Books In the Media
1. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B001G8P5PU
2. A Fatal Grace (Three Pines Mysteries, No. 2) by Louise Penny
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0312947135
3. Judge & Jury by James Patterson
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0446619000
4. From Dead to Worse (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 8) by Charlaine Harris
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0441017010
5. Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (FSG Classics) by Jostein Gaarder
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0374530718
6. Till We Meet Again by Lesley Pearse
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/014100648X
7. Love Letters by Katie Fforde
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Letters-Katie-Fforde/dp/1846054478/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258222887&sr=1-1
8.The Girl Least Likely To... / The Deputy Gets Her Man (Harlequin Duet, No 94) by Dorien Kelly
http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0373441606
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Book in the Media - Wheres Wally
Title: Where's Wally? The Ultimate Travel Collection: "Where's Wally?" WITH "Where's Wally Now?" AND "Where's Wally? The Fantastic ... AND "Where's Wally? The Wonder Book" (Paperback)
Author: Martin Handford
Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: Walker; Travel ed edition (2 Mar 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1406316253
ISBN-13: 978-1406316254
Product Dimensions: 19 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm
Book Description
The ultimate travel accessory!
Product Description
The first five classic awe-inspiring Where's Wally? books packed into a travel sized edition. Wherever you're going, however you're travelling – join the search for Wally!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1406316253
Author: Martin Handford
Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: Walker; Travel ed edition (2 Mar 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1406316253
ISBN-13: 978-1406316254
Product Dimensions: 19 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm
Book Description
The ultimate travel accessory!
Product Description
The first five classic awe-inspiring Where's Wally? books packed into a travel sized edition. Wherever you're going, however you're travelling – join the search for Wally!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1406316253
Book in the Media - Mother Teresa
Title: Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The revealing private writings of the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Authors: Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Rider & Co (7 Aug 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1846041309
ISBN-13: 978-1846041303
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm
Product Description
During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa became an icon of compassion to people of all religions, and none. Her selfless commitment to the care of the sick and the dying, as well as to thousands of others who no one else was prepared to help, has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world. Yet this impressive collection of her writings shows a different and unexpected picture of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her absolute conviction that she was doing God's will is well known but what is a revelation is the discovery that she fulfilled her mission in spite of feeling a chasm of spiritual emptiness within her, which lasted for decades. This book is a moving chronicle of her spiritual journey and it reveals the secrets she shared only with her closest confidants. It also illustrates how the experience of an agonizing sense of loss need not hold anyone back from doing something extraordinary with their lives.
About the Author
Born in Skopje in 1910, Mother Teresa joined the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin in 1928 and was sent to India, where she began her novitiate. She taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta from 1931 to 1948, until leaving the Loreto order to begin the Missionaries of Charity. Through her sisters, brothers and priests, her service to the poorest of the poor spread all around the world. She won many awards, including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. After her death in 1997, the process for her sainthood was quickly begun and she was beatified in 2003. Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ph.D., was born in Winnipeg, Canada. He met Mother Teresa in 1977 and was associated with her until her death in 1997. He joined the Missionaries of Charity Fathers at the time of their foundation in 1984. Fr. Brian is postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and director of the Mother Teresa Center.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0307589234
Authors: Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Rider & Co (7 Aug 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1846041309
ISBN-13: 978-1846041303
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm
Product Description
During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa became an icon of compassion to people of all religions, and none. Her selfless commitment to the care of the sick and the dying, as well as to thousands of others who no one else was prepared to help, has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world. Yet this impressive collection of her writings shows a different and unexpected picture of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Her absolute conviction that she was doing God's will is well known but what is a revelation is the discovery that she fulfilled her mission in spite of feeling a chasm of spiritual emptiness within her, which lasted for decades. This book is a moving chronicle of her spiritual journey and it reveals the secrets she shared only with her closest confidants. It also illustrates how the experience of an agonizing sense of loss need not hold anyone back from doing something extraordinary with their lives.
About the Author
Born in Skopje in 1910, Mother Teresa joined the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin in 1928 and was sent to India, where she began her novitiate. She taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta from 1931 to 1948, until leaving the Loreto order to begin the Missionaries of Charity. Through her sisters, brothers and priests, her service to the poorest of the poor spread all around the world. She won many awards, including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. After her death in 1997, the process for her sainthood was quickly begun and she was beatified in 2003. Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ph.D., was born in Winnipeg, Canada. He met Mother Teresa in 1977 and was associated with her until her death in 1997. He joined the Missionaries of Charity Fathers at the time of their foundation in 1984. Fr. Brian is postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and director of the Mother Teresa Center.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0307589234
Book in the Media - The Ivington Diaries
Title: The Ivington Diaries (Hardcover)
Author: Monty Don
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (5 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 140880249X
ISBN-13: 978-1408802496
Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 17.4 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
Monty Don and his wife Sarah moved into their semi-derelict farmhouse at Ivington in 1992, and their garden is the most tangible symbol of the spectacular way in which they have since thrived. Springing with amazing vigour from the soil behind the house, this space has been central to Monty's life; ever since he dug the very first border, he has obsessively written about it. The Ivington Diaries is a personal collection of Monty's jottings from the past fifteen years. Generously illustrated with his very own photographs, and beautifully packaged, this book promises to be one of the most delightful garden books ever published.
About the Author
Monty Don is one of Britain's best-loved gardeners. He wrote a weekly column for the Observer between 1994 and 2006, earning him a devoted readership, and he was the charismatic presenter of BBC Gardener's World from 2003 to 2008. He lives and gardens in Herefordshire with his wife Sarah, with whom he wrote The Jewel Garden, and their three children.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/140880249X
Author: Monty Don
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (5 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 140880249X
ISBN-13: 978-1408802496
Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 17.4 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
Monty Don and his wife Sarah moved into their semi-derelict farmhouse at Ivington in 1992, and their garden is the most tangible symbol of the spectacular way in which they have since thrived. Springing with amazing vigour from the soil behind the house, this space has been central to Monty's life; ever since he dug the very first border, he has obsessively written about it. The Ivington Diaries is a personal collection of Monty's jottings from the past fifteen years. Generously illustrated with his very own photographs, and beautifully packaged, this book promises to be one of the most delightful garden books ever published.
About the Author
Monty Don is one of Britain's best-loved gardeners. He wrote a weekly column for the Observer between 1994 and 2006, earning him a devoted readership, and he was the charismatic presenter of BBC Gardener's World from 2003 to 2008. He lives and gardens in Herefordshire with his wife Sarah, with whom he wrote The Jewel Garden, and their three children.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/140880249X
Book in the Media - The Love of My Life
Title: The Love of My Life
Author: Louise Douglas
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Pan (16 Jan 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330453580
ISBN-13: 978-0330453585
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
‘I miss him with every breath and heartbeat. He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.’
Olivia and Luca Felicone had known each other nearly all their lives, but when they fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London, they broke the hearts of those closest to them. Luca’s parents run Marinella’s restaurant, the colourful hub of life in the otherwise bleak north-eastern seaside town of Watersford, and his mother, Angela, has never forgiven Olivia for causing such a rift in her beloved family.
On a freezing January night Olivia’s life is shattered when she learns that Luca has been killed in a car accident on the M1. She is left with nothing, and after suffering from weeks of overwhelming grief, she abandons her job and returns North to where Luca has been buried in Watersford, just to be close to him – even though she knows she will not be welcome at Marinella’s.
Olivia’s chance meeting with Luca’s married twin brother, Marc, leads to the realization that he is experiencing a loss almost as painful as her own. Their desolation draws them into an affair which both know has no future, but fills the space where Luca should be. It is a course of action that can only spiral out of control, and when it does, the consequences are both explosive and cruel.
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE is a beautiful novel that portrays both the innocence of childhood, and the dynamics of love and loss with deftness and sensitivity. It is, above all, a stunning debut from an author with a unique and natural narrative voice.
‘Sad and lovely. I'm now having trouble finding a book good enough to fill the very deep hole she's left’
Milly Johnson, author of The Yorkshire Pudding Club
About the Author
Louise Douglas is a journalist and lives near Bristol with her three children. The Love of My Life is her first novel.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0330453580
Author: Louise Douglas
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Pan (16 Jan 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330453580
ISBN-13: 978-0330453585
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
‘I miss him with every breath and heartbeat. He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.’
Olivia and Luca Felicone had known each other nearly all their lives, but when they fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London, they broke the hearts of those closest to them. Luca’s parents run Marinella’s restaurant, the colourful hub of life in the otherwise bleak north-eastern seaside town of Watersford, and his mother, Angela, has never forgiven Olivia for causing such a rift in her beloved family.
On a freezing January night Olivia’s life is shattered when she learns that Luca has been killed in a car accident on the M1. She is left with nothing, and after suffering from weeks of overwhelming grief, she abandons her job and returns North to where Luca has been buried in Watersford, just to be close to him – even though she knows she will not be welcome at Marinella’s.
Olivia’s chance meeting with Luca’s married twin brother, Marc, leads to the realization that he is experiencing a loss almost as painful as her own. Their desolation draws them into an affair which both know has no future, but fills the space where Luca should be. It is a course of action that can only spiral out of control, and when it does, the consequences are both explosive and cruel.
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE is a beautiful novel that portrays both the innocence of childhood, and the dynamics of love and loss with deftness and sensitivity. It is, above all, a stunning debut from an author with a unique and natural narrative voice.
‘Sad and lovely. I'm now having trouble finding a book good enough to fill the very deep hole she's left’
Milly Johnson, author of The Yorkshire Pudding Club
About the Author
Louise Douglas is a journalist and lives near Bristol with her three children. The Love of My Life is her first novel.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0330453580
Book in the Media - Breaking Dawn
Title: Breaking Dawn Special Edition (Twilight Saga)
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Hardcover: 800 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers; Har/DVD Sp edition (4 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 031604461X
ISBN-13: 978-0316044615
Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.6 x 6.4 cm
Product Description
The Special Edition of Breaking Dawn includes:
*An exclusive Breaking Dawn concert series DVD featuring Blue October's Justin Furstenfeld, plus conversations with Stephenie Meyer and Justin
*The lyrics to "My Never"
*A full-colour poster of Bella and Edward
Twilight tempted the imagination... New Moon made readers thirsty for more... Eclipse turned the saga into a worldwide phenomenon ...And now - the book that everyone has been waiting for... Breaking Dawn. In the much anticipated fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's love story, questions will be answered and the fate of Bella and Edward will be revealed.
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, she has endured a tumultuous year of temptation, loss and strife to reach the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fate of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating and unfathomable consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed...forever?
Breaking Dawn, both an unforgettable love story and a pulse-pounding thriller, is the fourth book in the New York Times bestselling vampire romance series that has developed a cult following among teens. It was an international event in children's publishing, with rights sold in over a dozen countries (including a record advance paid by a US publisher)
'The sexiest vampire tale for years arrived in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, about teenage Bella's chaste romance with a beautiful vampire boy. Their intensely erotic feelings are endangered by more predatory types. Guaranteed to suck in sulky 13+ girls for hours.' - The Times
'Will keep readers madly flipping the pages...' - Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
Stephenie Meyer graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English Literature and lives with her husband and three young sons in Arizona. She is the author of Twilight and New Moon
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/031604461X
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Hardcover: 800 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers; Har/DVD Sp edition (4 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 031604461X
ISBN-13: 978-0316044615
Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.6 x 6.4 cm
Product Description
The Special Edition of Breaking Dawn includes:
*An exclusive Breaking Dawn concert series DVD featuring Blue October's Justin Furstenfeld, plus conversations with Stephenie Meyer and Justin
*The lyrics to "My Never"
*A full-colour poster of Bella and Edward
Twilight tempted the imagination... New Moon made readers thirsty for more... Eclipse turned the saga into a worldwide phenomenon ...And now - the book that everyone has been waiting for... Breaking Dawn. In the much anticipated fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's love story, questions will be answered and the fate of Bella and Edward will be revealed.
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, she has endured a tumultuous year of temptation, loss and strife to reach the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fate of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating and unfathomable consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed...forever?
Breaking Dawn, both an unforgettable love story and a pulse-pounding thriller, is the fourth book in the New York Times bestselling vampire romance series that has developed a cult following among teens. It was an international event in children's publishing, with rights sold in over a dozen countries (including a record advance paid by a US publisher)
'The sexiest vampire tale for years arrived in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, about teenage Bella's chaste romance with a beautiful vampire boy. Their intensely erotic feelings are endangered by more predatory types. Guaranteed to suck in sulky 13+ girls for hours.' - The Times
'Will keep readers madly flipping the pages...' - Publisher's Weekly
About the Author
Stephenie Meyer graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English Literature and lives with her husband and three young sons in Arizona. She is the author of Twilight and New Moon
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/031604461X
Book in the Media - Shiver
Title: Shiver
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Scholastic; 1 edition (5 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1407115006
ISBN-13: 978-1407115009
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3 cm
Product Description
Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Every winter, she watches him but every summer, he disappears. Sam leads two lives. In winter he stays in the frozen woods, with the protection of the pack.n summer, he has a few precious months to be human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again. When Grace and Sam finally meet they realize they can't bear to be apart. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human - or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0545123267
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Scholastic; 1 edition (5 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1407115006
ISBN-13: 978-1407115009
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3 cm
Product Description
Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Every winter, she watches him but every summer, he disappears. Sam leads two lives. In winter he stays in the frozen woods, with the protection of the pack.n summer, he has a few precious months to be human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again. When Grace and Sam finally meet they realize they can't bear to be apart. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human - or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0545123267
Book in the Media - I, Alex Cross
Title: I, Alex Cross
Author: James Patterson
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Century; 1st edition (22 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1846052602
ISBN-13: 978-1846052606
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
Detective Alex Cross is pulled out of a family celebration and given the awful news that his niece, Caroline, has been found brutally murdered. Cross vows to hunt down the killer, and soon learns that Caroline was mixed up in one of Washington's wildest scenes. And she was not this killer's only victim. The hunt for her murderer leads Alex and his girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, to a place where every fantasy is possible, if you have the credentials to get in. Alex and Bree are soon facing down some very important, very protected, very dangerous people in levels of society where only one thing is certain - they will do anything to keep their secrets safe. As Cross closes in on the killer, he discovers evidence that points to the unimaginable - a revelation that could rock the entire world. With the unstoppable action, unforeseeable twists, and edge-of-your-seat suspense that only a James Patterson thriller delivers, "I, Alex Cross" is the master of suspense at his sharpest and best.
About the Author
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women's Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He lives in Florida with his wife and son. James is passionate about encouraging both adults and children alike to read. This has led to him forming a partnership with the National Literacy Trust, an independent, UK-based charity that changes lives through literacy.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316018783
Author: James Patterson
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Century; 1st edition (22 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1846052602
ISBN-13: 978-1846052606
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
Detective Alex Cross is pulled out of a family celebration and given the awful news that his niece, Caroline, has been found brutally murdered. Cross vows to hunt down the killer, and soon learns that Caroline was mixed up in one of Washington's wildest scenes. And she was not this killer's only victim. The hunt for her murderer leads Alex and his girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, to a place where every fantasy is possible, if you have the credentials to get in. Alex and Bree are soon facing down some very important, very protected, very dangerous people in levels of society where only one thing is certain - they will do anything to keep their secrets safe. As Cross closes in on the killer, he discovers evidence that points to the unimaginable - a revelation that could rock the entire world. With the unstoppable action, unforeseeable twists, and edge-of-your-seat suspense that only a James Patterson thriller delivers, "I, Alex Cross" is the master of suspense at his sharpest and best.
About the Author
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade: the Women's Murder Club, the Alex Cross novels and Maximum Ride, and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He lives in Florida with his wife and son. James is passionate about encouraging both adults and children alike to read. This has led to him forming a partnership with the National Literacy Trust, an independent, UK-based charity that changes lives through literacy.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316018783
Book in the Media - True Blue
Title: True Blue
Author: David Baldacci
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Macmillan (31 Dec 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0230706134
ISBN-13: 978-0230706132
Product Description
Mason “Mace” Perry was a maverick cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything—her career, her liberty—and spent two years in prison. Now back on the outside, Mace is trying to rebuild her life and track down the people who set her up. But even with her police chief sister at her side, she has to work in the shadows: there’s a vindictive US attorney on her tail and she’s just looking for a reason to send her back behind bars . . .
Roy Kingman is a young lawyer, still getting used to his high-paid job at a law firm in Washington. When Roy discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm, his fate becomes entangled with Mace’s, as the two team up to investigate.
But as their enquiries gather pace, Roy and Mace soon find themselves in unexpected territory; drawn into both the private and public world of the nation’s capital, as dark secrets begin to emerge. For what began as a fairly routine homicide investigation will quickly turn into something far more complex. And possibly lethal . . .
About the Author
David Baldacci is the author of fifteen previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers. With his books published in over 40 languages in more than 80 countries, and with nearly 70 million copies in print, he is one of the world’s favourite storytellers.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0446195510
Author: David Baldacci
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Macmillan (31 Dec 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0230706134
ISBN-13: 978-0230706132
Product Description
Mason “Mace” Perry was a maverick cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything—her career, her liberty—and spent two years in prison. Now back on the outside, Mace is trying to rebuild her life and track down the people who set her up. But even with her police chief sister at her side, she has to work in the shadows: there’s a vindictive US attorney on her tail and she’s just looking for a reason to send her back behind bars . . .
Roy Kingman is a young lawyer, still getting used to his high-paid job at a law firm in Washington. When Roy discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm, his fate becomes entangled with Mace’s, as the two team up to investigate.
But as their enquiries gather pace, Roy and Mace soon find themselves in unexpected territory; drawn into both the private and public world of the nation’s capital, as dark secrets begin to emerge. For what began as a fairly routine homicide investigation will quickly turn into something far more complex. And possibly lethal . . .
About the Author
David Baldacci is the author of fifteen previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers. With his books published in over 40 languages in more than 80 countries, and with nearly 70 million copies in print, he is one of the world’s favourite storytellers.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0446195510
Book of Media - Bed of Roses
Title: A Bed of Roses: Bride Quartet, Book 2
Author: Nora Roberts
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Piatkus Books (3 Dec 2009)
ISBN-10: 0749929286
ISBN-13: 978-0749929282
Product Description
Emmaline Grant has always loved romance, so it's really no surprise that she has found her calling as a wedding florist. And she gets to work with her best friends Mackensie, Parker and Laurel - she couldn't ask for a better job. Yet while men swarm around her, she still hasn't found Mr Right. But the last place Emma's looking is right under her nose. And that's just where Jack Cooke is. He's been best friends with Parker's brother for years, which makes him practically family. Now the architect has begun to admit to himself that his feelings for Emma have developed into much more than friendship, and when she returns his passion - kiss for blistering kiss - things start to get complicated. Jack has never been big on commitment. Emma yearns for a lifelong love affair. And if the two are to find common ground, they must trust in their history - and in their hearts ...
About the Author
Nora Roberts is the number one New York Times bestseller of more than one hundred novels. With more than 300 million copies of her books in print, and over 150 New York Times bestsellers to date, Nora Roberts is indisputably the most celebrated women's fiction writer today.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0425230074
Author: Nora Roberts
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Piatkus Books (3 Dec 2009)
ISBN-10: 0749929286
ISBN-13: 978-0749929282
Product Description
Emmaline Grant has always loved romance, so it's really no surprise that she has found her calling as a wedding florist. And she gets to work with her best friends Mackensie, Parker and Laurel - she couldn't ask for a better job. Yet while men swarm around her, she still hasn't found Mr Right. But the last place Emma's looking is right under her nose. And that's just where Jack Cooke is. He's been best friends with Parker's brother for years, which makes him practically family. Now the architect has begun to admit to himself that his feelings for Emma have developed into much more than friendship, and when she returns his passion - kiss for blistering kiss - things start to get complicated. Jack has never been big on commitment. Emma yearns for a lifelong love affair. And if the two are to find common ground, they must trust in their history - and in their hearts ...
About the Author
Nora Roberts is the number one New York Times bestseller of more than one hundred novels. With more than 300 million copies of her books in print, and over 150 New York Times bestsellers to date, Nora Roberts is indisputably the most celebrated women's fiction writer today.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0425230074
Book in the Media - The Gathering Storm
Title: The Gathering Storm
Authors: Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Hardcover: 784 pages
Publisher: Orbit (27 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841491659
ISBN-13: 978-1841491653
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 6.2 cm
Product Description
The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan's editor ? his wife, Harriet McDougal ? to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so The Gathering Storm is the first of three novels that will cover the outline left by Robert Jordan, chronicling Tarmon Gai'don and Rand al'Thor's final confrontation with the Dark One. This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
About the Author
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston. He was a graduate of the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics, and served two tours in Vietnam. His hobbies included hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool and pipe collecting. He died in September 2007
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0765302306
Authors: Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Hardcover: 784 pages
Publisher: Orbit (27 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1841491659
ISBN-13: 978-1841491653
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 6.2 cm
Product Description
The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan's editor ? his wife, Harriet McDougal ? to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so The Gathering Storm is the first of three novels that will cover the outline left by Robert Jordan, chronicling Tarmon Gai'don and Rand al'Thor's final confrontation with the Dark One. This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
About the Author
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston. He was a graduate of the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics, and served two tours in Vietnam. His hobbies included hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool and pipe collecting. He died in September 2007
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0765302306
Author Marian Murphy
http://www.irishwriters-online.com/marianmurphy.html
Marian Murphy
Marian Murphy was born in Limerick and grew up in Dublin.
Her novels are Take 2 (Dublin, Poolbeg, 2000); Millions! (Poolbeg, 2001); and Making It Home (Poolbeg, 2003)
She lives in Wicklow.
Marian Murphy
Marian Murphy was born in Limerick and grew up in Dublin.
Her novels are Take 2 (Dublin, Poolbeg, 2000); Millions! (Poolbeg, 2001); and Making It Home (Poolbeg, 2003)
She lives in Wicklow.
Author Sharon Mulrooney
http://www.poolbeg.com/authors/mulrooney_sharon.htm
Sharon Mulrooney,
Author of Daddy's Girl, Matthew, Meet Matthew, More To Life
Sharon Mulrooney always dreamed of being a writer, having made her first attempts aged nine which she made into books by sewing the bindings with white thread. She won a short story competition when she was in school, which was judged by William Trevor. She was also strongly inspired by one of her English teachers. But it was not until she was made redundant after a ten-year career in human resources that she used one of the most negative things in her life to look seriously at her writing - she now has a three-book deal with Poolbeg.
Sharon is originally from Galway but now lives in London . As a child she also lived in Mallow, Roscrea, Tramore, Dublin , Athlone and Dundalk . She worked in HR for the hotel, music and drinks industries and as a result got to attend many concerts and visit a variety of places during this time. She backpacked through Syria and Jordan where her then boyfriend now husband proposed to her on the beach at Aquaba on the edge of the Red Sea .
Now married with two young children, Sharon works also on a freelance basis as a HR consultant and is director of a family run social enterprise which gives jobs to young unemployed and homeless people.
Books
Daddy's Girl
First year college…her whole life ahead of her…places to go…people to meet… experiences to have…dreams to realise...pregnancy is not on the agenda. Maria’s from a small town in the west of Ireland . Ok it’s the ‘90s, but Ireland ’s not that liberal yet, certainly not in the wild west. What will Dad say, she always was Daddy’s Girl. London ... girls are going there everyday for the same reason. She can stay with her sister. No one back home need ever know...
“You don’t want it, do you?”
“No, of course not, but what are we going to do?”
Maria’s pregnant but her boyfriend, Joe, is not ready to be a father. It would tie him down and what would his mother think? Maria thought he really loved her but now, it seems, her only choice is to get rid of their baby. She can’t keep it. Her mother would die of shame and her father, Sean, would throw her out of the house.
While Maria heads for London on her own, an accident leaves Joe’s mother in a coma. As he holds vigil by her beside he has lots of time to think about his future.
But in London Maria has made a decision that will affect everyone she loves…forever.
In the bestselling tradition of Ireland ’s favourite storytellers for women comes a new voice, Sharon Mulrooney. Lose yourself in Daddy’s Girl, guaranteed to keep you turning the pages.
God A User's Guide
Decisions…decisions! Just when life is moving along nicely, or so you think, along comes trouble…
Following on from her successful debut novel Daddy’s Girl, exciting Irish talent Sharon Mulrooney’s latest offering Matthew, meet Matthew is another welcome arrival on bookshelves this summer. A tale of high-flying careers and complicated love lives, the author takes the threads of everyday life and cleverly weaves them into an emotional and exciting story. Written in an easy, flowing style that marks Mulrooney as a natural storyteller, Matthew, meet Matthew makes for compelling summer reading.
‘Leaving Ireland after university, Caroline travelled the world before settling down to be a lawyer in London . Now she’s on the fast track to success and is enjoying the buzz of the rat race. She lives with handsome, sexy and funny Matthew, an actor who hasn’t done much acting lately and is becoming a little bit dull.
She wasn’t looking for another man but is irresistibly attracted to another Matthew. A lawyer, he is sophisticated, mature and articulate and Caroline revels in the conversation and intellectual challenge that he offers.
She loves them both. Between them they make the perfect man. As they all cross paths in a series of strange coincidences Caroline finds herself confused about who she is… and which Matthew she wants’
Daddy's Girl
First year college…her whole life ahead of her…places to go…people to meet… experiences to have…dreams to realise...pregnancy is not on the agenda. Maria’s from a small town in the west of Ireland . Ok it’s the ‘90s, but Ireland ’s not that liberal yet, certainly not in the wild west. What will Dad say, she always was Daddy’s Girl. London ... girls are going there everyday for the same reason. She can stay with her sister. No one back home need ever know...
“You don’t want it, do you?”
“No, of course not, but what are we going to do?”
Maria’s pregnant but her boyfriend, Joe, is not ready to be a father. It would tie him down and what would his mother think? Maria thought he really loved her but now, it seems, her only choice is to get rid of their baby. She can’t keep it. Her mother would die of shame and her father, Sean, would throw her out of the house.
While Maria heads for London on her own, an accident leaves Joe’s mother in a coma. As he holds vigil by her beside he has lots of time to think about his future.
But in London Maria has made a decision that will affect everyone she loves…forever.
In the bestselling tradition of Ireland ’s favourite storytellers for women comes a new voice, Sharon Mulrooney. Lose yourself in Daddy’s Girl, guaranteed to keep you turning the pages.
Sharon Mulrooney,
Author of Daddy's Girl, Matthew, Meet Matthew, More To Life
Sharon Mulrooney always dreamed of being a writer, having made her first attempts aged nine which she made into books by sewing the bindings with white thread. She won a short story competition when she was in school, which was judged by William Trevor. She was also strongly inspired by one of her English teachers. But it was not until she was made redundant after a ten-year career in human resources that she used one of the most negative things in her life to look seriously at her writing - she now has a three-book deal with Poolbeg.
Sharon is originally from Galway but now lives in London . As a child she also lived in Mallow, Roscrea, Tramore, Dublin , Athlone and Dundalk . She worked in HR for the hotel, music and drinks industries and as a result got to attend many concerts and visit a variety of places during this time. She backpacked through Syria and Jordan where her then boyfriend now husband proposed to her on the beach at Aquaba on the edge of the Red Sea .
Now married with two young children, Sharon works also on a freelance basis as a HR consultant and is director of a family run social enterprise which gives jobs to young unemployed and homeless people.
Books
Daddy's Girl
First year college…her whole life ahead of her…places to go…people to meet… experiences to have…dreams to realise...pregnancy is not on the agenda. Maria’s from a small town in the west of Ireland . Ok it’s the ‘90s, but Ireland ’s not that liberal yet, certainly not in the wild west. What will Dad say, she always was Daddy’s Girl. London ... girls are going there everyday for the same reason. She can stay with her sister. No one back home need ever know...
“You don’t want it, do you?”
“No, of course not, but what are we going to do?”
Maria’s pregnant but her boyfriend, Joe, is not ready to be a father. It would tie him down and what would his mother think? Maria thought he really loved her but now, it seems, her only choice is to get rid of their baby. She can’t keep it. Her mother would die of shame and her father, Sean, would throw her out of the house.
While Maria heads for London on her own, an accident leaves Joe’s mother in a coma. As he holds vigil by her beside he has lots of time to think about his future.
But in London Maria has made a decision that will affect everyone she loves…forever.
In the bestselling tradition of Ireland ’s favourite storytellers for women comes a new voice, Sharon Mulrooney. Lose yourself in Daddy’s Girl, guaranteed to keep you turning the pages.
God A User's Guide
Decisions…decisions! Just when life is moving along nicely, or so you think, along comes trouble…
Following on from her successful debut novel Daddy’s Girl, exciting Irish talent Sharon Mulrooney’s latest offering Matthew, meet Matthew is another welcome arrival on bookshelves this summer. A tale of high-flying careers and complicated love lives, the author takes the threads of everyday life and cleverly weaves them into an emotional and exciting story. Written in an easy, flowing style that marks Mulrooney as a natural storyteller, Matthew, meet Matthew makes for compelling summer reading.
‘Leaving Ireland after university, Caroline travelled the world before settling down to be a lawyer in London . Now she’s on the fast track to success and is enjoying the buzz of the rat race. She lives with handsome, sexy and funny Matthew, an actor who hasn’t done much acting lately and is becoming a little bit dull.
She wasn’t looking for another man but is irresistibly attracted to another Matthew. A lawyer, he is sophisticated, mature and articulate and Caroline revels in the conversation and intellectual challenge that he offers.
She loves them both. Between them they make the perfect man. As they all cross paths in a series of strange coincidences Caroline finds herself confused about who she is… and which Matthew she wants’
Daddy's Girl
First year college…her whole life ahead of her…places to go…people to meet… experiences to have…dreams to realise...pregnancy is not on the agenda. Maria’s from a small town in the west of Ireland . Ok it’s the ‘90s, but Ireland ’s not that liberal yet, certainly not in the wild west. What will Dad say, she always was Daddy’s Girl. London ... girls are going there everyday for the same reason. She can stay with her sister. No one back home need ever know...
“You don’t want it, do you?”
“No, of course not, but what are we going to do?”
Maria’s pregnant but her boyfriend, Joe, is not ready to be a father. It would tie him down and what would his mother think? Maria thought he really loved her but now, it seems, her only choice is to get rid of their baby. She can’t keep it. Her mother would die of shame and her father, Sean, would throw her out of the house.
While Maria heads for London on her own, an accident leaves Joe’s mother in a coma. As he holds vigil by her beside he has lots of time to think about his future.
But in London Maria has made a decision that will affect everyone she loves…forever.
In the bestselling tradition of Ireland ’s favourite storytellers for women comes a new voice, Sharon Mulrooney. Lose yourself in Daddy’s Girl, guaranteed to keep you turning the pages.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Top Ten Blogs on the future of books, media and publishing
http://eoinpurcellsblog.com/2007/02/28/the-top-ten-blogs-on-the-future-of-books-media-and-publishing/
Eoin Purcell
1/ Publishing 2.0
Scott Karp really does think and it shows. His posts are clear, concise, well written and interesting. If he is driven more perhaps from the revenue perspective his commentary only benefits from this.
2/ if:book
The Institute of the Future of the Book’s blog. The Ronseal of Book blogs [It does what it says on the tin], this site is really a hub for changes and possibilities on text and its future. Well thought out, at the forefront of change and tools for change this blog is for theory and application what Scott Karp is for the economics and revenues.
3/ Buzzmachine
Jeff Jarvis is the real deal. In a phrase he likes to use himself, he “gets it!” Never afraid to try (witness his own video reports) always encouraging and enthusiastic his blog is one of the most important in point possible directions for the news media (especially the changes necessary for print media).
4/ Open Access News
I don’t think you can discuss the changes in media and print without considering Open Access and its potential. If you care about these topics then you need to read Open Access News written by Peter Suber.
5/ Booktwo
Though not new, Booktwo is new to me. That aside it is an essential link to the changing technology and media environment. Somehow James manages to get his hands on great links and info before anyone else. And he works at one of my favourite publishers Snowbooks.
6/ Medialoper
Medialoper is one of a pair of blogs (booksquare being the other) that I love and read daily. It is not simply the links and nods to others in the area of change that Medialoper provides freely, Medialoper as a blog takes a much more considered perspective and avoids the breathlessness that can at times enter the discussion about the future. I like that.
7/ Plagiarism today
Jonathan Bailey has built an impressive body of material regarding copyright/plagiarism and the abuse of content on the web. In so many ways his site allows the reader and the less well informed to not only keep up to date with developments in protecting content from scrapping etc. but also the theory and debate that underpin modern copyright.
8/ Personanondata
If you want to know more about the possible tie-ups between the powers in publishing, the potential for data in the digital future or the likely trajectory of digital text in the education market, Michael Cairns’ blog is the spot for it. Relatively new on the scene it is one of the best in terms of analysing and discussing change both real and possible. His knowledge of the US market is hugely useful in making sense of company announcements and strategic decisions.
9/ PaidContent
Who doesn’t like PaidContent, a blog that has industry access, runs meet ups and generally functions like an institution much older than it actually is. Not only is PaidContent a blog about the changing nature and economics of Content it is itself a paragon example of that change.
10/ Invisible Inkling
Ryan Sholin started this blog as a student of journalism and has developed it since. His posts are insightful and useful for those wondering what the people entering careers in the media are thinking.
Eoin Purcell
1/ Publishing 2.0
Scott Karp really does think and it shows. His posts are clear, concise, well written and interesting. If he is driven more perhaps from the revenue perspective his commentary only benefits from this.
2/ if:book
The Institute of the Future of the Book’s blog. The Ronseal of Book blogs [It does what it says on the tin], this site is really a hub for changes and possibilities on text and its future. Well thought out, at the forefront of change and tools for change this blog is for theory and application what Scott Karp is for the economics and revenues.
3/ Buzzmachine
Jeff Jarvis is the real deal. In a phrase he likes to use himself, he “gets it!” Never afraid to try (witness his own video reports) always encouraging and enthusiastic his blog is one of the most important in point possible directions for the news media (especially the changes necessary for print media).
4/ Open Access News
I don’t think you can discuss the changes in media and print without considering Open Access and its potential. If you care about these topics then you need to read Open Access News written by Peter Suber.
5/ Booktwo
Though not new, Booktwo is new to me. That aside it is an essential link to the changing technology and media environment. Somehow James manages to get his hands on great links and info before anyone else. And he works at one of my favourite publishers Snowbooks.
6/ Medialoper
Medialoper is one of a pair of blogs (booksquare being the other) that I love and read daily. It is not simply the links and nods to others in the area of change that Medialoper provides freely, Medialoper as a blog takes a much more considered perspective and avoids the breathlessness that can at times enter the discussion about the future. I like that.
7/ Plagiarism today
Jonathan Bailey has built an impressive body of material regarding copyright/plagiarism and the abuse of content on the web. In so many ways his site allows the reader and the less well informed to not only keep up to date with developments in protecting content from scrapping etc. but also the theory and debate that underpin modern copyright.
8/ Personanondata
If you want to know more about the possible tie-ups between the powers in publishing, the potential for data in the digital future or the likely trajectory of digital text in the education market, Michael Cairns’ blog is the spot for it. Relatively new on the scene it is one of the best in terms of analysing and discussing change both real and possible. His knowledge of the US market is hugely useful in making sense of company announcements and strategic decisions.
9/ PaidContent
Who doesn’t like PaidContent, a blog that has industry access, runs meet ups and generally functions like an institution much older than it actually is. Not only is PaidContent a blog about the changing nature and economics of Content it is itself a paragon example of that change.
10/ Invisible Inkling
Ryan Sholin started this blog as a student of journalism and has developed it since. His posts are insightful and useful for those wondering what the people entering careers in the media are thinking.
Bookselling This Week
http://news.bookweb.org/mediaguide/
In Print
November 12, 2009 - What books are being reviewed where? Find out here.
On the Tube and the Big Screen
November 12, 2009 - Who are the book guests on TV? What titles are the basis for new movies and DVDs?
On the Radio
November 12, 2009 - What books are being talked about on National Public Radio and other syndicated book related radio shows?
Upcoming Events
November 12, 2009 - Save these dates for the book-related events in your area.
On Tour
November 11, 2009 - Information about current Indie Next authors on tour.
In Print
November 12, 2009 - What books are being reviewed where? Find out here.
On the Tube and the Big Screen
November 12, 2009 - Who are the book guests on TV? What titles are the basis for new movies and DVDs?
On the Radio
November 12, 2009 - What books are being talked about on National Public Radio and other syndicated book related radio shows?
Upcoming Events
November 12, 2009 - Save these dates for the book-related events in your area.
On Tour
November 11, 2009 - Information about current Indie Next authors on tour.
Books In The Media - Book Trade
http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showindex/23
Cengage Learning Charges Houghton Mifflin Harcourt With Breach Of Contract
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 11:02:02 AM
Jerry Hall To Star In TV Version Of Martin Amis's Money
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 10:59:00 AM
E-books To Drive Prices Down In Oz
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 8:12:41 AM
Forum Announces Arab Children Literature Award
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 8:12:04 AM
Cengage Learning Charges Houghton Mifflin Harcourt With Breach Of Contract
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 11:02:02 AM
Jerry Hall To Star In TV Version Of Martin Amis's Money
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 10:59:00 AM
E-books To Drive Prices Down In Oz
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 8:12:41 AM
Forum Announces Arab Children Literature Award
Yesterday, November 12, 2009, 8:12:04 AM
The People's Friend 2010
Title: People's Friend Annual 2010
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845353919
ISBN-13: 978-1845353919
Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 14.4 x 1.6 cm
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845353919
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845353919
ISBN-13: 978-1845353919
Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 14.4 x 1.6 cm
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845353919
Book in the Media - Fireside Book 2010
Title: Fireside Book 2010
Author: David Hope
Hardcover: 112 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845353935
ISBN-13: 978-1845353933
Product Dimensions: 18 x 12.2 x 2 cm
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845353935
Author: David Hope
Hardcover: 112 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845353935
ISBN-13: 978-1845353933
Product Dimensions: 18 x 12.2 x 2 cm
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845353935
Book in the Media - The Friendship Book 2010
Title: Friendship Book 2010
Author: Francis Gay
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845354060
ISBN-13: 978-1845354060
Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 12.4 x 2 cm
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845354060
Author: Francis Gay
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: D C Thomson (2 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 1845354060
ISBN-13: 978-1845354060
Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 12.4 x 2 cm
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845354060
Book in the Media - The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
Toitle: The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
Author: Tarek Malouf
Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Ryland, Peters & Small Ltd (15 April 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1845978307
ISBN-13: 978-1845978303
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 18.8 x 2 cm
Product Description
The Hummingbird Bakery is the destination bakery for Londoners with a passion for great cakes. In this irresistible book, the chefs from the bakery share their recipes for a delicious range of 60 bakes, from deliciously light cupcakes with pretty buttercream frosting to moist chocolate layer cakes and zesty lemon meringue pie. Hummingbird recipes not only taste great but also look spectacular - without resorting to fussy recipes and hours in the kitchen. The chapters include Cupcakes, Cakes (including loaf, layer, ring and cheesecakes), Pies, Brownies and Bars, Muffins and Cookies.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845978315
Author: Tarek Malouf
Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Ryland, Peters & Small Ltd (15 April 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1845978307
ISBN-13: 978-1845978303
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 18.8 x 2 cm
Product Description
The Hummingbird Bakery is the destination bakery for Londoners with a passion for great cakes. In this irresistible book, the chefs from the bakery share their recipes for a delicious range of 60 bakes, from deliciously light cupcakes with pretty buttercream frosting to moist chocolate layer cakes and zesty lemon meringue pie. Hummingbird recipes not only taste great but also look spectacular - without resorting to fussy recipes and hours in the kitchen. The chapters include Cupcakes, Cakes (including loaf, layer, ring and cheesecakes), Pies, Brownies and Bars, Muffins and Cookies.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1845978315
Book in the Media - Why Mermaids Sing
Title: Why Mermaids Sing (Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries)
Author C. S. Harris
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Signet Book; Reprint edition (7 Oct 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0451225333
ISBN-13: 978-0451225337
Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 2.5 cm
Product Description
Murder has jarred London’s elite. The sons of prominent families have been found at dawn in public places, partially butchered, with strange objects stuffed in their mouths. Once again, the local magistrate turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help. Moving from the gritty world of London’s docks to the drawing rooms of Mayfair, Sebastian confronts his most puzzling—and disturbing—case yet.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0451225333
Author C. S. Harris
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Signet Book; Reprint edition (7 Oct 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0451225333
ISBN-13: 978-0451225337
Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 2.5 cm
Product Description
Murder has jarred London’s elite. The sons of prominent families have been found at dawn in public places, partially butchered, with strange objects stuffed in their mouths. Once again, the local magistrate turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help. Moving from the gritty world of London’s docks to the drawing rooms of Mayfair, Sebastian confronts his most puzzling—and disturbing—case yet.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0451225333
Book in the Media - The Language of Bees
Title: Language of Bees, The
Author: Laurie R. King
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: ALLISON & BUSBY (4 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0749007915
ISBN-13: 978-0749007911
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was a delicious anticipation. There was even a mystery to solve - the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes' beloved hives. But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a bitter memory from her husband's past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the promising surrealist painter had been charged with - and exonerated from - murder. Now the talented and troubled young man is enlisting their help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child. From suicides among the Standing Stones to a bizarre religious cult, from the demi-monde of the Cafe Royal at the heart of Bohemian London to the dark secrets of a young woman's past on the streets of Shanghai, Russell will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she's ever faced - a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0553804545
Author: Laurie R. King
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: ALLISON & BUSBY (4 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0749007915
ISBN-13: 978-0749007911
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 4.2 cm
Product Description
For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was a delicious anticipation. There was even a mystery to solve - the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes' beloved hives. But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a bitter memory from her husband's past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the promising surrealist painter had been charged with - and exonerated from - murder. Now the talented and troubled young man is enlisting their help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child. From suicides among the Standing Stones to a bizarre religious cult, from the demi-monde of the Cafe Royal at the heart of Bohemian London to the dark secrets of a young woman's past on the streets of Shanghai, Russell will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she's ever faced - a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0553804545
Book In The Media - Stickman
Title: Stick Man
Authors: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Alison Green Books; 1 edition (6 Aug 2009)
ISBN-10: 1407108824
ISBN-13: 978-1407108827
Product Dimensions: 26.4 x 21.2 x 0.4 cm
Product Description
"Stick Man lives in the family tree With his Stick Lady Love and their stick children three." But it's dangerous being a Stick Man. A dog wants to play with him, a swan builds her nest with him. He even ends up on a fire! Join Stick Man on his troublesome journey back to the family tree.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20
Authors: Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Alison Green Books; 1 edition (6 Aug 2009)
ISBN-10: 1407108824
ISBN-13: 978-1407108827
Product Dimensions: 26.4 x 21.2 x 0.4 cm
Product Description
"Stick Man lives in the family tree With his Stick Lady Love and their stick children three." But it's dangerous being a Stick Man. A dog wants to play with him, a swan builds her nest with him. He even ends up on a fire! Join Stick Man on his troublesome journey back to the family tree.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20
Book in the Media - The Likeness
Title: The Likeness
Author: Tana French
Paperback: 704 pages
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (28 May 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340924799
ISBN-13: 978-0340924792
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 4.8 cm
Product Description
'I knew her from somewhere, I’d seen that face a million times before. Then the whole world went silent, frozen, darkness roaring in from the edges and only the girl’s face blazing white at the centre; because it was me, blue-lipped and still, with shadows like dark bruises under my eyes.'
Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What’s more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison – the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective.
With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie’s real identity, Cassie’s old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer out of hiding to finish the job.
About the Author
Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin. Her first novel, In the Woods, won the Clarion award in 2007 for First Fiction, the Barry award for best first novel in 2008, Newcomer of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards 2008, and the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the USA in 2008 for best first novel. She has worked in theatre, film and voiceover.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0143115626
Author: Tana French
Paperback: 704 pages
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (28 May 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340924799
ISBN-13: 978-0340924792
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 4.8 cm
Product Description
'I knew her from somewhere, I’d seen that face a million times before. Then the whole world went silent, frozen, darkness roaring in from the edges and only the girl’s face blazing white at the centre; because it was me, blue-lipped and still, with shadows like dark bruises under my eyes.'
Still traumatised by her brush with a psychopath, Detective Cassie Maddox transfers out of the Murder squad and starts a relationship with fellow detective Sam O’Neill. When he calls her to the scene of his new case, she is shocked to find that the murdered girl is her double. What’s more, her ID shows she is Lexie Madison – the identity Cassie used, years ago, as an undercover detective.
With no leads, no suspects and no clues to Lexie’s real identity, Cassie’s old boss spots the opportunity of a lifetime: send Cassie undercover in her place, to tempt the killer out of hiding to finish the job.
About the Author
Tana French grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin. Her first novel, In the Woods, won the Clarion award in 2007 for First Fiction, the Barry award for best first novel in 2008, Newcomer of the Year award at the Irish Book Awards 2008, and the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity awards in the USA in 2008 for best first novel. She has worked in theatre, film and voiceover.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0143115626
Book in the Media - Testimony
Title: Testimony
Author: Anita Shreve
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Abacus (4 Jun 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0349119023
ISBN-13: 978-0349119021
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices - those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal - that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve's Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
About the Author
Anita Shreve is the author of thirteen other critically acclaimed and bestselling novels, all published in Abacus paperback.
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316067342
Author: Anita Shreve
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Abacus (4 Jun 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0349119023
ISBN-13: 978-0349119021
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices - those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal - that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve's Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
About the Author
Anita Shreve is the author of thirteen other critically acclaimed and bestselling novels, all published in Abacus paperback.
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316067342
Book in the Media- Last Night in Twisted River
Title: Last Night in Twisted River
Author: John Irving
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Airport and export ed edition (19 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1408802147
ISBN-13: 978-1408802144
Product Description
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County - to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto - pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving's twelfth novel - depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course'. From the novel's taut opening sentence - 'The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long' - to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving's breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp. What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author's unmistakable voice - the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: 'We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly - as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth - the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives'.
About the Author
John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times, winning it in 1980 for The World According to Garp. In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations. Last Night in Twisted River is his twelfth novel.
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1400063841
Author: John Irving
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Airport and export ed edition (19 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1408802147
ISBN-13: 978-1408802144
Product Description
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County - to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto - pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River - John Irving's twelfth novel - depicts the recent half-century in the United States as 'a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course'. From the novel's taut opening sentence - 'The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long' - to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the historical authenticity and emotional authority of The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is also as violent and disturbing a story as John Irving's breakthrough bestseller, The World According to Garp. What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author's unmistakable voice - the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Near the end of this moving novel, John Irving writes: 'We don't always have a choice how we get to know one another. Sometimes, people fall into our lives cleanly - as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth - the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives'.
About the Author
John Irving has been nominated for a National Book Award three times, winning it in 1980 for The World According to Garp. In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2000, he won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Cider House Rules - a film with seven Academy Award nominations. Last Night in Twisted River is his twelfth novel.
Buy online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1400063841
Author Nuala Woulfe
http://nualawoulfe.com/
Nuala Woulfe - Biography
I was born in Belfast but grew up in Dublin and now live in Tipperary.
