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Search Books Please visit the How to Order page to place an order. To search for a book, you can fill in as many or as few of the fields below as you wish. If you are not getting any results, try leaving some of the fields blank. Order Now! BookId: J1-55 Title: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus ... Author: Marlowe, A.Waed (introduction), C.E. Wheeler(notes) Publisher: Humphrey Milford Price: 28.00 Description: Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe baptised 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the "many imitations" of his play Tamburlaine, modern scholars consider him to have been the foremost dramatist in London in the years just before his mysterious early death. Some scholars also believe that he greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was baptised in the same year as Marlowe and later succeeded him as the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright. Marlowe was the first to achieve critical reputation for his use of blank verse, which became the standard for the era. His plays are distinguished by their overreaching protagonists. Themes found within Marlowe's literary works have been noted as humanistic with realistic emotions, which some scholars find difficult to reconcile with Marlowe's "anti-intellectualism" and his catering to the prurient tastes of his Elizabethan audiences for generous displays of extreme physical violence, cruelty, and bloodshed. Events in Marlowe's life were sometimes as extreme as those found in his plays. Differing sensational reports of Marlowe's death in 1593 abounded after the event and are contested by scholars today owing to a lack of good documentation. There have been many conjectures as to the nature and reason for his death, including a vicious bar-room fight, blasphemous libel against the church, homosexual intrigue, betrayal by another playwright, and espionage from the highest level: the Privy Council of Elizabeth I. An official coroner's account of Marlowe's death was discovered only in 1925, and it did little to persuade all scholars that it told the whole story, nor did it eliminate the uncertainties present in his biography. Doctor Faustus is presented with an introduction by Sir Adolphus William War and followed by notes ny C.E. Wheeler. It is a great little book from 1915, red cover with gold design o top and name of play and author on the fine spine, a bit faded. The book is in very good condition (over 100 years old0 no name of past owner , just a few cornered pages, 88 pages plus 29 pages of introduction... Order Now! BookId: J1-56 Title: The Prologue, The Knightes Tale, The Nonne Preestes Tale Author: Chaucer, Richard Morris Publisher: Oxford Price: 65.00 Description: The knightes tale oo!” says the Knight, “good sire, namoore of this”. The Knight then praises the Monk, but says that he has heard quite enough about mens' sudden falls from high status and grace, and would far rather hear about men climbing from poverty to prosperity. The Host steps in to concur, telling the Monk that his tale is boring the company, and that his talk is worth nothing, because there is no fun to be had from it. The Host asks the Monk to tell another tale - and the Monk responds that, having no desire to play and have fun, he has said all he has to say. The Host then turns to the Nun’s Priest, asking him to draw near, and asking him to be merry of heart in his tale. “Yis, sir”, says the Nun’s Priest – and, described as a “sweete preest” by the narrator, the Nun’s Priest begins his tale. The Nonne 's tale The Host, praises the tale as "myrie", and then, as he did with the Monk, suggests that the Nun's Priest would be an excellent breeding man (trede-foul) if only he were allowed to breed - for the Nun's Priest, the Host continues, is brawny, with a great neck and large chest. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is one of the best-loved and best-known of all of the Tales, and one whose genre, in Chaucer’s time and now, is instantly recognizable. It is a beast fable, just like Aesop’s fable, and as one of Chaucer’s successors, the medieval Scots poet Robert Henryson, would go on to explore in great detail, its key relationship is that between human and animal. The key question of the genre is addressed at the end by the narrator himself: telling those who find a tale about animals a folly to take the moral from the tale, disregarding the tale itself. But can we take a human moral from a tale about animals? Can an animal represent – even just in a tale – a human in any useful way? For a start, it is important to notice that the animal-human boundary is blurred even before the tale begins, when the Host mocks the Nun’s Priest (who, being a religious man, would have been celibate) and suggesting that he would have made excellent breeding stock (a “tredefowl”, or breeding-fowl, is the word he uses). The thought is an interesting one – because if we can think of the Nun’s Priest himself as potentially useful in breeding, animalistic terms, then can we think of his tale in potentially useful in human terms? The question frames the other themes of the tale. The issue of woman’s counsel is raised again (last foregrounded in Chaucer’s tale of Melibee) explicitly – should Chaunticleer take Pertelote’s advice about how to interpret his dreams? Should he disregard his dreams, and get on with his life? He does, of course, looking among the cabbages (perhaps even to find herbs), when he sees the fox – and at that point, the tale seems to suggest, he should never have listened to his wife in the first place: his fears were valid. That is, until we remember what the narrator tells us anyway at a crucial point, that his tale is “of a cok” – about a chicken. It is hardly as if we need a prophetic dream to tell us that foxes like eating chickens: its what we might call animal instinct. This is doubly highlighted when, after quoting Cato and discussing the various textual politics of dream interpretation, Chaunticleer calls his wives excitedly to him because he has found a grain of corn – and then has uncomplicated animal sex with Pertelote all night. It is a contradiction, Chaucer seems to imply, to expect unchicken-like behavior from a chicken: yet the contradiction is one which fuels the whole genre of beast fable. If the Nun’s Priest had too much human dignity and restraint to be a breeding fowl, Cato-quoting Chaunticleer has animal urges too strong to be a viable auctour. Except that, of course, with the possible exception of Arviragus and Dorigen in the Franklin's Tale, there is no more stable and robust “marriage” in the Canterbury Tales than Chanticleer and Pertelote’s. The two fowl have a fulfilling sexual relationship - and the sex occurs as a pleasurable, uncomplicated end in itself, a stark contrast with the sexual transactions of the Franklin and the Wife of Bath’s tales. In one sense, then, the animals are not so bestial. Interpreting dreams, incidentally, is a favorite theme of Middle English literature, and it frames a whole genre of poetry, known as “dream poems”, of which Chaucer himself wrote several (including the Book of the Duchess and the House of Fame). Dreams and text are closely intertwined, and – even in this tale – the way in which a dream poem juxtaposes the text of the dream with the text of the story is clear. Is a dream any more or less real than a tale? If we can take a moral from a tale, can we take one from a dream? This tale is in many ways a return to the ground, a return to basics. We start with a poor widow, and a dusty yard - a setting far removed from the high-culture classical tragedies of the Monk. Moreover, the tale keeps emphasizing anality and bottoms - in Chaunticleer’s two examples of dreams-coming-true, a dung cart and a breaking ship’s “bottom” are the hinge of the story, and Pertelote’s advice to Chaunticleer is to take some “laxatyf” to clear out his humours. There is a good-natured sense of groundedness about this tale, a return – after the dark run of Monk (interrupted), before him the punishing