Book Chat: Places in Emma: Southend-ON-Sea

Friday, 12 June 2009

Places in Emma: Southend-ON-Sea

Southend-on-Sea is a unitary authority area, town, and seaside resort in Essex, England. The district has Borough status, and comprises the towns of Chalkwell, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, Prittlewell, Shoeburyness, Southchurch, Thorpe Bay, and Westcliff-on-Sea. The district is situated within the Thames Gateway on the north side of the Thames estuary 40 miles (64 km) east of central London. It is bordered to the north by Rochford and to the west by Castle Point.

History

Originally the south end of the village of Prittlewell, Southend became a seaside resort during the Georgian era. Proximity to London and access by train meant the economy has been based on tourism ever since. Southend Pier is the world's longest pleasure pier at 1.34 miles (2158m). It has suffered fires and ship collisions, most recently in October 2005, but the basic pier structure has been repaired each time. There has been significant loss of pier-head facilities since the major fire in 1976.
With the decline of seaside resorts, from the 1960s much of the centre was developed for commerce and many of the original features were destroyed through redevelopment or neglect. H.M. Revenue & Customs (HMRC), (formerly HM Customs and Excise), are major employers, and the central offices for the collection of VAT are there. Southend opened the University of Essex, Southend to boost the economy.
There are nine railway stations on two lines within the borough connecting it to London.

Governance
Southend-on-Sea was formed as a municipal borough in 1892 with the functions of local government shared with Essex County Council. In 1913 the borough was enlarged by the former area of Leigh on Sea Urban District. In 1914 the enlarged Southend gained the status of county borough, exempt from county council control and a single-tier of local government. The county borough was enlarged in 1933 by the former area of Shoeburyness Urban District and part of Rochford Rural District.
In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, Southend became a district of Essex with borough status, however in 1998 it again became the single tier of local government when it became a unitary authority.
Seventeen wards each return three councillors, a total of 51. Councillors serve four years and one third of the council is elected each year, followed by one year without election. Following the 2007 local elections and a 2007 by-election, the composition isEntertainment and culture

Seafront attractions

Southend Pier Autumn 2007

The town is known for its seafront. Since 1986, a diesel-hydraulic railway has run the length of pier, replacing the electric service which opened in 1890. The pier has been beset by fires; a fire in 1995 destroyed the bowling alley at the start of the pier and a another fire in October 2005 damaged the far end of the pier. The pier was also run through by a boat in 1984.
The Kursaal was one of the earliest theme parks, built at the start of the 20th century. It closed in the 1970s and much of the land was developed as housing. The entrance hall, a listed building, is a bowling alley arcade operated by Megabowl and casino.

An amusement

park, formerly known as Peter Pan's Playground, straddles the pier entrance. Peter Pan's Playground was eventually renamed Adventure Island as its size and popularity grew, and has since grown into a large amusement park with over 50 rides. The seafront also houses the "Sea-Life Adventure" aquarium, owned by the Miller family, who also own Adventure Island.
The cliff gardens, which included Never Never Land and Victorian bandstand were an attraction until slippage in 2003 made parts of the cliffs unstable, and the bandstand has been removed. The council wants to re-erect the bandstand but a location has to be found.
A cliff lift links the base of the High Street with the new pier entrance. The older Southend Cliff Railway, a short funicular, is a few hundred metres away, closed because structural and mechanical work needs to be done in order to meet European Union legislation which classes it as a cable car.
On the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, Southend hosts a farmers' market.
Festival eventsStarting in 1986, An airshow, dubbed Festival of the Air in 2009, takes place each May. At the show - one of Europe's largest free airshows - aircraft including high-speed military jets and sports aerobatic displays fly over the sea, parallel with the seafront. The RAF Falcons parachute display team and RAF Red Arrows jet aerobatics team are regular visitors to the s

how.
Looking back 1 mile to the sea front

Each August Southend Carnival opens along the "Golden Mile" with the lighting of the Southend Illuminations.
There are three theatres. The Cliffs Pavilion is a large building to host concerts and performances on ice. The most recent theatre is the New Empire Theatre. It is, unlike the other two, privately owned. It is used more by amateur groups. The theatre was converted from the ABC Cinema, which was originally a theatre built in 1896. The Edwardian Palace Theatre is a grade II building built in 1912. It shows plays from professional troupes and repertory groups, as well as comedy acts. The theatre has two circles and the steepest rake in Britain. Part of the theatre was a smaller venue called The Dixon Studio.
The establishment of Junk Club By The Horrors Rhys Webb and Oliver Abbott (Von Blitz) aided by Ciaran O'Shea, in the basement of the Royal Hotel in 2002, created a 'Southend scene' featured in NME, Rolling Stone and Vogue. Bands associated with the scene included The Horrors, These New Puritans, The Violets, Errorplains and Neils Children. Junk terminated in 2006. The Experimental Circle Club, set up by Thomas Silverman and Junk's Ciaran O'Shea, operates in Southend and London. Chinnery's is a music venue that has featured Arctic Monkeys, Zebrahead and Lost Prophets.
Southend is known for electronic music. The town has venues at the commercial and underground ends of the spectrum. The biggest underground music venue is the Royal Hotel which features house, techno, dubstep, breaks and electro. The Sunrooms champion all creative music.
Bands that originate from Southend include; Procol Harum, The Horrors, The Kursaal Flyers, These New Puritans, Ipso Facto, Scroobius Pip, Zior, and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.
In 1981, Southend became the home of Essex Radio, which broadcast from studios below Clifftown Road. In 2004, the renamed Essex FM moved to studios in Chelmsford.
On the 28 March 2008, Southend got its own radio station for the first time, Southend Radio started broadcasting on 105.1FM from purpose built studios adjacent to the Adventure Island theme park.

Notable people

James Bourne, singer/guitarist in Son of Dork and previously in Busted.

Gary Brooker, lead singer of Procol Harum

Kevin Bowyer, concert organist

Emma Chambers, actress

Nathalie Emmanuel, actress Hollyoaks

Brian Cleeve, author and broadcaster

Jonathan Clements, author

Phil Cornwell, actor and impressionist

Tina Cousins, singer

Gemma Craven, actress

Danielle Dax, musician, actress and performance artist

Warwick Deeping, author

Warren Ellis, graphic novelist

Lee Evans, comedian

John Fowles, author

Benjamin Grosvenor, BBC Young Musician of the Year Finalist

John Hutton, politician

Daniel Jones, musician, producer and former member of Savage Garden

Phill Jupitus, comedian

Mickey Jupp, musician

Dominic Littlewood, TV presenter of several programmes, most notably To Buy or Not to Buy John Lloyd, former British tennis number one

Mike Guy, former Hungarian football player, 3 times NB1 winner

Robert Lloyd, opera singer

Lee Mead, musical theatre actor and winner of the BBC show Any Dream Will Do on 9

Helen Mirren, actress

Dicky Moore, singer/songwriter, guitarist in Scritti Politti

Annabel Port, broadcaster

Spencer Prior, former Southend United and Derby County footballer

Rachel Riley, Countdown co-presenter (from January 2009 onwards)

Joy Sarney, singer and one-hit wonder

Jake Shillingford, singer/songwriter, founder of My Life Story

Peter Taylor, football manager

Kara Tointon, actress (plays Dawn Swann in EastEnders)

Robin Trower, rock-blues guitarist

Matthew Cutler, ballroom dancer and professional on Strictly Come Dancing

Ron Martin, Southend United chairman 1998-present

Tris Vonna Michell, artist

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Poem: Vanished Friend

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friends face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.
And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
'Tomorrow' I say!
'I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner, yet miles away,
'Here's a telegram sir,'
'Jim died today.'

And that's what we get and deserve in the end
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

The Book of Revelations: The Pale Horseman

Revelations 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
8 καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἵππος χλωρός, καὶ ὁ καθήμενος ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ θάνατος, καὶ ὁ ᾅδης ἠκολούθει μετ' αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία ἐπὶ τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς, ἀποκτεῖναι ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς.

Chloros (χλωρός) may mean pale, or just green (even fresh, young, and the like). The second translation doesn't seem proper to the horse of death! Therefore King James preferred just the "pale" translation.

The word is used 4 times in the New Testament (3 of them in the Revelation) and 18 times in the Septuagint, with the meanings mentioned above, sometimes meaning "pale", and sometimes meaning the grass, or the young, fresh, etc.

The Book of Revelation, also called Revelation to John, Apocalypse of John (pronounced /əˈpɒkəlɨps/, from the Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰωάννου, Apokálypsis Iōánnou), and Revelation of Jesus Christ is the last canonical book of the New Testament in the Christian Bible. It is the only biblical book that is wholly composed of apocalyptic literature(In English, apocalypse is often rendered as revelation as the literal meaning of the Greek word is "the act of revealing or unveiling", i.e. "revelation".) begins with "a door … opened in the sky" and describes what some might call the end of the world— or more properly, the end of the age

The "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a term used to describe four horsemen that appear in the Christian Bible in chapter six of the Book of Revelation. The verses traditionally describe the four horsemen as Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.

Death Pale Death, followed by Hades Over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. ίππος χλωρός, θάνατος (híppos khlōrós, thánatos), [The] Pale Horse Pale (green) Horse.
The fourth horseman, usually said to ride on a pale horse, is explicitly named Death. Of all the riders, he is the only one whose name is easily distinguishable. Generally, he is usually followed by Hades (Gravedom).
However, the Greek word interpreted as "pale" is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as "green," leading to some confusion in appearance. The horse is sometimes translated as "pale," "pale green," or "green." The greenish color of the fourth horse could possibly represent plague, fear, sickness, and/or decay.

Revelation 6:7 - 6:8 - “And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a pale green horse; and he that sat on him was called Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, and that they (the four horsemen) should kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

In this sense the white horseman is a symbol for a conquering force from without. This is symbolized using the image of the feared Parthian mounted archer on his white horse and given the crown of a conqueror.
The red rider who takes peace from the earth is the civil strife that ended the pax romana.
The black rider is the famine that follows anytime there is foreign invasion or civil war.
The final rider is the death that accompanies conflict and famine and the pestilence that springs up in the aftermath of these other tragedies
The pale horse represents a time of escalated death and destruction.
The key word to its identity is the word pale which often makes us think of someone that is feeling sick, having an anemic-looking appearance.
Pale is translated from the Greek chloros that we would normally take to mean the colour of chlorophyll, the property that gives plants their healthy green appearance. When used biblically, chloros means the sickly pale green colour of sickness and disease.

Another expression we say is:"Beyond the Pale" meaning outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour or to put outside of civilisation, so they are not part of civilisation.

In using this phrase from the bible he is making us focus on
(1) The last days
the church were telling the people that the Vikings had come like a plague because of their sin, and some even thought they were living in the last days of life on earth.
(2) A Sickly Nation
throughout the Dark Ages when tribes were fighting tribes England was not united, so can be termed as sickly. And definately beyond the pale as far as civilisation was concerned.
(3) Death to the Nation
If the Vikings take all of England what will it become under the yoke of the Danes, who were not Christian and believed in the term that 'Might was Right'.
(4) New Earth
Will Alfred like Jesus usher in a new earth with peace and unity?

A Calendar for Emma

Emma "works"somewhat differently from Austen's other realistic prose narratives. Austen still exploits the differences between psychological and calendar time to pace her book and our response to it, and she paces the events of the book in a closely intertwined way with detailed references that move back and forth in time; she still introduces but one new turn at a time. However, in this book she pays attention to seasons as well as the artificial calendar, she plays hidden games with the reader, and at turn in the narrative time is allowed to seem to float free (although a study of all the references to time shows that Austen is still using her almanac to attach narratives consistently to one another across hundreds of pages.
There are two explanations for this. First Emma was never written as an epistolary novel over a sequence of time. Individual letters (like Frank's at the end) were always planned to be "dropt" into the book. Second the book is very indirect; Austen is coy, hidden; she is intensely concerned to marginalise some of her stories so we only see them out of her heroine's eye. The hidden nature of the calendar is of a piece with the book's silences and Austen's distance from this heroine.
Chapman was the first to notice the difference. Since he has until recently been so respected, when he didn't try to work a calendar out, no-one did. The situation changed when Jo Modert published an article on time and the various calendars in Austen's novels in which she did work out the cruxes of a calendar and showed the novel follows an almanac for the years 1814-1815.
In brief, Modert demonstrated there is a "hidden calendar game" in the novel. Thus, for example, the Monday on which Frank's gift of a piano arrived at Jane Fairfax's home was Valentine's Day; the Tuesday he was forced to leave Highbury for Yorkshire and tried to confess to Emma was Shrove Tuesday; the momentous occurrences at Donwell Abbey and Box Hill occur on June 23rd and 24th, Midsummer Day and Eve, and thus correlate to the day Emma writes Harriet a letter telling Harriet their friendship is over for the time being as that day is July 4th, Old Midsummer's Eve, and the unusually cold wintry Wednesday which followed, July 6th, when Mr. Knightley proposes, Old Midsummer's Day.
I have been asked if Austen worked into the calendar August 1st (Lammas Day). I don't find that she did specifically because I trace only the major events of the novel; the little turns such as Knightley walking into a field or conferring with William Larkins I didn't attend to. I worked out the following calendar by an intensely close reading of Austen'sEmma after reading Modert's commentary. Anyone who looks will see that Chapman was right in this: while one can draw a calendar out, one must deal with Austen's new procedure of zeroing in on very few days over a two or three week period of time and then moving on to a later period; this requires conjecture; thus others may disagree with my calculations; what I did do was keep to the folk-festival-church and calendar year and to the birthdays of the characters and those days of the week we are given against a month. I remember that Eugene McDonnell also posted a brief partial calendar for Emma on Austen-l in which he showed the alignment of its events to the seasonal and folk year.
Finally, I have come across evidence which suggests our extant Emma is another of Austen's "gradual performances". There are Miss Bates's references to Ireland which would have been fitting in 1801-2 ("[it] must make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say, but however different countries", Ch 19,p. 173) or very early in the 1810s. In her Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction Margaret Kirkham has shown that Emma may have taken its initial inspiration from a performance of an English translation of a play by Kotzebue, whose full English title is The Reconciliation, or The Birthday Party, first performed in England in 1799. However, I still think this novel was not originally epistolary: the controlled distant point of view suggests a wholly new approach to the delivery of narrative. Since Austen moved away from it in Persuasion, it may be that she was unconscious of the nature of her achievement and did not mean the reader to read this novel as ironically as many readers do. It's revealing that she made the mistake of thinking many of her readers would not like Emma; in fact, many identify. This supports the contention the text is not meant to be fundamentally or consistently ironic.
All the page references are to the Penguin edition which numbers the chapters consecutively.
1776: Birth of George Knightley -- he is 37-38 when the novel opens
1789, June 8: Birth of Robert Martin; he is 24 years old in 1813
1789, early in year. Captain Weston marries Miss Churchill; end of the year Frank Churchill is born; Frank is 23 when the novel opens in 1813; said to have been 2 when his mother died. Can be dated precisely for when Mrs Churchill dies on July 26th, 1814, we are told she "had been disliked for "at least twenty- five years". Captain Weston and Miss Churchill have to know each other before they wed; so they met in 1788 and married 1789. It all locks together. 11:119; 45:379
1793 Birth of Jane Fairfax; she is 21 when story opens; death of Mrs Weston (nee Churchill) at beginning of year (thus make the boy child just 2), of a lingering illness 3 years after their marriage, leaving a small male child. Date arrived at by subtracting from 1813 the number 18-20, and taking into account the statement that Frank was a very small boy when he was taken over by the Churchills. 20 is the second of the numbers the narrator offers to delimit how much time passed from the death of Captain Weston's first wife to his marriage to Miss Taylor
1796 Jane Fairfax's mother dies when Jane is three
1796, June 23: Harriet is 17 when novel opens so Harriet Smith born in the same year that Mrs Jane Fairfax died. Edith Lank has suggested Miss Henrietta Bates could have left Highbury during this time to help her poor sister, thus giving an alibi for a pregnancy (!). See Edith Lank's intriguing essay in Persuasions 7, pp. 14-15.
1797 Miss Taylor comes to be governess to the Woodhouse daughters "sixteen years ago" (said as the book opens). Emma then 5. Later we are told that at 10 Emma could answer questions that puzzled Isabella at 17; this implies that Isabella is 7 years older than Emma so Isabella was 12 when Miss Taylor arrived. This is time advised for getting a governess for a young girl 1:38
1802 (just before): Jane Fairfax adopted by the Campbells; we are told she was adopted before she was 9.
1804 During one of Emma's "amiable fits" she persisted in calling Mr Knightley "George", 53:445
1805. Age 12 Emma draws up her first reading scheme, 5:65. Mr Knightley says ever since she was 12 she has been mistress of "the house and you all". Was it in this year Mrs Woodhouse died?, 5:66; 53:445
1806 Isabella Woodhouse marries John Knightley. Emma alone with Miss Taylor during the "last seven years" after Isabella married John. Isabella would have been 20-21 and Emma 13. Mr Knightley says he has known and (unconsciously?) loved Emma since she was 13. 1:38
1807: Age 14 Emma draws up her second reading scheme which "does her judgement much credit" 5:65
1809 "Four years ago" Miss Taylor and Emma met Mr Weston in Broad-way Lane; it began to mizzle, and he darted away to bring back two umbrellas. "I planned the match from that hour". 1:43
1811 December and after Mr. Elton enters the neighborhood 16:155
1812 January: the time of Jane Fairfax's last visit 19:170 June: 2 years previous Mr Woodhouse had been at Donwell Abbey 42:352 Last September: Mr Weston wrote note to Isabella Knightley to assure her there was no scarlet fever at Cobham 11:118
John and Isabella Knightley had not come since last Easter 9:104, and then only for a few days, during which time on a windy day Mr Weston helped little Henry fly his kite 11:119
1813 April: birth of little Emma? 12:121 Tues, 8 June: Mr Martin was 24 4:59 Wed, 23 June: Harriet was 17 4:59
There had been a 2 months in the country by Miss Smith to Martin farm just before Emma's first invitation to her 3:53; first Sunday back they had had a goose Mrs Martin had sent 4:58; during visit in September it's called Harriet had been measured 23:199; described in very early February as not six months ago a visit of 6 weeks 23:200, so really an August into September visit We find ourselves in the evening of the day (in September?or early October) on which Miss Taylor married 1:39
"All the autumn", by which is meant September, the Knightley children went sea-bathing; in previous years had come to Hartfield 11:115
1813 Tues, 28th Sept: Letter from Frank Churchill from Weymouth to the new Mrs Weston 2:48; 11:119 One morning a note comes asking if Mrs Goddard can bring Miss Smith 3:53 Michaelmas: Harriet says she didn't know Mr Elton to speak to until then, 9:100; Emma hatches her plan for Harriet to marry Mr Elton the very first evening Harriet came to Hartfield 4:63; that evening Emma hatches her plan to marry Miss Smith to Mr Elton 3:53;
The very next day after Harriet and Emma's first talk they meet Mr Martin on foot on the Donwell Road; Emma's insinuating insidious conversation occurs immediately afterward 4:61
1813 October: At Weymouth a solemn engagement formed between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill 46:387 October: The time that Miss Campbell was married, and didn't expect her parents to come to see her until the summer 19:172
Thus far we know that many long October and November nights are on their way 1:38
Then we are thrust into an on-going conversation between Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston 5:65ff; we are told that Mr and Mrs Weston had been speaking of it "yesterday;" that is, the day before; how well she looked last night? 5:67: an evening party or dinner was there?
Again sudden set down "the sitting began 6:74 Harriet to sit again the next day 6:75 on the morrow the civilities and courtesies the same 6:75
1813 November: a month before Knightley's visit Mrs Bates had her bad cold; Mr Wingfield said this autumn more colds generally and very heavy 12:125 Sun, 7th Nov: Jane Fairfax caught a bad cold 19:174 November late Mrs Anne Weston gets pregnant; baby born in late July see below; Miss Bates's observation about "seeing [her] pass by so often, and knowing how much trouble you have" occurs in May; at that time Mrs Weston would be 7 months pregnant; she is "gently" coerced into constant walking near Bates's. 38:320
Following events occur between Dec 1st-17th, Wed of one week to Friday of 2 weeks later
1813 December A Wednesday Evening Martin had visited Knightley and been encouraged to propose to Harriet Smith 8:86 Thursday (next day) By time Mr Elton takes painting to London to be framed it's December 6:76; on that day he meets Mr Perry on the road and tells Mr Perry he will not be back in time for whist (it was the whist-club night), not meaning to return until the morrow 8:93; that very day Mr Martin leaves a letter which contains a proposal of marriage to Harriet an hour before she arrives in a parcel which contains 2 songs Harriet left Elizabeth to copy That night Harriet sleeps at Hartfield; for some weeks spending half her time there, has bedroom; Friday or next morning she's off to Mrs Godddard for a hour or two and will return to make a visit of several days; while Harriet there Miss Nash tells her what Mr Perry said about Mr Elton 8:93; Mr Knightley arrives 8:84; he had had his visit from Mr Martin whether he should propose 2 evenings ago 8:86; she then says yesterday he made his proposal by a letter and was refused 8:86-7 the next few days the behavior over the picture, the riddles; the day before Mr Elton declined to show skill at riddles 9:95 the very next day Mr Elton brings riddle9:97; a month ago Harriet had no idea 9:98; Mr Elton to come back that evening 9:101; actually returns just before 4 o'clock to asks permission to go to Coles for dinner 9:106; middle of December the morrow when Emma goes on charitable visit 10:108; they meet Elton also on his way to call; Emma destroys her own bootlace to inveigle a visit into Elton's house 10:111
More firmly in the middle of December:
1813 Dec 7th-8th, Tuesday or Wednesday She "forgets exactly the day -- but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before that evening.Harriet tells Emma that "one morning" she saved the stub of Elton's pencil when he cut away part of it to write down "something about brewing spruce beer". Austen must have flipped back and forth with her almanac as this is said in the the third week of May (see below) 40:336 Dec 13th-14th, Monday or Tuesday "It was but a very few days before I had my sore throat -- just before Mr and Mrs Knightley came". Just before above revelation in third week of May Harriet tells Emma that she saved the court plaister 40:335 Sat, Dec 18th: the first of the 10 day visit of Knightleys 11:115; that evening Mr Knightley comes to dine 12:121; next morning John K to come to the Abbey 12:128; court plaister incident 40:334; there are visits, morning and evenings, evenings are quieter but Thurs, 23rd Dec: Harriet spends day at Randalls, and gets a cold; she returns to Mrs Goddard because she wants to be nursed by her 13:130 Fri, 24th Dec: early in the day Emma visits Harriet, sits as long as she can, Mrs Perry spoken of; for dinner a Christmas visit to Randalls; that morning letter from Frank saying he means to come in a fortnight; the return drive in which Elton proposes 13:130; 14:140 Sat, 25th Dec: Emma awakens refreshed from sleep; snow on ground, though Christmas day, she cannot go to church 16:156 Mon, 27th Dec: stay around 10 days, Knightleys leave; that evening Mr Elton's note saying he is leaving for Bath the following morning 17:158 Tues, 28th Dec (Innocents Day): Elton goes to Bath, will stay "a few weeks;" on this morning too Emma has to tell Harriet the truth; we are told the Knightleys must be in London on the 28th 9:104, 17:158; 17:159 (Knightleys will stay Christmas for only one week 9:104; then we hear of a 10 day stay 11:115)
In this part of the calendar one of those elements which makes me feel I have conjectured rightly is that we are told the Coles' party was on a Tuesday and by my scheme it falls on a Tuesday; working out from the holiday years, by my calendar Frank tries to make his confession to Emma on a Tuesday and it is Shrove Tuesday; on Tues, July 5th, Old Midsummer Eve, Emma sends her letter to Harriet cutting Harriet off from their "friendship;" the weather then clears on Wednesday ( we are told it is a Wednesday) when Mr Knightley shows up and proposes. Of course as so many people have noticed Frank gives Jane the piano on Valentine's Day, this works out in my calendar in such a way as to cohere with the Coles's party.
1814 1814, Sat, Jan 1st A fortnight after Frank's letter which came on the 24th would make his visit the "second week in January" (so in fact say Mr Weston on that very evening of party at Randalls); however, Frank sends another letter in "early January" saying he cannot come after all; immediately after Christmas Emma also gets Harriet to Hartfield with the idea of being a real friend to her -- which she has been anything but before. Time is at this point overdetermined: there are so many references to it. Does Austen do this at turning points as she gathers up her threads. So Emma also says she had been misinterpreting, misguiding and misleading Harriet "for the last six weeks" 14:140, 17;159-160; 18:162 Before Tues-Wed, Jan 4th-5th: Unexpected letter from Jane Fairfax; in the common course they should not have heard from Jane until next Tuesday or Wednesday 19:170, 172 Fri-Sat, Jan 7th-8th: Jane to arrive next week, Friday or Saturday Miss Bates can't say which; Jane to stay 3 months at least (until April) 19:172, 175 Mon, Jan 10th: Campbells leave town on way to Holyhead the Monday following; 19:175 Tues, Jan 25th: Emma has the Bateses and Jane over 20:181-2 Wed, Jan 26th: We can date this from Miss Bates's statement that Mr Elton has been gone just four weeks yesterday Morning following evening Emma has Batess and Jane over Mr Knightley comes to do some business for Mr Woodhouse; on this day Mr Cole receives Mr Elton's letter and Mrs Cole writes note to Miss Bates to say Mr Elton is going to be married; Emma says Elton gone only 4 weeks so this makes this morning to occur at the close of the week of Jan 24th or opening of week of Jan 31st. Saturday, Jan 29th Harriet's meeting with Robert and Elizabeth Martin at Ford's 21:184, 186, 190 Mon, Jan 31st: A few days after Harriet meets Martins, Elizabeth comes to Mrs Goddard's and so engineers it that Harriet is out; leaves Harriet a note 22:197 First week of Feb: Not a week had passed when we hear of how Miss Hawkins described, Mr Elton's short return, Emma's short encounter with him 22:194 Tues, Feb 8th: On morning he sets off for Bath, Emma takes Harriet to call on Martins; half hour before she sees his trunk; 14 minute visit only; at Hartfield she learns of a letter from Frank, he is to come tomorrow and stay for a fortnight; arrives that evening, since he spent 2 nights on the road he must have left immediately after sending his letter 22:197-8; 23:199-200, 203 Wed, Feb 9th: Frank Churchill was to come, Emma watching the clock hourly and a few minutes after twelve find Mr Weston and Frank at Hartfield; Weston hurries on, Frank ignores hint he should stay and instead goes on to see Jane at Bates's 23:201, 203 Thurs, Feb 10th: Next morning FC calls again; spends day with Emma and Mrs Weston, passes Elton's house and envies him 24:208 Fri Feb 11th: Frank goes to London ostensibly to have hair cut, actually to buy pianoforte; Mr and Mrs Weston visit also coincides with invitation to Coles; while Emma and Harriet visit Ford's (see below Wed, Feb 16th) Sat, Feb 12th we are told that Mr Martin dined with with Coles "last Saturday" . Martin is acceptable To Coles from whose party Emma was almost excluded 25:216, 218; 27:240 Mon, Feb 14th: Valentine's Day the Pianoforte arrives Tues, Feb 15th: The Coles's Party: "We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be wanted on Tuesday"; Frank remembers he came a week tomorrow, half his time, so he had to have arrived on Wed, Feb 9th 26:220, 222, 27:230 Wed, Feb 16th: Emma sits down and practices for 1 and 1/2 hours; Harriet arrives, tells of Mr Martin's dinner at Coxes on past Saturday, Emma and Harriet go to Ford's; met by Frank and Mrs Weston, Frank has engineered trip to Bates's to listen to piano; the fixing of the spectacles 27:239-41 Thurs-Fri, Feb 17th-18th: suddenly indeterminacy We are simply told that during "the last half hour of an evening which Mr Woodhouse was persuaded to spend with his daughter at Randalls"; Frank and Emma suddenly begin to plan a ball; Frank has "a fortnight" so he must extend only to Feb 23rd; later when extension revoked he leaves on the Tuesday so this measuring of rooms, given other indications of time, can only occur on one of these two nights 29:253; 30:262 Sat, Feb 19th: The letter came from Mrs Churchill in which she did not oppose extension of Frank's stay; Middle of next day Frank at Hartfield with proposal of a ball at the Crown Inn; she and Frank go to Crown to see Mr and Mrs Weston there to discuss plan 29:255, 30:263 Sun-Mon, Feb 20th-21st: 2 days of joyful security pass; during this time Knightley disparages, Jane Fairfax looks forward to said ball 30:262-3; wedding of Eltons has to take place before Shrove Tuesday 31:270 Tues, Feb 22nd: The note from Mr Churchill commanding Frank to return instantly; sum of it in a note from Mrs Weston comes to Emma at breakfast; he indeed been there a full fortnight. We learn it was a "Tuesday" in Frank's letter; so this is Feb 22nd; 30:263; 3:269 Indeterminate but almost immediate time before Frank's letter to Mrs Weston arrives 31:269-70 Wed, Mar 2nd: Three weeks of "happy exemption from Mr Elton's doings" 31:270 Sun, Mar 6th: Mr Elton first seen at church 32:273 Mon-Thurs, Mar 7th-17th: Emma pays first visit to Elton's, Harriet in tow, three months after her trick over the shoelace; visit then returned by Mrs Elton. Time becoming increasingly indeterminate again: "When the visit was returned ..." 32:273-4 Early-mid, Mar: Letter referred to 3 months later in which Jane told Frank Mr Perry setting up carriage; Jane had it from Miss Bates who got it from Mrs Bates who was told by Mrs Perry 41:341
Later in March Mrs Elton and Emma distance themselves from one another, Mrs Elton patronizes Jane Fairfax, walks, talks; Jane comes to spend the day with her 33:286. In April, Jane now there three months; Campbells to stay in Ireland until midsummer, Mrs Dixon presses her to come to Ireland, still Jane stays away 33:286. During this period, there's a visit of some weeks in the spring by two eldest Knightley children, Henry and John with father bringing them and staying one whole day which day coincides with day of Emma's dinner party for Eltons 33:292. Nonetheless, Austen still keeping time within indeterminacy: Mrs Elton will say "From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a disengaged day"; Emma "talked about [the dinner for the Eltons] for ten minures", 33:291-292
1814 Thurs, Apr 7th: The evening dinner party for Mrs Elton: "the evening of a cold sleety April day"; Mr Weston summoned to town and must be absent 33:292: at party are Eltons, Emma & her father, both Knightleys, Jane, Mrs Weston; Mr Weston joins them later; that morning Mr Knightley had met Jane on her way home from post-office before breakfast; also comment "here is April come;" Jane determined to do nothing for 2-3 months (June-July); Frank's letter tells them he is to come "tomorrow or Saturday" so that makes it Thursday; they will be only 2 nights on the road, again letter sent on day journey begins. Among the many obsessive indications of time are about Mr Weston, "A man who had been in motion since eight o'clock in the morning"; Mr Suckling has been 11 years at Maple Grove, the Tupmans only in the neighborhood "a year and one half at the utmost"; Mr Knightley absent from home five hours for every one of of Emma's 34:294-9; 35:300, 302; 36:306, 312 Fri (tomorrow) or Sat, Apr 8th-9th: Frank to come to London with Churchills and to stay through month of May; Emma thinking about immediately afterwards explicitly makes time of Frank's absence as "two months" since Frank has been at Highbury 36:307, 37:313 Sat-Tues, Apr 9th-19th: During next ten days Frank came once; Churchills are however in London; Mrs Churchill in a weaker state than she was half a year ago; letter during this time from Frank says they will rent in Richmond; "by ten days' end" his aunt has had enough of London 37:314-5 May 1st-June 30th: Churchills take "ready-furnished house in Richmond "for May and June". "What were nine miles to a young man? -- An hour's drive"; "Sixteen miles -- nay, eighteen -- it must be a full eighteen to Manchester-street" 37:315. It's worth noting continual obsessive attention to time and distance: May, Second week, Mon-Thurs, May 9th-12th: Ball: Wherein Frank appalled at Mrs Elton's behavior, gives himself away in thousands of ways; wherein Eltons snub Harriet and Mr Knightley asks her to dance. Second week arrived at by working backwards from last; sudden shift to indeterminacy heralds sudden looseness in narrative as Jane Fairfax & Mrs Elton plots are about to be held at bay (next few chapters we hear about doings from Emma and Harriet's perspective 38:318 Fri, May 13th?: Next morning: Gypsy incident from which Frank Churchill saves Harriet 39:329**Someone pointed out to me this is a folk calendar day but I cannot find my reference and would be grateful to anyone who could say what such a Friday in May would be in the church or festival year. May 19th is St Dunstan's day: Dunstan said to be most famous of Anglo-Saxon saints, born near Glastonbury, an Archbishop of Canterbury, but next two references makes it clear the Ball was held the second week May, Third week, Mon-Tues, May 16th or 17th: A very few days after ball and Gypsy incident: Harriet gives up relics, and says she loves another 40:334 May, Fourth Week, Thurs-Fri, May 27th-28th: "A fortnight after alarm" (i.e. gypsy incident) Harriet confesses her aspirations for Knightley to Emma; Emma thinks she is talking of gypsy incident while Harriet is talking of mortification at ball and Mr Knightley's sparing her that anguish 40:340
"June opens upon Highbury"; Campbells not to return from Ireland until "August" rather than "Midsummer" so Jane to be with Bateses two months more 41:340 One day: Knightley at dinner with Randalls' family (Mr and Mrs Weston and Jane at Eltons. We see Emma is excluded. He sees a look pass between Jane and Frank in the role of admirer of Jane 41:340
Another time again from Mr Knightley's eyes (or was it "himself creating what I saw" as in Cowper): in company of Jane and Frank, an evening in June, after dinner: rain threatens; Westons & son walking with Miss Bates and niece "who had accidentally met"; they meet Mr Knightley, Emma, & Harriet; Frank makes mistake of referring to gossip Jane sent him "three months ago" in a letter, attributes to Mrs Weston; Miss Bates "trying in vain to be heard for two minutes", for "about three days" "last spring" it was "quite a secret" that Perrys were planning to buy and to use a carriage; Jane lags behind in embarrassment; tea & alphabet game, "box of letters" left over from nephews' "visit of some weeks in the spring". This, says Frank, "a dull looking evening, that ought to be treated rather as winter than summer" 41:34-343
Now middle of June (42:349)
1814 Thurs, June 23rd: Midsummer Eve and Harriet's birthday; Donwell Abbey expedition; Mrs Elton's nagging at Jane over taking position as governess; Frank comes late in day after Jane has left, they quarrelled on the road; Emma sees him at 3 o'clock 42:352; 43:362 Fri, June 24th: Midsummer Day: Frank stays at Randall's, 7 miles to Box Hill, remain there for 2 hours; terrible moment with Knightley, evening playing back-gammon with her father; earlier in day Jane tells Mrs Elton to say no to Mrs Smallridge; but later in the evening when Miss Bates & Jane at Elton's, Jane says yes after she hears that Frank returned to Richmond that evening after his stepfather said he could wait until the next morning. Jane told this by Miss Bates, "closes with the offer, resolving to break" with Frank entirely. 43:361; 44:370; 44:373; 50:427 Sat, June 25th: Next morning, Emma's visit to Miss Bates, Jane very ill, headache from writing long letters to Colonel Campbell and Mrs Dixon, also painful one to Frank; she has accepted position with Mrs Smallridge; she has written to Frank (we find out from his letter), and the lines are "She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each: she dissolved it. Mr Knightley arrives to say he is going to London to spend "a few days" with his brother and Isabella. Time again obsessively kept track of: Jane has taken up Mrs Elton's offer because she heard of Frank's going off; Mr Knightley at Hartfield for half an hour; Emma wishes she had left Miss Bates 10 minutes earlier. 45:377. Sun, June 26th: "Thirty-six hours" after Frank's return, Mrs Churchill dies: Mrs Churchill had been disliked for more 25 years so that brings us back to somewhat before 1789 for meeting of Miss Churchill and Captan Weston; that this "event" occurred this day made explicit in Frank's letter of July 5th, Tuesaday: "the event of the 26th ult." It was on this day that Frank received Jane's letter; he replied "within an hour" but the multiplicity of business, the many letters confused him so he locked letter up in his desk (this he says in his letter of Tuesday, July 5th). 45:379; 44:371; 50:426; 45:377; 50:428 Mon, June 27th (perhaps through to June 29th): Short letters from Frank to Highbury follow Mrs Churchill's death, her funeral kept at distance, Yorkshire. Frank's stepfather to visit a friend in Windsor he has been promising to visit for 10 years 45:379 Monday, June 27th: Next day after letter telling of death of Mrs Churchill and surrounding events and suppositions, Emma invites Jane to come to Hartfield for day; that "same morning" Mr Perry had seen her, in very bad state; "her present home unfavourable to nervous disorder"; problem is precisely in the "care and attention"; an hour or two's relief would help; Emma sends note; verbal message sent back refusing. It was on this day that Frank and Mr Churchill went to Windsor. 50:428 Tuesday, June 28th: "The following morning" Emma writes "again to say in the most feeling language she could command" that she will call for Jane "at any hour", mentioning Mr Perry on exercise; answer a short note in third person. Emma then drives to Bates's; denied and sees how other women had forced themselves on Jane; from home sends arrowroot, "in half an hour" arrow-root returned with "thousand thanks" from Miss Bates, but Jane "could not take" & will not rest until it is sent back; in "the afternoon" Jane seen wandering in meadow at some distance from Highbury 45:380-382 Thursday, June 29th : Two days after Frank received his letter from Jane in which she dissolves the engagement, he is aware he has not received an answer; doesn't worry until on one of these days he receives "a parcel from her, all my own letters returned", with despair and Mrs Smallridge's address, near Bristol. They must have gone to Windsor on the Tuesday, June 28th 50:427-428. Fri - Sun, July 3rd: Frank gets his step-father to agree to marriage.46:389; 50:427 Fri, July 1st: Frank and Mr Churchill come to visit a friend in Windsor 45:379 Sun, July 3rd: Frank finds out Jane is to go as a governess to Smallridge's; step- father agrees. We are actually told that "two days after Frank and Mr Churchill came to Windsor, Frank got Jane's letter(s?) 46:389; 50:427 Mon, July 4th: "By counting June 26 and the Monday as full days", "about ten days after Mrs Churchill's decease, Frank's ride from Windsor to Jane to make-up and then to Randalls to announce engagement ("he had not time to enter into much explanation. Jane looked "wan, sick", Frank thinks he persuaded it all away. He was here only a quarter of an hour") also occurs day after he and Mr Churchill received letters and he has time to tell his adopted stepfather; on same day, but "he cannot stay five minutes" and she "must come this morning" Mr Weston brings Emma to Mrs Weston; as they walk Frank "half way to Windsor by this time"; Emma tells Mrs Weston that "for at least three months" (from May, time of second visit) she has "cared nothing for him"; now that afternoon Emma and Harriet first understand one another. Time mentioned twice: Emma withdraws eyes from Harriet and meditates "for a few minutes. A few minutes ...", and she sees "Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself" ... her own conduct ... her own heart ... before her in the same few minutes. Harriet's story of Mr Knightley's growth of love for her are described as "Circumstances that might swell to half an hour's relation ...": Harriet measures strength of Mr Knightley's attachment by how much time he spends with her: "they had been walking some time before Emma came ... his having sat talking with her nearly half an hour ... when he first came in, he said he could not stay five minutes ... " The rest of the day; the following night, were hardly enough for her thoughts. 46:384, 387, 389; 47:396, 399 Tuesday, July 5th: If we date time from midnight on we find another humiliation: The rest of the day; the following night, were hardly enough for her thoughts. Every moment brought a fresh surprise; and every surprise must be a matter of humiliation: that she had been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she was wretched and should probably find this day but the beginning of wretchedness 47:501 Old Midsummer Eve: Day of cold July storm. Day insisted on twice: "I did not quite like your looks on Tuesday ... I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday". Emma's letter to Harriet that they should not meet except in company of others for a few days, and then never on the topic of Knightley; Mrs Weston's visit to Jane Fairfax, takes her for a drive, and then her and Emma's conference; a forlorn rainy day, unusual, a July storm; a letter from Jane to Frank dreading Mrs Weston's visit. Long dramatic scene which contains novels within novels. The day insisted upon four times. On this day Frank writes his long letter to Mrs Weston too. 48:405; 50:424 Wed, July 6th: Old Midsummer Day: in the afternoon it clears; that morning Mr Knightley had letter from Mr Weston telling of Frank's engagement to Jane, left Brunswick Square, arrives after dinner and proposes. He says he went to London to avoid Emma after Box Hill; too painful to watch her flirt; cannot bear to watch brother and sister-in-law; "staied on, however, vigorously day after day" until news of Jane Fairfax's engagement; "hidden home through the rain". Emma observes "beautiful effect of the western sun", 49:420; 50:421 Thurs, July 7th: A "sleepless night ... the tax for such an evening", Emma considers her father and Harriet; she does have thought that if marriage "were divested of the danger of drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him"; she then sits down to write a long and presumably painful letter to Harriet. It is interesting to note how rarely Austen allows her heroine's letters to be read, and how those that we have are often brief & performative. We are to be content with the statement that writing this letter leaves Emma so "serious & nearly sad" that it takes "half an hour's walk in the shrubbering with Mr Knightley to "reinstate" her happy frame of mind from the "evening" before. A note from Mrs Weston to Emma arrives, and then herself ushering in Frank's letter ("very thick ... it must be waded through") sent by Mrs Weston who did not like Emma's looks "on Tuesday, day repeated twice; Mrs Weston just received the letter in which Frank refers to Monday as "yesterday", so this is a Tuesday letter; it took 2 days to arrive at Randalls; now Thursday, Mr Knightley reads it with Emma, then offers to come live at Hartfield. He had been "walking away from William Larkins the whole morning to have his thoughts to himself" 50:422-8; 51:429, 433
We return to indeterminate time: the following takes place between July 8th and 14th: Harriet writes back, and we are told that even Emma could see it in "something of resentment ... which increased the desirableness of their being separate". Harriet "rather a dead weight" is Emma's real thought. 52:435;
Emma gets invitation from Isabella for Harriet, Emma writes Harriet, and Harriet agrees and leaves for at least a fortnight for London 52:435
Emma will wait a fortnight before telling her father; she wants Mrs Weston to be "safe" and "well" first. The first overt reference to the pregnancy 52:436
1814 Thurs, July 14th From Emma's conversation we learn that Mr Knightley had visited her on a Thursday to to tell her he would not be meerting Elton tomorrow (Friday, but on Saturday. 52:439 Fri, July 15th: Emma meets Jane who is all welcome hospality; Mrs Elton there and asserts Elton gone to meet Knightley today at Crown. Intention to give piece a "holiday atmosphere": "Half an hour of holiday spirits spent in calling on Jane; she is there on Friday as they speak of Elton and Knightley and Emma sure Knightley yesterday said he was to meet Elton not today but Saturday, tomorrow (see below in determinate time). Since Mrs Elton has a letter from Mrs Smallridge and Jane was to come within a fortnight, and the Eltons were for a while publicly resentful towards Jane; so it may probably somewhat after July 9th at this point. We also learn on that morning Elton had sent a note to Knightley to talk at Donwell about tomorrow (meaning Saturday, July 16th); Knightley sent a note back promising to wait at home until "one." Not even an apology. "Perhaps he went to Hartfield, perhaps the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods". We are to feel Mr Knightley now in love. Finally, Jane to stay at Highbury until she is claimed by Campbells who are to return in August; she & Frank to mourn for 3 months and then marry and live at Enscombe (that would've made the wedding late October). Gushy meeting on stairs saved by Emma's coolness and Jane's nervous apprehension 52:436 52:441, 443 Sat, July 16th: Meeting actually to be at Crown on this day 52:440
Interdeterminate time begins again, Sun, July 17th to Wed, July 27th, a ten day interval is common in Austen's books: Mrs Weston has her baby, an Anna 53:444 Harriet and Emma's friendship now gone as Emma depends on Isabella's letters to hear about Harriet; Isabella sees Harriet "at first out of spirits", but then must've improved; her fortnight now becoming a month 53:446 Letter arrives from John Knightley congratulating brother on engagement 53:446 Mr Woodhouse is told of the coming marriage; letters arrive from Isabella which express "the strongest approbation". 53:449 Mrs Weston comes with her baby, ready to consider the subject "as settled" and decision "a good one"; Mr Woodhouse ready to consider marriage occurring in another year or two 53:449 Mr Weston spends "five minutes" surprised, "by the end of an hour he was not far away from believing he had always foreseen it"; tells Jane "the next morning" . It is all timed. 53:449 We are told that Isabella's family to visit Highbury in August and will bring Harriet back with them them; we are waiting for Campbells to return 52:443; 53:446
1814: time becomes determinable again Saturday August 6th: Three days earlier than Knightley and Emma's conversation: Robert Martin goes to London on business for Knightley; delivers papers and then asked to join Knightley family party at Astley's in the evening; Mr Martin asked to dine "the next day". Harriet made a real person as we are told she was "uneasy in a crowd". Time made somewhat determinate by Emma's statement on the day that Mr Knightley tells her that it was "five weeks ago" that Harriet had her disappointment; Harriet's disappointment was Monday July 4th 54:453 Sunday, August 7th: Mr Martin dines, find his opportunity, speaks, and does not speak in vain; Harriet accepts. A Good Tuesday! 54:453 Monday, August 8th: Martin returns by coach 54:453 Tuesday August 9th:: Time passes and a few more tomorrows and the party from Brunswick Square are to arrive. This is timed by Emma's statement that five weeks ago Harriet had been disappointed. We are told that Emma has been thinking of "change one morning" as one which must bring "a great deal of agitation and grieve her". Knightley comes with new and puts on a "grave" look; "not half an hour ago" Robert Martin told him (so "that morning") that he and Harriet Smith will marry. Emma finds this entertaining and makes fun. What saves scene is Mr Knightley's distress at her more than mocking words on his delusion" He says he is accurate as Martin came to him to find who to go to; Mr Knightley said he must see Mrs Goddard. Mr Woodhouse now drives daily to Randalls and receives "the thanks he asks for" Frank arrived this morning and Jane persuaded to spend the day at Randalls; Campbells still not back 54:452, 458
August 12-13th: "a very few days" brings Harriet back, with family party in tow. Harriet tells tale to Emma, all "unintelligible" to Emma; Harriet's parentage discovered, 55:462. We should remember Harriet's last words: "now I seem to feel that I may deserve him; and that if he does choose me, it will not be any thing so very wonderful", 47:407. Here is the criss-cross of keeping time and symbolic representative in a place in an ongoing text.
"Before end of September" Emma attends Harriet to church where Rev Mr Elton marries them, 55:463
"Waiting for November": by time of Harriet's marriage, Jane Fairfax has quit Highbury, restored to comforts of Campbells' home in London. So Fairfax-Churchill marriage an autumnal affair, and Miss Bates's last words are sycophantic gush over Mr Elton's proposed ceremonious visit, "That will be a favour indeed!", 52:439, with her "looking about her happily"; Jane's last words: How can you bear such recollections is astonishing to me! -- They will sometimes intrude -- but how you can court them!", 52:461
"The intermediate month", October, the one fixed on for wedding of Emma and Mr Knightley; made possible by housebreaking into chicken coup. You see Mr John Knightley "must be in London again by the end of the first week in November". So Emma and Mr George Knightley married "within a month from the marriage of Mr and Mrs Robert Martin", the third week of October the one aimed at as we are to think that Mr George and Mrs Emma Knightley took a trip perhaps to the sea 55:483-484
Final Comment and BibliographyThe picturesque and appropriate touches of using seasonal, folk, and religious festivals of the year to coincide with and reinforce the events and psychological movements of the novel occur throughout the book. It opens just after Michaelmas, and the momentous occurrences at Donwell Abbey and Box Hill occur on June 23rd and 24th, Midsummer Day and Eve. (June 23rd is also Harriet's birthday.) The day Emma sends her letter to Harriet telling Harriet their friendship is over for the time being as (the day before) Harriet has now revealed she is in love with Knightley and has reason to believe Knightley returns her affection is a Old Midsummer's Eve, July 5th (and in 1814 a Tuesday). The unusually cold wintry day which follows, July 6th, on which the weather in the afternoon suddenly clears and warms, and Mr Knightley comes and proposes is July 6th, Old Midsummer's Day. All this cannot be coincidental.
Bibliography:Chapman, Emma 497-8; Kirkham, Margaret. Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction. London: The Athlone Press, 1997; Lank, Edith, "The word was blunder": Who Was Harriet Smith's Mother", Persuasions, 7 (1985), pp. 14-15. Jo Modert "Chronology Within the Novels," The Jane Austen Companion, edd. J. David Grey, A. Walton Litz, and Brian Southam (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 56-7. But see Sutherland's objection in "Apple-blossom in June" Is Heathcliff a Murderer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) 14-9.

