers that, having little money or brains, her only goal in life is to acquire a husband. After she succeeds in getting engaged to Iffield, the narrator sees the two in a London shop where, to inspect an item, she surreptitious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macmillan Company
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. Founded in London in 1843 by Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, the firm would soon establish itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian era children’s literature, Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' (1894). Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, was chairman of the company from 1964 until his death in December 1986. Since 1999, Macmillan has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others. History Macmillan was founded in London in 1843 by Daniel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Heinemann
William Henry Heinemann (18 May 1863 – 5 October 1920) was an English publisher of Jewish descent and the founder of the Heinemann publishing house in London. Early life On 18 May 1863, Heinemann was born in Surbiton, Surrey, England. Heinemann's father Louis Heinemann, a director of Parr's Bank and a native of Hanover, Germany. Heinemann's mother was Jane Lavino. Both his parents were Jewish by descent, although they had been Anglican for two generations. In his early life he wanted to be a musician, either as a performer or a composer, but he came to believe that he lacked the ability to be successful in that field. Career Heinemann took a job with the music publishing company of Nicolas Trübner. When Trübner died in 1884, Heinemann founded his own publishing house in Covent Garden in 1890. The company published many translations of the classics in Great Britain as well as publishing such authors as H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and Sylvia Pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Literary Review
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Madox Ford
Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature. Ford is now remembered for his novels ''The Good Soldier'' (1915), the ''Parade's End'' tetralogy (1924–1928) and ''The Fifth Queen'' trilogy (1906–1908). ''The Good Soldier'' is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, ''The Observer''′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and ''The Guardian''′s "1000 novels everyone must read". Early life Ford was born in Wimbledon in London to Catherine Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, the eldest of three; his brother was Oliver Madox Hueffer and his sister was Juliet Hueffer, the wife of David Soskice and mother of Frank Soskice. Ford's father, who bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narrator
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot (the series of events). Narration is a required element of all written stories (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), with the function of conveying the story in its entirety. However, narration is merely optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: * ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of ''The Decameron'' (1353). ''The Decameron'' featured 100 tales (named nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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