|
The Uncommon Reader
''The Uncommon Reader'' is a novella by Alan Bennett. After appearing first in the ''London Review of Books'', Vol. 29, No. 5 (8 March 2007), it was published later the same year in book form by Faber & Faber and Profile Books. An audiobook version read by the author was released on CD in 2007.BBC Audiobooks Ltd. . Plot The title's "uncommon reader" (Queen Elizabeth II) becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position. The title is a play on the phrase "common reader". This can mean a person who reads for pleasure, as opposed to a critic or scholar. It can also mean a set text, a book that everyone in a group (for example, all students entering a university) are expected to read, so that they can have something in common. ''The Common Reader'' is used by Virginia Woolf as the title work of her 1925 essay collection. Plus a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a book printed today, by the same publisher, and from the same type as when it was first published, is still the ''first edition'' of that book to a bibliographer. However, book collectors generally use the term ''first edition'' to mean specifically the first print run of the first edition (aka "first edition, first impression"). Since World War II, books often include a number line (printer's key) that indicates the print run. A "first edition" per se is not a valuable collectible book. A popular work may be published and reprinted over time by many publishers, and in a variety of formats. There will be a first edition of each, which the publisher may cite on the copyright page, such as: "First mass market paperback edition". The first edit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Dog Tulip
''My Dog Tulip'' is a 2009 American independent animated feature film based on the 1956 memoir of the same name by J. R. Ackerley, BBC editor, novelist and memoirist. The film tells the story of Ackerley's fifteen-year relationship with his Alsatian dog (German Shepherd) ''Queenie'', who had been renamed ''Tulip'' for the book. The film – geared toward an adult audience – was adapted, directed and animated by Paul Fierlinger with backgrounds and characters painted by his wife, Sandra Fierlinger. Christopher Plummer narrated Ackerley's voice, Isabella Rossellini provided the voice of the veterinarian, and Lynn Redgrave provided the voice (in her last film performance) of Ackerley's sister Nancy. The film premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 10, 2009 and received Honourable Mention for Best Animated Film at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival. The film won Grand Prix – best feature film award at the World Festival of Animate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pursuit Of Love
''The Pursuit of Love'' is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1945. It is the first in a trilogy about an upper-class English family in the interwar period focusing on the romantic life of Linda Radlett, as narrated by her cousin, Fanny Logan. Although a comedy, the story has tragic overtones. The book was an immediate best-seller and sold 200,000 copies within a year of publication. Mitford wrote two sequels to the novel, ''Love in a Cold Climate'' (1949) and ''Don't Tell Alfred'' (1960). Her penultimate novel, '' The Blessing'' (1951), also makes references to ''The Pursuit of Love'' and characters from ''The Blessing'' later appear in ''Don't Tell Alfred''. Plot summary The narrator is Fanny, whose mother (called the "Bolter" for her habit of serial monogamy) and father have left her to be brought up by her aunt Emily and the valetudinarian Davey, whom Emily marries early in the novel. Fanny also spends holidays with her uncle, Matthew Radlett, her aunt, Sadie a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973), known as Nancy Mitford, was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the "bright young things" on the London social scene in the inter-war period. She wrote several novels about upper-class life in England and France, and is considered a sharp and often provocative wit. She also has a reputation as a writer of popular historical biographies. Mitford enjoyed a privileged childhood as the eldest daughter of the Hon. David Freeman-Mitford, later 2nd Baron Redesdale. Educated privately, she had no training as a writer before publishing her first novel in 1931. This early effort and the three that followed it created little stir. Her two semi-autobiographical post-war novels, ''The Pursuit of Love'' (1945) and ''Love in a Cold Climate'' (1949), established her reputation. Mitford's marriage to Peter Rodd (1933) proved unsatisfactory to both, and they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, ''The Less Deceived'', followed by '' The Whitsun Weddings'' (1964) and '' High Windows'' (1974). He contributed to ''The Daily Telegraph'' as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in ''All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71'' (1985), and edited ''The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse'' (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman. After