English Classics Books

I have been collecting Alice in Wonderland items for nearly 30 years and I am happy to add this book to my collection. The information is presented in a format that is accessible to the general public and not just the Alice afficianado. The book production is also wery pleasing. The wonder of Alice is how she shows up all over the globe in so many ways 140 years after her conception. I think the title of the book understates to what extent Alice lives in our modern popular culture.

I love this book. I received it yesterday at my office and read what I could on my lunch hour. I couldn't wait to get home. I bought this because I wanted to eventually introduce my 1 year old granddaughter to "Alice In Wonderland." Imagine my surprise to find that I can start reading to her now. There are extended nursery rhymes, funny sayings and a fascinating dialogue through the whole book. The illustrations are superb! I can start my granddaughter on the "white rabbit, calico cat, the queen" as well as "Alice" just from these wonderful illustrations. I can highly recommend this book for children and also adults who enjoy Lewis Carroll's wit. I cannot write enough good things about it.

Alone in London follows the lives of two people, and a third is intertwined with them. Mr. Oliver is an old man whose hasty words years ago had driven away his only surviving child. His health and faculties are deteriorating, but when he finds a precious little girl abandoned outside his shop, he is more than willing to take her in. When he finds the note in her pocket identifying her as his granddaughter, he is anxious to do what he can for her, and is delighted at the thought of being reconciled with his daughter.

Tony is an orphan who has been living wherever he can, and was captivated by Dolly, Mr. Oliver's granddaughter, when he saw her outside the shop. Even though he had nothing of his own, he volunteered to take care of her if Mr. Oliver should refuse to take her. Mr. Oliver gave him a place to sleep under a counter in his tiny shop, and Tony came every day to see little Dolly. He noticed that Mr. Oliver's eyesight and memory was failing, and he began to help him get his shop going in the morning, and remind him of necessary things. He especially liked to hear Mr. Oliver tell of his Master, the Lord Jesus. Tony had never heard of such a wonderful employer, and wondered if he could work for him sometime. When Mr. Oliver's sister came to visit, she was appalled that her grandniece was associating with a barefoot beggar, and sent Tony away, and he was alone in London again. We follow his fortunes, and see the workings of his heart, all in the care of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The reader will be touched by the poignancy of the love these characters share for each other, and inspired by the simple devotion of Mr. Oliver to his Master. Hesba Stretton has written of similar situations and conditions to those of Charles Dickens, but while his works are dark and depressing, hers are serious, yet bright with hope. When Mr. Oliver takes his dying Dolly to the charity children's hospital, and is told there is no room for her, he cries, "Dear Lord, there's room for only seventy-five of Thy little lambs that are pining and wasting away in every dark street and alley like mine. Whatever can Thy people be thinking about? They've got their own dear little children, who are ill sometimes, spite of all their care. They can send for the doctor, and do all that's possible, never looking at the money it costs. But when they are well again they never think of the poor little ones who are sick and dying, with nobody to help them or care for them as I care for this little one. Oh, Lord, Lord! Let my little love live! Yet Thou knows what is best, and Thou'lt do what is best. Thou loves her more than I do."

A book for young and old, this will touch the reader's heart, and may change his life.

I am so glad this book has been reprinted so that many more people can have the joy of reading it.

I read this book when I was a child. It belonged to my immigrant grandmother. I never forgot the experience, although the details of the book escaped my memory. I remembered that it touched my heart in an eternal way.

As an adult, I was given the book as a gift from my brother, who found an out-of-print copy. As soon as I saw the color of the cover of the book, I knew instantly that it was THAT book! I opened up the book and read a short paragraph that brought tears to my eyes and answers to the question of why this book had such a life changing impact on my life. The book was a divinely positioned gift given to me, not just once in my life, but twice.

I highly recommend the book to any child or adult who needs to hear a timeless story of love.

Reading Prado's poetry is like taking a ride on a feisty mare. Part of the joy is all that muscle between your legs running with more power than a human will ever know. And that's the source also of terror. But Prado's terror is nothing worse than looking down into the mouth of death (most often, her father's) and being both intrigued and repulsed by its sweet sick odor. Like the above reviewer, I'm an atheist (or agnostic at best), but nevertheless Prado's devotion to her God doesn't make me break out in hives. She questions her spirituality as much as she devotes herself to it, and since I don't have the answers either, I appreciate her guts. Plus, she's so lusty, I get all wambly just reading her.

For example: "Can a woman have twenty orgasms? / I don't worry about such silly details. / I want love, superior love." And, "After the grave, the clock goes on ticking,/ someone makes coffee, everybody drinks it." (from "Concerted Effort.")

If you like the raveling syntax of David Kirby (without the smart-aleckiness); if you like the texture of Steve Orlen; if you like the spiritual questing in the common things of this world of Robert Hass; and especially if you like feeling like the author is sitting there with you chatting over a cup of yerba matte' about birth, death, and in-between, get this book.