Emma: Clues

Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory
Dancing
Dances in Austen’s time were intricate group numbers (for a great rendition of dances in Austen’s time, we recommend that you check out the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice). Sure, you had a partner, but you had to dance together with lots and lots of couples. There are rules and a recognized order for all your movements. Moreover, your parents (and everyone else’s parents) are watching.
OK, so this might not sound exactly like your homecoming dance – but it does echo the way the novel as a whole functions.
Dating and marriage, like dancing, operate according to well-established rules of courtship. Mr. Elton even writes a riddle all about it. As Austen takes care to inform us, when Emma makes mistakes, someone else knows all about them. And, like dancing, marriage becomes a way of functioning as a little group (a couple) within a larger social network.
Notice that Harriet gets slighted at a ball and on the love market. Coincidence? We think not.
The Gypsies, the Chicken Thieves
We’re lumping two groups of characters together here. We might be playing fast and loose with our symbols here, but it seems to us that these outsiders serve pretty much the same purpose in the novel. They’re vagrants. Thieves. Scary, dirty, probably smelly people. Terrorizing the townspeople seems to be their only purpose in life. The gypsies and the thieves help us to understand that Highbury is a social entity which needs to be protected from the dangers of the outside world. It’s lucky that there are big, bad men like Frank Churchill to fight the gypsies off with a walking stick.
Wait a second, though, aren’t the gypsies just little kids? And isn’t it only Mr. Woodhouse who’s scared of the chicken thieves? Well, yes. You’ve got us there. As it turns out, the only people who seem to need protecting are actually pretty silly themselves. Harriet and Mr. Woodhouse might be justified in their fears of the gypsies and the thieves, respectively. Or they could just be melodramatic.
Austen allows her descriptions of encounters with outsiders to hover on a knife’s edge: the gypsies could, after all, become a threat to society. They could also be perfectly harmless – which would mean that Harriet and Mr. Woodhouse’s fears (and, by extension, Highbury’s fears) are over-exaggerated. We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Setting: Highbury, England. The first decades of the nineteenth century
Choosing a tiny, tiny little town as the setting of Emma is not a big stretch for Jane Austen. Come to think of it, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility are all set in pretty rural areas. You could think of it as Smallville – except there’s no Superman. For Austen the use of small towns probably has something to do with the fact that there aren’t any superheroes. (OK, we don’t mean that totally literally, but stay with us for a second.) See, everybody in Highbury knows everything about everybody else. That means that all the little quirks and odd habits of each person in town are well and widely-known facts. There may not be any heroes – but because of this, Austen can show us how irritating, silly, and even lovable most ordinary people are.
Hartfield, Emma and Mr. Woodhouse’s home, functions as the geographical center of the novel. Just about any excursions away from Hartfield become Momentous Occasions (in Mr. Woodhouse’s mind, at least). Mr. Knightley walks from Donwell Abbey to Hartfield just about everyday. It’s obviously not that far away. When the rest of the characters have to trek out to the Abbey, however, it’s a huge occasion – requiring planning, picnics, and even a donkey for Mrs. Elton. Check out our thoughts on Mr. Knightley’s decision to move to Hartfield at the end of the novel in his "Character Analysis." A man moving into his wife’s house? It’s just not done! But it does reinforce our main point: Hartfield is THE house in the novel.
Oh – and a few quick notes about the nineteenth century: horses, not cars (that means travel is very, very slow); riddle books, not reality TV; balls, not shows. And no dating. At least not outside the view of every single busybody in town. Specifically, Emma takes place in a tiny decade known as the Regency. It’s named after the Prince Regent, George, who takes over for his crazy father – also named George. The Regency was a time of rollickin’ good fun for the rich folks – George liked to have a good time. It wasn’t quite that nice for the poor…but they’re not in our story, are they?
Narrator: Third Person (Omniscient)
Austen reserves the right to step into anyone’s mind, but she tends to confine her narrator’s perspective to Emma’s (and occasionally Knightley’s) thoughts. We don’t want you to get too comfortable, though – because Austen’s narrator also likes to throw out some zingers (carefully disguised, of course, as universal maxims or "observations"). Keep a close eye on beginnings of chapters – they’re prime spots for some meditative moments. For example, Emma argues that "where little minds belong to rich people in authority, […] they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones. It’s true in the case of Mrs. Churchill, but it’s also true about the world at large. It’s even, we dare say, occasionally a pretty good description of Emma herself."
Funnily enough, Austen’s narrator also offers some deep thoughts whenever a truly shallow or stupid character does something – well, shallow or stupid. After all, it’s Mr. Woodhouse who occasions the observation that "Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable." How are we supposed to tell these two types of asides apart? We’re not sure. But the confusion that this causes is part of the fun.
Moments of description also open up to give a sense of broader social consensus. Here’s Emma, thinking about Jane Fairfax: "Her height was pretty, just such as almost every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two."
Notice how Emma thinks in terms of what "every body" or "nobody" would think of Jane, not just of what Emma herself thinks? With some clever wordplay, Austen’s narrator manages to convey to us both Emma’s opinion of Jane and Emma’s opinion about what society as a whole considers to be beautiful. In other words, a character’s opinion in Emma is rarely just a private opinion. It’s also a chance for readers to triangulate that character’s opinions with those of Highbury society as a whole. Austen is remarkably insistent on these constant comparisons: in a way, they nudge us, as readers, into occupy places similar to those occupied by real characters. If you’re reading along and suddenly stop to think, "What would Mr. Knightley say about this?", congratulations. You’re exactly where Austen wants you to be.
Genre: Satire, Comedy, Coming-of-Age, Romance
Emma is a big mish-mash of funny stuff, love, funny stuff, growing up, and more funny stuff. We could call it high jinks with a good dose of heartbreak. In fact, we think we will. Watching Emma grow up and fall in love is only part of the fun of this novel – largely because it takes Emma such a very long time to figure out how misguided she’s been. Emma’s not the only misguided one, though – Austen seems to be suggesting that we’re all fools when it comes to love. We know, that’s a bit cliché – but in case you haven’t noticed, Austen tends to love clichés. At the very least, they’re funny. And they might even turn out to be true.
So that covers why we think that this is a coming-of-age romance. Emma grows up a bit and she marries Mr. Knightley. But why a satire? Well, we’re glad you asked. Satires often offer detailed, witty criticisms of people, places, or social systems. Irony is usually a key component of satire – and it’s Jane Austen’s trademark, so that’s a good sign that we’re dealing with some form of satire here. But what (or who) is being satirized? Well, we could say Mrs. Elton. After all, she’s so over-the-top annoying that she gives pretty much all people with newly-acquired wealth a bad name. We could even argue that Austen directs her satirical wit at Emma – after all, it’s the fatal combination of Emma’s boredom, her wealth, and her intelligence which lands her in so many predicaments. A poor woman wouldn’t have time to plan matches. A less intelligent woman wouldn’t be able to argue her way out of tight spots. A busy woman wouldn’t have time to waste on Harriet. Added together, however, Austen’s handling of Emma’s faults could be seen as a critique of the upper classes, who cause trouble as a direct result of their lack of occupation.
We could also argue that Austen’s satirizing English society as a whole. After all, as Emma often reflects, there are only so many occupations which a woman can undertake. She informs Harriet that she doesn’t need to marry, because nothing in her daily habits would really change. As she says, "Woman's usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work." That sounds great, doesn’t it? Oh, wait, it doesn’t. And Austen doesn’t mean us to think it does. C’mon, Emma doing carpet-work? We already know that drawing and playing piano bore her.
We’ve talked a lot about society’s opinions of, well, everything. This is a HUGE focus of Austen’s satire. Why is it that everybody gossips about everybody else? Why do people pay social calls on people they don’t even like? Why are manners so ridiculously important? Aren’t they really just ridiculous? Well, yes. Oftentimes they are.
If Austen is ridiculing Highbury as a whole, then, is she always poking fun at her characters? Can we take anything she says seriously? Well, we honestly don’t know. She does seem to have some affection for her characters – she takes the time, for example, to show us how good Emma is to her father and to the poor. That doesn’t mean that Emma isn’t above criticism, just that she’s got some pretty good aspects to her character, as well. We like to think of satire as a sort of blazing fire: it burns away lots of the ridiculous stuff that cloaks characters, but that allows the truly human and respectable aspects of their roles to shine through. Also, it’s good for a laugh.
Tone: Ironically Sympathetic (Or sympathetically ironic. Take your pick.)
Austen’s tone and style are directly linked to her narrator’s voice. As we said earlier, Austen’s narrator seems to truly love her characters, but she’s not above poking some fun at all their faults. As a famous old critic from the '40s once said, we learn to love characters for their bad manners; Austen’s tone gently mocks all the silly social conventions which characters take to heart. She gets the most fun out of showing us moments when good manners and a character’s own freaks of temperament collide. Take Mr. Woodhouse, for example: he’s determined to be a good host at all times – but he’s also certain that tasty food will kill his guests. Serving gruel to everyone who comes to his house seems like a nice way to resolve this tension, right?
Style: Tongue-in-cheek
Austen’s sentences are short and sweet – but they sure do pack a wallop. She’s a master of ambiguous sentences which could be a character’s thoughts but could also be the narrator’s voice. The official term for this is "free indirect discourse," and Austen was one of the first authors to use it well. Check out moments when the narrator (or is it Emma?) is thinking about other characters in the novel. It’s hard to tell whether Emma is the one thinking these thoughts or the narrator – which is Austen’s point. Making the most of this ambiguity helps Austen to craft a pretty well-developed sense of irony about the social world she invents. She’s often in Emma’s head, but using free indirect discourse allows her to be ironic about Emma’s own thoughts, as well.
Not everything is under control, though. Whenever Emma (or another character) gets worked up, Austen’s sentence structure changes. She uses lots of dashes to help generate a sense of confusion – like her characters can’t quite figure out how to form a sentence – because they’re so – so – so – confused. Check out the start of Mr. Knightley’s proposal for a great example of this:
"As a friend!"—repeated Mr. Knightley.—"Emma, that I fear is a word—No, I have no wish—Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?— I have gone too far already for concealment.—Emma, I accept your offer— Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend.—Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?"
Notice all the dashes and unfinished sentences? They indicate the hurried (and anxious) rush of feeling that Mr. Knightley is about to release. Can’t you almost see him struggling with himself over how (or if) he should tell Emma of his love? Austen may not allow her narrator to enter into Mr. Knightley’s head as often as she does Emma’s, but moments of broken dialogue like this one help to indirectly show us what characters are thinking.
Of course, Austen’s also a master of dashes in other situations, as well. Take, for example, any extended speech by Miss Bates. We’ve included one of our favorite ones (from the party at the Crown):
Ah! here's Miss Woodhouse.—Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do you do?— Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite in fairy-land!— Such a transformation!—Must not compliment, I know (eyeing Emma most complacently)—that would be rude—but upon my word, Miss Woodhouse, you do look—how do you like Jane's hair?—You are a judge.— She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her hair!— No hairdresser from London I think could.—Ah! Dr. Hughes I declare—and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a moment.—
Whew! We’re getting dizzy just trying to follow it! Of course, it’s pretty easy to imagine that Emma has some things to say in between Miss Bates’ mile-a-minute speeches, but our narrator doesn’t allow us to see them – perhaps as a way of emphasizing the silliness and, well, irrelevance of everything Miss Bates says. In other words, we don’t hear Emma’s speech because Miss Bates probably doesn’t hear it herself. She’s already thinking ahead to the next interaction she can have with other people. It’s almost like a form of stream-of-consciousness – except that Austen uses it to prove that Miss Bates doesn’t have much consciousness to speak of.
What’s Up With the Title?
Naming a book after its main character makes it easy for us. If you’re asked what the book is about, the easy answer is, "Emma." Obviously. Naming a novel after a main character wasn’t really Austen’s style, though – most of her books bear titles which are also emotions (Pride and Prejudice, for example). So why Emma? Maybe Austen got tired of thinking up feelings for her characters – or maybe Emma’s too complex of a character to pin down easily. Either way, as soon as Austen names her novel after Emma, we expect everything to revolve around her. That’s lucky, because she does too.
What’s Up With the Ending?
Well, Emma’little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business!—Selina would stare when she heard of it'" (55.11). Emma’s wedding itself gets eclipsed by a vengeful gossip’s critique of the ceremony. And, as it turns out, Mrs. Elton wasn’t even at the wedding. She has to get her account of it from her husband!
Before we get too carried away with hating Mrs. Elton (and let’s face it, there’s a lot to hate), it seems like we should spend some time talking about why Jane Austen would allow the most hideous character in her novel to steal the show. So keep that whiny, high-pitched voice of Mrs. Elton’s in your mind. We’ll get back to it soon.
Amazingly enough, Austen pans away from the main action of her tale frequently. Remember Harriet and the gypsies? If you’re frustrated by the missing love scene or the juicy attack by vagrant children, you’re in good company. What we do get, however, is a sense of how the main story – Harriet and the gypsies, or Emma and Mr. Knightley – gets re-worked and re-told by different members of their community. Mrs. Elton tells her sister all about the shabbiness of Emma’s wedding; Emma herself re-tells the story of a gypsy attack to her nephews. Stories, for Austen, aren’t meant to be lived – they’re meant to be told. Sort of like a novel.
Back to Mrs. Elton, though. Why does she get the last word? We’re not totally sure. But we do have a few thoughts:Austen’s novels are never really just about what happens on the page. (What? What else could they be about?) OK, we’re being a little coy here. The only things we can know about what’s happening in Emma are the things that Austen chooses to tell us. But here’s the funny thing: Austen isn’t just concerned with the plot of the novel. She’s equally interested in what other characters think about the plot of the novel. In other words, Emma gets married. Great. But what does Jane think about this? Mr. Woodhouse? Mrs. Elton? As you’ve probably noticed, this novel is teeming with other characters’ opinions. Mrs. Elton’s just happens to be the one that Austen’s narrator picks to talk about the wedding. Austen hates happy endings. This seems a bit counter-intuitive, since Emma does get the guy she loves in the end. But Austen refuses to let us dwell on this, removing any possibility that readers could get sappy and sentimental by emphasizing the criticism which always seems to follow happy people in her novels. Emma’s not the only example of this: check out her early novel, Lady Susan, for a great not-happy ending. You could think of the novel as a balloon: Austen spends most of her time blowing it up into a nice, happy, floating bubble – and then, right at the end, she sticks a pin in it.