At fifteen I won my first creative writing competition sponsored by RTE and An Post and went to New York to walk in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. After my Leaving Cert I studied journalism at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin and later freelanced for a variety of national papers and magazines and worked in a number of roles for the Tallaght and Clondalkin Echo, Dublin.
At 24 I won a National Media Award for Campaigning and Social Journalism for articles published in the Tallaght Echo, and shortly afterwards returned to full-time education at University College Dublin studying psychology, politics and sociology. After graduation I worked as a researcher in the private sector until relocating to the Mid West several years ago.
As well as writing women’s fiction, I write and have performed comic verse for the modern stressed out mum and I hope to one day write an historical fiction love story and some children’s books. I love to dance – I’m not going to win any prizes for it but who cares, it’s fun - and this might be the year that I finally learn to play the guitar as well!
Chasing Rainbows
Ali Hughes wants more from life. More than her dead-end job with the boss from hell, and her pokey rented flat, better suited to a college student. More than her volatile family and overbearing mother, and her on-off relationship with the sexy and ambitious Detective Dave O’Connor.
While her mother is eager for Ali to settle down and marry a doctor or an architect, Ali just wants to grab her boring life by the neck and give it a good shake to wake it up a little. Flitting from course to course and from job to job, never quite fulfilling her potential, Ali yearns for excitement and adventure. Her best friend, down to earth Maggie, calls it ‘chasing rainbows.’ Addicted to courses, she starts on yet another new career – this time as a journalist and begins to find a lease of life in the most unexpected paths. Leaving her dramatic family and domineering mother behind, Ali trusts her instincts and leaves Dublin for country living attracting the attention of curious locals in the process. In the country Ali unexpectedly finds a new career, a new life and although she’s still chasing rainbows, she wonders if this time she will find her pot of gold.
Chasing Rainbows is a comic-romantic book published by Poolbeg. It’s a feel-good read and charts the journey of a young girl who follows her heart and who has the courage to find out what is real in life. Full of humorous twists and turns and endearing characters such as Crazy Nurse Karen, Steady Maggie, Sexy Pierce Brosnan ‘look-a-like’ Joe, and Lucy the receptionist, Chasing Rainbows is set in Dublin and Limerick and around the shores and counties of Lough Derg.
What People are Saying about Chasing Rainbows
“There are so many good chicklit writers out there now that there can’t possibly be room for another one, can there? Well, actually, yes there can, particularly if she is as clued-in as Nuala Woulfe. The archetypcal chicklit novel is about three girls who work in a boring office together and need to find an escape from their dreary lives. But many of our best known chicklit writers are long removed from that situation, so they don’t quite get it. Debut author Nuala Woulfe, however gets it exactly. Her heroine Ali has a small flat, a big sex drive and is a bit of a dreamer. Woulfe writes well and has an easy relaxed pace that lets the humour come through. One for all the office girls out there,”
Irish Independent.
“The author has a good sense of humour and her wit shines through. The novel was very easy to read. If you are looking for a light read than this would be a good choice,”
Evening Herald.
“A modern story about the young and ditzy Ali Hughes and her struggle to find herself. There’s a lot of interesting characters who will have you laughing out loud like Karen the mad nurse, an overpowering mother, a jealous sister and the sexy guard Dave who keeps Ali distracted. This humorous story has lots of twists and turns. Ali is an admirable character who many women will strongly identify with.”
Nenagh Guardian.
“As a journalist prior to becoming a novelist, Nuala is well able to write,”
The Kerryman.
“Woulfe’s writing is fluid, warm and witty and the plot rattles along with some steamy sex scenes This isn’t the usual chick-lit froth, there’s plenty of meat here – including a surprising twist which comes out of the blue – and there are a lot of laughs. The central character is easy to like and the on-the-edge-sister, hard-drinking nurse and terrifying mother are also good fun. Chasing Rainbows is a great read, light-hearted, fun and fresh with an underlying message urging the reader to create their own future instead of settling for one already determined,”
The Echo, Dublin.
Writing Tips.
· This may sound obvious but do the basics – learn to type and learn your way around a computer. If you need to – do a course. Contrary to what you sometimes hear, (‘oh I write everything in longhand’) in today’s world being a luddite will kill your chances of getting a publishing deal.
· Try and write as often as you can. It’s like everything else - the more you do it the better you get. Fifteen minutes a day every day is better than two hours once a week and will help get you into a routine, but I’m going to be honest with you there are times when I don’t always get to write as much as I want/should/could or need. Ditch the guilt, forget about all the hours you’ve already wasted not writing and just start now and have fun with it.
· Read non-fiction I get great ideas from popular psychology and sociology books – these books are backed up by research so you get to find out what real people really think and feel about situations, relationships, life roles etc.
· Either tell everyone you are writing a novel or tell nobody. A good bit into Chasing Rainbows I started to tell people I was writing a book because I needed the pressure of ‘how’s the book coming along?’ to keep me motivated.
· One of the best tips I ever got was to sometimes change your routine, write at night, write in the morning or at the weekend. You will be surprised at how changing the time you write can cause a rush of words onto the page. Another tip which often works is to write with your moods, write when you’re angry, sad, happy or fearful and it will add to your story.
· Find someone to support you and your writing dreams. Hopefully you will have someone close to you cheering you on but if not consider joining a writer’s group for regular support, or, maybe doing a weekend course in creative writing. A good one in the Mid West is the Killaloe Hedge School.
· Write your own story your own way and in your own style while reading as much as you can. By the time I had finished Chasing Rainbows I had become aware that it was a bit more earthy, sexy and edgy than some other chick-lit novels but I decided not to change it. It was this ‘difference’ along with the publishers liking my sense of humour that resulted in my getting a book deal.
· Face your fear. All of us are at times riddled with fear, fear that the time spent writing will come to nothing, that no one will want to publish the book, that the book cover will be awful, that the book will get terrible reviews, that the second book will bomb etc etc. If you let it, fear can eat you up and kill your writing career before it even starts. Try and enjoy your writing and try not to worry too much about the outcome.
· Lastly, a wise person once said that, ‘there are no unrealistic goals just unrealistic deadlines.’ Writing books and getting published always takes longer than you think, but if you continue to believe, continue to write one word after the next and are open to tips on improving your writing style and adding to your skills you will get there in the end.
Best of luck, Nuala.
Nuala Woulfe - Biography
I was born in Belfast but grew up in Dublin and now live in Tipperary.
At fifteen I won my first creative writing competition sponsored by RTE and An Post and went to New York to walk in the St Patrick’s Day Parade. After my Leaving Cert I studied journalism at the College of Commerce, Rathmines, Dublin and later freelanced for a variety of national papers and magazines and worked in a number of roles for the Tallaght and Clondalkin Echo, Dublin.
At 24 I won a National Media Award for Campaigning and Social Journalism for articles published in the Tallaght Echo, and shortly afterwards returned to full-time education at University College Dublin studying psychology, politics and sociology. After graduation I worked as a researcher in the private sector until relocating to the Mid West several years ago.
As well as writing women’s fiction, I write and have performed comic verse for the modern stressed out mum and I hope to one day write an historical fiction love story and some children’s books. I love to dance – I’m not going to win any prizes for it but who cares, it’s fun - and this might be the year that I finally learn to play the guitar as well!
Chasing Rainbows
Ali Hughes wants more from life. More than her dead-end job with the boss from hell, and her pokey rented flat, better suited to a college student. More than her volatile family and overbearing mother, and her on-off relationship with the sexy and ambitious Detective Dave O’Connor.
While her mother is eager for Ali to settle down and marry a doctor or an architect, Ali just wants to grab her boring life by the neck and give it a good shake to wake it up a little. Flitting from course to course and from job to job, never quite fulfilling her potential, Ali yearns for excitement and adventure. Her best friend, down to earth Maggie, calls it ‘chasing rainbows.’ Addicted to courses, she starts on yet another new career – this time as a journalist and begins to find a lease of life in the most unexpected paths. Leaving her dramatic family and domineering mother behind, Ali trusts her instincts and leaves Dublin for country living attracting the attention of curious locals in the process. In the country Ali unexpectedly finds a new career, a new life and although she’s still chasing rainbows, she wonders if this time she will find her pot of gold.
Chasing Rainbows is a comic-romantic book published by Poolbeg. It’s a feel-good read and charts the journey of a young girl who follows her heart and who has the courage to find out what is real in life. Full of humorous twists and turns and endearing characters such as Crazy Nurse Karen, Steady Maggie, Sexy Pierce Brosnan ‘look-a-like’ Joe, and Lucy the receptionist, Chasing Rainbows is set in Dublin and Limerick and around the shores and counties of Lough Derg.
What People are Saying about Chasing Rainbows
“There are so many good chicklit writers out there now that there can’t possibly be room for another one, can there? Well, actually, yes there can, particularly if she is as clued-in as Nuala Woulfe. The archetypcal chicklit novel is about three girls who work in a boring office together and need to find an escape from their dreary lives. But many of our best known chicklit writers are long removed from that situation, so they don’t quite get it. Debut author Nuala Woulfe, however gets it exactly. Her heroine Ali has a small flat, a big sex drive and is a bit of a dreamer. Woulfe writes well and has an easy relaxed pace that lets the humour come through. One for all the office girls out there,”
Irish Independent.
“The author has a good sense of humour and her wit shines through. The novel was very easy to read. If you are looking for a light read than this would be a good choice,”
Evening Herald.
“A modern story about the young and ditzy Ali Hughes and her struggle to find herself. There’s a lot of interesting characters who will have you laughing out loud like Karen the mad nurse, an overpowering mother, a jealous sister and the sexy guard Dave who keeps Ali distracted. This humorous story has lots of twists and turns. Ali is an admirable character who many women will strongly identify with.”
Nenagh Guardian.
“As a journalist prior to becoming a novelist, Nuala is well able to write,”
The Kerryman.
“Woulfe’s writing is fluid, warm and witty and the plot rattles along with some steamy sex scenes This isn’t the usual chick-lit froth, there’s plenty of meat here – including a surprising twist which comes out of the blue – and there are a lot of laughs. The central character is easy to like and the on-the-edge-sister, hard-drinking nurse and terrifying mother are also good fun. Chasing Rainbows is a great read, light-hearted, fun and fresh with an underlying message urging the reader to create their own future instead of settling for one already determined,”
The Echo, Dublin.
Writing Tips.
· This may sound obvious but do the basics – learn to type and learn your way around a computer. If you need to – do a course. Contrary to what you sometimes hear, (‘oh I write everything in longhand’) in today’s world being a luddite will kill your chances of getting a publishing deal.
· Try and write as often as you can. It’s like everything else - the more you do it the better you get. Fifteen minutes a day every day is better than two hours once a week and will help get you into a routine, but I’m going to be honest with you there are times when I don’t always get to write as much as I want/should/could or need. Ditch the guilt, forget about all the hours you’ve already wasted not writing and just start now and have fun with it.
· Read non-fiction I get great ideas from popular psychology and sociology books – these books are backed up by research so you get to find out what real people really think and feel about situations, relationships, life roles etc.
· Either tell everyone you are writing a novel or tell nobody. A good bit into Chasing Rainbows I started to tell people I was writing a book because I needed the pressure of ‘how’s the book coming along?’ to keep me motivated.
· One of the best tips I ever got was to sometimes change your routine, write at night, write in the morning or at the weekend. You will be surprised at how changing the time you write can cause a rush of words onto the page. Another tip which often works is to write with your moods, write when you’re angry, sad, happy or fearful and it will add to your story.
· Find someone to support you and your writing dreams. Hopefully you will have someone close to you cheering you on but if not consider joining a writer’s group for regular support, or, maybe doing a weekend course in creative writing. A good one in the Mid West is the Killaloe Hedge School.
· Write your own story your own way and in your own style while reading as much as you can. By the time I had finished Chasing Rainbows I had become aware that it was a bit more earthy, sexy and edgy than some other chick-lit novels but I decided not to change it. It was this ‘difference’ along with the publishers liking my sense of humour that resulted in my getting a book deal.
· Face your fear. All of us are at times riddled with fear, fear that the time spent writing will come to nothing, that no one will want to publish the book, that the book cover will be awful, that the book will get terrible reviews, that the second book will bomb etc etc. If you let it, fear can eat you up and kill your writing career before it even starts. Try and enjoy your writing and try not to worry too much about the outcome.
· Lastly, a wise person once said that, ‘there are no unrealistic goals just unrealistic deadlines.’ Writing books and getting published always takes longer than you think, but if you continue to believe, continue to write one word after the next and are open to tips on improving your writing style and adding to your skills you will get there in the end.
Best of luck, Nuala.
Author James Joyce
http://www.jamesjoyce.ie/
A Brief Biography of James Joyce
James Joyce was born on 2 February 1882, the eldest of ten surviving children. He was educated by Jesuits at Clogowes Wood College and at Belvedere College (just up the road from the Centre) before going on to University College, then located on St Stephen’s Green, where he studied modern languages.
After he graduated from university, Joyce went to Paris, ostensibly to study medicine, and was recalled to Dublin in April 1903 because of the illness and subsequent death of his mother. He stayed in Ireland until 1904, and in June that year he met Nora Barncale, the Galway woman who was to become his partner and later his wife.
In August 1904 the first of Joyce’s short stories was published in the Irish Homestead magazine, followed by two others, but in October Joyce and Nora left Ireland going first to Pola (now Pula, Croatia) where Joyce got a job teaching English at a Berlitz school. After he left Ireland in 1904, Joyce only made four return visits, the last of those in 1912, after which he never returned to Ireland.
Six months after their arrival in Pola, they went to Trieste where they spent most of the next ten years. Joyce and Nora learned the local Triestino dialect of Italian, and Italian remained the family’s home language for many years. Joyce wrote and published articles in Italian in the Piccolo della Sera newspaper and even gave lectures on English literature. This portrait of Nora was painted by the Italian artist Tullio Silvestri in Trieste just before World War One.
1914 proved a crucial year for Joyce. With Ezra Pound’s assistance, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce’s first novel, began to appear in serial form in Harriet Weaver’s Egoist magazine in London. His collection of short stories, Dubliners, on which he had been working since 1904, was finally published, and he also wrote his only play, Exiles. Having cleared his desk, Joyce could then start in earnest on the novel he had been thinking about since 1907: Ulysses.
With the start of World War One, Joyce and Nora, along with their two children, Georgio and Lucia, were forced to leave Trieste and arrived in Zurich where they lived for the duration of the war. The family had little money, relying on subventions from friends and family, people like Harriet Weaver in London and Nora’s uncle in Galway. They often ended up living in cramped, squalid accommodation as Joyce persisted in writing Ulysses. In fact, Joyce never really had a room or an office of his own in which to do his writing, and far from trying to block out the world around him while he wrote, Joyce included things going on around him as part of the book. So characteristics of friends of his in Trieste, Zurich and Paris are given to characters in the book, and, most notably, Nora’s characteristic language and writing becomes the voice of Molly Bloom in the novel.
Though Joyce wanted to settle in Trieste again after the War, the poet Ezra Pound persuaded him to come to Paris for a while, and Joyce stayed for the next twenty years. The publication of Ulysses in serial form in the American journal The Little Review was brought to a halt in 1921 when a court banned it as obscene. Shortly after, Harriet Weaver ran out of printers willing to set the text in England, and for a while it looked as though Ulysses would never be published.
In July 1920, Joyce met Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate living in Paris who owned and ran the bookshop Shakespeare & Co. In 1921, after the American ban, Beach offered to publish Ulysses and finally, on 2nd February 1922, Joyce’s fortieth birthday, the first edition of Ulysses was published. Beach continued to publish Ulysses through 1930.
After Beach gave up the rights to Ulysses in 1930, much of Joyce’s business was taken over by Paul Léon, a Russian Jewish émigré living in Paris. As a close friend of Joyce and Joyce’s family, Léon also became Joyce’s business advisor, looking after his correspondence and dealing with his literary and legal affairs. The Léons’ apartment became a centre for Joyce studies, and Léon and others met Joyce there to discuss translations of Ulysses and the early serial publications of what became Finnegans Wake.
For the next ten years Joyce and Léon were in almost daily contact and Léon came to assume a role as necessary and important to Joyce and his work as Sylvia Beach had played in the 1920s. Not only did he manage Joyce’s legal, financial and daily existence,
much as Beach had during the years she published Ulysses, Léon played an essential part in the composition and proofreading of Joyce’s last work.
Joyce’s last and perhaps most challenging work, Finnegans Wake was published on 4 May 1939. It was immediately listed as “the book of the week” in the UK and the USA.
In 1940, when Joyce fled to the south of France ahead of the Nazi invasion, Léon returned to the Joyces’ apartment in Paris to salvage their belongings and put them into safekeeping for the duration of the war, and it’s thanks to Léon’s efforts that much of Joyce’s personal possessions and manuscripts survived. Joyce died at the age of fifty-nine, on 13 January 1941, at 2 a.m., in Schwesterhaus vom Roten Kreuz in Zurich where he and his family had been given asylum . He is buried in Fluntern cemetary, Zurich.
A James Joyce Chronology
1882 Joyce is born on 2 February.
1888-1898 Attends Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College.
1898 Enrols at University College, Dublin.
1902 Graduates from university & goes to Paris.
1903 Returns from Paris. Death of his mother.
1904 Meets Nora Barnacle. Stays briefly at the Martello Tower. Publishes three stories under the name Stephen Daedalus, & begins Stephen Hero. Leaves for Trieste and Pola with Nora.
1905 Continues writing stories for Dubliners. His son, Giorgio, is born in Trieste.
1906 Moves to Rome.
1907 Returns to Trieste where his daughter, Lucia, is born. Chamber Music is published, & Joyce starts writing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
1909 Opens the Volta, the first cinema in Dublin.
1912 Makes his final visit to Ireland.
1914 Dubliners is published, A Portrait of the Artist is serialized, & Joyce starts work on Ulysses.
1915 Finishes Exiles, & moves to Zurich because of the war.
1918 Parts of Ulysses are serialized in America and England.
1919-1920 Returns to Trieste, then moves to Paris.
1921 Ulysses is banned in America.
1922 Ulysses is published by Shakespeare and Company, Paris.
1923 Starts writing ‘Work in Progress’ (later Finnegans Wake).
1927 Pomes Penyeach published.
1931 Marries Nora. Death of his father.
1933 American ban on Ulysses is lifted.
1939 Finnegans Wake is published.
1940 Returns to Zurich because of the war.
1941 Dies on 13 January & is buried at Fluntern cemetery.
A Brief Biography of James Joyce
James Joyce was born on 2 February 1882, the eldest of ten surviving children. He was educated by Jesuits at Clogowes Wood College and at Belvedere College (just up the road from the Centre) before going on to University College, then located on St Stephen’s Green, where he studied modern languages.
After he graduated from university, Joyce went to Paris, ostensibly to study medicine, and was recalled to Dublin in April 1903 because of the illness and subsequent death of his mother. He stayed in Ireland until 1904, and in June that year he met Nora Barncale, the Galway woman who was to become his partner and later his wife.
In August 1904 the first of Joyce’s short stories was published in the Irish Homestead magazine, followed by two others, but in October Joyce and Nora left Ireland going first to Pola (now Pula, Croatia) where Joyce got a job teaching English at a Berlitz school. After he left Ireland in 1904, Joyce only made four return visits, the last of those in 1912, after which he never returned to Ireland.
Six months after their arrival in Pola, they went to Trieste where they spent most of the next ten years. Joyce and Nora learned the local Triestino dialect of Italian, and Italian remained the family’s home language for many years. Joyce wrote and published articles in Italian in the Piccolo della Sera newspaper and even gave lectures on English literature. This portrait of Nora was painted by the Italian artist Tullio Silvestri in Trieste just before World War One.
1914 proved a crucial year for Joyce. With Ezra Pound’s assistance, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce’s first novel, began to appear in serial form in Harriet Weaver’s Egoist magazine in London. His collection of short stories, Dubliners, on which he had been working since 1904, was finally published, and he also wrote his only play, Exiles. Having cleared his desk, Joyce could then start in earnest on the novel he had been thinking about since 1907: Ulysses.
With the start of World War One, Joyce and Nora, along with their two children, Georgio and Lucia, were forced to leave Trieste and arrived in Zurich where they lived for the duration of the war. The family had little money, relying on subventions from friends and family, people like Harriet Weaver in London and Nora’s uncle in Galway. They often ended up living in cramped, squalid accommodation as Joyce persisted in writing Ulysses. In fact, Joyce never really had a room or an office of his own in which to do his writing, and far from trying to block out the world around him while he wrote, Joyce included things going on around him as part of the book. So characteristics of friends of his in Trieste, Zurich and Paris are given to characters in the book, and, most notably, Nora’s characteristic language and writing becomes the voice of Molly Bloom in the novel.
Though Joyce wanted to settle in Trieste again after the War, the poet Ezra Pound persuaded him to come to Paris for a while, and Joyce stayed for the next twenty years. The publication of Ulysses in serial form in the American journal The Little Review was brought to a halt in 1921 when a court banned it as obscene. Shortly after, Harriet Weaver ran out of printers willing to set the text in England, and for a while it looked as though Ulysses would never be published.
In July 1920, Joyce met Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate living in Paris who owned and ran the bookshop Shakespeare & Co. In 1921, after the American ban, Beach offered to publish Ulysses and finally, on 2nd February 1922, Joyce’s fortieth birthday, the first edition of Ulysses was published. Beach continued to publish Ulysses through 1930.
After Beach gave up the rights to Ulysses in 1930, much of Joyce’s business was taken over by Paul Léon, a Russian Jewish émigré living in Paris. As a close friend of Joyce and Joyce’s family, Léon also became Joyce’s business advisor, looking after his correspondence and dealing with his literary and legal affairs. The Léons’ apartment became a centre for Joyce studies, and Léon and others met Joyce there to discuss translations of Ulysses and the early serial publications of what became Finnegans Wake.
For the next ten years Joyce and Léon were in almost daily contact and Léon came to assume a role as necessary and important to Joyce and his work as Sylvia Beach had played in the 1920s. Not only did he manage Joyce’s legal, financial and daily existence,
much as Beach had during the years she published Ulysses, Léon played an essential part in the composition and proofreading of Joyce’s last work.
Joyce’s last and perhaps most challenging work, Finnegans Wake was published on 4 May 1939. It was immediately listed as “the book of the week” in the UK and the USA.
In 1940, when Joyce fled to the south of France ahead of the Nazi invasion, Léon returned to the Joyces’ apartment in Paris to salvage their belongings and put them into safekeeping for the duration of the war, and it’s thanks to Léon’s efforts that much of Joyce’s personal possessions and manuscripts survived. Joyce died at the age of fifty-nine, on 13 January 1941, at 2 a.m., in Schwesterhaus vom Roten Kreuz in Zurich where he and his family had been given asylum . He is buried in Fluntern cemetary, Zurich.
A James Joyce Chronology
1882 Joyce is born on 2 February.
1888-1898 Attends Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College.
1898 Enrols at University College, Dublin.
1902 Graduates from university & goes to Paris.
1903 Returns from Paris. Death of his mother.
1904 Meets Nora Barnacle. Stays briefly at the Martello Tower. Publishes three stories under the name Stephen Daedalus, & begins Stephen Hero. Leaves for Trieste and Pola with Nora.
1905 Continues writing stories for Dubliners. His son, Giorgio, is born in Trieste.
1906 Moves to Rome.
1907 Returns to Trieste where his daughter, Lucia, is born. Chamber Music is published, & Joyce starts writing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
1909 Opens the Volta, the first cinema in Dublin.
1912 Makes his final visit to Ireland.
1914 Dubliners is published, A Portrait of the Artist is serialized, & Joyce starts work on Ulysses.
1915 Finishes Exiles, & moves to Zurich because of the war.
1918 Parts of Ulysses are serialized in America and England.
1919-1920 Returns to Trieste, then moves to Paris.
1921 Ulysses is banned in America.
1922 Ulysses is published by Shakespeare and Company, Paris.
1923 Starts writing ‘Work in Progress’ (later Finnegans Wake).
1927 Pomes Penyeach published.
1931 Marries Nora. Death of his father.
1933 American ban on Ulysses is lifted.
1939 Finnegans Wake is published.
1940 Returns to Zurich because of the war.
1941 Dies on 13 January & is buried at Fluntern cemetery.
Author G B Shaw
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1925/shaw-bio.html
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925
Biography
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic in the eighties and nineties and became a prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many pamphlets. He began his literary career as a novelist; as a fervent advocate of the new theatre of Ibsen (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage. His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Among these, Widower's Houses and Mrs. Warren's Profession savagely attack social hypocrisy, while in plays such as Arms and the Man and The Man of Destiny the criticism is less fierce. Shaw's radical rationalism, his utter disregard of conventions, his keen dialectic interest and verbal wit often turn the stage into a forum of ideas, and nowhere more openly than in the famous discourses on the Life Force, «Don Juan in Hell», the third act of the dramatization of woman's love chase of man, Man and Superman (1903).
In the plays of his later period discussion sometimes drowns the drama, in Back to Methuselah (1921), although in the same period he worked on his masterpiece Saint Joan (1923), in which he rewrites the well-known story of the French maiden and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present.
Other important plays by Shaw are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a historical play filled with allusions to modern times, and Androcles and the Lion (1912), in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era. In Major Barbara (1905), one of Shaw's most successful «discussion» plays, the audience's attention is held by the power of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political activity, not as an individual. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy the humour of which is directed at the medical profession. Candida (1898), with social attitudes toward sex relations as objects of his satire, and Pygmalion (1912), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavour.
Shaw's complete works appeared in thirty-six volumes between 1930 and 1950, the year of his death.
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.George Bernard Shaw died on November 2, 1950.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925
Biography
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, the son of a civil servant. His education was irregular, due to his dislike of any organized training. After working in an estate agent's office for a while he moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic in the eighties and nineties and became a prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many pamphlets. He began his literary career as a novelist; as a fervent advocate of the new theatre of Ibsen (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage. His earliest dramas were called appropriately Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). Among these, Widower's Houses and Mrs. Warren's Profession savagely attack social hypocrisy, while in plays such as Arms and the Man and The Man of Destiny the criticism is less fierce. Shaw's radical rationalism, his utter disregard of conventions, his keen dialectic interest and verbal wit often turn the stage into a forum of ideas, and nowhere more openly than in the famous discourses on the Life Force, «Don Juan in Hell», the third act of the dramatization of woman's love chase of man, Man and Superman (1903).
In the plays of his later period discussion sometimes drowns the drama, in Back to Methuselah (1921), although in the same period he worked on his masterpiece Saint Joan (1923), in which he rewrites the well-known story of the French maiden and extends it from the Middle Ages to the present.
Other important plays by Shaw are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a historical play filled with allusions to modern times, and Androcles and the Lion (1912), in which he exercised a kind of retrospective history and from modern movements drew deductions for the Christian era. In Major Barbara (1905), one of Shaw's most successful «discussion» plays, the audience's attention is held by the power of the witty argumentation that man can achieve aesthetic salvation only through political activity, not as an individual. The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), facetiously classified as a tragedy by Shaw, is really a comedy the humour of which is directed at the medical profession. Candida (1898), with social attitudes toward sex relations as objects of his satire, and Pygmalion (1912), a witty study of phonetics as well as a clever treatment of middle-class morality and class distinction, proved some of Shaw's greatest successes on the stage. It is a combination of the dramatic, the comic, and the social corrective that gives Shaw's comedies their special flavour.
Shaw's complete works appeared in thirty-six volumes between 1930 and 1950, the year of his death.
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.George Bernard Shaw died on November 2, 1950.
Author Sean O Casey
http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/sean_o'casey.htm
Sean O'Casey
Sean O'Casey, a child of the Dublin slums, was born in 1880 to a Protestant family. He had a grim childhood of poverty, poor eyesight, and ill health. Although a chronic eye disease forced him to stay away from school because of his eye treatments, his passion for learning stayed with him. In his youth he read widely in the classics and in the Bible, and at 84 he was learning through radio sessions of the Schools Program of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
His poor eyesight plagued him all his life, which he lived every day with the increasing threat of total blindness. As a child, he developed an ulcerated cornea in his left eye, the effects of which left his vision dim and filmy. His right eye took on the strain of his work and was also periodically affected. Several times a day he had to sponge his eyes with water as hot as he could bear in order to relieve the condition that severely hampered his vision.
Sean O'Casey was an idealist with a strong sense of justice that marked his life and work. Early in his adult life he was caught up in the fervor of the Gaelic League and in the amateur theatre movement. O'Casey claimed he found his "faith" in the socialist ideals of Jim Larkin’s crusade for the Irish working class. (The general strike of 1913 began the first demands for Irish liberation.)
In his early forties, while continuing to support himself as a laborer, we wrote, in quick succession three realistic plays about the slums of Dublin. The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars were performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1923, 1924, and 1926 respectively. The first takes up the terrors of the Black and Tans in Dublin. The second has a Civil War theme, and the last is focused on the Irish Citizen Army and the Easter Rising.
These plays provoked public outcry mainly because of O'Casey's consistent refusal to glorify the violence of the nationalist movement, instead mocking the heroics of war and presenting the theme that dead heroes were far outnumbered by dead innocent people.
Frank O'Connor, in A Short History of Irish Literature: A Backward Look, says that what unifies these plavs and sets them apart from O'Casey's later works is "the bitter recognition that while the men dream, drink, drivel, dress up and go play-acting, some woman with as much brains and far more industry sacrifices herself to keep the little spark of human life from going out altogether."
O'Casey followed these plays of realism with The Silver Tassie, which was submitted to the Abbey Theatre in 1927. It was a play considered more symbolic and expressionistic than the previous Abbey plays. While three acts were in typical lively O'Casey style, the second act included chants and dance movement. The Silver Tassie was labeled a tragicomedy based on the cruel horrors of World War I. It showed the price which the common people have to pay for the stupidities of war. It was rejected for the Abbey Theatre by its directors, and in a formal letter from William Butler Yeats to O'Casey, Yeats suggested that O'Casey "had no subject" and that he was "not interested in the Great War." The controversy was carried to the public eye by O'Casey who, having copies of all the Abbey correspondence related to the decision to reject his play, sent the letters, along with his caustic reply to Yeats, to the London "Observer" and the "Irish Statesman." After this rejection, O'Casey offered no more plays to the Abbey Theatre.
Most of his plays which followed, filled with symbolism and fantasy, were infused with the evangelical view that became the theme of the rest of O'Casey's life. These plays include Within the Gates, The Star Turns Red, Purple Dust, Red Roses for Me, Oak Leaves and Lavender, and Cock A Doodle Dandy. With the exception of Within the Gates, none of the later plays had the critical acclaim or success that were given his earlier work.
O'Casey's alleged communism represents another aspect of his life and work which calls for interpretation. Brooks Atkinson, in his Introduction to The Sean O'Casey Reader, presents a balanced view of O'Casey’s professed allegiance. Like other aspects of O'Casey's creativity, Atkinson saw him as an original in his thinking, for O'Casey saw Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Whitman, even Jesus Christ as Communists. "Any man who is honest and gives all he can to the community is a Communist," O'Casey said.
His only humorless play, The Star Turns Red, put on by a leftist group in London in 1940, was his salute to Communism. As Atkinson points out, despite O'Casey's public comments, his play, and his articles for "The London Daily Worker," the author's "Communism had a flamboyant style. But it must have perplexed orthodox Communists. As usual, he made his own rules and preserved his personal independence."
O'Casey's finest writing after his self-imposed exile from Ireland in 1926 is considered to be his six volumes of autobiography: I Knock at the Door, Pictures in the Hallway, Drums Under the Window, Inishfallen Fare Thee Well, Rose and Crown, and Sunset and Evening Star. They were written as stream of consciousness works and in a brilliantly subjective style and voice of the third person named Johnny Casside. David Krause, author of Sean O'Casey and His World, says of the autobiography: "Like the voluble characters in his plays, O'Casey can be profligate and exuberant with words, playing with their sounds and meanings, indulging in the Joycean game of puns, parodies, malapropisms and comic invective."
Brooks Atkinson remarks that Sean O'Casey "wrote the most glorious English of his era - the English nearest in color and strength to the Elizabethan ... He had the moral courage of an idealist. Whatever his religious ideas may have been, I think God had reason to be proud of Sean O'Casey."
Sean O'Casey
Sean O'Casey, a child of the Dublin slums, was born in 1880 to a Protestant family. He had a grim childhood of poverty, poor eyesight, and ill health. Although a chronic eye disease forced him to stay away from school because of his eye treatments, his passion for learning stayed with him. In his youth he read widely in the classics and in the Bible, and at 84 he was learning through radio sessions of the Schools Program of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
His poor eyesight plagued him all his life, which he lived every day with the increasing threat of total blindness. As a child, he developed an ulcerated cornea in his left eye, the effects of which left his vision dim and filmy. His right eye took on the strain of his work and was also periodically affected. Several times a day he had to sponge his eyes with water as hot as he could bear in order to relieve the condition that severely hampered his vision.
Sean O'Casey was an idealist with a strong sense of justice that marked his life and work. Early in his adult life he was caught up in the fervor of the Gaelic League and in the amateur theatre movement. O'Casey claimed he found his "faith" in the socialist ideals of Jim Larkin’s crusade for the Irish working class. (The general strike of 1913 began the first demands for Irish liberation.)
In his early forties, while continuing to support himself as a laborer, we wrote, in quick succession three realistic plays about the slums of Dublin. The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars were performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1923, 1924, and 1926 respectively. The first takes up the terrors of the Black and Tans in Dublin. The second has a Civil War theme, and the last is focused on the Irish Citizen Army and the Easter Rising.
These plays provoked public outcry mainly because of O'Casey's consistent refusal to glorify the violence of the nationalist movement, instead mocking the heroics of war and presenting the theme that dead heroes were far outnumbered by dead innocent people.
Frank O'Connor, in A Short History of Irish Literature: A Backward Look, says that what unifies these plavs and sets them apart from O'Casey's later works is "the bitter recognition that while the men dream, drink, drivel, dress up and go play-acting, some woman with as much brains and far more industry sacrifices herself to keep the little spark of human life from going out altogether."
O'Casey followed these plays of realism with The Silver Tassie, which was submitted to the Abbey Theatre in 1927. It was a play considered more symbolic and expressionistic than the previous Abbey plays. While three acts were in typical lively O'Casey style, the second act included chants and dance movement. The Silver Tassie was labeled a tragicomedy based on the cruel horrors of World War I. It showed the price which the common people have to pay for the stupidities of war. It was rejected for the Abbey Theatre by its directors, and in a formal letter from William Butler Yeats to O'Casey, Yeats suggested that O'Casey "had no subject" and that he was "not interested in the Great War." The controversy was carried to the public eye by O'Casey who, having copies of all the Abbey correspondence related to the decision to reject his play, sent the letters, along with his caustic reply to Yeats, to the London "Observer" and the "Irish Statesman." After this rejection, O'Casey offered no more plays to the Abbey Theatre.
Most of his plays which followed, filled with symbolism and fantasy, were infused with the evangelical view that became the theme of the rest of O'Casey's life. These plays include Within the Gates, The Star Turns Red, Purple Dust, Red Roses for Me, Oak Leaves and Lavender, and Cock A Doodle Dandy. With the exception of Within the Gates, none of the later plays had the critical acclaim or success that were given his earlier work.
O'Casey's alleged communism represents another aspect of his life and work which calls for interpretation. Brooks Atkinson, in his Introduction to The Sean O'Casey Reader, presents a balanced view of O'Casey’s professed allegiance. Like other aspects of O'Casey's creativity, Atkinson saw him as an original in his thinking, for O'Casey saw Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Whitman, even Jesus Christ as Communists. "Any man who is honest and gives all he can to the community is a Communist," O'Casey said.
His only humorless play, The Star Turns Red, put on by a leftist group in London in 1940, was his salute to Communism. As Atkinson points out, despite O'Casey's public comments, his play, and his articles for "The London Daily Worker," the author's "Communism had a flamboyant style. But it must have perplexed orthodox Communists. As usual, he made his own rules and preserved his personal independence."
O'Casey's finest writing after his self-imposed exile from Ireland in 1926 is considered to be his six volumes of autobiography: I Knock at the Door, Pictures in the Hallway, Drums Under the Window, Inishfallen Fare Thee Well, Rose and Crown, and Sunset and Evening Star. They were written as stream of consciousness works and in a brilliantly subjective style and voice of the third person named Johnny Casside. David Krause, author of Sean O'Casey and His World, says of the autobiography: "Like the voluble characters in his plays, O'Casey can be profligate and exuberant with words, playing with their sounds and meanings, indulging in the Joycean game of puns, parodies, malapropisms and comic invective."
Brooks Atkinson remarks that Sean O'Casey "wrote the most glorious English of his era - the English nearest in color and strength to the Elizabethan ... He had the moral courage of an idealist. Whatever his religious ideas may have been, I think God had reason to be proud of Sean O'Casey."
Author Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
http://www.irishwriters-online.com/olivergoldsmith.html
Oliver Goldsmith was born on November 10th, 1730. His birthplace is disputed but it is most probably Pallasmore, Co. Longford. At the age of eight he had a severe attack of smallpox which disfigured him for life.
He received a B.A. degree in February 1749 from Trinity College Dublin, before he left Ireland in 1752 to study medicine in Edinburgh. He subsequently wandered through Europe, supporting himself by begging and by playing the flute, before settling in London.
His most famous works are his novel, The Vicar of Wakefield (Salisbury, B. Collins for F. Newbery, 2 volumes, 1766); his long poem, The Deserted Village (London, W. Griffin, 26 May, 1770, with four more editions in the same year); and his play, She Stoops to Conquer, a Comedy (produced at Covent Garden, 15 March, 1773).
His voluminous lesser-known works include An Enquiry into the present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759); Retaliation (Essays, London, G. Kearsley, 1774. 2nd edition, corrected, 1766); Memoirs of M. de Voltaire (The Lady’s Magazine, 1761); The History of England (4 volumes, 1771); The Citizen of the World; or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London, to his Friend in the East (appeared in The Public Ledger as Chinese Letters from 24 January, 1760, to 14 August, 1761. Published in two volumes, May, 1762); Plutarch’s Lives, abridged from the Greek. By Goldsmith and Joseph Collyer (7 vols. 1762); The Art of Poetry (2 vols. 1762); The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society (published 19 December, 1764, dated 1765); An History of the Earth and Animated Nature (Dublin, J. Williams, 1782-1774 8 volumes); An History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son (2 volumes, 1764); A Concise History of Philosophy and Philosophers. Translated by Goldsmith from the French of Formey (1766); A Short English Grammar (1766); Poems for Young Ladies. Collected, with Preface (1767); Beauties of English Poesy (2 volumes, 1767); The Good Natur’d Man, a Comedy (produced at Covent Garden, 29 January,1768, 5th edn. 1768); A Survey of Experimental Philosophy (published posthumously, 2 volumes, 1776); and The Haunch of Venison (published posthumously 1776).
He was extravagant in taste and recklessly generous, to the extent that he died leaving debts of £2000. He never married, but had a close relationship with Mary Horneck, with whom he fell in love in 1769.
He died after a short illness in the spring of 1774, and is buried in the churchyard of the Church of Saint Mary, also known as The Temple, in London. His epitaph, by Johnson, includes the famous line: Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit (He touched nothing that he did not adorn).
Index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Image Search: Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith's books at Amazon.co.uk
Oliver Goldsmith's books at Amazon.com
Life and Works
Bibliography
A History of the Vicar of Wakefield
Selected Poetry of Oliver Goldsmith
Index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
http://www.irishwriters-online.com/olivergoldsmith.html
Oliver Goldsmith was born on November 10th, 1730. His birthplace is disputed but it is most probably Pallasmore, Co. Longford. At the age of eight he had a severe attack of smallpox which disfigured him for life.
He received a B.A. degree in February 1749 from Trinity College Dublin, before he left Ireland in 1752 to study medicine in Edinburgh. He subsequently wandered through Europe, supporting himself by begging and by playing the flute, before settling in London.
His most famous works are his novel, The Vicar of Wakefield (Salisbury, B. Collins for F. Newbery, 2 volumes, 1766); his long poem, The Deserted Village (London, W. Griffin, 26 May, 1770, with four more editions in the same year); and his play, She Stoops to Conquer, a Comedy (produced at Covent Garden, 15 March, 1773).
His voluminous lesser-known works include An Enquiry into the present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759); Retaliation (Essays, London, G. Kearsley, 1774. 2nd edition, corrected, 1766); Memoirs of M. de Voltaire (The Lady’s Magazine, 1761); The History of England (4 volumes, 1771); The Citizen of the World; or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London, to his Friend in the East (appeared in The Public Ledger as Chinese Letters from 24 January, 1760, to 14 August, 1761. Published in two volumes, May, 1762); Plutarch’s Lives, abridged from the Greek. By Goldsmith and Joseph Collyer (7 vols. 1762); The Art of Poetry (2 vols. 1762); The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society (published 19 December, 1764, dated 1765); An History of the Earth and Animated Nature (Dublin, J. Williams, 1782-1774 8 volumes); An History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son (2 volumes, 1764); A Concise History of Philosophy and Philosophers. Translated by Goldsmith from the French of Formey (1766); A Short English Grammar (1766); Poems for Young Ladies. Collected, with Preface (1767); Beauties of English Poesy (2 volumes, 1767); The Good Natur’d Man, a Comedy (produced at Covent Garden, 29 January,1768, 5th edn. 1768); A Survey of Experimental Philosophy (published posthumously, 2 volumes, 1776); and The Haunch of Venison (published posthumously 1776).
He was extravagant in taste and recklessly generous, to the extent that he died leaving debts of £2000. He never married, but had a close relationship with Mary Horneck, with whom he fell in love in 1769.
He died after a short illness in the spring of 1774, and is buried in the churchyard of the Church of Saint Mary, also known as The Temple, in London. His epitaph, by Johnson, includes the famous line: Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit (He touched nothing that he did not adorn).
Index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Image Search: Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith's books at Amazon.co.uk
Oliver Goldsmith's books at Amazon.com
Life and Works
Bibliography
A History of the Vicar of Wakefield
Selected Poetry of Oliver Goldsmith
Index
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Author Edmund Burke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edmund Burke PC (12 January [New Style] 1729[1] – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution. It led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution "New Whigs" led by Charles James Fox. Burke lived before the terms "conservative" and "liberal" were used to describe political ideologies.[2] Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals in the nineteenth-century and since the twentieth-century he has generally been viewed as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.[3][4]
Early life
Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland to a prosperous solicitor father (Richard; d. 1761) who was a member of the Protestant Church of Ireland. It is unclear if this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism.[5][6] His mother Mary (c. 1702–1770), whose maiden name was Nagle, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and came from an impoverished but genteel County Cork family. (The name Burke is the Gaelic version of the Norman name Burgh or de Burgh, who settled in Ireland following the Norman invasion of Ireland by Henry II of England in 1172.[7]) Burke was raised in his father's faith and remained throughout his life a practising Anglican, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. His political enemies would later repeatedly accuse him of being educated at the Jesuit seminary of St. Omer's and of harbouring secret Catholic sympathies at a time when membership of the Catholic Church would have disqualified him from public office (see Penal Laws in Ireland). As Burke told Mrs. Crewe:
Mr. Burke's Enemies often endeavoured to convince the World that he had been bred up in the Catholic Faith, & that his Family were of it, & that he himself had been educated at St. Omer—but this was false, as his father was a regular practitioner of the Law at Dublin, which he could not be unless of the Established Church: & it so happened that though Mr. B— was twice at Paris, he never happened to go through the Town of St. Omer.[8]
Once an MP, Burke was required to take the oath of allegiance and abjuration, the oath of supremacy, and declare against transubstantiation. No Catholic is known to have done so in the eighteenth century.[9] Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as "an Englishman". This was in an age "before 'Celtic nationalism' sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible".[10]
As a child he sometimes spent time away from the unhealthy air of Dublin with his mother's family in the Blackwater Valley. He received his early education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, some 30 miles (48 km) from Dublin, and remained in correspondence with his schoolmate Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of the school's owner, throughout his life.
In 1744 he proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin. In 1747, he set up a Debating Club, known as Edmund Burke's Club, which in 1770 merged with the Historical Club to form the College Historical Society, now the oldest undergraduate society in the world. The minutes of the meetings of Burke's club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. He graduated in 1748. Burke's father wished him to study for the law, and with this object he went to London in 1750 and entered the Middle Temple, but soon thereafter he gave up his legal studies in order to travel in Continental Europe. After giving up law, he attempted to earn his livelihood through writing.
"The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own." A Vindication of Natural SocietyThe late Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of History was published in 1752 and his collected works appeared in 1754. This provoked Burke into writing his first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appearing in Spring 1756. Burke imitated Lord Bolingbroke's style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for atheistic rationalism, demonstrating their absurdity.[11][12] Burke claimed that Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton (and others) initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire.[11][13] All the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burke's quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, which led to Burke writing in the preface to the second edition (1757) that it was a satire.[14] Richard Hurd believed that Burke's imitation was near-perfect and that this defeated his purpose: an ironist "should take care by a constant exaggeration to make the ridicule shine through the Imitation. Whereas this Vindication is everywhere enforc'd, not only in the language, and on the principles of L. Bol., but with so apparent, or rather so real an earnestness, that half his purpose is sacrificed to the other".[14]
In 1757 Burke published a treatise on aesthetics, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. It was his only purely philosophical work, and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Laurence to expand it thirty years later, Burke replied that he was no longer fit for abstract speculation (Burke had written it before he was 19).[15]
On 25 February 1757 Burke signed a contract with Robert Dodsley to write a "history of England from the time of Julius Caesar to the end of the reign of Queen Anne", its length being eighty quarto sheets (640 pages), under 400,000 words. It was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758.[16] Burke actually completed to the year 1216, and never published the work. It was not published until 1812 in Burke's collected works under the title of An Essay Towards an Abridgement of the English History, after Burke's death. G. M. Young did not value Burke's history and claimed that it was "demonstrably a translation from the French".[17] Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, said "it is ever to be regretted that the reverse did not occur".[18]
The following year, with Dodsley, he created the influential Annual Register, a publication in which various authors evaluated the international political events of the previous year.[19] The extent to which Burke personally contributed to the Annual Register is contested.[20] Robert Murray in his biography of Burke quotes the Register as evidence of Burke's opinions, yet Philip Magnus in his biography does not directly cite it as a reference.[21] Burke remained its chief editor until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766.[21]
In London, Burke knew many of the leading intellectuals and artists, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, and Joshua Reynolds. Edward Gibbon described him as, 'the most eloquent and rational madman that I ever knew.'[22]
On 12 March 1757 he married Jane Mary Nugent (1734–1812), daughter of a Catholic physician who had treated him at Bath. His son Richard was born on 9 February 1758. Another son, Christopher, died in infancy.
At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as "Single-speech Hamilton"). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he maintained for three years. In 1765 Burke became private secretary to liberal Whig statesman Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, at the time Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Burke's close friend and associate until his premature death in 1782.
