English Classics Books

I've come to assign it in courses but read it in your own. The essays are beyond compare, the book itself a pleasure to hold.

The essays Nature and Waling are written by two of the pillars of transendentalism. I have never read an essay which surmized why one should appreciate nature as much as walking. It passages made me comtenmpate why I appreciate nature and the simple pleasures of waling with no destination in mind. It soldified many ideas that I had for a long time and placed them in a beatiful framework. It is a shame that Walking is overshadowed by Walden. One drawback to this book, although it serves as a useful comparison is that after reading Walking, nature by Emerson seems inferior. Althoiugh a good qualitity essay, it does not have the emotional connection and seems to detached for my preference.

John Elder is a genius! The spirituality of Emerson's "Nature" is a perfect compliment to the deep philosophical naturalism of Thoreau's work. It just came in the mail an hour or so and i can't put it down! I'm going to reccomend it to all of my friends.

This was a good introduction to emerson. It's a small book, and far from a complete collection of his works, but it includes some of his most famous and moving essays as well as a few of his poems. This was my first reading of emerson, and at first, I didn't care too much for him. But after reading it a second time, I understood more clearly his message, and it began to grow on me. In fact, I've since purchased a complete collection of his writings as this book left me hungry for more. Even though this other book contains everything this book has, plus more, I am still glad I bought this book. It's nice to have a little pocket sized collection of his greatest hits.

"The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more."

An exquisite pocket sized edition. Emerson, as always, will stun you with his prose style rhetoric. "I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall."

Emerson is a genious. His words in this small edition are just as sweet and easily accessable. It is handy to have a small version to keep close at all times. Everytime I look at the night sky I think of a quote of Emerson, "But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile." That alone is a reason to own the work of Emerson.

After our son was born we started really reading the old nursery rhymes we'd grown up with and were disappointed by the often harsh and callous messages. The New Adventures of Mother Goose is such a welcome relief! It full of the characters we recognize but they're so much happier than we remember them. For instance, the three KIND mice take out their cheese and cut her (the farmer's wife) a slice. How much better than getting their tails chopped off! Most importantly, it's our son's favorite book and he's starting to complete the rhymes himself. We feel good about having him repeat happy rhymes.

My kids enjoyed this book so much they have most of the poems memorized. This is a much more enjoyable version to read than the original Mother Goose. I received the book as a shower gift and have since bought three copies as gifts for other children.

My son loves this book and seemed unimpressed with the original Mother Goose when they were read to him weeks after getting this book. This book is much more entertaining for any age at any time. Warm, positive, and funny.

I just received this and the second voume from Amazon. I was amazed to get these books so cheaply. I got them for around 7.99 each. They are beautiful hardback volumes with annotations that reveal insights into the world of Doyle as well as Holmes. I am going to order the 3rd volume. It's not as cheaply priced but is still a bargain. Anyone who is a Sherlock Holmes fan should have this collection. I can't wait to re-read these stories!

I've been longing for these books ever since I saw them at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, about 2 years ago. However I kept putting them off as I already have all the stories (in another volume but not nearly as nice as this) and I just couldn't bring myself to shell out the money. When I saw this on Amazon for $7.99 I knew it had to be a mistake. There was no way they could possibly be selling this book for 7.99. But I am happy to report, it ISN'T a mistake. It is the exact same book and it is 7.99. And yes it is a hardcover. If you are a Holmes fan you simply can't pass this one up!

I think it's pretty indisputable that this material is classic and great fun to read. The annotated edition is helpful in understanding issues of Victorian London that might slip by you otherwise. But mostly, the commentary is just plain entertaining as it showcases the insanity of Holmes enthusiasts. Many of the footnotes include the wacky theories of these fanatics and while pointing out Doyle's many inconsistencies from story to story as well as the often uninformed ideas behind the plot points, do their damnedest to justify them as if these stories were all fact and we simply need to work out our own misunderstandings.