Emma: Quotes

Quote 1: "doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgments, but directed chiefly by her own. The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself...." Chapter 1, pg. 3
Quote 2: "from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done a sad thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield." Chapter 1, pp. 5-6
Quote 3: "Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them...." Chapter 1, pg. 8
Quote 4: "'I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to "Yes," she ought to say "No" directly.'" Chapter 7, pg. 47
Quote 5: "Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good hands she will turn out a valuable woman." Chapter 8, pg. 53
Quote 6: "She did not always feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong, as Mr. Knightley." Chapter 8, pg. 61
Quote 7: "'Whatever you say is always right, and therefore I suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not have imagined it. It is so much beyond anything I deserve.'" Chapter 9, pg. 69
Quote 8: "'That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.'" Chapter 9, pg. 76
Quote 9: "amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into...." Chapter 13, pg. 104
Quote 10: "determined that he did know what he was talking about, and that he showed a very amiable inclination to settle early in life, and to marry from worthy motives." Chapter 24, pg. 186
Quote 11: "She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment, but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood; and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs. Elton's consequence only could surpass." Chapter 33, pg. 256
Quote 12: "'I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good breeding. I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be continually detailing her magnificent intentions from the procuring her a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau.'" Chapter 33, pg. 264
Quote 13: "He could not see her in a situation of such danger without trying to preserve her. It was his duty." Chapter 41, pg. 320
Quote 14: "Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation; but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere." Chapter 42, pg. 324
Quote 15: "'Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to number--only three at once.'" Chapter 43, pg. 340
Quote 16: "She had been often remiss, her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact; scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true contrition she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse." Chapter 44, pg. 346
Quote 17: "The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it happened, but she thought nothing became him more. It was with him of so simple, yet so dignified a nature. She could not but recall the attempt with great satisfaction." Chapter 45, pg. 354
Quote 18: "'To come among us with professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret to judge us all! Here have we been the whole winter and spring, completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and words that were never meant for both to hear.'" Chapter 46, pg. 367
Quote 19: "It darted through her with the speed of an arrow that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!" Chapter 47, pg. 375
Quote 20: "the resolution of her own better conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and leave her less to regret when it were gone." Chapter 48, pg. 388
Quote 21: "'A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.'" Chapter 49, pg. 393
Quote 22: "'If not in our dispositions...there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.'" Chapter 54, pg. 440

Emma: Questions

Do you think that Emma has given up matchmaking for good? Is it possible to imagine a novel like Emma in which the heroine doesn’t get married at the end? (If not, do we ever believe her when she says she won’t get hitched?)
Could a man be the central character of this novel? Why or why not?
How important is it that this novel isn’t written in first person (from Emma’s point of view)?
What perspective do we gain from the narrator’s additions to the text?
Will Emma and Mr. Knightley be happy, or not?
What passages in the text make you think so?
Austen can’t help making fun of Mrs. Elton one last time. We know, we couldn’t help it, either.Emma's wedding isn’t really a big surprise, is it?
Instead of spending the next few minutes blabbing about the nature of true love, then, let’s talk some trash about Mrs. Elton. It’s only fair. After all, Mrs. Elton steals the last few lines of Emma – and she uses them to talk trash about Emma’s wedding. Here’s what she has to say: "Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.—'Very
Is Emma’s determination to raise Harriet into respectable society any different from Mrs. Elton’s "friendship" with Jane Fairfax? If so, how?
Does Emma ever really learn her lesson when it comes to matchmaking?
Is the moment when Emma insults Miss Bates the low point for her character?
What other mistakes might be her worst moments?
Frank Churchill’s foolishness seems to be excused by everybody – even Jane. Why?
Does he actually change by the end of the novel?
Emma never really learns from her mistakes. She’s as irrational at the end of the novel as she is at its start.
By Highbury standards, what is a good marriage?
Do any examples of good marriages exist in this novel?
Why does Emma think that Robert Martin is such a horrible candidate for a husband?
Is this a realistic assessment?
Why does the novel start with Mr. and Mrs. Weston already married?
How might it change our view of Mrs. Weston if she were Miss Taylor at the beginning?
Although Emma and Mr. Knightley’s marriage is, obviously, the central romance of the novel, there are many, many other matches. How are these other matches narrated, and how does that narration differ?
Think, for example, of Frank’s engagement to Jane. We learn about this in a letter – how does that affect the way we understand their romance?
How does this relate to the other letters in their storyline? Does it matter that the letter is passed from Mrs. Weston to Emma before we see it?
The convoluted way in which Emma and Mr. Knightley’s marriage is arranged indicates that they may not be the best partners for each other.
How does Mr. Knightley’s decision to move in with the Woodhouses affect his social standing?
Is Emma really concerned about preserving Donwell Abbey for her nephew?
If not, why does she use this as an excuse?
Is Hartfield (and not Highbury) the center of the novel?
We never see Frank Churchill’s home. How does this shape the ways that we understand his character?
How is this different than, say, our understanding of Mr. Knightley?
Domestic life becomes the unrecognized focal point of Emma: marriage is just another way to start up new forms of home life.
When Emma learns of Harriet’s engagement, our narrator tells us that she can’t imagine it (that’s a first, huh)? Why do you think this is?
We argued that Austen ends the novel with Mrs. Elton’s opinion of Emma and Mr. Knightley’s wedding because she always emphasizes various character’s responses to events in the plot. Some critics, however, suggest that Austen can’t figure out how to write a love scene. What do you think?
Is Miss Bates actually respectable? Is Mr. Woodhouse?
What determines respectability?
To what extent do good manners determine social standing? What other factors influence social status?
An ironic tone allows Austen’s narrator to fully explain the workings of a trivial social system as if it were the center of the world – a move which eventually places readers in the position of valuing the very system Austen critiques.
Why does Emma need Mr. Knightley to point out her errors? Would she have figured out her mistakes on her own?
Does Mr. Knightley change over the course of the novel? How? Where specifically do you see this change? Does Emma’s attitude towards Harriet change by the end of the novel? How so?
Can we actually imagine Jane as a governess?
Does the novel present this as a realistic possibility?
Society only recognizes one real transformative experience for women: marriage.
Does Mr. Knightley respect Emma?
Harriet’s an illegitimate child. By the end of the novel, does this matter?
Why doesn’t Emma like Jane Fairfax?
How do the gypsies figure into the social scheme of Highbury? Shame becomes the most important barometer of change in Emma.
Is Frank and Jane’s decision to keep their engagement secret a respectable one?
Do you think that their marriage will be a happy one?
Emma shows love for her family easily. Does it seem strange that she would decide that she can never have romantic love? Why?
Why does Mr. Knightley love Emma?
Is it possible to dissociate love and money?
Does the novel’s attitude to the relationship between love and money change?
Emma’s imaginary loves actually contain more emotional content than her eventual "real" love.
Mrs. and Miss Bates aren’t rich, but they are respectable. hy? Do people have to be equally rich to be happy in marriage?
Is Mrs. Elton a good catch? (After all, she does have £10,000!) Which character cares the most about wealth?
How can we tell? Highbury’s social scene is completely determined by money, not friendship.
Are manners the same thing as morals?
Emma’s sympathy for the poor shows us that she has a sense of right and wrong. Why does this get all mixed up in her other interactions?
Is Mr. Knightley ever wrong?
How does repentance change Emma? (Alternatively, does it change her?)
Morals are synonymous with good manners in Emma.
Austen’s narrator tells us that Emma starts arranging Harriet’s life because she’s bored. What other options does a woman have to entertain herself?
Is Austen making a comment on gender roles?
Mr. Weston seems to be as much of a gossip as Miss Bates. Does this make him effeminate?
Is gossip a woman’s occupation or not?
The narrator inserts many asides about gendered experiences (i.e., how men can’t understand x, etc). Many of these sections aren’t explained in the novel. What effect does this have?
Is the role of a governess looked down upon?By whom? What are their reasons?
By the novel’s standards, perfect women are also boring women.

Steaminess Rating
Exactly how steamy is this story?
You should be ashamed of yourselves! How dare you even think about the s-word?
Don’t you know that this is the nineteenth century? We’re blushing for you!
We’re just kidding. There’s lots of evidence of sex (after all, there are people). There’s even evidence of illicit sex – remember Harriet? She’s the illegitimate daughter of a merchant.Heck, Mrs. Weston even has a baby at the end of the book!
What? You missed the fact that Mrs. Weston had a baby? That’s probably because Austen played by all the social conventions when it came to things like sex – or even babies. And all the social conventions declare that things like babies just aren’t written about in polite society.
Emma does carry this determination to not talk about sex to unusual lengths, though. In fact, it seems downright determined to not think about sex. Remember how Emma seems completely willing to wait for seventeen years before she marries Mr. Knightley? It’s pretty clear that sex isn’t even close to figuring into her equation. Luckily, Mr. Knightley convinces her to change her mind. He says it’s for the sake of her father, but we’re not so sure…

Eric Bloodaxe by Gareth Williams

Eric's Battleaxe
The battle-axe is often seen as the typical viking weapon, although large axes were also used by the Anglo-Saxons in the late Viking Age.

What's in a name?
Eric Bloodaxe is probably one of the best-known names in Viking history, at least in the British Isles. The favoured son of Harald Finehair, who was credited by the Viking sagas (composed mostly in Iceland, in the 13th century) with the unification of Norway, he became king of western Norway after his father. However, when his younger brother Hakon claimed the kingship with the support of Athelstan of Wessex, Eric moved to the British Isles.
There he divided his time between raiding in Scotland and around the Irish Sea, and establishing himself as ruler of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria. His death in 954 brought the independence of Viking Northumbria to an end, but his sons later succeeded in establishing themselves as kings in Norway.
Eric is mentioned briefly in a number of contemporary or near contemporary sources, and he also left visible traces of his own - in the coinage issued in his name at York. He also features in a number of later sagas, along with his wife Gunnhild, who is generally portrayed as an evil witch.
The sagas use the 'Bloodaxe' nickname, and this is generally seen in the context of his Viking raids in Scotland, and his glorious end as the last independent king of Northumbria. Like his near contemporary, Thorfinn Skullsplitter of Orkney, the name Eric Bloodaxe conjures up an immediate image of the archetypal Viking warrior; huge, hairy and heroic, and the proud owner of a large axe.
'... his wife Gunnhild ... is generally portrayed as an evil witch.'More careful examination of Eric's story suggests that things were rather more complicated. Despite his reputation as a warrior, Eric apparently abandoned Norway to his brother Hakon without a fight, and he was subsequently driven out of Northumbria at least twice. The sagas represent him very much as a henpecked husband, and the likely origin of his nickname is both murkier and less glorious than the obvious explanation of his prowess in battle. So what do we really know about Eric Bloodaxe?
Exile to England
Our knowledge of Eric's life in Norway relies exclusively on the sagas, which are extremely unreliable for the early tenth century. However, although we have to be sceptical of all the details provided by the sagas, there is nothing inherently unlikely in their broad outline of events.
Together with the sagas, there are two Latin accounts of the history of the kings of Norway. Like the earliest of the sagas, they were written in the late 12th century, and there are some textual relations between the Latin histories and the Icelandic sagas. However, the Latin texts are both briefer and less fantastic than the great kings' sagas of the early 13th century.
Eric was the favourite, and probably the oldest, of the many sons of King Harald Finehair of Norway. The saga tradition credits Harald with a round total of 20 sons, as well as the unification of Norway. Modern historians now agree that Harald's kingdom was more limited, and probably confined to the west and south-west, although he may have exercised some power in other areas through alliance with other rulers.
'... Eric secured the succession ... by gradually murdering all of his brothers ...'Harald's kingdom was not sufficient to provide much of an inheritance for so many sons, and Eric secured the succession for himself by gradually murdering all of his brothers in turn. It was probably this that earned him his nickname. While the sagas call him 'Bloodaxe', one of the Latin texts calls him fratris interfector (brother-killer), so it seems likely that 'blood' in this context refers to family, just as today we refer to 'blood relations' as distinct from relations by marriage or adoption.
Eric's rule in Norway was apparently harsh and unpopular, and his kingship was challenged by his one surviving brother Hakon. Hakon is said to have been brought up in England at the court of Athelstan, and this fits well with Athelstan's recorded policy of fostering the sons of potential allies. Hakon sailed to Norway to claim his inheritance, and Eric fled to England. According to the sagas, he was welcomed by Athelstan, because of the the friendship between Athelstan and Harald Finehair, and was made sub-king of Northumbria under Athelstan's authority.
Invader or guest?
Coin of Eric Bloodaxe, first type, with an Anglo-Saxon style design.
The suggestion that Eric first became king of Northumbria at Athelstan's invitation seems at first sight to conflict with English and Irish sources. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and various Irish Chronicles, Eric was taken as king by the Northumbrians in 947 or 948, some years after Athelstan's death, and in defiance of Athelstan's brother Eadred.
Certainly the saga tradition is confused on some points. It places Eric's death in the reign of Eadmund, who ruled between Athelstan and Eadred, and does not recognise the existence of Eadred at all. However, confusion between two very similar names does not mean that everything is wrong. It is also important to note that while there is no mention of Eric in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle during the reign of Athelstan, there is no mention of who did govern Northumbria on Athelstan's behalf during the later part of his reign, so it could just as well have been Eric as anybody else.
'... there is no mention of Eric in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ...'There is also some circumstantial evidence to support the saga accounts. A later chronicle by William of Malmesbury recalls diplomatic relations between Athelstan and Harald Finehair, which fits with the saga tradition. There is also a reference to Eric in an account of the life of a Scottish saint, Caddroe, probably written in the late tenth century. According to this, Caddroe visited Eric and his wife in York, and from other details in this account, the visit seems to have taken place around 940-41. Certainly it must have taken place some years before Eric's first appearance in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Coin of Eric Bloodaxe (reverse)
The evidence of Eric's coinage is ambiguous.
The first of Eric's two coin types is of a standard Anglo-Saxon type used by Athelstan, Edmund and Eadred. The same moneyers issued coins for the Anglo-Saxon kings and the various Viking rulers of Northumbria, and Eric's first type could equally well date from the late 930s or the 940s.
Conquest and reconquest
Coin of Eric Bloodaxe, second type. The sword design is copied from an earlier type from Viking Northumbria. Eric's use of this design may have been designed to promote his image as rightful ruler of an independent Northumbria. The kings' sagas tell us that Athelstan made Eric ruler of Northumbria to protect the land against 'Danes [ie Scandinavians] and other marauders', and Egil's saga tells us specifically that his role was to defend the land against the Scots and the Irish. Again, this is completely consistent with the broader picture of Athelstan's reign. The expansion of the authority of the kingdom of Wessex posed a threat to all the smaller kingdoms in the British Isles, and Athelstan faced a repeated alliance between native rulers such as the kings of the Scots and Strathclyde with Viking rulers of the Dublin dynasty.
'... Northumbria changed hands frequently during the 940s as different factions tried to control the kingdom.'The kingdom of Northumbria provided a useful buffer zone for both Athelstan and the Scots, and both were anxious for it to be controlled by allies. In this context the appointment of Eric as sub-king would make perfect sense. What is certainly clear is that Northumbria changed hands frequently during the 940s, as different factions tried to control the kingdom.
On Athelstan's death in 939, the kingdom was seized by Olaf Guthfrithsson of Dublin, and thereafter the kingdom was contested between Athelstan's successors Edmund and Eadred on the one side, and kings of the Dublin dynasty on the other. While both the Anglo-Saxon and the saga accounts agree that, after Athelstan's death, Eric was acting on his own account, rather than as a sub-king for the Wessex dynasty.
It seems clear that Eric's brief periods of rule c.947-8 and c.952-4 were the result of his ability to contest the kingship of Northumbria with his rivals. And indeed the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that on both occasions he was 'taken as king' by the Northumbrians. It is equally clear, however, that he lacked the force to maintain his position in the face of opposition from both Dublin and Wessex.
The end of the story
A battle reconstruction: Eric's defeat and death at Stainmore in 954 brought an end to the independence of Viking Northumbria. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes it clear that Eric was periodically driven out by rivals, the sagas tell us that Northumbria was not wealthy enough to support Eric and his following, so he often went raiding in Scotland and around the Irish Sea. Although this may well have been partly a desire for plunder, it also fits with Eric's ongoing contest for power with the kings of the Dublin dynasty, who had influence all around the Irish Sea area.
Both English and saga sources agree that Eric was killed in battle. The sagas tell us that Eric was accompanied by five kings from the Hebrides and the two earls of Orkney. This receives some support from later English chronicles, although no such details appear in contemporary sources. Later sources also tell us that Eric was killed in an ambush by Maccus, son of Olaf. This Maccus is otherwise unknown, but the name Maccus does appear in the dynasty of the kings of Man, probably an offshoot of the Dublin dynasty. It is also possible that Maccus was a son of Olaf Cuaran, king of Dublin, and Eric's rival as king of Northumbria in the late 940s.
'... Eric's death at Stainmore in 954 brought an end to independent Viking rule in Northumbria.'In either case, Maccus would appear to have been acting at least partially on behalf of Eadred of Wessex, who was apparently using the established tactic of setting one Viking leader against another. And whoever Maccus was, Eric's death at Stainmore in 954 brought an end to independent Viking rule in Northumbria. This is sometimes taken as the end of the first Viking Age, although Viking raids on England resumed in the 980s. However, raiding and settlement in Ireland, Scotland and Wales continued throughout the period in between, so this date is only significant in a purely English context.
A final note on Eric is provided by the skaldic poem Eiríksmàl ('The Lay of Eric'), which describes Eric's heroic entrance into Valhalla and his welcome by the gods after his death at Stainmore. However, since this seems unlikely to be a reliable eyewitness account, it adds little to our understanding of the historical figure behind the legend of Eric Bloodaxe.
Books
Chronicles of the Vikings by RI Page (British Museum Press, 1995)
Scandinavian York and Dublin by AP Smyth (2 volumes, 1975-9
The Viking Dig: The Excavations at York by Richard Hall (The Bodley Head, 1984)
Cultural Atlas of the Viking World by James Graham-Campbell, Colleen Batey, Helen Clarke, RI Page and Neil S Price (Andromeda, 1994)
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age by John Haywood (Thames & Hudson, 2000)
Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings, by John Haywood (Penguin, 1996). Detailed maps of Viking settlements in Scotland, Ireland and England, Iceland and Normandy.
Places to visit
The British Museum. Important collections of Viking material, as well as displays relating to religions and beliefs from all over the world.
Bede's World. Provides a fascinating insight into Christian life in Anglo-Saxon England just before the Viking Age.
Jorvik Centre. Explores many aspects of daily life in Viking York in the tenth century.
About the author
Gareth Williams is curator of Early Medieval Coins at the British Museum. In addition to coinage, he specialises in the history of the Viking Age, with particular interests in the nature of royal power, and in the relationship between history and literature. He is also a member of the re-enactment/living history group Vikings of Middle England.

Viking Weapons and Warfare by Barry Ager

Ships
The Vikings were daring masters of the sea. Their swift wooden longships, equipped with both sails and oars, enabled them to mount piratical raids on the coastal monasteries and settlements of the British Isles, western Europe and beyond. The shallow draught of these ships meant that they were able to reach far inland by river and stream, striking and moving on before local forces could muster.
'Fearsome figureheads would be raised at stem and stern as a sign of warlike intent ...'Well preserved remains of Viking ships, like those found at Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway and Skuldelev in Denmark, show they were clinker-built of overlapping planks and measured between about 17.5m and 36m in length. They were steered not by a rudder, but by a single oar mounted on the starboard side. A few late examples are said to have had iron-clad bows and sterns. An average speed of 10 to 11 knots could have been achieved, or perhaps rather more in short bursts. Crews of 25 to 60 men would have been common, seated on benches on open decks, although the largest ships could have carried as many as 100 or more. Packhorses and provisions would also be included if needed.
Fearsome figureheads would be raised at stem and stern as a sign of warlike intent, underlined by rows of shields mounted along the sides for defence or show. These could be removed while at sea. Raids in single ships were quite frequent and, before around 850, fleets rarely comprised more than 100 ships. Much larger fleets of 200 and upwards were recorded later, but it is difficult to know how accurate the reports were.
Actual sea-battles were rare, and even then were fought close to shore. Ships were roped together in lines to face an enemy fleet and showers of arrows and missiles would have been exchanged. Each side then resorted to hand-to-hand fighting as they attempted to board their opponents' ships. The warriors in the prow were specially selected for this task. The aim was not to destroy enemy craft, but to capture them if possible, as they represented a considerable investment in time, resources and labour.
Forts and forays
Before the end of the 11th century the Vikings fought mainly on foot. Their horses were small and they had no real cavalry. Documentary sources do report horses occasionally being used by Viking leaders in battle, but more usually they served as a rapid means of transport to the battlefield, where their riders dismounted to fight.
Types of military engagement might range from small-scale family feuds or gang-raids to full-scale pitched battles. At the battle of Stiklestad in Norway, St Olaf and his army of some 3,600 warriors were defeated by a much larger force in 1030, and at Ashingdon, in Essex, the Danish king Cnut routed King Edmund in 1016. The largest armies may have consisted of 4,000 to 7,000 men. But they would generally have dispersed after a campaign and either returned to their lives as farmers, merchants or craftsmen, or joined up with other war-bands.
According to sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Vikings on campaign abroad sometimes constructed temporary winter camps. Only one English example has yet been identified, at Repton in Derbyshire. There the Danish Great Army, which had landed in East Anglia in 865, took shelter over the winter of 873-4.
But in Scandinavia itself we find the remains of ringforts constructed in the late tenth century, such as at Fyrkat, Trelleborg and, the largest, at Aggersborg, in Denmark. They were precisely planned to a similar design and their diameters range from around 120 to 240m. It is estimated that the buildings they once enclosed could have housed between 6,000 to 9,000 inhabitants. It was formerly thought that they were barracks prepared for an attack on England. But their date suggests rather that they were royal defensive and administrative centres, possibly built by Harald Bluetooth to unify the country at a time of conflict with the German Empire. They appear to have lasted for only 30 years or so.
Offensive weapons
Laws of the late Viking period show that all free men were expected to own weapons, and magnates were expected to provide them for their men. The main offensive weapons were the spear, sword and battle-axe, although bows and arrows and other missiles were also used. Weapons were carried not just for battle, but also as symbols of their owners' status and wealth. They were therefore often finely decorated with inlays, twisted wire and other adornments in silver, copper and bronze.
'Weapons were not just for battle, but also symbols of their owners' status and wealth.'The spear was the commonest weapon with an iron blade on a wooden shaft, often of ash and 2 to 3m in length. It was used for both thrusting and throwing. The blades varied in shape from broad leaf shapes to long spikes. Skilled spearsmen are said to have been able to throw two spears at once using both hands, or even to catch a spear in flight and hurl it back with deadly effect.
Swords were very costly to make, and a sign of high status. The blades were usually double-edged and up to 90cm, or a little over, in length, but early single-edged sabres are also known. They were worn in leather-bound wooden scabbards. Early blades were pattern-welded, a technique in which strips of wrought iron and mild steel were twisted and forged together, with the addition of a hardened edge. Later blades of homogeneous steel, imported probably from the Rhineland, bore inlaid makers' marks and inscriptions, such as INGELRII or ULFBERHT. Viking craftsmen often added their own elaborately decorated hilts, and many swords were given names, such as Leg-biter and Gold-hilt.
Long-handled battle-axes might be used instead of swords, particularly in open combat. The famed, double-handed broad axe is a late development, typical of the late 10th and 11th centuries. But as the owner could not hold a shield at the same time, he would take cover behind the front line of warriors, rushing out at the right moment to hew down the enemy.
Defence
For defence, circular shields up to one metre across were carried. They were made of wooden boards and had a central hole for an iron hand-grip, which was riveted to the back of the boards. A domed iron boss was fitted over the hole to protect the hand. Viking shields were probably leather covered, with a rim binding also of leather, or metal in some cases. The Viking sagas - mostly composed in Iceland in the 13th century - show that they could have been painted with simple patterns, as in the case of those found in the Gokstad ship, or even possibly with mythological scenes and heroes. Around 1000, the continental, kite-shaped shield was introduced, which gave more protection for the legs.
'Reindeer hide is said to have been used as armour ...'The sagas also mention 'byrnies' - long tunics of mail armour reaching below the waist - but surviving examples are rare. The mail consisted of interlocking rings with overlapping ends, formed by coiling an iron wire around a rod and then snipping it along the length of the rod. It took many hours to produce a mail shirt, making it very expensive, so they were probably worn mainly by the leaders. It was essential to wear thick padding underneath to absorb the force of sword blows or arrow strikes. Reindeer hide is said to have been used as armour, too, and was reputedly more effective even than mail. Plate armour was not employed, but scale or lamellar armour may occasionally have been obtained from the East, as pieces have been found at the site of Birka, in Sweden.
Helmets were likewise probably worn only by the leading men, although the horned helmet is a modern myth! Helmets required considerable skill to produce: an example of the tenth century from a man's grave at Gjermundbu, Norway, has a spectacles-like visor, an iron dome consisting of four sections with a spike on the crown, and possibly a mail neck-guard. Caps of hide may have been commonly worn, but have not survived.
Battles and tactics
Swordsmen in berserk stance, biting the rims of their shields. The Vikings had no professional standing army, and tactics and discipline seem to have been fairly rudimentary. They did not fight in regular formations, although the bonds of loyalty between men and their lords would have given their armies some cohesion. Weapons training began in youth in hunting, sports and raiding. Aspiring warriors sought armed service in the retinues of the famous, for which they hoped to be rewarded with weapons and fame of their own. A leader therefore needed to wage war frequently in order to keep his following and maintain power against rivals.
'The famous "berserks" ...would work themselves into a battle frenzy so intense it is said ...they could even ignore the pain of wounds.'In preparation for battle the younger warriors would draw up in line, with their shields overlapping in a 'shield-wall' for better protection; their chiefs were well defended by a close bodyguard. The older veterans formed up in support behind them. Battle then began by throwing a spear over the enemy line to dedicate them to Odin, it is said, and this was followed by a shower of spears, arrows and other missiles.
If this was not enough to decide the outcome, each side then attempted to break through and rout the opposition, capturing or killing their leaders if possible. The experienced commander knew that the best way to achieve this was by forming a wedge of 20 to 30 warriors, with its point towards the enemy line in what was known as the svinfylking, or 'boar formation', and then charge, hoping to break through by sheer weight of numbers.
The famous 'berserks', whose name suggests they wore bearskins, may have fought in groups, and believed that Odin, the god of war, gave them both protection and superhuman powers so they had no need of armour. They would work themselves into a battle frenzy so intense it is said they bit on the edges of their shields, and could even ignore the pain of wounds.
Books
The Viking Achievement by PG Foote and DM Wilson, (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980)
Viking Hersir, 793-1066 AD by M Harrison (Osprey, 1993)
The Viking Art of War by P Griffith (Greenhill Books, 1995)
Viking Weapons and Warfare by JK Siddom (Tempus, 2000)
Places to visit
The British Museum. Important collections of Viking material, as well as displays relating to religions and beliefs from all over the world.
Bede's World. Provides a fascinating insight into Christian life in Anglo-Saxon England just before the Viking Age.
Jorvik Centre. Explores many aspects of daily life in Viking York in the tenth century.
About the author
Barry Ager is curator of the Continental Early Medieval Collections at the British Museum, and has special research interests in the cultural contacts and weaponry of the early medieval period. He has published a number of articles on these topics, including, together with Janet Lang, Swords of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods in the British Museum: a radiographic study', in Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England edited by SC Hawkes (Oxford, 1989).

Review of Pride and Prejudice

All novels, but comedies in particular, lose much in translation. There are some, however, which are so transcendently brilliant that they lose nothing, at least, in time. Not even in centuries. Austen's "own darling child" Pride and Prejudice is radiant, so witty and so delighted with its own irreverence that I know it will have people laughing for the centuries to come. Of the heroine Elizabeth Bennet, Austen herself was to remark, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print," and such is her charm that readers have echoed that sentiment for close on two hundred years.Austen and Elizabeth are possessed of the same species of irony and the same capacity for wicked humour. Together they are irrepressible as the author surrounds her heroine with all manner of airheaded relatives, ridiculous acquaintances, and suitors successively dashing, ludicrous and patronising. This is satire at its most glittering, as Lizzie Bennet wades through the uncertain waters of courtship and wooing, eligibility and angling, at times a spectator to and sometimes a player in the intricate act that is the making of matches. Haughty proposals are refused, deliciously. Preconceived notions are overturned, precipitately. Accusations are discovered to be misjudgements and gossip is proven ill-founded, bemusedly.By the end, every notion born of the eponymous hubris and bias has been turned on its head, laughed at and dosed with several pinches of salt. If all the pride and all the prejudice in the world were half as delectably amusing as this, we could do with more of each.

Review:Sense and Sensibility

“One of Jane Austen's more hilarious books. Her characterization and social commentary is sublime! I think Elinor is the only one who escapes complete scrutiny. But almost every one of the characters has a problem matching their speeches with their true actions or with true events. Almost everyone is focused on the material and are extremely self interested. My favorite quote from the book, which I think sums up how Austen treats all of her characters is this reaction of Mrs. Palmer to learning that Willoughby has jilted Marianne.. "She was determined to drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been acquainted with him at all. She wished with all her heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it did not signify, for it was a great deal too far off to visit; she hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw, how good-for-nothing he was." Loved it!

Moby Dick Review

I'm not really sure how I feel about Moby Dick. I think the first time reading it through it was pretty boring. It dragged on for so long where nothing happened until the very end of the book in the last three chapters. However, when asked to reread chapters, the book became much more insightful. The main character Ishmael had a lot of thinking that was shown in the book and his thoughts were very philosophical. Unlike Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ishmael dictates his philosophy in a way that is not forceful, just suggestive. The other two tended to dictate how people should live while through Ishmael Melville merely suggested how people should live.Moby Dick seems like the kind of book that can be reread in different periods of a persons life and hold new meaning. Each chapter can be discussed for hours, because everyone can interpret Melville's intentions differently.I think my favorite chapter of the book would have to be The Try Works. The chapter talks about how whale blubber is made into oil, but the last three paragraphs of the chapter contain large metaphors. I think if i ever look back on this book, I would try and find all the different ways to decipher those metaphors because they were really moving.Personally, I thought the most boring parts of the novel were when Melville talked about the parts of the ship or of the whale. I didn't enjoy them but I wouldn't take them out of the book. It helped add a real-life aspect to the book, provided breaks between the symbolism and story line, and also was a reflection of what was important to Melville. His experience as a whaler greatly influenced the writing of Moby Dick and I think it was a great reflection of what he enjoyed and his inspiration for the story. It made the whole novel more comparable to a biography of his life

The Sea Review

“The Sea is a slim book. The final, single-sentence paragraph closes full stop on page 195. Slim, but not brief. Within its covers is an entire world, a world of one man’s memories of two deaths—one at the beginning of his life and the other in his old age. The book takes the form of a sort of memoir written by Max Morden, as he weaves the events leading up to the childhood tragedy into the recent tragedy of his wife’s year long ordeal with cancer and her final demise, one emotively interpreting the other. Though Max’s thoughts seem to wander haphazardly through his memories, the book is actually very tightly focused. The wandering done is between a few particular places, between a few particular times, with a few particular people, and the entire story orbits around his grief and his questions of self and other.
Max’s narrative is, ultimately, about himself and his understanding of his character, his personality, his limitations, his loss. Because of this, there are only a few character portraits to develop. This is no Dickens or Dostoevsky. This is a single consciousness surrounded by the bare essential of “others”. Indeed, the others who reside in Max’s present are mere ghosts compared to the presence of the cast of his memory. But even those remembered ones are far off, unknowable, untouchable. They are gods—he names them so in the very first sentence of the book. They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. Max is the only person we ever really come to know, and that only so far as he allows.
Max, we learn, is a bit of a dilettante. Ostensibly an intellectual writer on art, the aging man has been frittering away his time playing at writing a study on the artist Pierre Bonnard—“A very great painter, in my estimation, about whom, as I long ago came to realise, I have nothing of any originality to say.” He is a man who perhaps had great dreams—ever striving to put behind him the embarrassment of his low brow upbringing—but he has long since realize that his is “free, fatally free, of what might be called the curse of perpetuance.” His work ends. It will not survive long beyond his death—what of him will last? Nothing.
Max is painfully aware of his own mediocrity and detests it. He is not the great man he would be. His loves were no great loves. His desires were not sublime. In him passion and zeal were only masks of anxiety. He is—dreadful to himself—bourgeois. He is not particularly likable, though I would argue he is no worse than most of us. He is not idealized—Banville is clear about this, that he finds the superhuman heros of fiction uninteresting. Max Morden is like the rest of us, and therefore while not pretty, his life and thoughts are relevant. They offer us an opportunity to peer into the dark spaces within, to shine some brief light on the pitch black of our closely guarded inner selves. And that quality characterizes the book as a whole. This is not a book that transports us away from the realities of our life—it instead offers us the space, the opportunity, to go inward, to see ourselves as we are, in weakness and failing. That is its genius.
The Sea does not offer a final, comforting affirmation. It does not condescend to teach us by way of some tidy moral couched in beautiful prose. It is a portrait of a very common sort of man in a state of grief towards the end of his life. Max Morden is revealed to us without judgment—The Sea gives color, tone, and texture to the man and his ruminations about his life. In this way it is painterly—as if to point it out, Max makes frequent reference to paintings, particularly those of Bonnard. But where Bonnard idealized his subjects, Banville contrasts the idealized subject to the subject in context, bringing greater contrast and poignancy to the reality behind the painting.
Banville handles all of this weightiness masterfully. In other hands such honesty could become a bludgeon that effectively beats the reader into darkness of spirit. But Banville’s excellent imagery, the beauty of his lines lifts the book up. It is like a sad song sung beautifully, and in that glimpse of beauty there is life and the possibility of hope.

Azincourt Review

The tale of the battle of Agincourt told through the eyes of an archer, Nicholas Hooks.
Cornwell is a master of captured the drama of history from different perspective and making the story come alive. And in that, he's very successful here. It's clear he's done his research and knows his history. He knows the nuances of the period and ably weaves them into the story.
He does this by creating a character we can follow and genuinely care about. Nick is an archer in training who quickly becomes an outlaw. He strikes a priest, trying to do the right thing and is forced to flee England. He becomes a mercenary in France, but is forced to return home. There he comes under the sovreign of the king and is put back into the archer core to fight and take back the throne of France. Along the way, he saves a nun from being raped and eventually takes her as his wife (Cornwell points out that convents were used to "hide" women to prevent noble men from taking advantage of them and producing bastard offspring.).
The best parts of the story are the battles. Cornwell excels in creating vivid, realistic and compelling battle sequences that will draw you in and keep the pages turning. Where the novel loses a bit of steam is during the moments in between where we have to set things up for the next battle. I can understand why they must be done and they do make the history of the period and events come more alive. But they just pale in comparison to the battle sequences. Whether this is a fair criticism or not, I will leave to fellow readers to decide

Everything by Ann Marie

Just when I think I've lost my way
Something illuminates the dark
There you are leading the way
Love shining from your heart
Many friends have crossed my path
And I thank God for them all
But I got an extra special blessing
When your friendship answered my call
You stayed by my side every step
Even when others fled
I know that because you're here
I can face whatever's ahead
Your smile and laugh urge me on
And encourage me to be strong
Your loving support helps me stand
When the road is rough and long
So much that I can thank God for:
My family and health
But when He blessed me with you
He gave me more than wealth
Mortal words could never explain
What you have come to be
You are my life, my world, my heart
You are EVERYTHING to me

The Norman Conquest

HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST BY THOMAS HODGKIN.
The Norman Conquest was a pivotal event in English history for several reasons. It largely removed the native ruling class, replacing it with a foreign, French-speaking monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy. This in turn brought about a transformation of the English language and the culture of England. By subjecting the country to rulers originating in France it linked England more closely with continental Europe, while lessening Scandinavian influence, and set the stage for a rivalry with France that would continue intermittently for more than eight centuries. It also had important consequences for the rest of the British Isles, paving the way for further Norman invasions in Wales and Ireland, and the extensive penetration of the aristocracy of Scotland by Norman and other French-speaking families.

