A. Merritt Books

...and kept my attention to the very end! I've read lots of books in my lifetime and a lot of them westerns but, never before have I read one with the diverse cultures so beautifully written in and addressed. Also, I love the way the author makes use of authentic American Indian names instead of what we usually read/hear! I can't wait to read his next book!

The author had me hooked from the beginning. The way he brings in the story of the Cheyenne and their culture, the Malinke people and their culture, and the way he did it without prejudice. Sometimes it is hard to realize there were other peoples in the Old West given the way it is usually written. Thank you Roy

If you are interested in silent cartoon films or Walt Disney, then you must buy this book! Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman have done an incredible job of documenting this little-known part of Disney's career. This book is also packed with storyboards, pencil sketches, scripts, and production photos from these cartoons. There is a very detailed filmography of all of Disney's cartoons from 1921 through 1929.

The first chapter is an analysis of these cartoons -- what was better than the competition (Felix the Cat), or not as good. They explain how the animated characters evolved from just moving figures into "character animation." Next, the historic detail from each period is described in a chapter each on the LAUGH-O-GRAMS, the Alice cartoons, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and the beginnings of Mickey Mouse. The authors go into great detail on the working methods of the animators, and Disney's business and distribution problems. Believe it or not, Mickey Mouse might never have happened if producer Charles Mintz had not pulled Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and most of Disney's animators away from him in a needless "power play". Highly recommended for silent film enthusiasts.

Long before Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Bambi there was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. "Walt In Wonderland" chronicles Disney's years as a director and producer of silent films.

More than 90 silent cartoons were made by Disney and his associates during the 1920's. With some 170 illustrations and a scholarly, well researched text, "Walt In Wonderland" is a superb addition to filmdom's archives and a boon for early film buffs.

In this volume that we learn how many of Disney's ongoing themes made their first appearances in these cartoons, and also find out more about the remarkably talented people that Disney brought together and nurtured.

- Gail Cooke

This book is truly a work of painstaking research resulting in beautiful reproductions of works by William Merritt Chase one of Americas leading most brilliant artists of his day. It is the second volume in the Catalogue Raisonnee. His influence is seen in the works of many other leading artists who were his students. William Merritt Chase: Portraits in Oil (Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work by William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) has 2 more volumes yet to be published by Yale University Press. The artist is my grandfather.

This has to be one of my MOST favourite art books ive ever bought, and i own a few hundred! :O)
The Text, Reproductions and Layout is Superb!, If you are even remotely interested in Painting this has to be a MUST buy!
Being an artist myself, i can say that it is a treat to see WM Chases Portrait sketches which are always left with lovely unfinished brush strokes scattered around the canvas. Something which we dont see enough of, and being a life long student of painting is a pleasure to witness from a time we can now only dream about.
Buy this book and study the gorgeous paintings you will spend a lifetime learning from the Master!

Though out of print, still very interesting. Chapters are split between the authors. Linda Steiner's chapters are particularly well-done.

This book is very technical, but it is a fantastic book for identifying insects. Probably the best.

I loved this book. It's setting is in the late 1500's, in New World North Carolina. The story is about Catherine Graystone, a woman who has recently moved to the New World from England, and Lone Wolf, war chief of the Scupperongacs. Lone Wolf ends up taking Catherine to his village as his slave, but actually he is the one enslaved as he falls deeply in love with her. The lovers go through many trials as the fates seem to be trying to keep them apart. It is a thoughtful, well told story. The tender love scenes between Catherine and Lone Wolf are very satisfying. I liked the fact that there were no brutal whites against Indians war scenes in this book. A very satisfying read.

William Olney Merritt reminiscences of his early childhood and family life from his birth in Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1913, his early years in Colorado, and his move to Minnesota at the age of 5. Ben And Doge of the title are the author's parents.

Blurb: Forbidden Passion. Was she really half owner of a Montana ranch? Tracy Moorland couldn't believe it. Nor was she pleased to find that the co-owner was someone as insufferable as Slade Dawson. From the moment Tracy had set foot on the Double-J, Slade had been rude and inhospitable. Though Slade claimed he wanted Tracy to leave, he knew he couldn't resist the passion that flared between them. Lured by the promise of Tracy's love, Slade's own urgent need made him take her into his arms. Then Tracy discovered the truth about Slade's past--a past he feared could end their dreams of a future together...

BLESSINGS AND INCLEMENCIES, Constance Merritt's second published collection of poetry, is best read aloud so the cadences and the rhythms may swirl from the tongue through the ears to reverberate in the mind. Let the echoes and caprices of memories, nature, and classical gods linger.

"Isn't it the naming that we love" the poet wonders, and surely the verses in
Prologue: Song: At the Edge of the Sea,
I. Requiem,
II. Among Shades: A Fragment,
III. Turning: A Sequence, and
Epilogue: Chamber Music
give both beatific and remorseful tribute to this very human current of desire.

"Charon plies his oars. Sweat glistens / On his grizzled brow..." as Merritt steers out into deep waters of loss. "Don't go and leave me stranded on this shore," she entreats. She rages against the inevitability of the deaths of loved ones and pounds the notion that the guiding hand of an Almighty can make all things well: "Let others justify / the ways of God to men; she never would / She'd already stood the s.o.b. on trial."

Yet the mourning poet is yet here, not turning to loam, so "At three o'clock, I wake to rain" and "...know it is I who will labor to be born." Then "...the lengthening light, the robin's song / That wakes me... / (For the first time in my life I want to see!)." Merritt is, after all, a sightless poet, and, as the blind do, she expands the reach and delicacy of her other senses. By way of illustration, she mingles her own poetry of heightened sensitivity with the verse of Hilda Raz: "My every organ sings you like a psalm: Sun, sun come to me here, come here I am."

In BLESSINGS AND INCLEMENCIES, beauty and poignancy consort with uncomforted mourning. Love answers every call on its own terms; but friends, family, and lovers whom death parts, but cannot be returned so..."Me, I'd like to think the rhythm moved / Us, until the dance, itself, was what we loved."

At twelve years old, Jack Riggs was a bully who on his first day at a new school beat up Mark who later became his best friend. Living with an alcoholic father toughened him up even as it made him afraid to go home. He loved history and spent much time dreaming about living in nineteenth century Tennessee. One day he and Mark were exploring THE NEW CUT, a man made deep gouge in Brian's Creek, when eight years old Billy, whose mother had the New Cut created starts following them. Suddenly the Cut seems to keep going on and on.

When they leave the gorge they find a cabin without electricity or other amenities and the family who lived there gave them food and shelter that they were supposed to "pay" for by doing chores. Mark and Jason run away from them but are captured by the land pirates and forced to bait a flat boat into an ambush that turned into a massacre. The pirates are the infamous Pikes and their minions, a ruthless group of cannibal murderers. Billy, who got separated from them, meets an Indian Willawick wearing Nikes. The boys try to figure out how to get the Indian to take them out of 1811 and back home but first Jason and Mark have to find a way out of the cave that is the pirate's headquarters which is surrounded by a blood thirsty militia.

This time travel fantasy is also a coming of age tale in which the protagonists realize that history is romanticized and reality is more gritty, dangerous and ugly. Jason learns how to make decisions for his little group and to have more tolerance for people, especially those that don't want to kill him. The authors have written a delightful work that will appeal to young adults as much as the older crowd.

Harriet Klausner