Member of Parliament
A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1781, depicting Burke and other members of "The Club" – place the cursor on the person to identify.In December 1765 Burke entered the British Parliament as a member of the House of Commons for Wendover, a pocket borough in the control of Lord Fermanagh, later 2nd Earl Verney, a close political ally of Rockingham. After Burke's maiden speech, William Pitt the Elder said Burke had "spoken in such a manner as to stop the mouths of all Europe" and that the Commons should congratulate itself on acquiring such a member.[23]
In 1769 Burke published, in reply to Grenvillite pamphlet The Present State of the Nation, his pamphlet on Observations on a Late State of the Nation. Surveying the finances of France, Burke predicts "some extraordinary convulsion in that whole system".[24]
In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories near Beaconsfield. The 600-acre (2.4 km2) estate was purchased with mostly borrowed money, and though it contained an art collection that included works by Titian, Gregories nevertheless would prove to be a heavy financial burden on the MP in the following decades. Burke was never able to fully pay for the estate. His speeches and writings had now made him famous, and among other effects had brought about the suggestion that he was the author of the Letters of Junius.
Burke took a leading role in the debate over the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses by the monarch or by specific factions within the government. His most important publication in this regard was his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents of 23 April 1770.[25] Burke identified the "discontents" as stemming from the "secret influence" of a neo-Tory group he calls the "king's friends", whose system "comprehending the exterior and interior Administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language of the Court, Double Cabinet".[26] Britain needed a party which had "an unshaken adherence to principle, and attachment to connexion, against every allurement of interest". Party divisions "whether operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government".[27]
During 1771 Burke wrote a Bill which would, if passed, have given juries the right to determine what was libel. Burke spoke in favour of the Bill but it was opposed by some, including Charles James Fox, and was not passed. Fox, when introducing his own Bill in 1791, repeated almost verbatim the text of Burke's Bill without acknowledgement.[28] Burke was also prominent in securing the right to publish debates held in Parliament.[29]
Speaking in a parliamentary debate on the prohibition on the export of grain on 16 November 1770, Burke argued in favour of a free market in corn: "There are no such things as a high, & a low price that is encouraging, & discouraging; there is nothing but a natural price, which grain brings at an universal market."[30] In 1772 Burke instrumental in passing the Repeal of Certain Laws Act 1772, which repealed various old laws against dealers and forestallers in corn.[31]
In the Annual Register for 1772 (published in July 1773) Burke condemned the Partition of Poland. He saw it as "the first very great breach in the modern political system of Europe" and upsetting the balance of power in Europe.[32]
In 1774 he was elected member for Bristol, at the time "England's second city" and a large constituency with a genuine electoral contest. His Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll was noted for its defence of the principles of representative democracy against the notion that elected officials should be delegates:
... it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.[33]
In May 1778 Burke supported a motion in Parliament to revise the restrictions on Irish trade. However his constituents in Bristol, a great trading city, urged Burke to oppose free trade with Ireland. Burke resisted these demands and said: "If, from this conduct, I shall forfeit their suffrages at an ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong".[34] Burke published Two Letters to Gentlemen of Bristol on the Bills relative to the Trade of Ireland in which he espoused "some of the chief principles of commerce; such as the advantage of free intercourse between all parts of the same kingdom...the evils attending restriction and monopoly...and that the gain of others is not necessarily our loss, but on the contrary an advantage by causing a greater demand for such wares as we have for sale".[35]
Burke also supported Sir George Savile's attempts to repeal some of the penal laws against Catholics.[36]
This support for unpopular causes, notably free trade with Ireland and Catholic emancipation, led to Burke losing his seat in 1780. He also called capital punishment "the Butchery which we call justice" in 1776 and in 1780 Burke condemned the use of the pillory for two men convicted for attempting to practice sodomy.[37]
For the remainder of his parliamentary career, Burke sat for Malton, another pocket borough controlled by the Marquess of Rockingham.
American Revolution
Burke expressed his support for the grievances of the American colonies under the government of King George III and his appointed representatives. On 19 April 1774 Burke made a speech (published in January 1775) on a motion to repeal the tea duty:
Again and again, revert to your old principles—seek peace and ensue it; leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it.... Be content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it.... Do not burthen them with taxes.... But if intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question.... If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body of men will be argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side...tell me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they bear the burthens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burthens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery; that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation either to his feelings or to his understandings.[38]
On 22 March 1775 Burke gave a speech (published in May 1775) on reconciliation with America:
...the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen.... They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. The people are Protestants... a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it.... My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation,—the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.[39]
The administration of Lord North (1770-1782) tried to defeat the colonists' rebellion by military force. British and American forces clashed in 1775 and in 1776 came the American Declaration of Independence. Burke was appalled by celebrations in Britain of the defeat of the Americans at New York and Pennsylvania. He claimed the English national character was being changed by this authoritarianism.[37] In Burke's view the British government was fighting "the American English" ("our English Brethren in the Colonies"), with a German-descended King employing "the hireling sword of German boors and vassals" to destroy British colonists' English liberties.[37] On American independence, Burke wrote: "I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity".[40]
Paymaster of the Forces
In Cincinnatus in Retirement (1782), James Gillray caricatured Burke's support of rights for Catholics.The fall of North led to Rockingham being recalled to power in March 1782. Burke became Paymaster of the Forces and a Privy Councillor, but without a seat in the Cabinet. Rockingham's unexpected death in July of 1782 and his replacement as Prime Minister by Shelburne put an end to his administration after only a few months. However Burke did manage to pass two Acts. The Paymaster General Act 1782 ended the post as a lucrative sinecure. Previously, Paymasters had been able to draw on money from the Treasury at their discretion. Now they were to put the money they had requested to withdraw from the Treasury into the Bank of England, from where it was to be withdrawn for specific purposes. The Treasury would receive monthly statements of the Paymaster's balance at the Bank. This Act was repealed by Shelburne's administration but the Act which replaced it repeated verbatim almost the whole text of Burke's Act.[41] The Civil List and Secret Service Money Act 1782 was a watered down version of Burke's original intentions as outlined in his famous Speech on Economical Reform of 11 February 1780. However he managed to abolish 134 offices in the royal household and civil administration.[42] The third Secretary of State and the Board of Trade were abolished and pensions were limited and regulated. The Act was projected to save £72,368 a year.[43] In February 1783 Burke resumed the post of Paymaster of the Forces when Shelburne's government fell and was replaced by a coalition headed by North and including Charles James Fox. The coalition fell in 1783, and was succeeded by the long Tory administration of William Pitt the Younger, which lasted until 1801. Burke was accordingly in opposition for the remainder of his political life.
India and the impeachment of Warren Hastings
Burke’s interaction with the British dominion of India began well before the Hastings Trial. Previous to the impeachment, Parliament dealt with the Indian issue for two decades, this trial was the pinnacle of years of unrest and deliberation.[44] In 1781 Burke was first able to delve into the issues surrounding the East India Company when he was appointed Chairman of the Commons’ Select Committee on East Indian Affair – from that point until the end of the trial; India was Burke’s primary concern.[45] This committee was charged “to investigate alleged injustices in Bengal, the war with Hyder Ali, and other Indian difficulties.”[46] While Burke and the committee focused their attention on these matters, a second ‘secret’ committee was formed to assess the same issues.[47] Both committee reports were written by Burke and lead to the reassurance to the Indian princes that Britain would not wage war on them and the demand for the EIC to recall Hastings.[48] This is Burke’s first call for real, significant change of the imperial practices. When addressing the whole House of Commons in regards to the committee’s report, Burke would describe the Indian issue as one that “began ‘in commerce’ but ‘ended in empire.’”[49]
On February 28, 1785 he made his great speech on The Nabob of Arcot's Debts, where he condemned the damage he believed the East India Company had done to India. In the province of the Carnatic the Indians had constructed a system of reservoirs to make the soil fertile in a naturally dry region, and centred their society on the husbandry of water:
These are the monuments of real kings, who were the fathers of their people; testators to a posterity which they embraced as their own. These are the grand sepulchres built by ambition; but by the ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not contented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness during the contracted term of human life, had strained, with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion of their bounty beyond the limits of nature, and to perpetuate themselves through generations of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the nourishers of mankind.[50]
Burke held that the advent of British dominion, and in particular the conduct of the East India Company had destroyed much that was good in these traditions and that, as a consequence of this, and the lack of new customs to replace them, the Indians were suffering. He set about establishing a set of British expectations, whose moral foundation would, in his opinion, warrant the empire.[51]
On April 4, 1786 Burke presented the Commons with the Article of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Warren Hastings, the former Governor General of Bengal. The trial, which did not begin until February 14, 1788, would be the “first major public discursive event of its kind in England,”[52] bringing the morality and duty of imperialism to the forefront of the public’s perception. Burke was already known for his eloquent rhetorical skills and his involvement in the trial only engrossed its popularity and significance.[53] For the members of London’s fashionable society, the trial was a spectacle , and was not centered around Hastings’ alleged misconduct and crimes as had been Burke’s intent.[54] Burke's indictment, fuelled by emotional indignation, called Hastings the 'captain-general of iniquity'; who never dined without 'creating a famine'; his heart was 'gangrened to the core' and he resembled both a 'spider of Hell' and a 'ravenous vulture devouring the carcases of the dead'.[55] The indictment was such a philippic that, whereas it had previously seemed that Hastings would be found guilty, it actually provoked public sympathy; however, although Hastings was acquitted, the trial served to establish the principle that the Empire was a moral undertaking rather than a wholesale looting by either the East India Company or its servants.
French Revolution: 1688 versus 1789
Smelling out a Rat;—or—The Atheistical-Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight "Calculations" (1790) by Gillray, depicting a caricature of Burke with a long nose and spectacles, holding a crown and a cross. The seated man is Dr. Richard Price, who is writing "On the Benefits of Anarchy Regicide Atheism" beneath a picture of the execution of Charles I of England.Burke did not initially condemn the French Revolution. In a letter of 9 August 1789, Burke wrote: "England gazing with astonishment at a French struggle for Liberty and not knowing whether to blame or to applaud! The thing indeed, though I thought I saw something like it in progress for several years, has still something in it paradoxical and Mysterious. The spirit it is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner".[56] The events of 5-6 October 1789, in which a mob of Parisian women marched on Versailles to compel King Louis XVI to return to Paris, turned Burke against it. In a letter to his son Richard on 10 October he said: "This day I heard from Laurence who has sent me papers confirming the portentous state of France—where the Elements which compose Human Society seem all to be dissolved, and a world of Monsters to be produced in the place of it—where Mirabeau presides as the Grand Anarch; and the late Grand Monarch makes a figure as ridiculous as pitiable".[57] On 4 November Charles-Jean-François Depont wrote to Burke, requesting that he endorse the Revolution. Burke replied that any critical language of it by him should be taken "as no more than the expression of doubt" but added: "You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom".[58] In the same month he described France as "a country undone". Burke's first public condemnation of the Revolution occurred on the debate in Parliament on the Army Estimates on 9 February 1790, provoked by praise of the Revolution by Pitt and Fox:
Reflections on the Revolution in France, And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French had shewn themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground, their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures...[there was a danger of] an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody and tyrannical democracy...[in religion] the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from Atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.[59]
In January 1790 Burke read Dr. Richard Price's sermon of 4 November 1789 to the Revolution Society, called A Discourse On the Love of our Country.[60] The Revolution Society was founded to commemorate the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In this sermon Price espoused the philosophy of universal "rights of men". Price argued that love of our country "does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government".[61] Instead, Englishmen should see themselves "more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community". The debate between Price and Burke was "the classic moment at which two fundamentally different conceptions of national identity were presented to the English public".[62] Price claimed that the principles of the Glorious Revolution included "the right to choose our own governors, to cashier them for misconduct, and to frame a government for ourselves". Immediately after reading Price's sermon, Burke wrote a draft of what would eventually become the Reflections on the Revolution in France.[63] On 13 February 1790 there appeared a notice in the press that Burke would shortly publish a pamphlet on the Revolution and its British supporters, however he spent the year revising and expanding it. On 1 November he finally published the Reflections and it was an immediate best-seller.[64][65] Priced at five shillings, it was more expensive than most political pamphlets but by the end of 1790 it had gone through ten printings and sold approximately 17,500 copies. A French translation appeared on 29 November and on 30 November the translator, Pierre-Gaëton Dupont, wrote to Burke saying 2,500 copies had already been sold. The French translation ran to ten printings by June 1791.[66]
What the Glorious Revolution had meant was important to Burke and his contemporaries, as it had been for the last one hundred years in British politics.[67] In the Reflections, Burke argued against Price's interpretation of the Glorious Revolution and instead gave a classic Whig defence of it.[68] Burke argued against the idea of abstract, metaphysical rights of men and instead advocated national tradition:
The Revolution was made to preserve our antient indisputable laws and liberties, and that antient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty.... The very idea of the fabrication of a new government, is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any cyon alien to the nature of the original plant.... Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to Blackstone, are industrious to prove the pedigree of our liberties. They endeavour to prove that the ancient charter... were nothing more than a re-affirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the kingdom.... In the famous law... called the Petition of Right, the parliament says to the king, “Your subjects have inherited this freedom,” claiming their franchises not on abstract principles “as the rights of men,” but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers.[69]
Burke put forward that "We fear God, we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected".[70] Burke defended prejudice on the grounds that it is "the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages" and superior to individual reason, which is small in comparison. "Prejudice", Burke claimed, "is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit".[71] Burke criticised social contract theory by claiming that society is indeed a contract, but "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born".[72]
The most famous passage of the Reflections was his description of the events of 5-6 October 1789 and Marie Antoinette's part in them. Burke's account differs little from modern historians who have used primary sources.[73] His use of flowery language to describe it, however, provoked both praise and criticism. Philip Francis wrote to Burke saying that what he wrote of Marie Antoinette was "pure foppery".[74] Edward Gibbon however reacted differently: "I adore his chivalry".[75] Burke was informed by an Englishman who had talked with the Duchesse de Biron that when Marie Antoinette was reading the passage she burst into tears and took considerable time to finish reading it.[76] Price had rejoiced that the French king had been "led in triumph" during the October Days but to Burke this symbolised the opposing revolutionary sentiment of the Jacobins and the natural sentiments of those like himself who regarded the ungallant assault on Marie Antoinette with horror, as a cowardly attack on a defenceless woman.[77]
Louis XVI translated the Reflections "from end to end" into French.[78] Fellow Whig MPs Richard Sheridan and Charles James Fox disagreed with Burke and split with him. Fox thought the Reflections to be "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles".[79] Other Whigs such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke but did not wish for a public breach with their Whig colleagues.[80] Burke wrote on 29 November 1790: "I have received from the Duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord John Cavendish Montagu and a long et cetera of the old Stamina of the Whiggs a most full approbation of the principles of that work and a kind indulgence to the execution".[81] The Duke of Portland said in 1791 that when anyone criticised the Reflections to him he informed them that he had recommended the book to his sons as containing the true Whig creed.[82] King George III at a levee on 3 February 1791 said to Burke: "I know that there is no Man who calls himself a Gentleman that must not think himself obliged to you, for you have supported the cause of the Gentlemen".[83]
Burke's Reflections sparked a pamphlet war. Thomas Paine penned The Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to Burke; Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Men and James Mackintosh wrote Vindiciae Gallicae. Mackintosh was the first to see the Reflections as "the manifesto of a Counter Revolution". Mackintosh would later come to agree with Burke's views, remarking in December 1796 after meeting him, that Burke was "minutely and accurately informed, to a wonderful exactness, with respect to every fact relating to the French Revolution".[84] Mackintosh later said: "Burke was one of the first thinkers as well as one of the greatest orators of his time. He is without parallel in any age, excepting perhaps Lord Bacon and Cicero; and his works contain an ampler store of political and moral wisdom than can be found in any other writer whatever".[85]
In November 1790 a member of the National Assembly of France, François-Louis-Thibault de Menonville, wrote to Burke, praising the Reflections and requesting more "very refreshing mental food" which he could publish.[86] This Burke did in April 1791 when he published A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Burke called for external forces to reverse the Revolution and included an attack on the late French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a personality cult had developed in revolutionary France. Although Burke conceded that Rousseau sometimes shows "a considerable insight into human nature" he was mostly critical. Although he did not meet Rousseau on his visit to Britain in 1766-7 he was a friend of David Hume, with whom Rousseau had stayed with. Burke said Rousseau "entertained no principle either to influence of his heart, or to guide his understanding, but vanity", which he "was possessed to a degree little short of madness". He also cited Rousseau's Confessions as evidence that Rousseau had a life of "obscure and vulgar vices" that was not "chequered, or spotted here and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action". Burke contrasted Rousseau's theory of universal benevolence and his sending his children to a foundling hospital: "a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred".[87]
These events, and the disagreements which arose regarding them within the Whig party, led to its breakup and to the rupture of Burke's friendship with Fox. In debate in Parliament on Britain's relations with Russia, Fox praised the principles of the Revolution, though Burke was not able to reply at this time as he was "overpowered by continued cries of question from his own side of the House".[88] When Parliament was debating the Quebec Bill for a constitution for Canada, Fox praised the Revolution and criticised some of Burke's arguments, such as hereditary power. On 6 May 1791, during another debate in Parliament on the Quebec Bill, Burke used the opportunity to answer Fox and condemn the new French Constitution and "the horrible consequences flowing from the French idea of the rights of man".[89] Burke asserted that those ideas were the antithesis of both the British and the American constitutions.[90] Burke was interrupted, and Fox intervened to say that Burke should be allowed to carry on with his speech. However a vote of censure was moved against Burke for noticing the affairs of France, which was moved by Lord Sheffield and seconded by Fox.[91] Pitt made a speech praising Burke, and Fox made a speech both rebuking and complimenting Burke. He questioned the sincerity of Burke, who seemed to have forgotten the lessons he had taught him, quoting from Burke's speeches of fourteen and fifteen years before. Burke replied:
Charles James Fox.It certainly was indiscreet at any period, but especially at his time of life, to parade enemies, or give his friends occasion to desert him; yet if his firm and steady adherence to the British constitution placed him in such a dilemma, he would risk all, and, as public duty and public experience taught him, with his last words exclaim, "Fly from the French Constitution".[89]
At this point Fox whispered that there was "no loss of friendship". "I regret to say there is", Burke said, "I have indeed made a great sacrifice; I have done my duty though I have lost my friend. There is something in the detested French constitution that envenoms every thing it touches".[92] This provoked a reply from Fox, yet he was unable to give his speech for some time since he was overcome with tears and emotion, he appealed to Burke to remember their inalienable friendship but also repeated his criticisms of Burke and uttered "unusually bitter sarcasms".[92] This only aggravated the rupture between the two men. Burke demonstrated his separation from the party on 5 June 1791 by writing to Fitzwilliam, declining money from him.[93]
Burke was dismayed that some Whigs, instead of reaffirming the principles of the Whig party he laid out in the Reflections, had rejected them in favour of "French principles" and criticised Burke for abandoning Whig principles. Burke wanted to demonstrate his fidelity to Whig principles and feared that acquiescence to Fox and his followers would allow the Whig party to become a vehicle for Jacobinism. Burke knew that many members of the Whig party did not share Fox's views and wanted to provoke them into condemning the French Revolution. Burke wrote that he wanted to represent the whole Whig party "as tolerating, and by a toleration, countenancing those proceedings" so that he could "stimulate them to a public declaration of what every one of their acquaintance privately knows to be...their sentiments".[94] Therefore on 3 August 1791 Burke published his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in which he renewed his criticism of the radical revolutionary programmes inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who supported them as holding principles contrary to those traditionally held by the Whig party. Burke owned two copies of what has been called "that practical compendium of Whig political theory", The Tryal of Dr. Henry Sacheverell (1710).[95] Burke wrote of the trial: "It rarely happens to a party to have the opportunity of a clear, authentic, recorded, declaration of their political tenets upon the subject of a great constitutional event like that of the [Glorious] Revolution".[95] Writing in the third person, Burke asserted in his Appeal:
...that the foundations laid down by the Commons, on the trial of Doctor Sacheverel, for justifying the revolution of 1688, are the very same laid down in Mr. Burke's Reflections; that is to say,—a breach of the original contract, implied and expressed in the constitution of this country, as a scheme of government fundamentally and inviolably fixed in King, Lords and Commons.—That the fundamental subversion of this antient constitution, by one of its parts, having been attempted, and in effect accomplished, justified the Revolution. That it was justified only upon the necessity of the case; as the only means left for the recovery of that antient constitution, formed by the original contract of the British state; as well as for the future preservation of the same government. These are the points to be proved.[95]
Burke then provided quotations from Paine's Rights of Man to demonstrate what the New Whigs believed. Burke's belief that Foxite principles corresponded to Paine's was genuine.[96] Finally, Burke denied that a majority of "the people" had, or ought to have, the final say in politics and alter society at their pleasure. People had rights but also duties, and these duties were not voluntary. Also, the people could not overthrow morality which is derived from God.[97]
Although Whig grandees like Portland and Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke's Appeal, they wished he had used more moderate language. Fitzwilliam saw the Appeal as containing "the doctrines I have sworn by, long and long since".[98] Francis Basset, a backbench Whig MP, wrote to Burke: "...though for reasons which I will not now detail I did not then deliver my sentiments, I most perfectly differ from Mr Fox & from the great Body of opposition on the French Revolution".[98] Burke sent a copy of the Appeal to the King and the King requested a friend to communicate to Burke that he had read it "with great Satisfaction".[98] Burke wrote of the its reception: "Not one word from one of our party. They are secretly galled. They agree with me to a title; but they dare not speak out for fear of hurting Fox. ... They leave me to myself; they see that I can do myself justice".[93] Charles Burney viewed it as "a most admirable book—the best & most useful on political subjects that I have ever seen" but believed the differences in the Whig party between Burke and Fox should not be publicly aired.[99]
Eventually most of the Whigs sided with Burke and voted their support for the conservative government of Pitt, which, in response to France's declaration of war against Britain, declared war on the revolutionary government of France in 1793.
In December 1791 Burke sent government ministers his Thoughts on French Affairs where he put forward three main points: no counter-revolution in France would come about by purely domestic causes; the longer the revolutionary government exists the stronger it becomes; and the revolutionary government's interest and aim is to disturb all the other governments of Europe.[100] Burke, as a Whig, did not wish to see an absolute monarchy again in France after the extirpation of Jacobinism. Writing to an émigré in 1791, Burke expressed his views against a restoration of the ancien régime:
When such a complete convulsion has shaken the State, and hardly left any thing whatsoever, either in civil arrangements, or in the Characters and disposition of mens minds, exactly where it was, whatever shall be settled although in the former persons and upon old forms, will be in some measure a new thing and will labour under something of the weakness as well as other inconveniences of a Change. My poor opinion is that you mean to establish what you call ‘L'ancien Regime,’ If any one means that system of Court Intrigue miscalled a Government as it stood, at Versailles before the present confusions as the thing to be established, that I believe will be found absolutely impossible; and if you consider the Nature, as well of persons, as of affairs, I flatter myself you must be of my opinion. That was tho' not so violent a State of Anarchy as well as the present. If it were even possible to lay things down exactly as they stood, before the series of experimental politicks began, I am quite sure that they could not long continue in that situation. In one Sense of L'Ancien Regime I am clear that nothing else can reasonably be done.[101]
Burke delivered a speech on the debate of the Aliens Bill on 28 December 1792. He supported the Bill as it would exclude "murderous atheists, who would pull down church and state; religion and God; morality and happiness".[102] The peroration included a reference to a French order for 3,000 daggers. Burke revealed a dagger he had concealed in his coat and threw it to the floor: "This is what you are to gain by an alliance with France". Burke picked up the dagger and continued:
When they smile, I see blood trickling down their faces; I see their insidious purposes; I see that the object of all their cajoling is—blood! I now warn my countrymen to beware of these execrable philosophers, whose only object it is to destroy every thing that is good here, and to establish immorality and murder by precept and example—'Hic niger est hunc tu Romane caveto' ['Such a man is evil; beware of him, Roman'. Horace, Satires I. 4. 85.].[102]
Burke supported the war against revolutionary France, seeing Britain as fighting on the side of the royalists and émigres in a civil war, rather than fighting against the whole nation of France.[103] Burke also supported the royalist uprising in La Vendée, describing it on 4 November 1793 in a letter to William Windham, as "the sole affair I have much heart in".[103] Burke wrote to Henry Dundas on 7 October urging him to send reinforcements there as he viewed it as the only theatre in the war which might lead to a march on Paris. However Dundas did not follow Burke's advice. Burke believed the government was not taking the uprising seriously enough, a view reinforced by a letter he had received from the Comte d'Artois, dated 23 October, requesting that he intercede on behalf of the royalists to the government. Burke was forced to reply on 6 November: "I am not in His Majesty's Service; or at all consulted in his Affairs".[104] Burke published his Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France, begun in October, where he said: "I am sure every thing has shewn us that in this war with France, one Frenchman is worth twenty foreigners. La Vendee is a proof of this".[105]
On 20 June 1794 Burke received a vote of thanks from the Commons for his services in the Hastings trial and immediately resigned his seat, being replaced by his son Richard. However a terrible blow fell upon Burke in the loss of Richard in August 1794, to whom he was tenderly attached, and in whom he saw signs of promise.[37] The King, whose favour he had gained by his attitude on the French Revolution, wished to make him Lord Beaconsfield, but the death of his son had deprived such an honour of all its attractions, and the only reward he would accept was a pension of £2,500. This pension was attacked by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to whom Burke replied in the Letter to a Noble Lord (1796).[106] Burke wrote: "It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform".[107] He argued that he was rewarded on merit but the Duke of Bedford received his rewards from inheritance alone, his ancestor being the original pensioner: "Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his from Henry the Eighth".[108] Burke also hinted at what would happen to such people if their revolutionary ideas were implemented, and included a description of the British constitution:
But as to our country and our race, as long as the well compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion—as long as the British Monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the State, shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land—so long as the mounds and dykes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France.[109]
Burke's last publications were the Letters on a Regicide Peace (October 1796), called forth by the Pitt government's negotiations for peace with France. Burke regarded this as appeasement, injurious to national dignity and honour.[110] In the Second Letter, Burke wrote of the revolutionary French government: "Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms".[111] This has been seen as the first time someone explained the modern totalitarian state.[112] Burke regarded the war with France as ideological, against an "armed doctrine". He wished that France would not be partitioned due to the effect this would have on the balance of power in Europe, and that the war was not against France but against the revolutionaries governing her.[113] Burke said: "It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France".[37]
Later life
In November 1795 there was a debate in Parliament on the high price of corn and Burke wrote a memorandum to Pitt on the subject. In December Samuel Whitbread MP introduced a bill giving magistrates the power to fix minimum wages and Fox said he would vote for it. This debate probably led Burke to editing his memorandum as there appeared a notice that Burke would soon publish a letter on the subject to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture (Arthur Young), but he failed to complete it. These fragments were inserted into the memorandum after his death and published posthumously in 1800 as Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.[114] In it, Burke expounded "some of the doctrines of political economists bearing upon agriculture as a trade".[115] Burke criticised policies such as maximum prices and state regulation of wages, and set out what the limits of government should be:
That the State ought to confine itself to what regards the State, or the creatures of the State, namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to every thing that is truly and properly public, to the public peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity.[116]
The economist Adam Smith remarked that Burke was "the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us".[117]
Writing to a friend in May 1795, Burke surveyed the causes of discontent: "I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant ascendency, as they affect Ireland; or of Indianism, as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia; or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe, and the state of human society itself. The last is the greatest evil".[118] However by March 1796 Burke had changed his mind: "Our Government and our Laws are beset by two different Enemies, which are sapping its foundations, Indianism, and Jacobinism. In some Cases they act separately, in some they act in conjunction: But of this I am sure; that the first is the worst by far, and the hardest to deal with; and for this amongst other reasons, that it weakens discredits, and ruins that force, which ought to be employed with the greatest Credit and Energy against the other; and that it furnishes Jacobinism with its strongest arms against all formal Government".[119]
For more than a year before his death Burke knew that his stomach was "irrecoverably ruind".[37] After hearing that Burke was nearing death, Fox wrote to Mrs. Burke enquiring after him. Fox received the reply the next day:
Mrs. Burke presents her compliments to Mr. Fox, and thanks him for his obliging inquiries. Mrs. Burke communicated his letter to Mr. Burke, and by his desire has to inform Mr. Fox that it has cost Mr. Burke the most heart-felt pain to obey the stern voice of his duty in rending asunder a long friendship, but that he deemed this sacrifice necessary; that his principles continue the same; and that in whatever of life may yet remain to him, he conceives that he must live for others and not for himself. Mr. Burke is convinced that the principles which he has endeavoured to maintain are necessary to the welfare and dignity of his country, and that these principles can be enforced only by the general persuasion of his sincerity.[120]
Burke died in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire on 9 July 1797. He was buried in Beaconsfield alongside his son and brother. His wife survived him by nearly fifteen years.
Legacy
Statue of Edmund Burke in Washington, D.C.Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France was controversial at the time of its publication. But after his death, it was to become his best-known and most influential work. It is understood to be the manifesto in Conservative thought. In the English-speaking world, Burke is regarded by most political experts as the father of modern anglo-conservatism. His 'liberal' conservatism, which opposed governing based on abstract ideas, and preferred 'organic' reform, can be contrasted with the autocratic conservatism of Continental figures such as Joseph de Maistre.
Burke's ideas placing property at the base of human development and the development of society were radical and new at the time. Burke believed that property was essential to human life. Because of his conviction that people desire to be ruled and controlled, the division of property formed the basis for social structure, helping develop control within a property-based hierarchy. He viewed the social changes brought on by property as the natural order of events that should be taking place as the human race progressed. With the division of property and the class system, he also believed that it kept the monarch in check to the needs of the classes beneath the monarch. Since property largely aligned or defined divisions of social class, class too was seen as natural - part of a social agreement that the setting of persons into different classes is the mutual benefit of all subjects.
His support for Irish Catholics and Indians often led him to be criticised by Tories.[121] His opposition to British imperialism in Ireland and India and his opposition to French imperialism and radicalism in Europe, made it difficult for Whig or Tory to wholly accept Burke as their own.[122] In the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both liberals and conservatives. Burke's friend Philip Francis wrote that Burke "was a man who truly & prophetically foresaw all the consequences which would rise from the adoption of the French principles" but because Burke wrote with so much passion people were doubtful of his arguments.[123] William Windham spoke from the same bench in the House of Commons as Burke had done when he had separated from Fox and an observer said Windham spoke "like the ghost of Burke" when he made a speech against peace with France in 1801.[124] William Hazlitt, a political opponent of Burke, regarded him as amongst his three favourite writers (the others being Junius and Rousseau), and made it "a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man".[125] William Wordsworth was originally a supporter of the French Revolution and attacked Burke in 'A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff' (1793) but by the early nineteenth century he had changed his mind and came to admire Burke. In his Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmorland Wordsworth called Burke "the most sagacious Politician of his age" whose predictions "time has verified".[126] He later revised his poem The Prelude to include praise of Burke ("Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced/By specious wonders") and portrayed him as an old oak.[126] Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to have a similar conversion: he had criticised Burke in The Watchman but in his Friend (1809-10) Coleridge defended Burke from charges of inconsistency.[127] Later, in his Biographia Literaria (1817) Coleridge hails Burke as a prophet and praises Burke for referring "habitually to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer".[128] Henry Brougham wrote of Burke: "... all his predictions, save one momentary expression, had been more than fulfilled: anarchy and bloodshed had borne sway in France; conquest and convulsion had desolated Europe...the providence of mortals is not often able to penetrate so far as this into futurity".[129] George Canning believed that Burke's Reflections "has been justified by the course of subsequent events; and almost every prophecy has been strictly fulfilled".[129] In 1823 Canning wrote that he took Burke's "last works and words [as] the manual of my politics".[130] The Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli "was deeply penetrated with the spirit and sentiment of Burke's later writings".[131] The Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone considered Burke "a magazine of wisdom on Ireland and America" and in his diary recorded: "Made many extracts from Burke—sometimes almost divine".[132] The Radical MP and anti-Corn Law activist Richard Cobden often praised Burke's Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.[133] The Liberal historian Lord Acton considered Burke one of the three greatest liberals, along with William Gladstone and Thomas Babington Macaulay.[134] Macaulay recorded in his diary: "I have now finished reading again most of Burke's works. Admirable! The greatest man since Milton".[135] The Gladstonian Liberal MP John Morley published two books on Burke (including a biography) and was influenced by Burke, including his views on prejudice.[136] The Cobdenite Radical Francis Hirst thought Burke deserved "a place among English libertarians, even though of all lovers of liberty and of all reformers he was the most conservative, the least abstract, always anxious to preserve and renovate rather than to innovate. In politics he resembled the modern architect who would restore an old house instead of pulling it down to construct a new one on the site".[137]
Two contrasting assessments of Burke were offered long after his death by Karl Marx and Winston Churchill. In Das Kapital Marx wrote:
The sycophant—who in the pay of the English oligarchy played the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution just as, in the pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy—was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois. "The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God." (E. Burke, l.c., pp.31,32) No wonder that, true to the laws of God and Nature, he always sold himself in the best market.
and Winston Churchill in "Consistency in Politics" wrote:
On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations. His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other.
The historian Piers Brendon asserts that Burke laid the moral foundations for the British Empire, epitomised in the trial of Warren Hastings, that was ultimately to be its undoing: when Burke stated that "The British Empire must be governed on a plan of freedom, for it will be governed by no other",[138] this was "an ideological bacillus that would prove fatal. This was Edmund Burke's paternalistic doctrine that colonial government was a trust. It was to be so exercised for the benefit of subject people that they would eventually attain their birthright—freedom".[139] As a consequence of this opinion, Burke objected to the opium trade, which he called a "smuggling adventure" and condemned "the great Disgrace of the British character in India".[140]
The quotation "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing" although often attributed to Burke does not occur in his works or recorded speeches. It first appeared in the 14th edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1968), which incorrectly sourced it to a letter that did not in fact contain the quote.[141]
Summary
See also
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham
List of people on stamps of Ireland
Russell Kirk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edmund Burke PC (12 January [New Style] 1729[1] – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution. It led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution "New Whigs" led by Charles James Fox. Burke lived before the terms "conservative" and "liberal" were used to describe political ideologies.[2] Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals in the nineteenth-century and since the twentieth-century he has generally been viewed as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism.[3][4]
Early life
Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland to a prosperous solicitor father (Richard; d. 1761) who was a member of the Protestant Church of Ireland. It is unclear if this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism.[5][6] His mother Mary (c. 1702–1770), whose maiden name was Nagle, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and came from an impoverished but genteel County Cork family. (The name Burke is the Gaelic version of the Norman name Burgh or de Burgh, who settled in Ireland following the Norman invasion of Ireland by Henry II of England in 1172.[7]) Burke was raised in his father's faith and remained throughout his life a practising Anglican, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. His political enemies would later repeatedly accuse him of being educated at the Jesuit seminary of St. Omer's and of harbouring secret Catholic sympathies at a time when membership of the Catholic Church would have disqualified him from public office (see Penal Laws in Ireland). As Burke told Mrs. Crewe:
Mr. Burke's Enemies often endeavoured to convince the World that he had been bred up in the Catholic Faith, & that his Family were of it, & that he himself had been educated at St. Omer—but this was false, as his father was a regular practitioner of the Law at Dublin, which he could not be unless of the Established Church: & it so happened that though Mr. B— was twice at Paris, he never happened to go through the Town of St. Omer.[8]
Once an MP, Burke was required to take the oath of allegiance and abjuration, the oath of supremacy, and declare against transubstantiation. No Catholic is known to have done so in the eighteenth century.[9] Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as "an Englishman". This was in an age "before 'Celtic nationalism' sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible".[10]
As a child he sometimes spent time away from the unhealthy air of Dublin with his mother's family in the Blackwater Valley. He received his early education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, some 30 miles (48 km) from Dublin, and remained in correspondence with his schoolmate Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of the school's owner, throughout his life.
In 1744 he proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin. In 1747, he set up a Debating Club, known as Edmund Burke's Club, which in 1770 merged with the Historical Club to form the College Historical Society, now the oldest undergraduate society in the world. The minutes of the meetings of Burke's club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. He graduated in 1748. Burke's father wished him to study for the law, and with this object he went to London in 1750 and entered the Middle Temple, but soon thereafter he gave up his legal studies in order to travel in Continental Europe. After giving up law, he attempted to earn his livelihood through writing.
"The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own." A Vindication of Natural SocietyThe late Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of History was published in 1752 and his collected works appeared in 1754. This provoked Burke into writing his first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appearing in Spring 1756. Burke imitated Lord Bolingbroke's style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for atheistic rationalism, demonstrating their absurdity.[11][12] Burke claimed that Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions. Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton (and others) initially thought that the work was genuinely by Bolingbroke rather than a satire.[11][13] All the reviews of the work were positive, with critics especially appreciative of Burke's quality of writing. Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book, which led to Burke writing in the preface to the second edition (1757) that it was a satire.[14] Richard Hurd believed that Burke's imitation was near-perfect and that this defeated his purpose: an ironist "should take care by a constant exaggeration to make the ridicule shine through the Imitation. Whereas this Vindication is everywhere enforc'd, not only in the language, and on the principles of L. Bol., but with so apparent, or rather so real an earnestness, that half his purpose is sacrificed to the other".[14]
In 1757 Burke published a treatise on aesthetics, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. It was his only purely philosophical work, and when asked by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Laurence to expand it thirty years later, Burke replied that he was no longer fit for abstract speculation (Burke had written it before he was 19).[15]
On 25 February 1757 Burke signed a contract with Robert Dodsley to write a "history of England from the time of Julius Caesar to the end of the reign of Queen Anne", its length being eighty quarto sheets (640 pages), under 400,000 words. It was to be submitted for publication by Christmas 1758.[16] Burke actually completed to the year 1216, and never published the work. It was not published until 1812 in Burke's collected works under the title of An Essay Towards an Abridgement of the English History, after Burke's death. G. M. Young did not value Burke's history and claimed that it was "demonstrably a translation from the French".[17] Lord Acton, on commenting on the story that Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, said "it is ever to be regretted that the reverse did not occur".[18]
The following year, with Dodsley, he created the influential Annual Register, a publication in which various authors evaluated the international political events of the previous year.[19] The extent to which Burke personally contributed to the Annual Register is contested.[20] Robert Murray in his biography of Burke quotes the Register as evidence of Burke's opinions, yet Philip Magnus in his biography does not directly cite it as a reference.[21] Burke remained its chief editor until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766.[21]
In London, Burke knew many of the leading intellectuals and artists, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, and Joshua Reynolds. Edward Gibbon described him as, 'the most eloquent and rational madman that I ever knew.'[22]
On 12 March 1757 he married Jane Mary Nugent (1734–1812), daughter of a Catholic physician who had treated him at Bath. His son Richard was born on 9 February 1758. Another son, Christopher, died in infancy.
At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as "Single-speech Hamilton"). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he maintained for three years. In 1765 Burke became private secretary to liberal Whig statesman Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, at the time Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Burke's close friend and associate until his premature death in 1782.
Member of Parliament
A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1781, depicting Burke and other members of "The Club" – place the cursor on the person to identify.In December 1765 Burke entered the British Parliament as a member of the House of Commons for Wendover, a pocket borough in the control of Lord Fermanagh, later 2nd Earl Verney, a close political ally of Rockingham. After Burke's maiden speech, William Pitt the Elder said Burke had "spoken in such a manner as to stop the mouths of all Europe" and that the Commons should congratulate itself on acquiring such a member.[23]
In 1769 Burke published, in reply to Grenvillite pamphlet The Present State of the Nation, his pamphlet on Observations on a Late State of the Nation. Surveying the finances of France, Burke predicts "some extraordinary convulsion in that whole system".[24]
In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories near Beaconsfield. The 600-acre (2.4 km2) estate was purchased with mostly borrowed money, and though it contained an art collection that included works by Titian, Gregories nevertheless would prove to be a heavy financial burden on the MP in the following decades. Burke was never able to fully pay for the estate. His speeches and writings had now made him famous, and among other effects had brought about the suggestion that he was the author of the Letters of Junius.
Burke took a leading role in the debate over the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses by the monarch or by specific factions within the government. His most important publication in this regard was his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents of 23 April 1770.[25] Burke identified the "discontents" as stemming from the "secret influence" of a neo-Tory group he calls the "king's friends", whose system "comprehending the exterior and interior Administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language of the Court, Double Cabinet".[26] Britain needed a party which had "an unshaken adherence to principle, and attachment to connexion, against every allurement of interest". Party divisions "whether operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government".[27]
During 1771 Burke wrote a Bill which would, if passed, have given juries the right to determine what was libel. Burke spoke in favour of the Bill but it was opposed by some, including Charles James Fox, and was not passed. Fox, when introducing his own Bill in 1791, repeated almost verbatim the text of Burke's Bill without acknowledgement.[28] Burke was also prominent in securing the right to publish debates held in Parliament.[29]
Speaking in a parliamentary debate on the prohibition on the export of grain on 16 November 1770, Burke argued in favour of a free market in corn: "There are no such things as a high, & a low price that is encouraging, & discouraging; there is nothing but a natural price, which grain brings at an universal market."[30] In 1772 Burke instrumental in passing the Repeal of Certain Laws Act 1772, which repealed various old laws against dealers and forestallers in corn.[31]
In the Annual Register for 1772 (published in July 1773) Burke condemned the Partition of Poland. He saw it as "the first very great breach in the modern political system of Europe" and upsetting the balance of power in Europe.[32]
In 1774 he was elected member for Bristol, at the time "England's second city" and a large constituency with a genuine electoral contest. His Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll was noted for its defence of the principles of representative democracy against the notion that elected officials should be delegates:
... it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.[33]
In May 1778 Burke supported a motion in Parliament to revise the restrictions on Irish trade. However his constituents in Bristol, a great trading city, urged Burke to oppose free trade with Ireland. Burke resisted these demands and said: "If, from this conduct, I shall forfeit their suffrages at an ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong".[34] Burke published Two Letters to Gentlemen of Bristol on the Bills relative to the Trade of Ireland in which he espoused "some of the chief principles of commerce; such as the advantage of free intercourse between all parts of the same kingdom...the evils attending restriction and monopoly...and that the gain of others is not necessarily our loss, but on the contrary an advantage by causing a greater demand for such wares as we have for sale".[35]
Burke also supported Sir George Savile's attempts to repeal some of the penal laws against Catholics.[36]
This support for unpopular causes, notably free trade with Ireland and Catholic emancipation, led to Burke losing his seat in 1780. He also called capital punishment "the Butchery which we call justice" in 1776 and in 1780 Burke condemned the use of the pillory for two men convicted for attempting to practice sodomy.[37]
For the remainder of his parliamentary career, Burke sat for Malton, another pocket borough controlled by the Marquess of Rockingham.
American Revolution
Burke expressed his support for the grievances of the American colonies under the government of King George III and his appointed representatives. On 19 April 1774 Burke made a speech (published in January 1775) on a motion to repeal the tea duty:
Again and again, revert to your old principles—seek peace and ensue it; leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it.... Be content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it.... Do not burthen them with taxes.... But if intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sovereignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question.... If that sovereignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take? They will cast your sovereignty in your face. No body of men will be argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side...tell me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they bear the burthens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burthens of unlimited revenue too? The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery; that it is legal slavery, will be no compensation either to his feelings or to his understandings.[38]
On 22 March 1775 Burke gave a speech (published in May 1775) on reconciliation with America:
...the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen.... They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. The people are Protestants... a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it.... My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government,—they will cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your government may be one thing and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation,—the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you.[39]
The administration of Lord North (1770-1782) tried to defeat the colonists' rebellion by military force. British and American forces clashed in 1775 and in 1776 came the American Declaration of Independence. Burke was appalled by celebrations in Britain of the defeat of the Americans at New York and Pennsylvania. He claimed the English national character was being changed by this authoritarianism.[37] In Burke's view the British government was fighting "the American English" ("our English Brethren in the Colonies"), with a German-descended King employing "the hireling sword of German boors and vassals" to destroy British colonists' English liberties.[37] On American independence, Burke wrote: "I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity".[40]
Paymaster of the Forces
In Cincinnatus in Retirement (1782), James Gillray caricatured Burke's support of rights for Catholics.The fall of North led to Rockingham being recalled to power in March 1782. Burke became Paymaster of the Forces and a Privy Councillor, but without a seat in the Cabinet. Rockingham's unexpected death in July of 1782 and his replacement as Prime Minister by Shelburne put an end to his administration after only a few months. However Burke did manage to pass two Acts. The Paymaster General Act 1782 ended the post as a lucrative sinecure. Previously, Paymasters had been able to draw on money from the Treasury at their discretion. Now they were to put the money they had requested to withdraw from the Treasury into the Bank of England, from where it was to be withdrawn for specific purposes. The Treasury would receive monthly statements of the Paymaster's balance at the Bank. This Act was repealed by Shelburne's administration but the Act which replaced it repeated verbatim almost the whole text of Burke's Act.[41] The Civil List and Secret Service Money Act 1782 was a watered down version of Burke's original intentions as outlined in his famous Speech on Economical Reform of 11 February 1780. However he managed to abolish 134 offices in the royal household and civil administration.[42] The third Secretary of State and the Board of Trade were abolished and pensions were limited and regulated. The Act was projected to save £72,368 a year.[43] In February 1783 Burke resumed the post of Paymaster of the Forces when Shelburne's government fell and was replaced by a coalition headed by North and including Charles James Fox. The coalition fell in 1783, and was succeeded by the long Tory administration of William Pitt the Younger, which lasted until 1801. Burke was accordingly in opposition for the remainder of his political life.
India and the impeachment of Warren Hastings
Burke’s interaction with the British dominion of India began well before the Hastings Trial. Previous to the impeachment, Parliament dealt with the Indian issue for two decades, this trial was the pinnacle of years of unrest and deliberation.[44] In 1781 Burke was first able to delve into the issues surrounding the East India Company when he was appointed Chairman of the Commons’ Select Committee on East Indian Affair – from that point until the end of the trial; India was Burke’s primary concern.[45] This committee was charged “to investigate alleged injustices in Bengal, the war with Hyder Ali, and other Indian difficulties.”[46] While Burke and the committee focused their attention on these matters, a second ‘secret’ committee was formed to assess the same issues.[47] Both committee reports were written by Burke and lead to the reassurance to the Indian princes that Britain would not wage war on them and the demand for the EIC to recall Hastings.[48] This is Burke’s first call for real, significant change of the imperial practices. When addressing the whole House of Commons in regards to the committee’s report, Burke would describe the Indian issue as one that “began ‘in commerce’ but ‘ended in empire.’”[49]
On February 28, 1785 he made his great speech on The Nabob of Arcot's Debts, where he condemned the damage he believed the East India Company had done to India. In the province of the Carnatic the Indians had constructed a system of reservoirs to make the soil fertile in a naturally dry region, and centred their society on the husbandry of water:
These are the monuments of real kings, who were the fathers of their people; testators to a posterity which they embraced as their own. These are the grand sepulchres built by ambition; but by the ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not contented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness during the contracted term of human life, had strained, with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion of their bounty beyond the limits of nature, and to perpetuate themselves through generations of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the nourishers of mankind.[50]
Burke held that the advent of British dominion, and in particular the conduct of the East India Company had destroyed much that was good in these traditions and that, as a consequence of this, and the lack of new customs to replace them, the Indians were suffering. He set about establishing a set of British expectations, whose moral foundation would, in his opinion, warrant the empire.[51]
On April 4, 1786 Burke presented the Commons with the Article of Charge of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Warren Hastings, the former Governor General of Bengal. The trial, which did not begin until February 14, 1788, would be the “first major public discursive event of its kind in England,”[52] bringing the morality and duty of imperialism to the forefront of the public’s perception. Burke was already known for his eloquent rhetorical skills and his involvement in the trial only engrossed its popularity and significance.[53] For the members of London’s fashionable society, the trial was a spectacle , and was not centered around Hastings’ alleged misconduct and crimes as had been Burke’s intent.[54] Burke's indictment, fuelled by emotional indignation, called Hastings the 'captain-general of iniquity'; who never dined without 'creating a famine'; his heart was 'gangrened to the core' and he resembled both a 'spider of Hell' and a 'ravenous vulture devouring the carcases of the dead'.[55] The indictment was such a philippic that, whereas it had previously seemed that Hastings would be found guilty, it actually provoked public sympathy; however, although Hastings was acquitted, the trial served to establish the principle that the Empire was a moral undertaking rather than a wholesale looting by either the East India Company or its servants.