Melibee (and interrupted Sir Thopas) and bitter Prioress – to the humour and warmth of the early tales. Yet its theme also darkly foreshadows the end of the tale-telling project itself. If the tale, taken simplistically, does endorse prophetic dreams (though, as mentioned above, a look at the animal nature of its characters might be seen as parodying the whole concept!) then what is the “moral” that the narrator wants us to take away at the end? As ever, this isn’t totally clear. Yet one thing it might be is the importance of speaking or not speaking. One of the things that makes Chaunticleer the morally-representative chicken a problem is the fact that he can speak and argue with his wife on the one hand, yet cry “cok! Cok!” when he sees a grain on the floor. He is both chicken and human, rather like Chaucer writes as both himself and as Nun’s Priest. The tale, however, is structured by people knowing when to speak and not knowing when to speak: Pertelote speaks out to wake Chaunticleer from his dream, Chaunticleer foolishly opens his mouth to sing for the fox when he is captured, and it is Chaunticleer’s final visitation of the trap that he himself fell into on the fox which causes him in turn to open his mouth – and let Chaunticleer go. Know when you should “jangle” (chatter) and know when to hold your peace. It is a theme of course which points a sharp finger at the whole idea of a beast fable - the whole genre, we might argue, resting on the writer precisely ignoring the correct moments to have a character speak or not speak; and it also is a dangerous moral for the Tales as a whole. In a work of literature that constantly apes orality, the injunction to shut up is a serious one – and, as a comparison of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale to the Manciple’s Tale reveals – one very much in Chaucer’s mind at the very end of the Canterbury project. The book is an old study book from Oxford , edited by Richard Morris , and collaboration of Walter Skeat ... It's a 1931 edition , in prefect condition, hard cover withillustrated cover with name of author and title of the book, on a light brown cover, no dust jacket , plenty of add-on like The Life of Chaucer, his poetry and his grammar , his meter, plenty of notes and a glossary really needed in that case, 2666 pages . Very good condition , no name of past owner , etc ... Order Now! BookId: J1-57 Title: Poems Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning Publisher: Oxford university Press Price: 55.00 Description: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologized after her death; her work received renewed attention following the feminist scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, and greater recognition of women writers in English. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven. Her mother's collection of her poems forms one of the largest extant collections of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15, she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. Later in life, she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum for the pain from an early age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health. In the 1840s, Elizabeth was introduced to literary society through her distant cousin and patron John Kenyon. Her first adult collection of poems was published in 1838, and she wrote prolifically from 1841 to 1844, producing poetry, translation, and prose. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and her work helped influence reform in child labour legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth. Elizabeth's volume Poems (1844) brought her great success, attracting the admiration of the writer Robert Browning. Their correspondence, courtship, and marriage were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval. Following the wedding, she was indeed disinherited by her father. In 1846, the couple moved to Italy, where she lived for the rest of her life. Elizabeth died in Florence in 1861. A collection of her later poems were published by her husband shortly after her death. They had a son, known as "Pen" (Robert Barrett, 1849–1912). Pen devoted himself to painting until his eyesight began to fail later in life. He also built a large collection of manuscripts and memorabilia of his parents, but because he died intestate, it was sold by public auction to various bidders and then scattered upon his death. The Armstrong Browning Library has recovered some of his collection, and it now houses the world's largest collection of Browning memorabilia. Elizabeth's work had a major influence on prominent writers of the day, including the American poets Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. She is remembered for such poems as "How Do I Love Thee?" (Sonnet 43, 1845) and Aurora Leigh (1856). The book is part of the World's Classics published by Oxford #176, it was also a prize book at The Royal grammar School of Newcatle-upon-Tyne in 1918-19 ( a prize for Latin and French ) ...., It has a red cover, hard cover no dust jacket, gold lettering on the spine fading a lot for name of author and title,... the inside of the book is very clean , may have a couple of pencil marks for favoutite poems, 428 pages with index. Order Now! BookId: J1-58 Title: Selected Poems and edited by Henry Newbolt Author: Robert Browning Publisher: Thomas Nelson Price: 60.00 Description: Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His early long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work survived in Britain and the US into the 20th century. In 1834, he accompanied the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the Russian consul-general, on a brief visit to St Petersburg and began Paracelsus, which was published in 1835. The subject of the 16th-century savant and alchemist was probably suggested to him by the Comte Amédée de Ripart-Monclar, to whom it was dedicated. The publication had some commercial and critical success, being noticed by Wordsworth, Dickens, Landor, J. S. Mill and the already famous Tennyson. It is a monodrama without action, dealing with the problems confronting an intellectual trying to find his role in society. It gained him access to the London literary world. As a result of his new contacts he met Macready, who invited him to write a play. Strafford was performed five times. Browning then wrote two other plays, one of which was not performed, while the other failed, Browning having fallen out with Macready. In 1838, he visited Italy looking for background for Sordello, a long poem in heroic couplets, presented as the imaginary biography of the Mantuan bard spoken of by Dante in the Divine Comedy, canto 6 of Purgatory, set against a background of hate and conflict during the Guelph-Ghibelline wars. This was published in 1840 and met with widespread derision, gaining him the reputation of wanton carelessness and obscurity. Tennyson commented that he only understood the first and last lines. Jane Welsh Carlyle, wife of Thomas Carlyle (a friend of Browning's who deeply influenced Browning's poetry), quipped that she read the poem through and "could not tell whether Sordello was a 'a book, a city, or a man'". Browning's reputation began to make a partial recovery with the publication, 1841–1846, of Bells and Pomegranates, a series of eight pamphlets, originally intended just to include his plays. Fortunately for Browning's career, his publisher, Moxon, persuaded him to include some "dramatic lyrics", some of which had already appeared in periodicals. In Florence, probably from early in 1853, Browning worked on the poems that eventually composed his two-volume Men and Women, for which he is now well known, although in 1855, when they were published, they made relatively little impact. In 1861, Elizabeth died in Florence. Among those whom he found consoling in that period[vague] was the novelist and poet Isa Blagden, with whom he and his wife had a voluminous correspondence. The following year Browning returned to London, taking Pen with him, who by then was 12 years old. They made their home in 17 Warwick Crescent, Maida