Arnold Weinstein is one of our most gifted literary comparativists working in the academy today, and Nobody's Home is Weinstein at his absolute best. Here he weaves together a wide range of American literature (Hawthorne, Melville, Fitzgerald, Morrison, Delillo) by demonstrating that it is the uniquely American theme of self-determinism and self-making (and its sobering corollary of determinism and disillusionment), that inform all of these works. His ability to link these seemingly disparate texts in such convincing fashion is quite extraordinary (the web never falters), and allows Weinstein an entry way into readings that make these texts utterly relevant to our lives today, and that reawaken texts that have been relegated to dusty bookshelves, or that were thought to have been plumbed. Weinstein is not just for those intersted in American literary criticism. He uses the rich record of literature to explore human themes that are as metaphysical, psychological, and identity-probing as they are literary.

Arnold Weinstein is one of our most gifted literary comparativists working in the academy today, and Nobody's Home is Weinstein at his absolute best. Here he weaves together a wide range of American literature (Hawthorne, Melville, Fitzgerald, Morrison, Delillo) by demonstrating that it is the uniquely American theme of self-determinism and self-making (and its sobering corollary of determinism and disillusionment), that inform all of these works. His ability to link these seemingly disparate texts in such convincing fashion is quite extraordinary (the web never falters), and allows Weinstein an entry way into readings that make these texts utterly relevant to our lives today, and that reawaken texts that have been relegated to dusty bookshelves, or that were thought to have been plumbed. Weinstein is not just for those intersted in American literary criticism. He uses the rich record of literature to explore an American theme that is as metaphysical, psychological, and identity-probing as it is literary.

America's intellectual father is the Modern Enlightenement. From Descarte's turn inward to Kant's radical autonomy, the Enlightenement gave birth to our understanding of freedom. Here, the Western intellectual tradtion separated the self from Nature and God, from any determining context. Essentially, it was the isolated self which gave meaning to, instead of finding meaning in the world. There are some that claim, however, that a self requires and is a causal function of Larger contexts like Culture, Family, Tradition and Religion (to name a few). Thus, it is dangerous and misleading to separate a self from the very material it requires to live. On this reading, the expressions of self are necesserily embedded in a context which presupposes a social world and shared set of meanings - a set of meanings that cannot be created by an isolated, radically free ego. To the contrary, an ego is a function of this world and requires it as a context for expression. Without these objective situations which enframe self, freedom and speech, the self is emptied of necessary content and confronts [our modern illness of] loneliness and despair. At this juncture, one could, vis a vis existentialism, search out the subjective depths of human angst, or one could assume a number of ironic postures in hopes of illustrating the human struggle with, and possibilities for freedom and meaning in a meaninglessness age. NOBODY'S HOME, somehow, shows a unique strain of literature that does both. Read this book if you want to understand how to use your failed Enlightenment inheritence.

Joseph Epstein is a master of the personal essay. His books on 'Envy' and 'Friendship' are extended exercises in this form. I just today read another masterful essay of his, this one on 'Turning Seventy'. For the Norton Anthology he writes a preface on the Personal Essay as a means of discovery. He chooses about fifty essays from many of those most closely identified with the form from Mark Twain , Edmund Wilson, E.B. White, Dorothy Parker, Anne Dillard, Joan Didion, A.B. Leibling, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Amy Tan, and many others. Epstein also includes an amusing essay of his own ' I love a Gershwin Tune'.
There is a lot of pleasurable reading in this excellent anthology.

If this weren't so heavy, I would carry it everywhere. Jam-packed with brilliant, insightful writing. I defy anyone to read Mark Twain's ``Italian Without a Master'' (the first essay in this compilation) and NOT laugh out loud. David Sedaris's essays, much as I love them, are a pale imitation of this Twain masterpiece.

Joseph Epstein is an intersting author who has taken the art of the Personal Essay to a higher Realm. In this book, he has chosen a variety of authors who have similarly treated this art form, and presents a delightful collection of the same. An enjoyable read for people who enjoy good literary style. Included authors include Twain, Beerbohm, Woolf, Parker, Orwell, Fitzgerald, Connolly, Greene, Capote, Baldwin, Naipaul, Tan, etc.. Try it out!