French Revolution: 1688 versus 1789
Smelling out a Rat;—or—The Atheistical-Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight "Calculations" (1790) by Gillray, depicting a caricature of Burke with a long nose and spectacles, holding a crown and a cross. The seated man is Dr. Richard Price, who is writing "On the Benefits of Anarchy Regicide Atheism" beneath a picture of the execution of Charles I of England.Burke did not initially condemn the French Revolution. In a letter of 9 August 1789, Burke wrote: "England gazing with astonishment at a French struggle for Liberty and not knowing whether to blame or to applaud! The thing indeed, though I thought I saw something like it in progress for several years, has still something in it paradoxical and Mysterious. The spirit it is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner".[56] The events of 5-6 October 1789, in which a mob of Parisian women marched on Versailles to compel King Louis XVI to return to Paris, turned Burke against it. In a letter to his son Richard on 10 October he said: "This day I heard from Laurence who has sent me papers confirming the portentous state of France—where the Elements which compose Human Society seem all to be dissolved, and a world of Monsters to be produced in the place of it—where Mirabeau presides as the Grand Anarch; and the late Grand Monarch makes a figure as ridiculous as pitiable".[57] On 4 November Charles-Jean-François Depont wrote to Burke, requesting that he endorse the Revolution. Burke replied that any critical language of it by him should be taken "as no more than the expression of doubt" but added: "You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom".[58] In the same month he described France as "a country undone". Burke's first public condemnation of the Revolution occurred on the debate in Parliament on the Army Estimates on 9 February 1790, provoked by praise of the Revolution by Pitt and Fox:
Reflections on the Revolution in France, And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French had shewn themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground, their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures...[there was a danger of] an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody and tyrannical democracy...[in religion] the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from Atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.[59]
In January 1790 Burke read Dr. Richard Price's sermon of 4 November 1789 to the Revolution Society, called A Discourse On the Love of our Country.[60] The Revolution Society was founded to commemorate the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In this sermon Price espoused the philosophy of universal "rights of men". Price argued that love of our country "does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government".[61] Instead, Englishmen should see themselves "more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community". The debate between Price and Burke was "the classic moment at which two fundamentally different conceptions of national identity were presented to the English public".[62] Price claimed that the principles of the Glorious Revolution included "the right to choose our own governors, to cashier them for misconduct, and to frame a government for ourselves". Immediately after reading Price's sermon, Burke wrote a draft of what would eventually become the Reflections on the Revolution in France.[63] On 13 February 1790 there appeared a notice in the press that Burke would shortly publish a pamphlet on the Revolution and its British supporters, however he spent the year revising and expanding it. On 1 November he finally published the Reflections and it was an immediate best-seller.[64][65] Priced at five shillings, it was more expensive than most political pamphlets but by the end of 1790 it had gone through ten printings and sold approximately 17,500 copies. A French translation appeared on 29 November and on 30 November the translator, Pierre-Gaëton Dupont, wrote to Burke saying 2,500 copies had already been sold. The French translation ran to ten printings by June 1791.[66]
What the Glorious Revolution had meant was important to Burke and his contemporaries, as it had been for the last one hundred years in British politics.[67] In the Reflections, Burke argued against Price's interpretation of the Glorious Revolution and instead gave a classic Whig defence of it.[68] Burke argued against the idea of abstract, metaphysical rights of men and instead advocated national tradition:
The Revolution was made to preserve our antient indisputable laws and liberties, and that antient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty.... The very idea of the fabrication of a new government, is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any cyon alien to the nature of the original plant.... Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to Blackstone, are industrious to prove the pedigree of our liberties. They endeavour to prove that the ancient charter... were nothing more than a re-affirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the kingdom.... In the famous law... called the Petition of Right, the parliament says to the king, “Your subjects have inherited this freedom,” claiming their franchises not on abstract principles “as the rights of men,” but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers.[69]
Burke put forward that "We fear God, we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected".[70] Burke defended prejudice on the grounds that it is "the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages" and superior to individual reason, which is small in comparison. "Prejudice", Burke claimed, "is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit".[71] Burke criticised social contract theory by claiming that society is indeed a contract, but "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born".[72]
The most famous passage of the Reflections was his description of the events of 5-6 October 1789 and Marie Antoinette's part in them. Burke's account differs little from modern historians who have used primary sources.[73] His use of flowery language to describe it, however, provoked both praise and criticism. Philip Francis wrote to Burke saying that what he wrote of Marie Antoinette was "pure foppery".[74] Edward Gibbon however reacted differently: "I adore his chivalry".[75] Burke was informed by an Englishman who had talked with the Duchesse de Biron that when Marie Antoinette was reading the passage she burst into tears and took considerable time to finish reading it.[76] Price had rejoiced that the French king had been "led in triumph" during the October Days but to Burke this symbolised the opposing revolutionary sentiment of the Jacobins and the natural sentiments of those like himself who regarded the ungallant assault on Marie Antoinette with horror, as a cowardly attack on a defenceless woman.[77]
Louis XVI translated the Reflections "from end to end" into French.[78] Fellow Whig MPs Richard Sheridan and Charles James Fox disagreed with Burke and split with him. Fox thought the Reflections to be "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles".[79] Other Whigs such as the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke but did not wish for a public breach with their Whig colleagues.[80] Burke wrote on 29 November 1790: "I have received from the Duke of Portland, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord John Cavendish Montagu and a long et cetera of the old Stamina of the Whiggs a most full approbation of the principles of that work and a kind indulgence to the execution".[81] The Duke of Portland said in 1791 that when anyone criticised the Reflections to him he informed them that he had recommended the book to his sons as containing the true Whig creed.[82] King George III at a levee on 3 February 1791 said to Burke: "I know that there is no Man who calls himself a Gentleman that must not think himself obliged to you, for you have supported the cause of the Gentlemen".[83]
Burke's Reflections sparked a pamphlet war. Thomas Paine penned The Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to Burke; Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Men and James Mackintosh wrote Vindiciae Gallicae. Mackintosh was the first to see the Reflections as "the manifesto of a Counter Revolution". Mackintosh would later come to agree with Burke's views, remarking in December 1796 after meeting him, that Burke was "minutely and accurately informed, to a wonderful exactness, with respect to every fact relating to the French Revolution".[84] Mackintosh later said: "Burke was one of the first thinkers as well as one of the greatest orators of his time. He is without parallel in any age, excepting perhaps Lord Bacon and Cicero; and his works contain an ampler store of political and moral wisdom than can be found in any other writer whatever".[85]
In November 1790 a member of the National Assembly of France, François-Louis-Thibault de Menonville, wrote to Burke, praising the Reflections and requesting more "very refreshing mental food" which he could publish.[86] This Burke did in April 1791 when he published A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Burke called for external forces to reverse the Revolution and included an attack on the late French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a personality cult had developed in revolutionary France. Although Burke conceded that Rousseau sometimes shows "a considerable insight into human nature" he was mostly critical. Although he did not meet Rousseau on his visit to Britain in 1766-7 he was a friend of David Hume, with whom Rousseau had stayed with. Burke said Rousseau "entertained no principle either to influence of his heart, or to guide his understanding, but vanity", which he "was possessed to a degree little short of madness". He also cited Rousseau's Confessions as evidence that Rousseau had a life of "obscure and vulgar vices" that was not "chequered, or spotted here and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action". Burke contrasted Rousseau's theory of universal benevolence and his sending his children to a foundling hospital: "a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred".[87]
These events, and the disagreements which arose regarding them within the Whig party, led to its breakup and to the rupture of Burke's friendship with Fox. In debate in Parliament on Britain's relations with Russia, Fox praised the principles of the Revolution, though Burke was not able to reply at this time as he was "overpowered by continued cries of question from his own side of the House".[88] When Parliament was debating the Quebec Bill for a constitution for Canada, Fox praised the Revolution and criticised some of Burke's arguments, such as hereditary power. On 6 May 1791, during another debate in Parliament on the Quebec Bill, Burke used the opportunity to answer Fox and condemn the new French Constitution and "the horrible consequences flowing from the French idea of the rights of man".[89] Burke asserted that those ideas were the antithesis of both the British and the American constitutions.[90] Burke was interrupted, and Fox intervened to say that Burke should be allowed to carry on with his speech. However a vote of censure was moved against Burke for noticing the affairs of France, which was moved by Lord Sheffield and seconded by Fox.[91] Pitt made a speech praising Burke, and Fox made a speech both rebuking and complimenting Burke. He questioned the sincerity of Burke, who seemed to have forgotten the lessons he had taught him, quoting from Burke's speeches of fourteen and fifteen years before. Burke replied:
Charles James Fox.It certainly was indiscreet at any period, but especially at his time of life, to parade enemies, or give his friends occasion to desert him; yet if his firm and steady adherence to the British constitution placed him in such a dilemma, he would risk all, and, as public duty and public experience taught him, with his last words exclaim, "Fly from the French Constitution".[89]
At this point Fox whispered that there was "no loss of friendship". "I regret to say there is", Burke said, "I have indeed made a great sacrifice; I have done my duty though I have lost my friend. There is something in the detested French constitution that envenoms every thing it touches".[92] This provoked a reply from Fox, yet he was unable to give his speech for some time since he was overcome with tears and emotion, he appealed to Burke to remember their inalienable friendship but also repeated his criticisms of Burke and uttered "unusually bitter sarcasms".[92] This only aggravated the rupture between the two men. Burke demonstrated his separation from the party on 5 June 1791 by writing to Fitzwilliam, declining money from him.[93]
Burke was dismayed that some Whigs, instead of reaffirming the principles of the Whig party he laid out in the Reflections, had rejected them in favour of "French principles" and criticised Burke for abandoning Whig principles. Burke wanted to demonstrate his fidelity to Whig principles and feared that acquiescence to Fox and his followers would allow the Whig party to become a vehicle for Jacobinism. Burke knew that many members of the Whig party did not share Fox's views and wanted to provoke them into condemning the French Revolution. Burke wrote that he wanted to represent the whole Whig party "as tolerating, and by a toleration, countenancing those proceedings" so that he could "stimulate them to a public declaration of what every one of their acquaintance privately knows to be...their sentiments".[94] Therefore on 3 August 1791 Burke published his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in which he renewed his criticism of the radical revolutionary programmes inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who supported them as holding principles contrary to those traditionally held by the Whig party. Burke owned two copies of what has been called "that practical compendium of Whig political theory", The Tryal of Dr. Henry Sacheverell (1710).[95] Burke wrote of the trial: "It rarely happens to a party to have the opportunity of a clear, authentic, recorded, declaration of their political tenets upon the subject of a great constitutional event like that of the [Glorious] Revolution".[95] Writing in the third person, Burke asserted in his Appeal:
...that the foundations laid down by the Commons, on the trial of Doctor Sacheverel, for justifying the revolution of 1688, are the very same laid down in Mr. Burke's Reflections; that is to say,—a breach of the original contract, implied and expressed in the constitution of this country, as a scheme of government fundamentally and inviolably fixed in King, Lords and Commons.—That the fundamental subversion of this antient constitution, by one of its parts, having been attempted, and in effect accomplished, justified the Revolution. That it was justified only upon the necessity of the case; as the only means left for the recovery of that antient constitution, formed by the original contract of the British state; as well as for the future preservation of the same government. These are the points to be proved.[95]
Burke then provided quotations from Paine's Rights of Man to demonstrate what the New Whigs believed. Burke's belief that Foxite principles corresponded to Paine's was genuine.[96] Finally, Burke denied that a majority of "the people" had, or ought to have, the final say in politics and alter society at their pleasure. People had rights but also duties, and these duties were not voluntary. Also, the people could not overthrow morality which is derived from God.[97]
Although Whig grandees like Portland and Fitzwilliam privately agreed with Burke's Appeal, they wished he had used more moderate language. Fitzwilliam saw the Appeal as containing "the doctrines I have sworn by, long and long since".[98] Francis Basset, a backbench Whig MP, wrote to Burke: "...though for reasons which I will not now detail I did not then deliver my sentiments, I most perfectly differ from Mr Fox & from the great Body of opposition on the French Revolution".[98] Burke sent a copy of the Appeal to the King and the King requested a friend to communicate to Burke that he had read it "with great Satisfaction".[98] Burke wrote of the its reception: "Not one word from one of our party. They are secretly galled. They agree with me to a title; but they dare not speak out for fear of hurting Fox. ... They leave me to myself; they see that I can do myself justice".[93] Charles Burney viewed it as "a most admirable book—the best & most useful on political subjects that I have ever seen" but believed the differences in the Whig party between Burke and Fox should not be publicly aired.[99]
Eventually most of the Whigs sided with Burke and voted their support for the conservative government of Pitt, which, in response to France's declaration of war against Britain, declared war on the revolutionary government of France in 1793.
In December 1791 Burke sent government ministers his Thoughts on French Affairs where he put forward three main points: no counter-revolution in France would come about by purely domestic causes; the longer the revolutionary government exists the stronger it becomes; and the revolutionary government's interest and aim is to disturb all the other governments of Europe.[100] Burke, as a Whig, did not wish to see an absolute monarchy again in France after the extirpation of Jacobinism. Writing to an émigré in 1791, Burke expressed his views against a restoration of the ancien régime:
When such a complete convulsion has shaken the State, and hardly left any thing whatsoever, either in civil arrangements, or in the Characters and disposition of mens minds, exactly where it was, whatever shall be settled although in the former persons and upon old forms, will be in some measure a new thing and will labour under something of the weakness as well as other inconveniences of a Change. My poor opinion is that you mean to establish what you call ‘L'ancien Regime,’ If any one means that system of Court Intrigue miscalled a Government as it stood, at Versailles before the present confusions as the thing to be established, that I believe will be found absolutely impossible; and if you consider the Nature, as well of persons, as of affairs, I flatter myself you must be of my opinion. That was tho' not so violent a State of Anarchy as well as the present. If it were even possible to lay things down exactly as they stood, before the series of experimental politicks began, I am quite sure that they could not long continue in that situation. In one Sense of L'Ancien Regime I am clear that nothing else can reasonably be done.[101]
Burke delivered a speech on the debate of the Aliens Bill on 28 December 1792. He supported the Bill as it would exclude "murderous atheists, who would pull down church and state; religion and God; morality and happiness".[102] The peroration included a reference to a French order for 3,000 daggers. Burke revealed a dagger he had concealed in his coat and threw it to the floor: "This is what you are to gain by an alliance with France". Burke picked up the dagger and continued:
When they smile, I see blood trickling down their faces; I see their insidious purposes; I see that the object of all their cajoling is—blood! I now warn my countrymen to beware of these execrable philosophers, whose only object it is to destroy every thing that is good here, and to establish immorality and murder by precept and example—'Hic niger est hunc tu Romane caveto' ['Such a man is evil; beware of him, Roman'. Horace, Satires I. 4. 85.].[102]
Burke supported the war against revolutionary France, seeing Britain as fighting on the side of the royalists and émigres in a civil war, rather than fighting against the whole nation of France.[103] Burke also supported the royalist uprising in La Vendée, describing it on 4 November 1793 in a letter to William Windham, as "the sole affair I have much heart in".[103] Burke wrote to Henry Dundas on 7 October urging him to send reinforcements there as he viewed it as the only theatre in the war which might lead to a march on Paris. However Dundas did not follow Burke's advice. Burke believed the government was not taking the uprising seriously enough, a view reinforced by a letter he had received from the Comte d'Artois, dated 23 October, requesting that he intercede on behalf of the royalists to the government. Burke was forced to reply on 6 November: "I am not in His Majesty's Service; or at all consulted in his Affairs".[104] Burke published his Remarks on the Policy of the Allies with Respect to France, begun in October, where he said: "I am sure every thing has shewn us that in this war with France, one Frenchman is worth twenty foreigners. La Vendee is a proof of this".[105]
On 20 June 1794 Burke received a vote of thanks from the Commons for his services in the Hastings trial and immediately resigned his seat, being replaced by his son Richard. However a terrible blow fell upon Burke in the loss of Richard in August 1794, to whom he was tenderly attached, and in whom he saw signs of promise.[37] The King, whose favour he had gained by his attitude on the French Revolution, wished to make him Lord Beaconsfield, but the death of his son had deprived such an honour of all its attractions, and the only reward he would accept was a pension of £2,500. This pension was attacked by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to whom Burke replied in the Letter to a Noble Lord (1796).[106] Burke wrote: "It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform".[107] He argued that he was rewarded on merit but the Duke of Bedford received his rewards from inheritance alone, his ancestor being the original pensioner: "Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his from Henry the Eighth".[108] Burke also hinted at what would happen to such people if their revolutionary ideas were implemented, and included a description of the British constitution:
But as to our country and our race, as long as the well compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the British Sion—as long as the British Monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the State, shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land—so long as the mounds and dykes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of France.[109]
Burke's last publications were the Letters on a Regicide Peace (October 1796), called forth by the Pitt government's negotiations for peace with France. Burke regarded this as appeasement, injurious to national dignity and honour.[110] In the Second Letter, Burke wrote of the revolutionary French government: "Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms".[111] This has been seen as the first time someone explained the modern totalitarian state.[112] Burke regarded the war with France as ideological, against an "armed doctrine". He wished that France would not be partitioned due to the effect this would have on the balance of power in Europe, and that the war was not against France but against the revolutionaries governing her.[113] Burke said: "It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France".[37]
Later life
In November 1795 there was a debate in Parliament on the high price of corn and Burke wrote a memorandum to Pitt on the subject. In December Samuel Whitbread MP introduced a bill giving magistrates the power to fix minimum wages and Fox said he would vote for it. This debate probably led Burke to editing his memorandum as there appeared a notice that Burke would soon publish a letter on the subject to the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture (Arthur Young), but he failed to complete it. These fragments were inserted into the memorandum after his death and published posthumously in 1800 as Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.[114] In it, Burke expounded "some of the doctrines of political economists bearing upon agriculture as a trade".[115] Burke criticised policies such as maximum prices and state regulation of wages, and set out what the limits of government should be:
That the State ought to confine itself to what regards the State, or the creatures of the State, namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to every thing that is truly and properly public, to the public peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity.[116]
The economist Adam Smith remarked that Burke was "the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us".[117]
Writing to a friend in May 1795, Burke surveyed the causes of discontent: "I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant ascendency, as they affect Ireland; or of Indianism, as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia; or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe, and the state of human society itself. The last is the greatest evil".[118] However by March 1796 Burke had changed his mind: "Our Government and our Laws are beset by two different Enemies, which are sapping its foundations, Indianism, and Jacobinism. In some Cases they act separately, in some they act in conjunction: But of this I am sure; that the first is the worst by far, and the hardest to deal with; and for this amongst other reasons, that it weakens discredits, and ruins that force, which ought to be employed with the greatest Credit and Energy against the other; and that it furnishes Jacobinism with its strongest arms against all formal Government".[119]
For more than a year before his death Burke knew that his stomach was "irrecoverably ruind".[37] After hearing that Burke was nearing death, Fox wrote to Mrs. Burke enquiring after him. Fox received the reply the next day:
Mrs. Burke presents her compliments to Mr. Fox, and thanks him for his obliging inquiries. Mrs. Burke communicated his letter to Mr. Burke, and by his desire has to inform Mr. Fox that it has cost Mr. Burke the most heart-felt pain to obey the stern voice of his duty in rending asunder a long friendship, but that he deemed this sacrifice necessary; that his principles continue the same; and that in whatever of life may yet remain to him, he conceives that he must live for others and not for himself. Mr. Burke is convinced that the principles which he has endeavoured to maintain are necessary to the welfare and dignity of his country, and that these principles can be enforced only by the general persuasion of his sincerity.[120]
Burke died in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire on 9 July 1797. He was buried in Beaconsfield alongside his son and brother. His wife survived him by nearly fifteen years.
Legacy
Statue of Edmund Burke in Washington, D.C.Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France was controversial at the time of its publication. But after his death, it was to become his best-known and most influential work. It is understood to be the manifesto in Conservative thought. In the English-speaking world, Burke is regarded by most political experts as the father of modern anglo-conservatism. His 'liberal' conservatism, which opposed governing based on abstract ideas, and preferred 'organic' reform, can be contrasted with the autocratic conservatism of Continental figures such as Joseph de Maistre.
Burke's ideas placing property at the base of human development and the development of society were radical and new at the time. Burke believed that property was essential to human life. Because of his conviction that people desire to be ruled and controlled, the division of property formed the basis for social structure, helping develop control within a property-based hierarchy. He viewed the social changes brought on by property as the natural order of events that should be taking place as the human race progressed. With the division of property and the class system, he also believed that it kept the monarch in check to the needs of the classes beneath the monarch. Since property largely aligned or defined divisions of social class, class too was seen as natural - part of a social agreement that the setting of persons into different classes is the mutual benefit of all subjects.
His support for Irish Catholics and Indians often led him to be criticised by Tories.[121] His opposition to British imperialism in Ireland and India and his opposition to French imperialism and radicalism in Europe, made it difficult for Whig or Tory to wholly accept Burke as their own.[122] In the nineteenth century Burke was praised by both liberals and conservatives. Burke's friend Philip Francis wrote that Burke "was a man who truly & prophetically foresaw all the consequences which would rise from the adoption of the French principles" but because Burke wrote with so much passion people were doubtful of his arguments.[123] William Windham spoke from the same bench in the House of Commons as Burke had done when he had separated from Fox and an observer said Windham spoke "like the ghost of Burke" when he made a speech against peace with France in 1801.[124] William Hazlitt, a political opponent of Burke, regarded him as amongst his three favourite writers (the others being Junius and Rousseau), and made it "a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man".[125] William Wordsworth was originally a supporter of the French Revolution and attacked Burke in 'A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff' (1793) but by the early nineteenth century he had changed his mind and came to admire Burke. In his Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmorland Wordsworth called Burke "the most sagacious Politician of his age" whose predictions "time has verified".[126] He later revised his poem The Prelude to include praise of Burke ("Genius of Burke! forgive the pen seduced/By specious wonders") and portrayed him as an old oak.[126] Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to have a similar conversion: he had criticised Burke in The Watchman but in his Friend (1809-10) Coleridge defended Burke from charges of inconsistency.[127] Later, in his Biographia Literaria (1817) Coleridge hails Burke as a prophet and praises Burke for referring "habitually to principles. He was a scientific statesman; and therefore a seer".[128] Henry Brougham wrote of Burke: "... all his predictions, save one momentary expression, had been more than fulfilled: anarchy and bloodshed had borne sway in France; conquest and convulsion had desolated Europe...the providence of mortals is not often able to penetrate so far as this into futurity".[129] George Canning believed that Burke's Reflections "has been justified by the course of subsequent events; and almost every prophecy has been strictly fulfilled".[129] In 1823 Canning wrote that he took Burke's "last works and words [as] the manual of my politics".[130] The Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli "was deeply penetrated with the spirit and sentiment of Burke's later writings".[131] The Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone considered Burke "a magazine of wisdom on Ireland and America" and in his diary recorded: "Made many extracts from Burke—sometimes almost divine".[132] The Radical MP and anti-Corn Law activist Richard Cobden often praised Burke's Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.[133] The Liberal historian Lord Acton considered Burke one of the three greatest liberals, along with William Gladstone and Thomas Babington Macaulay.[134] Macaulay recorded in his diary: "I have now finished reading again most of Burke's works. Admirable! The greatest man since Milton".[135] The Gladstonian Liberal MP John Morley published two books on Burke (including a biography) and was influenced by Burke, including his views on prejudice.[136] The Cobdenite Radical Francis Hirst thought Burke deserved "a place among English libertarians, even though of all lovers of liberty and of all reformers he was the most conservative, the least abstract, always anxious to preserve and renovate rather than to innovate. In politics he resembled the modern architect who would restore an old house instead of pulling it down to construct a new one on the site".[137]
Two contrasting assessments of Burke were offered long after his death by Karl Marx and Winston Churchill. In Das Kapital Marx wrote:
The sycophant—who in the pay of the English oligarchy played the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution just as, in the pay of the North American colonies at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the liberal against the English oligarchy—was an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois. "The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God." (E. Burke, l.c., pp.31,32) No wonder that, true to the laws of God and Nature, he always sold himself in the best market.
and Winston Churchill in "Consistency in Politics" wrote:
On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations. His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other.
The historian Piers Brendon asserts that Burke laid the moral foundations for the British Empire, epitomised in the trial of Warren Hastings, that was ultimately to be its undoing: when Burke stated that "The British Empire must be governed on a plan of freedom, for it will be governed by no other",[138] this was "an ideological bacillus that would prove fatal. This was Edmund Burke's paternalistic doctrine that colonial government was a trust. It was to be so exercised for the benefit of subject people that they would eventually attain their birthright—freedom".[139] As a consequence of this opinion, Burke objected to the opium trade, which he called a "smuggling adventure" and condemned "the great Disgrace of the British character in India".[140]
The quotation "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing" although often attributed to Burke does not occur in his works or recorded speeches. It first appeared in the 14th edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1968), which incorrectly sourced it to a letter that did not in fact contain the quote.[141]
Summary
See also
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham
List of people on stamps of Ireland
Russell Kirk
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Book in the Media - New Moon
Title: New Moon: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion (Twilight)
Author: Mark Cotta Vaz
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: ATOM (6 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1905654685
ISBN-13: 978-1905654680
Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 21.6 x 1.2 cm
Product Description
Academy Award-nominated director Chris Weitz and his creative team have brought the second book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire romance saga to the big screen. Inside this deluxe visual companion, get an intimate look at the creation of the film. With lavish, never-before-seen full-colour photographs, exclusive interviews with the cast and crew, and answers to questions about costume and set design, bestselling author Mark Cotta Vaz gives a special behind-the-scenes tour of the film millions have devoured. Inside you'll get a glimpse into the director's aesthetic inspiration, learn the secrets behind some of the film's most intense stunts, and learn just how a person can become a werewolf.
About the Author
Mark Cotta Vaz is the author of over twenty-one books, including four New York Times bestsellers. His recent works include Mythic Vision: The Making of Eragon, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion, and his biography, Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong¸which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1905654685
Author: Mark Cotta Vaz
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: ATOM (6 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 1905654685
ISBN-13: 978-1905654680
Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 21.6 x 1.2 cm
Product Description
Academy Award-nominated director Chris Weitz and his creative team have brought the second book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire romance saga to the big screen. Inside this deluxe visual companion, get an intimate look at the creation of the film. With lavish, never-before-seen full-colour photographs, exclusive interviews with the cast and crew, and answers to questions about costume and set design, bestselling author Mark Cotta Vaz gives a special behind-the-scenes tour of the film millions have devoured. Inside you'll get a glimpse into the director's aesthetic inspiration, learn the secrets behind some of the film's most intense stunts, and learn just how a person can become a werewolf.
About the Author
Mark Cotta Vaz is the author of over twenty-one books, including four New York Times bestsellers. His recent works include Mythic Vision: The Making of Eragon, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion, and his biography, Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong¸which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1905654685
Book in the Media - River Cottage Every Day
Title: River Cottage Everyday
Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (5 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0747598401
ISBN-13: 978-0747598404
Product Dimensions: 25.2 x 18.6 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
Putting food on the table for the family quickly and economically doesn't mean you have to compromise on quality. This book shows how Hugh's approach to food can be adapted to suit any growing, working family, or busy young singles and couples for that matter. Breakfast, baking, lunchboxes, quick suppers, healthy snacks, eating on the move and weekend cooking for the week ahead - all these, and more, will be covered in River Cottage Every Day. As Hugh says: "I have honed the River Cottage approach to food over a decade now, and I believe passionately that it is relevant to everybody, every day. You only have to decide that food, and its provenance, matters to you and your family, and the River Cottage way of doing things can offer a whole raft of solutions: food sourcing and shopping strategies, thrifty kitchen tricks and, above all, approachable, delicious, easy recipes. This book makes no prior assumptions about where you shop, what you may or may not know about growing vegetables or keeping livestock, or whether you can tell the difference between a cep and a chanterelle. But once you own the book, these things may well begin to matter to you. All you will need to reap the benefit is a commitment to spend at least some time in the kitchen, with fresh ingredients, a few times a week. And if you don't have that at the outset, I believe that a little time spent with this book - perhaps in bed, before you go to sleep - will soon put that right! Above all, I intend to tempt and charm you towards a better life with food - with a set of simply irresistible recipes that just happen to be seasonal and ethical."
About the Author
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner. His series for Channel 4 have earned him a huge popular following, while his River Cottage books have collected multiple awards including the Glenfiddich Trophy (twice), the Andre Simon Food Book of the Year (three times), the Michael Smith Award for Work on British Food award at the Guild of Food Writers and, in the US, the James Beard Cookbook of the Year. Hugh lives in Dorset with his family.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0747598401
Author: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (5 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0747598401
ISBN-13: 978-0747598404
Product Dimensions: 25.2 x 18.6 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
Putting food on the table for the family quickly and economically doesn't mean you have to compromise on quality. This book shows how Hugh's approach to food can be adapted to suit any growing, working family, or busy young singles and couples for that matter. Breakfast, baking, lunchboxes, quick suppers, healthy snacks, eating on the move and weekend cooking for the week ahead - all these, and more, will be covered in River Cottage Every Day. As Hugh says: "I have honed the River Cottage approach to food over a decade now, and I believe passionately that it is relevant to everybody, every day. You only have to decide that food, and its provenance, matters to you and your family, and the River Cottage way of doing things can offer a whole raft of solutions: food sourcing and shopping strategies, thrifty kitchen tricks and, above all, approachable, delicious, easy recipes. This book makes no prior assumptions about where you shop, what you may or may not know about growing vegetables or keeping livestock, or whether you can tell the difference between a cep and a chanterelle. But once you own the book, these things may well begin to matter to you. All you will need to reap the benefit is a commitment to spend at least some time in the kitchen, with fresh ingredients, a few times a week. And if you don't have that at the outset, I believe that a little time spent with this book - perhaps in bed, before you go to sleep - will soon put that right! Above all, I intend to tempt and charm you towards a better life with food - with a set of simply irresistible recipes that just happen to be seasonal and ethical."
About the Author
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner. His series for Channel 4 have earned him a huge popular following, while his River Cottage books have collected multiple awards including the Glenfiddich Trophy (twice), the Andre Simon Food Book of the Year (three times), the Michael Smith Award for Work on British Food award at the Guild of Food Writers and, in the US, the James Beard Cookbook of the Year. Hugh lives in Dorset with his family.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0747598401
Book in the Media - Longy, Booze, Brawls, Sex and Scandal
Title: Longy: Booze, Brawls, Sex and Scandal - The Autobiography of the Wild Man of Rugby League
Author: Sean Long
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: John Blake Publishing Ltd (5 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1844548562
ISBN-13: 978-1844548569
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
Sean Long is Super League's No 1 bad boy and when it comes to off-the-pitch madness, no-one comes close. Here, the flamboyant St Helens superstar tells his hilarious, shocking and explosive life story - packed with amazing tales of booze, brawls, sex and scandal. Longy - the only player to win the Lance Todd Trophy three times - tells the inside story of THAT bet against his own team and exposes secrets that will shock the rugby league establishment to its core. In his own words, he describes with startling honesty the hell-raising experiences of his rag-to-riches journey. But it isn't all about his wild reputation - Long has also had an incredible rugby league career, winning every major honour in the game at club level as well as notching up 15 caps for Great Britain and another five for the England side. He has twice set the Super League record for the most points scored in a season, with 284 in 1999 and a staggering 352 in 2000. Not just for rugby league fans, this book is a must-read for anyone with a taste for life on the wild side.
About the Author
Sean Long is one of the finest rugby league half-backs to ever pick up the oval ball. Long started his pro career at his hometown club Wigan Warriors and, after a short stop-over at Widnes, he was signed by St Helens in 1997 to fill the boots of another Saints legend, Bobby Goulding. It wasn't long before the Knowsley Road faithful took Longy to their hearts. Long has won every major honour in the game at club level and is the only player in Challenge Cup history to win the Lance Todd Trophy three times as man of the match in the 2001, 2004 and 2006 finals. He also won 15 caps for Great Britain and five for England before retiring from international rugby on 16 April 2007. Still one of the most colourful characters ever to play the game, he continues to wear the No 7 shirt at St Helens.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1844548562
Author: Sean Long
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: John Blake Publishing Ltd (5 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1844548562
ISBN-13: 978-1844548569
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
Sean Long is Super League's No 1 bad boy and when it comes to off-the-pitch madness, no-one comes close. Here, the flamboyant St Helens superstar tells his hilarious, shocking and explosive life story - packed with amazing tales of booze, brawls, sex and scandal. Longy - the only player to win the Lance Todd Trophy three times - tells the inside story of THAT bet against his own team and exposes secrets that will shock the rugby league establishment to its core. In his own words, he describes with startling honesty the hell-raising experiences of his rag-to-riches journey. But it isn't all about his wild reputation - Long has also had an incredible rugby league career, winning every major honour in the game at club level as well as notching up 15 caps for Great Britain and another five for the England side. He has twice set the Super League record for the most points scored in a season, with 284 in 1999 and a staggering 352 in 2000. Not just for rugby league fans, this book is a must-read for anyone with a taste for life on the wild side.
About the Author
Sean Long is one of the finest rugby league half-backs to ever pick up the oval ball. Long started his pro career at his hometown club Wigan Warriors and, after a short stop-over at Widnes, he was signed by St Helens in 1997 to fill the boots of another Saints legend, Bobby Goulding. It wasn't long before the Knowsley Road faithful took Longy to their hearts. Long has won every major honour in the game at club level and is the only player in Challenge Cup history to win the Lance Todd Trophy three times as man of the match in the 2001, 2004 and 2006 finals. He also won 15 caps for Great Britain and five for England before retiring from international rugby on 16 April 2007. Still one of the most colourful characters ever to play the game, he continues to wear the No 7 shirt at St Helens.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1844548562
Book in the Song - Birdsong
Title: Birdsong
Author: Sebastian Faulks
Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (18 Jul 1994)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0099387913
ISBN-13: 978-0099387916
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.5 cm
Product Description
Set before and during the great war, "Birdsong" captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.
About the Author
Sebastian Faulks worked as a journalist for 14 years before taking up writing books full time in 1991. He is the author of A Trick of Light, The Girl at the Lion D'Or, A Fool's Alphabet, The Fatal Englishman, Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, On Green Dolphin Street and, most recently, Human Traces.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B000S6G5TQ
Author: Sebastian Faulks
Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (18 Jul 1994)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0099387913
ISBN-13: 978-0099387916
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.5 cm
Product Description
Set before and during the great war, "Birdsong" captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.
About the Author
Sebastian Faulks worked as a journalist for 14 years before taking up writing books full time in 1991. He is the author of A Trick of Light, The Girl at the Lion D'Or, A Fool's Alphabet, The Fatal Englishman, Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, On Green Dolphin Street and, most recently, Human Traces.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B000S6G5TQ
Book in the Media- A History of Christanity
Title: A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
Author: Diarmaid MacCulloch
Hardcover: 1216 pages
Publisher: Allen Lane (24 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 0713998695
ISBN-13: 978-0713998696
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 7.4 cm
Product Description
Christianity, one of the world’s great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth. He is one of the most widely travelled of Christian historians and conveys a sense of place as arrestingly as he does the power of ideas. He presents the development of Christian history differently from any of his predecessors. He shows how, after a semblance of unity in its earliest centuries, the Christian church divided during the next 1400 years into three increasingly distanced parts, of which the western Church was by no means always the most important: he observes that at the end of the first eight centuries of Christian history, Baghdad might have seemed a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome. This is the first truly global history of Christianity.
About the Author
Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer (1996) won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is the author most recently of Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490 - 1700 (2004), which won the Wolfson Prize for History and the British Academy Prize. His six-part television history of Christianity airs on BBC television this autumn.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0670021261
Author: Diarmaid MacCulloch
Hardcover: 1216 pages
Publisher: Allen Lane (24 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 0713998695
ISBN-13: 978-0713998696
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 7.4 cm
Product Description
Christianity, one of the world’s great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth. He is one of the most widely travelled of Christian historians and conveys a sense of place as arrestingly as he does the power of ideas. He presents the development of Christian history differently from any of his predecessors. He shows how, after a semblance of unity in its earliest centuries, the Christian church divided during the next 1400 years into three increasingly distanced parts, of which the western Church was by no means always the most important: he observes that at the end of the first eight centuries of Christian history, Baghdad might have seemed a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome. This is the first truly global history of Christianity.
About the Author
Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer (1996) won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is the author most recently of Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490 - 1700 (2004), which won the Wolfson Prize for History and the British Academy Prize. His six-part television history of Christianity airs on BBC television this autumn.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0670021261
Book in the Media - The Selfish Gene
Title: The Selfish Gene: 30th Anniversary
Author: Richard Dawkins
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford; 3rd Revised edition edition (16 Mar 2006)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0199291152
ISBN-13: 978-0199291151
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2 cm
Product Description
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. As relevant and influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research.
About the Author
Richard Dawkins is the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
His bestselling books include The Extended Phenotype (1982) and its sequel The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2004) and The Ancestor's Tale (2004).
He has won many literary and scientific awards, including the 1987 Royal Society of Literature Award, the 1990 Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the 1994 Nakayama Prize for Human Science, the 1997 International Cosmos Prize, and the Shakespeare Prize in 2005.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0199291152
Author: Richard Dawkins
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford; 3rd Revised edition edition (16 Mar 2006)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0199291152
ISBN-13: 978-0199291151
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2 cm
Product Description
The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews. As relevant and influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research.
About the Author
Richard Dawkins is the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
His bestselling books include The Extended Phenotype (1982) and its sequel The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2004) and The Ancestor's Tale (2004).
He has won many literary and scientific awards, including the 1987 Royal Society of Literature Award, the 1990 Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the 1994 Nakayama Prize for Human Science, the 1997 International Cosmos Prize, and the Shakespeare Prize in 2005.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0199291152
Book in the Media - Bicycle Diaries
Title: Bicycle Diaries
Author: David Byrne
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Faber and Faber (6 Aug 2009)
ISBN-10: 0571241026
ISBN-13: 978-0571241026
Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.8 x 3 cm
Since the early 1980s, David Byrne has been riding a bicycle as his principal means of transportation in New York City. A few years later he discovered folding bikes, and starting taking them with him on music tour overseas, and experienced a sense of liberation as he pedaled around many of the world's principal cities. The point of view from his bike seat has given Byrne a panoramic window on urban life over the last thirty years as he has cycled round cities such as London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Manila, New York, and San Francisco. From music and the visual arts, to globalisation, politics, the nature of creative work, fashion and art, this book gives the reader an incredible insight into what Byrne is seeing and thinking as he pedals around these cities. Filled with intimate photographs, incredible musical stories and a powerful ecological message, this is a enchanting celebration of bike riding - of the rewards of seeing the world at bike level.
About the Author
David Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1952, and attended Rhode Island School of Design and Maryland Institute College of Art. He is primarily known as the musician who co-founded the group Talking Heads (1976-88), and has also been involved in an array of music, theatre, art and film projects, including work with Brian Eno, Thwyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, Jonathan Demme and Bernardo Bertolucci. He currently lives in New York.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0670021148
Author: David Byrne
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Faber and Faber (6 Aug 2009)
ISBN-10: 0571241026
ISBN-13: 978-0571241026
Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.8 x 3 cm
Since the early 1980s, David Byrne has been riding a bicycle as his principal means of transportation in New York City. A few years later he discovered folding bikes, and starting taking them with him on music tour overseas, and experienced a sense of liberation as he pedaled around many of the world's principal cities. The point of view from his bike seat has given Byrne a panoramic window on urban life over the last thirty years as he has cycled round cities such as London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Manila, New York, and San Francisco. From music and the visual arts, to globalisation, politics, the nature of creative work, fashion and art, this book gives the reader an incredible insight into what Byrne is seeing and thinking as he pedals around these cities. Filled with intimate photographs, incredible musical stories and a powerful ecological message, this is a enchanting celebration of bike riding - of the rewards of seeing the world at bike level.
About the Author
David Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1952, and attended Rhode Island School of Design and Maryland Institute College of Art. He is primarily known as the musician who co-founded the group Talking Heads (1976-88), and has also been involved in an array of music, theatre, art and film projects, including work with Brian Eno, Thwyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, Jonathan Demme and Bernardo Bertolucci. He currently lives in New York.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0670021148
Book in the Media - When I Found You
Title: When I Found You
Author: Catherine Ryan Hyde
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Black Swan (10 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 055277572X
ISBN-13: 978-0552775724
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
When Nathan McCann discovers a newborn baby boy half buried in the woods, he assumes he's found a tiny dead body. But then the baby moves and in one remarkable moment, Nathan's life is changed forever. The baby is sent to grow up with his grandmother, but Nathan can't forget him and is compelled to pay her a visit. He asks for one simple promise - that one day she will introduce the boy to Nathan and tell him, 'This is the man who found you in the woods.' Years pass and Nathan assumes that the old lady has not kept her promise, until one day an angry, troubled boy arrives on his doorstep with a suitcase...
About the Author
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of several highly acclaimed novels including Pay it Forward, which was made into a film starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. In 2007 her novel Love in the Present Tense was selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. Catherine lives in Cambia, California.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20
Author: Catherine Ryan Hyde
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Black Swan (10 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 055277572X
ISBN-13: 978-0552775724
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
When Nathan McCann discovers a newborn baby boy half buried in the woods, he assumes he's found a tiny dead body. But then the baby moves and in one remarkable moment, Nathan's life is changed forever. The baby is sent to grow up with his grandmother, but Nathan can't forget him and is compelled to pay her a visit. He asks for one simple promise - that one day she will introduce the boy to Nathan and tell him, 'This is the man who found you in the woods.' Years pass and Nathan assumes that the old lady has not kept her promise, until one day an angry, troubled boy arrives on his doorstep with a suitcase...
About the Author
Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of several highly acclaimed novels including Pay it Forward, which was made into a film starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. In 2007 her novel Love in the Present Tense was selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. Catherine lives in Cambia, California.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20
Book in the Media - Moscow Sting
Title: Moscow Sting
Author: Alex Dryden
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Headline (3 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 0755345029
ISBN-13: 978-0755345021
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
The threat of Russia as a hostile superpower returns in this chilling spy thriller and sequel to RED TO BLACK.
When British spy, Finn, is brutally murdered by a Russian assassin, Adrian, chief of MI6, wants vengeance. He also wants answers – answers that can only be revealed by Finn's widow, Anna, the former KGB colonel who betrayed her country for love and has now disappeared with their child. Adrian isn't the only one desperate to find Anna. Finn accessed intelligence so confidential that the KGB are willing to kill to protect it, and now everyone wants to know what Russia is concealing beneath its veil of political cordiality.
About the Author
Alex Dryden is a writer and journalist with many years' experience in security matters. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Dryden watched the statues of Lenin fall across the former Soviet Union. Since then he has charted the false dawn of democracy in Russia as the country morphed into the world's most powerful secret state.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061966843
Author: Alex Dryden
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Headline (3 Sep 2009)
ISBN-10: 0755345029
ISBN-13: 978-0755345021
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
The threat of Russia as a hostile superpower returns in this chilling spy thriller and sequel to RED TO BLACK.
When British spy, Finn, is brutally murdered by a Russian assassin, Adrian, chief of MI6, wants vengeance. He also wants answers – answers that can only be revealed by Finn's widow, Anna, the former KGB colonel who betrayed her country for love and has now disappeared with their child. Adrian isn't the only one desperate to find Anna. Finn accessed intelligence so confidential that the KGB are willing to kill to protect it, and now everyone wants to know what Russia is concealing beneath its veil of political cordiality.
About the Author
Alex Dryden is a writer and journalist with many years' experience in security matters. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Dryden watched the statues of Lenin fall across the former Soviet Union. Since then he has charted the false dawn of democracy in Russia as the country morphed into the world's most powerful secret state.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061966843
Book in the Media - Playing The Field
Title: Playing the Field
Author: Emma Heatherington
Paperback: 438 pages
Publisher: Poolbeg Press Ltd (27 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1842233726
ISBN-13: 978-1842233726
Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11.2 x 3 cm
Product Description
Donegal lass Cara McCarthy has always been a tomboy type of girl, who wouldn't care how to spell Versace, let alone have any desire to wear it. On a career break in London, she lands a job as a cleaner which is right up her street just then. Her new boss is Sophia Brannigan the fashionista girlfriend of gorgeous Fulton FC Premiership star, Dylan Summers, and her new place of work is their luxurious home, Summer Manor. Cara is determined to stay in the background, but life has other plans. Before she can say 'Manolo', she finds herself plunged in at the deep end of high fashion and posh parties. With a friendly father figure in gardener Sam and a delightful new arrival called Lola, Cara's new life is set to be both fun and challenging. But as Sophia's hunger for celebrity grows, so does Cara s bond with Dylan Summers and soon everything she does at Summer Manor seems destined to land her deeper and deeper into trouble ...
About the Author
Emma Heatherington is married with three young children. She runs a PR company in County Tyrone, as well as writing scripts for screen and stage. Playing the Field is her second novel.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1842233726
Author: Emma Heatherington
Paperback: 438 pages
Publisher: Poolbeg Press Ltd (27 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1842233726
ISBN-13: 978-1842233726
Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11.2 x 3 cm
Product Description
Donegal lass Cara McCarthy has always been a tomboy type of girl, who wouldn't care how to spell Versace, let alone have any desire to wear it. On a career break in London, she lands a job as a cleaner which is right up her street just then. Her new boss is Sophia Brannigan the fashionista girlfriend of gorgeous Fulton FC Premiership star, Dylan Summers, and her new place of work is their luxurious home, Summer Manor. Cara is determined to stay in the background, but life has other plans. Before she can say 'Manolo', she finds herself plunged in at the deep end of high fashion and posh parties. With a friendly father figure in gardener Sam and a delightful new arrival called Lola, Cara's new life is set to be both fun and challenging. But as Sophia's hunger for celebrity grows, so does Cara s bond with Dylan Summers and soon everything she does at Summer Manor seems destined to land her deeper and deeper into trouble ...