This is an absolute must-buy. If you like the poetry of fellow Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade (and you should, because he's brilliant-- trans by Mark Strand and Elizabeth Bishop, title: "Running in the Family"), you'll love Prado. She is complicated, frank, has balls, and expresses the most amazing HYSTERIA. I mean, you'll be BLOWN away by this book. Takes lines like: "I'm not so ugly / that I can't get married."

She also has an outrageous devotion to God, not unlike Gerald Manley Hopkins-- which even an atheist like me can appreciate. In some ways, she's doing what I wish more contemporary American female poets were doing. She hits gender issues head on, in an utterly flamboyent, decadent, laughing/screaming kind of way.

I rank this book among my very favorites, among Stevens, among Plath, among Celan, among Rilke, among Trakl. If I could only keep ten books, this would be one. And I wish there were more translations of her work. Will someone please take on this project? I would if I knew Portequese.

As a photographer who enjoys images more than text these days. This book is so well written that one "sees" images while David Cochran unfurls text in a manner that mimics the tendencies of the writes discussed within the book itself. Cochran knows his politics, his "POST WAR ERA" history and his subjects so well that while reading I had to keep looking at the cover to remind myself why I got the book. It goes beyond the call of duty.

Because of this book, I will be able to ascertain how the current bevy of movies being made on Marvel Comics and dark subject matters stack up to the tone of the era in which they were drawn. Also, I know better why American people are in the shape they are in. With more unresloved issues and more neurosis its a wonder how we have survived this long. Thank God for the Underground Writer and Filmmakers of the Postwar Era, there are valves to let some steam off.

As a tail-end "baby boomer" I have long been fascinated with the changes taking place in popular culture throughout my adolescent years and into adulthood. A long-time fan of MAD magazine, I never really understood the counter culture statements being made in the magazine or how they reflect society as a whole.

David Cochran's treatise, "America Noir: Underground Writers and Filmmakers of the Postwar Era" describes the propagation of a subculture which was not afraid to assert that all was not as rosy as the dominant culture would purport.

Reading the book was very much NOT like reading a novel or one of Rod Serling's short stories. To a certain extent, the book reads like a history text.

America Noir conists of five parts: The Killer Inside Me-Roman Noir Authors; Progress and Its Discontents-Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors; Outside Looking In-Minority Authors; Little Shop of Horrors-Independent Filmmakers; and Cracks in the Consensus-Liberal Artists. These five parts "connects the dots" to form a cohesive picture of the events, attitudes, and expressions which have marked the changing of American society from the period immediately following World War II to the current time.

I have a better grasp of the causes underlying the changes in society from the time I was a kid myself to now when I have adolescent kids of my own. I'm sure I will soon go out to experience some of the books and movies described in "America Noir." It is an excellent addition to my library.

I am an ESL/HS English teacher and have used America Writes for two years now. The choices of stories is excellent, introducing English language students to classic authors such as, Hemingway, Langston Hughes,Hawthorne, and O. Henry (to name just a few). The prereading questions and vocabulary along with idioms and expressions help tremendously to prepare the reader for the selection. It's great being able to have my students read at the higher level of content that they are ready for emotionally and intellectually and still have their language needs addressed. I would love to see this be made into a series with more than the one edition!! I highly recommend it for teachers as well as students working on their own to broaden their reading in English!!!

I purchased this book last year for an essay course I taught at a Korean university. It's an incredible book and I wish the authors would make this a series. The stories deal with many topics and they're never dull. The book also provides excellent material for teaching grammar, which is essential for good writing.

The authors divide the stories into chapters that deal with certain themes. For example, the first chapter is named "A Life Lesson." All of the stories in that chapter have protagonists that learn something significant in the story.

Each story is presented with the same format:

Think Before You Read
Literary Term
Idioms and Expressions
Comprehension
Vocabulary
Grammar
Sharing Ideas
Writing

The grammar lessons are excellent, I found it very easy to cover the topics. Unlike other ESL materials, I rarely had to supplement the book with outside material. There is a wealth of material in each chapter and it makes a reading and writing course informative yet fun for the students.

I was impressed with their selection of writers. They chose stories from heavyweights like Ernest Hemingway and Langston Hughes, but they also have excellent stories from lesser known writers. They also show the diversity of the American experience by including stories by ethnic writers.

I would highly recommend this book as a text for a reading and writing course for ESL students at the university level or advanced high school students.

How seldom one finds readable, perceptive criticism that does what it's supposed to: enhance one's pleasure and understanding of the original work. The New Yorker comparison to Kael is apt; Hardwick's criticism is itself high art. These are collections of previous essays. The very best are those on "Bartleby", "Washington Square" and "House of Mirth". Excellent!

This book contains 27 of Hardwick's literary critical essays--and they are gems. The essays are arranged in themes (e.g., "Old New York," "Victims and Victors") around particular authors (e.g., Edith Wharton, Henry James, the Prairie poets, and so forth). Her essays concern novelists and short-story writers, but she has several essays on those who come from poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose. Her introductory essay, "Locations," is worth the price of the book alone.