Jane Austen's Work: Allusion and Cultural References

When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literature and Philosophy
William Cowper (41.1)
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (9.25)
David Garrick, "Kitty, a Fair but Frozen Maid" (9.54)Agricultural Reports (4.10)
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (4.10)
Regina Roche, Children of the Abbey (4.10)
Ann Radcliffe, Romance of the Forest (4.10)
John Gay, "The Hare and Many Friends" (52.13)
Madame de Genlis, Adelaide and Theodore (53.2)
Historical References
The slave trade (35.14)

Here’s Ralph Waldo Emerson’s opinion of Jane Austen:
"I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. [...] All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? [...] Suicide is more respectable." (Source)Charlotte Bronte wasn’t a huge fan of Austen, either. Here’s what she has to say:
"I have likewise read one of Miss Austen's works, Emma – read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable – anything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, or heartfelt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstrations the authoress would have met with a well bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré and extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well; there is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting: she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound: the Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress."
(Source) Jane Austen’s editor dedicated Emma to George, the Prince Regent of England. Jane wasn’t so thrilled about this – for obvious reasons.
Jane Austen’s “Tribute” to the Prince Regent:
A Gentleman Riddled with Difficulty

Illegitimacy portrayed in Cultural Fiction / Music

This is a list of fictional stories in which illegitimacy features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted from this article. Many of these stories deal with the social pain and exclusion felt by "natural children".
Illegitimacy was a common theme in Victorian literature.
"Illegitimacy was a popular subject for Victorian writers, not only because of its value as a plot device, but also because of the changing laws affecting illegitimate children and their parents which kept the topic in the public eye."

Written works
Shakespeare
Middleton
Massinger
Franklin
Austen
Dumas, père
Herzen
Hawthorne
Gaskell
Trollope
Collins
Tolstoy
Daudet
Turgenev
Dostoyevsky
Hardy
Irving
Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136 prose history): Much attention is focused on the disputable bastardy of King Arthur, as well as the illegitimate origins of the wizard Merlin. Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur (1485 prose romance): King Arthur unwittingly begets a bastard son, Mordred, on his own half-sister Morgause. At Arthur's court, Mordred and his half-brother Agravain rake up discontent about the Queen’s adulterous relations with Sir Lancelot, and a civil war ensues. While Arthur is preoccupied fighting Lancelot, Mordred spreads word that Arthur has been killed, seizes the crown for himself, and attempts to seduce the queen. She resists, and Arthur quickly returns, attacking and defeating his son Mordred’s armies. Mordred dies in combat. Arthur is fatally wounded and dies shortly thereafter with his kingdom in ruins.

William Shakespeare, Richard III (1591 play): Richard, Duke of Gloucester, usurps the English throne, justifying the coup by claiming that the young nephew he deposed, King Edward V, and his younger brother, the Duke of York, are both illegitimate, as their father (Edward IV) was promised in marriage to another woman when he wedded their mother.

William Shakespeare, King John (1595? play): Phillip Falconbridge, bastard son of Richard the Lionheart, helps save England from ruin at the hands of Richard's incompetent younger brother, John of England.

William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing (1598 play): The envious and melancholy villain of the comedy, Don John, is a bastard, and invents schemes to thwart the marriage of his legitimate brother’s close friends.

William Shakespeare, King Lear (1605 play): Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, first cheats his legitimate brother Edgar of his lands, then stands by while his father is declared a traitor, blinded, and sent to wander in the wilderness. Edmund finally makes an attempt on the English crown itself by bedding Lear's two daughters Regan and Goneril.

Thomas Middleton, The Revenger's Tragedy (1607 play): In addition to cuckolding his father and plotting against his legitimate brother, the Duke's bastard son, Spurio, also becomes heavily embroiled in the Revenger's plot to undo the Duke and the rest of his family.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611 play): Caliban, a savage, deformed slave of the play's protagonist, Prospero, is the offspring of a witch and a sea demon.

Philip Massinger, The Maid of Honour (1632 play): a king removes his troublesome illegitimate brother from court by sending him off on an unofficial military campaign.

Benjamin Franklin, "The Speech of Polly Baker" (1747) is the fictional story of a woman put on trial for having an illegitimate child. She had been convicted four times in the past for this same crime. Each time, she said, the full blame was placed on her shoulders but not the father's.

Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749 novel): Tom, the bastard infant of a country girl, is left in an anonymous bundle to the care of the rich and kind-hearted Mr. Allworthy. Mr. Allworthy raises Tom, who grows up and has a number of adventures over the book's thousand-plus pages.

Jane Austen, Emma (1815 novel): Harriet Smith, a young woman who attends a local school and who has been befriended by Emma Woodhouse, is described as the "natural daughter of somebody" ("natural" in this sense meaning illegitimate). Emma imagines that Harriet is the child of a royal duke and introduces her to the local vicar, Mr. Elton, who she thinks is a good match. Elton, however, sees Harriet as far below him socially, and instead woos the unsuspecting Emma. It is revealed later in the novel that Harriet is the child of a prosperous tradesman.

Alexandre Dumas, père, Antony (1831 play): a defense of adultery and illegitimacy.[2]

Alexander Herzen, Who is to Blame? (1847 novel): Krutsifersky is the tutor of Lyubonka, an illegitimate daughter of the retired general, Negrov. Upon forming an emotional attachment to Lyubonka, Krutsifersky is allowed to marry her. The emphasis given to Lyubonka's illegitimacy was of personal concern to Herzen, who was himself illegitimate.[3]

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850 novel): Hester Prynne gives birth after committing adultery, refuses to name the father, and is cast out of Puritan society.

William Makepeace Thackeray, 'The History of Henry Esmond (1852 historical novel): illegitimate protagonist, set during the English Restoration.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth (1853 social novel): a compassionate portrayal of an orphaned young seamstress, Ruth Hilton, who is seduced, impregnated and abandoned by gentleman Henry Bellingham.

Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne (1858 novel): two sets of country gentlefolk fallen on hard times are especially proud of their "pure blood", but the well-meaning doctor brings up his illegitimate niece as a lady and then discovers that there is no place for her in their social world.

Wilkie Collins. "For Collins, the theme of illegitimacy was more than just a plot mechanism: through his fiction he continually questioned society's condemnation of the unmarried mother and her child." [4] One of his best-known novels, The Woman in White (1859), centred around illegitimacy; so do other, lesser-known works such as Hide and Seek (1854), The Dead Secret (1857) and No Name (1862). In the last, two sisters are disinherited when their parents' death reveals them to be bastards; one accepts her reduced circumstances, but the other plots revenge.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (1869 novel): one of the principal protagonists, Pierre Bezukhov, is an illegitimate child of a dying father who has many other illegitimate children. Pierre is chosen as the one who inherits his father's fortune and gains the title of Count Bezukhov.

Alphonse Daudet, Jack (1876 novel): about an illegitimate child, a martyr to his mother's selfishness.

Ivan Turgenev, Virgin Soil (1877 novel): the main character, Nezhdanov (whose name means "unexpected"), is an illegitimate son of a Russian aristocrat. With a desire to do something in the world, he joins the Narodniki, hoping to find his place by "going to the people". In the end, Nezhdanov's confusion about his divided life causes him to commit suicide.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880 novel): Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is the father of three sons, and widely rumored to have fathered a fourth, illegitimate son, Pavel Smerdyakov. Although the eldest son, Dmitri, is put on trial for the murder of his father, Pavel later confesses the crime to Ivan, another of Karamazov's sons.

Thomas Hardy, Two on a Tower (1882 novel): the heroine, Lady Viviette Constantine, chooses a loveless marriage over the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate baby.

C.S. Forester, Brown on Resolution (1929 novel): the protagonist, an illegitimate British sailor and the only survivor of his ship, escapes custody aboard an Imperial German raider making repairs off an island in the South Atlantic and delays the ship's departure long enough for a British ship to arrive and destroy it, losing his life on the island in the process. The captain of the ship finds the sailor's body and discovers it is his own illegitimate son whose existence he has denied.

Marcel Pagnol, Marius (1929 play) Marcel Pagnol, Fanny (1932 play)

Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934 mystery novel): fear of uncovering illegitimacy and the social shame that that would bring are key plot drivers in the murder.

Marcel Pagnol, César (1936 play)

Grace Metalious, Peyton Place (1956 novel): The main plot follows the lives of three women in a small New England town — lonely, repressed Constance MacKenzie, her illegitimate daughter Allison, and her employee Selena Cross.

Marguerite Yourcenar, The Abyss (1968 historical novel) : centres on a man's quest for meaning in his life, and the consequences of his illegitimate birth on his mother (devastating) and his father (very little). Belgian filmmaker André Delvaux adapted it into a movie in 1988.

John Irving, The World According to Garp (1982 novel): the eponymous protagonist is conceived outside of marriage, under bizarre circumstances that permeate the book.

Angela Carter, Wise Children (1991 novel): several generations of illegitimacy in a theatrical family.

Tanya Huff, Blood Books (1991 - 1997, series of novels): Henry Fitzroy, the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, lives in modern-day Toronto, Canada, having been turned into a vampire long ago. He now earns a living writing romance novels and forms a relationship with Vicki Nelson, a former police officer.

Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina (1993 novel)

Musicals
Fanny (1954–57?, based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays, Marius, Fanny and César)

Music
Diana Ross and the Supremes, "Love Child" (1968 number-one hit single)

Movies
Marius—Marcel Pagnol's 1931 French-language film adapted from his 1929 play Marius Fanny—Marcel Pagnol's 1932 French-language film adapted from his 1932 play Fanny Brown on Resolution (1935), based on C.S. Forester's book of the same name César—Marcel Pagnol's 1936 French-language comedy-drama conclusion to his trilogy about a Marseille couple, played by Pierre Fresnay and Orane Demazis. Port of Seven Seas—1938 dramatic film written by Preston Sturges, based on the plays of Marcel Pagnol and the films based on them. The film was directed by James Whale, starred Wallace Beery, and featured Frank Morgan and Maureen O'Sullivan. Sailor of the King (1953), also based on Brown on Resolution. The film has two endings; in one, the sailor dies and his origin is revealed; in the other, he survives and his origin is not revealed. In both endings the sailor is shown to be Canadian, as the actor chosen for the part (Jeffrey Hunter) was American.
Peyton Place (1957), based on the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious Fanny (1961, adapted from the musical play, which in turn had been adapted from Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays, Fanny, Marius and César) Gosford Park (2002), a murder mystery set in 1932, driven by hidden illegitimacy

Television
Peyton Place (1964–69, ABC TV series based on Grace Metalious' novel) Friends - Ross Geller, one of the main characters, has two illegitimate children.

Notes
1. "Representations of illegitimacy in Wilkie Collins's early novels." Philological Quarterly, 22-MAR-04 . [1]
2. Tad Szulc, Chopin in Paris, p. 161.
3. Charles A. Moser, The Cambridge History of Russian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) pp. 229-230.
4. "Representations of illegitimacy in Wilkie Collins's early novels." Philological Quarterly, 22-MAR-04 .[2]

References
Tad Szulc, Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer, New York, Scribner, 1998, ISBN 0-684-82458-2.

Colleen A. Sheehan: Jane Austen Novels

Colleen A. Sheehan (email: colleen.sheehan@villanova.edu) is Associate Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. Her research focuses on eighteenth-century ethical and political thought and includes articles on Jane Austen, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. She is currently working on a book on Madison. James Gillray, A Voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion.
London, 1792. By Permission of the British Museum.

One of the central themes of Emma is that things are often not at all what they seem.[1] Human intentions, in particular, are frequently misconstrued in the novel, especially when the person in question takes pains to keep his or her real feelings a secret. Add to this concern the myriad of games, riddles, charades, acrostics, anagrams, puns, and double-entendres in the novel, and the attentive reader soon learns to be continually on guard. In fact, she learns to be suspicious. Indeed, the word suspect (or its derivations) is a constant refrain throughout the novel, occurring in the vast majority of the chapters.[2] Might there be something suspect going on throughout the novel, even from the very outset, and even in respect to the intentions of the author herself?

I’ve often wondered, for example, how Jane Austen could have stomached dedicating Emma to the self-indulgent, profligate, rotund buffoon extraordinaire, George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales and, from 1811 to 1820, Prince Regent, prior to becoming King George IV.[3] We know that Austen “hate[d]” the Prince Regent but could “hardly forgive” his wife, Princess Caroline, “for calling herself ‘attached & affectionate’ to a Man whom she must detest” (16 February 1813). In an 1814 scathing, personal letter to her husband, which was afterwards made public, Caroline repeatedly addressed her husband as “His Royal Highness.” Whether this was done deferentially or mockingly one can only surmise, but it is interesting to note that in Austen’s short dedication of Emma to the Prince she too employed the title “His Royal Highness” three times. Exaggerated deference is of course a tool of satire, used to insinuate that something fishy is going on.

What must Jane Austen have felt when James Stanier Clarke, the Mr. Collins-like royal librarian, conveyed to her His Royal Highness’s “permission” to dedicate her next work to him? Could she have done it with a straight face? I think not, or at least if she did, it must have been because she knew that she, and her attentive readers, would eventually have the last laugh.

The conventional wisdom is that Austen tried to squirm out of the tribute to the Prince. Was it “incumbent on [her] to shew her sense of the Honour” by dedicating her forthcoming novel to His Royal Highness? she asked Clarke. “It is certainly not incumbent on you” to do so, he responded, “but if you wish to do the Regent that honour either now or at any future period, I am happy to send you that permission which need not require any more trouble or solicitation on your Part” (16 November 1815).

The entire affair of the dedication seems to have been a matter of chance. Here’s how the episode unfolded: According to her sister, Cassandra, Austen began writing Emma 21 January 1814 and completed it 29 March 1815. In August or September 1815 she turned the manuscript in to her publisher, John Murray of London. Revisions (apparently minor) were made in the ensuing months, and the novel was published in December. Prior to this date, in early October, Austen arrived in London to stay with her brother Henry at his residence in Hans Place. In mid-October he fell ill, and a doctor was consulted. Henry’s condition was serious enough to require a second opinion, and another physician, Dr. Baillie, who just happened to be the Prince Regent’s physician, was called in. During his visit at Hans Place, Dr. Baillie mentioned to Jane Austen that the Prince was a great admirer of her novels and that he had a set of them in each of his lodgings. The Prince’s librarian, James Stanier Clarke, would call upon her, he said. Shortly thereafter Clarke invited Jane Austen to the Prince’s august residence at Carlton House. She paid the visit on 13 November 1815, at which time Clarke told her that she was at liberty to dedicate her next novel to the Prince Regent. After much apparent hand-wringing and reluctance, Austen decided to dedicate Emma to the Prince Regent. Since the novel was already in press at this time, she wrote her publisher and added the perfectly proper dedication (Austen-Leigh 118). Henry recovered. There seems to have been no more to the episode than this.

But, of course, things are not always what they seem, or as others try to make them appear. Seeking to establish his good repute, the Prince Regent proclaimed himself “The First Gentleman of Europe.”[4] Interestingly, one of the questions explored in Emma is what constitutes a true gentleman. Austen surely laughed at the Prince’s self-appointed title, being well aware of his deserved reputation as a gambler, a glutton, a spendthrift, and an adulterer (reputed to have fathered numerous illegitimate children by a number of women). As the long-running “king” of the English tabloids, he was ferociously caricatured and skewered throughout his long public career, from the grotesque images of Gillray, like the one shown at the beginning of this article, published in 1792, to the particularly imaginative one by Cruikshank in May 1812.[5] It was a tricky business for the lampooners, though, as Leigh and John Hunt, the editors of the Examiner, discovered when they were prosecuted, heavily fined, and jailed for two years for their public attack on the Prince in March of 1812.

I believe that Jane Austen got in on the game too. But she was careful and cagey and seems not to have in the least aroused the suspicions of the Prince, who continued to admire and bestow his praise on her work after Emma was published. If he read past the novel’s dedication, he did not take Emma’s warning that “‘such extreme and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner . . . is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal’” (203).

One of Austen’s gibes aimed at the Prince involved his extravagant urban scheme for the part of London now called the West End. In chapter 12 of Emma the gentlemanly Mr. Knightley, in an attempt to turn a conversation between his brother and Mr. Woodhouse away from its dangerous path about the merits of vacationing in Southend versus Cromer, interrupts and changes the subject:

“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition—“very true. That’s a consideration indeed.—But John, as to what I was telling you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly the present line of the path. . . .” (106-07)

Of the two resorts, Southend was the much less fashionable, and, as it happens, the place the Prince sent his despised wife, Caroline, to get her out of his way, particularly when he was engaged with his long-time paramour and possibly legitimate first wife, the actress Maria Fitzherbert, at the tonier resort of Brighton. But the primary linkage to the Prince in this seemingly innocuous passage from Emma turns not on a battle of watering holes, but on the name “Langham,” coupled with plans for improvements to transportation.

During breaks from his notorious peccadilloes, the Prince Regent found time to spend vast sums of royal money on redesigning portions of London. In 1811 Marylebone Park became the Crown’s property, and the Prince employed the architect John Nash to “improve” it. Nash’s original plan was to construct a grand processional route that would connect the Prince’s residence at Carlton House at one end of what would become Regent Street, to a new summer villa for him at the other end, running through Regent’s Square (now Piccadilly Circus) and Oxford Street. This plan required demolishing hundreds of houses, mostly of mechanics and tradesman, but also including Foley House, owned and occupied by Lord Foley. At the time, Nash was employed by Lord Foley on a building project at Witley. Foley had accumulated a significant debt to the architect for this project and was generally in financial straits, due to his grandson’s gambling habit. When the New Street plan was made public in June 1812, it caused immediate controversy in Parliament. In an attempt to preserve Portland Place, the Duke of Portland made an offer to Lord Foley for his property, which, if successful, would have scuttled Nash’s plan. Nash quickly and at great risk offered a significantly higher purchase price, which Lord Foley accepted. He then sold a portion of the land to Sir James Langham, M.P., upon which Langham planned to build a house; by the terms of the sales agreement, Nash would serve as his architect. Nash also sold the part of the land needed for the planned New Street to the Crown.

Nash was not, however, able to complete the processional path as designed. Two major problems cropped up. First, homes on the east side of Cavendish Square would have to be torn down to make way for the new route, and the residents vociferously objected. Nash was thus forced to redesign it, moving the path further to the east and creating an abrupt kink or “wiggle” in the street.

Langham Place à
The “Wiggle” at Langham Place.

The green line represents Nash’s proposed route. The broken red line, further to the east, is the actual route Nash had to build in order to accommodate the residents of Cavendish Square and Sir James Langham. The short connecting path, Langham Place, was thus needed to link Regent Street to Portland Place. By Permission of Mike Todd.

Second, this alteration meant that new buildings would be situated dangerously close to Langham’s property, some of which would back up to within yards of his windows and ruin his prospect (Sommerson 83). To avoid this inconvenience, Langham had to purchase additional land from Nash. The price Nash required for the parcel of land is unknown, but, according to John Summerson, “the transaction is said to have been embittered by a furious row between Langham and his architect” due to sub-par structural work on the unfinished dwelling (83). In 1815, Langham fired Nash and hired another architect. According to Mike Todd, Nash—in retaliation for having been fired—declared his intent to build houses on the land he owned adjacent to, and in fact right in front of, Langham’s property. To prevent Nash’s retaliation, Langham bought the property and then refused Nash permission to pave a straight route from Regent’s Park to the new villa to complete his grand scheme. And “this is why,” Todd writes, “there is now a kink in the road (at Langham Place), and why Regent Street south of Oxford Circus bends slight to the east.” Thus, Portland Place runs south from Regent’s Park but twists and becomes Regent Street. At the “wiggle” is a short connecting road called, fittingly, Langham Place.

If the Prince Regent and his architect originally neglected to consider the residents of Cavendish Square, the true gentleman Mr. Knightley did not need a protest from nearby residents in order to respect their interests and welfare. In the conversation with his brother he suggested “‘moving the path to Langham’” and “‘turning it more to the right’” so “‘that it may not cut through the home meadows’” or “‘be the means of inconvenience’” to his neighbors. It is often the case in Austen’s novels that the seemingly banal details of everyday life are the setting for demonstrating human character, for better or worse. In this example, though, Austen is pointing to a public brouhaha and not-so-minor matter in the lives of the people who resided in the vicinity of the Prince’s quarters.

All of the events leading to and including the Nash-Langham row occurred prior to or while Austen was writing Emma. Some of it was public knowledge, but Austen had other and closer sources privy to the operation. Her brother Henry was a business association of Henry Sanford, who resided in Piccadilly and was a cousin by half-blood and friend to Sir James Langham. Henry Austen was also himself acquainted with Langham and may have, with his sister’s knowledge, consulted him in 1813 regarding some particular information she desired regarding hedgerows (Le Faye 228). On 30 November 1814, when Austen was intensely at work on Emma, she wrote to her niece Fanny Knight about a particularly delightful guest who would join them that evening:

Mr Sanford is to join us at dinner, which will be a comfort, and in the eveng while your Uncle & Miss Eliza play chess, he shall tell me comical things & I will laugh at them, which will be a pleasure to both. (30 November 1814)

It is highly likely that some of the “comical things” that Sanford drolly reported to Austen for her amusement had to do with the squabbles between Nash and Langham and the residents of Cavendish Square. In any event, both Sanford and Langham were readers of Austen’s novels. In her record of reactions to Mansfield Park in 1814 (while she was at work on Emma) she recorded that “Sir James Langham & Mr H. Sanford, having been told that it was much inferior to P. & P.—began it expecting to dislike it, but were very soon extremely pleased with it—& I beleive, did not think it at all inferior—” (Minor Works 434).[6]

If Austen made this cheeky but veiled critique of the Prince’s planned scheme for Regent Street prior to any knowledge that she might be invited to dedicate Emma to him, then the encounter with his surgeon, the invitation to Carlton House, and the permission to dedicate the novel to the Prince Regent would seem to constitute an uncanny coincidence at the hands of Fortuna. One can hardly believe it; it is all too pat. Could it have been the case that she revised the novel after it went to the publishers but before it was printed? Or could she have somehow orchestrated the invitation for the dedication? I know of no extant evidence that would solve this riddle. So, for now, I must settle with being suspicious.

What I do know, however, is that embedded in Emma there are more previously undetected barbs and innuendoes aimed squarely at the irresistibly large target of the Prince, and like the gibe at the “Langham” scheme, they are not particularly flattering to England’s future king. An insinuation concerning the Prince’s extramarital affairs occurs, for instance, in Austen’s naming of the teachers at Mrs. Goddard’s boarding school. Among the women rumored to have been mistresses of the Prince were Maria Fitzherbert, mentioned above, and John Nash’s wife, Mary Ann Nash (neé Bradley).[7 ] There were also whispers that both of these women had children sired by him. At Brighton, where Mrs. Fitzherbert and the Prince lived vicariously as husband and wife (and which was dramatically and extravagantly remodeled by John Nash), she was addressed by some as “Mrs. Prince.” Two of Mrs. Goddard’s teachers are appositely named Miss Nash and Miss Prince.[8]

Another barb occurs in conjunction with the al fresco events. If Mrs. Elton, the self-proclaimed “Lady Patroness” of Highbury society, were to have her way, Mr. Knightley’s midsummer’s eve strawberry party, like the Box Hill outing the next day, would be entirely under her direction. In perfectly picturesque fashion, she would have them be a “‘sort of gipsy party,’” with the ladies wearing large bonnets and little baskets hanging on their arms, and everyone coming on donkeys to enjoy a picnic out of doors (355).[9] Mrs. Elton’s scheme is very much like an actual party held in honor of the Prince Regent’s birthday on 12 August 1811, recorded in the Sussex Weekly Advertiser, replete with hats, baskets, a cold picnic, and donkeys. It too was “a gipsey party,” though it did not take place on Box Hill. Instead, it occurred at Bexhill:

The Prince Regent’s birth day was this year celebrated by the principal inhabitants of Bexhill, in rather a novel manner, by forming themselves into a GIPSEY PARTY. Early in the morning all was bustle—donkies, carts, old wigs, cloaks, hats, &c. &c. were put in requisition, and about eleven o’clock the party, (nearly all in some appropriate character) moved in procession, attended by a great concourse of spectators, to Coden Down, about three miles off, where tents were immediately pitched; an elegant cold PIC NIC collation, from the baskets of the party, was set forth on the grass, and very heartily partaken of. . . . [W]hen the whole party retired, very much gratified with the novel diversion, [they] unanimously agree[d that] the anniversary of their beloved Prince’s Birth-day shall be FOREVER celebrated at Bexhill, in a similar manner.[10]

The most subtle (and most satirical) allusion to the Prince Regent is to be found in the second charade proffered in chapter 9 of Emma, which constitutes “‘a motto to the chapter’” and a “‘prologue to the play’” (74; see Sheehan, passim). The word “play” here has a double meaning, for Emma is a play on Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is quoted in this chapter, and the novel is also full of game-playing. The second charade is literally a game, but with it Austen is also playing games with her readers and especially with her dedicatee. Emma gives one answer to the charade, but there is, I believe, a second answer as well, hinted at but not openly disclosed in the text. This charade reads:

My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

But, ah! united, what reverse we have! Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown; Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.[11] (71)

As you may recall, Harriet struggles in vain to try to solve this charade. Harriet’s guesses are rather literal, and Emma mocks her for her simplicity. Emma, of course, knows the answer straight away, glibly offering up the solution of court and ship, or courtship.

Emma’s answer is a perfectly logical and fitting response to the charade’s puzzle. For nearly two centuries readers have accepted Emma’s solution to the charade as the solution. She never second-guesses herself, or even seems to think of second guesses, and so we do not either, at least not this early in the novel. We might want to remind ourselves, though, of what we come to learn later in the novel—that is, to be wary of trusting too much in Emma or in her overweening self-confidence. Perhaps Emma may have missed something that Harriet has seen in the charade and is too quick to dismiss Harriet’s guesses, or at least her more literal approach to solving the charade. For unlike Emma, Harriet (before she is “educated” by Emma) does not overlook what is right before her eyes.

In addition, the eighteenth century notion of “wit” generally involved the employment of double meanings, or at least “two ideas.” As Leigh Hunt remarked in an essay on “Wit and Humour,” “wit is the clash and reconcilement of incongruities; the meeting of extremes round the corner; the flashing of artificial light from one object to another, disclosing some unexpected resemblance or connection . . .” (8-9). You may bring together as many ideas as you can pleasantly assemble, he continued, “but a single one is nothing.” Wit requires at least “two ideas.” It is like “couples are to marriages; and the union is happy in proportion to the agreeableness of the offspring . . .” (130-31).

Harriet’s guesses include “‘kingdom’” and “‘Neptune’” and “‘trident’” and “‘mermaid’” and “‘shark,’” and Emma scolds her for her naiveté: “‘Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend upon a mermaid or a shark?’” (72-73). But Harriet’s literal approach might not be so misguided after all; it might in fact lead us somewhere quite interesting, perhaps even to a more clever solution than the one offered by Emma. Like Harriet, though, we are forewarned by Emma: we should not “‘appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning which may be affixed’” to the charade (77).

Even quite all the meaning? This surely is a direct hint to the readers that there is more to this charade than is disclosed in the text. In the spirit of the novel, however, I will refrain from offering my second solution to the charade here, and instead invite readers to consider it anew and solve it for themselves, at least for a fortnight or two. Here are three navigational hints for the second solution: first, it is related to the dedication; second, the charade is not only a riddle, it also has within it an acrostic (or two) that is an anagram; and third, this anagrammed acrostic spells the name of a person who, like Austen, had a less than exalted opinion of the novel’s dedicatee.

Had Austen been present at the Box Hill gathering and been challenged to say one thing very clever, two things moderately clever, or three things very dull indeed, Emma might well have chided her, “Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, Miss Austen—but you too will be limited as to number—only two very clever things at once!”

Note from the Editor: Colleen Sheehan’s suggested second solution to the charade is available at Persuasions On-Line from 21 January 2007, the anniversary of Emma’s commencement. Before you read it, have fun solving the riddle yourself! You may email your solution or comments to the author.

NOTES

1. The author is grateful to Arnie Perlstein for his insightful and very helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay as well as for tracking down the connections among the Austens, Henry Sanford and Sir James Langham. She also wishes to thank John A. Doody and Katherine Olsen for their comments on the draft and Andrew Bausch for his generous assistance in researching some of the themes of this article. The author wishes to express her gratitude to Mike Todd for his kind permission to reprint the map of the “Wiggle” at Langham Place.

2. The word “suspect” or its derivations (e.g., suspects, suspected, suspecting, suspicion(s), (un)suspicious) is used in 40 of the 55 chapters of Emma, and often numerous times within a given chapter, significantly more often, I suspect, than it appears in other Austen novels.

3. Strictly speaking, the years of 1811 to 1820 constitute the Regency period, the time during which the Prince Regent ruled the United Kingdom because of the mental incapacity of his father, George III. Sometimes, however, the “Regency period” is used to refer to a broader time frame, i.e., between the Georgian and the Victorian eras, or even as expansive as the years 1780 to 1830.

4. Deirdre Le Faye offers this brief but insightful summary of the character and reputation of the Prince Regent: “The Prince was tall, fair and handsome, universally agreed to be charming, witty and intelligent, and in later life became a patron of literature, music and the arts; he was also irresponsible and deceitful, gluttonous and drunken, squandering his princely allowance on fine clothes, expensive mistresses and grandiose building projects at Carlton House in London and his seaside residence, the Pavilion at Brighton. In his youth, he was nicknamed ‘The First Gentleman of Europe,’ but as years of over-eating led to gross obesity, cartoonists would depict him” rather differently (44).

5. See, for example, George Cruikshank’s portrayal of the Prince in The Scourge May 1812: 345.

6. We know too that Sanford later read Emma and “was very much pleased” with the novel. While he was “delighted with Miss Bates,” he considered “Mrs Elton the best-drawn Character in the Book” (Minor Works 437).

7. Allinson writes that John Nash was “reputed to be a favourite of the Prince Regent following a convenient marriage to the Prince’s mistress (which brought Nash instant career success as well as an instant family)” (62). E. A. Smith thinks this rumor was ill-founded (242). Summerson takes a middle course; we do not have evidence either way, he argues, doubting that any of the Pennethorne children were the fruit of “this obscure passion” (151-52).

8. Had “Mrs. Prince” and Mrs. Nash had daughters, they may well have been sent away to some respectable but not particularly prestigious boarding school in the countryside, just as Harriet Smith was, and they may also have stayed on as mentors and then as teachers.

As for Harriet Smith, “the natural daughter of somebody,” the mystery of her parentage is resolved in the last chapter of the novel. Born 23 June 1796 (Midsummer’s Eve), her nondescript surname leads one to suspect that it may not be her real name. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Smythe was the maiden name of Maria Fitzherbert. Harriet’s parentage is revealed on August 12th, the birthday of the Prince Regent.

9. The Prince Regent was a particular lover of strawberries, especially those to be found in the fields of the Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley at Bolney Lodge (Barry 125). Bolney Lodge, located between London and Brighton, was a favorite haunt of the Prince Regent, where, according to local legend, he often rendezvoused with Mrs. Fitzherbert.

10. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dutillieul/ZOtherPapers/SWAAug261811.html

11. This last line may have been a play on a passage from William Cowper’s 1782 poem “The Progress of Error,” which reads:

Pleasure admitted in undue degree Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. ’Tis not alone the grape’s enticing juice Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use; Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame, And woman, lovely woman, does the same. (269-74)

Certainly this passage could have been applied later to the Prince Regent and his notorious lust for fame and physical pleasure. His wife Caroline, too, was widely rumored to have committed adultery.

The line “And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone” in Austen’s charade could also refer to the relationship between the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert, who, it was commonly believed, had a disproportionate amount of power over the Prince. More likely, though, it refers to the marchioness of Hertford, a new mistress with whom the Prince took up at the start of his Regency, and who “was thought to be influencing his politics” (Patten 103). The reign of women over the Hanoverian men was nothing new. The Prince Regent’s grandfather, King George II, also infamous for his infidelities, was nonetheless dominated by his wife, Princess Caroline of Anspach. She seems to have decided that if she could not stop his philandering, she would at least choose his mistresses for him—and that they would be less attractive than herself. In this matter and in many things, Princess Caroline of Anspach ruled her husband, so much so that there was a well known little rhyme during his “reign” that went as follows:

You may strut dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain,
We all know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign. (Van Orden).

Works Cited

Allinson, Kenneth. London’s Contemporary Architecture: A Visitor’s Guide. 3rd ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2003.
Austen, Jane. The Novels of Jane Austen. Ed. R. W. Chapman. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1933-1969.
_____. Minor Works. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Rev. ed. Oxford: OUP, 1965. Vol. 6 of The Works of Jane Austen.
_____. Jane Austen’s Letters. Ed. Deirdre Le Faye. 3rd ed. Oxford: OUP, 1995.
Austen-Leigh, James Edward. A Memoir of Jane Austen. 1871. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1926.
Barry, Octavia. The Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley: A Memoir. London: Skeffington, 1899.
Cowper, William. The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper. Ed. H. S. Milford. London: Fronde, 1905.
Hunt, James Henry Leigh. Wit and Humour, Selected from the English Poets. London: Smith, 1890.
Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. New York: Abrams, 2002.
Patten, Robert L. George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art. Vol. 1. Rutgers: Rutgers UP, 1992.
Sheehan, Colleen A. “The Riddles of Emma,” Persuasions 22 (2000): 50-61.
Smith, E. A. George IV. New Haven: Yale UP, 2001.
Summerson, John. The Life and Work of John Nash, Architect. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980.
Todd, Mike. “Langham Place Takes Shape.” Broadcasting House: A Potted History. 2002. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://www.miketodd.net/other/bhhistory/bh_1811.htm>.
Van Orden, Tori. “Happy Princesses of Wales—A Royal Oxymoron, Part II.” The Royal Scribe 14 June 2004. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://www.etoile.co.uk/Columns/RoyalScribe/040614.html>.

