Sheridan Books

I love Jane Austen, but like most English novelists she was only writing about a very small slice of English society. The same can be said for most other great English novelists. Fielding's acheivement stands in utter contrast- In Tom Jones we see full blooded characters from across the entire spectrum of English society- in all of their full blooded vanity, goodness, ugliness, courage, cowardice wisdom and foolishness mixed together. This is England before the Victorians spoiled it. And the wonderful story told with such humor, irony and wit. The observations range from dry wit to bawdy burlesque - the product of a man who had lived the fullest possible life and is now determined to share all of it with his reader. This is absolutely one of my favorite books. You will love it too.

How do you write a review on what may be the best novel ever written. Charming and wonderfuly written and still hold up almost 300 years later. Funny, thought provoking as Fielding shines light on morale hypocrisy. I did not want this book to end, can there be a better commentary on a book then that?

1: Fielding is really funny!
2: It takes about 100 pages to really get rolling.
3: He's written a more approachable book that Sam Richardson (Pamela tends to go on a bit... And Clarissa just goes on and on -- great villain though)
4: Henry created one of the great names in literature, Mr. Blifel! Say it a few times and it makes you feel grubby enough that you'll need a shower!
5. Skip the first chapter of each book during your first read, it probably won't be on the test and it's always just Henry's latest blog on his most recent rant.

Jane Austen liked the book, although she seems to have preferred Richardson -- I suspect Sam wrote the first Chick lit while Henry wrote guy noir, so 'of course' Jane would prefer Sam's stuff -- or does she! (add scary Shadow type laugh here...).

You see, before Jane A (except, maybe, for Daniel Defoe [of Moll Flanders fame]), most novels (well, English novels, anyway) used the exchange of letters as the method of progressing the story. The entire novel would be in the form of letters and journals by the varioius protagonists (Bram Stoker used this in Dracula). Fielding utterly drops this conceit and sticks with straight narrative. And he seems to have been completely aware of how extreme this was for his time. Ms Austen made the same decision. So, you see, she may indeed have been more intrigued by the 'bad boy,' Henry Fielding, than we have believed. But let's let the English majors sort all this out. OK?

Oh, one last thing: If you want a bit more blood and thunder in your literature you might try one by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (I liked The Mysteries of Udolpho); and if you REALLY want some truly serious goth try The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. The Monk also has the advantage of being a frequently banned book and it's always good to support whatever "they" don't like, aye?

Although Tom Jones is one of the first English novels, it remains my all time favorite, which is saying a lot since I majored in English and have read too many pieces of fiction to count.It is the only novel I have read more than 2 times. The plot is quite inventive, the characters vivid and the romp through 18th Century England engaging. The style of writing may take awhile to get used to for a modern reader, but perserverence will pay off. Enjoy!!

This is a wonderful biography of a fascinating and engaging personality. Sheridan is a fine poet and an honorable politician (a nearly impossible achievement in the eighteenth-century as it is today), a genuine wit, he was also one of the greatest playwrights in the London theater of his day.

Sheridan was a man of fashion and society, but not a fop. He wrote clever, romantic comedies, liked to live on the edge and yet always held fast to his principles -- supporting the American colonists, for instance, in their struggle for independence -- while refusing to be bought at any price.

He lived in grand style from the first moment that he arrived in London (despite having nothing but his wife's dowry), spending all of the money that he made as quickly as he earned it -- sometimes MORE quickly than he earned it. He was passionate about few women but appreciative of the beauty of many, and he was a devoted and caring father. (His poem "If a Daughter You Have" is a small gem.)

When he came home one night to find his theater burning as a result of a fire (probably set by his enemies in parliament), he calmly sat and sipped some wine, explaining to shocked witnesses: "Surely a man can have a glass of wine by his own fire."

Toward the end of his life, although he was burdened by crippling debts, he refused an offer of a large sum of money in compensation for his support offered by the American colonists. He explained that his support had been a matter of principle.

Read this biography and anything by Sheridan himself.

It's enough to say that a major artist has met with a superb biographer and this happy marriage has produced a very moving and absorbing account of this great man's life. Thank you Mr O' Toole!

Sheridan (1751-1816) is best known for a few plays, superficially comedies of manners and morals, mainly The Rivals and The School for Scandal. O'Toole's work explores beneath the surface of these and other literary works, showing them as the products of Sheridan's personal and political life.