This new Homer's Odyssey translation by Rodney Merrill strives to be very literal to the Greek and to also match the line and meter of the Greek, to the extent that can be done in English. That said, the translation reads very well on the page, and in skimming through any particular book of the great epic poem one can see that Merrill has classic aesthetic taste regarding some of his choice of epithets and turns of phrases (as well as his overall approach). 'Great-hearted Odysseus', for instance, is a far better translation than 'Kind Odysseus' or 'Valiant Odysseus' or any of the numerous other choices one can find in all the many 20th century English translations. I point out that one little epithet just to give a sense of Merrill's approach. 'Great-hearted' suggests a level of being higher than the average human being, and that is what Odysseus possesses. Sticking to the literal meaning of the Greek like that (and I assume this is what Merrill has done in that epithet since he announces that this is his overall intention in translating the poem) is what is needed in a translation of the Odyssey (or Iliad). Just in the way that you can get a good feel for a translation this one has that good feel about it. It looks similar to Lattimore on the page, yet it reads much better. Maybe not poetically (go to Chapman or Pope for that), but for what Merrill seems to be attempting it comes across as successful.

Rodney Merrill's poetic rendering of the Odyssey is superlative. It's greatest value over against all other translations lies in its dedication to the *ancient meter* (replacing Greek length with English stress). Read this easily understood, clear, illuminating version out loud and you will feel the entrancing poetry produced by careful attention given by Merrill to the rhythmic, metric elements of Greek epic and to historical accuracy. I had studied the Odyssey and read it in ancient Greek over the period of a semester's study and a year's reading. After sludging through Lattimore and Fagles, I turned to Humphries, who was much better than the other two, with a true sense of rhythm and no *embarassingly anachronistic* words or turns of phrase. But at a special reading at CSU San Francisco, I was able to hear Merrill speak, read some passages and compare texts. I immediately noted a much higher passion for and knowledge of the work itself in his translation, the choices that he made in words and paraphrases. Note: all translations paraphrase drastically because English is so different from Homeric Greek. Rodney, however, does it *well*. See if you can find the paperback version from Michigan University press. The hardcover is nice, but out of most students' and poetry-lovers' price-range. The paperback is available and affordable.

Rodney Merrill's rendering of the Odyssey represents translation at its best ; it serves Homer beautifully in that it is written to be read aloud, and to arouse the emotional solidarity between the performer and its audience that will be understood at once by people who go to listen to music played in public today. You will enjoy the rich materiality of the text (the rythm of the drumming consonants and the melody of the short and long vowels) in its accurate relationship to the characters of the heroes and to the development of story. This new translation will contribute to the enduring popularity of the Odyssey.

"Olivia" is a "récit"---a short novel told in the first-person by someone with a story to relate or a confession to make, sometimes as observer, sometimes as protagonist. She or he concisely describes a crucial series of simple events with complex depths and resonances, capped by a catastrophe that often combines physical with emotional extremity.

The "récit" was born in France; and Dorothy Strachey Bussy (1865-1960) absorbed its tradition into her blood, as befits a translator of André Gide, to whom she was passionately attached, and whose "L'Immoraliste" personifies the genre. Written in French in 1933, "Olivia" was not rendered into English until Leonard Woolf accepted it for the Hogarth Press: it grips you from first to last.

Sent to a finishing school outside Paris well before the Great War, Olivia becomes an unwitting object of contention between the two headmistresses, Mlle Cara and her partner Mlle Julie, after the young Englishwoman contracts a crush on the latter. The gathering crisis is chronicled with an ecstatic ruthlessness, classically contained, akin to the verse dramas of Racine which Mlle Julie reads aloud to her charges with such intoxicating effect.