Review: Mansfield Park Revisited

When a book written twenty five years ago is reissued as confidently as Mansfield Park Revisited: A Jane Austen Entertainment by a publisher who specializes in Jane Austen sequels, you hope that it is laudable. Of all of the past sequels to select, (and there are more than a few), why choose one based on Jane Austen’s least popular novel Mansfield Park? What has the new author created to make this sequel worthy of resurrection?
Published in 1814, Mansfield Park was Jane Austen’s third novel and even though I adore it, it has more than its share of nay sayers. There are several reasons why it is a disappointment (to some), but primary objections fall to its heroine Fanny Price, who some feel is weak and insipid and not at all like Austen’s other popular heroine’s. Author Joan Aiken’s solution in her continuation of Mansfield Park is to resume the story four years after the conclusion and to remove Fanny Price almost entirely from the novel by packing her and her husband Edmund Bertram off to Antigua in the first chapter. Fanny’s younger sister Susan Price has been brought to the forefront, stepping into Fanny’s previous role as poor relation elevated to companion to Lady Bertram now a widow after Sir Thomas Bertram’s unexpected death while attending to his business in the West Indies. Susan has matured into an attractive and bright young woman similar to her older sister, but with a lot more spunk, which will please Fanny opponents. Susan holds her own against her cousins the new Sir Thomas Bertram who often thinks she over steps her position and his sister Julia, now the Honorable Mrs. Yates who resides in the neighborhood and upon Susan’s back, objecting to her every move. We are also reintroduced to other characters from the original novel: cousin Maria Bertram the scandalous divorcee, Mary Crawford estranged from her feckless fop of a husband and now gravely ill, and her brother Henry Crawford still a bachelor having never found anyone as worthy as his last love, Fanny Price. Aiken also adds a delightful array of new secondary characters to the mix supplying interest and humor.
A quick read at 201 pages, Aiken moves the story briskly along with a series of challenging events and resolutions that keep the reader engaged, but sadly never resting to discover personalities or relationships in greater detail. At the conclusion I felt more than a bit deprived of a good love story as Susan comes to the conclusion whom she truly loves on the last few pages. This style not only mirrors Jane Austen’s approach with her hero and heroine’s romance in Mansfield Park, but amplifies one of the main objections to the original novel. Despite this flaw, Aiken is by far one of the most talented writers to attempt an Austen sequel and Mansfield Park Revisited truly worthy of resurrection. She has respectfully continued Austen’s story by expanding her characters, adapting the language for the modern reader, accurately including the social mantle and believably turning our concerns for the two main antagonists Mary and Henry Crawford at the end of Mansfield Park into sympathies, which given their principles and past bad behavior is quite an accomplishment. Packing Austen’s heroine Fanny Price off to another country might seem extreme, but it is sure to please the Fanny bashers and allowed Aiken to develop her own heroine Susan who has enough spirit and resolve for the both of them.

Mansfield Park Revisited: A Jane Austen Entertainment By Joan AikenTrade paperback (201) pages
Sourcebooks Landmark, Naperville, IL (2008)ISBN: 978-1402212895

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: A new novel inspired by Austen

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIESby Jane Austenand Seth Grahame-Smith
A mysterious plague has descended upon the peaceful village of Meryton where Elizabeth Bennet and her family reside near by at Longbourn. Zombies have invaded, rising from their graves and terrorizing England with their bone-crunching mayhem. Follow Pride and Prejudice as Seth Grahame-Smith interjects his zombie bedlam into Jane Austen's genteel story of love, misunderstanding and unmentionables.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Jane Austen Ate Our Brain Long Ago.
We’ll confess all right up front. We don’t quite understand what the fuss is over Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Jane Austen ate our brain long ago and we have been an Austen zombie ever since, attentively working away for 200 years for her cause in pursuit of more brains to initiate into the holy sect of The Gentle Reprove and Witty Banter Society. Our diligence has paid off. Pride and Prejudice is the most popular book in print short of the bible, she is the darling of scholars and Hollywood, Internet websites and blogs herald her charms, and even other authors flatter her by attempting to emulate her style. The assimilation plan has been successful. It was never a hard sell. Quality rarely is.
We were mildly amused when the frenzy erupted in the media after the news of the publication of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was announced. Some social climbing author out in Hollywood had hitched his wagon to her star lifting 85% of her text and mixing in bone-crunching zombie mayhem into her genteel story. *Yawn* He claims he has transformed “a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.” Oh really? Given that Pride and Prejudice has more editions in print than any other novel, it appears that several people have wanted to read a masterpiece of world literature since its first publication in 1813. We shall see if author Seth Grahame-Smith will need to retract that statement, or throw down the gauntlet and meet us at dawn with swords.
And so Gentle Readers take heed. A mysterious plague has befallen Regency England killing the living and reviving them back to life as the undead who must feed on the living to survive. The conflict in town is fierce, spreading to the countryside and into the village of Meryton where Elizabeth Bennet and her family reside nearby at Longbourn. Mr. Bennet extricated from his library has dedicated himself instead to training his five daughters from an early age in the deadly arts, traveling with them to China to attend Ninja finishing school with a Shaolin Master. His business in life was to keep them alive. The business of Mrs. Bennet’s was to get them married. When Netherfield Park is let at last, Mrs. Bennet is hopeful that the new resident Mr. Bingley and his friends might marry one or another of her daughters. When Meryton society finally meets Mr. Bingley, they agree that he is was good-looking and gentlemanlike, but his fine friend Mr. Darcy with his noble mien gave immediate disgust even though he was reputed to have slaughtered more than a thousand unmentionables since the fall of Cambridge. After he slights Elizabeth, claiming her to be only tolerable and not handsome enough to temp him to dance, the warrior code in her demands she avenge her honour and open his throat with her dagger. Her warrior duty delays her instincts as the dance is suddenly invaded by a maraudring horde of unmentionables who break through the windows, attack the guests, and devour the head of Mrs. Long. Elizabeth and her four sisters rip out their razor-sharp daggers and make short work of beheading all the sorry stricken. Darcy watches in wonder, knowing of only one other woman in England who could match her accomplishments. The spark has been ignited. The love zombie story begins.
It is now “a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” (Usurper! That is our campaign slogan. I guess we should ™ trade mark it.) We continue along in this manner following Jane Austen’s plot interjected with Grahame-Smith’s fanciful parody of zombie bedlam. It appears that anyone who is not a ninja warrior is a target for zombie destruction, so if there is a character from the original plot ripe for reproach, then it is sure to happen. Brains and vomit seem to go hand and hand. We see Elizabeth Bennet as the defender of Longbourn and the Heroine of Hertfordshire battle zombies, spar with Mr. Darcy and literally kick ass in an ultimate ninja throw down with the officious Lady Catherine de Bourgh. If the concept of Jane Austen’s refined country gentry and gory zombie destruction are in conflict, think again. Like the warrior Bennet sisters who have refined their deadly skills into an art of precision and style, Grahame-Smith knows his zombie lore, skillfully incorporating a genre wholly at odds to the context of Jane Austen’s elegantly refined prose, yet working within its strengths to achieve his goal to have fun with a literary classic, and well, lets face it, make money. Given the fervent response by the public and the media to the book’s announcement last January, we are not surprised that there is a bidding war underway with major movie studios for film rights. Even though this high concept parody is amusing in print, we doubt very much if it will be buffo box office. Given the passions of thirteen year-old boys for gore and goo, we may stand to be corrected.
So who will like this book? Certainly not the Austen purist without a sense of humor. They will not even get past the gruesome cover. Not zombie fans, who will be annoyed having to trudge through a masterpiece of world literature to get to the scant zombie action. So that leaves the rest of us. Those loyal and devoted members of The Gentle Reprove and Witty Banter Society who, like Jane Austen, enjoy a good campy and gory Gothic novel, recognize tongue-in-cheek humor, and have been happily doing so for over 200 hundred years.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books, Philadelphia, PA (2009)Trade paperback
(319) pages
ISBN: 9781594743344

Feature: Authors of the World and other books

The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri - review
Amit Chaudhuri's 'The Immortals' is a quiet evocation of everyday life in India
Salman Rushdie has pointed out that India – in the literary imagination – is a country of magnitude and multitude, a “non-stop assault on the senses, the emotions, the imagination and the spirit”. Amit Chaudhuri makes brief reference to such a “mythical composite of colour and smell” but goes on to show that his approach shares none of the gaudy exuberance celebrated – and often demonstrated – by Rushdie. Chaudhuri’s India is a land of “the banal and the everyday that comprise your life”. Despite the title, he is interested in the mortal and the mundane.
Indeed, it seems that only in the title has Chaudhuri veered away from the explicable. The Immortals tells the story of two families in Eighties Bombay joined by their “common, day-to-day pursuit of music”.
There is Shyam Lal, the son of a famous singer, now a teacher supprting an extended set of relatives. He becomes the guru of Mallika Sengupta, a woman with a beautiful voice who “knew she could have been famous”, but less interestingly “opted for the life of a managing director’s wife”.
Her son Nirmalya is interested in teenage philosophising and playing the harmonium. But then, not much of moment happens: Shyam gets ill, Mrs Sengupta gets old, Mr Sengupta gets pushed out of the company, Nirmalya gets to study philosophy in England. The novel becomes an ordered tabulation of their unremarkable existence, the words on the page like the “agglomeration of notes” on a music sheet.
Instead of Rushdie’s India, then, we have a much more muted evocation of ordinary India. Chaudhuri achieves this in a way that is oddly hard to describe, given a style that appears so keen to avoid both the exceptional and the exceptionable. So, without wishing to be too reductive, let us say that his writing is best embodied in – wait for it – his use of the semicolon. This enables him neatly to structure his descriptions, and fussily to add on extra qualifications: “the aroma from the kitchen hung among the guests like another visitor; no one remarked on it; no one was unaware of it”. It helps him linger on the “gorgeous banalities” under description.
Of course, Chaudhuri is being faithful to the middle-class perspective of the Lals and Senguptas, for whom life is no more than “daytime drifting” between recitals and tea-drinking.
But he is perhaps not rewarding the faith of the reader, who might wish to be treated to something more entertaining. The Immortals feels too small a production (and everything in it, in fact, is unshowily miniature: “people who were half-hidden, small-scale” and so on) to warrant our extended attention.
We sense that the purpose of the novel is to testify to no more than the “untidy ebb and flow of life” in the author’s own tidy fashion. As a result, the prose has a proliferation of pallid qualifiers, reflecting the impossibility of eventual definitiveness: “a sort of”, “slightly”. And, on almost every page, “almost”: “he was almost – not quite, but almost – a nobody”; an “almost meaningless” smile. A description of “almost meaningless” is, in fact, itself meaningless.
This gets to the central difficulty of The Immortals: precision about the blurry banalities of life is self-defeating. Chaudhuri is forced to rely upon oxymorons, those concrete examples of descriptive confusion: “He was modestly shocked”; “mumbled fulminations”. It is as if the author does not trust words to mean more than they say.
Such writing can be no more than serviceable, steady but unmemorable. We might recall that the novel begins with an epigram from Heraclitus, who apparently said: “The mortals become immortals; the immortals become mortals.”
Not only is this like a sentence from the novel itself (balanced, but indicative of nothing much), it points to one lesson learned by its characters: that the pursuit of artistic improvement is no guarantee of fame or success. This is almost intriguing; but almost, as the novel proves, is not quite enough. The Immortals is, like the characters it describes, not destined for immortality.
The Immortals
by Amit Chaudhuri
404pp, Picador

The list of self-help books for women is endless.
The Rules.
He’s Just Not That into You.
Women Are from Mars, Men Are from Venus.
The Goddess Guide.
How to Walk in High Heels.
On and on it goes. But not many of these quote Yeats, Byron, Disraeli and Plato. Certainly, none of them have a chapter about the new orthodoxy. But then Backwards in High Heels is not your common or garden life manual.
Written by the journalists Sarah Vine and Tania Kindersley, Backwards is self-help for the thinking woman. Over 300 or so beautifully presented pages, the pair cut through the bilge that is most advice for the modern woman, dealing with everything from vitamins and minerals to beauty to politics (Vine’s husband is the MP Michael Gove). They delve into matters as diverse as feminism, debt and motherhood. There are even recipes, for goodness sake. By trying to cover all facets of 21st-century life, the authors risk coming across as know-it-alls, but Vine and Kindersley manage not to fall into that trap. They are spunky and aware of their limitations – which are, of course, ours too. Indeed, Backwards is almost an anti-self-help book, in that it believes that women are perfectly capable of helping themselves without the aid of a manual. We got there in the end, didn’t we?
Backwards in High Heels:
the Impossible Art of Being Female
by Tania Kindersley and Sarah Vine
376pp, Fourth Estate

Children's Books - review'
The Ant Colony' by Jenny Valentine and 'Solace of the Road' by Siobhan Dowd The Ant Colony, written by Jenny Valentine, is a happy-ever-after page-turner about Sam, a 17-year-old boy who runs away to 33 Georgiana Street to be alone because of a dark secret. Here, despite his wish to be solitary, he ends up surrounded by people and even has to babysit for Bohemia, a bubbly 10-year-old girl – a wonderful, three-dimensional character who woos and captivates the reader. Valentine, whose previous novel, Finding Violet Park, won the Guardian Children’s Book Prize, has produced a deeply humane story that is both witty and entertaining. One of the most memorable moments is when her characters cram into an old Cortina: “I watched them, each one, and I thought how odd they looked alone, how I wouldn’t have picked one of them out in a line-up of my future friends, not in a million years.”
The book deals with failing parents and running away, but its positive conclusion prevents it getting too distressing. It is charmingly written and the straightforward language makes it suitable for preteens and young teenagers, a younger audience than that for Valentine’s previous booksSimilarly accomplished, though sharper in style and more shocking in content, is Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd, who wrote the acclaimed Bog Child and A Swift Pure Cry, and who died in 2007 at the age of 47.
Holly is taken on a roller-coaster ride between the past and the present, and this well-researched coming-of-age road trip is energetic and unsettling. There are alarming flashbacks of suppressed and horrific memories during her flight from her foster parents on her 15th birthday. Holly heads for Ireland and her mother, but ends up taking a journey deep into her mind too.
She becomes a confident and glamorous girl when she dons a blond wig. When she wears it everything changes: “I put the wig on and I thought myself into Solace of the A40, and the A was for Adventure and the wig was glittering in the evening light. I was Solace the Unstoppable, the smooth-walking, sharp-talking glamour girl, and I was walking into a red sky, ready to hitch a ride.”
This is an edge-of-the-seat read, as we know what terrible danger Holly/Solace is in and how close things come to tragedy. The sad truth of the story is that Holly’s mother is more dangerous than the rich variety of strangers she encounters. This gritty, realistic novel, which deploys Dowd’s talent for humour, will appeal to the older teenage reader.
The Ant Colony
by Jenny Valentine
261pp, Harper Collins,

Solace of the Road
by Siobhan Dowd
261pp, David Fickling Books

1001 Books To read Before You Die

THESE ARE BOOKS FROM THE BOOK "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" BY Peter Boxall, Peter Ackroyd
This group is for the other people trying to read all of the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"
http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm?content_id=22845

"1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" group was set up because of this list and is working their way through the list
in Alphabetical order and also a second book randomly chosen by members . So far we have read Margaret Atwood's Handmaids Tale, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Moby dick by Herman Melville, The Life and Times of Michael K by J.M.Coetze, Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and The Poisonwood Bible by

2000s
1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Sea – John Banville
7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
9. The Master – Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point – David Markson
11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour – Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
20. Islands – Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
25. The Double – José Saramago
26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
27. Unless – Carol Shields
28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
29. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
31. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien32. Shroud – John Banville
33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
34. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
35. Dead Air – Iain Banks
36. Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
37. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
38. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
39. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
40. Platform – Michael Houellebecq
41. Schooling – Heather McGowan
42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
44. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
46. Fury – Salman Rushdie
47. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
48. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
50. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
51. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
55. The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
56. Under the Skin – Michel Faber
57. Ignorance – Milan Kundera
58. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
59. Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
60. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
61. How the Dead Live – Will Self
62. The Human Stain – Philip Roth
63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
64. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
65. Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
66. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
67. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
68. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
1900s
70. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
71. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
72. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
73. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
74. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
75. Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
77. Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
78. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
79. Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
80. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
81. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
82. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
83. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
84. The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
87. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
88. Another World – Pat Barker
89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
91. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
94. Great Apes – Will Self
95. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
96. Underworld – Don DeLillo
97. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
98. The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
99. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
100. The Untouchable – John Banville
101. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
102. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
103. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
105. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
106. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
107. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
108. The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
110. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
111. Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
112. The Information – Martin Amis
113. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
114. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
115. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
116. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
118. Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
119. The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
120. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
121. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
122. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
123. Land – Park Kyong-ni
124. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
127. City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
128. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
130. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
131. Disappearance – David Dabydeen
132. The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
135. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
136. Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
137. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
138. Complicity – Iain Banks
139. On Love – Alain de Botton
140. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
141. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
142. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
144. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
146. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
148. Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
149. The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
150. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
151. Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
152. Indigo – Marina Warner
153. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
154. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
155. Jazz – Toni Morrison
156. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
158. The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
159. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
160. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
161. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
162. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
163. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
164. Arcadia – Jim Crace
165. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
166. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
167. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
168. Mao II – Don DeLillo
169. Typical – Padgett Powell
170. Regeneration – Pat Barker
171. Downriver – Iain Sinclair
172. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
173. Wise Children – Angela Carter
174. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
175. Amongst Women – John McGahern
176. Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
177. Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
178. Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
179. The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
180. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
181. A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
182. Like Life – Lorrie Moore
183. Possession – A.S. Byatt
184. The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
185. The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
186. A Disaffection – James Kelman
187. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
188. Moon Palace – Paul Auster
189. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
190. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
191. The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
192. The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
193. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
194. The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
195. Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
197. London Fields – Martin Amis
198. The Book of Evidence – John Banville
199. Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
200. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
201. The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
202. Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
203. The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
204. The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
205. Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
206. Libra – Don DeLillo
207. The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks
208. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
209. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
210. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams211. The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
212. The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
213. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
214. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
215. The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
216. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
217. Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
218. The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe
219. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
220. World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
221. Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
222. The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
223. Beloved – Toni Morrison
224. Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
225. Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
226. Marya – Joyce Carol Oates
227. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
228. The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
229. Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
230. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
231. Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
232. Foe – J.M. Coetzee
233. The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
234. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
235. The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson2
38. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
239. A Maggot – John Fowles
240. Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
241. Contact – Carl Sagan
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
243. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
244. Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
245. White Noise – Don DeLillo
246. Queer – William Burroughs
247. Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
248. Legend – David Gemmell
249. Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
250. The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
251. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago252. The Lover – Marguerite Duras
253. Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
255. Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
256. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
257. Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
258. Neuromancer – William Gibson2
59. Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
260. Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
261. Shame – Salman Rushdie
262. Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
263. Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
264. La Brava – Elmore Leonard
265. Waterland – Graham Swift
266. The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
267. The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
268. The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
269. The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
270. If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi
271. A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
273. Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
274. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
275. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
276. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
277. The Newton Letter – John Banville
278. On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
279. Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
280. The Names – Don DeLillo
281. Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
282. Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
283. The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan
284. July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
285. Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
286. Broken April – Ismail Kadare
287. Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
288. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
289. Rites of Passage – William Golding
290. Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
291. Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
292. City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
293. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
294. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
295. Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
296. Shikasta – Doris Lessing297. A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
298. Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gordimer
299. The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
300. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
302. The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
303. The World According to Garp – John Irving
304. Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
305. The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
306. The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
307. Yes – Thomas Bernhard
308. The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
309. In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
310. The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
311. Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
312. The Shining – Stephen King
313. Dispatches – Michael Herr
314. Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
315. Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
316. The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
317. The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
318. Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
319. The Public Burning – Robert Coover
320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
321. Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
322. Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
323. Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
324. Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez
325. W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
326. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
327. Grimus – Salman Rushdie
328. The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
329. Fateless – Imre Kertész
330. Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan331. High Rise – J.G. Ballard
332. Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
333. Dead Babies – Martin Amis
334. Correction – Thomas Bernhard
335. Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
336. The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
337. Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
338. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
339. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré
340. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
.341. Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
342. A Question of Power – Bessie Head
343. The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell
344. The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
345. Crash – J.G. Ballard
346. The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene
347. Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
348. The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
349. Sula – Toni Morrison
350. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
351. The Breast – Philip Roth
352. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
353. G – John Berger
354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
355. House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
356. In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
357. The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow
358. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson
359. Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
360. The Wild Boys – William Burroughs
361. Rabbit Redux – John Updike
362. The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
363. The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
364. The Ogre – Michael Tournier
365. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
366. Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
368. Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
369. Troubles – J.G. Farrell
370. Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
371. The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
372. Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
373. Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
374. Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
376. The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles
377. The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
378. Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth
379. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
380. Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
381. Them – Joyce Carol Oates
382. A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
383. Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
384. Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal
385. The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
386. Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
387. Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
388. The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
391. Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
392. The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
393. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
394. A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines
395. The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
396. Chocky – John Wyndham
397. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
398. The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
400. The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
401. Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
402. The Joke – Milan Kundera
403. No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
404. The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
405. A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
406. The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
407. Trawl – B.S. Johnson
408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
409. The Magus – John Fowles
410. The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
412. Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
413. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
414. Things – Georges Perec
415. The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
416. August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
418. Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor
419. The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
420. Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
421. Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
422. Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
423. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
424. The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
425. Herzog – Saul Bellow
426. V. – Thomas Pynchon
427. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
428. The Graduate – Charles Webb
429. Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
430. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
431. The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
432. Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
434. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
435. The Collector – John Fowles
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
438. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
439. The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
440. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
441. Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
442. Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien
443. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
445. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
446. A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
447. Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
448. Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
449. Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
452. The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
453. How It Is – Samuel Beckett
454. Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
455. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
457. Rabbit, Run – John Updike
458. Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
460. Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
461. Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
462. The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
463. Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
464. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
465. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
466. Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
468. The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
469. Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
470. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
471. The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
472. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
473. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
474. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
475. Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
476. The End of the Road – John Barth
477. The Once and Future King – T.H. White
478. The Bell – Iris Murdoch
479. Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
480. Voss – Patrick White
481. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
482. Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
483. Homo Faber – Max Frisch
484. On the Road – Jack Kerouac
485. Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
486. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
487. The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
488. Justine – Lawrence Durrell
489. Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
490. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
491. The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
492. Seize the Day – Saul Bellow
493. The Floating Opera – John Barth
494. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith
496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
497. A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
498. The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
499. The Quiet American – Graham Greene
500. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
501. The Recognitions – William Gaddis
502. The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
503. Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
504. I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
505. Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
506. The Story of O – Pauline Réage
507. A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia
508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
509. Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
510. The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
511. The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
512. The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
513. Watt – Samuel Beckett
514. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
515. Junkie – William Burroughs
516. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
517. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
518. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming
519. The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
520. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
521. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
522. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
523. The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
524. Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
525. Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
526. Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
528. The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
530. The Rebel – Albert Camus
531. Molloy – Samuel Beckett
532. The End of the Affair – Graham Greene
533. The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
534. The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
535. The Third Man – Graham Greene
536. The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
537. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
538. The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing
539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
540. The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
541. The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
542. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
543. The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
544. The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
545. Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
546. The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
548. All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
549. Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
550. Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
551. The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
552. Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
553. Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann
554. The Victim – Saul Bellow
555. Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
556. If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
557. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
558. The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
559. The Plague – Albert Camus
560. Back – Henry Green
561. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
562. The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
565. Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
566. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
567. Loving – Henry Green
568. Arcanum 17 – André Breton
569. Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
570. The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
571. Transit – Anna Seghers
572. Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
573. Dangling Man – Saul Bellow
574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
575. Caught – Henry Green
576. The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
577. Embers – Sandor Marai
578. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
579. The Outsider – Albert Camus
580. In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
581. The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien
582. The Living and the Dead – Patrick White
583. Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
584. Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
585. The Hamlet – William Faulkner
586. Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
587. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
588. Native Son – Richard Wright
589. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
590. The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
591. Party Going – Henry Green
592. The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
593. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
594. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien
595. Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
596. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
597. Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller
598. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
599. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
600. After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson602. Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
604. Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
605. Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
606. U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
607. Murphy – Samuel Beckett
608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
609. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
611. The Years – Virginia Woolf
612. In Parenthesis – David Jones
613. The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
614. Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
615. To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway
616. Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
617. Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
618. The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
620. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
621. Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
622. Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner
623. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
624. Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
625. Independent People – Halldór Laxness
626. Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
627. The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
628. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy
629. The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
630. England Made Me – Graham Greene
631. Burmese Days – George Orwell
632. The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
633. Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
634. Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
635. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
636. Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
637. A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
638. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
639. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
640. Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
641. Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
642. Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
644. Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
645. A Day Off – Storm Jameson
646. The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
647. A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
648. Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
650. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
651. To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
652. The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
653. The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
654. The Waves – Virginia Woolf
655. The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett
656. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham
657. The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
658. Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
659. Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
661. Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
662. Passing – Nella Larsen
663. A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
664. Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett
665. Living – Henry Green
666. The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
667. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque
668. Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
669. The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
670. Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
671. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
672. Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau
673. Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe
674. Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
675. Orlando – Virginia Woolf
676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
677. The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
678. The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
679. Quartet – Jean Rhys
680. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
681. Quicksand – Nella Larsen
682. Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
683. Nadja – André Breton
684. Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
685. Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
686. To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
687. Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
688. Amerika – Franz Kafka
689. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
690. Blindness – Henry Green
691. The Castle – Franz Kafka
692. The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
693. The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
694. One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
696. The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
697. Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
699. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
700. The Counterfeiters – André Gide
701. The Trial – Franz Kafka
702. The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
703. The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
704. Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
705. The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
706. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
707. We – Yevgeny Zamyatin
708. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
709. The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
710. Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
711. Cane – Jean Toomer
712. Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
713. Amok – Stefan Zweig
714. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
715. The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings
716. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
717. Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
718. The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
719. Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
720. The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
721. Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
722. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
723. Ulysses – James Joyce
724. The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
725. Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
726. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
727. Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
728. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
729. Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
730. Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
731. The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
732. The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
733. Summer – Edith Wharton
734. Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
735. Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
737. Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
738. Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
739. The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
740. The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
741. Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham
742. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
743. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
744. Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
745. Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
746. Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
747. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs
748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
749. Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence750. Death in Venice – Thomas Mann751. The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens752. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
753. Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
754. Howards End – E.M. Forster
755. Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
756. Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
757. Martin Eden – Jack London
758. Strait is the Gate – André Gide
759. Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
760. The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
761. A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
762. The Iron Heel – Jack London
763. The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
764. The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson765. Mother – Maxim Gorky
766. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
767. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
768. Young Törless – Robert Musil
769. The Forsyte Sage – John Galsworthy
770. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
771. Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
772. Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster
773. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
774. Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
775. The Golden Bowl – Henry James
776. The Ambassadors – Henry James
777. The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
778. The Immoralist – André Gide
779. The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
781. The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
782. Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
783. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
784. Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
785. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad..
1800s
786. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
787. The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
788. The Awakening – Kate Chopin
789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
791. The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells
792. What Maisie Knew – Henry James
793. Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
794. Dracula – Bram Stoker
795. Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
796. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
798. Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
799. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
800. The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
801. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
802. Born in Exile – George Gissing
803. Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
805. News from Nowhere – William Morris
806. New Grub Street – George Gissing
807. Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
809. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
810. The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
811. La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
812. By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
813. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
814. The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
815. Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
816. Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
817. The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
818. The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
819. She – H. Rider Haggard
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
821. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
822. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
823. King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard
824. Germinal – Émile Zola
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
826. Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
827. Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
828. Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
829. The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
830. A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
831. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
832. The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
833. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
834. Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flauber
t835. Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
836. Nana – Émile Zola
837. The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
838. The Red Room – August Strindberg
839. Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
841. Drunkard – Émile Zola
842. Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
843. Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
844. The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
845. The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
847. The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
848. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
849. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu
850. The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
851. Erewhon – Samuel Butler
852. Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
853. Middlemarch – George Eliot
854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
855. King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
856. He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
857. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
858. Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
859. Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
860. Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
861. The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
862. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
864. Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
865. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
866. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
869. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
870. Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
872. The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
873. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
874. Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
875. Silas Marner – George Eliot
876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
877. On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
878. Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
879. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
880. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
881. The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
882. Max Havelaar – Multatuli
883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
884. Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
885. Adam Bede –
George Eliot
886. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
888. Hard Times – Charles Dickens
889. Walden – Henry David Thoreau
890. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
892. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
894. The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel
Hawthorne
896. Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
898. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
899. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
900. Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
905. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
906. The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
907. La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
908. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
909. The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
910. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens
911. The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
912. Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
914. Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
915. The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
919. The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
920. Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
921. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
922. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
923. The Red and the Black – Stendhal
924. The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
925. Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
926. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
927. The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
928. Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
929. The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
930. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
932. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
933. Persuasion – Jane Austen
934. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
935. Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott
936. Emma – Jane Austen
937. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
939. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
940. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
941. Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
942. Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth..
1700s
943. Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
944. The Nun – Denis Diderot
945. Camilla – Fanny Burney
946. The Monk – M.G. Lewis
947. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
948. The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
949. The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
951. Justine – Marquis de Sade
952. Vathek – William Beckford
953. The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade
954. Cecilia – Fanny Burney
955. Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
956. Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
957. Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
958. Evelina – Fanny Burney
959. The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
960. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
961. The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
962. A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne
963. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne
964. The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
965. The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
966. Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
967. Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
968. Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
969. Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
970. Candide – Voltaire
971. The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
972. Amelia – Henry Fielding
973. Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
974. Fanny Hill – John Cleland
975. Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
976. Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
977. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
978. Pamela – Samuel Richardson
979. Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
980. Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
981. Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding
982. A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
984. Roxana – Daniel Defoe
985. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
986. Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
987. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
988. A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift.
Pre-1700
989. Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
990. The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
991. The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
992. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
993. The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
994. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
995. Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
996. The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous
997. The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius
998. Aithiopika – Heliodorus
999. Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
1000. Metamorphoses – Ovid
1001. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus « less

Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley

“This grand coming-of-age-novel boasts a dynamic set of characters and a rich bank of cultural and personal lore, making this dark, cold family tale a surprisingly lush experience.” “Some novels, in addition to all else they accomplish, simply make great company: Christina Sunley's first novel is one, packed with delectable relationships and family secrets… Sunley has created much more to delight readers en route: characters we anticipate with curiosity and fondness, a deep reverence for the magic of language… In the character of Birdie, Sunley's made a marvel… Sunley's writing often enchants… I wish I had more room to quote from ambitious work, packed with juicy events, dialogue and settings…” High-spirited and precocious Freya is the only child of her late-in-life, widowed mother, who waits until Freya is a coltish seven to finally return to Manitoba, Canada , to visit her mother and her sister, wild and beautiful Birdie. Freya's grandfather was a revered poet, and her family is proud of their Icelandic heritage, especially Birdie, who insists that her niece learn Icelandic and memorize the ancient sagas, a mission that turns disastrous. Freya tells the story of her strange, nearly catastrophic girlhood years later, an act that liberates her from a lonely and smothering life. This wounded daughter of a land of the midnight sun recounts a journey to Iceland as dramatic, dangerous, and mysterious as any ancient epic adventure, and retraces her ardent quest for the truth about a staggering family secret. Steeped in the highly symbolic mythology, complex language, and otherworldly landscape of Iceland, and the little-known story of the nineteenth-century Icelandic diaspora, Sunley's astonishingly accomplished debut is a bewitching tale of volcanic emotions, cultural inheritance, family sorrows, mental illness, and life-altering discoveries.

Founding Brothers

Founding Brothers is a special four-hour presentation recounting the triumphs and tribulations facing the new American nation following independence and examining the lives of the statesmen who shaped its destiny.
A More Perfect Union, Playing first, A More Perfect Union, staring George Washington. As the drama begins, Washington, full of doubts about the future, becomes the first president of the United States. Faced with a country on the brink of bankruptcy, conflicts with the British, the bitter controversy over slavery and ensuing threats of secession, Washington surrounds himself with a supporting cast of men who possess both character and intelligence. Their contributions will define and direct the new republic.
Discussion Questions
Joseph Ellis claims that real political leadership can only emerge in a crisis. Do you believe this is true? Might presidents trying to become great leaders be tempted to create real or perceived crises? If presidents can enhance their reputation by how they handle a crisis, is Jefferson wrong in saying, no man will bring out of that office the reputation that carries him into it?
Joseph Ellis said, Eventually we will become a government of laws. But we have to first be a government of men. Do you agree? Didn't the constitution set up the laws to which the men were bounded?
Washington wanted to convey the power and authority necessary to lead the new nation and, yet avoid being compared to the other George, King of England. How did he try to maintain this balance through his actions and dress? Washington chose not to shake hands with guests, but instead bowed majestically. He wore a black velvet suit and an ornamental sword at his inauguration and used a gold-trimmed saddle.
Creative Writing:The video recounts the tremendous self-doubts Washington had on his way to his first inauguration. In the words of Richard Brookhiser, Washington felt like a man being led to his execution. Imagine that you are Washington and write a journal entry explaining your doubts, both about yourself and the new nation.
Brainstorm a plan!The major issues Washington faced upon assuming the presidency included the war debts, British troops along the western frontier, and four million citizens spread out across 13 states seeking both guidance and autonomy. Draw up a plan for handling these issues effectively. Would you handle them differently than Washington did?