Widely praised in the English and American press, this biography portrays Sheridan as a passionate (and compassionate) politician. He was a major player in a struggle for various complicated and sometimes seemingly contradictory causes and parliamentary power in the era of the American Revolution, King George III's intermittent madness, the French Revolution, and troubles in the British empire.

Sheridan is shown to be a humanitarian, and, less convincingly, an Irish patriot in the guise of an English politician who happened to be Irish by birth at a time when Ireland was at times openly rebellious toward England. The family heritage in Ireland was actually Protestant, but tolerant of Catholicism to the point of having Jacobite tendencies, i.e. favoring the return of the Stuart monarchy that had ended with James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Sheridan's father, Thomas, was a man of the theatre, and also a scholar, concerned particularly with propriety in matters of language and spoken discourse. Richard was not his father's favorite and his mother, herself a writer, died while Richard was still a young boy.

O'Toole's biography manages to relate the playwright's works to his family circumstances without indulging in psychological speculation. For example, the memorable character Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, (immortalized by our word "malaprop" or "malapropism") is shown to be in part based on Thomas, who had pedantic tendencies. (Malaprops are best when they come from pretenders to perfection in language. An especially good one appeared a few years ago in The Smithsonian magazine when James J. Kilpatrick, a conservative political commentator and sometimes word policeman, referred to a mistake in diction as a "solipsism" instead of a "solecism".)

The many portrayals of hypocrisy and venality in Sheridan's plays are well explained by reference to the politics and society of the period, but are timeless in their effectiveness. The book is most interesting in describing the realities of theatrical performances, whether the particulars are staging details, audience characteristics, or financial exigencies. But this is a political biography of a character whose political accomplishments and enlightened ideals outshine his well known literary works.

Many of Sheridan's Irish contacts and English partisans in the intrigues within England in the years after 1789 were openly sympathetic to, or even allied with the French revolutionaries. Yet Sheridan was during this time a prominent member of the House of Commons and close to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Some of his personal and political friends were tried as traitors during the peak of Sheridan's political prominence; he survived primarily because of his political acumen, eloquence, and insight.

To the general reader, not well acquainted with the intricacies of English history, the work will nevertheless be interesting and convincing in portraying Sheridan as a politically adroit and ingenious man, even an Enlightenment figure. Sheridan's speeches and writings were well known to the American revolutionaries, and remained popular even after his death. He eloquently advocated religious toleration, freedom from colonial oppression, even feminism, and opposed slavery so effectively as to influence the young Frederick Douglass.

Sheridan's personal flaws (he was a drunk and an adulterer), theatre life in London, political intrigues, the struggle for religious and political freedom in Ireland, and the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings for mismanagement of affairs in British colonial India, all well explained, make this book accessible and interesting. I offer three points of criticism.

First, and most importantly, characters, terms, or events not known to the general reader or history reader, should be explained briefly. The English reader may know what a "rotten" borough was, and what a "pocket" borough was, in the days before parliamentary reform, but a sentence or two would explain this and give the reader a better understanding of the electoral politics involved.

Second, an attempt at a definitive biography, published by a prestigious house such as Farar, should include illustrations. It is frustrating to read descriptions of presumably extant political cartoons of the day, some involving Sheridan's Drury Lane theatre, or major political figures, and not be able to see reproductions-surely the private collection or library would give permission. (In fact, the New York Review of Books included one cartoon in its review of this book.)

Finally, O'Toole's prose is afflicted with some of the unfortunate mannerisms of academic style. He repeatedly uses the awkward, almost always disruptive "former...latter" construction, and equally often uses the term "context" when referring to real relationships or circumstances-the term should be reserved for relationships between words. These usages may be epidemic in doctoral dissertations or in the "scholarly" journals no one reads, but that does not excuse their appearance in a work like this-the author is the drama critic of the New York Daily News. In the age of word processing, surely an editor at Farar should have caught these irritating errors of style, possibly in preparation of the American edition. Then again, a careful editor might have noticed that at the end of the "Preface to the American Edition" the date is incorrectly listed as May 1988.

If this clever and talented author had made his entertaining book more accessible, he would be open to the charge of "popularizing", anathema in academic and some literary circles. But it is a measure of his success in eliciting the nature of Sheridan that one wishes he had done so. After all, the political and religious difficulties in Ireland persist, and one could as well look beyond the Emerald Isle and argue that we too live in an age of comparably flawed, but ultimately noble political actors and causes, in need of better understanding of their human qualities.