Vale. It was only when he became part of the London literary scene—albeit while paying frequent visits to Italy (though never again to Florence)—that his reputation started to take off. In 1868, after five years' work, he completed and published the long blank-verse poem The Ring and the Book. Based on a convoluted murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem is composed of 12 books. The book is an old Nelson collection book with dark green leather cover. decorated by a golden tree and Robert Browning name . the spine is solid but very used and defaced , the inside is good, clean and easy to read , very fine paper, 539 pages ; aninteresting add up is a little note separated from the book "with the Compliments" of the Headmaster of the Royal Grammar School in Newcatle-on-Tne, and dated 2/2/21926. Order Now! BookId: J1-59 Title: The Poems and Plays of Robert Browning 1833-1844 Author: Robert Browning Publisher: J M Dent Everyman's library Price: 50.00 Description: Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His early long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work survived in Britain and the US into the 20th century. In 1833, Browning anonymously published his first major published work, Pauline, and in 1840 he published Sordello, which was widely regarded as a failure. He also tried his hand at drama, but his plays, including Strafford, which ran for five nights in 1837, and the Bells and Pomegranates series, were for the most part unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the techniques he developed through his dramatic monologues—especially his use of diction, rhythm, and symbol—are regarded as his most important contribution to poetry, influencing such major poets of the twentieth century as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost. After reading Elizabeth Barrett’s Poems (1844) and corresponding with her for a few months, Browning met her in 1845. They were married in 1846, against the wishes of Barrett's father. The couple moved to Pisa and then Florence, where they continued to write. They had a son, Robert "Pen" Browning, in 1849, the same year his Collected Poems was published. Elizabeth inspired Robert's collection of poems Men and Women (1855), which he dedicated to her. Now regarded as one of Browning's best works, the book was received with little notice at the time; its author was then primarily known as Elizabeth Barrett's husband. Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861, and Robert and Pen Browning soon moved to London. Browning went on to publish Dramatis Personae (1864), and The Ring and the Book (1868–1869). The latter, based on a seventeenth-century Italian murder trial, received wide critical acclaim, finally earning a twilight of reknown and respect in Browning's career. The Browning Society was founded while he still lived, in 1881, and he was awarded honorary degrees by Oxford University in 1882 and the University of Edinburgh in 1884. Robert Browning died on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando: Fancies and Facts, was published, in 1889. The book is a standard everyman's library book , in good condition , the cover is a yellow-green mix, with name of author and title on the spine in the same color, the inside of the book is clean , name of the past owner on endpaper, but no writing, marking or spoiling in the text , 584 pages .... Order Now! BookId: J1-6 Title: Penguin Modern Poets #6 Jack Clemo, Edward Lucie-Smith, George MacBeth Author: Jack Clemo, Edward Lucie-Smith, George MacBeth Publisher: Penguin Price: 28.00 Description: This book is new, no marking, writing or name, 121 pages Order Now! BookId: J1-60 Title: The complete Poetical works of Percy Bisshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the Poems Author: Percy Bisshe Shelley Publisher: Henry Frowde Oxford University Press Price: 480.00 Description: London: Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1912, Oxford Edition. Dark Burgundy Morocco binding, attractively gilt decorated and structurally sound. xxiv, 912 pages of text including an index of first lines . Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Shelley. Approximately 8 inches tall. Externally Spine very good condition gilt titles and attractive gilt decoration( Pink and gold flowers surrounding Shelley name in gold). Sound Corners very good condition gently bumped and worn. Boards very good condition . Page edges good condition All gold . Paste downs very good condition . End papers good condition marbled , Title good condition . Pages good condition b/w portrait frontispiece of Shelley, lightly tanned, . Binding very good condition sound, attractive. silk ribbon marking page holder. Percy Bysshe Shelley 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was a British writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets.A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats.American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelley's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but in recent decades he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work.Among his best-known works are "Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), "To a Skylark" (1820), the philosophical essay "The Necessity of Atheism" (1811), which his friend T. J. Hogg may have co-authored, and the political ballad "The Mask of Anarchy" (1819). His other major works include the verse drama The Cenci (1819) and long poems such as Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude (1815), Julian and Maddalo (1819), Adonais (1821), Prometheus Unbound (1820)—widely considered his masterpiece—Hellas (1822), and his final, unfinished work, The Triumph of Life (1822). Shelley also wrote prose fiction and a quantity of essays on political, social, and philosophical issues. Much of this poetry and prose was not published in his lifetime, or only published in expurgated form, due to the risk of prosecution for political and religious libel.From the 1820s, his poems and political and ethical writings became popular in Owenist, Chartist, and radical political circles, and later drew admirers as diverse as Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, and George Bernard Shaw. Shelley's life was marked by family crises, ill health, and a backlash against his atheism, political views, and defiance of social conventions. He went into permanent self-exile in Italy in 1818 and over the next four years produced what Zachary Leader and Michael O'Neill call "some of the finest poetry of the Romantic period". His second wife, Mary Shelley, was the author of Frankenstein. He died in a boating accident in 1822 at the age of 29. Order Now! BookId: J1-61/62 Title: The Poetical Works of Robert Browning with portraits in 2 volumes Author: Robert Browning Publisher: Smith, Elder & co Price: 350.00 Description: Beautiful Half-leather bound of 2 volumes from 1904 in excellent condition .Label with author name and title of book in gold letter , the color of the boards matching the leather in Red burgundy cloth. , the end paper with a beautiful marble design with gold and burgundy mixed colors.. Both volumes have a portrait of Robert Browning as a frontispiece, next to the title page , one in 1835 , the other one in 1881 and both with a signature (fac-simile of course ) of the Poet The text in the books is printed in two columns for easier reading of poetry. . They are thick book in prefect condition, no marking, writing or spoiling , no cornering, no tear.volume one has 748 pages, volume 2 772 pages , including a general index ....I believe it to be the most complete edition of the works. Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His early long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work survived in Britain and the US into the 20th century. Legacy of Robert Browning Few poets have suffered more than Browning from hostile incomprehension or misplaced admiration, both arising very often from a failure to recognize the predominantly dramatic nature of his work. The bulk of his writing before 1846 was for the theatre; thereafter his major poems showed his increasing mastery of the dramatic monologue. This consists essentially of a narrative spoken by a single character and amplified by his comments on his story and the circumstances in which he is speaking. From his own knowledge of the historical or other events described, or else by inference from the poem itself, the reader is eventually enabled to assess the intelligence and honesty of the narrator and the value of the views he expresses. This type of dramatic monologue, since it depends on the unconscious provision by the speaker of the evidence by which the reader is to judge him, is eminently suitable for the ironist. Browning’s fondness for this form has, however, encouraged the two most common misconceptions of the nature of his poetry—that it is deliberately obscure and that its basic “message” is a facile optimism. Neither of these criticisms is groundless; both are incomplete. Browning is not always difficult. In many poems, especially short lyrics, he achieves effects of obvious felicity. Nevertheless, his superficial difficulties, which prevent an easy understanding of the sense of a passage, are evident enough: his attempts to convey the broken and irregular rhythms of speech make it almost impossible to read the verse quickly; his elliptical syntax sometimes disconcerts and confuses the reader but can be mastered with little effort; certain poems, such as Sordello or “Old Pictures in Florence,” require a considerable acquaintance with their subjects in order to be understood; and his fondness for putting his monologues into the mouths of charlatans and sophists, such as Mr. Sludge or Napoleon III, obliges the reader to follow a chain of subtle or paradoxical arguments. All these characteristics stand in the way of easy reading. But even when individual problems of style and technique have been resolved, the poems’ interest is seldom exhausted. First, Browning often chooses an unexpected point of view, especially in his monologues, thus forcing the reader to accept an unfamiliar perspective. Second, he is capable of startling changes of focus within a poem. For example, he chooses subjects in themselves insignificant, as in “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,” and treats through them the eternal themes of poetry. This transition from particular observation to transcendental truth presents much the same challenge to the reader as do the metaphysical poets of the 17th century and much the same excitement. Third, because Browning seldom presents a speaker without irony, there is a constant demand on the reader to appreciate exactly the direction of satiric force in the poem. Even in a melodious poem such as “A Toccata of Galuppi’s,” the valid position must be distinguished from the false at every turn of the argument, while in the major casuistic monologues, such as “Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” the shifts of sympathy are subtler still. It has also been objected that Browning uses his poetry as a vehicle for his philosophy, which is not of itself profound or interesting, being limited to an easy optimism. But Browning’s dramatic monologues must, as he himself insisted, be recognized as the utterances of fictitious persons drawing their strength from their appropriateness in characterizing the speaker, and not as expressions of Browning’s own sentiments. Thus his great gallery of imagined characters is to be regarded as an exhaustive catalog of human motives, not as a series of self-portraits. Nevertheless, certain fundamental assumptions are made so regularly that they may be taken to represent Browning’s personal beliefs, such as his Christian faith. In matters of human conduct his sympathies are with those who show loving hearts, honest natures, and warmth of feeling; certainly these qualities are never satirized. He is in general on the side of those who commit themselves wholeheartedly to an ideal, even if they fail. By itself this might suggest rather a naive system of values, yet he also, sometimes even in the same poem, shows his understanding of those who have been forced to lower their standards and accept a compromise. Thus, although Browning is far from taking a cynical or pessimistic view of man’s nature or destiny, his hopes for the world are not simple and unreasoning. In The Ring and the Book Browning displays all his distinctive qualities. He allows a dramatic monologue to each character he portrays—to the man on trial for murder, to his young wife, whom he has mortally wounded, to her protector, to various Roman citizens, to the opposing lawyers, and to the pope, who ultimately decides the accused’s fate. Each monologue deals with substantially the same occurrences, but each, of course, describes and interprets them differently. By permitting the true facts to emerge gradually by inference from these conflicting accounts, Browning reveals with increasing subtlety the true natures of his characters. As each great monologue illuminates the moral being of the speaker, it becomes clear that nothing less than the whole ethical basis of human actions is in question. For over 20,000 lines Browning explores his theme, employing an unfaltering blank verse, rising often to passages of moving poetry, realizing in extraordinary detail the life of 17th-century Rome, and creating a series of characters as diverse and fully realized as those in any novel. During Browning’s lifetime, critical recognition came rapidly after 1864; and, although his books never sold as well as his wife’s or Tennyson’s, he thereafter acquired a considerable and enthusiastic public. In the 20th century his reputation, along with those of the other great Victorians, declined, and his work did not enjoy a wide reading public, perhaps in part because of increasing skepticism of the values implied in his poetry. He has, however, influenced many modern poets, such as Robert Frost and Ezra Pound, partly through his development of the dramatic monologue, with its emphasis on the psychology of the individual and his stream of consciousness, but even more through his success in writing about the variety of modern life in language that owed nothing to convention. As long as technical accomplishment, richness of texture, sustained imaginative power, and a warm interest in humanity are counted virtues, Browning will be numbered among the great English poets. Order Now! BookId: J1-63/64 Title: The Poems of John Keats Florence edition Author: John Keats Publisher: Chatto & Windus Price: 550.00 Description: Hardcover. First edition. Condition: Near Fine. 1915 Poems of John Keats arranged in chronological order with a preface by Sidney Colvin edited by Florence Press , Chatto and Windus ...including Endymion Hyperion,etc... The Poems of John Keats is a two-volume, comprehensive collection of the works of English Romantic poet John Keats. Keats poetry is among the most popular and widely analyzed in English literature. Keats is known for his sensual imagery, particularly in his series of odes. This collection contains a wide range of Keats works, including odes, sonnets, narrative poems, and more. Some of the most notable poems in the collection are Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, Lamia, Isabella, Endymion, and Hyperion. This collection also features an introduction with a biography of John Keats by Sidney Colvin. Price: $550 KEATS, John; COLVIN, Sidney Complete; Two volumes Vol. I xviii, 338pages, Vol. II viii, 372 pages. Both books are in perfect condition , a grey hard cover , no dust jacket, name of books and author on top right corner of the book in gold letter , same on the spine... the Florence special printing gives all its value to the book helping in the easyness of reading the poems , it was made with love for the lovers of poetry more than the student ... Two great books. ! John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Jorge Luis Borges named his first time reading Keats an experience he felt all his life. Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensuality", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", "Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". Order Now! BookId: J1-7 Title: Penguin Modern Poets #7 Richard Murphy, John Silkin, Nathaniel Tarn Author: Richard Murphy, John Silkin, Nathaniel Tarn Publisher: Penguin Price: 28.00 Description: This book is new, no marking, writing or name, 112 pages Order Now! BookId: J1-8 Title: Penguin Modern Poets #8 Edwin Brock, Geoffrey Hill, Stevie Smith Author: Edwin Brock, Geoffrey Hill, Stevie Smith Publisher: Penguin Price: 28.00 Description: This book is new, no marking, writing or name, 121 pages Order Now! BookId: J1-9 Title: Penguin Modern Poets #9 Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, William Carlos Williams Author: Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, William Carlos Williams Publisher: Penguin Price: 28.00 Description: This book is new, no marking, writing or name, 117 pages Order Now! BookId: J2-001 Title: British Ballads Author: Arthur Burrell Publisher: J M Dent Price: 35.00 Description: Hardcover. no dust jacket ..J M Dent 1915 Condition: Good. First Edition. Grey cloth boards very good, black text and design. Spine with title of book very good. English Literature for Schools series. Pages are very clean , . 124 pages , a bit of tanning. Includes old, partly old and new ballads (Tennyson, Longfellow, Spencer and more) which are important in the history of popular literature. A nice little book in great condition. Order Now! BookId: J2-0010 Title: Poems Author: W H Auden Publisher: Faber & Faber Price: Description: Poems (1930) | Faber. Collected together in a one-off signed pamphlet edition, these Arctic poems speak to us from the front line of environmental tragedy.… A thrilling tale of murder and mystery in a city where history has run a little differently — from the bestselling… Auden's electrifying, enigmatic debut collection, entitled Poems, was published by Faber in 1930. This is the Original First edition ... 'The rhythmic disjunctions in Auden's lines, the fractured elements of narrative or argument, are wakenings to a new reality, lyric equivalents of the fault Auden intuited in the life of his times ... He arrived at a mode that was stricken with premonitions of an awful thing and was adequate to give expression to those premonitions by strictly poetic means.' Seamus Heaney This is a First edition by Faber and faber , soft paper edition , part of the cover has been cut for some unknown reason , very likely it was spoiled... Blue cover with Squared in title and author's name. the inside of the book is cleaned a few under-linings with pencil, and a few spots of tanning , linings with pencil, initials of the past owner on the end papers .... 79 pages in all Order Now! BookId: J2-0011 Title: As I walked out One evening Author: W H Austen Publisher: Vintage Price: 30.00 Description: First edition , soft paper Vintage edition. One of His favourite poem is there used as title of the book : The poem's speaker wanders out for an evening stroll and overhears a kind of debate between a young lover, who believes that "love has no ending," and all the city's clocks, which counter that "you cannot conquer time." These personified clocks sing of all life's disappointments and endings—but also suggest that,in spite of the fact that love does have an ending, one must nevertheless go on trying to "love your crooked neighbour / With your crooked heart." Love isn't a liberating, all-conquering force, this poem says: it's a humble, brave task, taken on in the face of death itself. This poem first appeared in Auden's 1940 collection Another Time. Wystan Hugh Auden 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae". He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys. In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria. He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky. Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Life. The book is a standard soft cover from Vintage book , first edition , in new condition , no marking, writing or spoiling of any kind ...225 pages Order Now! BookId: J2-0012 Title: Some poems First edition 1940 Author: W H Auden Publisher: Faber & Faber Price: 140.00 Description: Very rare in this condition, First edition of Auden "Some Poems" 1940. In a ble cover dust jacket as new , with title and name of author in capital blue letters. , price uncut , perfect . The book itself, hard cover , pale orange cloth cover, with a repeat of the title and author's name in blue latters. inside is new , no marking, writing or spoiling, no name of past owner and no cornered pages .... a few spots of tanning on the end papers...80 pages , a nice poetry book . Wystan Hugh Auden 1 February 1907 – 29 September 1973[1]) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae". He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys. In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria. He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men. In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky. Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Order Now! BookId: J2-0013 Title: W H Auden The English Poets Penguin Author: W H Auden Publisher: Penguin books Price: 28.00 Description: Wystan Hugh Auden 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973[1]) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae". He was born in York and grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family. He attended various English independent (or public) schools and studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. After a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in British private preparatory schools, then travelled to Iceland and China to write books about his journeys. In 1939, he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946, retaining his British citizenship. He taught from 1941 to 1945 in American universities, followed by occasional visiting professorships in the 1950s. From 1947 to 1957 he wintered in New York and summered in Ischia; from 1958 until the end of his life he wintered in New York (in Oxford in 1972–73) and summered in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria. He came to wide public attention with his first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930; it was followed in 1932 by The Orators. Three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938 built his reputation as a left-wing political writer. Auden moved to the United States partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 long poem The Age of Anxiety, the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era. From 1956 to 1961 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford; his lectures were popular with students and faculty, and served as the basis for his 1962 prose collection The Dyer's Hand. Auden and Christopher Isherwood maintained a lasting but intermittent sexual relationship from around 1927 to 1939, while both also had briefer but more intense relations with other men.In 1939, Auden fell in love with Chester Kallman and regarded their relationship as a marriage, but this ended in 1941 when Kallman refused to accept the faithful relations that Auden demanded. However, the two maintained their friendship, and from 1947 until Auden's death they lived in the same house or apartment in a non-sexual relationship, often collaborating on opera libretti such as that of The Rake's Progress, to music by Igor Stravinsky. Auden was a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential, and critical views on his work ranged from sharply dismissive—treating him as a lesser figure than W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot—to strongly affirmative, as in Joseph Brodsky's statement that he had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century". After his death, his poems became known to a much wider public through films, broadcasts, and popular media. Penguin book from 1958 , in very good condition, soft cover , no dust jacket, 200 pages , a nice selection of Poems selected by the author himself . Order Now! BookId: J2-0014 Title: The Poetry of George Peele Author: George Peele/ Edward Tandy (introduction) , Malcom Easton (w Publisher: Chrost's Hospital Price: 50.00 Description: A very rare little book of Poetry . with a great frontispiece with a devilish faunus with his grapes and a couple more woodcuts by Malcom Easton. George Peele (baptised 25 July 1556 – buried 9 November 1596) was an English translator, poet, and dramatist, who is most noted for his supposed but not universally accepted collaboration with William Shakespeare on the play Titus Andronicus. Many anonymous Elizabethan plays have been attributed to him, but his reputation rests mainly on Edward I, The Old Wives' Tale, The Battle of Alcazar, The Arraignment of Paris, and David and Bethsabe. The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, the immediate source for Shakespeare's King John, has been published und er his name. Peele was the equivalent of the French Francois Villon , with alife of a drunkard and hidden talents of a Playwright and poet.... He may have been a relative of Shakespeare... The book is a simple carboard hardcover with title on a white label . The inside is clean , some tanning spots , name of Past owner who seems to have been at Christ hospital where he got the book ? 