1. The anecdote that Benjamin Rush liked to repeat about an overheard conversation between Benjamin Harrison and Elbridge Gerry on July 4, 1776, makes clear that the signers of the Declaration of Independence felt some doubt about their chances of surviving their revolutionary act. As Ellis points out, if the British commanders had been more aggressive, "The signers of the Declaration would . . . have been hunted down, tried, and executed for treason, and American history would have flowed forward in a wholly different direction" [p. 5]. Why is it so difficult to grasp this notion of the new nation's utter fragility? How successful is Founding Brothers in taking the reader back in time, in order to witness the contingencies of a historical gamble in which "sheer chance, pure luck" [p. 5] were instrumental in determining the outcome?
2. Ellis has said, "We have no mental pictures that make the revolutionary generation fully human in ways that link up with our own time. . . . These great patriarchs have become Founding Fathers, and it is psychologically quite difficult for children to reach a realistic understanding of their parents, who always loom larger-than-life as icons we either love or hate." How does Founding Brothers address this problem, and how does it manage to humanize our image of the founders? How does the book's title relate to this issue?
3. What was really at stake in the disagreement and duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? If Hamilton felt that the disparaging statements he had made about Burr were true, should he have lied in order to save his life? Was this merely a war over words? Did words have more significance then than they do now? What role did newspapers play in the drama, and how is the media's role different or similar today?
4. In congressional debates in 1790 about the possible abolition of slavery, Georgia representative James Jackson attacked the abolitionist Quakers as "outright lunatics" [p. 97] and went on to say, "If it were a crime, as some assert but which I deny, the British nation is answerable for it, and not the present inhabitants, who now hold that species of property in question" [p. 98]. Does Jackson's refusal to name "that species of property" point to his own moral discomfort with owning enslaved human beings? To what degree were the founders complicit in this deliberate refusal to name and acknowledge the moral problem of slavery?
5. Because of the founders' refusal to press for abolition, the slavery question was bequeathed to Abraham Lincoln to solve--and the Civil War illustrated just how divisive the issue was. How accurate was George Washington's belief that "slavery was a cancer on the body politic of America that could not at present be removed without killing the patient" [p. 158]? Should the nation's leaders have pressed harder, given that "the further one got from 1776, the lower the revolutionary fires burned and the less imperative the logic of the revolutionary ideology seemed" [p. 104]? What difference might it have made in the racial currents of contemporary American life if slavery had been abolished in the early days of the nation?
6. What does Ellis mean when he says that the public figures on which he focuses in this book were "America's first and, in many respects, its only natural aristocracy" [p. 13]? In what sense is this true?
7. How does the character of George Washington come across, as Ellis presents him and in the quoted extracts of the farewell address? How does Washington measure up to the mythology that surrounded him even in his own time? What qualities made Washington so indispensable to the new nation?
8. Ellis focuses more intensively on the plight of the slaves than that of the Indians, but he does point out that Washington addressed their situation with the suggestion that they abandon their hunter-gatherer way of life and assimilate themselves into the general population as farmers [p. 159]. Was this a viable solution, or merely a pragmatic one? What other solutions might have been offered at the time?
9. What is most surprising about Thomas Jefferson's character, as presented by Ellis? Which aspects of his personality, or which particular actions or decisions, seem incongruous in the man who wrote the idealistic words of the Declaration of Independence?
10. What is most impressive about Abigail Adams's intervention on her husband's behalf in his quarrel with Thomas Jefferson? Is it possible to compare the political partnership of John and Abigail Adams with, for example, that of Hillary and Bill Clinton?
11. Ellis has said of Founding Brothers, "If there is a method to my madness in the book, it is rooted in the belief that readers prefer to get their history through stories. Each chapter is a self-contained story about a propitious moment when big things got decided. . . . In a sense, I have formed this founding generation into a kind of repertory company, then put them into dramatic scenes which, taken together, allow us to witness that historic production called the founding of the United States." Does his focus on creating separate narrative units succeed in making the complex history of the founders simpler to penetrate and understand? Are there any drawbacks to presenting history this way?
12. Ellis says that the founders were always self- conscious about how posterity would view their decisions and their behavior. For instance, Adams's efforts on behalf of a "more realistic, nonmythologized version of the American Revolution" were partly motivated by his wounded vanity, his effort to get rid of versions of the story that "failed to provide him with a starring role in the drama" [p. 217]. How similar or different are more recent presidents' efforts to shape the historical portrayal of their own terms in office, as with presidential libraries and such?
13. Ellis notes that his ambition with Founding Brothers was "to write a modest-sized account of a massive historical subject . . . without tripping over the dead bodies of my many scholarly predecessors." In search of a structure in which "less could be more" Ellis takes as a model Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (1918). Strachey wrote that the historian "will row out over the great ocean of material, and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen, from those far depths, to be examined with a careful curiosity" [p. ix]. How does this approach differ from other historical narratives or biographies of historical figures that you have read, and how does it affect your reading experience?
14. In the conflict between Republicans and Federalists described by Ellis throughout the book, readers can understand the origins of party factionalism that is a strong factor in American politics to this day. If, as Ellis writes, "The dominant intellectual legacy of the Revolution, enshrined in the Declaration of Indepen-dence, stigmatized all concentrated political power and even . . . depicted any energetic expression of governmental authority as an alien force that all responsible citizens ought to repudiate and, if possible, overthrow" [p. 11], what compromises were made in order to bring a stable national government to fruition? Does the apparent contradiction between Republican and Federalist principles still create instability in the American system?
15. In recent years historians have tended to avoid focusing on such issues as leadership and character, and more is being written about popular movements and working people whose lives exemplify a sort of democratic norm. Ellis clearly goes against this trend in offering Founding Brothers as "a polite argument against the scholarly grain" [p. 12]. Does he effectively convince his readers that the founding of the American nation was, in fact, largely accomplished by a handful of extraordinary individuals?

ohn Adams had the foresight to have Abigail Adams save his letters. He knew that he was living in a moment that would be historic. How difficult do you think it is to recognize the historical significance of the moment?
Ellis in discussing the confidence of these founding brothers says, “What we need is a form of hindsight that does not impose itself arbitrarily on the mentality of the revolutionary generation, does not presume that we are witnessing the birth of an inevitable American superpower.” What do you think the founders would think about the emergence of America as a “superpower”? Do you think that is what they would have wanted for this nation?
Ellis lists assets and liabilities for the emerging nation. Which of the assets do you think was most essential? Which of the liabilities do you think was the greatest threat? How important do you feel it was for George Washington to have such strong support in his election?
According to Ellis, compromise is the root of the success of the American Revolution and “built into the fabric of our national identity” . How do you view the role of compromise throughout the evolution of the nation? How do you feel the subsequent formation of political parties have affected the election process?
Ellis attributes one of the causes to the success in the birth of the nation was “they managed to take the most threatening and divisive issue off the political agenda”. In not dealing with slavery from the beginning, the issue was postponed. Do you think this was necessary in order to create the nation or do you think they should have dealt with it in order to avert the Civil War? Do you think this is another “tradition” that continues in modern politics?

Truman Capote

Truman Capote (pronounced /ˈtruːmən kəˈpoʊti/) (September 30, 1924 — August 25, 1984) (born Truman Streckfus Persons) was an American writer whose short stories, novels, plays, and non-fiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel". At least 20 films and television dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.
Truman Capote was born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, the son of 17-year-old Lillie Mae (née Faulk) and Archelaus Persons, who was a salesman. When he was four, his parents divorced, and he was sent to Monroeville, Alabama, where he was raised by his mother's relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called 'Sook'. "Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind," is how Capote described Sook in "A Christmas Memory". In Monroeville, he was a neighbor and friend of Harper Lee, who grew up to write To Kill a Mockingbird (with the character Dill based on Truman).
As a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he entered the first grade in school. Capote was often seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad, and he began writing when he was ten. At this time, he was given the nickname Bulldog, possibly a phonetic reference and pun of "Bulldog Truman" to the fictional detective Bulldog Drummond popular in films of the mid-1930s.
On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to Mobile, and when he was ten, he submitted his short story, "Old Mrs. Busybody," to a children's writing contest sponsored by the Mobile Press Register.
In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born textile broker, who adopted his stepson and renamed him Truman García Capote. However, Joseph turned out to be an embezzler and shortly afterwards his income crashed and the family faced moving out of Park Avenue, Truman's mother committed suicide via an overdose of sleeping pills. When he was 11, he began writing seriously in daily three-hour sessions. Of his early days Capote related, "I began writing really sort of seriously when I was about eleven. I say seriously in the sense that like other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I used to go home from school every day and I would write for about three hours. I was obsessed by it." In 1935, he attended the Trinity School. He then attended St. Joseph's military academy. In 1939, the Capotes moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, and Truman attended Greenwich High School, where he wrote for both the school's literary journal, The Green Witch, and the school newspaper. Back in New York in 1942, he graduated from the Dwight School, an Upper West Side private school where an award is now given annually in his name.
When he was 17, Capote ended his formal education and began a two-year job at The New Yorker. Years later, he wrote, "Not a very grand job, for all it really involved was sorting cartoons and clipping newspapers. Still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or wasn't a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome. I still think I was correct, at least in my own case."
Short fiction
Between 1943 and 1946, Capote wrote a continual flow of short fiction, including "A Mink of One's Own," "Miriam," "My Side of the Matter," "Preacher's Legend," "Shut a Final Door" (for which he won the O. Henry Award at the age of 19) and "The Walls Are Cold." These stories were published in both literary quarterlies and well-known magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, Harper's Magazine, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner and Story. Interviewed in 1957 for the The Paris Review, Capote was asked about his short story technique, answering:
Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right. In 1943 Capote wrote his first novel, Summer Crossing about the summer romance of Fifth Avenue socialite Grady O'Neil with a parking lot attendant. Capote later claimed to have destroyed it, and it was regarded as a lost work. However, it was stolen in 1966 by a housesitter Capote hired to watch his Brooklyn apartment, resurfaced in 2004 and was published by Random House in 2005.
Other Voices, Other Rooms
In June 1945, Mademoiselle published his short story "Miriam" which won Best First-Published Story in 1946. In the spring of 1946, Capote was accepted at Yaddo, the 400-acre (1.6 km2) artists and writers colony at Saratoga Springs, New York.
"Miriam" attracted the attention of publisher Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract with Random House to write a novel. With an advance of $1,500, Capote returned to Monroeville and began Other Voices, Other Rooms, continuing to work on the manuscript in New Orleans, Louisiana, Saratoga Springs and North Carolina, eventually completing it in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Capote described the symbolic tale as "a poetic explosion in highly suppressed emotion." The novel is a semi-autobiographical refraction of Capote's Alabama childhood. Decades later, writing in The Dogs Bark (1973), he looked back:
Other Voices, Other Rooms was an attempt to exorcise demons, an unconscious, altogether intuitive attempt, for I was not aware, except for a few incidents and descriptions, of its being in any serious degree autobiographical. Rereading it now, I find such self-deception unpardonable. The story focuses on 13-year-old Joel Knox following the loss of his mother. Joel is sent from New Orleans, Louisiana, to live with his father who abandoned him at the time of his birth. Arriving at Skully's Landing, a vast, decaying mansion in rural Alabama, Joel meets his sullen stepmother Amy, debauched transvestite Randolph, and defiant Idabel, a girl who becomes his friend. He also sees a spectral "queer lady" with "fat dribbling curls" watching him from a top window. Despite Joel's queries, the whereabouts of his father remain a mystery. When he finally is allowed to see his father, Joel is stunned to find he is a quadriplegic, having tumbled down a flight of stairs after being inadvertently shot by Randolph and nearly dying. He runs away with Idabel but catches pneumonia and eventually returns to the Landing where he is nursed back to health by Randolph. The implication in the final paragraph is that the "queer lady" beckoning from the window is Randolph in his old Mardi Gras costume. Gerald Clarke, in Capote: A Biography (1988) described the conclusion:
Finally, when he goes to join the queer lady in the window, Joel accepts his destiny, which is to be homosexual, to always hear other voices and live in other rooms. Yet acceptance is not a surrender; it is a liberation. "I am me," he whoops. "I am Joel, we are the same people." So, in a sense, had Truman rejoiced when he made peace with his own identity.
When Other Voices, Other Rooms was published in 1948, it stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks, selling more than 26,000 copies. The promotion and controversy surrounding this novel catapulted Capote to fame. A 1947 Harold Halma photograph, used to promote the book, showed a reclining Capote gazing into the camera. Gerald Clarke, in Capote: A Biography (1988), wrote, "The famous photograph: Harold Halma's picture on the dustjacket of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) caused as much comment and controversy as the prose inside. Truman claimed that the camera had caught him off guard, but in fact he had posed himself and was responsible for both the picture and the publicity." Much of the early attention to Capote centered around different interpretations of this photograph, which was viewed as a suggestive pose by some. According to Clarke, the photo created an "uproar" and gave Capote "not only the literary, but also the public personality he had always wanted." The photo made a huge impression on the 20-year-old Andy Warhol, who often talked about the picture and wrote fan letters to Capote. When Warhol moved to New York in 1949, he made numerous attempts to meet Capote, and Warhol's fascination with the author led to his first New York one-man show, Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote at the Hugo Gallery (June 16 - July 3, 1952.).
When the picture was reprinted along with reviews in magazines and newspapers, some readers were amused, but others were outraged and offended. The Los Angeles Times reported that Capote looked "as if he were dreamily contemplating some outrage against conventional morality." The novelist Merle Miller issued a complaint about the picture at a publishing forum, and the photo of "Truman Remote" was satirized in the third issue of Mad (making Capote one of the first four celebrities to be spoofed in Mad). The humorist Max Shulman struck an identical pose for the dustjacket photo on his collection, Max Shulman's Large Economy Size (1948). The Broadway stage revue New Faces (and the subsequent film version) featured a skit in which Ronny Graham parodied Capote, deliberately copying his pose in the Halma photo.
Random House featured the Halma photo in its "This is Truman Capote" ads, and large blowups were displayed in bookstore windows. Walking on Fifth Avenue, Halma overheard two middle-aged women looking at a Capote blowup in the window of a bookstore. When one woman said, "I'm telling you: he's just young," the other woman responded, "And I'm telling you, if he isn't young, he's dangerous!" Capote delighted in retelling this anecdote.
Random House followed the success of Other Voices, Other Rooms with A Tree of Night and Other Stories in 1949. In addition to "Miriam," this collection also includes "Shut a Final Door." First published in The Atlantic Monthly (August, 1947), "Shut a Final Door" won an O. Henry Award (First Prize) in 1948.
After A Tree of Night was published, Capote suffered from depression as he traveled about Europe, including a sojourn in Sicily. This led to a collection of his European travel essays, Local Color (1950), indicative of his increasing interest in writing nonfiction. In the early 1950s, Capote took on Broadway and films, adapting his 1951 novella, The Grass Harp, into a 1952 play (later a 1971 musical and a 1995 film), followed by the musical House of Flowers (1954), which spawned the song A Sleepin' Bee. Capote co-wrote with John Huston the screenplay for Huston's film Beat the Devil (1953). Traveling through the Soviet Union with a touring production of Porgy and Bess, he produced a series of articles for The New Yorker that became his first book-length work of nonfiction, The Muses Are Heard (1956).
Friendship with Harper Lee
Capote remained a lifelong friend of his Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee, and he based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms on her. He in turn was the inspiration for the character Dill, in Lee's 1960 bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird. Like Capote, Dill is creative, bold and had an unsatisfactory family history. In an interview with Lawrence Grobel, Capote recalled his childhood, "Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near. Harper Lee was my best friend. Did you ever read her book, To Kill a Mockingbird? I'm a character in that book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we both lived."
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories brought together the title novella and three shorter tales: "House of Flowers," "A Diamond Guitar" and "A Christmas Memory." The heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly, became one of Capote's best-known creations, and the book's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of my generation."
For Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's was a turning point, as he explained to Roy Newquist (Counterpoint, 1964):
I think I've had two careers. One was the career of precocity, the young person who published a series of books that were really quite remarkable. I can even read them now and evaluate them favorably, as though they were the work of a stranger... My second career began, I guess it really began with Breakfast at Tiffany's. It involves a different point of view, a different prose style to some degree. Actually, the prose style is an evolvement from one to the other—a pruning and thinning-out to a more subdued, clearer prose. I don't find it as evocative, in many respects, as the other, or even as original, but it is more difficult to do. But I'm nowhere near reaching what I want to do, where I want to go. Presumably this new book is as close as I'm going to get, at least strategically.
In Cold Blood
The "new book," In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences, was inspired by a 300-word article that ran on page 39 of New York Times on Monday, November 16, 1959. The story described the unexplained murder of the Clutter family in rural Holcomb, Kansas.
Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged. The father, 48-year-old Herbert W. Clutter, was found in the basement with his son, Kenyon, 15. His wife Bonnie, 45, and a daughter, Nancy, 16, were in their beds. There were no signs of a struggle and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut. "This is apparently the case of a psychopathic killer," Sheriff Earl Robinson said. Mr. Clutter was founder of The Kansas Wheat Growers Association. In 1954, President Eisenhower appointed him to the Farm Credit Administration, but he never lived in Washington. The board represents the twelve farm credit districts in the country. Mr. Clutter served from December, 1953 until April, 1957. He declined a reappointment. He was also a local member of the Agriculture Department's Price Stabilization Board and was active with the Great Plains Wheat Growers Association. The Clutter farm and ranch cover almost 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) in one of the richest wheat areas. Mr. Clutter, his wife and daughter were clad in pajamas. The boy was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. The bodies were discovered by two of Nancy's classmates, Susan Kidwell and Nancy Ewalt. Sheriff Robinson said the last reported communication with Mr. Clutter took place last night about 9:30 PM, when the victim called Gerald Van Vleet, his business partner, who lives near by. Mr. Van Vleet said the conversation had concerned the farm and ranch. Two daughters were away. They are Beverly, a student at the University of Kansas, and Mrs. Donald G. Jarchow of Mount Carroll, Illinois. Fascinated by this brief news item, Capote traveled with Harper Lee to Holcomb and visited the scene of the massacre. Over the course of the next few years, he became acquainted with everyone involved in the investigation and most of the residents of the small town. Rather than taking notes during interviews, Capote committed conversations to memory and immediately wrote quotes as soon as an interview ended. He claimed his memory retention for verbatim conversations had been tested at 'over 90%'. Lee lent Capote considerable assistance during his research for In Cold Blood. During the first few months of his investigation, she was able to make inroads into the community by befriending the wives of those Capote wanted to interview. Capote recalled his years in Kansas when he spoke at the 1974 San Francisco International Film Festival:
I spent four years on and off in that part of Western Kansas there during the research for that book and then the film. What was it like? It was very lonely. And difficult. Although I made a lot of friends there. I had to, otherwise I never could have researched the book properly. The reason was I wanted to make an experiment in journalistic writing, and I was looking for a subject that would have sufficient proportions. I’d already done a great deal of narrative journalistic writing in this experimental vein in the 1950s for The New Yorker... But I was looking for something very special that would give me a lot of scope. I had come up with two or three different subjects and each of them for whatever reasons was a dry run after I’d done a lot of work on them. And one day I was gleaning The New York Times, and way on the back page I saw this very small item. And it just said, "Kansas Farmer Slain. Family of Four Is Slain in Kansas." A little item just about like that. And the community was completely nonplussed, and it was this total mystery of how it could have been, and what happened. And I don't know what it was. I think it was that I knew nothing about Kansas or that part of the country or anything. And I thought, "Well, that will be a fresh perspective for me"... And I said, "Well, I’m just going to go out there and just look around and see what this is." And so maybe this is the subject I’ve been looking for. Maybe a crime of this kind is... in a small town. It has no publicity around it and yet had some strange ordinariness about it. So I went out there, and I arrived just two days after the Clutters’ funeral. The whole thing was a complete mystery and was for two and a half months. Nothing happened. I stayed there and kept researching it and researching it and got very friendly with the various authorities and the detectives on the case. But I never knew whether it was going to be interesting or not. You know, I mean anything could have happened. They could have never caught the killers. Or if they had caught the killers... it may have turned out to be something completely uninteresting to me. Or maybe they would never have spoken to me or wanted to cooperate with me. But as it so happened, they did catch them. In January, the case was solved, and then I made very close contact with these two boys and saw them very often over the next four years until they were executed. But I never knew... when I was even halfway through the book, when I had been working on it for a year and a half, I didn't honestly know whether I would go on with it or not, whether it would finally evolve itself into something that would be worth all that effort. Because it was a tremendous effort.
In Cold Blood was serialized in The New Yorker in 1965 and published in hardcover by Random House in 1966. The "non-fiction novel," as Capote labeled it, brought him literary acclaim and became an international bestseller. A feud between Capote and British arts critic Kenneth Tynan erupted in the pages of The Observer after Tynan's review of In Cold Blood implied that Capote wanted an execution so the book would have an effective ending. Tynan wrote:
We are talking, in the long run, about responsibility; the debt that a writer arguably owes to those who provide him—down to the last autobiographical parentheses—with his subject matter and his livelihood... For the first time an influential writer of the front rank has been placed in a position of privileged intimacy with criminals about to die, and—in my view—done less than he might have to save them. The focus narrows sharply down on priorities: does the work come first, or does life? An attempt to help (by supplying new psychiatric testimony) might easily have failed: what one misses is any sign that it was ever contemplated. In Cold Blood brought Capote much praise from the literary community, but there were some who questioned certain events as reported in the book. Writing in Esquire in 1966, Phillip K. Tompkins noted factual discrepancies after he traveled to Kansas and talked to some of the same people interviewed by Capote. In a telephone interview with Tompkins, Mrs. Meier denied that she heard Perry cry and that she held his hand as described by Capote.
In Cold Blood indicates that Meier and Perry became close, yet she told Tompkins she spent little time with Perry and did not talk much with him. Tompkins concluded:
Capote has, in short, achieved a work of art. He has told exceedingly well a tale of high terror in his own way. But, despite the brilliance of his self-publicizing efforts, he has made both a tactical and a moral error that will hurt him in the short run. By insisting that “every word” of his book is true he has made himself vulnerable to those readers who are prepared to examine seriously such a sweeping claim. True crime writer Jack Olsen also commented on the fabrications:
"I recognized it as a work of art, but I know fakery when I see it," Olsen says. "Capote completely fabricated quotes and whole scenes... The book made something like $6 million in 1960s money, and nobody wanted to discuss anything wrong with a money-maker like that in the publishing business." Nobody except Olsen and a few others. His criticisms were quoted in Esquire, to which Capote replied, "Jack Olsen is just jealous." "That was true, of course," Olsen says, "I was jealous--all that money? I'd been assigned the Clutter case by Harper & Row until we found out that Capote and his cousin, Harper Lee, had been already on the case in Dodge City for six months." Olsen explains, "That book did two things. It made true crime an interesting, successful, commercial genre, but it also began the process of tearing it down. I blew the whistle in my own weak way. I'd only published a couple of books at that time--but since it was such a superbly written book, nobody wanted to hear about it."
Celebrity
Capote was 5 feet 3 inches (1.6 m) tall and openly homosexual in a time when it was socially acceptable among artists, but rarely talked about. One of his first serious lovers was Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin, who won the National Book Award for his Herman Melville biography.
Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of dress and his fabrications. He often claimed to intimately know people he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. He traveled in eclectic circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood and theatrical celebrities, royalty, and members of high society, both in the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a long-standing rivalry with writer Gore Vidal ("Truman Capote has tried, with some success, to get into a world that I have tried, with some success, to get out of."). Their rivalry prompted Tennessee Williams to complain: "You would think they were running neck-and-neck for some fabulous gold prize." Apart from his favorite authors (Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, Marcel Proust), Capote had faint praise for other writers. However, one who did get his favorable endorsement was journalist Lacey Fosburgh, author of Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murder (1977). He also claimed an admiration for Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B & Back Again.
Black and White Ball
On November 28, 1966, in honor of The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Capote hosted a legendary masked ball, called the Black and White Ball, in the Grand Ballroom of New York City's Plaza Hotel. It was considered the social event of not only that season but of many to follow. The New York Times and other publications gave it considerable coverage, and Deborah Davis wrote an entire book about the event, Party of the Century (2006), excerpted by The Independent. Different accounts of the evening were collected by George Plimpton in his book Truman Capote.
Capote dangled the prized invitations for months, snubbing early supporters like Carson McCullers as he determined who was "in" and who was "out". In choosing his guest of honor, Capote eschewed glamorous "swans" like Babe Paley and Fiat heiress Marella Agnelli in favor of Katharine Graham. Capote's elevator man danced the night away with a woman who did not know his pedigree. Norman Mailer sounded off about Vietnam, and Frank Sinatra danced with his young wife, Mia Farrow.
The years following In Cold Blood
After the success of In Cold Blood, Capote's publisher re-released his earlier works, including a 20th anniversary edition of Other Voices, Other Rooms and a holiday gift book edition of his 1956 story "A Christmas Memory." A new long story, "The Thanksgiving Visitor," also became a holiday gift book. Now more sought-after than ever, Capote wrote occasional brief articles for magazines, and also entrenched himself more deeply in the world of the jet set.
In the late 1960s, he became friendly with Lee Radziwill, the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Radziwill was an aspiring actress and had appeared to deplorable reviews in an engagement of The Philadelphia Story in Chicago. Feeling that the part simply was not tailored to her abilities, Capote was commissioned to write the teleplay for a 1967 TV adaptation of the classic Otto Preminger film Laura starring Radziwill. The adaptation, and Radziwill's performance in particular, received indifferent reviews and poor ratings; arguably, it was Capote's first major professional setback. Radziwill supplanted the older Babe Paley as his primary female companion in public throughout the better part of the 1970s.
Despite the assertion earlier in life that one "lost an IQ point for every year spent on the West Coast," he purchased a home in Palm Springs and began to indulge in a more aimless lifestyle and heavy drinking. This resulted in bitter quarreling with the more retiring Jack Dunphy (with whom he had shared a non-exclusive relationship since the 1950s). Their partnership changed form and continued as a nonsexual one, and they were separated during much of the 1970s. Dunphy was irritated by the unwavering substance abuse and even went so far as to allege that Capote had slept with Radziwill. However, others have alleged that Dunphy, a writer and playwright of far less renown, was unappreciative of Capote's gifts (including a Swiss condominium that Capote had little use for) and financial support.
The dearth of new writing and other failures, including a rejected screenplay for Paramount's 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, was counteracted by Capote's frequenting of the talk show circuit. There, his candid—and sometimes inebriated—appearances became the stuff of cliché.
In 1972, with Lee Radziwill in tow, Capote accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1972 American Tour as a correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine. While managing to take extensive notes for the project and visit old friends from the In Cold Blood days in Kansas City, he feuded with Mick Jagger and ultimately refused to write the article. The magazine eventually recouped its interests by publishing, in April 1973, an interview of the author conducted by Andy Warhol. A collection of previously published essays and reportage, The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Places, appeared later that year.
In July 1973 Capote met John O'Shea, the middle-aged vice president of Marine Midland Bank on Long Island, while visiting a bathhouse. The married father of three did not identify as homosexual or bisexual, perceiving his visits as being a "kind of masturbation". However, O'Shea found Capote's fortune alluring and harbored aspirations to become a professional writer. After consummating their relationship in Palm Springs, the two engaged in an ongoing war of jealousy and manipulation for the remainder of the decade. Longtime friends were appalled when O'Shea, who was officially employed as Capote's manager, attempted to take total control of the author's literary and business interests.
Answered Prayers
Through his jet-set social life Capote had been discreetly conducting research (unbeknownst to his friends and benefactors) for his tell-all Answered Prayers (eventually to be published as Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel). The book, which had been in the planning stages since 1958, was intended to be the American equivalent of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and a culmination of the "nonfiction novel" format. Initially scheduled for publication in 1968, the novel was eventually delayed at Capote's insistence to 1972. Because of the delay, he was forced to return money received for the film rights to 20th Century Fox. Capote spoke about the novel in interviews, but continued to delay the delivery date.
By 1975, public demand for Answered Prayers had reached a critical mass, with many speculating that Capote had not even written a single word of the book. He permitted Esquire to publish four chapters of the unfinished novel in 1975 and 1976. The first to appear, "Mojave", ran as a self-contained short story and was favorably received, but the second, "La Côte Basque 1965", based in part on the dysfunctional personal lives of William S. Paley and Babe Paley, arguably Capote's best friends, generated controversy. Although the issue featuring "La Côte Basque" sold out immediately upon publication, its much-discussed betrayal of confidences alienated Capote from his established base of middle aged, wealthy female friends, who feared that the intimate and often sordid details of their ostensibly glamorous lives would be exposed to the public. Another two chapters, "Unspoiled Monsters" and "Kate McCloud", appeared subsequently; intended to form the long opening section of the novel, they displayed a marked shift in narrative voice, introduced a more elaborate plot structure, and together formed a novella-length mosaic of fictionalized memoir and gossip. "Unspoiled Monsters", which by itself was almost as long as Breakfast at Tiffany's, contained a thinly veiled satire of Tennessee Williams, whose friendship with Capote had already become strained.
Later years the late 1970s, Capote was in and out of rehab clinics, and news of his various breakdowns frequently reached the public. In 1978, talk show host Stanley Siegal did a live on-air interview with Capote, who, in an extraordinarily intoxicated state, confessed that he might kill himself. One year later, when he felt betrayed by Lee Radziwill in a feud with perpetual nemesis Gore Vidal, Capote arranged a return visit to Stanley Siegal's show, this time to deliver a bizarrely comic performance revealing salacious personal details about Radziwill and her sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
In an ironic twist, Warhol (who had made a point of seeking out Capote when he first arrived in New York) provided the author with the platform for his next artistic renewal. Warhol, who often partied with Capote at Studio 54, agreed to paint Capote's portrait as "a personal gift"—rather than for the six-figure sums he usually charged—in exchange for Capote contributing short pieces to Warhol's Interview magazine every month for a year. Initially the pieces were to consist of tape-recorded conversations, but soon Capote dispensed with the tape recorder and chose instead to craft meticulously composed "conversational portraits" that applied his literary skills to the magazine's dialogue-driven format. Out of this creative burst came the pieces that would form the basis for the bestselling Music for Chameleons (1980). To celebrate this unexpected renaissance, he underwent a facelift, lost weight and experimented with hair transplants. Nevertheless, Capote was unable to overcome his reliance upon drugs and liquor and had grown bored with New York by the turn of the 1980s.
After the revocation of his driver's license (the result of speeding near his Long Island residence) and a hallucinatory seizure in 1980 that required hospitalization, Capote became fairly reclusive. These hallucinations continued unabated and scans revealed that his brain mass had perceptibly shrunk. On the rare occasions when he was lucid, he continued to hype Answered Prayers as being nearly complete and was reportedly planning a reprise of the Black and White Ball to have been held either in Los Angeles or a more exotic locale in South America. On a few occasions, he was still able to write. In 1982, a new short story, "One Christmas", appeared in the December issue of Ladies' Home Journal and the following year it became, like its predecessors "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor", a holiday gift book. In 1983, "Remembering Tennessee", an essay in tribute to Tennessee Williams, who had died in February of that year, appeared in Playboy magazine.
Death
Capote died in Los Angeles, California, on August 25, 1984, aged 59.
According to the coroner's report the cause of death was "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication." He died at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994 both his and Capote's ashes were scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton, New York and Sag Harbor, New York on Long Island, close to where the two had maintained a property with individual houses for many years. Capote also maintained the property in Palm Springs, a condominium in Switzerland that was mostly occupied by Dunphy seasonally, and a primary residence at the United Nations Plaza in New York City. Capote's will provided that after Dunphy's death a literary trust would be established, sustained by revenues from Capote's works, to fund various literary prizes and grants including the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin, commemorating not only Capote but also his friend Newton Arvin, the Smith College professor and critic, who lost his job after his homosexuality was exposed.
Exhibition
Capote's childhood is the focus of a permanent exhibit in Monroeville, Alabama's Old Courthouse Museum, covering his life in Monroeville with his Faulk cousins and how those early years are reflected in his writing. The exhibit brings photos, letters and memorabilia together to paint a portrait of Capote's early life in Monroeville. Jennings Faulk Carter donated the collection to the Museum in 2005.
The collection includes 12 handwritten letters (1940s–60s) from Capote to his favorite aunt, Mary Ida Carter (Jennings' mother). Many of the items in the collection belonged to his mother and Virginia Hurd Faulk, Carter's cousin with whom Capote lived as a child. The exhibit features many references to Sook, but two items in particular are always favorites of visitors: Sook's "Coat of Many Colors" and Truman's baby blanket. Truman's first cousin recalls that as children, he and Truman never had trouble finding Sook in the darkened house on South Alabama Avenue because they simply looked for the bright colors of her coat. Truman's baby blanket is a "granny square" blanket Sook made for him. The blanket became one of Truman's most cherished possessions, and friends say he was seldom without it — even when traveling. In fact, he took the blanket with him when he flew from New York to Los Angeles to be with Joanne Carson on August 23, 1984. According to Joanne Carson, when he died at her home on August 25, his last words were, "It's me, it's Buddy," followed by, "I'm cold." Buddy was Sook's name for him.
Quotations
"All literature is gossip." Gore Vidal said of Capote: "He mistook the rich who liked publicity for the ruling class, and made himself far too much at home among them, only to find that he was to them no more than an amusing pet who would be dispensed with, as he was when he published lurid gossip about them." Gore Vidal also said: "...the instant lie was Truman's art form... One could watch the process. A famous name would be mentioned. The round pale fetus face would suddenly register a sort of tic, as if a switch had been thrown... To watch [him] as he added detail after detail was to observe the raw creative process in all its primal fury."
Capote on film
Capote's childhood experiences are captured in the 1956 memoir "A Christmas Memory," which he adapted for television and narrated. Directed by Frank Perry, it aired on December 21, 1966, on ABC Stage 67, and featured Geraldine Page in an Emmy Award-winning performance. The teleplay was later incorporated into Perry's 1969 anthology film Trilogy (aka Truman Capote's Trilogy), which also includes adaptations of "Miriam" and "Among the Paths to Eden." The TV movie Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, with Patty Duke and Piper Laurie, was a 1997 remake, directed by Glenn Jordan.
In 1961 Capote's novel Breakfast at Tiffany's about a flamboyant New York party girl named Holly Golightly was filmed by director Blake Edwards and starred Audrey Hepburn in what many consider her defining role, though Capote never approved of the toning down of the story to appeal to mass audiences.
Capote narrated his The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967), a sequel to A Christmas Memory, filmed by Frank Perry in Pike Road, Alabama. Geraldine Page again won an Emmy for her performance in this hour-long teleplay.
In Cold Blood was filmed twice. When Richard Brooks directed In Cold Blood, the 1967 adaptation with Robert Blake and Scott Wilson, he filmed at the actual Clutter house and other Holcomb, Kansas, locations. Anthony Edwards and Eric Roberts headed the cast of the 1996 In Cold Blood miniseries, directed by Jonathan Kaplan.
Neil Simon's 1976 murder mystery spoof Murder by Death provided Capote's main role as an actor, portraying reclusive millionaire Lionel Twain who invites the world's leading detectives together to a dinner party to have them solve a murder. The performance brought him a Golden Globe Award nomination (Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture). Early in the film it is alleged that Twain has ten fingers but no pinkies. In truth, Capote's pinkie fingers were unusually large. In the film, Capote's character is highly critical of the detective fiction of the like of Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett.
In Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), there is a scene in which Alvy (Allen) and Annie (Diane Keaton) are observing passersby in the park. Alvy comments, "Oh, there goes the winner of the Truman Capote Look-Alike Contest." The passerby is actually Truman Capote (who appeared in the film uncredited).
Other Voices, Other Rooms came to theater screens in 1995 with David Speck in the lead role of Joel Sansom. Reviewing this atmospheric Southern Gothic film in the New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote:
One of the things the movie does best is transport you back in time and into nature. In the early scenes as Joel leaves his aunt's home to travel across the South by rickety bus and horse and carriage, you feel the strangeness, wonder and anxiety of a child abandoning everything that's familiar to go to a place so remote he has to ask directions along the way. The landscape over which he travels is so rich and fertile that you can almost smell the earth and sky. Later on, when Joel tussles with Idabell (Aubrey Dollar), a tomboyish neighbor who becomes his best friend (a character inspired by the author Harper Lee), the movie has a special force and clarity in its evocation of the physical immediacy of being a child playing outdoors. Capote's short story "Children on Their Birthdays", another look back at a small-town Alabama childhood, was brought to film by director Mark Medoff in 2002.
Documentaries
With Love from Truman (1966), a 29-minute documentary by David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, shows a Newsweek reporter interviewing Capote at his beachfront home in Long Island. Capote talks about In Cold Blood, his relationship with the murderers and his coverage of the trial. He is also seen taking Alvin Dewey and his wife around New York City for the first time. Originally titled A Visit with Truman Capote, this film was commissioned by National Educational Television and shown on the NET network. Truman Capote: The Tiny Terror is a documentary that aired April 6, 2004, as part of A&E's Biography series, followed by a 2005 DVD release.
Portrayals of Capote
In 1990, Robert Morse received both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Capote in the one-man show, Tru. In 1992, he recreated the performance for the PBS series American Playhouse and won an Emmy Award for his performance. In 1994, actor-writer Bob Kingdom created the one-man theatre piece The Truman Capote Talk Show, in which he played Capote looking back over his life. Originally performed at the Lyric Studio Theatre, Hammersmith, London, the show has toured widely within the UK and internationally.
Paul Williams appears as Capote in The Doors (1991) introducing Jim Morrison to Andy Warhol.
Louis Negin portrayed Capote in 54 (1998).
A reference is made to Capote as just having had a face lift, and the song "Knock on Wood" is dedicated to him.
Sam Street is seen briefly as Capote in Isn't She Great? (2000), a biographical comedy-drama about Jacqueline Susann.
Michael J. Burg has appeared as Capote in two films, The Audrey Hepburn Story (2000) and The Hoax (2006), about Clifford Irving.
In July 2005, Oni Press published comic book artist and writer Ande Parks' Capote in Kansas: A Drawn Novel, a fictionalized account of Capote and Lee researching In Cold Blood.
Director Bennett Miller made his dramatic feature debut with the biopic Capote (2005). Spanning the years Truman Capote spent researching and writing In Cold Blood, the film depicts Capote's conflict between his compassion for his subjects and self-absorbed obsession with finishing the book. Capote garnered much critical acclaim when it was released (September 30, 2005 in the US and February 24, 2006 in the UK).
Dan Futterman's screenplay was based on the book Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke (1988).
Capote received five Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance earned him many awards, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
Infamous (2006, directed by Douglas McGrath), which stars Toby Jones as Capote and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, is an adaptation of George Plimpton's Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (1997).
Due to the numerous depictions of Capote on film, the satirical newspaper The Onion published a 2006 article: "Oscars Create New Truman Capote Biopic Category."
Media mentions
In the Charles Bukowski poem, "Nothing but a Scarf," Capote is referred to as an "ice-skater-of-a-writer." Bukowski describes how Capote's fast life led to his downfall and how "he never had his nose rubbed into life."
On February 22, 1982, British new wave pop star and electronic music pioneer Gary Numan released his eighth single, "Music For Chameleons." The A side appeared on his fourth studio album, I, Assassin. The single reached the #19 spot on the U.K. singles chart. Numan is a Capote fan, and although the title clearly refers to Capote's book, the song itself contains no references to the original short story.
Dave Filoni, the director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, has been quoted as stating that the film's producer, George Lucas, used Capote's voice as the inspiration for the voice of Ziro, Jabba the Hutt's uncle.
On the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, host Ina Garten hosts a party in honor of Capote's masked ball featuring food prepared as it was at the ball.
Discography
Capote (2006) RCA, Film Soundtrack. Includes complete 1966 RCA recording Truman Capote reads scenes from In Cold Blood - see below. A Christmas Memory (1959) United Artists UAL 9001. (LP) Truman Capote reading his A Christmas Memory. Children on Their Birthdays (1955) Columbia Literary Series ML 4761 12" LP. Reading by Capote. House of Flowers (1955) Columbia Masterworks 12508. (LP) Read by the Author. House of Flowers (1954) Columbia 2320. (LP) Broadway production. Saint Subber presents Truman Capote and Harold Arlen’s House of Flowers, starring Pearl Bailey. Directed by Peter Brook with musical numbers by Herbert Ross. Columbia 12" LP, Stereo-OS-2320. Electronically reprocessed for stereo. In Cold Blood (1966) RCA Victor Red Seal monophonic VDM-110. (LP) Truman Capote reads scenes from In Cold Blood. In Cold Blood Random House unabridged on 12 CDs. Read by Scott Brick. The Thanksgiving Visitor (1967) United Artists UAS 6682. (LP) Truman Capote reading his The Thanksgiving Visitor. Capote in Kansas (2005) Oni Press, graphic novel about Truman Capote and his time in Kansas researching In Cold Blood.
Bibliography
Year Title Type/Notes 1945 Miriam Short story; published in Mademoiselle (magazine) 1948
Other Voices, Other Rooms Novel 1949
A Tree of Night and Other Stories Collection of short stories approx. 1949
Summer Crossing Novel; posthumously published 2005 1951 The Grass Harp Novel 1952
The Grass Harp Play 1953
Beat the Devil Original screenplay 1954
House of Flowers Broadway musical 1956
The Muses Are Heard Nonfiction 1956
"A Christmas Memory" Short story; published in Mademoiselle (magazine) 1957
"The Duke in His Domain" Portrait of Marlon Brando; published in The New Yorker; Republished in Life Stories: Profiles from The New Yorker (2001) 1958
Breakfast at Tiffany's Novella 1960
The Innocents Screenplay based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; 1962, Edgar Award, from the Mystery Writers of America, to Capote and William Archibald for Best Motion Picture Screenplay 1963
Selected Writings of Truman Capote
Midcareer retrospective anthology; fiction and nonfiction 1964
A short story appeared in Seventeen magazine 1966
In Cold Blood "Nonfiction novel"; Capote's second Edgar Award (1966), for Best Fact Crime book 1968
The Thanksgiving Visitor Holiday story published as a gift book 1973
The Dogs Bark Collection of travel articles and personal sketches 1975
"Mojave" and "La Cote Basque, 1965
" Short stories from Answered Prayers; published in Esquire 1976
"Unspoiled Monsters" and "Kate McCloud" Short stories from Answered Prayers; published in Esquire 1980
Music for Chameleons Collection of short works mixing fiction and nonfiction
1983 One Christmas Holiday story published as a gift book 1987 Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel Published posthumously 1987
A Capote Reader Omnibus edition containing most of Capote's shorter works, fiction and nonfiction 2004
The Complete Stories of Truman Capote Anthology of twenty short stories 2004
Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote Edited by Capote biographer Gerald Clarke 2005
Summer Crossing Previously lost first novel—excerpt published in the 2005-10-24 issue of The New Yorker 2007 Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote Published by Random House