graduating from Oxford University in 1943 with a first in English Language and Literature, Larkin became a librarian. It was during the thirty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 184023 September 1879), known as Francis or Frank, was an English clergyman whose diaries reflected rural life in the 1870s, and were published over fifty years after his death. Life Kilvert was born on 3 December 1840 at The Rectory, Hardenhuish Lane, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, to the Rev. Robert Kilvert, rector of Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, and Thermuthis, daughter of Walter Coleman and Thermuthis Ashe. He was educated privately in Bath by his uncle, Francis Kilvert, before going up to Wadham College, Oxford. He then entered the Church of England and became a rural curate, working primarily in the Welsh Marches between Hereford and Hay on Wye. Initially, from 1863 to 1864, he was curate to his father at Langley Burrell, and in 1865 he became curate of Clyro, Radnorshire. There on 1 January 1870 he started a diary from which it appears that he basked in his life within the Welsh countryside, often writing several pages describing ... [...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] |
Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby (23 June 1898 – 29 September 1935) was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel '' South Riding'', which was posthumously published in 1936. Biography Holtby was born to a prosperous farming family in the village of Rudston, East Riding of Yorkshire. Her father was David Holtby and her mother, Alice, was afterwards the first alderwoman on the East Riding County Council. Holtby was educated at home by a governess and then at Queen Margaret's School in Scarborough. Although she passed the entrance exam for Somerville College, Oxford, in 1917, she chose to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in early 1918 but soon after she arrived in France, the First World War came to an end and she returned home. During this period, Holtby met Harry Pearson, the only man who stimulated romantic feelings in her, due primarily to his tales of the suffering soldiers endured during the war. In 1919, she returned to study at the University of Oxf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Convergence Of The Twain
"The Convergence of the Twain (Lines on the loss of the ''Titanic'')" is a poem by Thomas Hardy, published in 1912. The poem describes the sinking and wreckage of the ocean liner ''Titanic''. "Convergence" consists of eleven stanzas (''I'' to ''XI'') of three lines each, following the AAA rhyme pattern. Themes and structure One interpretation is that Hardy's controversial poem contrasts the materialism and hubris of mankind with the integrity and beauty of nature. This is accomplished in an almost satirical manner, given the absence of compassion and not even any reference to the huge loss of life that accompanied the ship's sinking. It is also possible that Hardy, who aspired to become an architect but lacked the resources to do so, criticizes what to him seem the unnecessary pursuits of wealthy people, epitomized in the building of such an enormous luxury vessel. The references in the first stanza to "human vanity" and "the Pride of Life that planned her" support such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as '' Far from the Madding Crowd'' (1874), ''The Mayor of Casterbridge'' (1886), '' Tess of the d'Urbervilles'' (1891), and ''Jude the Obscure'' (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's Journal'' and ''Our Lady of the Flowers'' and the plays ''The Balcony'', ''The Maids'' and ''The Screens''. Biography Early life Genet's mother was a prostitute who raised him for the first seven months of his life before placing him for adoption. Thereafter Genet was raised in the provincial town of Alligny-en-Morvan, in the Nièvre department of central France. His foster family was headed by a carpenter and, according to Edmund White's biography, was loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty theft. After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. Accord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, (; 5 June 188427 August 1969) was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel ''Mother and Son''. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class. Background Ivy Compton-Burnett was born in Pinner, Middlesex, on 5 June 1884, as the seventh of twelve children of a well-known homeopathic physician and prolific medical author, Dr James Compton-Burnett (the names were hyphenated and pronounced 'Cumpton-Burnit', 1840–1901) by his second wife, Katharine (1855–1911), daughter of civil engineer, surveyor and architect (many of the best houses built n Doverbetween 1850 and 1860 were his") Rowland Rees, who was also Mayor of Dover. Given the subjects of most of her works, it was widely assumed that the Compton-Burnett family were landed gentry; in his review of the final volume of H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Francis Kilvert")