Elizabeth Hardwick writes so fluently that you find her drawing imaginative comparisons, remarkable analogies, and passionate connections. She strikes me as forgiving the personal foibles and erratic paths of some writers, while she searches for how these informed the writings.

My favorite essay was her commentary on the American novelist Joan Didion ("In the Wasteland"), whose "unconsoling" work is "a carefully designed frieze on the fracture and splinter of her characters' comprehension of the world," marked by a peculiar unease and restlessness. Yet she also considers "older" American novelists (Melville, even has comments on Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Wharton). Her essays about more modern writers (the loss of bearing, from Fitzgerald's Gatsby to Capote's murderers, to Mailer's squalid "real" life) are also remarkable.

I am puzzled that Hardwick has no essays about American protest literature, or any reformulation images. She does not write about any African-American writer, and I wonder about this omission. Is she saying implicitly that these writers have no location in American literature?

Ms. Allerdyce, knows her stuff! If you are an Anais Nin fan, and you want a comparitive study, this is the book for you!

Anais Nin lived a life of conflicting allegiances. She attempted to decide whether to be "a woman helping men" or "a creative artist competing with men." Torn between obligations and freedom she shifted her focus back and forth from male to female and from self to other. Acknowledging Nin as an important Modernist and Feminist writer who created an authentic feminine approach to art, author Richard-Allerdyce focuses on how Nin healed herself with writing and psychoanalysis. This in-depth study of Nin's work using the four unexpurgated diaries, has a title by title approach making the book more accessible to readers. Nin's sensitivity changed the nature of life and art and the media-conditioned response to both. Nin wanted to live an active life with no one telling hr what to do. ` The later volumes of the diary showed Nin moving away from polarization of others and self, of fiction and diary, of live and death. Richard-Allerdyce shows how Nin came to understand that opposites are merely fuctions of each other, how the personal deeply lived becomes the univeral Modernism and Feminism helped Anais Nin remake herslf. She showed that women can get over society's programing, education and taboos. She focused on the bond between all women. Her writing was therapy not only for herself but for her readers. She helped them create themselves and their world. This book should become a classic in its field. Maryanne Raphael l

Here is an outstanding compilation of samples from ancient Greek and Roman myths. Samples a wide range of well known, and lesser known myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Intro's are given to the myth's author, time and related issues in brief.

A very helpful resource for students of ancient history, mythology or even the new testament, since the new testament was written in an environment wherein many were steeped in these very sorts of tales either orally or in writ.

Finally! There has been such need for a work like this and the editors/translators have done a fine job indeed. I teach live, online courses on mythology at The Lukeion Project and this year I will be developing a way to make this a required purchase for the fall 2008 session. Everything I need to teach a high quality course in mythology is availabe here (with the addition of my favorite translations of the epics and tragedies, of course). Any serious mythology educator must have this book.

This slender volume contains a number of well known--and some lesser known--nursery rhymes with Greenaway's justifiably famous illustrations, in addition to her fully illustrated A Apple Pie book. This is very much worth it and was my son's favorite book for several months!

While I'm not familiar with this specific Alfred A Knopf/Borzoi/Everyman's Library/Children's Classic edition, I do have an earlier edition of Kate Greenaway's "A Apple Pie", as well as copies of most of her other work for children. Together with Randolph Caldecott she was one of the most important and influential illustrators of young children's books and rhymes of the late 19th Century, and indeed of all time.

All of these Everyman's Library/Children's Classic books are sturdily bound with sewn sections that will not crack apart like so many books more cheaply constructed, and are an excellent value.

A minor note of clarification for anyone reading "A Apple Pie" aloud who may stumble at the "E - Eat" entry: like all the other verbs used to dispose of the Apple Pie down through the alphabet, this is a past tense form. Here "Eat" is an archaic form of "ate", and is properly pronounced "et" rather than "eet". Of course "Ate" doesn't work as an example of the letter "E".

I have about 30 books of literary criticism on the works of Jane Austen.I wish this had been the first,because it explains so much of what the other critics say in ways that I, as a high- school graduate, can understand.

As a faithful and long standing admirer of Jane Austen's works, I have many books in my library dedicated to the study, the examination and the pure enjoyment of the works of the great English author. None is more appreciated and often consulted than "Approaches to Teaching Austen's Pride and Prejudice".

Prof. Folsom has compiled a rare gem: a book that satisfies the needs of the scholars and awakens the interest of the less knowledgeable reader. The reader is offered sixteen essays touching upon Social History, Austen's unpublished writing and reading, the structure and theme of the book and the language.

Through clear prose, the essays contribute fresh insights or reinforce well known information, often displaying a sparkle of the same kind of wit which has made the Author so beloved.

Every time I read part of this book, or its entirety, I find myself with a great urge to pick up once again Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". I cannot think of a better testimonial to the validity of the work.