30 pages in all.... Order Now! BookId: J2-0015 Title: The Poems of John Donne Author: John Donne/ Sir Herbert Grierson Publisher: Oxford university Press Price: 50.00 Description: Oxford University Press, 1951. Hardcover, Navy blue cloth cover, gilt lettering and on spine is a bit faded, binding sturdy and intact, bit of age toning to pages, some rubbing to joints, trace handling marks, plain endpapers with some sunning along edges. Sticker which says Presented by Kingston Monthly meeting , A nice, clean and unmarked copy. 8vo[octavo or approx. 6 x 9 inches], 404pp., indexed. nice collectible book in great condition. John Donne (1571i or 1572[– 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England.Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631) . He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorised. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits. Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanizing, literature, pastimes and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children.In 1615 he was ordained Anglican deacon and then priest, although he did not want to take holy orders and only did so because the king ordered it. He served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614. His work has received much criticism over the years, especially concerning his metaphysical form. Donne is generally considered the most prominent member of the metaphysical poets, a phrase coined in 1781 by Samuel Johnson, following a comment on Donne by John Dryden. Dryden had written of Donne in 1693: "He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love." Order Now! BookId: J2-0016 Title: Love Poems Author: John Donne Publisher: Phoenix Price: 10.00 Description: Throughout his life, from his profligate youth to his appointment by James 1as dean of St Paul's , John Donne struggle d to reconcile within himself -ultimately , perhaps, without success,- the three dominant and conflicting elements of his personality: the intellectual and sholarly, the religious and mystical, the physical and sensuous. "THe songs and sonnets" , passionate and erotic , yet startingly sincere and realistic, confirm his place among the greatest poets of the English language . Small soft cover of 60 pages published by Phoenix,, in very good condition but for the cut of the top of the first page ( very likely a name cut-out), the booklet is other wise new and contains 44 poems of john Donne including the Flea, my favourite ! Order Now! BookId: J2-0017 Title: Rights of Passage Author: Edward Brathwaite Publisher: Oxford University Press Price: 20.00 Description: The Honourable Edward Kamau Brathwaite, 11 May 1930 – 4 February 2020), was a Barbadian poet and academic, widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon. Formerly a professor of Comparative Literature at New York University, Brathwaite was the 2006 International Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry Born to Slow Horses.[3 Brathwaite held a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex (1968) and was the co-founder of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). He received both the Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships in 1983, and was a winner of the 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bussa Award, the Casa de las Américas Prize for poetry, and the 1999 Charity Randall Citation for Performance and Written Poetry from the International Poetry Forum. Brathwaite was noted for his studies of Black cultural life both in Africa and throughout the African diasporas of the world in works such as Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica (1970); The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820 (1971); Contradictory Omens (1974); Afternoon of the Status Crow (1982); and History of the Voice (1984), the publication of which established him as the authority of note on nation language Brathwaite often made use of a combination of customized typefaces (some resembling dot matrix printing) and spelling, referred to as Sycorax video style. the book isa soft cover in very good condition, very clean in and out , 88 pages . Order Now! BookId: J2-0018 Title: Raider's Dawn Author: Alun Lewis Publisher: George Allen & Unwin Price: 40.00 Description: First edition, third impression 1942 . This little hardcover book is the only one of Alun Lewis Poems printed during his life time ... White cover with a portrait of Alun Lewis by John Petts, a similar picture is used as a frontispiece by the title page . No dust jacket but the cover makes folio type allowing notes on the book inside. the pages are clean , no name of past owner , no writing, marking, etc ..94 pages .... Great Poetry and certainly too short a life ! Alun Lewis was one of the most promising and best known English language poets of the Second World War. He was born on July 1st 1915 in Cwmaman near Aberdare, the eldest of the four children of Thomas John Lewis, a schoolteacher, and his wife Gwladys Elizabeth Evans, a minister's daughter. Growing up as the son of a middle-class family in a depressed mining community, Alun developed a strong socialist conscience. He won scholarships to Cowbridge Grammar School, and Aberystwyth and Manchester universities, where he dabbled in left-wing politics, worked on the university magazine and published his first poems and stories in The Observer and Time and Tide in 1937 – these launched his literary career. Whilst working as a teacher he met Gweno Ellis, whom he married on 5th July 1941. He became increasingly concerned as the threat of war escalated, publicly announced his pacifism in a newspaper article, and wrote to a friend 'The army, the bloody, silly, ridiculous, red-faced army … God save me from joining up.' He however later wrote 'I shall probably join up … I've been unable to settle the moral issue satisfactorily … I have a deep sort of fatalist feeling that I'll go … But … I'm not going to kill. Be killed perhaps, instead.' (Selected Poetry, 18). He was suffering from serious depression at this time. He impulsively joined the Royal Engineers in 1940, but hated military life. He qualified as a Second Lieutenant in the South Wales Borderers in October 1941, and again fell into depression which lasted until the end of the summer of 1942. In October he set sail for India, leaving his wife with some piercing poems of separation. They never saw each other again. In India he was troubled by the peasants poverty, and suffered another bout of depression in November 1943, but by December he wrote 'I'm beginning to be free … of the one destroying burden, despair' In February 1944 his unit were moved to Burma, and hours before the start of his first patrol on 5 March 1944 he was found shot in the head and died from his wounds. Despite suggestions of suicide, the enquiry concluded that he had tripped and accidentally shot himself. His early death was a huge loss to Welsh literature and to