I was familiar with Sheridan from his theatrical comedies, plays that have become standard in the repertoire. I was dimly aware of his service in Parliament. I wasn't aware of his extensive involvement in the great political questions of the day, particularly the Irish questions, nor of his centrality in the great debates of the late 18th century--the American war for independence, the expanding power of the East India Company, and many others.

The book covers all of this, but what elevates this bio from the typical is the author's focus on Sheridan's rhetoric--his use of language. The richness of wordplay, situation, and satire in his plays turns out to be just a special case of a characteristic lifestyle of thought and interaction. It's just splendid to read this sort of thing from an intelligent writer. The book gets you thinking, and there are points at which you may challenge the author's conclusions, but you're not going to find many biographies of this depth, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness. A great read!

I've bought every book Eric Hiscock ever wrote, and read them all twice, Of all the sailing book's I have bought, his are the best. I can only say it must have been Eric's way with word's,But all the time I was reading, I really thought I was there with them both,It was a strange feeling when I had finished a book, I felt as though something was missing out of my life. We lost a great writer when he died. Has anyone out there, whose read Hiscock, Come across as good a writer, I'd like to know about them please! For people who have'nt read his book's, I strongly reccommend them all.

I am new to sailing and I found the narrative both educational and enjoyable. His anecdotes from 1952 transport the reader to a time before GPS and before the modern sailboat. His detail with regard to the construction of the boat and the payoff in bad weather is truly English(the writing is old). I cannot wait until my sailing adventures take me to some of the same exotic locations that he and his wife enjoyed over 50 years ago.

A classic "must read" true tale of sailing and travel at its best. Eric Hiscock made headlines (Englands' MBE in the '80's) with this '50's circumnavigation voyage that's still valid today. His descriptions of the people and places visited are unforgettable. This and his other sailing trips through the 1980's, accompanied by his wife, Susan, have made Eric Hiscock the classic author for all active and would-be sailors

By the Light of the Moon is a children's picturebook about a mother mouse's dilemma - the farmer's plow is coming, and she has to search for a safe bed for her little baby mouse to sleep. Different animals suggest their favorite places - the mole recommends sleeping underground, while the duck suggests a bed of reeds. But none of the beds are quite right, and mother mouse is at her wit's end, until she remembers the wisdom that her own mother once gave her, long ago. The soothing color illustrations are distinguished with flecks of glitter representing the moonlight. The moon itself, prominent in many pictures, is distinguished with a type of white glitter that makes it soft to the physical touch. By the Light of the Moon is a wonderful picturebook to read at bedtime, created especially to help children appreciate the comfort and security of their own beds.

My daughter loves the story and the illustrations. Her favorite book for the time being.

This book has beautiful illustrations
and a kind and gentle theme about a mother
mouse's love for her baby. The mother must
find the perfect bed for her baby mouse to sleep.

This book has not only convinced me that I can take my own boat down to the Caribbean, but is helping me plan that trip. Despite being packed with lots of detailed, useful information, it is written in a lively style, with a wonderful dry sense of humor. Since I haven't yet sailed to the Caribbean, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information, but it appears to be based on extensive experience sailing in this area. Mr. Weatheritt makes a wonderful armchair companion as I dream about leaving the rat race and sailing south next winter.

For those of you who have had pipe dreams of passagemaking in the Caribbean, this guide is full of good information on everything from trade winds to currents, history, harbors, customs and much more. It contains island by island guides on how and when to go. With chapter titles like "Navigation techniques_GPS is better than a hungry pig" or "Out through a window" this book is a great read even if you never make it to the Caribbean.

Just the book for me. The review in Caribbean Cruising caught my eye. If they say its good, it is. I've sailed the Caribbean three seasons now and just done all the wet and nasty stuff beating north. Since getting a copy of this book in Trinidad I've got to Bequia in easy style. Oh boy, it makes the Caribbean feel like Paradise.

John Conway has captured the essence of family sailing ... This book is a joy to read. As a wooden boat owner myself you can't help but relate to the stories, the woes, and the satisfaction of owning a classic "woodpile". I must read for any boat owner, wooden or otherwise.

John Conway has masterfully strung together several tales of wooden-boat ownership. He takes us along through the joys and frustrations of several summers on his wooden catboat. This book, perfect for that cold winter night dreaming of summer, or passing the time on a summer porch listening to the peepers, is worth every penny.