References
Clarke, Gerald (1988) Capote: A Biography. Simon and Schuster. Bestselling and critically acclaimed biography. Basis for the 2005 film Capote.
Colacello, Bob (1990) Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up. HarperCollins. Contains many anecdotes regarding Capote's association with Warhol, and an entire chapter on Capote's relationship with Interview magazine and how it led to the writing of Music For Chameleons.
Garson, Helen S. Truman Capote: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston ; Twayne, 1992.
Hill, Patti. "Truman Capote: The Art of Fiction No. 17," Paris Review 16, Spring-Summer 1957
Inge, M. Thomas (1987) Truman Capote Conversations. University Press of Mississippi.
Interviews with Capote by Gerald Clarke, David Frost, Eric Norden, George Plimpton, Gloria Steinem, Jerry Tallmer, Eugene Walter, Andy Warhol, Jann Wenner and others. ISBN 0-87805-274-7
Lamparski, Richard (2006) Manhattan Diary. BearManor Media. ISBN 1-59393-054-2
Krebs, Albin. "Truman Capote Is Dead at 59; Novelist of Style and Clarity," New York Times (August 28, 1984)
Plimpton, George (1997) Truman Capote, In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. Published by Nan A. Talese (imprint of Doubleday). Collection of first-hand observations about the author. Basis for the film Infamous (2006). Walter, Eugene, as told to Katherine Clark, foreword by George Plimpton (2001) Milking the Moon: A Southerner's Story of Life on This Planet. Crown. Actor-novelist-raconteur Walter, who first met Capote when they were children, recalled several anecdotes about Capote as an adult and as a child (when he was known as Bulldog Persons). Dear Mr. Capote is Gordon Lish's first novel, which tells the story of a serial killer, who wants Truman Capote to write his biography. In the letter the killer writes to Truman Capote, the details of his life and his modus operandi are revealed.

New Book by Shelfari Member

The first fantasy book about the witchcraft trials...?
Just published what I believe to be the first fantasy book about the Salem witches. November in Salem : the bargain of witches is a fantasy adventure set in and around the old Danvers State Asylum. It’s chock-full of gnomes, elves, an evil dark angel and of course more witches, (both good and bad) than you can shake a broom at. “Search inside the book” at Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. Hint: November is not just a month–she’s a girl who must bargain her own soul to save the souls of those hanged for witchcraft in 1692. Love to know what you think…! Thanx L C Russell

post is in 1001 Books to read before you Die

Film: Beloved

The moment the man walks into the house, he senses that something is wrong: `
`Good God, girl, what kind of evil you got in there?''

And she replies: ``It ain't evil. Just sad.'' That explains the difference between ``Beloved'' and other stories of ghosts. The movie is not about the ghost, but about the feelings that bring it into existence.
Beloved
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Produced by Oprah Winfrey, Jonathan Demme
Written by Toni Morrison (novel)
Akosua Busia andRichard LaGravenese andAdam Brooks (screenplay)
Starring Oprah Winfrey
Danny Glover
Thandie Newton
Kimberly Elise
Music by Rachel Portman
Editing by Carol Littleton
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s) 16 October 1998 (USA)

Bernard Cornwell Interview

I mean, I'm not Sebastian Faulks, right? I'm not Jane Smiley. I'm not writing books about the human condition. I'm telling stories. Adventure stories. And having a lot of fun doing it."Cornwell was born in London in 1944. His father was a Canadian airman, and his mother was English, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and brought up in Essex by the Wiggins family, who were members of the Peculiar People, a strict Protestant sect who banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine. After he left them, he changed his name to his mother's maiden name, Cornwell.
A bastard is an illegitimate child
William the Bastard, William I of England (1028–1087), William the Conqueror
Azincourt is a historical novel written by Bernard Cornwell. The book relates the events leading to the Battle of Agincourt, through its protagonist Nicholas Hook. In the United States, it was published under the title Agincourt.
Plot
Nicholas Hook, a forester and archer, feuds with Tom and Robert Perrill and the priest Father Martin. He is compelled to participate in the hanging and burning of a community of heretics. One of them, an archer himself, asks Hook to protect his granddaughter after he (the condemed) is gone. Father Martin decides to take the girl for himself, and in an unsuccessful attempt to protect her, Hook attack Father Martin. Hook is then held for trial and anticipated execution. Father Martin and Tom Perrill rape and murder the girl, and Hook's guilt at failing to protect her follows him throughout the story.
Hook escapes and joins an expedition to Soissons, in Burgundy, as an archer. Burgundy and France are in bitter conflict and the French attack, win easily, sack the town, and torture the English archers. He manages to conceal himself in a house and save a girl, Melisande, from rape. Hook believes he is guided in their escape by the voices of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. Melisande becomes Hook's companion and lover. Later, he discovers she is the bastard child of the powerful French Lord Ghillebert, seigneur de Lanferelle (Lord of Hell).
By returning alive from Soissons, and reporting the treachery of the English man-at-arms Sir Roger Pallaire who conspired with the French and sacrificed his own archers, Hook earns good stead with King Henry V and his new lord, Sir John Cornewaille. Hook, returns to France with King Henry to win Henry the crown of France, The attacks starts horrendously with the siege of Harfleur. Capturing Harfleur takes weeks, and decimates Henry's army. During a failed attack, Hook kills Robert Perrill by thrusting a Crossbow Bolt through the man's eye.
Henry, against the advice of his Lords, decides to march his ragged army through France to Calais as an insult. The Hook - Perrill feud reignites during the march as Tom Perrill frames Hook's brother Michael for stealing a religious pyx. Henry hangs Michael for the crime. To reach Calais, The English army must cross the River Somme. The French army blocks the fords and the two opposing armies meet at Agincourt. Torrential rain soaks the newly ploughed land, turning it into a treacherous morass, especially for the French knights in full plate armour. The French unwittingly allow the English to advance within range of the English longbows. The archers launch volleys as the French begin a difficult advance toward the English.
The first attack is driven back by the English. During the mayhem, Father Martin attempts to rape Melisande. Melisande kills Martin using her crossbow. The English repel the second attack through a combination of the remaining arrows and the surprising skill of the archers in hand-to-hand combat. The French are unable to launch a third attack and they retire, leaving hundreds of French dead, and many French lords captured. Hook captures Lanferelle, and Lanferelle kills Tom Perrill. The English claim a famous victory, and Hook returns to England with Melisande, a promotion, and the feud ended.
Publication
The book was released on the 1st October, 2008 in the United Kingdom.
However, new fortifications, designed to withstand gunpowder weapons, were soon constructed throughout Europe. During the Renaissance and the Early Modern period, siege warfare continued to dominate the conduct of war in Europe.
Once siege guns were developed the techniques for assaulting a town or a fortress became well known and ritualized. The attacking army would surround a town. Then the town would be asked to surrender. If they did not comply the besieging army would surround the town with temporary fortifications to stop sallies from the stronghold or relief getting in. The attackers would then build a length of trenches parallel to the defences and just out of range of the defending artillery. They would then dig a trench towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire. Once within artillery range another parallel trench would be dug with gun emplacements. This was called sapping. If necessary using the first artillery fire for cover this process would be repeated until guns were close enough to be laid accurately to make a breach in the fortifications. In order to allow the forlorn hope and support troops to get close enough to exploit the breach, more zigzag trenches could be dug even closer to the walls with more parallel trenches to protect and conceal the attacking troops. After each step in the process the besiegers would ask the besieged to surrender. If the forlorn hope stormed the breach successfully the defenders could expect no mercy.
Stonehenge is a novel in which noted historical novelist Bernard Cornwell imaginatively reconstructs the events of forty centuries ago, when the ancient temple and observatory in what is now called Stonehenge was ambitiously rebuilt, with stone monoliths replacing wooden poles.
The main characters of the novel are Saban and Camaban, the young sons of Hengall, tribal chief of Ratharryn. They both outsmart their enemies and survive attempts to kill them. Their main enemy is their older half-brother, Lengar, an ambitious and bloodthirsty man. When an outsider rides into the Old Temple of the tribe, Lengar mercilessly murders him and steals his gold. Lengar then attempts to also murder his younger half-brother Saban, so there will be no witnesses to Lengar's theft of the gold. Lengar plans to use the gold to raise an army and make himself into a power in the land. However, the quick-witted and quick-footed Saban outwits and outruns his evil brother. Hengall forces Lengar to give up the stolen gold. A disgruntled Lengar defects from the tribe with most of his friends, plotting to return to kill his own father and attack his own former tribesfolk.
Before he is killed, Hengall invests some of the gold in rebuilding and improving the Sky Temple. All three of his sons get a turn at reshaping this famous center of worship.
The monument is called "The Old Temple" in the novel. Indeed, at the time of the events, it was already a thousand years old, having been created c. 3000 BC as a circular ditch and bank, with 56 wooden posts.
Lengar becomes chief and sells Saban into slavery. Camaban frees his brother and tells Saban about his plans for a new temple. Together they replace the evil Lengar. Camaban becomes chief, but Saban kills him to protect his daughter.

le are identified with the woman (whatever the mythicalor ideological version), and . . . permanence, order, organization, and law are on the male side”

1. Why do you think that Cornwell starts his story viewing an attempted murder?
2. What comparisions can be made of Nicholas Hook and other Cornwell Characters?
3. The Saints Crispin and Crispinian made a deep impression of Hook, do you think this was common of other archers?
4. Was Hook ambitious before he met Melisande?
5. In the setting of the period, how would you rate Sir John Cornewaille?

St Crispin and St. Crispianus

That two Roman saints and shoemakers, Crispin and Crispinian (or Crispianus), are said to have lived in Faversham late in the 3rd century is fairly well known, at least among people interested in the town’s history.
The association is recalled by a plaque on the ‘Swan’ in Market Street, which marks the spot where they are said to have lived.
However, the town cannot be said to be exactly incandescent with interest in this remarkable tradition, which anywhere else might be the source of great pride and the inspiration for annual festivities on 25 October, St Crispin’s Day.
There were three legends, not just one. The first, first recorded, and elaborated, by Thomas Deloney in 1598, is the most coherent, colourful and interesting from a local point of view because it is set in Faversham, Canterbury and the unspecified location of a battle in France. In the second, Faversham plays no part. The main setting is Soissons (Roman Noviodunum), a cathedral cityabout 20 miles west of Rheims in France. The third is a variation of the second and includes a Faversham component. Originally it was probably a rather clumsy attempt to reconcile the second version with the first. It is this version which has come to be accepted in the town. The first has been forgotten for more than 150 years, but it is, for Faversham, by far the most important. When local historian Arthur Percival read it, he realised that it was time to get into print again. This he has done with The Faversham Legends of Crispin & Crispianus, Princes and Saints, published by the Faversham Society.
Dr Percival said: “We could simply have published a transcript of the story as told in 1598 by Deloney, but the English, though quite racy, is not the English we use today, and might be a barrier to understanding and enjoyment. So what I have done is re-write it in contemporary English, retaining - at the risk of stylistic inconsistency - just a few of the more memorable passages and phrases from the original.
“The story is really quite fascinating and, if it embodies a folk tradition, as it probably does, may even shed a bit of light on the history of Roman Britain. It seems to be set in the time of Carausius, Britain’s ‘breakaway’ Roman emperor, who reigned from 286/7 to 293. In this version Crispin and Crispianus are the two young sons of a native British prince who has been executed by the emperor for stepping out of line. They are Christians, and, like the emperor himself, live in Canterbury.
“Their widowed mother realises that as they near manhood, their lives will be at risk not so much because of their faith as because they will be seen as a likely focus for discontent. She decides that for their own safety they need to disguise themselves and leave Canterbury. They set out on the Roman road to London (the present A2) and pause outside a shoemaker’s workshop in Faversham.
“The staff sound so cheerful and the atmosphere seems so congenial that they decide to ask for seven-year apprenticeships. Offered these, they settle down well and soon become champion shoe-makers. To tell any more of the story now would spoil it, but it is great fun, exciting, and has the happiest of endings.
“Though I tell the story exactly as Deloney told it, I have embroidered it here and there where knowledge of history has improved since he recorded it. For example he knew that the Roman Empire was in poor shape at the time, with barbarian invaders penetrating Italy itself as far as Ravenna. What he did not know was that Britain was then actually the safest part of the Empire and that as a result some Roman land-owners had fled here from France. Equally he did not know that on the outskirts of Faversham was probably a major military depot.”
And how did Deloney hear of the legend? He seems to have had no roots in Faversham. Not much is known about him except that he was a silk-weaver, who was born in about 1543 and died in 1600. He did have good colloquial French, and may have been a member of one of the thousands of Huguenot refugee families which settled in England in the later 16th century.
His surname is almost certainly an Anglicisation of the French Delaune. The Delaunes soon became prominent in London and one of them, Gideon Delaune (1565-1659) formulated a patent medicine which made him a fortune. Some of this he used to buy himself a big country house - Sharsted Court at Doddington, near Faversham. Dr Percival speculates that if Thomas Deloney and Gideon Delaune were related, Thomas may have picked up the Faversham legend of Crispin and Crispianus while staying at Sharsted.
The other two versions of the legend are also printed in this new book, the second (Soissons) version in a few paragraphs, and the third, hybrid, version, in the late Leslie Smith’s masterly reconstruction from his delightful Stories of Faversham, privately published in 1974.
The first (Deloney) version provided inspiration for two Elizabethan plays, as Arthur notes. Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday, first produced in 1599 and performed before Queen Elizabeth I a year later, is still in the repertory. William Rowley’s A Shoemaker A Gentleman, first performed in 1600, and considered the better play in its day, follows Deloney’s story more closely than the Dekker drama. It is set wholly in Faversham, Canterbury and France. Probably it was performed in Faversham, since the town was on all the big acting companies’ circuit in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. However, it has not been performed in the town for at least 250 years and may be ripe for revival.
The Faversham Legends of Crispin & Crispianus, Princes and Saints, No 73 in the Faversham Society’s series of Faversham Papers, is on sale at the Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre in Preston Street.

Battle of Azincourt

Thoroughly Modern Men-at-arms
Bernard Cornwell has never been afraid to tackle big subjects, whether famous battles like Waterloo and Seringapatam, or myths such as King Arthur or the Grail Quest. The subject of his most recent novel arguably falls into both those categories: the Battle of Agincourt. Famous across Europe at the time, it passed into legend when Shakespeare wrote a play which was published under the title The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France, and included a speech on the eve of battle which added to the English language the phrases “once more unto the breach” and “band of brothers.” Its place in the national mythology was only strengthened by the 1944 film of Henry V, which starred Laurence Olivier as an idealized young warrior king, and was filmed to boost morale during the build-up to the Allied invasion of Normandy. The legend of Agincourt plays to the way so many English like to see themselves: stout yeomanry, out-numbered by haughty Continentals, but manfully winning through.
Cornwell has obviously done some thorough research for this book, which is delivered fairly unobtrusively during the narrative, and the endnotes include recommendations for anyone wanting to read further about the history involved. In fact, when the factual research does make its presence felt, the material is so interesting that it doesn’t matter whether or not it has been smoothly incorporated into the story. The constituent elements of a longbow, for example, fully merited a bit of dwelling on – they make for surprising reading, and give an insight into why historians are serious when they talk about “military technology” in the Middle Ages. Just as interesting were the mentions of why the French commanders couldn’t simply decide to switch from crossbows to longbows after having faced the English archers in battle; that if a longbow took time and effort to create, whole decades had gone into producing the men who shot them. This isn’t a work of historical explanation, however, and Cornwell hides the information amongst some lively story-telling, such as the episode in which a fletcher cuts a section from an altar-cloth whilst praying, because apparently silk is the best thread with which to tie quills onto arrows.
Agincourt distances itself from a misty-eyed romantic view of its eponymous battle in several ways, for example in its depiction of King Henry. The glorious young warrior king becomes a grim, thin-lipped religious fanatic with raw skin, pursuing a senseless heraldic claim to lands that lie a sea away from his realm. In much the same way the battle itself is revealed as the result of a pointless military excursion undertaken largely to save face on Henry’s return home. Any sense that the “band of brothers” (a phrase which doesn’t appear in the novel) have any idea what they’re fighting for is firmly quashed by frequent statements to the effect that it is the soldiers’ job to fight, not to understand. Shakespeare mentioned in his epilogue to Henry V that the land gained would be lost by the next English king, in lines which Olivier firmly excised from his film. Cornwell brings back this idea and elaborates on it: his common soldiers would find convivial company in much modern writing about World War I or Vietnam.
Spurning heroic national destiny as an organizing principle, Cornwell structures his story around the career of Nicholas Hook, a young archer outlawed for striking a corrupt priest who finds himself fighting in the French campaign. Directed by the voices of two saints, he rescues a French girl from rape during the sack of Soissons, gradually falls in love with her, and rises to be the medieval equivalent of an NCO, before his past catches up with him, and he soon has to deal with enemies in his own camp as well as an enigmatic and darkly glamorous French nobleman. The novel builds to the battle of Agincourt as the climax of both the historical arc and Hook’s own personal story. This brief précis points up both the strengths and weaknesses of this casting of the story. On the one hand, very few people currently writing can handle historical fiction like Bernard Cornwell. His work is always gripping, intelligent, and the action never flags. He has learnt his craft through dozens of books, spanning hundreds of years of history, and he absolutely knows how to keep his readership with him. He’s also got a nice line in low-key humour, for example: And he’s mad, the French king is…He’s mad as a spavined polecat, the stupid bastard thinks he’s made of glass. He’s frightened that someone will give him a smart tap and he’ll break into a thousand pieces. The truth is, he’s got turnips for brains, he does, and he’s fighting against the duke, who isn’t mad. He’s got brains for brains.
But this same craftsmanship also produces some of the book’s weaknesses. The plot summary I gave above will be instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Cornwell’s previous work. A young male outsider of straightforward character, a series of significant battles, a love interest, a nemesis within his own camp, a gradual rise based on merit rather than influence – this could be Richard Sharpe, Derfel Cadarn, Nathaniel Starbuck or Thomas of Hookton, but in this case he’s called Nicholas Hook. The assured construction of the scenes can become a little routine at times: when a paragraph describing a fight ends with a sword scything towards the head of a favoured character, and the narrative cuts away to deal with other events, it eventually stops being a surprise that, when the narrative returns, the blow is avoided by some unusual means and the fight continues. It does keep the action going, but a device like this is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Much more serious, though, is the book’s take on the medieval world as a whole. Alongside the loud cynicism of its insistence that the battles are meaningless, the church is corrupt and the aristocracy live in a different world, Agincourt continually asserts a broadly positive, modern outlook. Merit is rationally rewarded, as Nicholas rises from the ranks not by the whim of a nobleman, but through recognition of his skills as a soldier. His love affair with Melisande, after he rescues her, is conducted on rigorously modern lines, based on mutual attraction, consent, respect and equality of choice. Religion for Nicholas is an internal matter based on personal experience of the divine, and does not involve interfering with the beliefs or pleasures of others. Cornwell is superb at detailing what would have happened to a soldier in this period, but doesn’t give any sense of how they might have thought or felt about it: there is nothing here of the darkness and strangeness found in Barry Unsworth’s Morality Play, or Peter Ackroyd’s Clerkenwell Tales.
Whilst rescuing Hook from his own era in this way, Cornwell is forced to make rather simplistic moral distinctions in the novel. Though he is at pains to deny that the historical movements his characters are involved with can be seen as glorious, individuals are simply and recognisably either good or bad. In the moral world of Agincourt, as with so much of Cornwell’s fiction, you are either a basically tolerant, respectful un-Medieval type, or you’re a bigoted psychotic rapist. It’s rather as if what we can’t come to terms with about the medieval past has been parceled up into people who are revealed as evil in and of themselves. The continual harping on rape through the book is particularly troubling. It certainly must have been far more prevalent in the fifteenth century than now, and has often been ignored by accounts of the past, but in Agincourt it feels like a moral lever, used to pry apart the two sides I’ve described, to demonstrate that you are either with us or against us. There’s something problematic about a novel which throws around the idea of rape so glibly, but refuses to use any verb stronger than “hump” when referring to it.
Cornwell has dethroned the Great Men of historical legend, but set up in their place the Great Representative Man in Robert Hook, who probably represents what we would like to see in the medieval era just as much as the heroes of much older histories. Tellingly, he keeps in the “bowfingers” myth: the tradition that the reverse “V” sign, used as a gesture of abuse in England, originated with the archers in the aftermath of Agincourt, who used it to taunt the French by showing that they still had the two fingers used to draw the string, which the French had threatened to cut from any prisoners. Cornwell documents that the string fingers had indeed been cut from archers at Soissons earlier in the campaign, and states in his notes that “I cannot confirm that the British two-fingered salute began in Agincourt as a taunt to the defeated French…but it seems a likely tale.” In the novel it happens like this, as an anonymous archer, crazed by the fighting, is killing injured men on the battlefield: He suddenly raised his two string fingers at the corpses he had made and jerked the fingers up and down. “Cut these off, would you? You bastards!”
This brief episode is worth dwelling on, even at the risk of pedantry, because it shows how much Agincourt still has invested in the national mythology about this battle. Cornwell is quite right that the bowfingers myth cannot be confirmed, in fact there is no evidence of this “tradition” which explains the V-sign before the 1970s. Personally I agree that the legend is “a likely tale,” that it feels right and makes sense – which should surely make it even more suspect. We can see sweet prince Hal, the “lovely bully,” become a fundamentalist aggressor without turning a hair, but still cling to the idea that flipping someone the fingers is an expression of something which was born on the battlefields of France. Obviously there’s no way the “tradition” can be disproved either, but before thinking of this as a charming little quirk of history, we might consider that it apparently first appeared during the 70s, a decade when the aftermath of imperial breakup, Commonwealth immigration and a rapidly changing society had produced the most famous period of extreme British nationalism in recent history. It could well be coincidence, but “bowfingers” seems to have been a product of the era as the National Front and other groups which peddled a highly insular, xenophobic notion of Britishness, regarding historical military triumphs as a crucible of identity. Its presence in the novel doesn’t make any link between Agincourt and the far right, but rather demonstrates even further that there is no straightforward way to relate this legend, that author and readers are already soaked in the story it purports to “tell.”
Agincourt is yet another cracking read from Bernard Cornwell, full of action and interest. It treats the kind of history which can be seen with precision and flair, but many people will find it has ignored the kind of history which counts, offering an exciting book of historical events instead of a truly historical novel.

Michael Drayton: His Ballad of Agincourt

Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance,
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marcheth towards Agincourt,
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopp'd his way,
Where the French general lay
With all his power.

Which in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride,
His ransom to provide
To the King sending;
Which he neglects the while
As from a nation vile,
Yet with angry smile
Their fall portending.

And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then:
Though they be one to ten,
Be not amazed.
Yet have we well begun,
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame rased.

And for myself, quoth he,
This my full rest shall be,
England ne'er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me;
Victor I will remain,
Or on this earth lie slain,
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.

Poitiers and Crecy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming a regal seat
By many a warlike feat,
Lopped the French lilies.

The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped
Amongst his henchmen.

Exeter had the rear,
A braver man not there,
Oh Lord, how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!

They now to fight are gone,
Armor on armor shone,
Drum now to drum did groan,
To hear was wonder,
That with the cries they make
The very earth did shake,
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became,
Oh noble Erpingham,
Which didst the signal aim
To our hid forces;
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Struck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilboes drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent,
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went;
Our men were hardy.