About the Author
Emma Heatherington is married with three young children. She runs a PR company in County Tyrone, as well as writing scripts for screen and stage. Playing the Field is her second novel.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1842233726
Author Oscar Wilde
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/wilde/
WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF OSCAR WILDE
NEWS
Welcome
Welcome to Oscar Wilde's Website!
BIOGRAPHY
Oscar Wilde’s rich and dramatic portrayals of the human condition came during the height of the Victorian Era that swept through London in the late 19th century. At a time when all citizens of Britain were finally able to embrace literature the wealthy and educated could only once afford, Wilde wrote many short stories, plays and poems that continue to inspire millions around the world. More >>
BUSINESS
CMG Worldwide is the exclusive business representative for Oscar Wilde. We work with companies around the world who wish to use his name or likeness in any commercial fashion.
Click here for more information.
BIOGRAPHY
Oscar Wilde’s rich and dramatic portrayals of the human condition came during the height of the Victorian Era that swept through London in the late 19th century. At a time when all citizens of Britain were finally able to embrace literature the wealthy and educated could only once afford, Wilde wrote many short stories, plays and poems that continue to inspire millions around the world.
By the time William Wilde, Oscar’s father, was 28, he had graduated as a doctor, completed a voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe, North Africa and the Middle East, studied at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, written two books and been appointed medical advisor to the Irish Census of 1841. When the medical statistics were published two years later they contained data which had not been collected in any other country at the time, and as a result, William became the Assistant Commissioner to the 1851 Census. He held the same position for the two succeeding Censuses and, in 1864, he was knighted for his work on them. When William opened a Dublin practice specializing in ear and eye diseases, he felt he should make some provision for the free treatment of the city's poor population. In 1844, he founded St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, built entirely at his own expense.
Before he married, William fathered three children. Henry Wilson was born in 1838, Emily in 1847 and Mary in 1849. To William's credit, he provided financial support for all of them. He paid for Henry's education and medical studies, eventually hiring him into St. Mark's Hospital as an assistant. Sadly, Mary and Emily, who were raised by William's brother, both died in a fire at the ages of 22 and 24.
WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF OSCAR WILDE
NEWS
Welcome
Welcome to Oscar Wilde's Website!
BIOGRAPHY
Oscar Wilde’s rich and dramatic portrayals of the human condition came during the height of the Victorian Era that swept through London in the late 19th century. At a time when all citizens of Britain were finally able to embrace literature the wealthy and educated could only once afford, Wilde wrote many short stories, plays and poems that continue to inspire millions around the world. More >>
BUSINESS
CMG Worldwide is the exclusive business representative for Oscar Wilde. We work with companies around the world who wish to use his name or likeness in any commercial fashion.
Click here for more information.
BIOGRAPHY
Oscar Wilde’s rich and dramatic portrayals of the human condition came during the height of the Victorian Era that swept through London in the late 19th century. At a time when all citizens of Britain were finally able to embrace literature the wealthy and educated could only once afford, Wilde wrote many short stories, plays and poems that continue to inspire millions around the world.
By the time William Wilde, Oscar’s father, was 28, he had graduated as a doctor, completed a voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe, North Africa and the Middle East, studied at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, written two books and been appointed medical advisor to the Irish Census of 1841. When the medical statistics were published two years later they contained data which had not been collected in any other country at the time, and as a result, William became the Assistant Commissioner to the 1851 Census. He held the same position for the two succeeding Censuses and, in 1864, he was knighted for his work on them. When William opened a Dublin practice specializing in ear and eye diseases, he felt he should make some provision for the free treatment of the city's poor population. In 1844, he founded St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, built entirely at his own expense.
Before he married, William fathered three children. Henry Wilson was born in 1838, Emily in 1847 and Mary in 1849. To William's credit, he provided financial support for all of them. He paid for Henry's education and medical studies, eventually hiring him into St. Mark's Hospital as an assistant. Sadly, Mary and Emily, who were raised by William's brother, both died in a fire at the ages of 22 and 24.
Author Bram Stoker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker
Bram Stoker From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bram Stoker
Photograph of Stoker c. 1912
Born Abraham Stoker
8 November 1847(1847-11-08)
Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland
Died 20 April 1912 (aged 64)
London, England, U.K.
Occupation Novelist
Nationality Irish
Writing period Victorian era
Genres Gothic, Romantic Fiction
Literary movement Victorian
Notable work(s) Dracula
Spouse(s) Florence Balcombe
Children Irving Noel Thornley Stoker
Relative(s) father: Abraham Stoker
mother: Margaret Isabella Balfour
John Polidori, Sheridan Le Fanu
Stephen King, Anne Rice, Miroslav Šustek
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847–20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.
Early life
He was born in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf.[1][2] His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and the feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who came from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. Stoker was the third of seven children.[3] Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years." He was educated in a private school run by the Rev. William Woods.[4]
After his recovery, he grew up without further major health issues, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin, which he attended from 1864 to 1870. He graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".
Early career
While still a student he became interested in the theatre. Through the influence of a friend, Dr. Maunsell, he became the theatre critic for a newspaper, the Dublin Evening Mail, co-owned by the author of Gothic tales Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. At a time when theatre critics were held in low esteem, he attracted notice by the quality of his reviews. In December 1876 he gave a favourable review of the actor Henry Irving's performance as Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Irving read the review and invited Stoker for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where he was staying. After that they became friends. Stoker also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock. In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879), which long remained a standard work on the subject.[4]
Bram Stoker's former home, Kildare Street, Dublin, Ireland.[edit] Lyceum Theatre and later career
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde[5]. Stoker had known Wilde from his student days, having proposed him for membership of the university’s Philosophical Society while he was president. Wilde was upset at Florence's decision, but Stoker later resumed the acquaintanceship, and after Wilde's fall visited him on the Continent.[6]
The Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting-manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (to whom he was distantly related). Working for Irving, the most famous actor of his time, and managing one of the most successful theatres in London made Stoker a notable if very busy man. He was absolutely dedicated to Irving and his memoirs of Irving show how he idolised him. In London Stoker also met Hall Caine who became one of his closest friends - he dedicated Dracula to him.
In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world, although he never visited Eastern Europe, a setting for his most famous novel. Stoker particularly enjoyed visits to the United States, where Irving was popular. With Irving he was invited twice to the White House, and knew both William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Stoker was a great admirer of the country, setting two of his novels there and using Americans as characters, the most notable being Quincey Morris. He also got a chance to meet one of his literary idols Walt Whitman.
The first edition cover of Dracula[edit] Writings
While working as manager for actor Henry Irving, and as secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. During this period, Stoker was also part of the literary staff of the London Telegraph newspaper and wrote other works of fiction, including the horror novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).[7] In 1906, after Irving's death, he published his life of Irving, which proved very successful[4] and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to his story, a skill he developed as a newspaper writer. At the time of its publication, it was considered a "straightforward horror novel" based on imaginary creations of supernatural life.[7] "It gave form to a universal fantasy . . . and became a part of popular culture."[7]
According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included within the categories of "horror fiction," "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama."[7] They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Shelley's Frankenstein[8]:394 which, according to historian Jules Zanger, also used the "myth-making" and story-telling method of having "multiple narrators" telling the same tale from different perspectives. "'They can't all be lying,' thinks the reader."[9]
The original 529-page manuscript of Dracula, believed to have been lost, was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania during the early 1980s. It included the typed manuscript with many corrections, and "handwritten on the title page was "THE UN-DEAD." The author's name was shown at the bottom as Bram Stoker. Author Robert Latham notes, "the most famous horror novel ever published, its title changed at the last minute."[8]
Stoker's inspirations for the story, in addition to Whitby, may have included a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, a visit to the crypts of St. Michan's Church in Dublin and the novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.[10]
Death
After suffering a number of strokes Bram Stoker died at No 26 St George's Square in 1912.[11] Some biographers attribute the cause of death to tertiary syphilis[12]. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest. To visit his remains at Golders Green, visitors must be escorted to the room the urn is housed in, for fear of vandalism.
Beliefs and Philosophy
Stoker was brought up as a Protestant, in the Church of Ireland. He was a strong supporter of the Liberal party. He took a keen interest in Irish affairs[4] and was what he called a "philosophical Home Ruler", believing in Home Rule for Ireland brought about by peaceful means - but as an ardent monarchist he believed that Ireland should remain within the British Empire which he believed was a force for good. He was a great admirer of Prime Minister William Gladstone whom he knew personally, and admired his plans for Ireland[13].
Stoker had a strong interest in science and medicine and a belief in progress. Some of his novels like The Lady of the Shroud (1909) can be seen as early science fiction. Like many people of his time Stoker believed in the concept of scientific racism drawing on his belief in Phrenology and these fears form elements in novels like Dracula.[citation needed] This is also reflected in his interest in early theories of criminology - he read both Cesare Lombroso and Max Nordau and used them in Dracula.[citation needed]
Stoker had an interest in the occult especially mesmerism, but was also wary of occult fraud and believed strongly that superstition should be replaced by more scientific ideas. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is rumoured to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.[14][15] One of Stoker's closest friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself hired Pamela Coleman Smith, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.
Posthumous
The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was released in 1922 and was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known. The first authorized film version of Dracula did not come about until almost a decade later when Universal Studios released Tod Browning's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.
Bibliography
Novels
Bram Stoker Commemorative Plaque, Whitby, England (2002)
The Primrose Path (1875)
The Snake's Pass (1890)
The Watter's Mou' (1895)
The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)
Dracula (1897)
Miss Betty (1898)
The Mystery of the Sea (1902)
The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)
The Man (aka: The Gates of Life) (1905)
Lady Athlyne (1908)
The Lady of the Shroud (1909)
The Lair of the White Worm (1911)
Short story collections
Under the Sunset (1881), comprising eight fairy tales for children
Snowbound: The Record of a Theatrical Touring Party (1908)
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914), published posthumously by Florence Stoker
Uncollected stories
"Bridal of Dead" (alternate ending to The Jewel of Seven Stars)
"Buried Treasures"
"The Chain of Destiny"
"The Crystal Cup"
"The Dualitists; or, The Death Doom of the Double Born"
"Lord Castleton Explains" (chapter 10 of The Fate of Fenella)
"The Gombeen Man" (chapter 3 of The Snake's Pass)
"In the Valley of the Shadow"
"The Man from Shorrox"
"Midnight Tales"
"The Red Stockade"
"The Seer" (chapters 1 and 2 of The Mystery of the Sea)
[edit] Non-fiction
The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland (1879)
A Glimpse of America (1886)
Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906)
Famous Impostors (1910)
Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition (2008) Bram Stoker Annotated and Transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, Foreword by Michael Barsanti. Jefferson NC & London: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3410-7
Bram Stoker From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bram Stoker
Photograph of Stoker c. 1912
Born Abraham Stoker
8 November 1847(1847-11-08)
Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland
Died 20 April 1912 (aged 64)
London, England, U.K.
Occupation Novelist
Nationality Irish
Writing period Victorian era
Genres Gothic, Romantic Fiction
Literary movement Victorian
Notable work(s) Dracula
Spouse(s) Florence Balcombe
Children Irving Noel Thornley Stoker
Relative(s) father: Abraham Stoker
mother: Margaret Isabella Balfour
John Polidori, Sheridan Le Fanu
Stephen King, Anne Rice, Miroslav Šustek
Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847–20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.
Early life
He was born in 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf.[1][2] His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and the feminist Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who came from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. Stoker was the third of seven children.[3] Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years." He was educated in a private school run by the Rev. William Woods.[4]
After his recovery, he grew up without further major health issues, even excelling as an athlete (he was named University Athlete) at Trinity College, Dublin, which he attended from 1864 to 1870. He graduated with honours in mathematics. He was auditor of the College Historical Society and president of the University Philosophical Society, where his first paper was on "Sensationalism in Fiction and Society".
Early career
While still a student he became interested in the theatre. Through the influence of a friend, Dr. Maunsell, he became the theatre critic for a newspaper, the Dublin Evening Mail, co-owned by the author of Gothic tales Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. At a time when theatre critics were held in low esteem, he attracted notice by the quality of his reviews. In December 1876 he gave a favourable review of the actor Henry Irving's performance as Hamlet at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. Irving read the review and invited Stoker for dinner at the Shelbourne Hotel, where he was staying. After that they became friends. Stoker also wrote stories, and in 1872 "The Crystal Cup" was published by the London Society, followed by "The Chain of Destiny" in four parts in The Shamrock. In 1876, while employed as a civil servant in Dublin, Stoker wrote a non-fiction book (The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland, published 1879), which long remained a standard work on the subject.[4]
Bram Stoker's former home, Kildare Street, Dublin, Ireland.[edit] Lyceum Theatre and later career
In 1878 Stoker married Florence Balcombe, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel James Balcombe of 1 Marino Crescent, a celebrated beauty whose former suitor was Oscar Wilde[5]. Stoker had known Wilde from his student days, having proposed him for membership of the university’s Philosophical Society while he was president. Wilde was upset at Florence's decision, but Stoker later resumed the acquaintanceship, and after Wilde's fall visited him on the Continent.[6]
The Stokers moved to London, where Stoker became acting-manager and then business manager of Irving's Lyceum Theatre, London, a post he held for 27 years. On 31 December 1879, Bram and Florence's only child was born, a son whom they christened Irving Noel Thornley Stoker. The collaboration with Irving was very important for Stoker and through him he became involved in London's high society, where he met, among other notables, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (to whom he was distantly related). Working for Irving, the most famous actor of his time, and managing one of the most successful theatres in London made Stoker a notable if very busy man. He was absolutely dedicated to Irving and his memoirs of Irving show how he idolised him. In London Stoker also met Hall Caine who became one of his closest friends - he dedicated Dracula to him.
In the course of Irving's tours, Stoker got the chance to travel around the world, although he never visited Eastern Europe, a setting for his most famous novel. Stoker particularly enjoyed visits to the United States, where Irving was popular. With Irving he was invited twice to the White House, and knew both William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Stoker was a great admirer of the country, setting two of his novels there and using Americans as characters, the most notable being Quincey Morris. He also got a chance to meet one of his literary idols Walt Whitman.
The first edition cover of Dracula[edit] Writings
While working as manager for actor Henry Irving, and as secretary and director of London's Lyceum Theatre, he began writing novels beginning with The Snake's Pass in 1890 and Dracula in 1897. During this period, Stoker was also part of the literary staff of the London Telegraph newspaper and wrote other works of fiction, including the horror novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).[7] In 1906, after Irving's death, he published his life of Irving, which proved very successful[4] and managed productions at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to his story, a skill he developed as a newspaper writer. At the time of its publication, it was considered a "straightforward horror novel" based on imaginary creations of supernatural life.[7] "It gave form to a universal fantasy . . . and became a part of popular culture."[7]
According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Stoker's stories are today included within the categories of "horror fiction," "romanticized Gothic" stories, and "melodrama."[7] They are classified alongside other "works of popular fiction" such as Shelley's Frankenstein[8]:394 which, according to historian Jules Zanger, also used the "myth-making" and story-telling method of having "multiple narrators" telling the same tale from different perspectives. "'They can't all be lying,' thinks the reader."[9]
The original 529-page manuscript of Dracula, believed to have been lost, was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania during the early 1980s. It included the typed manuscript with many corrections, and "handwritten on the title page was "THE UN-DEAD." The author's name was shown at the bottom as Bram Stoker. Author Robert Latham notes, "the most famous horror novel ever published, its title changed at the last minute."[8]
Stoker's inspirations for the story, in addition to Whitby, may have included a visit to Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, a visit to the crypts of St. Michan's Church in Dublin and the novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.[10]
Death
After suffering a number of strokes Bram Stoker died at No 26 St George's Square in 1912.[11] Some biographers attribute the cause of death to tertiary syphilis[12]. He was cremated and his ashes placed in a display urn at Golders Green Crematorium. After Irving Noel Stoker's death in 1961, his ashes were added to that urn. The original plan had been to keep his parents' ashes together, but after Florence Stoker's death her ashes were scattered at the Gardens of Rest. To visit his remains at Golders Green, visitors must be escorted to the room the urn is housed in, for fear of vandalism.
Beliefs and Philosophy
Stoker was brought up as a Protestant, in the Church of Ireland. He was a strong supporter of the Liberal party. He took a keen interest in Irish affairs[4] and was what he called a "philosophical Home Ruler", believing in Home Rule for Ireland brought about by peaceful means - but as an ardent monarchist he believed that Ireland should remain within the British Empire which he believed was a force for good. He was a great admirer of Prime Minister William Gladstone whom he knew personally, and admired his plans for Ireland[13].
Stoker had a strong interest in science and medicine and a belief in progress. Some of his novels like The Lady of the Shroud (1909) can be seen as early science fiction. Like many people of his time Stoker believed in the concept of scientific racism drawing on his belief in Phrenology and these fears form elements in novels like Dracula.[citation needed] This is also reflected in his interest in early theories of criminology - he read both Cesare Lombroso and Max Nordau and used them in Dracula.[citation needed]
Stoker had an interest in the occult especially mesmerism, but was also wary of occult fraud and believed strongly that superstition should be replaced by more scientific ideas. In the mid 1890s, Stoker is rumoured to have become a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, though there is no concrete evidence to support this claim.[14][15] One of Stoker's closest friends was J.W. Brodie-Innis, a major figure in the Order, and Stoker himself hired Pamela Coleman Smith, as an artist at the Lyceum Theater.
Posthumous
The short story collection Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories was published in 1914 by Stoker's widow Florence Stoker. The first film adaptation of Dracula was released in 1922 and was named Nosferatu. It was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Nosferatu was produced while Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow and literary executrix, was still alive. Represented by the attorneys of the British Incorporated Society of Authors, she eventually sued the filmmakers. Her chief legal complaint was that she had been neither asked for permission for the adaptation nor paid any royalty. The case dragged on for some years, with Mrs. Stoker demanding the destruction of the negative and all prints of the film. The suit was finally resolved in the widow's favour in July 1925. Some copies of the film survived, however and the film has become well known. The first authorized film version of Dracula did not come about until almost a decade later when Universal Studios released Tod Browning's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.
Bibliography
Novels
Bram Stoker Commemorative Plaque, Whitby, England (2002)
The Primrose Path (1875)
The Snake's Pass (1890)
The Watter's Mou' (1895)
The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)
Dracula (1897)
Miss Betty (1898)
The Mystery of the Sea (1902)
The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)
The Man (aka: The Gates of Life) (1905)
Lady Athlyne (1908)
The Lady of the Shroud (1909)
The Lair of the White Worm (1911)
Short story collections
Under the Sunset (1881), comprising eight fairy tales for children
Snowbound: The Record of a Theatrical Touring Party (1908)
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914), published posthumously by Florence Stoker
Uncollected stories
"Bridal of Dead" (alternate ending to The Jewel of Seven Stars)
"Buried Treasures"
"The Chain of Destiny"
"The Crystal Cup"
"The Dualitists; or, The Death Doom of the Double Born"
"Lord Castleton Explains" (chapter 10 of The Fate of Fenella)
"The Gombeen Man" (chapter 3 of The Snake's Pass)
"In the Valley of the Shadow"
"The Man from Shorrox"
"Midnight Tales"
"The Red Stockade"
"The Seer" (chapters 1 and 2 of The Mystery of the Sea)
[edit] Non-fiction
The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland (1879)
A Glimpse of America (1886)
Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906)
Famous Impostors (1910)
Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition (2008) Bram Stoker Annotated and Transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, Foreword by Michael Barsanti. Jefferson NC & London: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3410-7
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Crime Writer Sam Blake
http://bloodredink.com/
The Dressmaker
Stephen King believes that the best plots develop when two unrelated ideas collide. The Dressmaker is a product of the collision of two seperate events that happened in 1935 and 1949. I heard about the first about ten years ago in an RTE documentary. It stayed with me until the second piece of the puzzle fell into place - as I was listening to the radio on the way back from Sarah Webb’s Readers’ Day at the Radisson Hotel. The two events had a significant common element, an element that started me thinking. Waiting to go in to a Book Club Lunch I started scribbling the plot and the relationships between the main characters on the back of a telephone bill….
The Dressmaker is a story of dark family secrets, of greed, betrayal and loss. Garda Detective Sergeant Cathy Connolly is attending a routine break-in when she finds something that is far from routine – a torn wedding dress, and a grisly secret hidden in its hem: the bones of a new born baby. The discovery is all the more shocking for Cathy as she is struggling with her own problems – she is 26, single - very single - and pregnant.
Paradise Gardens, Bethnal Green, London
Set in modern day Ireland, in Dalkey Co. Dublin, and in London’s East End, the web of lies spun around the wedding dress and its owners keeps Cathy and her friend and colleague DI Dawson O’Rourke, guessing until the explosive end.
The Dressmaker
Stephen King believes that the best plots develop when two unrelated ideas collide. The Dressmaker is a product of the collision of two seperate events that happened in 1935 and 1949. I heard about the first about ten years ago in an RTE documentary. It stayed with me until the second piece of the puzzle fell into place - as I was listening to the radio on the way back from Sarah Webb’s Readers’ Day at the Radisson Hotel. The two events had a significant common element, an element that started me thinking. Waiting to go in to a Book Club Lunch I started scribbling the plot and the relationships between the main characters on the back of a telephone bill….
The Dressmaker is a story of dark family secrets, of greed, betrayal and loss. Garda Detective Sergeant Cathy Connolly is attending a routine break-in when she finds something that is far from routine – a torn wedding dress, and a grisly secret hidden in its hem: the bones of a new born baby. The discovery is all the more shocking for Cathy as she is struggling with her own problems – she is 26, single - very single - and pregnant.
Paradise Gardens, Bethnal Green, London
Set in modern day Ireland, in Dalkey Co. Dublin, and in London’s East End, the web of lies spun around the wedding dress and its owners keeps Cathy and her friend and colleague DI Dawson O’Rourke, guessing until the explosive end.
Book in the Media - What Everybody Is Saying
Title: What Every Body Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-reading People
Author: Joe Navarro
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (1 April 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0061438294
ISBN-13: 978-0061438295
Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm
Product Description
What you say is often far less important than how you say it. One of the harbingers of success is understanding how nonverbal cues such as body language, dress, and demeanor affect how you are perceived and understood. In this book Navarro, one of the leaders in nonverbal behaviours, demonstrates how to modify your subconscious statements to your greatest advantage and also read what other people are 'saying' nonverbally. These skills will increase your ability to accurately assess moods, decode behaviors, anticipate problems, avoid hidden pitfalls, influence negotiations, and understand the secret motivations of those around you.
About the Author
For twenty-five years, Joe Navarro, M.A., worked with the FBI, both as an agent and supervisor in the area of counterintelligence and counterterrorism handling complex multinational investigations. He is presently an adjunct faculty member at the FBI's Counterintelligence Division where he teaches behavioral analysis and nonverbal communications. He consults to the Department of Energy, the State Department, and the Institute for Defense Analysis, a Washington, D.C. based think tank. Mr. Navarro has taught intelligence analysis to both the law enforcement and intelligence communities. In addition to his counterintelligence duties with the Bureau, Mr. Navarro was the senior criminal profiler in the Tampa Division and continues to serve as a consultant in the National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program. Marvin Karlins received his Ph.D. degree in psychology from Princeton University. He is the author of 23 books and was a senior editor at Gambling Times Magazine for 10 years. He most recently the co-writer with Joe Navarro on Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061438294
Author: Joe Navarro
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (1 April 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0061438294
ISBN-13: 978-0061438295
Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2.8 cm
Product Description
What you say is often far less important than how you say it. One of the harbingers of success is understanding how nonverbal cues such as body language, dress, and demeanor affect how you are perceived and understood. In this book Navarro, one of the leaders in nonverbal behaviours, demonstrates how to modify your subconscious statements to your greatest advantage and also read what other people are 'saying' nonverbally. These skills will increase your ability to accurately assess moods, decode behaviors, anticipate problems, avoid hidden pitfalls, influence negotiations, and understand the secret motivations of those around you.
About the Author
For twenty-five years, Joe Navarro, M.A., worked with the FBI, both as an agent and supervisor in the area of counterintelligence and counterterrorism handling complex multinational investigations. He is presently an adjunct faculty member at the FBI's Counterintelligence Division where he teaches behavioral analysis and nonverbal communications. He consults to the Department of Energy, the State Department, and the Institute for Defense Analysis, a Washington, D.C. based think tank. Mr. Navarro has taught intelligence analysis to both the law enforcement and intelligence communities. In addition to his counterintelligence duties with the Bureau, Mr. Navarro was the senior criminal profiler in the Tampa Division and continues to serve as a consultant in the National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program. Marvin Karlins received his Ph.D. degree in psychology from Princeton University. He is the author of 23 books and was a senior editor at Gambling Times Magazine for 10 years. He most recently the co-writer with Joe Navarro on Phil Hellmuth Presents Read 'Em and Reap.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061438294
Book in the Media - Lauren Luke
Title: Lauren Luke
Author: Lauren Luke
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (1 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0340997842
ISBN-13: 978-0340997840
Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 18.8 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
‘I just love colour! I have always been excited by colourful make-up and the endless amount of different looks you can create with it. I love the way it can bring out the best in everyone.’
Lauren Luke is an internet phenomenon. Her make-up tutorials, filmed in her bedroom in South Shields near Newcastle, have attracted a staggering 36 million [and counting...] hits on YouTube.
Growing up, Lauren had a tough time at school and began experimenting with makeup to fit in. And so began a lifelong love affair with cosmetics and the art of transformation. One day she decided to share her passion with friends online and became a sensation.
The great thing about Lauren is she is just an ordinary 27 year old woman - but arm her with a glittery eye shadow and a shimmer lip-gloss and she can show you how to show off your best features or recreate Cheryl Cole or Leona Lewis' latest look in ten minutes flat. Everyone has bits they love about their face, and other parts they’d rather conceal, and Lauren will show you how to make the most of what you’ve got.
Just like sitting down with your best friend for a makeover session, Lauren’s book is brimming with fresh ideas and packed with insider beauty tips and tricks of the trade.
About the Author
Lauren uploaded her first video onto YouTube on 22nd July 2007. She had no idea that she would soon become the most viewed YouTube user in the UK, with her own newspaper column, a Nintendo game and even her own makeup range! Lauren hasn’t let her incredible success go to her head though, and she still lives with her 10-year-old son, Jordan, her mum, sister, twin teenage nieces and five highly affectionate dogs in their house in South Shields, Tyneside.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0340997842
Author: Lauren Luke
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (1 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0340997842
ISBN-13: 978-0340997840
Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 18.8 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
‘I just love colour! I have always been excited by colourful make-up and the endless amount of different looks you can create with it. I love the way it can bring out the best in everyone.’
Lauren Luke is an internet phenomenon. Her make-up tutorials, filmed in her bedroom in South Shields near Newcastle, have attracted a staggering 36 million [and counting...] hits on YouTube.
Growing up, Lauren had a tough time at school and began experimenting with makeup to fit in. And so began a lifelong love affair with cosmetics and the art of transformation. One day she decided to share her passion with friends online and became a sensation.
The great thing about Lauren is she is just an ordinary 27 year old woman - but arm her with a glittery eye shadow and a shimmer lip-gloss and she can show you how to show off your best features or recreate Cheryl Cole or Leona Lewis' latest look in ten minutes flat. Everyone has bits they love about their face, and other parts they’d rather conceal, and Lauren will show you how to make the most of what you’ve got.
Just like sitting down with your best friend for a makeover session, Lauren’s book is brimming with fresh ideas and packed with insider beauty tips and tricks of the trade.
About the Author
Lauren uploaded her first video onto YouTube on 22nd July 2007. She had no idea that she would soon become the most viewed YouTube user in the UK, with her own newspaper column, a Nintendo game and even her own makeup range! Lauren hasn’t let her incredible success go to her head though, and she still lives with her 10-year-old son, Jordan, her mum, sister, twin teenage nieces and five highly affectionate dogs in their house in South Shields, Tyneside.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0340997842
Book in the Media - Hell's Heroes
Title: The Demonata 10. Hells Heroes
Authors: Darren Shan
Perfect Paperback: 235 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins Publ. UK (Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0007260350
ISBN-13: 978-0007260355
Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 2 cm
Product Description
I know it's ridiculous. Lights can't whisper. But I swear I heard a voice calling to me. It sounded like static to begin with, but then it came into focus, a single word repeated over and over. Softly, slyly, seductively, insistently.
"Come..."
The Disciples are being manipulated by beings older than time. Only Kernel Fleck knows that something is wrong. But he is in the grip of a creature who cares nothing for the fate of humanity. Voices are calling to him from the darkness and he's powerless to resist.
Kernel has already been to hell and back. Now he's about to go further...
The horrifying adventures continue with the ninth book in the gory and chilling Demonata series.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B002RXOZFO
Authors: Darren Shan
Perfect Paperback: 235 pages
Publisher: Harper Collins Publ. UK (Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0007260350
ISBN-13: 978-0007260355
Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 2 cm
Product Description
I know it's ridiculous. Lights can't whisper. But I swear I heard a voice calling to me. It sounded like static to begin with, but then it came into focus, a single word repeated over and over. Softly, slyly, seductively, insistently.
"Come..."
The Disciples are being manipulated by beings older than time. Only Kernel Fleck knows that something is wrong. But he is in the grip of a creature who cares nothing for the fate of humanity. Voices are calling to him from the darkness and he's powerless to resist.
Kernel has already been to hell and back. Now he's about to go further...
The horrifying adventures continue with the ninth book in the gory and chilling Demonata series.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B002RXOZFO
Book in the Media - Don't Lets Go To The Dogs Tonight
Title: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Author: Alexandra Fuller
Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Picador; 3 edition (3 Jan 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330490192
ISBN-13: 978-0330490191
Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
Alexandra Fuller was the daughter of white settlers in 1970s war-torn Rhodesia. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is a memoir of that time, when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. Fuller tells a story of civil war; of a quixotic battle against nature and loss; and of her family’s unbreakable bond with a continent which came to define, shape, scar and heal them. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she looks back with rage and love at an extraordinary family and an extraordinary time.
‘Like Frank McCourt, Fuller writes with devastating humour and directness about desperate circumstances . . . tender, remarkable’ Daily Telegraph
‘A book that deserves to be read for generations’ Guardian
‘Perceptive, generous, political, tragic, funny, stamped through with a passionate love for Africa . . . [Fuller] has a faultless hotline to her six-year-old self’ Independent
‘This enchanting book is destined to become a classic of Africa and of childhood’ Sunday Times
‘Wonderful book . . . a vibrantly personal account of growing up in a family every bit as exotic as the continent which seduced it . . . the Fuller family itself [is] delivered to the reader with a mixture of toughness and heart which renders its characters unforgettable’ Scotsman
‘Her prose is fierce, unsentimental, sometimes puzzled, and disconcertingly honest . . . it is Fuller’s clear vision, even of the most unpalatable facts, that gives her book its strength. It deserves to find a place alongside Olive Schreiner, Karen Blixen and Doris Lessing’ Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
Alexandra Fuller was born in Berkshire in 1969. In 1971 she moved with her family to Zimbabwe and then to Malawi and Zambia. She now livesin Wyoming with her husband and two children. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is her first book.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0375758992
Author: Alexandra Fuller
Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Picador; 3 edition (3 Jan 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330490192
ISBN-13: 978-0330490191
Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
Alexandra Fuller was the daughter of white settlers in 1970s war-torn Rhodesia. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is a memoir of that time, when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. Fuller tells a story of civil war; of a quixotic battle against nature and loss; and of her family’s unbreakable bond with a continent which came to define, shape, scar and heal them. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she looks back with rage and love at an extraordinary family and an extraordinary time.
‘Like Frank McCourt, Fuller writes with devastating humour and directness about desperate circumstances . . . tender, remarkable’ Daily Telegraph
‘A book that deserves to be read for generations’ Guardian
‘Perceptive, generous, political, tragic, funny, stamped through with a passionate love for Africa . . . [Fuller] has a faultless hotline to her six-year-old self’ Independent
‘This enchanting book is destined to become a classic of Africa and of childhood’ Sunday Times
‘Wonderful book . . . a vibrantly personal account of growing up in a family every bit as exotic as the continent which seduced it . . . the Fuller family itself [is] delivered to the reader with a mixture of toughness and heart which renders its characters unforgettable’ Scotsman
‘Her prose is fierce, unsentimental, sometimes puzzled, and disconcertingly honest . . . it is Fuller’s clear vision, even of the most unpalatable facts, that gives her book its strength. It deserves to find a place alongside Olive Schreiner, Karen Blixen and Doris Lessing’ Sunday Telegraph
About the Author
Alexandra Fuller was born in Berkshire in 1969. In 1971 she moved with her family to Zimbabwe and then to Malawi and Zambia. She now livesin Wyoming with her husband and two children. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is her first book.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0375758992
Book in the Media - Good Mood Food
Title: Good Mood Food: Simple, Healthy, Home Cooking
Authors: Donal Skehan and Jocasta Clarke
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: The Mercier Press Ltd (Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1856356299
ISBN-13: 978-1856356299
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 17 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
This is a stunningly illustrated collection of delicious and easy mood-boosting recipes. If you could improve your mood, sleeping patterns, energy levels, and mental state tomorrow, in one quick and simple step, you would, right? Well eating the right foods can do that and more for you. Keeping an open mind and a positive approach to what you eat is one of the most important steps when it comes to improving your health. The Good Mood approach to cooking is by no means rocket science, but it is straightforward and full of health benefits. Food has long been used as a natural healer and treating common ailments with it can be much easier than you thought.
About the Author
Donal Skehan writes the Good Mood Food Blog (http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com/), lives in Dublin where he works as a producer with Bubble Hits, Ireland's first music channel. He has also tried his hand as TV presenting, the odd bit of singing and cheffing at a fortress in Sweden, and he believes variety is the spice of life!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1856356299
Authors: Donal Skehan and Jocasta Clarke
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: The Mercier Press Ltd (Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1856356299
ISBN-13: 978-1856356299
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 17 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
This is a stunningly illustrated collection of delicious and easy mood-boosting recipes. If you could improve your mood, sleeping patterns, energy levels, and mental state tomorrow, in one quick and simple step, you would, right? Well eating the right foods can do that and more for you. Keeping an open mind and a positive approach to what you eat is one of the most important steps when it comes to improving your health. The Good Mood approach to cooking is by no means rocket science, but it is straightforward and full of health benefits. Food has long been used as a natural healer and treating common ailments with it can be much easier than you thought.
About the Author
Donal Skehan writes the Good Mood Food Blog (http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com/), lives in Dublin where he works as a producer with Bubble Hits, Ireland's first music channel. He has also tried his hand as TV presenting, the odd bit of singing and cheffing at a fortress in Sweden, and he believes variety is the spice of life!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1856356299
Book in the Media - Celtic MeltDown
Title: Celtic Meltdown: Why Ireland is Broke and How We Can Fix it by Author: Cearbhall O Dalaigh
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: The Collins Press (1 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1848890125
ISBN-13: 978-1848890121
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
With the Irish government s bank guarantee in September 2008, the death knell sounded for Celtic Tiger Ireland. We watched in disbelief as the bubble burst: tax revenues collapsed, unemployment soared and the Irish people were made liable for huge gambles lost by bankrupt banks. Was the party over? Many factors are blamed for the financial crisis, but who is really responsible? And perhaps more importantly, why was everyone taken by surprise? What happened? How did it happen? How can we prevent similar crises from happening again? Where do we go from here? There is a way out of this mess, based on high standards, appropriate levels of pay and conditions, fair and efficient taxation, strict regulation in the public sector and in financial markets. Those in positions of power must share the pain. Routes to recovery are charted here, with radical ideas such as abandoning the euro, allowing banks to fail and embracing nuclear power. People in Ireland are angry and want to know the truth. This book will change your mind on many aspects of modern Ireland. Celtic Meltdown goes behind the headlines to tell the inside stories the spin doctors have covered-up.
About the Author
Cearbhaill O Dálaigh, from Kerry, emigrated to America in 1970 and returned to Ireland 1978. He invested in and worked in the tourism and fishing industries and sold those interests in 1990. He then worked with the EU-TACIS programme in early 1990s. From the mid 1990s to 2007 he was a sub-contractor in Irish construction industry. His interests lie in economics and Irish politics.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1848890125
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: The Collins Press (1 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1848890125
ISBN-13: 978-1848890121
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
Product Description
With the Irish government s bank guarantee in September 2008, the death knell sounded for Celtic Tiger Ireland. We watched in disbelief as the bubble burst: tax revenues collapsed, unemployment soared and the Irish people were made liable for huge gambles lost by bankrupt banks. Was the party over? Many factors are blamed for the financial crisis, but who is really responsible? And perhaps more importantly, why was everyone taken by surprise? What happened? How did it happen? How can we prevent similar crises from happening again? Where do we go from here? There is a way out of this mess, based on high standards, appropriate levels of pay and conditions, fair and efficient taxation, strict regulation in the public sector and in financial markets. Those in positions of power must share the pain. Routes to recovery are charted here, with radical ideas such as abandoning the euro, allowing banks to fail and embracing nuclear power. People in Ireland are angry and want to know the truth. This book will change your mind on many aspects of modern Ireland. Celtic Meltdown goes behind the headlines to tell the inside stories the spin doctors have covered-up.
About the Author
Cearbhaill O Dálaigh, from Kerry, emigrated to America in 1970 and returned to Ireland 1978. He invested in and worked in the tourism and fishing industries and sold those interests in 1990. He then worked with the EU-TACIS programme in early 1990s. From the mid 1990s to 2007 he was a sub-contractor in Irish construction industry. His interests lie in economics and Irish politics.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1848890125
Book in the Media - Shorebirds of Ireland
Title: Shorebirds of Ireland: In Words and Pictures
Authors: Jim Wilson and Mark Carmody
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: The Collins Press (1 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1848890176
ISBN-13: 978-1848890176
Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 17.2 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
Sandpipers and plovers are among the many shorebirds that live between the tides in Ireland, on mudflats and shingle, in estuaries and lagoons, on beaches and bays. Jim Wilson and Mark Carmody introduce this world and its birds, which we have all seen but may know little about. Description of how they adapted to this often harsh environment, and how they evolved ways of exploiting the food supply, is followed by an account of their amazing annual migrations between Ireland and places such as arctic Canada and Siberia. One chapter describes the special role of Iceland in the lives of many shorebirds. The species portraits of those most likely to be seen in Ireland are enhanced with outstanding images paying homage to the beauty and variety of these birds. Mark Carmody spent hundreds of hours in search of these photographs to capture the essence and beauty of our shorebirds and their environment. Jim Wilson s text is again informative and engaging, sure to increase appreciation and understanding of these birds and where they live.
About the Author
Jim Wilson is a wildlife writer, broadcaster, filmmaker, tour leader and member of BirdWatch Ireland. He co-wrote Birdlife in Ireland (Dublin 1996) and Ireland s Garden Birds (Cork 2008). Involved in the conservation of shorebirds in Ireland for many years, he regularly contributed to surveys and to Operation Godwit, an International study of the Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit. Mark Carmody did postdoctoral research in genetics following completion of a PhD. Currently a trainee Patent Attorney in Dublin, he has written for WINGS and is one of the editors of the Cork Bird Report.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1848890176
Authors: Jim Wilson and Mark Carmody
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: The Collins Press (1 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1848890176
ISBN-13: 978-1848890176
Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 17.2 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
Sandpipers and plovers are among the many shorebirds that live between the tides in Ireland, on mudflats and shingle, in estuaries and lagoons, on beaches and bays. Jim Wilson and Mark Carmody introduce this world and its birds, which we have all seen but may know little about. Description of how they adapted to this often harsh environment, and how they evolved ways of exploiting the food supply, is followed by an account of their amazing annual migrations between Ireland and places such as arctic Canada and Siberia. One chapter describes the special role of Iceland in the lives of many shorebirds. The species portraits of those most likely to be seen in Ireland are enhanced with outstanding images paying homage to the beauty and variety of these birds. Mark Carmody spent hundreds of hours in search of these photographs to capture the essence and beauty of our shorebirds and their environment. Jim Wilson s text is again informative and engaging, sure to increase appreciation and understanding of these birds and where they live.
About the Author
Jim Wilson is a wildlife writer, broadcaster, filmmaker, tour leader and member of BirdWatch Ireland. He co-wrote Birdlife in Ireland (Dublin 1996) and Ireland s Garden Birds (Cork 2008). Involved in the conservation of shorebirds in Ireland for many years, he regularly contributed to surveys and to Operation Godwit, an International study of the Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit. Mark Carmody did postdoctoral research in genetics following completion of a PhD. Currently a trainee Patent Attorney in Dublin, he has written for WINGS and is one of the editors of the Cork Bird Report.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1848890176
Book in the Media - Cork Literary Review
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/1031/1224257732434.html
Cork Literary Review.
Cork Literary Review 2009 Edited by Eugene O’Connell 257pp, €20
JOSEPH WOODS reviews Cork Literary Review 2009 Edited by Eugene O’Connell 257pp, €20
THE EXISTENCE of literary journals is often precarious. Apart from the labour-of- love aspect, there are the crippling production costs and, sometimes, the lack of committed subscribers. Many journals disappear or at best go online – witness Southword , the journal of the Munster Literature Centre which recently went virtual. Cork Literary Review, now in its 13th issue, under the editorship of Eugene O’Connell, is reversing matters and has just gone from paperback to hardback in a bold and ambitious move.
O’Connell is both an artful editor and a significant contributor throughout. He turns the tables on Dennis O’Driscoll and deftly conducts a mini Stepping Stones interview with the poet, which covers much ground, from his photographic recall of his childhood in Thurles to influences in poetry, contemporary critical voices he trusts, spirituality and full and frank disclosures on sport.
In another essay O’Connell addresses the topography of Bernard O’Donoghue’s poetry, and notes how the landscape (and he gives specific examples) of northwest Cork was an open-air laboratory for O’Donoghue’s studies as a medievalist and consequently for his subject matter as poet, an influence, O’Connell notes, that “seeps seamlessly into a poetry that filters a 21st-century sensibility through a medieval mindset”. Republished here is the quietly devastating poem Hermes , along with a review of O’Donoghue’s Selected Poems by Maurice Harmon. Similar attention is given to Pat Cotter’s first collection, Perplexed Skin , and more recent poems.
But at the heart of a good journal are its various linkages and happy coincidences, from Matthew Sweeney’s Study in Yellow with Poodles of Paris to Michael Coady’s poem and accompanying photo of Paul Durcan in Montmarte cemetery. Durcan appears again with his poem The Rule of Marie Foley , accompanied by a fine series of black-and-white plates of the artist’s work in ceramics and multimedia, an essay on her indebtedness to Rilke and a further poem dedicated to her by Kerry Hardie.
The connection with poetry and visual art doesn’t end there. Elizabeth McDonald in her essay Journeys of the Imagination takes us on a journey from “the oriental sapphire blue” of the opening of the Purgatorio to Mario Luzi’s pronouncement on the colour of poetry being “turquoise-blue”, the colour of hills after a storm. The thread is continued with Richard Tillinghast’s poem Two Blues , celebrating Winslow Homer and Canaletto, while Gerard Smyth in Blue Crucifixion considers Gauguin and Poussin in a poem in part dedicated to Hughie O’Donoghue. An essay by James Harpur goes much deeper than its subtitle, Some Musing on Poetry and Painting , suggests, and is full of fresh and original thinking on an ancient comparison.
And it’s not all poetry. There are essays here by William Wall and Maureen Gallagher considering the writing of fiction and the philosophy of art, respectively; Vincent McDowell makes a welcome reappearance for this reader in his short story Lemon Creams , a study of a cruel father-and-son relationship and the shift of power or humanity when the son nurses the parent in his last days.
As well as McDonald’s translations of Luzi, more locally Malachi McCormick tackles Lament for Art O’Leary , a new rendition from a local oral version of the Caoineadh , and Gerry Murphy breaks new ground with a series of versions from The Illiad . This issue is full to brim of many fine stand-alone poems; space does not permit a roll call, but it’s good to see among the established names a selection of work by three emerging poets, Shirley McClure, Judy Russell, and Mary Madec, finalists in the Bradshaw Books Manuscript Competition. There is much to be recommended within all 257 pages of Cork Literary Review 2009 , now in its more permanent hardback phase.
Joseph Woods is a poet and director of Poetry Ireland
Cork Literary Review.
Cork Literary Review 2009 Edited by Eugene O’Connell 257pp, €20
JOSEPH WOODS reviews Cork Literary Review 2009 Edited by Eugene O’Connell 257pp, €20
THE EXISTENCE of literary journals is often precarious. Apart from the labour-of- love aspect, there are the crippling production costs and, sometimes, the lack of committed subscribers. Many journals disappear or at best go online – witness Southword , the journal of the Munster Literature Centre which recently went virtual. Cork Literary Review, now in its 13th issue, under the editorship of Eugene O’Connell, is reversing matters and has just gone from paperback to hardback in a bold and ambitious move.
O’Connell is both an artful editor and a significant contributor throughout. He turns the tables on Dennis O’Driscoll and deftly conducts a mini Stepping Stones interview with the poet, which covers much ground, from his photographic recall of his childhood in Thurles to influences in poetry, contemporary critical voices he trusts, spirituality and full and frank disclosures on sport.
In another essay O’Connell addresses the topography of Bernard O’Donoghue’s poetry, and notes how the landscape (and he gives specific examples) of northwest Cork was an open-air laboratory for O’Donoghue’s studies as a medievalist and consequently for his subject matter as poet, an influence, O’Connell notes, that “seeps seamlessly into a poetry that filters a 21st-century sensibility through a medieval mindset”. Republished here is the quietly devastating poem Hermes , along with a review of O’Donoghue’s Selected Poems by Maurice Harmon. Similar attention is given to Pat Cotter’s first collection, Perplexed Skin , and more recent poems.
But at the heart of a good journal are its various linkages and happy coincidences, from Matthew Sweeney’s Study in Yellow with Poodles of Paris to Michael Coady’s poem and accompanying photo of Paul Durcan in Montmarte cemetery. Durcan appears again with his poem The Rule of Marie Foley , accompanied by a fine series of black-and-white plates of the artist’s work in ceramics and multimedia, an essay on her indebtedness to Rilke and a further poem dedicated to her by Kerry Hardie.
The connection with poetry and visual art doesn’t end there. Elizabeth McDonald in her essay Journeys of the Imagination takes us on a journey from “the oriental sapphire blue” of the opening of the Purgatorio to Mario Luzi’s pronouncement on the colour of poetry being “turquoise-blue”, the colour of hills after a storm. The thread is continued with Richard Tillinghast’s poem Two Blues , celebrating Winslow Homer and Canaletto, while Gerard Smyth in Blue Crucifixion considers Gauguin and Poussin in a poem in part dedicated to Hughie O’Donoghue. An essay by James Harpur goes much deeper than its subtitle, Some Musing on Poetry and Painting , suggests, and is full of fresh and original thinking on an ancient comparison.
And it’s not all poetry. There are essays here by William Wall and Maureen Gallagher considering the writing of fiction and the philosophy of art, respectively; Vincent McDowell makes a welcome reappearance for this reader in his short story Lemon Creams , a study of a cruel father-and-son relationship and the shift of power or humanity when the son nurses the parent in his last days.