the wider literary world. This manuscript is part of a collection of manuscripts and papers presented to the National Library by Alun Lewis' widow in June 1988. Books and other items were also received at the same time, as well as an engraving of him by John Petts that was used as a cover illustration to his first edition of poems, Raiders' Dawn and other poems in 1942. This was the only collection of poetry published in his lifetime, which established him as one of 'the finest poets of his generation'. The volume was well received by the public and critics alike, and was re-printed six times. He wrote mainly about himself within the narrow limits of the war, and became one of the very few great poets to record their experience of the Second World War in verse. Most of the poems are about the loneliness of military life, composed while he was a soldier in the training camps and whilst living among the civilians in the bombed cities, and speak with realistic awareness, of death, and of love in the shadow of death with the 'sensitive integrity of an English soldier'. They 'reveal a compassionate concern for the victims of oppression and tyranny: Welsh miners, private soldiers, women, and children.' Order Now! BookId: J2-0019 Title: Selected Poems of Edward Thomas Author: Edward Thomas/ R S Thomas Publisher: Faber & Faber Price: 18.00 Description: Philip Edward Thomas (3 March 1878 – 9 April 1917) was a British writer of poetry and prose. He is sometimes considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. He only started writing poetry at the age of 36, but by that time he had already been a prolific critic, biographer, nature writer and travel writer for two decades. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France. Enjoy another piece of classic literary history with this rare, vintage book by R.S. Thomas. Since his tragic death in the First World War Edward Thomas’s fame has steadily grown. This new selection, made by a living poet who has Edward Thomas’s deep but unsentimental feeling for and response to nature, will undoubtedly help to increase the circle of his admirers. This is a lovely classic story that would make a wonderful addition to any home collection. The book is soft cover from Faber and faber , no dust jacker, full page title and author's name, in good, clean condition, 64 pages ... Order Now! BookId: J2-002 Title: The Poems of Rudyard Kipling with a bibliographical sketch by Henry Ketcham Author: Rudyard Kipling Publisher: A L Burt Company Price: 40.00 Description: Joseph Rudyard Kipling 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology (The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888). His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift". Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both.Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey. Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century.Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with." Of Kipling's verse, such as his Barrack-Room Ballads, Eliot writes "of a number of poets who have written great poetry, only... a very few whom I should call great verse writers. And unless I am mistaken, Kipling's position in this class is not only high, but unique." This is certainly a first edition of 1915 of Rudyard Kipling Ballads and other poems . The book is a simple paperback , no dust jacket, lilac purple cloth cover , the name has totally disappeared , fading, but is in excellent shape for the age. 276 pages, the text is clear , a bit of tanning , mostly on the end papers, no writing, marking or spoiling , very clear printing for easy reading. Three main parts : - the Barrack-room ballads - Departmental Ditties - and Other verses.. a great book ! Order Now! BookId: J2-0021 Title: Thomas Hardy The Penguin Poets Author: Thomas Hardy / introduced by W E Williams Publisher: Penguin Books Price: 28.00 Description: Penguin, 1960. 1st edition. Softcover. Good paperback copy; edges somewhat dust-dulled and nicked. Light foxing to the wrapper and the preliminary pages as well as minor browning to the pages. Remains quite well-preserved overall. Physical description: 220 pages; Thomas Hardy OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Aud'en and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Poetry:I In 1898, Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years. While some suggest that Hardy gave up writing novels following the harsh criticism of Jude the Obscure in 1896, the poet C. H. Sisson calls this "hypothesis" "superficial and absurd". In the twentieth century Hardy published only poetry. Thomas Hardy published Poems of the Past and the Present in 1901, which contains "The Darkling Thrush" (originally titled "The Centur's End"), one of his best known poems about the turn of the century. Thomas Hardy wrote in a great variety of poetic forms, including lyrics, ballads, satire, dramatic monologues, and dialogue, as well as a three-volume epic closet drama The Dynasts (1904–08)and though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads, he "was never conventional," and "persistently experiment[ed] with different, often invented, stanza forms and metres,"and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction". Hardy wrote a number of significant war poems that relate to both the Boer Wars and World War I, including "Drummer Hodge", "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'", and "The Man He Killed"; his work had a profound influence on other war poets such as Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. Hardy in these poems often used the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers and their colloquial speech. A theme in the Wessex Poems is the long shadow that the Napoleonic Wars cast over the 19th century, as seen, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and "Leipzig". The Napoleonic War is the subject of The Dynasts. Some of Hardy's more famous poems are from Poems 1912–13, which later became part of Satires of Circumstance (1914), written following the death of his wife Emma in 1912. They had been estranged for 20 years, and these lyric poems express deeply felt "regret and remorse".[ Poems like "After a Journey", "The Voice", and others from this collection "are by general consent regarded as the peak of his poetic achievement".In a 2007 biography on Hardy, Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife Emma, beginning with these elegies, which she describes as among "the finest and strangest celebrations of the dead in English poetry." Many of Hardy's poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and "the perversity of fate", but the best of them present these themes with "a carefully controlled elegiac feeling". Irony is an important element in a number of Hardy's poems, including "The Man He Killed" and "Are You Digging on My Grave". A few of Hardy's poems, such as "The Blinded Bird", a melancholy polemic against the sport of vinkenzetting, reflect his firm stance against animal cruelty, exhibited in his antivivisectionist views and his membership in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A number of notable English composers, including Gerald Finzi, Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst, set poems by Hardy to music. Holst also wrote the orchestral tone poem Egdon Heath: A Homage to Thomas Hardy in 1927. Although his poems were initially not as well received as his novels had been, Hardy is now recognised as one of the great poets of the 20th century, and his verse had a profound influence on later writers, including Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Philip Larkin. Larkin included 27 poems by Hardy compared with only nine by T. S. Eliot in his edition of the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973. There were fewer poems by W. B. Yeats. Order Now! BookId: J2-0022 Title: The metaphysical poets Author: Helen Gardner Publisher: Penguin Price: 32.00 Description: The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterized by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse. Dame Helen Louise Gardner, DBE, FBA