"In the winter of 1993 our family did something impetuously reckless by purchasing BUCKRAMMER, an almost 100-year old,leak-
rust-plagued,repair-hungry wooden boat.What were we thinking?"
John Conway and his family bought an old 24 foot wooden catboat with one enormous gaff sail, and sailed and repaired, and explored, and cruised buzzard Bay, Cape Cod waters, Long Island Sound, islands, coves, and estuaries. This book is just delightful. It's for anyone who sails, or who would like to sail, or who just likes reading good sailing stories. The star of the boat is an old Crosby Catboat first launched in 1908, and first used as a fishing boat, later converted to yacht use and owned by a succession of owners culminating in the Conway family. Incidentally, the cover pisture is of a Beetle Cat, a 12 foot wooden catboat that John Conway bought used and rebuilt before they bought the big Crosby catboat. This is a fun book and a good read. I enjoyed it and certainly recomend it.

This book is a great inspiration on how to lead a healthy life. The author speaks from the deepest recess of her soul, urging her readers to change all those nasty habits that are crippling so many of us living in so called developed nations.

The author has travelled the journey leading her into total despair from the decadence of plenty and back into a complete connection to healthy happy lfe.

A must read for all those looking for inspiration to change their life for the better. It has already change aspects of my life. I am sure it will do the same for you.

Marcia's message is needed for all women in today's world. Her thoughts and feelings are passionately expressed and will touch all who pick up her "Connection Complete". A book from a writer who's own personal experiences fills the reader with good common sense on connecting with the spritual soul to meet today's challenges. I recommend after reading "Connection Complete" to pass it onto others so they may share in this gifted, needed message.

Marcia's message is needed for all women in today's world. Her thoughts and feelings are passionately expressed and will touch all who pick up her "Connection Complete". A book from a writer who's own personal experiences fills the reader with good common sense on connecting with the spritual soul to meet today's challenges. I recommend after reading "Connection Complete" to pass it onto others so they may share in this gifted, needed message.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

THE DEATH OF RAYMOND YELLOW THUNDER AND OTHER TRUE STORIES FROM THE NEBRASKA-PINE RIDGE BORDER TOWNS is a top pick not just for Texas collections, but for any library strong in regional American history in general and border town politics and stories in particular. From the long history of racial unrest in these downs to community efforts to overcome internal violence and strife, THE DEATH OF RAYMOND YELLOW THUNDER is packed with powerful blends of history and cross-cultural conflict and interactions.

Reading this book I was completely sucked into a world that...A. I never knew existed, and B. If I knew about I probably would never have given a second thought.

Magnuson did an amazing job tying together the events of the 19th and 20th centuries...and a really great job keeping me from confusing the dozens and dozens of major players in the book.

He tells a series of hot-button stories in a way that manages to be fair to the facts, people and groups involved while at the same time keeping the reader's interest. More than a few times I kept reading just to see how one story would end up, or what would happen to one of the individuals involved.

Stew Magnuson, through investigative reporting unearths new facts and shines light on a dark and shameful period of history. He works hard to identify and treat fairly the multiple perspectives on the death of Mr. Yellow Thunder, the trial, and later the famous Native American occupation of the Wounded Knee battle ground. He describes the events which began in 1972 and interviews the participants' some 35 years later. By writing in narrative, non-fiction style, much like a novel or short story, he has made a captivating read out of complex material. I was surprised when I couldn't put the book down once I started, finishing 320 pages in a weekend. RH

The most incredible book I have ever read! In fact, I have read it so many times, over-and-over again, that I had to have it rebound. So many beautiful sentences written, but this one is amazing: "Her hands clung to my neck; they would not have held me so fast in a shipwreck. And I did not understand whether she wanted me to save her or to drown with her." This is my favourite gift to give to friends, who all love it. The book captivates you from the first page, never lets you go and the ending is absolutely heartbreaking and liberating, all at the same time!

"The Devil in the Flesh" is a simple, powerful love story dealing with a teenage boy's love for a woman who is a little bit older. Set in France during the first world war. One of my favorites. Radiguet wrote this at the age of 17 and died three years later of typhoid. He was a protege of Jean Cocteau and received a fantastic amount of attention from the Parisian literary scene of the early 1920s. A fascinating person and a fascinating book. Read it!

"The Devil in the Flesh" is a simple, powerful love story dealing with a teenage boy's love for a woman who is a little bit older. Set in France during the first world war. One of my favorites. Radiguet wrote this at the age of 17 and died three years later of typhoid. He was a protege of Jean Cocteau and received a fantastic amount of attention from the Parisian literary scene of the early 1920s. A fascinating person and a fascinating book. Read it!