As well as McDonald’s translations of Luzi, more locally Malachi McCormick tackles Lament for Art O’Leary , a new rendition from a local oral version of the Caoineadh , and Gerry Murphy breaks new ground with a series of versions from The Illiad . This issue is full to brim of many fine stand-alone poems; space does not permit a roll call, but it’s good to see among the established names a selection of work by three emerging poets, Shirley McClure, Judy Russell, and Mary Madec, finalists in the Bradshaw Books Manuscript Competition. There is much to be recommended within all 257 pages of Cork Literary Review 2009 , now in its more permanent hardback phase.
Joseph Woods is a poet and director of Poetry Ireland
Book in the Media - Dark Origins Level 26 Bk.1
Title: Dark Origins: Level 26 Bk. 1 (Hardcover)
Author: Anthony E. Zuiker
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (4 Feb 2010)
ISBN-10: 0718155610
ISBN-13: 978-0718155612
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.3 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
If the world knew anything about Sqweegel, we’d never leave the house. Not that staying inside would make us safe . . . The only people who have ever heard that awful name are in the highly secret Special Circumstances unit at the FBI. He is a psychopath who has killed and tortured more than thirty five people over a span of twenty three years. The only person who has ever come close to catching him is Steve Dark, and he’s left the business. After what happened to Dark’s family, few blame him. But after a period of quiet, Sqweegel makes himself known again, and this time the victim has connections to the very highest corridors of power. Now, the man in charge demands results and is prepared to raise the stakes for all the special agents who failed so many times before. With their jobs – and their lives – on the line, the call goes out. Find Steve Dark and bring him back into the fold. It’s the only hope they’ve got . . .
About the Author
Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator and executive producer of the most watched television show in the world, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He produces all three editions of the CSI franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. Zuiker lives with his family in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0525951253
Author: Anthony E. Zuiker
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (4 Feb 2010)
ISBN-10: 0718155610
ISBN-13: 978-0718155612
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.3 x 3.4 cm
Product Description
If the world knew anything about Sqweegel, we’d never leave the house. Not that staying inside would make us safe . . . The only people who have ever heard that awful name are in the highly secret Special Circumstances unit at the FBI. He is a psychopath who has killed and tortured more than thirty five people over a span of twenty three years. The only person who has ever come close to catching him is Steve Dark, and he’s left the business. After what happened to Dark’s family, few blame him. But after a period of quiet, Sqweegel makes himself known again, and this time the victim has connections to the very highest corridors of power. Now, the man in charge demands results and is prepared to raise the stakes for all the special agents who failed so many times before. With their jobs – and their lives – on the line, the call goes out. Find Steve Dark and bring him back into the fold. It’s the only hope they’ve got . . .
About the Author
Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator and executive producer of the most watched television show in the world, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He produces all three editions of the CSI franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. Zuiker lives with his family in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0525951253
Book in the Media - And Another Thing
Title: And Another Thing ...: Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6)
Author: Eoin Colfer
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (11 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0718155149
ISBN-13: 978-0718155148
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
An Englishman’s continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea . . . Arthur Dent’s accidental association with that wholly remarkable book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has not been entirely without incident. Arthur has travelled the length, breadth and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forwards and backwards through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released and colourfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And, of course, he has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Arthur has, though, finally made it home to Earth. But that does not mean he has escaped his fate. For Arthur’s chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa are evaporating along with the world’s oceans. Because no sooner has he arrived than he finds out that Earth is about to be blown up . . . again. And Another Thing . . . by Eoin Colfer is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth instalment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone’s favourite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer and at least one very large slab of cheese
About the Author
Eoin (pronounced ‘Owen’) Colfer secured the largest ever advance for a children’s novel by an unknown author in October 2000. He cast a spell on the publishing world with Artemis Fowl, and hasn’t looked back since. Colfer lives in Wexford, Ireland, with his wife, Jackie, and their two sons.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1401323588
Author: Eoin Colfer
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (11 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0718155149
ISBN-13: 978-0718155148
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
An Englishman’s continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea . . . Arthur Dent’s accidental association with that wholly remarkable book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has not been entirely without incident. Arthur has travelled the length, breadth and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forwards and backwards through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released and colourfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And, of course, he has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Arthur has, though, finally made it home to Earth. But that does not mean he has escaped his fate. For Arthur’s chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa are evaporating along with the world’s oceans. Because no sooner has he arrived than he finds out that Earth is about to be blown up . . . again. And Another Thing . . . by Eoin Colfer is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth instalment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone’s favourite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer and at least one very large slab of cheese
About the Author
Eoin (pronounced ‘Owen’) Colfer secured the largest ever advance for a children’s novel by an unknown author in October 2000. He cast a spell on the publishing world with Artemis Fowl, and hasn’t looked back since. Colfer lives in Wexford, Ireland, with his wife, Jackie, and their two sons.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1401323588
Author Samuel Beckett
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/
The Samuel Beckett On-Line Resources and Links Pages
The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him.
He’s not f---ing me about, he’s not leading me up any garden path, he’s not slipping me a wink, he’s not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, he’s not selling me anything I don’t want to buy — he doesn’t give a bollock whether I buy or not — he hasn’t got his hand over his heart. Well, I’ll buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty.
His work is beautiful.
-- Harold Pinter
Samuel Beckett is sui generis...He has given a voice to the decrepit and maimed and inarticulate, men and women at the end of their tether, past pose or pretense, past claim of meaningful existence. He seems to say that only there and then, as metabolism lowers, amid God’s paucity, not his plenty, can the core of the human condition be approached... Yet his musical cadences, his wrought and precise sentences, cannot help but stave off the void... Like salamanders we survive in his fire.
-- Richard Ellman
Samuel Beckett's work has extended the possibilities of drama and fiction in unprecedented ways, bringing to the theatre and the novel an acute awareness of the absurdity of human existence – our desperate search for meaning, our individual isolation, and the gulf between our desires and the language in which they find expression. Educated in Ireland, North and South, he settled afterwards in Paris and produced his fiction and drama in English and French, translating himself out of the language in which he first wrote each text. Having begun literary life as a modernist and promoter of the reputations of Proust and Joyce, in the years before and after the Second World War he found his own voice (“began to write what I feel”) and continued to develop this voice unstintingly and without compromise until the year of his death.
Born into a fairly prosperous Dublin Protestant household in 1906, he attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, excelling at sport and languages, and later studied French and Italian at Trinity College Dublin. He got on well with his father Bill Beckett, a quantity surveyor, and suffered badly at the time of Bill's death in 1933; this year Beckett's cousin Peggy Sinclair, with whom he had been intimate, also died. His tortured relationship with his mother, May, influenced him long before and long after her death in 1950, and his writing bears traces throughout of that unreconciled relationship of dependency, respect and antagonism. Perhaps overshadowed by this long-drawn-out crisis, Beckett's relations with women were complex and often abortive. Joyce's daughter Lucia became attached to Beckett and he was expected to respond but did not; and there is evidence that he was reluctantly involved with Peggy Guggenheim in the early Paris days. Many more such affairs followed in later years too. A recurrent pattern emerged by which his initially charming personality withdrew at the prospect of a serious or intimate involvement. During his postgraduate years he thought of becoming an academic, taught French literature for a short time at Trinity College Dublin, but abandoned several other opportunities. His postgraduate studies in Paris resulted in a brilliant dissertation on Proust, published soon afterwards, which, along with his growing interest in Schopenhauer, holds fascinating keys to understanding all the works as yet unwritten. Thereafter his decision to devote himself to writing, no matter how little immediate success his early work met with, was to be ultimately vindicated; amongst the honours later accorded him was the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
During the 1930s Beckett also spent a good deal of time in London, and these periods form the backdrop to his novel Murphy (1936-38). Seeking an explanation for his depression and other psychosomatic problems he undertook a course of Jungian psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic under Wilfrid Bion, and while ultimately uncertain whether this therapy had succeeded, Beckett remembered for the rest of his life a lecture of Jung's which he attended on the subject of the “never properly born”. The lecture had direct repercussions in Beckett's subsequent work, especially Watt, Waiting for Godot, and All that Fall which reports the end of the lecture more or less word for word. During the Second World War Beckett, now settled in France and partnered with Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, worked as a courier for the French Resistance, and retreating to a barn in Roussillon, concealed himself from detection. During this time he wrote Watt, “to stay sane”. The rest of Beckett's life, apart from intermittent trips in Europe and the USA to direct his plays (and regular Christmas breaks in Tangier) was spent in Paris, where he and Suzanne had a flat, and in a small house in Ussy-sur-Marne—built by Beckett himself—in which he secluded himself for writing. The extent of his devotion to the visual arts and music as well as to literature has only recently become evident from, for example, the diaries he wrote during a period of wandering in Germany in the 1930s, making the acquaintance of artists and art dealers. He was also a close friend of Alberto Giacometti, Bram Van Velde and Avigdor Arikha.
According to some sources, while he grew mellower in later life, and his personal relationships grew more stable, his alcohol intake did not. Notoriously reclusive in relation to the press and media, Beckett was nevertheless spoken of by personal associates as friendly, gracious, humorous and compassionate, and while his travels to Ireland abruptly ended following his mother's death, he was conspicuously hospitable to his Irish friends at all times when they came to Paris.
His work falls into two main periods, before and after Waiting for Godot (written around 1950). The latter period brought Beckett international and time-consuming eminence in theatre, radio and television, and he concentrated more and more on the search for dramatic minimalism, writing—in an ever shorter, more distilled style—plays (dramaticules) and prose (micronarratives), often only amounting to a few pages, or less, of text. The pre-Godot period, when Beckett was finding his way as a writer and virtually unknown, yields much more variety but less even quality of creative output. He began with a long, rambling novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women, with homages and burlesques directed to Proust and Joyce, and thinly veiled autobiographical references which got him into trouble with friends and family. This experimental work was excerpted as More Pricks than Kicks (short stories) in 1934 and only published in full posthumously (1992), some say against Beckett's wishes. Along with some poetry and sporadic literary journalism, Beckett's main further achievements in the pre-Godot period were the comic novel Murphy (1938); the extraordinarily unclassifiable and baffling novel Watt (written 1941-5, published 1953); and just before Godot, the unsurpassed trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable (written 1947-50, published 1951-55) which together stand as his greatest, certainly his most sustained, prose work, and comprehensively define his essential themes and preoccupations. At this point Beckett was catapulted into celebrity in 1952 by the first production of En attendant Godot (1952) / Waiting for Godot (1953), a play which stages two tramps in conversation about the awaited Godot who never arrives. This was followed shortly after by Fin de partie (1957) / Endgame (1958), dramatizing the master-servant relationship (or the married couple) in darkly existential and comic terms. In effect, when Beckett became a household name through these two plays, his art became suddenly iconic and, possibly, commodified. Certainly the later works embody a complex mix of self-quotation, self-reflection, even self-parody, while maintaining a rigorously disinterested and serious exploration of the problems (both in form and technique and as regards human psychological and spiritual makeup) which had preoccupied his early and middle life.
The fifties and early sixties saw Beckett writing innovative shorter plays, notably Krapp's Last Tape, half of which is spoken by Krapp, and the other half listened-to from a diary-tape of Krapp's younger days, with interpolations from the older Krapp as he spools forward and back. All That Fall, for radio, concentrates for the first time on a female character; and Beckett's staging of a suburban wife on holiday buried up to her neck in sand in Happy Days, his last full-length play, does the same, though he is probably better known for immortalising the figure of the solitary male vagrant, and this mainly through the trilogy of novels.
Major landmarks in the later Beckett begin with the one-hundred page “anti-novel” Comment C'est / How It Is (1961), written in unpunctuated, unparagraphed gobbets of prose, reading somewhat like particularly resonant, poetic, yet precise telegrams. This type of writing he was to develop into many experimental dramatic texts too, notably That Time and Not I. Prose and drama kept flowing concurrently, with a period in the 60s and early 70s in which Beckett obsessively explored the theme of human encavernment, consigning his human figures to known and also unfamiliar containers—urns, pots, holes in the ground, boxes, windowless cylindrical chambers. His final and shocking mutation of this theme, “Imagination Dead Imagine” (1966), brought him notoriety and praise once again; this time for having created a modern myth, the appalling proposition that the culmination of Western materialist philosophy can only mean the human consciousness confined to the skull and nowhere else. A later work takes this “infernal” perception further still: “One dim black hole mid-foreskull. Inletting all. Outletting all” (Worstward Ho, 1984). He also exposes the dangerously double meaning of “enclosure” for the human spirit: the box or room is at once the cherished home-place and the prison, to escape from which—lacking company or not—is the only human desire. His last works, both fictional and dramatic, seek not to confirm but to dissolve the boundaries of this Cartesian box.
The 1980s, Beckett's last years, brought something of a late flowering, with three extraordinary short novels, Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, and Worstward Ho, (1979-84) regarded by experts as the culmination of his efforts both to distil and to de-realize the prose medium, and a powerful micro-drama, Ohio Impromptu (1982), which, foundering in the attempt to depict a failed marriage, equates the “profounds of mind” with those of “mindlessness”. Beckett died after deteriorating health just before Christmas 1989.
Beckett was motivated to protest against the prescriptive and limiting nature of “realist” conventions both in art and in human behaviour, relationships and political life. He called the entirety of these factors “the hypnosis of positivism”, and his life-work could be said to have run its course in pursuit of dispelling this hypnosis. The major change wrought by Beckett in the tradition of prose fiction was to eviscerate the formerly sure and reliable notions of character, location, culture and narrative convention (in a manner comparable to composer Anton Webern's contraction of the classical orchestral symphony into a five-minute episode of music studded with silence). In theatre likewise, Beckett proved that compelling drama could be made from breaking, not following, the accepted laws of incident, characterisation and dramatic context. His plays, from Eleutheria (1947) through to the 1980s shorts, forbid a “realist” style of performance and interpretation. The human beings presented to the audience are recalcitrantly anonymous and impossible to scrutinize as “rounded” personalities; if anything, their only realist function is to depict the dereliction of conventional personality which follows (in small or large measure) the experience of disillusionment.
His work has been described by himself and others as an art of impoverishment, an art of failure. Far from meaning that his stories, novels and plays are nihilistic, pessimistic and depressing, this description rather refers to Beckett's lifelong suspicion of the tools of cultural competency which the twentieth century inherited from liberal humanist constructions of human self-identity. Like Jung's depth psychology, and like esoteric psychologies such as Buddhism (but without ever identifying itself with these or others), Beckett's work seeks a different location for the human psyche than that of the realist fiction and drama writer, and a different constitution of esteem from that of the capitalist, whether this be a capitalism of economics or of cultural appropriations. Once the accretions of class, nationality, education, gender and culture have been stripped away by the technical art of “indigence”, and the poetry of a physical and psychical vagrancy, the remaining consciousness recorded by Beckett's texts is left with the capacity of unconditioned witnessing. His life and art have this intention in common; he left Ireland, and the Ireland of his mother, and the language of his education, and the scaffolding of human worth assumed in the Western education system, in order not to be swallowed by their limitations; and he transmuted these abandonments into a devastating critique of a culture of dictatorship (hard and soft) and the tyranny of false values. In part owing to these qualities, his work appears to have survived and transcended all attempts to categorise it or assimilate it into traditions such as Existentialism, Modernism, or the Absurdist movements with which Beckett was provisionally associated in the sixties and seventies. His work has been intensely and internationally studied by critics, produced on stage and TV, and continues to be greeted with more or less equal proportions of fascination, devotion and horror.
From The Literary Encyclopedia: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5161
The Samuel Beckett On-Line Resources and Links Pages
The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him.
He’s not f---ing me about, he’s not leading me up any garden path, he’s not slipping me a wink, he’s not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, he’s not selling me anything I don’t want to buy — he doesn’t give a bollock whether I buy or not — he hasn’t got his hand over his heart. Well, I’ll buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty.
His work is beautiful.
-- Harold Pinter
Samuel Beckett is sui generis...He has given a voice to the decrepit and maimed and inarticulate, men and women at the end of their tether, past pose or pretense, past claim of meaningful existence. He seems to say that only there and then, as metabolism lowers, amid God’s paucity, not his plenty, can the core of the human condition be approached... Yet his musical cadences, his wrought and precise sentences, cannot help but stave off the void... Like salamanders we survive in his fire.
-- Richard Ellman
Samuel Beckett's work has extended the possibilities of drama and fiction in unprecedented ways, bringing to the theatre and the novel an acute awareness of the absurdity of human existence – our desperate search for meaning, our individual isolation, and the gulf between our desires and the language in which they find expression. Educated in Ireland, North and South, he settled afterwards in Paris and produced his fiction and drama in English and French, translating himself out of the language in which he first wrote each text. Having begun literary life as a modernist and promoter of the reputations of Proust and Joyce, in the years before and after the Second World War he found his own voice (“began to write what I feel”) and continued to develop this voice unstintingly and without compromise until the year of his death.
Born into a fairly prosperous Dublin Protestant household in 1906, he attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, excelling at sport and languages, and later studied French and Italian at Trinity College Dublin. He got on well with his father Bill Beckett, a quantity surveyor, and suffered badly at the time of Bill's death in 1933; this year Beckett's cousin Peggy Sinclair, with whom he had been intimate, also died. His tortured relationship with his mother, May, influenced him long before and long after her death in 1950, and his writing bears traces throughout of that unreconciled relationship of dependency, respect and antagonism. Perhaps overshadowed by this long-drawn-out crisis, Beckett's relations with women were complex and often abortive. Joyce's daughter Lucia became attached to Beckett and he was expected to respond but did not; and there is evidence that he was reluctantly involved with Peggy Guggenheim in the early Paris days. Many more such affairs followed in later years too. A recurrent pattern emerged by which his initially charming personality withdrew at the prospect of a serious or intimate involvement. During his postgraduate years he thought of becoming an academic, taught French literature for a short time at Trinity College Dublin, but abandoned several other opportunities. His postgraduate studies in Paris resulted in a brilliant dissertation on Proust, published soon afterwards, which, along with his growing interest in Schopenhauer, holds fascinating keys to understanding all the works as yet unwritten. Thereafter his decision to devote himself to writing, no matter how little immediate success his early work met with, was to be ultimately vindicated; amongst the honours later accorded him was the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.
During the 1930s Beckett also spent a good deal of time in London, and these periods form the backdrop to his novel Murphy (1936-38). Seeking an explanation for his depression and other psychosomatic problems he undertook a course of Jungian psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic under Wilfrid Bion, and while ultimately uncertain whether this therapy had succeeded, Beckett remembered for the rest of his life a lecture of Jung's which he attended on the subject of the “never properly born”. The lecture had direct repercussions in Beckett's subsequent work, especially Watt, Waiting for Godot, and All that Fall which reports the end of the lecture more or less word for word. During the Second World War Beckett, now settled in France and partnered with Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil, worked as a courier for the French Resistance, and retreating to a barn in Roussillon, concealed himself from detection. During this time he wrote Watt, “to stay sane”. The rest of Beckett's life, apart from intermittent trips in Europe and the USA to direct his plays (and regular Christmas breaks in Tangier) was spent in Paris, where he and Suzanne had a flat, and in a small house in Ussy-sur-Marne—built by Beckett himself—in which he secluded himself for writing. The extent of his devotion to the visual arts and music as well as to literature has only recently become evident from, for example, the diaries he wrote during a period of wandering in Germany in the 1930s, making the acquaintance of artists and art dealers. He was also a close friend of Alberto Giacometti, Bram Van Velde and Avigdor Arikha.
According to some sources, while he grew mellower in later life, and his personal relationships grew more stable, his alcohol intake did not. Notoriously reclusive in relation to the press and media, Beckett was nevertheless spoken of by personal associates as friendly, gracious, humorous and compassionate, and while his travels to Ireland abruptly ended following his mother's death, he was conspicuously hospitable to his Irish friends at all times when they came to Paris.
His work falls into two main periods, before and after Waiting for Godot (written around 1950). The latter period brought Beckett international and time-consuming eminence in theatre, radio and television, and he concentrated more and more on the search for dramatic minimalism, writing—in an ever shorter, more distilled style—plays (dramaticules) and prose (micronarratives), often only amounting to a few pages, or less, of text. The pre-Godot period, when Beckett was finding his way as a writer and virtually unknown, yields much more variety but less even quality of creative output. He began with a long, rambling novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women, with homages and burlesques directed to Proust and Joyce, and thinly veiled autobiographical references which got him into trouble with friends and family. This experimental work was excerpted as More Pricks than Kicks (short stories) in 1934 and only published in full posthumously (1992), some say against Beckett's wishes. Along with some poetry and sporadic literary journalism, Beckett's main further achievements in the pre-Godot period were the comic novel Murphy (1938); the extraordinarily unclassifiable and baffling novel Watt (written 1941-5, published 1953); and just before Godot, the unsurpassed trilogy of novels Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable (written 1947-50, published 1951-55) which together stand as his greatest, certainly his most sustained, prose work, and comprehensively define his essential themes and preoccupations. At this point Beckett was catapulted into celebrity in 1952 by the first production of En attendant Godot (1952) / Waiting for Godot (1953), a play which stages two tramps in conversation about the awaited Godot who never arrives. This was followed shortly after by Fin de partie (1957) / Endgame (1958), dramatizing the master-servant relationship (or the married couple) in darkly existential and comic terms. In effect, when Beckett became a household name through these two plays, his art became suddenly iconic and, possibly, commodified. Certainly the later works embody a complex mix of self-quotation, self-reflection, even self-parody, while maintaining a rigorously disinterested and serious exploration of the problems (both in form and technique and as regards human psychological and spiritual makeup) which had preoccupied his early and middle life.
The fifties and early sixties saw Beckett writing innovative shorter plays, notably Krapp's Last Tape, half of which is spoken by Krapp, and the other half listened-to from a diary-tape of Krapp's younger days, with interpolations from the older Krapp as he spools forward and back. All That Fall, for radio, concentrates for the first time on a female character; and Beckett's staging of a suburban wife on holiday buried up to her neck in sand in Happy Days, his last full-length play, does the same, though he is probably better known for immortalising the figure of the solitary male vagrant, and this mainly through the trilogy of novels.
Major landmarks in the later Beckett begin with the one-hundred page “anti-novel” Comment C'est / How It Is (1961), written in unpunctuated, unparagraphed gobbets of prose, reading somewhat like particularly resonant, poetic, yet precise telegrams. This type of writing he was to develop into many experimental dramatic texts too, notably That Time and Not I. Prose and drama kept flowing concurrently, with a period in the 60s and early 70s in which Beckett obsessively explored the theme of human encavernment, consigning his human figures to known and also unfamiliar containers—urns, pots, holes in the ground, boxes, windowless cylindrical chambers. His final and shocking mutation of this theme, “Imagination Dead Imagine” (1966), brought him notoriety and praise once again; this time for having created a modern myth, the appalling proposition that the culmination of Western materialist philosophy can only mean the human consciousness confined to the skull and nowhere else. A later work takes this “infernal” perception further still: “One dim black hole mid-foreskull. Inletting all. Outletting all” (Worstward Ho, 1984). He also exposes the dangerously double meaning of “enclosure” for the human spirit: the box or room is at once the cherished home-place and the prison, to escape from which—lacking company or not—is the only human desire. His last works, both fictional and dramatic, seek not to confirm but to dissolve the boundaries of this Cartesian box.
The 1980s, Beckett's last years, brought something of a late flowering, with three extraordinary short novels, Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, and Worstward Ho, (1979-84) regarded by experts as the culmination of his efforts both to distil and to de-realize the prose medium, and a powerful micro-drama, Ohio Impromptu (1982), which, foundering in the attempt to depict a failed marriage, equates the “profounds of mind” with those of “mindlessness”. Beckett died after deteriorating health just before Christmas 1989.
Beckett was motivated to protest against the prescriptive and limiting nature of “realist” conventions both in art and in human behaviour, relationships and political life. He called the entirety of these factors “the hypnosis of positivism”, and his life-work could be said to have run its course in pursuit of dispelling this hypnosis. The major change wrought by Beckett in the tradition of prose fiction was to eviscerate the formerly sure and reliable notions of character, location, culture and narrative convention (in a manner comparable to composer Anton Webern's contraction of the classical orchestral symphony into a five-minute episode of music studded with silence). In theatre likewise, Beckett proved that compelling drama could be made from breaking, not following, the accepted laws of incident, characterisation and dramatic context. His plays, from Eleutheria (1947) through to the 1980s shorts, forbid a “realist” style of performance and interpretation. The human beings presented to the audience are recalcitrantly anonymous and impossible to scrutinize as “rounded” personalities; if anything, their only realist function is to depict the dereliction of conventional personality which follows (in small or large measure) the experience of disillusionment.
His work has been described by himself and others as an art of impoverishment, an art of failure. Far from meaning that his stories, novels and plays are nihilistic, pessimistic and depressing, this description rather refers to Beckett's lifelong suspicion of the tools of cultural competency which the twentieth century inherited from liberal humanist constructions of human self-identity. Like Jung's depth psychology, and like esoteric psychologies such as Buddhism (but without ever identifying itself with these or others), Beckett's work seeks a different location for the human psyche than that of the realist fiction and drama writer, and a different constitution of esteem from that of the capitalist, whether this be a capitalism of economics or of cultural appropriations. Once the accretions of class, nationality, education, gender and culture have been stripped away by the technical art of “indigence”, and the poetry of a physical and psychical vagrancy, the remaining consciousness recorded by Beckett's texts is left with the capacity of unconditioned witnessing. His life and art have this intention in common; he left Ireland, and the Ireland of his mother, and the language of his education, and the scaffolding of human worth assumed in the Western education system, in order not to be swallowed by their limitations; and he transmuted these abandonments into a devastating critique of a culture of dictatorship (hard and soft) and the tyranny of false values. In part owing to these qualities, his work appears to have survived and transcended all attempts to categorise it or assimilate it into traditions such as Existentialism, Modernism, or the Absurdist movements with which Beckett was provisionally associated in the sixties and seventies. His work has been intensely and internationally studied by critics, produced on stage and TV, and continues to be greeted with more or less equal proportions of fascination, devotion and horror.
From The Literary Encyclopedia: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5161
Author W B Yeats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats
William Butler Yeats From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Butler Yeats photographed in 1911 by George Charles BeresfordWilliam Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/; 13 June 1865–28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation;" and he was the first Irishman so honored.[1] Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers whose greatest works were completed after being awarded the Nobel Prize;[2] such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929)
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin, but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slowly paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the lyricism of the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. Over the years, Yeats adopted many different ideological positions, including, in the words of the critic Michael Valdez Moses, "those of radical nationalist, classical liberal, reactionary conservative and millenarian nihilist".[3]
List of works by William Butler Yeats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This is a list of all works by Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and a foremost figure in 20th-century literature. Works sometimes appear twice if parts of new editions or significantly revised. Posthumous editions are also included if they are the first publication of a new or significantly revised work. Years are linked to corresponding "[year] in poetry" articles for works of poetry, and "[year] in literature" articles for other works.
Work:
One of Yeats' later poems, collected in The Tower, was based on the Leda and the Swan myth.1886 – Mosada, verse play
1888 – Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
1889 – The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, includes "The Wanderings of Oisin", "The Song of the Happy Shepherd", "The Stolen Child" and "Down By The Salley Gardens"
1890 – "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", poem first published in the National Observer, 13 December; poem included in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, 1892[1]
1891 – Representative Irish Tales
1891 – John Sherman and Dhoya, two stories[2]
1892 – Irish Faerie Tales
1892 – The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, includes "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (see 1890, above)[1] (Lyrics from this book appear in Yeats' collected editions in a section titled "The Rose" [1893] but Yeats never published a book titled "The Rose")
1893 – The Celtic Twilight, poetry and nonfiction[1]
1894 – The Land of Heart's Desire, published in April, his first acted play, performed 29 March[1]
1895 – Poems, verse and drama; the first edition of his collected poems[1]
1895 – Editor, A Book of Irish Verse, an anthology[1]
1897 – The Tables of the Law. The Adoration of the Magi, privately printed; The Tables of the Law first published in The Savoy, November 1896; a regular edition of this book appeared in 1904[1]
1897 – The Secret Rose, fiction[1]
1899 – Crossways
1899 – The Wind Among the Reeds, including "Song of the Old Mother"
1900 – The Shadowy Waters, poems[1]
1902 – Cathleen Ní Houlihan, play[1]
1903 – Ideas of Good and Evil, nonfiction[1]
1903 – In the Seven Woods, poems,[1] includes "Adam's Curse" (Dun Emer Press)
1903 – Where There is Nothing, play[1]
1903 – The Hour Glass, play, copyright edition (see also 1904 edition)[1]
1904 – The Hour-Glass; Cathleen ni Houlihan; The Pot of Broth, plays[1]
1904 – The King's Threshold; and On Baile's Strand[1]
1904 – The Tables of the Law; The Adoration of the Magi, a privately printed edition appeared in 1897[1]
1905 – Stories of Red Hanrahan, published in 1905 by the Dun Emer Press, although the book states the year of publication was 1904; contains stories from The Secret Rose (1897) rewritten with Lady Gregory; another edition was published in 1927[1]
1906 – Poems, 1899 –1905, verse and plays[1]
1907 – Deirdre[1]
1907 – Discoveries, nonfiction[1]
1910 – The Green Helmet and Other Poems, verse and plays[1]
1910 – Poems: Second Series[1]
1911 – Synge and the Ireland of his Time, nonfiction[1]
1912 – The Cutting of an Agate
1912 – Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany
1912 – A Coat
1913 – Poems Written in Discouragement
1916 – Responsibilities, and Other Poems[1]
1916 – Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, nonfiction[1]
1916 – Easter 1916[1]
1919 – The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse, a significantly revised edition appeared in 1919[1]
1918 – Per Amica Silentia Lunae
1918 – In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
1919 – Two Plays for Dancers, plays; became part of Four Plays for Dancers, published in 1921[1]
1919 – The Wild Swans at Coole, significant revision of the 1917 edition: has the poems from the 1917 edition and others, including "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" and "The Phases of the Moon"; contains: "The Wild Swans at Coole", "Ego Dominus Tuus", "The Scholars" and "On being asked for a War Poem"[1]
1920 – The Second Coming
1921 – Michael Robartes and the Dancer, poems; published in February, although book itself states "1920"[1]
1921 – Four Plays for Dancers, plays; includes contents of Two Plays for Dancers, published in 1919, together with At the Hawk's Well and Calvary[1]
1921 – Four Years
1922 – Later Poems[1]
1922 – The Player Queen, play[1]
1922 – Plays in Prose and Verse, plays[1]
1922 – The Trembling of the Veil[1]
1923 – Plays and Controversies[1]
1924 – The Cat and the Moon, and Certain Poems, poems and drama[1]
1924 – Essays[1]
1925 – A Vision A, nonfiction, a much revised edition appeared in 1937, and a final revised edition was published in 1956[1]
1926 – Estrangement
1926 – Autobiographies of William Butler Yeats, nonfiction; see also, Autobiography 1938[1]
1927 – October Blast[1]
1927 – Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose, poetry and fiction[1]
1928 – The Tower, includes Sailing to Byzantium[1]
1928 – The Death of Synge, and Other Passages from an Old Diary, poems[1]
1929 – A Packet for Ezra Pound, poems[1]
1929 – The Winding Stair published by Fountain Press in a signed limited edition, now exceedingly rare
1932 – Words for Music Perhaps, and Other Poems[1]
1933 – Collected Poems[1]
1933 – The Winding Stair and Other Poems[1]
1934 – Collected Plays[1]
1934 – The King of the Great Clock Tower, poems[1]
1934 – Wheels and Butterflies, drama[1]
1934 – The Words Upon the Window Pane, drama[1]
1935 – Dramatis Personae[1]
1935 – A Full Moon in March, poems[1]
1937 – A Vision B, nonfiction, a much revised edition of the original, which appeared in 1925; reissued with minor changes in 1956, and with further changes in 1962[1]
1937 – Essays 1931 to 1936[1]
1938 – Autobiography, includes Reveries over Childhood and Youth (published in 1914), The Trembling of the Veil (1922), Dramatis Personae (1935), The Death of Synge (1928), and other pieces; see also Autobiographies (1926)[1]
1938 – The Herne's Egg, drama[1]
1938 – New Poems[1]
1939 – Last Poems and Two Plays poems and drama (posthumous)[1]
1939 – On the Boiler, essays, poems and a play (posthumous)[1]
William Butler Yeats From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Butler Yeats photographed in 1911 by George Charles BeresfordWilliam Butler Yeats (pronounced /ˈjeɪts/; 13 June 1865–28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief during its early years. In 1923, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation;" and he was the first Irishman so honored.[1] Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers whose greatest works were completed after being awarded the Nobel Prize;[2] such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929)
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin, but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slowly paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the lyricism of the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life. Over the years, Yeats adopted many different ideological positions, including, in the words of the critic Michael Valdez Moses, "those of radical nationalist, classical liberal, reactionary conservative and millenarian nihilist".[3]
List of works by William Butler Yeats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This is a list of all works by Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and a foremost figure in 20th-century literature. Works sometimes appear twice if parts of new editions or significantly revised. Posthumous editions are also included if they are the first publication of a new or significantly revised work. Years are linked to corresponding "[year] in poetry" articles for works of poetry, and "[year] in literature" articles for other works.
Work:
One of Yeats' later poems, collected in The Tower, was based on the Leda and the Swan myth.1886 – Mosada, verse play
1888 – Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
1889 – The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, includes "The Wanderings of Oisin", "The Song of the Happy Shepherd", "The Stolen Child" and "Down By The Salley Gardens"
1890 – "The Lake Isle of Innisfree", poem first published in the National Observer, 13 December; poem included in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, 1892[1]
1891 – Representative Irish Tales
1891 – John Sherman and Dhoya, two stories[2]
1892 – Irish Faerie Tales
1892 – The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics, includes "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (see 1890, above)[1] (Lyrics from this book appear in Yeats' collected editions in a section titled "The Rose" [1893] but Yeats never published a book titled "The Rose")
1893 – The Celtic Twilight, poetry and nonfiction[1]
1894 – The Land of Heart's Desire, published in April, his first acted play, performed 29 March[1]
1895 – Poems, verse and drama; the first edition of his collected poems[1]
1895 – Editor, A Book of Irish Verse, an anthology[1]
1897 – The Tables of the Law. The Adoration of the Magi, privately printed; The Tables of the Law first published in The Savoy, November 1896; a regular edition of this book appeared in 1904[1]
1897 – The Secret Rose, fiction[1]
1899 – Crossways
1899 – The Wind Among the Reeds, including "Song of the Old Mother"
1900 – The Shadowy Waters, poems[1]
1902 – Cathleen Ní Houlihan, play[1]
1903 – Ideas of Good and Evil, nonfiction[1]
1903 – In the Seven Woods, poems,[1] includes "Adam's Curse" (Dun Emer Press)
1903 – Where There is Nothing, play[1]
1903 – The Hour Glass, play, copyright edition (see also 1904 edition)[1]
1904 – The Hour-Glass; Cathleen ni Houlihan; The Pot of Broth, plays[1]
1904 – The King's Threshold; and On Baile's Strand[1]
1904 – The Tables of the Law; The Adoration of the Magi, a privately printed edition appeared in 1897[1]
1905 – Stories of Red Hanrahan, published in 1905 by the Dun Emer Press, although the book states the year of publication was 1904; contains stories from The Secret Rose (1897) rewritten with Lady Gregory; another edition was published in 1927[1]
1906 – Poems, 1899 –1905, verse and plays[1]
1907 – Deirdre[1]
1907 – Discoveries, nonfiction[1]
1910 – The Green Helmet and Other Poems, verse and plays[1]
1910 – Poems: Second Series[1]
1911 – Synge and the Ireland of his Time, nonfiction[1]
1912 – The Cutting of an Agate
1912 – Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsany
1912 – A Coat
1913 – Poems Written in Discouragement
1916 – Responsibilities, and Other Poems[1]
1916 – Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, nonfiction[1]
1916 – Easter 1916[1]
1919 – The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse, a significantly revised edition appeared in 1919[1]
1918 – Per Amica Silentia Lunae
1918 – In Memory of Major Robert Gregory
1919 – Two Plays for Dancers, plays; became part of Four Plays for Dancers, published in 1921[1]
1919 – The Wild Swans at Coole, significant revision of the 1917 edition: has the poems from the 1917 edition and others, including "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" and "The Phases of the Moon"; contains: "The Wild Swans at Coole", "Ego Dominus Tuus", "The Scholars" and "On being asked for a War Poem"[1]
1920 – The Second Coming
1921 – Michael Robartes and the Dancer, poems; published in February, although book itself states "1920"[1]
1921 – Four Plays for Dancers, plays; includes contents of Two Plays for Dancers, published in 1919, together with At the Hawk's Well and Calvary[1]
1921 – Four Years
1922 – Later Poems[1]
1922 – The Player Queen, play[1]
1922 – Plays in Prose and Verse, plays[1]
1922 – The Trembling of the Veil[1]
1923 – Plays and Controversies[1]
1924 – The Cat and the Moon, and Certain Poems, poems and drama[1]
1924 – Essays[1]
1925 – A Vision A, nonfiction, a much revised edition appeared in 1937, and a final revised edition was published in 1956[1]
1926 – Estrangement
1926 – Autobiographies of William Butler Yeats, nonfiction; see also, Autobiography 1938[1]
1927 – October Blast[1]
1927 – Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose, poetry and fiction[1]
1928 – The Tower, includes Sailing to Byzantium[1]
1928 – The Death of Synge, and Other Passages from an Old Diary, poems[1]
1929 – A Packet for Ezra Pound, poems[1]
1929 – The Winding Stair published by Fountain Press in a signed limited edition, now exceedingly rare
1932 – Words for Music Perhaps, and Other Poems[1]
1933 – Collected Poems[1]
1933 – The Winding Stair and Other Poems[1]
1934 – Collected Plays[1]
1934 – The King of the Great Clock Tower, poems[1]
1934 – Wheels and Butterflies, drama[1]
1934 – The Words Upon the Window Pane, drama[1]
1935 – Dramatis Personae[1]
1935 – A Full Moon in March, poems[1]
1937 – A Vision B, nonfiction, a much revised edition of the original, which appeared in 1925; reissued with minor changes in 1956, and with further changes in 1962[1]
1937 – Essays 1931 to 1936[1]
1938 – Autobiography, includes Reveries over Childhood and Youth (published in 1914), The Trembling of the Veil (1922), Dramatis Personae (1935), The Death of Synge (1928), and other pieces; see also Autobiographies (1926)[1]
1938 – The Herne's Egg, drama[1]
1938 – New Poems[1]
1939 – Last Poems and Two Plays poems and drama (posthumous)[1]
1939 – On the Boiler, essays, poems and a play (posthumous)[1]
Author Frank O Connor
http://www.irishwriters-online.com/frankoconnor.html
Frank O'Connor
Frank O'Connor (pen name of Michael O'Donovan) was born in Cork City on September 17, 1903. There is a poignant description of his childhood in the first volume of his autobiography An Only Child.
He published two novels, The Saint and Mary Kate (Macmillan, London 1932, 1936/New York 1932 - Blackstaff, Belfast 1990); and Dutch Interior (Macmillan, London 1940: Knopf, NY 1940, Blackstaff, Belfast 1990).
However he is best known for his short stories, collected as Guests of the Nation (Macmillan, London 1931; New York 1931); Bones of Contention (Macmillan, NY 1936, London 1938); Crab Apple Jelly; (Macmillan, London 1944, Knopf New York 1944) - banned in Ireland; The Common Chord (Macmillan, London 1947/Knopf, New York 1948)- banned in Ireland; Traveller's Samples (Macmillan, London 195l/Knopf, NY 195l); The Stories of Frank O'Connor (Knopf NY 1952/Hamish Hamilton London 1953); More Stories by Frank O'Connor (Knopf NY l954, l967); Stories by Frank O'Connor (Vintage, New York 1956); Domestic Relations (Hamish Hamilton, London 1957/Knopf NY 1957); My Oedipus Complex and other stories (London, Penguin l963); Collection Two (Macmillan, London 1964); Collection Three (Macmillan, London 1969); A Set of Variations (Knopf, NY 1969); The Cornet Player who betrayed Ireland (Poolbeg, Dublin 1981); Collected Stories Vol.I and II (Pan Books, 1990/1991); The Collar Stories of Irish Priests (Blackstaff, Belfast 1993) Larry Delaney: Lonesome Genius (Killeen Books, Cork 1996)
His literary criticism includes Shakespeare - The Road to Stratford (Methuen, London 1948 - a revised and enlarged edition of which was published as Shakespeare's Progress (World Publishing Co. Cleveland, Ohio 1960/Collier Books 196l); The Mirror in the Roadway: A study of the modern novel (Knopf, NY 1956, Hamish Hamilton London 1957); The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (World Pub. Co, Cleveland Ohio 1962/ Nelson, Foster & Scott, Toronto 1963/ Macmillan, London 1963/Meridian Books 1965/ Macmillan Papermac l965/ Bantam Books NY 1968;Harper Colophon NY 1985); The Backward Look: A Survey of Irish Literature (Macmillan London/Melbourne/Toronto 1967 (Pub. in US as A Short History of Irish Literature: A Backward Look G.P. Putnam's Sons, NY 1967.
His translations from the Irish include The Wild Bird's Nest (Cuala Press, Dublin 1932); Lords and Commons (Cuala Press, Dublin 1938); The Fountain of Magic (Macmillan, London 1939); Lament for Art O'Leary, illus. by Jack B. Yeats (Cuala Press 1940); The Midnight Court (Fridberg, London/Dublin 1945; O'Brien Press Dublin 1989); Kings, Lords and Commons (Knopf, New York 1959, Macmillan, London 196l; Gill and Macmillan 1991 still in print) The Little Monasteries (Dolmen Press, Dublin 1963); A Golden Treasure of Irish Poetry AD 600-1200 Irish texts and prose translations.Edited and translated with Introduction by Frank O'Connor and David Greene (Macmillan, London/Melbourne/Toronto 1967/Brandon, Kerry, 1990 still in print)
His volumes of autobiography are An Only Child (Knopf New York 1961/Macmillan, London 1961/ Pan Books 1970/ Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1993/ Syracuse Univ. Press, NY 1997); My Father's Son (Macmillan London 1968, Knopf, NY 1969/Pan Books 1971/ Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1994/ Syracuse Univ. Press New York 1999).
His biography of Michael Collins is The Big Fellow (Nelson, London 1937/Clonmore and Reynolds, Dublin/ Burns, Oates, London 1965/Poolbeg, Dublin 1991/Picador, New York 1998.)
Topographical work includes Irish Miles (Macmillan London 1947; Hogarth Press, London 1988 with an Introduction by Brendan Kennelly); A Picture Book. illustrated by Elisabeth Rivers (Cuala Press, Dublin 1943); Leinster, Munster and Connaught (Robert Hale, London 1950)
His miscellaneous works include Towards an Appreciation of Literature (Metropolitan Pub. Co. Dublin 1945); A Book of Ireland, Edited and with an Introduction by Frank O'Connor (Wm.Collins & Co, Scotland/Blackstaff Press Belfast 1991); The Art of the Theatre (Fridberg, London/Dublin 1947); The Happiness of Getting it Down Right. Letters between Frank O'Connor and William Maxwell (Knopf, NY l996).
His work has been published in Germany, France, Japan, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Sicily. He taught in the United States at Harvard, Northwestern and Stanford and in Ireland at Trinity College Dublin, which awarded him a D. Litt in 1962.
He died at his home in Dublin on March 10th, 1966.
contributed by Harriet Sheehy
Frank O'Connor
Frank O'Connor (pen name of Michael O'Donovan) was born in Cork City on September 17, 1903. There is a poignant description of his childhood in the first volume of his autobiography An Only Child.
He published two novels, The Saint and Mary Kate (Macmillan, London 1932, 1936/New York 1932 - Blackstaff, Belfast 1990); and Dutch Interior (Macmillan, London 1940: Knopf, NY 1940, Blackstaff, Belfast 1990).
However he is best known for his short stories, collected as Guests of the Nation (Macmillan, London 1931; New York 1931); Bones of Contention (Macmillan, NY 1936, London 1938); Crab Apple Jelly; (Macmillan, London 1944, Knopf New York 1944) - banned in Ireland; The Common Chord (Macmillan, London 1947/Knopf, New York 1948)- banned in Ireland; Traveller's Samples (Macmillan, London 195l/Knopf, NY 195l); The Stories of Frank O'Connor (Knopf NY 1952/Hamish Hamilton London 1953); More Stories by Frank O'Connor (Knopf NY l954, l967); Stories by Frank O'Connor (Vintage, New York 1956); Domestic Relations (Hamish Hamilton, London 1957/Knopf NY 1957); My Oedipus Complex and other stories (London, Penguin l963); Collection Two (Macmillan, London 1964); Collection Three (Macmillan, London 1969); A Set of Variations (Knopf, NY 1969); The Cornet Player who betrayed Ireland (Poolbeg, Dublin 1981); Collected Stories Vol.I and II (Pan Books, 1990/1991); The Collar Stories of Irish Priests (Blackstaff, Belfast 1993) Larry Delaney: Lonesome Genius (Killeen Books, Cork 1996)
His literary criticism includes Shakespeare - The Road to Stratford (Methuen, London 1948 - a revised and enlarged edition of which was published as Shakespeare's Progress (World Publishing Co. Cleveland, Ohio 1960/Collier Books 196l); The Mirror in the Roadway: A study of the modern novel (Knopf, NY 1956, Hamish Hamilton London 1957); The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (World Pub. Co, Cleveland Ohio 1962/ Nelson, Foster & Scott, Toronto 1963/ Macmillan, London 1963/Meridian Books 1965/ Macmillan Papermac l965/ Bantam Books NY 1968;Harper Colophon NY 1985); The Backward Look: A Survey of Irish Literature (Macmillan London/Melbourne/Toronto 1967 (Pub. in US as A Short History of Irish Literature: A Backward Look G.P. Putnam's Sons, NY 1967.
His translations from the Irish include The Wild Bird's Nest (Cuala Press, Dublin 1932); Lords and Commons (Cuala Press, Dublin 1938); The Fountain of Magic (Macmillan, London 1939); Lament for Art O'Leary, illus. by Jack B. Yeats (Cuala Press 1940); The Midnight Court (Fridberg, London/Dublin 1945; O'Brien Press Dublin 1989); Kings, Lords and Commons (Knopf, New York 1959, Macmillan, London 196l; Gill and Macmillan 1991 still in print) The Little Monasteries (Dolmen Press, Dublin 1963); A Golden Treasure of Irish Poetry AD 600-1200 Irish texts and prose translations.Edited and translated with Introduction by Frank O'Connor and David Greene (Macmillan, London/Melbourne/Toronto 1967/Brandon, Kerry, 1990 still in print)
His volumes of autobiography are An Only Child (Knopf New York 1961/Macmillan, London 1961/ Pan Books 1970/ Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1993/ Syracuse Univ. Press, NY 1997); My Father's Son (Macmillan London 1968, Knopf, NY 1969/Pan Books 1971/ Blackstaff Press, Belfast 1994/ Syracuse Univ. Press New York 1999).