was an English literary critic and academic. Gardner began her teaching career at the University of Birmingham, and from 1966 to 1975 was a Merton Professor of English Literature, the first woman to have that position. This is a great book with many poems you may remember from school and many others you never heard of , great for you library or take around for a quite evening by the fire.... Great book by Penguin , as new but for a couple of annotations.330 pages Order Now! BookId: J2-0023 Title: Poems by Matthew Arnold Author: Matthew Arnold / Alice Meynell Publisher: The Gresham Publishing Co Price: 75.00 Description: Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education. In 1852, Arnold published his second volume of poems, Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. In 1853, he published Poems: A New Edition, a selection from the two earlier volumes famously excluding Empedocles on Etna, but adding new poems, Sohrab and Rustum and The Scholar Gipsy. In 1854, Poems: Second Series appeared; also a selection, it included the new poem Balder Dead. Arnold was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1857, and he was the first in this position to deliver his lectures in English rather than in Latin. He was re-elected in 1862. On Translating Homer (1861) and the initial thoughts that Arnold would transform into Culture and Anarchy were among the fruits of the Oxford lectures. In 1859, he conducted the first of three trips to the continent at the behest of parliament to study European educational practices. He self-published The Popular Education of France (1861), the introduction to which was later published under the title Democracy (1879). In 1865, Arnold published Essays in Criticism: First Series. Essays in Criticism: Second Series would not appear until November 1888, shortly after his death. In 1866, he published Thyrsis, his elegy to Clough who had died in 1861. Culture and Anarchy, Arnold's major work in social criticism (and one of the few pieces of his prose work currently in print) was published in 1869. Literature and Dogma, Arnold's major work in religious criticism appeared in 1873. In 1883 and 1884, Arnold toured the United States and Canada delivering lectures on education, democracy and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1883. In 1886, he retired from school inspection and made another trip to America. An edition of Poems by Matthew Arnold, with an introduction by A. C. Benson and illustrations by Henry Ospovat, was published in 1900 by John Lane.[ The book is a nice collectible hard cover without a dust jacket , greenish blue cloth cover with gilt decoration and name of Arnold on the front , also on the spine gilt deco and title , name of author in gold. The cover is in very good condition , slightly faded on the spine maybe. the inside of the book is perfect , end papers with floral and very fine paper, , red and black inks are used in the printing, theme, very clean typing on a clear paper , 360 pages of poetry .... small annotation on front end paper from last owner , a Christmas gift in 1928.Portrait of Arnold on frontispiece by the title page . Order Now! BookId: J2-0024 Title: Selected Poetry and Prose Matthew Arnold Author: Matthew Arnold Publisher: Holt , Rinehart Price: 24.00 Description: Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education. In 1845, after a short interlude of teaching at Rugby, Arnold was elected Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. In 1847, he became Private Secretary to Lord Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council. In 1849, he published his first book of poetry, The Strayed Reveller. In 1850 Wordsworth died; Arnold published his "Memorial Verses" in the older poet in Fraser's Magazine. n 1852, Arnold published his second volume of poems, Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. In 1853, he published Poems: A New Edition, a selection from the two earlier volumes famously excluding Empedocles on Etna, but adding new poems, Sohrab and Rustum and The Scholar Gipsy. In 1854, Poems: Second Series appeared; also a selection, it included the new poem Balder Dead. Arnold was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1857, and he was the first in this position to deliver his lectures in English rather than in Latin. He was re-elected in 1862. On Translating Homer (1861) and the initial thoughts that Arnold would transform into Culture and Anarchy were among the fruits of the Oxford lectures. In 1859, he conducted the first of three trips to the continent at the behest of parliament to study European educational practices. He self-published The Popular Education of France (1861), the introduction to which was later published under the title Democracy (1879). The book is a standard paperback in very good condition . Very clean in and out , , a bit of shelf use but no marking, writing or spoiling , 353 pages. Order Now! BookId: J2-002410 Title: The war Prayer Mark Twain Author: Mark Twain Publisher: Harper Price: 18.00 Description: The War Prayer", a short story or prose poem by Mark Twain, is a scathing indictment of war, and particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war. The structure of the work is simple: an unnamed country goes to war, and patriotic citizens attend a church service for soldiers who have been called up. The people call upon God to grant them victory and protect their troops. Suddenly, an "aged stranger" appears and announces that he is God's messenger. He explains to them that he is there to speak aloud the second part of their prayer for victory, the part which they have implicitly wished for but have not spoken aloud themselves: the prayer for the suffering and destruction of their enemies. What follows is a grisly depiction of hardships inflicted on war-torn nations by their conquerors. The story ends with the man being ignored. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature".His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884),[4] with the latter often called the "Great American Novel". Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner. Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer early in his career, and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to his older brother Orion Clemens' newspaper. Twain later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, which later gave him the material for Life on the Mississippi (1883). Soon after, Twain headed west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. He first achieved success as a writer with the humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which was published in 1865; it was based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought him international attention. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. As his fame grew, he became a much sought-after speaker. His wit and satire, both in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Although Twain initially spoke out in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands, he later reversed his position,going on to become vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910, coming out strongly against the Philippine-American War and colonialism. Twain earned a great deal of money from his writing and lectures, but invested in ventures that lost most of it, such as the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Standard Oil executive Henry Huttleston Rogers. Twain eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his declaration of bankruptcy meant he was not required to do so. He was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and predicted that his death would accompany it as well, dying a day after the comet was at its closest to Earth. Small paperback in good condition , very short text with great illustrations by John Groth , very clean , no name or spoiling of any kind , 60 pages, back of book may have been wet at some time. Order Now! BookId: J2-002411 Title: Yesterday I Saw the Sun Author: Ally Sheedy Publisher: Summit Books Price: 18.00 Description: |
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