Strachey's astute artistry is exemplified by the moment when Mlle Cara, driven to jealous ranting, makes poisonous use (for a book published in 1949) of the designation "Jewess"---a cherry-bomb word that sends tremors through the floorboards. But a writer's severest test comes near the end of a dramatic work, when the emotional climax which concludes the main action absolutely must convince the reader of its truth. Here it is the final encounter, after Mlle Cara's illness, between Olivia and Mlle Julie: without a false note or cliché it sweeps one along with authentic, closely-observed anguish. How apt that Colette wrote the 1951 screenplay.

In her foreword, Regina Marler provides the biographical and cultural background needed to appreciate the tale even more deeply. One hopes she will rescue another mislaid classic for us to reappraise. If only more masterpieces were this "minor."

This novel by Dorothy Strachey, sister of famous biographer and eccentric, Lytton Strachey, is a little jewel of a well-written novel. Probably based on Dorothy's experiences in a girl's school, it describes a English teenager's crush on a school mistress in late 19th century France. This novel is not about sex or being a lesbian. It is about anticipation and the overwhelming need for affection and approval. It is a classic, "coming of age" novel with (for once!) a young girl instead of a young boy. Quick, enthralling read!

The brilliant Regina Marler has contributed an elegant introduction in which she very simply and directly lays out the facts about Dorothy Strachey's strange, privileged life, and dashes our hopes at once by letting us know that this is no memoir, it is that rarer more courageous thing, a novel. And yet, Marler continues, the novel possesses an emotional truth which may in fact vie closer to Strachey's own life, her needs, her accomplishments, than she in fact knew. Just as we are now familiar with Dora Carrington, the brilliant UK painter who staked her life and soul to her love for the gay author and flaneur Lytton Strachey, and who killed herself when Strackey died, we now have the example of Dorothy Strachey, who seems to have half-embroidered, half-distilled this example of pure, clear Sapphic enchantment as an offering to the man she was in love with, French novelist Andre Gide, whose translator she had become years and years earlier.

Happily she did not kill herself when Gide died, and happily the book that she wrote, "Olivia," has a punch and an emotional availability that none of Gide's works possess. So it seems today that sometimes, the lover wins out, while the loved one wraps his shroud of untouchability right into the grave of Lethe. The story of Olivia and Mlle. Julie has one of those tears guaranteed wallops at the end; not just at the end, when you're prepared for it, but at the extreme end, like the hand of Carrie reaching through the grave around Amy Irving's ankle.

This book grips the heart and pulls on all the strings. It brings out the Filipino experience for the "Manongs" as no other book that I have read. This collection of short stories, essays, poems, and correspondance lets Carlos Bulosan bring out the total message. A must have book

This reading should be considered one of Filipino-America's (and Asian America's) best literary works as of yet. There is no other writer prior to the cliche' "Amy Tan-esque" era that has made a lasting impact on American literature. The novel is (r)evolutionary in its attempt to educate generations of literature afficionados. What better way to pay tribute to equal rights activists than Bulosan's magnum opus? Bulosan is the next Walt Whitman and then some, beginning with his incipient stages in rural Pangasinan province, to his voyage to America and initiation into manhood and the adventures in between. He is Walt Whitman's echo, fervent, passionate, honest - speaking for all humankind, and fighting for the rights of 1930s struggling working class of Filipinos, Mexicans, Native Americans, African-Americans, and Asians.

Powerful works. Bulosan is poetic, honest and down-to-earth, and very vivid and lyrical in his descriptions of the atrocities he suffered as a Filipino living in America.

Written in a concise, readable pros, worthy of comment itself, this book presents the reader with choicely-picked selections from the 14th century to the early twentieth to demonstrate the author's argument of how prose has evolved but not necessarily improved. Excellent and readable book.

Written in a concise, readable pros, worthy of comment itself, this book presents the reader with choicely-picked selections from the 14th century to the early twentieth to demonstrate the author's argument of how prose has evolved but not necessarily improved. Excellent and readable book.

Written in a concise, readable pros, worthy of comment itself, this book presents the reader with choicely-picked selections from the 14th century to the early twentieth to demonstrate the author's argument of how prose has evolved but not necessarily improved. Excellent and readable book.