His biography of Michael Collins is The Big Fellow (Nelson, London 1937/Clonmore and Reynolds, Dublin/ Burns, Oates, London 1965/Poolbeg, Dublin 1991/Picador, New York 1998.)
Topographical work includes Irish Miles (Macmillan London 1947; Hogarth Press, London 1988 with an Introduction by Brendan Kennelly); A Picture Book. illustrated by Elisabeth Rivers (Cuala Press, Dublin 1943); Leinster, Munster and Connaught (Robert Hale, London 1950)
His miscellaneous works include Towards an Appreciation of Literature (Metropolitan Pub. Co. Dublin 1945); A Book of Ireland, Edited and with an Introduction by Frank O'Connor (Wm.Collins & Co, Scotland/Blackstaff Press Belfast 1991); The Art of the Theatre (Fridberg, London/Dublin 1947); The Happiness of Getting it Down Right. Letters between Frank O'Connor and William Maxwell (Knopf, NY l996).
His work has been published in Germany, France, Japan, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Sicily. He taught in the United States at Harvard, Northwestern and Stanford and in Ireland at Trinity College Dublin, which awarded him a D. Litt in 1962.
He died at his home in Dublin on March 10th, 1966.
contributed by Harriet Sheehy
Author CS Lewis
C. S. Lewis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Born Clive Staples Lewis
29 November 1898
Belfast, Ireland
Died 22 November 1963 (1963-11-23) (aged 64)
Oxford, England
Occupation Novelist, scholar, broadcaster
Genres Fantasy, science fiction, Christian apologetics, children's literature
Notable work(s) The Chronicles of Narnia
Mere Christianity
Childhood
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898. His father was Albert James Lewis (1863–1929), a solicitor whose father, Richard, had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid 19th century. His mother was Florence (Flora) Augusta Lewis née Hamilton (1862–1908), the daughter of a Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest. He had one older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (Warnie). At the age of four, shortly after his dog Jacksie died when run over by a car, Lewis announced that his name was now Jacksie. At first he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. When he was seven, his family moved into "Little Lea", the house the elder Mr. Lewis built for Mrs. Lewis, in the Strandtown area of East Belfast.
Little LeaLewis was initially schooled by private tutors before being sent to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1908, just after his mother's death from cancer. Lewis's brother had already enrolled there three years previously. The school was closed not long afterwards due to a lack of pupils — the headmaster Robert "Oldie" Capron was soon after committed to a psychiatric hospital. Tellingly, in Surprised By Joy, Lewis would nickname the school (and place) "Belsen".[3] There is some speculation by biographer Alan Jacobs that the atmosphere at Wynyard greatly traumatised Lewis and was responsible for the development of "mildly sadomasochistic fantasies".[4] After Wynyard closed, Lewis attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but he left after a few months due to respiratory problems. As a result of his illness, Lewis was sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House (called "Chartres" in Lewis's autobiography).
In September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he would remain until the following June. It was during this time that 15-year-old Lewis abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology and the occult.[5] Later he would describe "Wyvern" (as he styled the school in his autobiography) as so singularly focused on increasing one's social status that he came to see the homosexual relationships between older and younger pupils as "the one oasis (though green only with weeds and moist only with fetid water) in the burning desert of competitive ambition. […] A perversion was the only thing left through which something spontaneous and uncalculated could creep".[6] After leaving Malvern he moved to study privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father's old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.
As a young boy, Lewis had a fascination with anthropomorphic animals, falling in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie together created the world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read, and as his father’s house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book to read was as easy as walking into a field and "finding a new blade of grass."[7]
As a teenager, he was wonderstruck by the songs and legends of what he called Northernness, the ancient literature of Scandinavia preserved in the Icelandic sagas. These legends intensified a longing he had within, a deep desire he would later call "joy". He also grew to love nature — the beauty of nature reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. His writing in his teenage years moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began to use different art forms (epic poetry and opera) to try to capture his new-found interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. Studying with Kirkpatrick (“The Great Knock”, as Lewis afterwards called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology, and sharpened his skills in debate and clear reasoning.
[edit] World War I
Having won a scholarship to University College, Oxford in 1917, Lewis volunteered the following year in the British Army as World War I raged on, and was commissioned an officer in the Third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. Lewis arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his nineteenth birthday, and experienced trench warfare.
On 15 April 1918 Lewis was wounded during the German spring offensive, and suffered some depression during his convalescence, due in part to missing his Irish home. Upon his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was discharged in December 1918, and soon returned to his studies. Lewis received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin Literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923.
[edit] Jane Moore
While being trained for the army Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918). Maureen Moore, Paddy's sister, claimed that the two made a mutual pact[8] that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and a friendship very quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was eighteen when they met, and Jane, who was forty-five. The friendship with Mrs. Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father, who had an almost pathological reluctance to break free from the routine of his Belfast practice, could not bring himself to visit Lewis.
Lewis lived with and cared for Mrs. Moore until she was hospitalized in the late 1940s. He routinely introduced her as his "mother", and referred to her as such in letters. Lewis, whose own mother had died when he was a child and whose father was distant, demanding and eccentric, developed a deeply affectionate friendship with Mrs. Moore. In his biography of Lewis, A.N.Wilson makes a case for supposing that Lewis and Mrs Moore were, for a time, lovers. Surprised by Joy, Lewis's autobiography, is silent about his relationship with Moore and yet Wilson puts forth evidence to show that Lewis was supporting both Moore and her daughter in rented accommodation near to his digs in Oxford. Furthermore, in Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes of this period of his life, "I was returned to Oxford — 'demobbed — in January 1919. But before I say anything of my life there I must warn the reader that one huge and complex episode will be omitted. I have no choice in this reticence. All I can or need to say is that my earlier hostility to the emotions was very fully and variously avenged".
In writing this, Lewis of course invites speculation. Wilson presents evidence which shows that, whatever the full extent of the relations between Moore and himself, their relationship during his undergraduate years could indeed be described as both 'huge' and 'complex'. Lewis himself spoke well of Mrs Moore throughout his life saying to his friend George Sayer: "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too."
In December 1917 Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Jane and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world."
In 1930, Lewis and his brother Warnie moved, with Moore and her daughter Maureen, into "The Kilns", a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford (now part of the suburb of Risinghurst). They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which passed to Maureen, then Dame Maureen Dunbar, Btss., when Warren died in 1973.
Moore suffered from dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing home, where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day in this home until her death.
[edit] "My Irish life"
Plaque on a park-bench in Bangor, County DownLewis experienced a certain cultural shock on first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England," Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy, continuing, "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape … I have made up the quarrel since; but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal."[3]
From boyhood Lewis immersed himself firstly in Norse and Greek and then in Irish mythology and literature and expressed an interest in the Irish language, though he seems to have made little attempt to learn it. He developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats’s use of Ireland’s Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."
In 1921, Lewis had the opportunity to meet Yeats on two occasions, since Yeats had moved to Oxford.
Surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, Lewis wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish — if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish."[9] Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school." After his conversion to Christianity, his interests gravitated towards Christian spirituality and away from pagan Celtic mysticism.
Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England we ended by criticisms of the inevitable flippancy and dullness of the Anglo-Saxon people. After all, Ami, there is no doubt that the Irish are the only people … I would not gladly live or die among another folk."
Due to his Oxford career Lewis did indeed live and die among another folk, and he often expressed regret at having to leave Ireland. Throughout his life, he sought out the company of his fellow Irish living in England and visited Northern Ireland regularly, even spending his honeymoon there in 1958 at the Old Inn, Crawfordsburn.[10] He called this "my Irish life."
[edit] Conversion to Christianity
Raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis became an atheist at the age of 15, though he later paradoxically described his young self as being "very angry with God for not existing".[11] At the age of 29 he considered himself a theist and was eventually converted at the age of 33.[citation needed]
His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time he also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:
Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa
"Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see."
Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:
…I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.[12]
Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."[13] He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.[14]
After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. Following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, he records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England — somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped he would convert to Roman Catholicism.[15]
A committed Anglican, Lewis upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings. Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.
[edit] Joy Gresham
In Lewis's later life, he corresponded with and later met Joy Davidman Gresham, an American writer of Jewish background and also a convert from atheism to Christianity.[16] She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, the novelist William L. Gresham, and came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas.[17] Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.[18] Lewis's brother Warnie wrote: "For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met… who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun" (Haven 2006). However, after complaining of a painful hip, she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her hospital bed in March 1957.[19]
Gresham's cancer soon went into a brief remission, and the couple lived as a family (together with Warren Lewis) until her eventual relapse and death in 1960. The year she died, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the Aegean in 1960; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the English Channel after 1918. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that Lewis originally released it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. However, so many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief that he made his authorship public.
Lewis continued to raise Gresham's two sons after her death. While Douglas Gresham is, like Lewis and his mother, a Christian,[20] David Gresham turned to the faith into which his mother had been born and became Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs. His mother's writings had featured the Jews, particularly one “shohet” (ritual slaughterer), in an unsympathetic manner. David informed Lewis that he was going to become a ritual slaughterer in order to present this type of Jewish religious functionary to the world in a more favourable light.[citation needed] In a 2005 interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged he and his brother were not close, but he did say they are in email contact.[21] Douglas remains involved in the affairs of the Lewis estate.
[edit] Illness and death
In early June 1961, Lewis began experiencing medical problems and was diagnosed with inflammation of the kidneys which resulted in blood poisoning. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in 1962 and he returned that April. Lewis's health continued to improve, and according to his friend George Sayer, Lewis was fully himself by the spring of 1963. However, on 15 July 1963 he fell ill and was admitted to hospital. The next day at 5:00 pm, Lewis suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, unexpectedly awaking the following day at 2:00 pm. After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns though he was too ill to return to work. As a result, he resigned from his post at Cambridge in August. Lewis's condition continued to decline and in mid-November, he was diagnosed with end stage renal failure. On 22 November 1963 Lewis collapsed in his bedroom at 5:30 pm and died a few minutes later, exactly one week before his 65th birthday. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford (Friends of Holy Trinity Church).
Media coverage of his death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day, as did the death of Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley (Kreeft 1982).
C. S. Lewis is commemorated on 22 November in the church calendar of the Episcopal Church.
[edit] Career
[edit] The scholar
Magdalen CollegeLewis began his brilliant academic career as an undergraduate student at Oxford, where he won a triple first, the highest honours in three areas of study.[22] Lewis then taught as a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, for nearly thirty years, from 1925 to 1954, and later was the first Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Using this position, he argued that there was no such thing as an English Renaissance. Much of his scholarly work concentrated on the later Middle Ages, especially its use of allegory. His The Allegory of Love (1936) helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives like the Roman de la Rose. Lewis wrote several prefaces to old works of literature and poetry, like Layamon's Brut. His book "A Preface to Paradise Lost" is still one of the most valuable criticisms of that work. His last academic work, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, the "discarded image" of the cosmos in his title.
The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where the Inklings met on Tuesday mornings in 1939Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", including J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warren Lewis. At Oxford he was the tutor of, among many other undergraduates, poet John Betjeman, critic Kenneth Tynan, mystic Bede Griffiths, and Sufi scholar Martin Lings. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-Establishment Tynan retained a life-long admiration for him (Tonkin 2005).
Of Tolkien, Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy:
When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (these queer people seemed now to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile. They were H.V.V. Dyson … and J.R.R. Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.[23]
[edit] The author
In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote a number of popular novels, including his science fiction Space Trilogy and his fantasy Narnian books, most dealing implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, humanity's fall from grace, and redemption.
[edit] The Pilgrim's Regress
Main article: The Pilgrim's Regress
His first novel after becoming a Christian was The Pilgrim's Regress, which depicted his experience with Christianity in the style of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The book was poorly received by critics at the time,[citation needed] although D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Lewis's contemporaries at Oxford, gave him much-valued encouragement. Asked by Lloyd-Jones when he would write another book, Lewis replied, "When I understand the meaning of prayer." (Murray 1990)
[edit] Space Trilogy
Main article: Space Trilogy
His Space Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy novels (also called the Cosmic Trilogy) dealt with what Lewis saw as the de-humanising trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien about these trends; Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one. Tolkien’s story, "The Lost Road", a tale connecting his Middle-earth mythology and the modern world, was never completed. Lewis’s main character of Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact that Tolkien himself alludes to in his Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. The second novel, Perelandra, depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story can be seen as a hypothesis of what could have happened if the terrestrial Eve had resisted the serpent's temptation and avoided the Fall of Man. The last novel in the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, further develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values embodied in Arthurian legend (and making reference to Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth).
Many of the ideas in the Trilogy, particularly the opposition to de-humanization in the third volume, are presented more formally in Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, based on his series of lectures at Durham University in 1943. Lewis stayed in Durham, where he was overwhelmed by the cathedral. That Hideous Strength is in fact set in the environs of 'Edgestow' university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two.[24]
Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel by Lewis, The Dark Tower, but it is unfinished; it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.
[edit] The Chronicles of Narnia
The Mountains of Mourne inspired Lewis to write The Chronicles of Narnia. About them, Lewis wrote "I have seen landscapes ... which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.”[25]Main article: The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis's most popular work, having sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages (Kelly 2006) (Guthmann 2005). It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage, and cinema.
The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.
[edit] Other works
Lewis wrote a number of works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, The Great Divorce, is a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there. The proposition is that they can stay (in which case they can call the place where they had come from “Purgatory”, instead of “Hell”); but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a concept that Lewis found a "disastrous error" (Lewis 1946, p. vii). This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Another short work, The Screwtape Letters, consists of suave letters of advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. Lewis’s last novel was Till We Have Faces — he thought of it as his most mature and masterful work of fiction, but it was never a popular success. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the unusual perspective of Psyche's sister. It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.
Before Lewis’s conversion to Christianity, he published two books: Spirits in Bondage, a collection of poems, and Dymer, a single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton.
He also wrote The Four Loves, which rhetorically explains four loves including friendship, eros, affection, and charity or caritas.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Lewis had begun cowriting with J.R.R. Tolkien, but which was never completed, was discovered.
[edit] The Christian apologist
In addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction, Lewis is regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time; Mere Christianity was voted best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today in 2000. Due to Lewis's approach to religious belief as a skeptic, and his following conversion, he has been called "The Apostle to the Skeptics."
Lewis was very much interested in presenting a reasonable case for the truth of Christianity. Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity, such as "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?". He also became known as a popular lecturer and broadcaster, and some of his writing (including much of Mere Christianity) originated as scripts for radio talks or lectures[26].
According to George Sayer, a 1948 loss in a debate with Elizabeth Anscombe, also a Christian, led to his reevaluating his role as an apologist and his future works concentrated on devotional literature and children's books.[27] Anscombe had a different recollection of the debate's emotional effect on Lewis.[27] Victor Reppert also disputes Sayer, listing some of Lewis's post-1948 apologetic publications, including the second and revised edition of his Miracles in 1960.[28]
Lewis also wrote an autobiography titled Surprised by Joy, which places special emphasis on his own conversion. (It was written before he met his wife, Joy Gresham; the title of the book came from the first line of a poem by William Wordsworth.) His essays and public speeches on Christian belief, many of which were collected in God in the Dock and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, remain popular today.
His most famous works, the Chronicles of Narnia, contain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958:
If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all. (Martindale & Root 1990)
[edit] Trilemma
Main article: Lewis's trilemma
In a much-cited passage in the book Mere Christianity, Lewis challenged the increasingly popular view that Jesus, although a great moral teacher, was not God. He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude this:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (Lewis 1952, p. 43)
This appeared at a time when scholars such as Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann had portrayed Jesus' miracles and resurrection as myths. The concept that Jesus was not God but a wise man had gained ground in academic circles. In accepting the premise that Jesus had claimed divinity, Lewis was contradicting a viewpoint, popularized by H. G. Wells in his Outline of History, that Jesus had made no such claim.[citation needed]
This argument, which Lewis did not invent but developed and popularised, is sometimes referred to as "Lewis's trilemma". It has been used by the Christian apologist Josh McDowell in his book More Than a Carpenter (McDowell 2001). Although widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature, it has been largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars.[29]
Lewis's Christian apologetics, and this argument in particular, have been criticized. Philosopher John Beversluis described Lewis's arguments as "textually careless and theologically unreliable".[30] John Hick states that New Testament scholars do not today support the view that Jesus claimed to be God.[31] The Anglican bishop N. T. Wright commented that the 'trilemma' argument "doesn't work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the Gospels."[32]
Lewis used a similar structure in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Digory Kirke advises the young heroes that their sister's claims of a magical world must logically be taken as either lies, madness, or truth.[28]
[edit] Universal morality
One of the main theses in Lewis's apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity. In the first five chapters of Mere Christianity Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect other people to adhere. This standard has been called Universal Morality or Natural Law. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles. (Lindskoog 2001b, p. 144)
These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. (Lewis 1952, p. 21)
Lewis also portrays Universal Morality in his works of fiction. In The Chronicles of Narnia he describes Universal Morality as the "Deep magic" which everyone knew. (Lindskoog 2001b, p. 146)
In the second chapter of Mere Christianity Lewis recognizes that "many people find it difficult to understand what this Law of Human Nature [...] is". And he responds first to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply our herd instinct" and second to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply a social convention". In responding to the second idea Lewis notes that people often complain that one set of moral ideas is better than another, but that this actually argues for there existing some "Real Morality" to which they are comparing other moralities. Finally he notes that sometimes differences in moral codes are exaggerated by people who confuse differences in beliefs about morality with differences in beliefs about facts:
I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?" But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house. (Lewis 1952, p. 26)
Lewis also had fairly progressive views on the topic of "animal morality," in particular the suffering of animals, as is evidenced by several of his essays: most notably, On Vivisection[33] and "On the Pains of Animals."[34] [35]
[edit] Legacy
A statue of Digory Kirke (C. S. Lewis's fictional alter ego from The Magician's Nephew) in front of the wardrobe of his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in East Belfast, Northern IrelandLewis continues to attract a wide readership. Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many religious denominations, including Catholics and Latter Day Saints (Pratt 1998).
Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by some of his close friends, such as Roger Lancelyn Green and George Sayer. In 1985 the screenplay Shadowlands by William Nicholson, dramatizing Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, was aired on British TV (starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Joy). In 1989 this was staged as a theatre play (starring Nigel Hawthorne) and in 1993 Shadowlands became a feature film, starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy. In 2005, a one hour made for TV movie entitled C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (starring Anton Rodgers) provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.
Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including A Severe Mercy by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. The Chronicles of Narnia have been particularly influential. Modern children's literature such as Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series (Hilliard 2005). Pullman, an atheist and so fierce a critic of Lewis's work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis"[36][37], considers him a negative influence and has accused Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism, and emotional sadism (BBC News 2005) in his books. Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.
Most of Lewis’ posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis (Lindskoog 2001). C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, denies the forgery claims, saying that "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited." (Gresham 2007).
A bronze statue of Lewis's character, Digory, from The Magician's Nephew, stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches in front of the Holywood Road Library (BBC News 2004).
Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare". This was said in the context of the 1950s, when technology would not allow the special effects required to make a coherent, robust film version of Narnia.
The song "The Earth Will Shake" performed by Thrice is based on one of his poems, and the band Sixpence None the Richer are named after a passage in Mere Christianity. The Great Divorce has served as the inspiration for at least three pieces of music: a string quartet piece entitled The Great Divorce by Matt Slocum of Sixpence None the Richer, the song "The High Countries" by Caedmon's Call on their album Back Home, and Phil Woodward's 2007 rock album Ghosts and Spirits. New Zealand Christian singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser also included a song entitled "C. S. Lewis Song" in her latest album "Albertine" which contains passages from his writing.[38] Christian alternative rock band Poor Old Lu are so named because of a sentence in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Another alternative rock band, Future of Forestry, got its name from Lewis's poem The Future of Forestry. 2nd Chapter of Acts recorded an album entitled The Roar of Love, inspired by the first of the Narnia stories. British band The Waterboys quoted from the final Narnia book, The Last Battle, in their 1984 song "Church Not Made with Hands". Later, on their 1990 album Room to Roam, The Waterboys included a song entitled "Further Up, Further In", the title taken from the penultimate chapter of The Last Battle. Also, Joni Mitchell included a song titled "The Dawntreader" on her album, "Song to a Seagull." American acoustic guitarrist and vocalist Phil Keaggy besides being a huge fan of Lewis works, sometimes even quoting him during his concerts, recorded in 1976 on his album Love Broke Thru an arranged version of the poem "As the Ruin Falls" by Lewis as song, and in 1991 on his instrumental album Beyond Nature, named after a quotation of Mere Christianity, named songs with references to Lewis like "Brother Jack", "Addison's Walk" and "County Down".Also, Phish has a song titled "Prince Caspian" named after the title character in Lewis's book Prince Caspian.
The 2005 film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was based on his first installment in the Narnia series. Film adaptations have been made of two other books he wrote: Prince Caspian (released on 16 May 2008) and Voyage of the Dawn Treader (to be released 2010).
Several C. S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982 to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian.[39] His name is also used by a variety of Christian organizations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.
[edit] Bibliography
Main article: Bibliography of C. S. Lewis
[edit] Secondary works
John Beversluis, C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0-8028-0046-7
Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends. George Allen & Unwin, 1978. ISBN 0-04-809011-5
Joe R. Christopher & Joan K. Ostling, C. S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist of Writings about him and his Works. Kent State University Press, n.d. (1972). ISBN 0-87338-138-6
James Como, Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis, Spence, 1998.
James Como, Remembering C. S. Lewis (3rd ed. of C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table). Ignatius, 2006
Michael Coren, The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis. Eerdmans Pub Co, Reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0-8028-3822-7
Christopher Derrick, C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1981. ISBN 978-9991718507
David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis. InterVarsity, 2005. ISBN 0-8308-3284-X
David C. Downing, Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. Jossey-Bass, 2005. ISBN 0-7879-7890-6
David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith. InterVarsity, 2002. ISBN 0-8308-3271-8
David C. Downing, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. ISBN 0-87023-997-X
Colin Duriez and David Porter, The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends. 2001, ISBN 1-902694-13-9
Colin Duriez, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58768-026-2
Bruce L. Edwards, Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia. Tyndale. 2005. ISBN 1414303815
Bruce L. Edwards, Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Broadman and Holman, 2005. ISBN 0805440704
Bruce L. Edwards, General Editor, C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. 4 Vol. Praeger Perspectives, 2007. ISBN 0275991164
Bruce L. Edwards, Editor. The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer. The Popular Press, 1988. ISBN 0879724072
Bruce L. Edwards, A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy. Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, 1986. ISBN 0939555018
Alastair Fowler, 'C. S. Lewis: Supervisor', Yale Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).
Jocelyn Gibb (ed.), Light on C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1965 & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1976. ISBN 0-15-652000-1
Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby, C. S. Lewis: Images of His World. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2800-0
Diana Glyer The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0
David Graham (ed.), We Remember C. S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0-8054-2299-4
Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Fully revised & expanded edition. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0-00-628164-8
Douglas Gresham, Jack's Life: A Memory of C. S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-3246-9
Douglas Gresham, Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0-06-063447-2
William Griffin, C. S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice. (Formerly C. S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life) Lion, 2005. ISBN 0-7459-5208-9
Joel D. Heck, Irrigating Deserts: C. S. Lewis on Education. Concordia Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 0-7586-0044-5
David Hein, "A Note on C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters." The Anglican Digest 49.2 (Easter 2007): 55-58. Argues that Lewis's portrayal of the activity of the Devil was influenced by contemporary events—in particular, by the threat of a Nazi invasion of Britain in 1940.
David Hein and Edward Hugh Henderson, eds., Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer. New York and London: T & T Clark / Continuum, 2004. A study of Lewis's close friend the theologian Austin Farrer, this book also contains material on Farrer's circle, "the Oxford Christians," including C. S. Lewis.
Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide. HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 0-00-627800-0
Walter Hooper, Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis. Macmillan, 1982. ISBN 0-02-553670-2
Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0-06-076690-5
Carolyn Keefe, C. S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher. Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-26781-1
Jon Kennedy, The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia. Adams Media, 2008. ISBN 0-1-59869-427-8
Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C. S. Lewis. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9
W.H. Lewis (ed), Letters of C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0-00-242457-6
Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis. Multnomah Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-88070-695-3
Susan Lowenberg, C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide 1972 – 1988. Hall & Co., 1993. ISBN 0-8161-1846-9
Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-8423-5115-9
David Mills (editor) (ed), The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness. Eerdmans, 1998 ISBN 0-8208-3777-8
Markus Mühling, "A Theological Journey into Narnia. An Analysis of the Message beneath the Text", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-60423-8
Joseph Pearce, C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89870-979-2
Thomas C. Peters, Simply C. S. Lewis. A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works. Kingsway Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-85476-762-2
Justin Phillips, C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War. Marshall Pickering, 2003. ISBN 0-00-710437-5
Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8308-2732-3
George Sayer, Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0-333-43362-9
Peter J. Schakel, Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds. University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8262-1407-X
Peter J. Schakel. Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces." Available online. Eerdmans, 1984. ISBN 0-8028-1998-2
Peter J. Schakel, ed. The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-87338-204-8
Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar, ed. Word and Story in C. S. Lewis. University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8262-0760-X
Stephen Schofield. In Search of C. S. Lewis. Bridge Logos Pub. 1983. ISBN 0-88270-544-X
Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0-310-21538-2
G. B. Tennyson (ed.), Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8195-5233-X.
Richard J. Wagner. C. S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies. For Dummies, 2005. ISBN 0-7645-8381-6
Andrew Walker, Patrick James (ed.), Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C. S. Lewis, Guildford: Eagle, 1998, ISBN 0863472508
Chad Walsh, C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics. Macmillan, 1949.
Chad Walsh, The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-652785-5.
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia, Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531387-1.
George Watson (ed.), Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis. Scolar Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85967-853-9
Michael White, C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. Abacus, 2005. ISBN 0-349-11625-3
Erik J. Wielenberg, God and the Reach of Reason. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-70710-7
A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-32340-4
The Allegory of Love
The Screwtape Letters
The Space Trilogy
Till We Have Faces
Signature
Clive Staples Lewis
Venerated in Episcopal Church USA
Feast 22 November
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British [1] novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.
Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32, Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England".[2] His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
In 1956, he married the American writer Joy Gresham, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45.
Lewis died three years after his wife, as the result of a heart attack. His death came one week before what would have been his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal, as he died on 22 November 1963 – the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the same day as the death of another famous author, Aldous Huxley.
Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies over the years. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, in TV, in radio, and in cinema.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Born Clive Staples Lewis
29 November 1898
Belfast, Ireland
Died 22 November 1963 (1963-11-23) (aged 64)
Oxford, England
Occupation Novelist, scholar, broadcaster
Genres Fantasy, science fiction, Christian apologetics, children's literature
Notable work(s) The Chronicles of Narnia
Mere Christianity
Childhood
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898. His father was Albert James Lewis (1863–1929), a solicitor whose father, Richard, had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid 19th century. His mother was Florence (Flora) Augusta Lewis née Hamilton (1862–1908), the daughter of a Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest. He had one older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (Warnie). At the age of four, shortly after his dog Jacksie died when run over by a car, Lewis announced that his name was now Jacksie. At first he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. When he was seven, his family moved into "Little Lea", the house the elder Mr. Lewis built for Mrs. Lewis, in the Strandtown area of East Belfast.
Little LeaLewis was initially schooled by private tutors before being sent to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1908, just after his mother's death from cancer. Lewis's brother had already enrolled there three years previously. The school was closed not long afterwards due to a lack of pupils — the headmaster Robert "Oldie" Capron was soon after committed to a psychiatric hospital. Tellingly, in Surprised By Joy, Lewis would nickname the school (and place) "Belsen".[3] There is some speculation by biographer Alan Jacobs that the atmosphere at Wynyard greatly traumatised Lewis and was responsible for the development of "mildly sadomasochistic fantasies".[4] After Wynyard closed, Lewis attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but he left after a few months due to respiratory problems. As a result of his illness, Lewis was sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House (called "Chartres" in Lewis's autobiography).
In September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he would remain until the following June. It was during this time that 15-year-old Lewis abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology and the occult.[5] Later he would describe "Wyvern" (as he styled the school in his autobiography) as so singularly focused on increasing one's social status that he came to see the homosexual relationships between older and younger pupils as "the one oasis (though green only with weeds and moist only with fetid water) in the burning desert of competitive ambition. […] A perversion was the only thing left through which something spontaneous and uncalculated could creep".[6] After leaving Malvern he moved to study privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father's old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.
As a young boy, Lewis had a fascination with anthropomorphic animals, falling in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie together created the world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read, and as his father’s house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book to read was as easy as walking into a field and "finding a new blade of grass."[7]
As a teenager, he was wonderstruck by the songs and legends of what he called Northernness, the ancient literature of Scandinavia preserved in the Icelandic sagas. These legends intensified a longing he had within, a deep desire he would later call "joy". He also grew to love nature — the beauty of nature reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. His writing in his teenage years moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began to use different art forms (epic poetry and opera) to try to capture his new-found interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. Studying with Kirkpatrick (“The Great Knock”, as Lewis afterwards called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology, and sharpened his skills in debate and clear reasoning.
[edit] World War I
Having won a scholarship to University College, Oxford in 1917, Lewis volunteered the following year in the British Army as World War I raged on, and was commissioned an officer in the Third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. Lewis arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his nineteenth birthday, and experienced trench warfare.
On 15 April 1918 Lewis was wounded during the German spring offensive, and suffered some depression during his convalescence, due in part to missing his Irish home. Upon his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was discharged in December 1918, and soon returned to his studies. Lewis received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin Literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923.
[edit] Jane Moore
While being trained for the army Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918). Maureen Moore, Paddy's sister, claimed that the two made a mutual pact[8] that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and a friendship very quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was eighteen when they met, and Jane, who was forty-five. The friendship with Mrs. Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father, who had an almost pathological reluctance to break free from the routine of his Belfast practice, could not bring himself to visit Lewis.
Lewis lived with and cared for Mrs. Moore until she was hospitalized in the late 1940s. He routinely introduced her as his "mother", and referred to her as such in letters. Lewis, whose own mother had died when he was a child and whose father was distant, demanding and eccentric, developed a deeply affectionate friendship with Mrs. Moore. In his biography of Lewis, A.N.Wilson makes a case for supposing that Lewis and Mrs Moore were, for a time, lovers. Surprised by Joy, Lewis's autobiography, is silent about his relationship with Moore and yet Wilson puts forth evidence to show that Lewis was supporting both Moore and her daughter in rented accommodation near to his digs in Oxford. Furthermore, in Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes of this period of his life, "I was returned to Oxford — 'demobbed — in January 1919. But before I say anything of my life there I must warn the reader that one huge and complex episode will be omitted. I have no choice in this reticence. All I can or need to say is that my earlier hostility to the emotions was very fully and variously avenged".
In writing this, Lewis of course invites speculation. Wilson presents evidence which shows that, whatever the full extent of the relations between Moore and himself, their relationship during his undergraduate years could indeed be described as both 'huge' and 'complex'. Lewis himself spoke well of Mrs Moore throughout his life saying to his friend George Sayer: "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too."
In December 1917 Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Jane and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world."
In 1930, Lewis and his brother Warnie moved, with Moore and her daughter Maureen, into "The Kilns", a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford (now part of the suburb of Risinghurst). They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which passed to Maureen, then Dame Maureen Dunbar, Btss., when Warren died in 1973.
Moore suffered from dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing home, where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day in this home until her death.
[edit] "My Irish life"
Plaque on a park-bench in Bangor, County DownLewis experienced a certain cultural shock on first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England," Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy, continuing, "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape … I have made up the quarrel since; but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal."[3]
From boyhood Lewis immersed himself firstly in Norse and Greek and then in Irish mythology and literature and expressed an interest in the Irish language, though he seems to have made little attempt to learn it. He developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats’s use of Ireland’s Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."
In 1921, Lewis had the opportunity to meet Yeats on two occasions, since Yeats had moved to Oxford.
Surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, Lewis wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish — if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish."[9] Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school." After his conversion to Christianity, his interests gravitated towards Christian spirituality and away from pagan Celtic mysticism.
Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England we ended by criticisms of the inevitable flippancy and dullness of the Anglo-Saxon people. After all, Ami, there is no doubt that the Irish are the only people … I would not gladly live or die among another folk."
Due to his Oxford career Lewis did indeed live and die among another folk, and he often expressed regret at having to leave Ireland. Throughout his life, he sought out the company of his fellow Irish living in England and visited Northern Ireland regularly, even spending his honeymoon there in 1958 at the Old Inn, Crawfordsburn.[10] He called this "my Irish life."
[edit] Conversion to Christianity
Raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis became an atheist at the age of 15, though he later paradoxically described his young self as being "very angry with God for not existing".[11] At the age of 29 he considered himself a theist and was eventually converted at the age of 33.[citation needed]
His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time he also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:
Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa
"Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see."
Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:
…I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.[12]
Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."[13] He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.[14]
After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. Following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, he records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England — somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped he would convert to Roman Catholicism.[15]
A committed Anglican, Lewis upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings. Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.
[edit] Joy Gresham
In Lewis's later life, he corresponded with and later met Joy Davidman Gresham, an American writer of Jewish background and also a convert from atheism to Christianity.[16] She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, the novelist William L. Gresham, and came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas.[17] Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.[18] Lewis's brother Warnie wrote: "For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met… who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun" (Haven 2006). However, after complaining of a painful hip, she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her hospital bed in March 1957.[19]
Gresham's cancer soon went into a brief remission, and the couple lived as a family (together with Warren Lewis) until her eventual relapse and death in 1960. The year she died, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the Aegean in 1960; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the English Channel after 1918. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that Lewis originally released it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. However, so many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief that he made his authorship public.
Lewis continued to raise Gresham's two sons after her death. While Douglas Gresham is, like Lewis and his mother, a Christian,[20] David Gresham turned to the faith into which his mother had been born and became Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs. His mother's writings had featured the Jews, particularly one “shohet” (ritual slaughterer), in an unsympathetic manner. David informed Lewis that he was going to become a ritual slaughterer in order to present this type of Jewish religious functionary to the world in a more favourable light.[citation needed] In a 2005 interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged he and his brother were not close, but he did say they are in email contact.[21] Douglas remains involved in the affairs of the Lewis estate.
[edit] Illness and death
In early June 1961, Lewis began experiencing medical problems and was diagnosed with inflammation of the kidneys which resulted in blood poisoning. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in 1962 and he returned that April. Lewis's health continued to improve, and according to his friend George Sayer, Lewis was fully himself by the spring of 1963. However, on 15 July 1963 he fell ill and was admitted to hospital. The next day at 5:00 pm, Lewis suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, unexpectedly awaking the following day at 2:00 pm. After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns though he was too ill to return to work. As a result, he resigned from his post at Cambridge in August. Lewis's condition continued to decline and in mid-November, he was diagnosed with end stage renal failure. On 22 November 1963 Lewis collapsed in his bedroom at 5:30 pm and died a few minutes later, exactly one week before his 65th birthday. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford (Friends of Holy Trinity Church).
Media coverage of his death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day, as did the death of Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley (Kreeft 1982).
C. S. Lewis is commemorated on 22 November in the church calendar of the Episcopal Church.
[edit] Career
[edit] The scholar
Magdalen CollegeLewis began his brilliant academic career as an undergraduate student at Oxford, where he won a triple first, the highest honours in three areas of study.[22] Lewis then taught as a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, for nearly thirty years, from 1925 to 1954, and later was the first Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Using this position, he argued that there was no such thing as an English Renaissance. Much of his scholarly work concentrated on the later Middle Ages, especially its use of allegory. His The Allegory of Love (1936) helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives like the Roman de la Rose. Lewis wrote several prefaces to old works of literature and poetry, like Layamon's Brut. His book "A Preface to Paradise Lost" is still one of the most valuable criticisms of that work. His last academic work, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, the "discarded image" of the cosmos in his title.
The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where the Inklings met on Tuesday mornings in 1939Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", including J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warren Lewis. At Oxford he was the tutor of, among many other undergraduates, poet John Betjeman, critic Kenneth Tynan, mystic Bede Griffiths, and Sufi scholar Martin Lings. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-Establishment Tynan retained a life-long admiration for him (Tonkin 2005).
Of Tolkien, Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy:
When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (these queer people seemed now to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile. They were H.V.V. Dyson … and J.R.R. Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.[23]
[edit] The author
In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote a number of popular novels, including his science fiction Space Trilogy and his fantasy Narnian books, most dealing implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, humanity's fall from grace, and redemption.
[edit] The Pilgrim's Regress
Main article: The Pilgrim's Regress
His first novel after becoming a Christian was The Pilgrim's Regress, which depicted his experience with Christianity in the style of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The book was poorly received by critics at the time,[citation needed] although D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Lewis's contemporaries at Oxford, gave him much-valued encouragement. Asked by Lloyd-Jones when he would write another book, Lewis replied, "When I understand the meaning of prayer." (Murray 1990)
[edit] Space Trilogy
Main article: Space Trilogy
His Space Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy novels (also called the Cosmic Trilogy) dealt with what Lewis saw as the de-humanising trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien about these trends; Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one. Tolkien’s story, "The Lost Road", a tale connecting his Middle-earth mythology and the modern world, was never completed. Lewis’s main character of Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact that Tolkien himself alludes to in his Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. The second novel, Perelandra, depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story can be seen as a hypothesis of what could have happened if the terrestrial Eve had resisted the serpent's temptation and avoided the Fall of Man. The last novel in the Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, further develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values embodied in Arthurian legend (and making reference to Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth).
Many of the ideas in the Trilogy, particularly the opposition to de-humanization in the third volume, are presented more formally in Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, based on his series of lectures at Durham University in 1943. Lewis stayed in Durham, where he was overwhelmed by the cathedral. That Hideous Strength is in fact set in the environs of 'Edgestow' university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two.[24]
Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel by Lewis, The Dark Tower, but it is unfinished; it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.
[edit] The Chronicles of Narnia
The Mountains of Mourne inspired Lewis to write The Chronicles of Narnia. About them, Lewis wrote "I have seen landscapes ... which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.”[25]Main article: The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis's most popular work, having sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages (Kelly 2006) (Guthmann 2005). It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage, and cinema.
The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.
[edit] Other works
Lewis wrote a number of works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, The Great Divorce, is a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there. The proposition is that they can stay (in which case they can call the place where they had come from “Purgatory”, instead of “Hell”); but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a concept that Lewis found a "disastrous error" (Lewis 1946, p. vii). This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Another short work, The Screwtape Letters, consists of suave letters of advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. Lewis’s last novel was Till We Have Faces — he thought of it as his most mature and masterful work of fiction, but it was never a popular success. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the unusual perspective of Psyche's sister. It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.
Before Lewis’s conversion to Christianity, he published two books: Spirits in Bondage, a collection of poems, and Dymer, a single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton.
He also wrote The Four Loves, which rhetorically explains four loves including friendship, eros, affection, and charity or caritas.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Lewis had begun cowriting with J.R.R. Tolkien, but which was never completed, was discovered.
[edit] The Christian apologist
In addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction, Lewis is regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time; Mere Christianity was voted best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today in 2000. Due to Lewis's approach to religious belief as a skeptic, and his following conversion, he has been called "The Apostle to the Skeptics."
Lewis was very much interested in presenting a reasonable case for the truth of Christianity. Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity, such as "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?". He also became known as a popular lecturer and broadcaster, and some of his writing (including much of Mere Christianity) originated as scripts for radio talks or lectures[26].
According to George Sayer, a 1948 loss in a debate with Elizabeth Anscombe, also a Christian, led to his reevaluating his role as an apologist and his future works concentrated on devotional literature and children's books.[27] Anscombe had a different recollection of the debate's emotional effect on Lewis.[27] Victor Reppert also disputes Sayer, listing some of Lewis's post-1948 apologetic publications, including the second and revised edition of his Miracles in 1960.[28]
Lewis also wrote an autobiography titled Surprised by Joy, which places special emphasis on his own conversion. (It was written before he met his wife, Joy Gresham; the title of the book came from the first line of a poem by William Wordsworth.) His essays and public speeches on Christian belief, many of which were collected in God in the Dock and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, remain popular today.
His most famous works, the Chronicles of Narnia, contain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958:
If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all. (Martindale & Root 1990)
[edit] Trilemma
Main article: Lewis's trilemma
In a much-cited passage in the book Mere Christianity, Lewis challenged the increasingly popular view that Jesus, although a great moral teacher, was not God. He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude this:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (Lewis 1952, p. 43)
This appeared at a time when scholars such as Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann had portrayed Jesus' miracles and resurrection as myths. The concept that Jesus was not God but a wise man had gained ground in academic circles. In accepting the premise that Jesus had claimed divinity, Lewis was contradicting a viewpoint, popularized by H. G. Wells in his Outline of History, that Jesus had made no such claim.[citation needed]
This argument, which Lewis did not invent but developed and popularised, is sometimes referred to as "Lewis's trilemma". It has been used by the Christian apologist Josh McDowell in his book More Than a Carpenter (McDowell 2001). Although widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature, it has been largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars.[29]
Lewis's Christian apologetics, and this argument in particular, have been criticized. Philosopher John Beversluis described Lewis's arguments as "textually careless and theologically unreliable".[30] John Hick states that New Testament scholars do not today support the view that Jesus claimed to be God.[31] The Anglican bishop N. T. Wright commented that the 'trilemma' argument "doesn't work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the Gospels."[32]
Lewis used a similar structure in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Digory Kirke advises the young heroes that their sister's claims of a magical world must logically be taken as either lies, madness, or truth.[28]
[edit] Universal morality
One of the main theses in Lewis's apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity. In the first five chapters of Mere Christianity Lewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect other people to adhere. This standard has been called Universal Morality or Natural Law. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles. (Lindskoog 2001b, p. 144)
These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. (Lewis 1952, p. 21)
Lewis also portrays Universal Morality in his works of fiction. In The Chronicles of Narnia he describes Universal Morality as the "Deep magic" which everyone knew. (Lindskoog 2001b, p. 146)
In the second chapter of Mere Christianity Lewis recognizes that "many people find it difficult to understand what this Law of Human Nature [...] is". And he responds first to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply our herd instinct" and second to the idea "that the Moral Law is simply a social convention". In responding to the second idea Lewis notes that people often complain that one set of moral ideas is better than another, but that this actually argues for there existing some "Real Morality" to which they are comparing other moralities. Finally he notes that sometimes differences in moral codes are exaggerated by people who confuse differences in beliefs about morality with differences in beliefs about facts:
I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?" But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house. (Lewis 1952, p. 26)
Lewis also had fairly progressive views on the topic of "animal morality," in particular the suffering of animals, as is evidenced by several of his essays: most notably, On Vivisection[33] and "On the Pains of Animals."[34] [35]
[edit] Legacy
A statue of Digory Kirke (C. S. Lewis's fictional alter ego from The Magician's Nephew) in front of the wardrobe of his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in East Belfast, Northern IrelandLewis continues to attract a wide readership. Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many religious denominations, including Catholics and Latter Day Saints (Pratt 1998).
Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by some of his close friends, such as Roger Lancelyn Green and George Sayer. In 1985 the screenplay Shadowlands by William Nicholson, dramatizing Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, was aired on British TV (starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Joy). In 1989 this was staged as a theatre play (starring Nigel Hawthorne) and in 1993 Shadowlands became a feature film, starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy. In 2005, a one hour made for TV movie entitled C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (starring Anton Rodgers) provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.
Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including A Severe Mercy by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. The Chronicles of Narnia have been particularly influential. Modern children's literature such as Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series (Hilliard 2005). Pullman, an atheist and so fierce a critic of Lewis's work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis"[36][37], considers him a negative influence and has accused Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism, and emotional sadism (BBC News 2005) in his books. Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.
Most of Lewis’ posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis (Lindskoog 2001). C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, denies the forgery claims, saying that "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited." (Gresham 2007).
A bronze statue of Lewis's character, Digory, from The Magician's Nephew, stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches in front of the Holywood Road Library (BBC News 2004).
Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare". This was said in the context of the 1950s, when technology would not allow the special effects required to make a coherent, robust film version of Narnia.
The song "The Earth Will Shake" performed by Thrice is based on one of his poems, and the band Sixpence None the Richer are named after a passage in Mere Christianity. The Great Divorce has served as the inspiration for at least three pieces of music: a string quartet piece entitled The Great Divorce by Matt Slocum of Sixpence None the Richer, the song "The High Countries" by Caedmon's Call on their album Back Home, and Phil Woodward's 2007 rock album Ghosts and Spirits. New Zealand Christian singer-songwriter Brooke Fraser also included a song entitled "C. S. Lewis Song" in her latest album "Albertine" which contains passages from his writing.[38] Christian alternative rock band Poor Old Lu are so named because of a sentence in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Another alternative rock band, Future of Forestry, got its name from Lewis's poem The Future of Forestry. 2nd Chapter of Acts recorded an album entitled The Roar of Love, inspired by the first of the Narnia stories. British band The Waterboys quoted from the final Narnia book, The Last Battle, in their 1984 song "Church Not Made with Hands". Later, on their 1990 album Room to Roam, The Waterboys included a song entitled "Further Up, Further In", the title taken from the penultimate chapter of The Last Battle. Also, Joni Mitchell included a song titled "The Dawntreader" on her album, "Song to a Seagull." American acoustic guitarrist and vocalist Phil Keaggy besides being a huge fan of Lewis works, sometimes even quoting him during his concerts, recorded in 1976 on his album Love Broke Thru an arranged version of the poem "As the Ruin Falls" by Lewis as song, and in 1991 on his instrumental album Beyond Nature, named after a quotation of Mere Christianity, named songs with references to Lewis like "Brother Jack", "Addison's Walk" and "County Down".Also, Phish has a song titled "Prince Caspian" named after the title character in Lewis's book Prince Caspian.
The 2005 film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was based on his first installment in the Narnia series. Film adaptations have been made of two other books he wrote: Prince Caspian (released on 16 May 2008) and Voyage of the Dawn Treader (to be released 2010).
Several C. S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982 to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian.[39] His name is also used by a variety of Christian organizations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.
[edit] Bibliography
Main article: Bibliography of C. S. Lewis
[edit] Secondary works
John Beversluis, C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0-8028-0046-7
Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends. George Allen & Unwin, 1978. ISBN 0-04-809011-5
Joe R. Christopher & Joan K. Ostling, C. S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist of Writings about him and his Works. Kent State University Press, n.d. (1972). ISBN 0-87338-138-6
James Como, Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis, Spence, 1998.
James Como, Remembering C. S. Lewis (3rd ed. of C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table). Ignatius, 2006
Michael Coren, The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis. Eerdmans Pub Co, Reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0-8028-3822-7
Christopher Derrick, C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1981. ISBN 978-9991718507
David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis. InterVarsity, 2005. ISBN 0-8308-3284-X
David C. Downing, Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. Jossey-Bass, 2005. ISBN 0-7879-7890-6
David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith. InterVarsity, 2002. ISBN 0-8308-3271-8
David C. Downing, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. ISBN 0-87023-997-X
Colin Duriez and David Porter, The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends. 2001, ISBN 1-902694-13-9
Colin Duriez, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58768-026-2
Bruce L. Edwards, Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia. Tyndale. 2005. ISBN 1414303815
Bruce L. Edwards, Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Broadman and Holman, 2005. ISBN 0805440704
Bruce L. Edwards, General Editor, C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. 4 Vol. Praeger Perspectives, 2007. ISBN 0275991164
Bruce L. Edwards, Editor. The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer. The Popular Press, 1988. ISBN 0879724072
Bruce L. Edwards, A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy. Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, 1986. ISBN 0939555018
Alastair Fowler, 'C. S. Lewis: Supervisor', Yale Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).
Jocelyn Gibb (ed.), Light on C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1965 & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1976. ISBN 0-15-652000-1
Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby, C. S. Lewis: Images of His World. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2800-0
Diana Glyer The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0
David Graham (ed.), We Remember C. S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0-8054-2299-4
Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Fully revised & expanded edition. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0-00-628164-8
Douglas Gresham, Jack's Life: A Memory of C. S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-3246-9
Douglas Gresham, Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0-06-063447-2
William Griffin, C. S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice. (Formerly C. S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life) Lion, 2005. ISBN 0-7459-5208-9
Joel D. Heck, Irrigating Deserts: C. S. Lewis on Education. Concordia Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 0-7586-0044-5
David Hein, "A Note on C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters." The Anglican Digest 49.2 (Easter 2007): 55-58. Argues that Lewis's portrayal of the activity of the Devil was influenced by contemporary events—in particular, by the threat of a Nazi invasion of Britain in 1940.
David Hein and Edward Hugh Henderson, eds., Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer. New York and London: T & T Clark / Continuum, 2004. A study of Lewis's close friend the theologian Austin Farrer, this book also contains material on Farrer's circle, "the Oxford Christians," including C. S. Lewis.
Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide. HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 0-00-627800-0
Walter Hooper, Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis. Macmillan, 1982. ISBN 0-02-553670-2
Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0-06-076690-5
Carolyn Keefe, C. S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher. Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-26781-1
Jon Kennedy, The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia. Adams Media, 2008. ISBN 0-1-59869-427-8
Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C. S. Lewis. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9
W.H. Lewis (ed), Letters of C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0-00-242457-6
Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis. Multnomah Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-88070-695-3
Susan Lowenberg, C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide 1972 – 1988. Hall & Co., 1993. ISBN 0-8161-1846-9
Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-8423-5115-9
David Mills (editor) (ed), The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness. Eerdmans, 1998 ISBN 0-8208-3777-8
Markus Mühling, "A Theological Journey into Narnia. An Analysis of the Message beneath the Text", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-60423-8
Joseph Pearce, C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89870-979-2
Thomas C. Peters, Simply C. S. Lewis. A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works. Kingsway Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-85476-762-2
Justin Phillips, C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War. Marshall Pickering, 2003. ISBN 0-00-710437-5
Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8308-2732-3
George Sayer, Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0-333-43362-9
Peter J. Schakel, Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds. University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8262-1407-X
Peter J. Schakel. Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces." Available online. Eerdmans, 1984. ISBN 0-8028-1998-2
Peter J. Schakel, ed. The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-87338-204-8
Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar, ed. Word and Story in C. S. Lewis. University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8262-0760-X
Stephen Schofield. In Search of C. S. Lewis. Bridge Logos Pub. 1983. ISBN 0-88270-544-X
Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0-310-21538-2
G. B. Tennyson (ed.), Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8195-5233-X.
Richard J. Wagner. C. S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies. For Dummies, 2005. ISBN 0-7645-8381-6
Andrew Walker, Patrick James (ed.), Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C. S. Lewis, Guildford: Eagle, 1998, ISBN 0863472508
Chad Walsh, C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics. Macmillan, 1949.
Chad Walsh, The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-652785-5.
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia, Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531387-1.
George Watson (ed.), Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis. Scolar Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85967-853-9
Michael White, C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. Abacus, 2005. ISBN 0-349-11625-3
Erik J. Wielenberg, God and the Reach of Reason. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-70710-7
A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-32340-4
The Allegory of Love
The Screwtape Letters
The Space Trilogy
Till We Have Faces
Signature
Clive Staples Lewis
Venerated in Episcopal Church USA
Feast 22 November
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British [1] novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.
Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32, Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England".[2] His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
In 1956, he married the American writer Joy Gresham, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45.
Lewis died three years after his wife, as the result of a heart attack. His death came one week before what would have been his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal, as he died on 22 November 1963 – the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the same day as the death of another famous author, Aldous Huxley.
Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies over the years. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, in TV, in radio, and in cinema.
Annette J Dunlea Irish Author
Annette J Dunlea Public Profile and Writing :
http://www.redroom.com/blog/ajdunlea/follow-annette-j-dunlea
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/annettedunlea
Twitter : http://twitter.com/adunlea
Facebook : http://en-gb.facebook.com/adunlea
Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annette-J-Dunlea-Irish-Author/197471056144
Ning: http://bookmarket.ning.com/profile/AnnetteDunlea
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/c/profile?TUUID=6c2a30a2-5fd5-48ec-90c7-9863b2a04a0d&MemberId=8392715182
Bookblogs: http://bookblogs.ning.com/profile/AnnetteJDunleaIrishAuthor
FReado: http://www.freado.com/users/781/Annette-Dunlea
RedRoom: http://www.redroom.com/member/ajdunlea
Authors Den: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?authorid=102260
WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/profiles/AnnetteDunlea
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2928688.Annette_J_Dunlea_Irish_Author
Librarything: http://www.librarything.com/author/annettejdunlea
Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/annettejuliadunlea
Internet Book Database: http://www.ibdof.com/IBDOF-author-booklist.php?author=5590
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/annettejdunlea/
IWWW: http://www.iwwg.com ( member)
Second Light: http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/members/annettejuliadunlea.shtml (member and webpage)
Ballea Writer: http://www.balleawriters.com/ballea/publications/Annette_Dunlea/GoodBye1_A.Dunlea.pdf
Author Website: http://www.annettedunlea.com
Literary Blogs
Http://www.ajd8.wordpress.com
http://www.annettedunlea.blogspot.com
Book Websites and Blogs:
Always and Forever: http://alwaysroseoftralee.synthasite.com/
The Honey Trap: http://honeytrap.weebly.com/
http://www.redroom.com/blog/ajdunlea/follow-annette-j-dunlea
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/annettedunlea
Twitter : http://twitter.com/adunlea
Facebook : http://en-gb.facebook.com/adunlea
Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annette-J-Dunlea-Irish-Author/197471056144
Ning: http://bookmarket.ning.com/profile/AnnetteDunlea
Bebo: http://www.bebo.com/c/profile?TUUID=6c2a30a2-5fd5-48ec-90c7-9863b2a04a0d&MemberId=8392715182
Bookblogs: http://bookblogs.ning.com/profile/AnnetteJDunleaIrishAuthor
FReado: http://www.freado.com/users/781/Annette-Dunlea
RedRoom: http://www.redroom.com/member/ajdunlea
Authors Den: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?authorid=102260
WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/profiles/AnnetteDunlea
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2928688.Annette_J_Dunlea_Irish_Author
Librarything: http://www.librarything.com/author/annettejdunlea
Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/annettejuliadunlea
Internet Book Database: http://www.ibdof.com/IBDOF-author-booklist.php?author=5590
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/annettejdunlea/
IWWW: http://www.iwwg.com ( member)
Second Light: http://www.secondlightlive.co.uk/members/annettejuliadunlea.shtml (member and webpage)
Ballea Writer: http://www.balleawriters.com/ballea/publications/Annette_Dunlea/GoodBye1_A.Dunlea.pdf
Author Website: http://www.annettedunlea.com
Literary Blogs
Http://www.ajd8.wordpress.com
http://www.annettedunlea.blogspot.com
Book Websites and Blogs:
Always and Forever: http://alwaysroseoftralee.synthasite.com/
The Honey Trap: http://honeytrap.weebly.com/
Monday, November 9, 2009
Book in the Media - Economy Gastronomy
Title: Economy Gastronomy: Eat Better and Spend Less
Authors: Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (12 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0718155726
ISBN-13: 978-0718155728
Product Dimensions: 25 x 19.6 x 3 cm
Product Description
The credit crunch is having a massive impact on what we eat. The average familyÂ’s annual food bill went up by £1000 last year. As the approaching recession forces us to tighten our belts, are we really going to have to face months of grim news with nothing but grim food to sustain us? The answer is 'no!' Top chefs Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett not only show us how to cut our food bills in half, but how we can eat like royalty at the same time. Economy Gastronomy is about planning ahead, shopping well, spending less and using ingredients ingeniously to create flavour-packed food every day. The 100 delicious recipes cover breakfasts and lunches, snacks and treats, with chapters to show you how to achieve expensive-looking meals without spending a fortune so you can entertain in style and make something from nothing. Detailed recipes reveal versatile skills you can use in a range of recipes. Form meal planning to seasonal shopping, from loving leftovers to store-cupboard basics, the economy gastronomy system combines traditional skills with restaurant flair.
About the Author
Paul Merrett owns and runs the Victoria Pub and Dining Rooms in Sheen. He has been awarded a Michelin star twice, and is the author of Using the Plot: Tales of an Allotment Chef (2008).He was the presenter of BBC Two's Ever Wondered About Food... series, and co-presented a BBC Two ten-part prime-time series called The Best. Paul is married with two children. Allegra McEvedy co-founded Leon, the award-winning healthy, fast-food restaurant group. In 2008, she was awarded an MBE for services to the hospitality industry. She is the Resident Chef of the GuardianÂ’s G2, and writes a blog column for the Observer Food Monthly. Her second book Allegra McEvedyÂ’s Colour Cookbook won the IACP 2007 Cook Book award. She was born and educated in West London, where she still lives.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0718155726
Authors: Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (12 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0718155726
ISBN-13: 978-0718155728
Product Dimensions: 25 x 19.6 x 3 cm
Product Description
The credit crunch is having a massive impact on what we eat. The average familyÂ’s annual food bill went up by £1000 last year. As the approaching recession forces us to tighten our belts, are we really going to have to face months of grim news with nothing but grim food to sustain us? The answer is 'no!' Top chefs Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett not only show us how to cut our food bills in half, but how we can eat like royalty at the same time. Economy Gastronomy is about planning ahead, shopping well, spending less and using ingredients ingeniously to create flavour-packed food every day. The 100 delicious recipes cover breakfasts and lunches, snacks and treats, with chapters to show you how to achieve expensive-looking meals without spending a fortune so you can entertain in style and make something from nothing. Detailed recipes reveal versatile skills you can use in a range of recipes. Form meal planning to seasonal shopping, from loving leftovers to store-cupboard basics, the economy gastronomy system combines traditional skills with restaurant flair.
About the Author
Paul Merrett owns and runs the Victoria Pub and Dining Rooms in Sheen. He has been awarded a Michelin star twice, and is the author of Using the Plot: Tales of an Allotment Chef (2008).He was the presenter of BBC Two's Ever Wondered About Food... series, and co-presented a BBC Two ten-part prime-time series called The Best. Paul is married with two children. Allegra McEvedy co-founded Leon, the award-winning healthy, fast-food restaurant group. In 2008, she was awarded an MBE for services to the hospitality industry. She is the Resident Chef of the GuardianÂ’s G2, and writes a blog column for the Observer Food Monthly. Her second book Allegra McEvedyÂ’s Colour Cookbook won the IACP 2007 Cook Book award. She was born and educated in West London, where she still lives.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0718155726
Book in the Media - Living Dead In Dallas
Title: Living Dead In Dallas: A True Blood Novel
Author: Charlaine Harris
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (9 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0575089385
ISBN-13: 978-0575089389
Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly . . . The Sookie Stackhouse books are delightful Southern Gothic supernatural mysteries, starring Sookie, the telepathic cocktail waitress, and a cast of increasingly colourful characters, including vampires, werewolves and things that really do go bump in the night.
About the Author
Charlaine Harris is the author of several NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series. She is married, with children, and lives in Arkansas.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B002SB8PUQ
Author: Charlaine Harris
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (9 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0575089385
ISBN-13: 978-0575089389
Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly . . . The Sookie Stackhouse books are delightful Southern Gothic supernatural mysteries, starring Sookie, the telepathic cocktail waitress, and a cast of increasingly colourful characters, including vampires, werewolves and things that really do go bump in the night.
About the Author
Charlaine Harris is the author of several NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series. She is married, with children, and lives in Arkansas.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/B002SB8PUQ
Book in the Media - Top Gear Annual 2010
Title: "Top Gear": The Official Annual 2010 (Hardcover)
Author: BBC Books
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: BBC Children's Books (6 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 140590545X
ISBN-13: 978-1405905459
Product Dimensions: 29 x 21.8 x 1 cm
Product Description
This turbo-charged Top Gear book is for younger fans, adults keep out! Relive your favourite moments from Top Gear in this action-packed annual. It's packed with fun facts, cool cars and full throttle activities. Perfect for little petrol-heads!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1846078245
Author: BBC Books
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: BBC Children's Books (6 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 140590545X
ISBN-13: 978-1405905459
Product Dimensions: 29 x 21.8 x 1 cm
Product Description
This turbo-charged Top Gear book is for younger fans, adults keep out! Relive your favourite moments from Top Gear in this action-packed annual. It's packed with fun facts, cool cars and full throttle activities. Perfect for little petrol-heads!
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1846078245
Book in the Media - The Unquiet
Title: The Unquiet
Author: John Connolly
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (10 Jan 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340920513
ISBN-13: 978-0340920510
Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
Daniel Clay, a once-respected psychiatrist, has been missing for years following revelations about harm done to the children in his care. Believing him dead, his daughter Rebecca has tried to come to terms with her father's legacy, but her fragile peace is about to be shattered. Someone is asking questions about Daniel Clay, someone who does not believe that he is dead: the revenger Merrick, a father and a killer obsessed with discovering the truth about his own daughter's disappearance. Private detective Charlie Parker is hired to make Merrick go away, but Merrick will not be stopped. Soon Parker finds himself trapped between those who want the truth about Daniel Clay to be revealed, and those who want it to remain hidden at all costs. But there are other forces at work here. Someone is funding Merrick's hunt, a ghost from Parker's past. And Merrick's actions have drawn others from the shadows, half-glimpsed figures intent upon their own form of revenge, pale wraiths drifting through the ranks of the unquiet dead. The Hollow Men have come . . .
About the Author
John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. His debut - EVERY DEAD THING - swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He is the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0340920513
Author: John Connolly
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (10 Jan 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340920513
ISBN-13: 978-0340920510
Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
Daniel Clay, a once-respected psychiatrist, has been missing for years following revelations about harm done to the children in his care. Believing him dead, his daughter Rebecca has tried to come to terms with her father's legacy, but her fragile peace is about to be shattered. Someone is asking questions about Daniel Clay, someone who does not believe that he is dead: the revenger Merrick, a father and a killer obsessed with discovering the truth about his own daughter's disappearance. Private detective Charlie Parker is hired to make Merrick go away, but Merrick will not be stopped. Soon Parker finds himself trapped between those who want the truth about Daniel Clay to be revealed, and those who want it to remain hidden at all costs. But there are other forces at work here. Someone is funding Merrick's hunt, a ghost from Parker's past. And Merrick's actions have drawn others from the shadows, half-glimpsed figures intent upon their own form of revenge, pale wraiths drifting through the ranks of the unquiet dead. The Hollow Men have come . . .
About the Author
John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. His debut - EVERY DEAD THING - swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He is the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0340920513
Book in the Media - On 5th Avenue
Title: Las Rubias de 5th Avenue (Best Seller (Debolsillo))
Author: Plum Sykes and Toni Hill
Paperback: 298 pages
Publisher: Debolsillo (Aug 2006)
Language Spanish
ISBN-10: 9875661902
ISBN-13: 978-9875661905
Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.7 x 1.2 cm
Spanish Book
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/9875661902
Author: Plum Sykes and Toni Hill
Paperback: 298 pages
Publisher: Debolsillo (Aug 2006)
Language Spanish
ISBN-10: 9875661902
ISBN-13: 978-9875661905
Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.7 x 1.2 cm
Spanish Book
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/9875661902
Book in the Media - Nine Dragons
Title: Nine Dragons
Author: Michael Connelly
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Orion (1 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0752875876
ISBN-13: 978-0752875873
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
The shooting of a Chinese liquor store owner in LA brings Harry Bosch back to the Rodney King riots and the moment a stranger gave a young cop sanctuary. Now the debt must be repaid, and Harry soon discovers the old man's death was no ordinary holdup. Homing in on clues disregarded by the cops on the scene, Harry builds a picture of corruption and intimidation, with the local Triads at the heart of it. But as he tries to build a case and breach the impenetrable wall of silence in the local community, he finds he is taking a dragon by the tail - a dragon whose talons reach well beyond LA, and even the States. Suddenly the most precious thing in Harry's life is under threat, and he will need to leave the familiarity of his home turf, alone and without backup, if he is going to stop his worst nightmare from happening.
About the Author
A former police reporter for the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Michael Connelly is the author of the acclaimed Harry Bosch thriller series and several other bestselling novels. He lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and daughter.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316166316
Author: Michael Connelly
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Orion (1 Oct 2009)
ISBN-10: 0752875876
ISBN-13: 978-0752875873
Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
The shooting of a Chinese liquor store owner in LA brings Harry Bosch back to the Rodney King riots and the moment a stranger gave a young cop sanctuary. Now the debt must be repaid, and Harry soon discovers the old man's death was no ordinary holdup. Homing in on clues disregarded by the cops on the scene, Harry builds a picture of corruption and intimidation, with the local Triads at the heart of it. But as he tries to build a case and breach the impenetrable wall of silence in the local community, he finds he is taking a dragon by the tail - a dragon whose talons reach well beyond LA, and even the States. Suddenly the most precious thing in Harry's life is under threat, and he will need to leave the familiarity of his home turf, alone and without backup, if he is going to stop his worst nightmare from happening.
About the Author
A former police reporter for the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Michael Connelly is the author of the acclaimed Harry Bosch thriller series and several other bestselling novels. He lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and daughter.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316166316
Book in the Media - The Price of Love
Title: The Price of Love
Author: Peter Robinson
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; First Edition edition (6 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340919515
ISBN-13: 978-0340919514
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
When DCI Alan Banks arrived in Eastvale his life was every bit as much of a mess as it is now. But he is holding an envelope that could change everything he understood about the events that sent him north twenty years ago. Walking again the narrow alleys and backstreets of his mind, he remembers the seedy Soho nights of his last case - dubious businessmen in dodgy clubs, young girls on the game. And a killer on the loose.
In addition to the brand-new novella that fills in the gaps in Banks's life before Yorkshire, Peter Robinson gives us ten more brilliant and eclectic stories that have never before been published in the UK.
The Eastvale Ladies' Poker Circle finds that murder may be just another game of risk. Is a suitcase of cash worth a man's head on a plate? And tragedy leads a young boy to learn the price of love . . .
About the Author
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and now lives in Canada and Richmond. His bestselling, critically acclaimed Inspector Banks series has won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061809489
Author: Peter Robinson
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton; First Edition edition (6 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0340919515
ISBN-13: 978-0340919514
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
When DCI Alan Banks arrived in Eastvale his life was every bit as much of a mess as it is now. But he is holding an envelope that could change everything he understood about the events that sent him north twenty years ago. Walking again the narrow alleys and backstreets of his mind, he remembers the seedy Soho nights of his last case - dubious businessmen in dodgy clubs, young girls on the game. And a killer on the loose.
In addition to the brand-new novella that fills in the gaps in Banks's life before Yorkshire, Peter Robinson gives us ten more brilliant and eclectic stories that have never before been published in the UK.
The Eastvale Ladies' Poker Circle finds that murder may be just another game of risk. Is a suitcase of cash worth a man's head on a plate? And tragedy leads a young boy to learn the price of love . . .
About the Author
Peter Robinson grew up in Yorkshire, and now lives in Canada and Richmond. His bestselling, critically acclaimed Inspector Banks series has won numerous awards in Britain, the United States, Canada and Europe.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0061809489
Book in the Media - Love Lies
Title: Love Lies
Author: Adele Parks
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Penguin (30 Jul 2009)
ISBN-10: 0141035579
ISBN-13: 978-0141035574
Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
Fern is glaring thirty in the face and can’t ignore the love lies any longer. Life with Adam was amazing once – although these days swinging from the chandeliers means D.I.Y not S.E.X. She believes a romantic wedding should be the next step but Adam just won’t go down on one knee. Then a chance meeting with Scottie Taylor – the UK’s sexiest pop star – lights fireworks in Fern that won’t stop exploding. It’s mind-expanding love at first sight for them both so when he proposes in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley Stadium, there’s only one answer. Yes, yes, yes! Before you know it, Fern is living the celebrity dream in LA and a wedding planner is arranging designer shoe fittings. But isn’t it all happening a little too fast? Why is this modern day Cinderella homesick for a rented two-bedroom flat in Clapham? How do you know whether love is telling the truth? Fern must choose which version of this fairy tale is hers …
About the Author
Adele Parks was born in Teesside, north-east England, and now lives in Guildford with her husband and son. She is the author of eight bestselling novels, including the iconic Playing Away and, more recently, Husbands, Young Wives' Tales and Tell Me Something.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0141041021
Author: Adele Parks
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Penguin (30 Jul 2009)
ISBN-10: 0141035579
ISBN-13: 978-0141035574
Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 3.6 cm
Product Description
Fern is glaring thirty in the face and can’t ignore the love lies any longer. Life with Adam was amazing once – although these days swinging from the chandeliers means D.I.Y not S.E.X. She believes a romantic wedding should be the next step but Adam just won’t go down on one knee. Then a chance meeting with Scottie Taylor – the UK’s sexiest pop star – lights fireworks in Fern that won’t stop exploding. It’s mind-expanding love at first sight for them both so when he proposes in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley Stadium, there’s only one answer. Yes, yes, yes! Before you know it, Fern is living the celebrity dream in LA and a wedding planner is arranging designer shoe fittings. But isn’t it all happening a little too fast? Why is this modern day Cinderella homesick for a rented two-bedroom flat in Clapham? How do you know whether love is telling the truth? Fern must choose which version of this fairy tale is hers …
About the Author
Adele Parks was born in Teesside, north-east England, and now lives in Guildford with her husband and son. She is the author of eight bestselling novels, including the iconic Playing Away and, more recently, Husbands, Young Wives' Tales and Tell Me Something.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0141041021
Book in the Media - Brodeck's Report
Title: Brodeck's Report
Authors: Philippe Claudel and John Cullen
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: MacLehose Press (5 Feb 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1906694044
ISBN-13: 978-1906694043
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.2 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
The report that Brodeck is writing into the lynching of an artist, an outsider, a flamboyant Other figure who has deeply disturbed the fragile equilibrium of the town he briefly settled in, becomes a report into the catastrophe of his own life. Brodeck, it seems, himself also an outsider, has lately returned from a concentration camp. In the course of his investigation into the death of the artist, he uncovers the truth about his distant origins, about his having been rounded up when the Germans came to the town, and all that happened to his family when he was gone. This immensely powerful chronicle of a community's fear and loathing of what is strange, what is from the outside, has been hailed as one of the outstanding European novels of the last decade.
About the Author
Philippe Claudel is a university lecturer, novelist and scriptwriter. He has written 14 novels that have been translated into various languages. He was born in Dombasle-sur-Meurthe in 1962 where he still lives. Claudel says that he woke up one morning with the opening sentence of Brodeck's Report in his head: A"My name is Brodeck and I am not responsible.John Cullen is the translator of more than 15 books from French, Spanish, Italian and German. He has twice been shortlisted for the IMPAC award, and was also shortlisted for the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger in 2007.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1906694044
Authors: Philippe Claudel and John Cullen
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: MacLehose Press (5 Feb 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1906694044
ISBN-13: 978-1906694043
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.2 x 3.8 cm
Product Description
The report that Brodeck is writing into the lynching of an artist, an outsider, a flamboyant Other figure who has deeply disturbed the fragile equilibrium of the town he briefly settled in, becomes a report into the catastrophe of his own life. Brodeck, it seems, himself also an outsider, has lately returned from a concentration camp. In the course of his investigation into the death of the artist, he uncovers the truth about his distant origins, about his having been rounded up when the Germans came to the town, and all that happened to his family when he was gone. This immensely powerful chronicle of a community's fear and loathing of what is strange, what is from the outside, has been hailed as one of the outstanding European novels of the last decade.
About the Author
Philippe Claudel is a university lecturer, novelist and scriptwriter. He has written 14 novels that have been translated into various languages. He was born in Dombasle-sur-Meurthe in 1962 where he still lives. Claudel says that he woke up one morning with the opening sentence of Brodeck's Report in his head: A"My name is Brodeck and I am not responsible.John Cullen is the translator of more than 15 books from French, Spanish, Italian and German. He has twice been shortlisted for the IMPAC award, and was also shortlisted for the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger in 2007.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1906694044
Book in the Media - The Lovely Bones
Title: The Lovely Bones
Author: Alice Sebold
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Picador (6 Nov 2009)
ISBN-10: 0330511742
ISBN-13: 978-0330511742
Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.5 x 3.3 cm
Product Description
A luminous and astonishing novel about life and death, forgiveness and vengeance, memory and forgetting. A novel which finds light in even the darkest of places.
My name was Salmon; like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.
This is Susie Salmon, speaking from heaven – which looks a lot like her school playground – where everything she wants appears as soon as she thinks of it – except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on Earth. Watching from here, Susie sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated, even from one another, as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet . . .
Praise for The Lovely Bones
‘Moving and compelling . . . I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed’
Maggie O’Farrell, Sunday Telegraph
‘Spare, beautiful and brutal prose . . . The Lovely Bones is compulsive enough to read in a single sitting, brilliantly intelligent, elegantly constructed and ultimately intriguing’
The Times
‘A work of extraordinary structural originality, finding a fresh way to combine great tenderness of feeling with the most brutal events. You can sense its poise from the very first sentences’
Evening Standard
‘That rare thing, a debut novel that takes the stuff of terrible tragedy and manages to transform it into something hopeful and redemptive . . . Alice Sebold’s words are strung together like the most delicate of charm bracelets. This book will stay with you long after you finish the last page’
Daily Mail
‘In The Lovely Bones, [Alice Sebold] deals with almost unthinkable subjects with humour and intelligence and a kind of mysterious grace’
New York Times Book Review
‘A keenly observed portrait of familial love and how it endures and changes over time. The novel is an elegy about a vanished place and time and the loss of childhood innocence’
New York Times
About the Author
Alice Sebold is the author of two novels, The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and the memoir Lucky. She lives in California with her husband, Glen David Gold.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316001821
Author: Alice Sebold
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Picador (6 Nov 2009)
ISBN-10: 0330511742
ISBN-13: 978-0330511742
Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.5 x 3.3 cm
Product Description
A luminous and astonishing novel about life and death, forgiveness and vengeance, memory and forgetting. A novel which finds light in even the darkest of places.
My name was Salmon; like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.
This is Susie Salmon, speaking from heaven – which looks a lot like her school playground – where everything she wants appears as soon as she thinks of it – except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on Earth. Watching from here, Susie sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated, even from one another, as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet . . .
Praise for The Lovely Bones
‘Moving and compelling . . . I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed’
Maggie O’Farrell, Sunday Telegraph
‘Spare, beautiful and brutal prose . . . The Lovely Bones is compulsive enough to read in a single sitting, brilliantly intelligent, elegantly constructed and ultimately intriguing’
The Times
‘A work of extraordinary structural originality, finding a fresh way to combine great tenderness of feeling with the most brutal events. You can sense its poise from the very first sentences’
Evening Standard
‘That rare thing, a debut novel that takes the stuff of terrible tragedy and manages to transform it into something hopeful and redemptive . . . Alice Sebold’s words are strung together like the most delicate of charm bracelets. This book will stay with you long after you finish the last page’
Daily Mail
‘In The Lovely Bones, [Alice Sebold] deals with almost unthinkable subjects with humour and intelligence and a kind of mysterious grace’
New York Times Book Review
‘A keenly observed portrait of familial love and how it endures and changes over time. The novel is an elegy about a vanished place and time and the loss of childhood innocence’
New York Times
About the Author
Alice Sebold is the author of two novels, The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and the memoir Lucky. She lives in California with her husband, Glen David Gold.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0316001821
Author Monica Mc Inerney
http://www.monicamcinerney.com/
'It's always an almost-sinful pleasure to delve into anything written by Monica McInerney, whose delightful prose brings her rich characters to sparkling life.' Irish American Post, USA
Australian-born Monica McInerney is the author of the best-selling novels Those Faraday Girls (The Faraday Girls in the USA), Family Baggage, The Alphabet Sisters, Spin the Bottle (Greetings from Somewhere Else in the USA), Upside Down Inside Out and A Taste for It, and a short story collection All Together Now, published internationally and in translation. Her articles and short stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Her most recent novel, Those Faraday Girls, won the General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards. All Together Now was shortlisted in the same category in the 2009 Australian Book Industry Awards.
In 2006, Monica was the main ambassador for the Australian Government's Books Alive national reading campaign, for which she wrote a limited edition novella called Odd One Out.
Monica, 44, grew up in a family of seven children in the Clare Valley wine region of South Australia, where her father was the railway stationmaster and her mother worked in the local library. Since then Monica has lived all around Australia (in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart) in Ireland (in County Meath and Dublin) and in London and also travelled widely.
She was a book publicist for ten years, working in Ireland and Australia and promoting authors such as Roald Dahl, Tim Winton, Edna O'Brien and Max Fatchen and events such as the Dublin International Writers' Festival.
She has also worked as an event manager and organiser of tourism festivals in the Clare Valley; as a freelance writer/editor and in arts marketing in South Australia; a public relations consultant in Tasmania; a record company press officer in Sydney; a barmaid in an Irish music pub in London and as a temp, grapepicker, hotel cleaner, kindergym instructor and waitress. Her first job out of school as a 17-year-old was as wardrobe girl (and later scriptwriter) for the children’s TV show Here’s Humphrey at Channel 9 in Adelaide. She is now a full-time writer.
For the past eighteen years she and her Irish husband have been moving back and forth between Australia and Ireland. They currently live in Dublin.
Welcome to my website.
My thanks to everyone who has been in touch to say they’ve enjoyed my short story collection All Together Now, now available in Australia and New Zealand and to be published in Ireland in September 2009. It includes several of my earliest short stories written for magazines nearly ten years ago, recent contributions to anthologies, my novella Odd One Out and two new stories. I’m delighted to say All Together Now was shortlisted for the General Fiction Book of the Year at this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards.
My most recent novel Those Faraday Girls is now available in translation in Germany (as Die Töchter der Familie Faraday, published by Goldmann) and Holland (Familie Geheimen, published by Boekerij), with editions coming soon in Romania and Italy.
'It's always an almost-sinful pleasure to delve into anything written by Monica McInerney, whose delightful prose brings her rich characters to sparkling life.' Irish American Post, USA
Australian-born Monica McInerney is the author of the best-selling novels Those Faraday Girls (The Faraday Girls in the USA), Family Baggage, The Alphabet Sisters, Spin the Bottle (Greetings from Somewhere Else in the USA), Upside Down Inside Out and A Taste for It, and a short story collection All Together Now, published internationally and in translation. Her articles and short stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Her most recent novel, Those Faraday Girls, won the General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards. All Together Now was shortlisted in the same category in the 2009 Australian Book Industry Awards.
In 2006, Monica was the main ambassador for the Australian Government's Books Alive national reading campaign, for which she wrote a limited edition novella called Odd One Out.
Monica, 44, grew up in a family of seven children in the Clare Valley wine region of South Australia, where her father was the railway stationmaster and her mother worked in the local library. Since then Monica has lived all around Australia (in Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart) in Ireland (in County Meath and Dublin) and in London and also travelled widely.
She was a book publicist for ten years, working in Ireland and Australia and promoting authors such as Roald Dahl, Tim Winton, Edna O'Brien and Max Fatchen and events such as the Dublin International Writers' Festival.
She has also worked as an event manager and organiser of tourism festivals in the Clare Valley; as a freelance writer/editor and in arts marketing in South Australia; a public relations consultant in Tasmania; a record company press officer in Sydney; a barmaid in an Irish music pub in London and as a temp, grapepicker, hotel cleaner, kindergym instructor and waitress. Her first job out of school as a 17-year-old was as wardrobe girl (and later scriptwriter) for the children’s TV show Here’s Humphrey at Channel 9 in Adelaide. She is now a full-time writer.
For the past eighteen years she and her Irish husband have been moving back and forth between Australia and Ireland. They currently live in Dublin.
Welcome to my website.
My thanks to everyone who has been in touch to say they’ve enjoyed my short story collection All Together Now, now available in Australia and New Zealand and to be published in Ireland in September 2009. It includes several of my earliest short stories written for magazines nearly ten years ago, recent contributions to anthologies, my novella Odd One Out and two new stories. I’m delighted to say All Together Now was shortlisted for the General Fiction Book of the Year at this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards.
My most recent novel Those Faraday Girls is now available in translation in Germany (as Die Töchter der Familie Faraday, published by Goldmann) and Holland (Familie Geheimen, published by Boekerij), with editions coming soon in Romania and Italy.
Literary Website of the Week - WritersSpace.Com
http://www.writerspace.com/
Breaking News!
WINNERS! See the WINNERS and check out the fabulous PRIZES donated by authors and publishers when we celebrated with authors and readers at the 2009 HALLOWEEN MASH on October 28th. We invite you to explore some of the best romance and mystery around!
KINDLE2 / SONY EREADER CONTEST! Register now to win your choice of a Kindle2 or Sony eReader from Writerspace!
Writerspace is now on Twitter! Click here to follow us!
Writerspace is on Facebook! Click here to join us!
BOOK AND AUTHOR SEARCH! Search thousands of books in our database of Writerspace authors. Search by title, author, ISBN or even category to find just what you are looking for! Start searching for a good book...
It's November; the leaves are turning and there's a new chill in the air. What better time to curl up with a new book from Christina Dodd, A. E. Maxwell, Shayla Black, Terri DuLong, Marie Ferrarella, Lori Handeland, Karen Kendall, Susan Kyle, Julia London, C J Lyons, Cheyenne McCray, Joy Nash, Caridad Pineiro, Francis Ray, and Susan Sizemore.
Read more about the November releases ....
Cape Storm
by Rachel Caine
"exhilarating weather warden thriller"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 10, 2009
The hurricane heading towards Southern Florida may make Katrina look like a sun shower; Chief Weather Warden Lewis Orwell knows what that storm did to New Orleans and the rest of the delta so he fears something even worse for Miami. He hijacks the cruise ship Grand Paradise and Read more...
Breaking News!
WINNERS! See the WINNERS and check out the fabulous PRIZES donated by authors and publishers when we celebrated with authors and readers at the 2009 HALLOWEEN MASH on October 28th. We invite you to explore some of the best romance and mystery around!
KINDLE2 / SONY EREADER CONTEST! Register now to win your choice of a Kindle2 or Sony eReader from Writerspace!
Writerspace is now on Twitter! Click here to follow us!
Writerspace is on Facebook! Click here to join us!
BOOK AND AUTHOR SEARCH! Search thousands of books in our database of Writerspace authors. Search by title, author, ISBN or even category to find just what you are looking for! Start searching for a good book...
It's November; the leaves are turning and there's a new chill in the air. What better time to curl up with a new book from Christina Dodd, A. E. Maxwell, Shayla Black, Terri DuLong, Marie Ferrarella, Lori Handeland, Karen Kendall, Susan Kyle, Julia London, C J Lyons, Cheyenne McCray, Joy Nash, Caridad Pineiro, Francis Ray, and Susan Sizemore.
Read more about the November releases ....
Cape Storm
by Rachel Caine
"exhilarating weather warden thriller"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted October 10, 2009
The hurricane heading towards Southern Florida may make Katrina look like a sun shower; Chief Weather Warden Lewis Orwell knows what that storm did to New Orleans and the rest of the delta so he fears something even worse for Miami. He hijacks the cruise ship Grand Paradise and Read more...
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Book in the Media - Skin Trade
Title: Skin Trade (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 17)
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Paperback: 608 pages
Publisher: Headline (26 Nov 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0755352556
ISBN-13: 978-0755352555
Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 4.6 cm
Product Description
The sensational new novel featuring vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake
Anita Blake’s reputation has taken some hits. Not on the work front, where she has the highest kill count of all the legal vampire executioners in the country, but on the personal front. No one seems to trust a woman who sleeps with the monsters. Still, when a vampire serial killer sends her a head from Las Vegas, Anita has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Several officers and one executioner have been slain – paranormal style...
Anita heads to Las Vegas, where she’s joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward hiding behind his mild-mannered persona. It’s a good thing Edward always has her back, because, when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses 'tiger' too strongly to ignore it. The were-tigers are very powerful, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important up the wrong way just got a lot higher...
About the Author
Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels. She lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0425227723
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Paperback: 608 pages
Publisher: Headline (26 Nov 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0755352556
ISBN-13: 978-0755352555
Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 4.6 cm
Product Description
The sensational new novel featuring vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake
Anita Blake’s reputation has taken some hits. Not on the work front, where she has the highest kill count of all the legal vampire executioners in the country, but on the personal front. No one seems to trust a woman who sleeps with the monsters. Still, when a vampire serial killer sends her a head from Las Vegas, Anita has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Several officers and one executioner have been slain – paranormal style...
Anita heads to Las Vegas, where she’s joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward hiding behind his mild-mannered persona. It’s a good thing Edward always has her back, because, when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses 'tiger' too strongly to ignore it. The were-tigers are very powerful, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important up the wrong way just got a lot higher...
About the Author
Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels. She lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0425227723
Book in the Media - Other Peoples' Husbands
Title: Other People's Husbands: They´re happily married ... but not to each other!
Author: Judy Astley
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Black Swan (24 Sep 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0552774642
ISBN-13: 978-0552774642
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
Sara's mother told her that she shouldn't marry Conrad - that the twenty-five-year age gap between them would tell in the end. The end is now (apparently) approaching fast. Conrad, a famous painter, has decided that it would be good to die before he gets seriously old and so spends his time sorting out his chaotic life. Sara, teaching art at a local college, finds that she has plenty of male company - other people's husbands, ones she tells Conrad all about, who are just good friends to her. But there's one she, somehow, doesn't get round to mentioning...
About the Author
Judy Astley has been writing novels since 1990, following several years as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. She has two grown-up daughters and lives happily with her husband in London and Cornwall.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0593060563
Author: Judy Astley
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Black Swan (24 Sep 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0552774642
ISBN-13: 978-0552774642
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
Product Description
Sara's mother told her that she shouldn't marry Conrad - that the twenty-five-year age gap between them would tell in the end. The end is now (apparently) approaching fast. Conrad, a famous painter, has decided that it would be good to die before he gets seriously old and so spends his time sorting out his chaotic life. Sara, teaching art at a local college, finds that she has plenty of male company - other people's husbands, ones she tells Conrad all about, who are just good friends to her. But there's one she, somehow, doesn't get round to mentioning...
About the Author
Judy Astley has been writing novels since 1990, following several years as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. She has two grown-up daughters and lives happily with her husband in London and Cornwall.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0593060563
Book in the Media - Three Feet From Gold
Title: Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles Into Opportunities! (Think and Grow Rich)
Authors: Mark Victor Hansen, Sharon L. Lechter, and Greg S. Reid
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Sterling (6 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1402767641
ISBN-13: 978-1402767647
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.5 x 2.8 cm
Product Description
A century ago, Napoleon Hill began researching and writing his classic, Think and Grow Rich— which sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. On this 100th anniversary comes a fresh and modern look at the core theme of Hill’s master work.
Three Feet from Gold takes the principle of never giving up from the revolutionary best seller and presents it in a new and modern fable. A young writer sets out to interview business leaders and other influential figures of today about the importance of persistence in attaining your goals—including Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of Re/Max; John St. Augustine, producer of “Oprah and Friends” Radio Programming; Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies; boxing champ Evander Holyfield; Symphony Orchestra conductor Jahja Ling; the Nobel nominated founders of Childhelp.org, Yvonne Fedderson and Sara O’Meara; and NASCAR President Mike Helton. Through these inspirational real-life stories, Three Feet from Gold offers advice about having passion for what you do, finding your own personal Success Formula, choosing good counsel, and above all: never giving up.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1402767641
Authors: Mark Victor Hansen, Sharon L. Lechter, and Greg S. Reid
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Sterling (6 Oct 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1402767641
ISBN-13: 978-1402767647
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.5 x 2.8 cm
Product Description
A century ago, Napoleon Hill began researching and writing his classic, Think and Grow Rich— which sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. On this 100th anniversary comes a fresh and modern look at the core theme of Hill’s master work.
Three Feet from Gold takes the principle of never giving up from the revolutionary best seller and presents it in a new and modern fable. A young writer sets out to interview business leaders and other influential figures of today about the importance of persistence in attaining your goals—including Dave Liniger, chairman and co-founder of Re/Max; John St. Augustine, producer of “Oprah and Friends” Radio Programming; Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies; boxing champ Evander Holyfield; Symphony Orchestra conductor Jahja Ling; the Nobel nominated founders of Childhelp.org, Yvonne Fedderson and Sara O’Meara; and NASCAR President Mike Helton. Through these inspirational real-life stories, Three Feet from Gold offers advice about having passion for what you do, finding your own personal Success Formula, choosing good counsel, and above all: never giving up.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1402767641
Book in the Media - Writing Picture Books
Title: Writing Picture Books
Author: Ann Whitford Paul
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: F&W (26 Jun 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1582975566
ISBN-13: 978-1582975566
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.7 x 2 cm
Product Description
Writers will learn the writing and revision process that will lead them to creating more salable picture book manuscripts. Respected picture book author Ann Whitford Paul covers researching the picture books market, creating characters, point of view, plotting, tips on writing rhyme, and more - all the lessons writers need to write great picture books that will appeal to both editors and agents, as well as young readers and parents.
About the Author
Ann Whitford Paul is a well-respected author of 16 picture books, as well as a well-published poet. She teaches picture book writing through the UCLA extension program, is a frequent speaker in the U.S. and abroad.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1582975566
Author: Ann Whitford Paul
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: F&W (26 Jun 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1582975566
ISBN-13: 978-1582975566
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.7 x 2 cm
Product Description
Writers will learn the writing and revision process that will lead them to creating more salable picture book manuscripts. Respected picture book author Ann Whitford Paul covers researching the picture books market, creating characters, point of view, plotting, tips on writing rhyme, and more - all the lessons writers need to write great picture books that will appeal to both editors and agents, as well as young readers and parents.
About the Author
Ann Whitford Paul is a well-respected author of 16 picture books, as well as a well-published poet. She teaches picture book writing through the UCLA extension program, is a frequent speaker in the U.S. and abroad.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1582975566
Book in the Media - Damp Squid
Title: Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare
Author: Jeremy Butterfield
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford; 1 edition (23 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 019957409X
ISBN-13: 978-0199574094
Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 13.4 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
How many words are there in the English language and where were they born? Why does spelling 'wobble' and why do meanings change? How do words behave towards each other - and how do we behave towards words? And what does this all mean for dictionary-making in the 21st century? This entertaining book has the up-to-date and authoritative answers to all the key questions about our language. Using evidence provided by the world's largest language databank, the Oxford English Corpus, Butterfield exposes the English language's peculiarities and penchants, its development and difficulties, revealing exactly how it operates. Interpolating his expert knowledge of dictionary-making, Butterfield explains how dictionaries decide which words to include, how they find definitions, and how a Corpus influences the process. Whether you are happy to give the language free rein (free reign?), or whether you are more straight-laced (strait-laced?) when it comes to change, you will be amazed at what is revealed when the English language goes buck naked. (Or should that be butt naked?)
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0199239061
Author: Jeremy Butterfield
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: OUP Oxford; 1 edition (23 Jul 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 019957409X
ISBN-13: 978-0199574094
Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 13.4 x 1.6 cm
Product Description
How many words are there in the English language and where were they born? Why does spelling 'wobble' and why do meanings change? How do words behave towards each other - and how do we behave towards words? And what does this all mean for dictionary-making in the 21st century? This entertaining book has the up-to-date and authoritative answers to all the key questions about our language. Using evidence provided by the world's largest language databank, the Oxford English Corpus, Butterfield exposes the English language's peculiarities and penchants, its development and difficulties, revealing exactly how it operates. Interpolating his expert knowledge of dictionary-making, Butterfield explains how dictionaries decide which words to include, how they find definitions, and how a Corpus influences the process. Whether you are happy to give the language free rein (free reign?), or whether you are more straight-laced (strait-laced?) when it comes to change, you will be amazed at what is revealed when the English language goes buck naked. (Or should that be butt naked?)
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/0199239061
Book in The Media - Take Ten
Title: Take Ten for Writers
Author: Bonnie Neubauer
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: F+W Media (27 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1582975337
ISBN-13: 978-1582975337
Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 15.7 x 1.8 cm
Product Description
Writers are constantly looking for ideas. This book of ten-minute writing exercises gives writers 100 exercises with ten different variables for a total of 1,000 prompts. Guaranteed to get the words flowing, this book gives writers a creative boost by prompting them to play around with starting phrases, the last sentence of the story, locations and more. Best of all, it only takes ten minutes to explore boundless possibilities!
About the Author
Bonnie Neubauer is the author of The Write-Brain Workbook and has been featured in Main Line Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Woman's World, Chicago Parent, Northwest Family Magazine, Writer's Journal, and The Marketing Minute. She is known for her high-energy workshops that are chock-full of inventive game-like exercises.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1582975337
Author: Bonnie Neubauer
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: F+W Media (27 Aug 2009)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1582975337
ISBN-13: 978-1582975337
Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 15.7 x 1.8 cm
Product Description
Writers are constantly looking for ideas. This book of ten-minute writing exercises gives writers 100 exercises with ten different variables for a total of 1,000 prompts. Guaranteed to get the words flowing, this book gives writers a creative boost by prompting them to play around with starting phrases, the last sentence of the story, locations and more. Best of all, it only takes ten minutes to explore boundless possibilities!
About the Author
Bonnie Neubauer is the author of The Write-Brain Workbook and has been featured in Main Line Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Woman's World, Chicago Parent, Northwest Family Magazine, Writer's Journal, and The Marketing Minute. She is known for her high-energy workshops that are chock-full of inventive game-like exercises.
Buy Online: http://astore.amazon.com/annduniriwri-20/detail/1582975337
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About Me
- Annette J Dunlea
- Cork, Munster, Ireland
- Annette Dunlea is a professional Irish writer. She has written two novels The Honey Trap and Always and Forever. She writes short fiction and book reviews by commission and she is a frequent contributor to the local newspapers. She writes poetry for pleasure.
Annette Dunlea Wordpress Literary Blog
Twitter Updates
AD's Literary Website
Always-and-Forever-Katie-The-Rose-of-Tralee
Buy Annette's books online
Amazon Books and Bestsellers online
Bloomsbury Publishers News
My Favourtie Books
- Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding
- Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- Engima by Robert Harris
- Hunt For Red October by Tom Clancy
- Lessons in Heartbreak by Kathy Kelly
- PS I Love You by Cecilia Ahern
- Tara Road by Maeve Binchy
- The Thorn Birds by Colleen Mc Cullough
- Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Alborn