This while our noble King,
His broad sword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood bespent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.

Gloster, that Duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood
With his brave brother;
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden night,
Yet in that furious fight,
Scarce such another.

Warwick in blood did wade,
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made,
Still as they ran up;
Suffolk his ax did ply,
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon St. Crispin's day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry;
Oh when shall English men
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry?

Shakespeares Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have.
O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it,
Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.
'Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.
'Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day.
Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
-Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot,
Salisbury and Gloucester
-Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered
-We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
-- Wm. Shakespeare, King Henry V

Misconceptions about Plate Armor
The helplessness of an unhorsed knight in plate armor has been vastly exaggerated. A typical suit of Agincourt- era combat plate armor weighs about 30 - 35 kg. This is roughly the same as a modern infantryman's field pack, and it is better balanced. There are descriptions of knights being lifted onto their horses with a block and tackle, but these are either:
Humourous, and usually modern. Fairly late tourneys, where the armor was specially built for jousting, and had essentially no freedom of movement. A very old and fat knight. The Duke of York at Agincourt was an example. Falling off of a horse is nobody's idea of fun. Falling off a horse while wearing armor is probably even less fun (I haven't tried it, and don't intend to.) However, remember that the knight's favorite sport was the tourney, where many of the events (the joust in particular) involved falling off of horses. While there are records of fatalities from knights falling off of their horses in tourneys, the most common cause of death was a splintered lance going through a helm's eye slits.
Mud
The key word for describing the battle of Agincourt is mud. The battlefield was a freshly plowed field, and at the time of the battle, it had been raining continuously for several days. Soon after the battle started, it had thousands of English and French soldiers and horses running through it. Anywhere near the battlefield, the mud was at least ankle deep. Much of the time, it was up to the combatants' knees. Occasionally, it reached their waists. There are descriptions of horses floundering around in mud up to their bellies.
Falling off of a horse in the kind of mud that was at Agincourt was no joke, especially in armor. Indeed, many of the deaths (including that of the Duke of York) were caused by drowning.
The mud was undoubtedly a major factor in the lopsided English victory. The barefoot and in many cases bare legged English foot soldiers were vastly more mobile than the armored French.

Song of the Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: From "The White Company"

What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.
What of the cord?

The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
So we'll drain our jacks
To the English flax
And the land where the hemp was wove.

What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.

What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowman
--the yeoman
--The lads of dale and fell
Here's to you
--and to you;
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell.

Hook

Hook, increasingly dubious of the glories of war, marries Melisande but also faces the possibility of mortal combat with her father, a caustic French noble called le Seigneur d'Enfer: the Lord of Hell.
By this point, Hook finds that warfare isn't at all what he imagined it to be. "It's blood," Hook tells his brother Michael, "and men crying for their mothers, and too much screaming, and pain and bastards in metal trying to kill you."
Hook, too, becomes more of an instrument of the plot than an engine driving it,
It might not be Shakespeare, but readers who treasure James Clavell, Patrick O'Brian or Conn Iggulden will find high entertainment here, while history buffs will revel in imagining the Machiavellian politics of royalty, the startling terror of medieval combat and the twists of fate that won a battle that rivals Crecy, Trafalgar or Waterloo in history.
The first sound was the bowstrings, the snap of five thousand hemp cords being tightened by stressed yew, and that sound was like the devil's harp strings being plucked," Cornwell writes. "Then there was the arrow sound, the sigh of air over feathers, but multiplied, so that it was like the rushing of a wind. That sound diminished as two clouds of arrows, thick as any flock of starlings, climbed into the grey sky. Hook, reaching for another broadhead, marveled at the sight of five thousand arrows in two sky-shadowing groups. The two storms seemed to hover for a heart's beat at the height of their trajectory, and then the missiles fell."

Sharps Theme Tune and other Old English Songs

"Over the Hills and Far Away" is a traditional English song, dating back to at least the early 1700s. One version was published in Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy in 1706, a very different one appeared in George Farquhar's play The Recruiting Officer. A version also appears in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 1728.
The words have changed over the years, as can be seen in the versions below. The only consistent element in early versions is the title line and the tune. D'Urfey's and Gay's versions both refer to lovers, while Farquhar's version refers to fleeing oveseas to join the army. The tune was provided with another set of lyrics for the Sharpe movies, based on Farquhar's version. This version was also recorded by John Tams who played Dan Hagman in the series.
The nursery rhyme "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" mentions a piper who knows only one tune, this one. "Over the Hills and Far Away" is also the name of a novel by Candida Lycett Green (2002).
War memorials
The Royal Military College of Canada Memorial Arch includes the text "Hark now the drums beat up again for all true Soldiers Gentlemen" on the inside top right face.
D'Urfey lyrics
Jocky met with Jenny fair
Aft by the dawning of the day;
But Jockey now is fu' of care
Since Jenny staw his heart away.
Altho' she promis'd to be true
She proven has, alake! unkind
Which gars poor Jockey aften rue
That e'er he loo'd a fickle mind.
Tis o'er the hills and far away
Tis o'er the hills and far away
Tis o'er the hills and far away
The wind has blown my Plad (sic) away [verses omitted]

Since that she will nae pity take
I maun gae wander for her sake
And, in ilk wood and gloomy grove
I'll, sighing, sing," Adieu to love.
Since she is fause whom I adore
I'll never trust a woman more;
Frae a' their charms I'll flee away
And on my pipes I'll sweetly play,"
O'er hills and dales and far away
O'er hills and dales and far away
O'er hills and dales and far away
The wind has blawn my plad away.

George Farquhar lyrics
A version of the lyrics by George Farquhar for his play The Recruiting Officer from 1706.
Our 'prentice Tom may now refuse
To wipe his scoundrel Master's Shoes,
For now he's free to sing and play
Over the Hills and far away.
Over the Hills and O'er the Main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain,
The queen commands and we'll obey
Over the Hills and far away.

We all shall lead more happy lives
By getting rid of brats and wives
That scold and bawl both night and day
- Over the Hills and far away.
Over the Hills and O'er the Main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain,
The queen commands and we'll obey
Over the Hills and far away.

Courage, boys, 'tis one to ten,
But we return all gentlemen
All gentlemen as well as they,
Over the hills and far away.
Over the Hills and O'er the Main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain,
The queen commands and we'll obey
Over the Hills and far away.

John Gay lyrics
In The Beggar's Opera the song is a duet between the antihero Macheath and his lover Polly. It is a romantic dream of escape, with no military references.
MACHEATH:
Were I laid on Greenland's Coast, And in my Arms embrac'd my Lass; Warm amidst eternal Frost, Too soon the Half Year's Night would pass.
POLLY:
Were I sold on Indian Soil, Soon as the burning Day was clos'd, I could mock the sultry Toil When on my Charmer's Breast repos'd.
MACHEATH:
And I would love you all the Day,
POLLY:
Every Night would kiss and play,
MACHEATH:
If with me you'd fondly stray
POLLY:
Over the Hills and far away

Over the Hills & Far Away: The Music of Sharpe was released in 1996 as a companion to the Sharpe television series. The recording features performances by various artists, including British folk musicians John Tams (who played a supporting role in the series and wrote or arranged much of its music) and Kate Rusby, composer Dominic Muldowney, and The Band and Bugles of the Light Division, performing traditional songs along with selections of original music from the programmes.
Track listing"The Overture" a) "Sharpe's Theme" b) "Prelude" (Dominic Muldowney/John Tams, words trad.) featuring Sean Bean) – 2:48 "I'm Ninety Five" (Trad.) performed by The Band and Bugles of the Light Division – :50 ""Over the Hills and Far Away" (Trad./Tams) performed by Tams – 3:49 "The Spanish Sword" (Muldowney) – 1:30 "Rogue's March" – (Trad.) performed by Tams/Barry Coope - :33 "The Collier Recruit" (Trad., arranged by Kate Rusby/John McCusker) performed by Rusby – 4:17 "The Bird in the Bush/The Colors" (Trad./Tams/Muldowney) performed by Tams/Moscow Symphony Orchestra/Muldowney – 3:52 "The Spanish Bride" (Tams) performed by Tams – 6:57 "The Shilling" (Muldowney) – 2:00 "Gentleman Soldier" (Trad., arranged by Tams/Roger Wilson) performed by Tams – :35 "Bugle Call/Moneymusk" (Trad.) performed by The Band and Bugles of the Light Division – :51 "Broken-Hearted I Will Wander" (Trad. arranged by Rusby/McCusker) performed by Rusby – 2:11 "Badajoz" (Muldowney) - 3:58 "The Rambling Soldier" (Trad./Tams/Coope) performed by Tams/Coope - 1:43 "The Huntsman's Chorus/The Italian Song" (Trad.) performed by The Band and Bugles of the Light Division - 2:16 "Johnny is Gone for a Soldier" (Trad.) performed by Tams - 3:26 "The Forlorn Hope" (Muldowney) - 2:05 "Love Farewell" (Trad./Tams) performed by Tams - 3:09 "Sunset" (Trad.) The Band and Bugles of the Light Division - 1:38 "Sharpe's Song/Sharpe's Theme" (Trad./Muldowney/Tams) - 1:39

One of the strong points of the Sharpe movie series was it's music provided by Dominic Muldowney and John Tams (who also played the ex-poacher, Hagman). As well as the powerful theme music which introduced each film, there were numerous soldier's folk songs scattered throughout the films, often (but not exclusively) sung by John Tams. From "Eagle" onwards, one of these tunes became the closing credit theme for the series: "Over the Hills and Far Away". This soldier's song dates back to the time of Queen Anne but was freely adapted over the next hundred years plus. It was freely adapted again for the series, with John Tam writing new verses for it for each of the films from Eagle to Sword.

(Eagle) There's forty shillings on the drum
To those who volunteer to come,
To 'list and fight the foe today
Over the Hills and far away.

(chorus)
O'er the hills and o'er the main
Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain.
King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.

(Company) Mid smoke and fire and shot and shell,
And to the very walls of hell,
But we shall stand and we shall stay
Over the hills and far away

(Enemy)
Though I may travel far from Spain
A part of me shall still remain,
And you are with me night and day
Over the hills and far away.

(Honour) Then fall in lads behind the drum
With colours blazing like the sun.
Along the road to come what may
Over the hills and far away.

(Gold) When Evil stalks upon the land
I'll neither hold nor stay me hand
But fight to win a better day,
Over the hills and far away.

(Battle) If I should fall to rise no more,
As many comrades did before,
Ask the pipes and drums to play
Over the hills and far away.

(Sword) Let kings and tyrants come and go,
I'll stand adjudged by what I know.
A soldiers life I'll ne'er gainsay.
Over the hills and far away.

Songs of the War of 1812 Submitted by Donald Graves

The following are words to a number of songs Mr Graves has uncovered which are appropiate to the War of 1812 period. A tune to some of the songs have yet to be uncovered.

The British Bayoneteers
Eyes right, my jolly field boys,
Who British bayonets bear,
To teach your foes to yield boys,
When British steel they dare!
Now fill the glass, for the toast of toasts
Shall be drunk with the cheer of cheers,
Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!
For the British bayoneteers.

Great guns have shot and shell, boys,
Dragoons have sabres bright.
The artillery fire's like hell, boys,
And the horse like devils fight.
But neither light nor heavy horse
Nor thundering cannoneers,
Can stem the tide of the foeman's pride,
Like the British bayoneteers!
The English arm is strong, boys,
The Irish arm is tough.
The Scotsman's blow the French well know,
Is struck by sterling stuff.

And when before the enemy
Their shining steel appears,
Goodbye! goodbye! how they run, how they run!
From the British bayoneteers!
(Tune: "The British Grenadiers")

General, Glorious, Great, Granny Born-dear
The war is commenc'd,And the army condens'd
Devoid both of eating and fear
They look for the presence;
Of all soldiers, the essence,
Of glorious, great, granny Born-dear.
Some soldiers are freezing,
Some coughing, some sneezing,
Some laugh and cry out with a sneer,
He never will come, forNo one hates a drum more,
Than glorious, great, granny Born-dear.

The Tickler, Philadelphia, 8 January 1813

Why, Soldiers, Why?
Why, soldiers, why,
Should we be melancholy, boys?
Why, soldiers, why?
Whose business 'tis to die!
What, sighing? Fie!
Damn fear, drink on, be jolly boys!
'Tis he, you or I,Cold, hot, wet or dry,
We're always bound to follow, boys,
And scorn to fly.
'Tis but in vain,(I mean not to upbraid you, boys),
'Tis but in vainFor soldiers to complain.
Should next campaign
Send us to Him who made us, boys,
We're free from pain.
But should we remain,
A bottle and kind landlady
Cures all again.
Dates from 1729

The Girl I Left Behind Me
I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill,
And o'er the moor and valley,
Such grievous thoughts my heart do fill,
Since parting with my Sally.
I seek no more the fine or gay,
For each does but remind me,
How swift the hours did pass away,
With the girl I left behind me.
Oh, ne'er shall I forget the night
The stars were bright above me,
And gently lent their silvery light,
When first she vowed to love me.
But now I'm bound to Brighton Camp
Kind heaven, then, pray guide me,
And send me safely back again
To the girl I left behind me.
Dates from 1758

Lochaber No More
Farewell to Lochaber and farewell, my Jean,
Where heartsome with thee I have many days been.
For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more,
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more.
These tears that I shed they are all for my dear,
And nae for the dangers attending on war,
Though borne on rough seas to a far bloody shore,
Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.
Then glory, my Jean, maun plead my excuse,
Since honour commands me how can I refuse?
Without it I ne'er can have merit for thee,
And without thy favour I'd better not be.
I gae then, my lass, to win honour and fame,
And if should luck to come gloriously hame,
A heart I will bring thee with love running o'er,
And then I'll leave thee and Lochaber no more.

The sodger's return
When wild war's deadly blast was blawn,
And gentle peace returning,
Wi' many a sweet babe fatherless,
And many a widow mourning, --
I left the lines and tented field,
Where long I'd been a lodger,
My humble knapsack all my wealth,
A poor but honest sodger.
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor;
But glory is the sodger's prize;
The sodger's wealth is honour;
The poor brave sodger ne'er despise
Nor count him as a stranger;
Remember he's his country's stay
In day and hour of danger.

The Soldier Cut Down in His Prime
As I was a-walking down by the Lock Hospital
Dark was the morning and cold was the day,
When who should I spy but one of my comrades,
Draped in a blanket and cold as the clay.
Then beat the drums slowly and play the fifes lowly,
Sound the "Dead March" as you carry me along,
And fire your muskets right over my coffin,
For I'm a young soldier cut down in his prime.

Had she but told me when she did disorder me,
Had she but told me about it in time,
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury,
But now I'm cut down in the height of my prime.
Got six of my comrades to carry my coffin,
Six of my comrades to carry me on high,
And each of them carry a bunch of white roses,
So no-one may smell me as we pass them by.
On top of his tombstone these words they are written,
"All you young fellows take warning by me,
Keep away from them flash girls who walk in the city,
The girls of the city was the ruin of me."

Love Farewell
Hark! I hear the Colonel crying,
"March, brave boys, there's no denying,
Colours flying, drums are bayting,
March, brave boys, there's no retrayting!
"Love, farewell!

The Major cries,
"Boys, are yez ready?"
"Yes, your honour, firm and steady;
Give every man his flask of powdher,
And his firelock on his shouldher!
"Love, farewell!

The mother crys,
"Boys, do not wrong me,
Do not take my daughters from me!
If you do, I will tormint yez!
After death my ghost will haunt yez!
"Love, farewell!

Oh, Molly, dear, you're young and tinder,
And when I'm away, you won't surrinder,
But howld out like an auncient Roman,
And I'll make you an honest woman.
Love, farewell!

Oh, Molly, darling, grieve no more,
I'm going to fight for Ireland's glory;
If I come back, I'll come victorious;
If I die, my sowl in glory is!
Love, farewell!

Lower Canada Militia Song
Le matin, des le point du jour,
On entend ce maudit tambour,
Maudit tambour et maudit exercice,
Toi, pauvr' soldat, tu en as d'la fatigue.
Ils nous font mettre dans les rangs,
Les officiers et les sergents,
L'un dit: recule et l'autre dit: avance!
Toi, pauvr' soldat, t'en faut de la patience.
Nos sergents et nos officiers
Sont bien traites dan leurs quartiers,
Nos capitain' boiv' le vin et la biere
Toi, pauvr' soldat, va boire a la riviere.
Qu'en a compose la chanson
C'est un tambour du bataillon
C'est un tambour en battant sa retraite
Toujours regrettant sa joli' maitresse.

Brandy-O
A landlady of France,
She loved an officer, 'tis said,
And this officer he dearly loved her brandy, O!
Sighed she,
"I love this officer,
Although his nose is red,
And his legs are what his regiment call bandy, O!"

But when the bandy officer
Was ordered to the coast,
How she tore her lovely locks that looked so sandy,
O!"Adieu, my soul," says she,
"If you write, pray pay the post,
But before we part, let's take a drop of brandy, O!"

She filled him out a bumper
Just before he left the town,
And another for herself, so neat and handy, O!
So they kept their spirits up
By pouring spirits down,
For love is like the colic -- cured by brandy, O!

Song of the Canadian Voltigeurs
Nous avons un Major
Qui a le diable au corps
Il nous caus'ra la mort
I g'nia ni diab, ni tigre
Qui soit si rustique
Sous la rondeur du ciel
I g'nia pas son pareil.

We have a major
Who has the devil in him
He'll be the death of us
There's no devil, nor tiger
As hardy as this one;
Not under the sun
There's not one like this one.

The "General"
"Don't you hear your General say,
Strike your tents and march away, way, way!
Way, boys, way!
Strike your tents, and march away!"

Rogue's March
Fifty I got for selling me coat,
Fifty for selling me blanket.
If ever I 'lists for a soldier again,
The Divil shall be me sergeant
Poor old sodger, poor old sodger
Twice tried for selling me coat,
Three times tried for desertion.
If ever I be a sodjer again,
May the Divil promote me sergeant.
Poor old sodger, poor old sodger

Yankee Doodle
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
There we see the men and boys,
As thick as hasty pudding.
Yankee doodle, keep it up,
Yankee doodle, dandy;
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

And there we see a thousand men,
As rich as "Squire David",
And what they wasted every day,
I wish it could be saved.
Yankee doodle, etc.

And there we see a swamping gun,
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a deuced little cart,
A load for father's cattle.
Yankee doodle, etc.

And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a horn of powder;
It makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.
Yankee doodle, etc.

The New Deserter
The first time I deserted I thought myself free
Informed on by my comrades a deserter to be,
I was soon followed after and brought back with speed,
I was handcuffed and shackel'd, heavy ironed indeed.
A court-martial, a court-martial, a court-martial was then,
And the sentence they gave me was a hundred and ten;
From thence to the guard-house on a straw bed did lie,
From thence to the halberds the very next day.

The next time I deserted I thought myself free
Informed on by my sweetheart a deserter to be,
I was soon followed after and brought back with speed,
I was handcuffed and shackel'd, heavy ironed indeed.
A court-martial, a court-martial, a court-martial then sat,
And the sentence they gave me it was to be shot,
Up drives then our Duke of York in his coach and six
Saying show me that young man in the halberds is fix'd.
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out ten pounds,
Saying, take they my young man and go your way home;
Saying, take this my young man, and good bye unto thee,
For no more the King's duty lies heavy on thee.
(Broadsheet, c. 1800)

O'er The Hills and far away
Hark, now the drums beat up again,
For all true soldier gentlemen,
Then let us 'list and march, I say,
Over the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o'er the main,
To Flanders, Portugal and Spain
King George commands and we'll obey,
Over the hills and far away.

All gentlemen that have a mind,
To serve the King who's good and kind
Come 'list and enter into pay,
Then o'er the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o'er the main ...

Over rivers, bogs and springs,
We all shall live as great as kings,
And plunder get both night and day
When over the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o'er the main ...

We then shall lead more happy lives,
By getting rid of brats and wives,
That scold on, both night and day,
When o'er the hills and far away.
Over the hills and o'er the main ...
George Farquhar, "The Recruiting Officer," 1706

The Bold Canadian
Come all ye bold Canadians,
I'd have you lend an ear
Unto a short ditty
Which will your spirits cheer,
Concerning an engagement
We had at Detroit town,
The pride of those Yankee boys
So bravely we took down.

The Yankees did invade us,
To kill and to destroy,
And to distress our country,
Our peace for to annoy,
Our countrymen were filled
With sorrow, grief and woe,
To think that they should fall
By such an unnatural foe.

Come all ye bold Canadians,
Enlisted in the cause,
To defend your country,
And to maintain your laws;
Being all united,
This is the song we'll sing:
Success onto Great Britain
And God save the King.
Trad., current to 1812-1813.

Canadian Boat Song
Tom Moore, 1805
Faintly as tolls the evening chime
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time:
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the day-light's past.
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl!
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest on our weary oar,
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the day-light's past!
Utawa's tide! this trembling moon,
Shall see us float over thy surges soon:
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heaven and favoring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the day-light's past!

Entertainment Weekly: 100 Best New Classics

According to book reviewers for Entertainment Weekly, here is the list of The New Classics: The 100 best books written between 1983 and 2008:
1. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

John Banville

John Banville (born 1945) is an Irish novelist and journalist. His novel, The Book of Evidence (1989), was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He sometimes writes under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.
Banville is known for his precise and cold prose style, Nabokovian inventiveness, and for the dark humour of his generally arch narrators. His stated ambition is to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has
Biography
Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.
Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford, he did not attend university. After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.
After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.
Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.
Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.
Style
Banville is considered by critics as a master stylist of the English language, and his writing has been described as perfectly-crafted, beautiful, dazzling. David Mehegan of the Boston Globe calls Banville "one of the great stylists writing in English today"; Don DeLillo called his work "dangerous and clear-running prose;" and the UK Observer described his 1989 work, The Book of Evidence, as "flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of Lolita." He is also known for his dark humour, and sharp wit.
Awards
1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Doctor Copernicus 1981 Guardian Fiction Prize Kepler
Allied Irish Bank Fiction Prize American-Irish Foundation Award Birchwood 1989
Guinness Peat Aviation Award The Book of Evidence 1989 Booker Prize (shortlisted) The Book of Evidence 2005
Booker Prize The Sea 2006
Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year The Sea

Bibliography
Short story collectionLong Lankin (1970; revised ed.1984)
NovelsNightspawn (1971)
Birchwood (1973)
Doctor Copernicus: A Novel (1976)
Kepler, a Novel (1981)
The Newton Letter: An Interlude (1982)
Mefisto (1986)
The Book of Evidence (1989)
Ghosts (1993)
Athena: A Novel (1995)
The Ark (1996) (only 260 copies published)
The Untouchable (1997)
Eclipse (2000)
Shroud (2002)
Prague Pictures: Portrait Of A City (2003)
The Sea (2005)
The Sinking City (forthcoming)
Plays
The Broken Jug: After Heinrich von Kleist (1994)
Seachange (performed 1994 in the Focus Theatre, Dublin; unpublished)
Dublin 1742 (performed 2002 in The Ark, Dublin; a play for 9-14 year olds; unpublished)
God's Gift: A Version of Amphitryon by Heinrich von Kleist (2000)
Love In The Wars (adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, 2005)
Conversation In The Mountains (radio play, forthcoming 2008)
As "Benjamin Black"Christine Falls (2006)
The Silver Swan (2007)
The Lemur (2008, previously serialised in The New York Times)
Book Reviews
"The Family Pinfold" The New York Review of Books 54/11 (28 June 2007) : 20-21 [reviews Alexander Waugh, Fathers and Sons : the Autobiography of a Family]
Further reading
John Banville, a critical study by Joseph McMinn; Gill and MacMillan; ISBN 0-7171-1803-7
The Supreme Fictions of John Banville by Joseph McMinn; (October 1999); Manchester University Press; ISBN 0-7190-5397-8
John Banville: A Critical Introduction by Rüdiger Imhoff (October 1998) Irish American Book Co; ISBN 0-86327-582-6 John Banville: Exploring Fictions by Derek Hand; (June 2002); Liffey Press; ISBN 1-904148-04-2
Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies: Special Issue John Banville Edited by Derek Hand; (June 2006)

The Sea By John Banville

John Banville's latest novel is simultaneously about growing up and growing old. Its narrator, now in his sixties, is revisiting the Irish coastal resort where, as a child, he encountered the Grace family, who mysteriously changed his life. But Max Morden is not simply retrieving his childhood. His wife having died, he is also in flight from bereavement and the smell of mortality. Interweaving traumatic episodes from his remote and recent past, the novel is concerned with rites of passage: coming-of-age and coming of old age; awakening and dying.
Generically, the situation seems promising. The whispered promise of revelation is reminiscent of, say, Michael Frayn’s Spies, which satisfyingly combined reflections in old age with the puzzles and discoveries of childhood. Here, however, progress towards enlightenment is clogged by stylistic excess. Endlessly fussing over his phrases — “if that is the word I want”, “if that is the way to put it” — Morden proves a maddening narrator. Self-caressingly fond of fancy epithets (“velutinous”, “cinereal”, “horrent”, “caduceus”), he cultivates a style of puffed-up grandeur. Announcing that his wife was diagnosed with cancer, he writes: “In the midst of the imperial progress that was our life together a grinning losel had stepped out of the cheering crowd and sketching a parody of a bow had handed my tragic queen the warrant of impeachment.” Asking his twentysomething daughter whether she still has teddy bears, he says: “Your lares familiares . . . I suppose you have them still, propped on your maiden couch.”
Morden’s addiction to exotic conceits makes it difficult to determine just what he got up to during his seaside holiday. At the age of 10 he regarded the Graces as “gods” who had singled him out for their favour. Since they had a motorcar and stayed in a big house, while he and his parents rented a chalet, his awestruck response is understandable. But, in fact, this social explanation fades out while the deification of the family remains. Mr Grace is an “old grinning goat god”, a satyr (but also, confusingly, “the Poseidon of our summer”). Mrs Grace is a daemon, an avatar, a maenad. The twin children are also recruited for mythology. Myles, who is mute and has webbed toes (“the marks of a godling”), is a “malignant sprite”. Chloe, producing “an archaic pipe-note” by blowing on a blade of grass, is Pan. Even the children’s governess, Rose, is “Ariadne on the Naxos shore”.
Supplementing these mythic allusions are numerous embedded quotations from literature (Yeats, Keats, Milton, Tennyson, Conrad, Shakespeare, Eliot, Stevens) and recurrent analogies from painting. The narrator compares his face in a mirror to the last studies Bonnard made of himself and to an early self-portrait by Van Gogh. He notes that Rose variously resembles a Picasso portrait and a Duccio madonna, and that his daughter, with her “spindly legs and big bum”, is like Tenniel’s drawing of Alice.
Whose voice are we hearing, one wonders, and what are we to make of it? Morden is a retired art historian, which explains the painterly analogies. He has been, by his own account, a dilettante kept by a rich wife. At one point, he recalls a frustrating dream of typing on a machine “that was lacking the word I”. This is not a problem afflicting his waking self: precious, sensitive, narcissistically verbose, he is glued to the first-person pronoun. Perhaps, then, Morden is a flawed narrator. Perhaps his mythic parallels, his artistic allusions, all the apparatus of his cranked-up eloquence are meant to be as laboured as they seem. Yet, tempting as it is, such a reading seems doubtful. Most of the literary features of the book are prominent elsewhere in Banville’s fiction, and its climax provides no sense of withdrawal from its egotistical protagonist. In fact, despite Morden’s roguish enquiry, “why should I be less susceptible than the next melodramatist to the tale’s demand for a neat closing twist?”, the climactic revelations, such as they are, lack both neatness and drama. Banville has a talent for sensuous phrasing, and pungent observation of human frailty, but in other areas important for fiction — plot, character, pacing, suspense — The Sea is a crashing disappointment.

The Sea by John Banville:Questions

The Sea by John Banville, discussion

When Max first encounters the Graces, he hears from the upstairs of their house the sound of a girl laughing while being chased. What other scenes in the book feature chases, some playful, some not? Is Morden being chased? Or is he a pursuer? If so, who or what might he be pursuing?
Max's memories are distorted by how he wanted to perceive the past and the preset. He is chasing his memories and he is being pursued by what he doesn't want to remember.

Morden is disappointed, even “appalled” [p. 4], to find the Cedars physically unchanged from what it was when the Graces stayed there. Yet he is also disappointed that it contains no trace of its former occupants [p. 29]. What might explain his ambivalence? Has he come to Ballyless to relive his past or to be free of it? Given the shame and sadness that suffuses so much of his memory, how is one to interpret his sense of the past as a retreat [pp. 44–45]?
I liked where he says things stay the same, people change. I am not sure why he is retreating to the past as a retreat as it seems to not be very happy either.

“How is it,” Max wonders, “that in childhood everything new that caught my interest had an aura of the uncanny, since according to all the authorities the uncanny is not some new thing but a thing known returning in a different form, a revenant?” [p. 8]. What might account for this sense of déjà vu? What episodes in this novel seem to echo earlier ones, and are there moments when the past seems to echo the future, as if time were running backward? In this light, consider Max’s realization that his childhood visions of the future had “an oddly antique cast” [p. 70], as if “what I foresaw as the future was in fact . . . a picture of what could only be an imagined past” [p. 71].
Nothing really is new. We just keep repeating and reliving our lives and making the same mistakes etc. Losses, he is talking about losses. He keeps losing what he loves.

How does Banville depict the other characters in this novel? To what extent are they, as Max suggests, partial constructs, as Connie Grace was “at once a wraith of my imagination and a woman of unavoidable flesh and blood” [p. 65]? Does Max’s voice, wry, self-reflexive, and resplendently vivid, give these characters an independent life or partially obscure them? Are there moments when they seem to peek out from beneath its blanket and show themselves to the reader?
I think about how he remembers these people as smells. A lot of his memories are in the senses. You keep hoping these people will show themselves but they never do, except Rose who does show up in the end.

Throughout the novel Max suffers from an overpowering, all-pervasive sense of guilt. Is this guilt justified? What are his crimes, or using another moral language, his sins? Has he managed to atone for any of his failures or redeem any of his spoiled relationships by the novel’s end? Is such redemption possible in this novel’s view of human nature?
His guilt is of surviving when others die. I did not get much sense that he redeemed himself. I only home he doesn't repeat the mistakes his mother and father made with his own daughter.

On learning that she is fatally ill, both Max and Anna are overcome by something he recognizes as embarrassment, an embarrassment that extends even to the inanimate objects in their home. Why should death be embarrassing? Compare the grown Max’s shame about death to his childhood feelings about sex, both his sexual fantasies about Connie Grace and their subsequent fulfillment with her daughter.
Death is an act of life that we cannot share with anyone. We all must go through it alone. He may have felt he was peeking at his wife's death as she peeked at sex when he spied on Connie Grace or had little trysts with the daughter.

Max is a poor boy drawn to a succession of wealthy women, culminating in his very wealthy wife. Was his attraction to them really a screen for social climbing? In loving Connie and Chloe and Anna, was he betraying his origins? Are there moments in this novel when those origins reassert themselves?
He feels like he was not deserving the relationships he had. He feels like he used people. He is being hard on himself. This is his grief?

Why might Max have chosen the painter Bonnard as the subject for a book? What episodes from the painter’s life parallel his own or illuminate it metaphorically? Note the way the description of the Graces’ picnic recalls Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’Herbe. What other scenes in the novel allude to works of art or literature, and what is the effect?

The Sea has a triple climax that features two deaths and very nearly a third. In what ways are these deaths linked, and to what extent is Max responsible for them? Do you interpret his drunken night walk on the beach as an attempt at suicide? How does your perception of Max change in light of Miss Vavasour’s climactic revelation about the events that precipitated Chloe’s drowning?

Just as the critical trauma of Max’s life grew out of a misapprehension, so the entire novel is shrouded in a haze of unreliable narrative. Max’s memories are at once fanatically detailed and riddled with lapses. He freely admits that the people in his past are half real and half made up. “From earliest days I wanted to be someone else,” he tells us [p. 160], and a chance remark of his mother’s suggests that even his name may be false [p. 156]. Can we accept any part of his account as true? Are there moments in this novel in which reality asserts itself absolutely? What effect do these ambiguities have on your experience of The Sea?
Our memories are our realities but they are no other's reality. Max had a hard life. His dad left him. His mother wasn't a happy person and they were poor. I am sure he wanted to runaway from his life and be something else.

Reconstructing Margaret Atwood's Protagonists

TO CONSTRUCT; to build; to fabricate; to devise or invent.TO RECONSTRUCT. to rebuild.
A weaver employs fragments from life, silk,raw yarns, wool, straw, perhaps even a few twigs,stones, or feathers, and transforms them into a tapestry of color, shape, and form. An author's work issimilar, for she selects individuals, locations, images, and ideas, rearranging them to create a believable picture. Each smacks of reality, but is not. This is the artist's art: to reconstruct the familiar intonew, fascinating, but often disturbing tableaux fromwhich stories can unfold. By PATRICIA F. GOLDBLATT
Margaret Atwood weaves stories from her own life in the bush and cities of Canada. Intensely conscious of her political and social context, Atwood dispels the notion that caribou-clad Canadians remain perpetually locked in blizzards while simultaneously seeming to be a polite mass of gray faces, often indistinguishable from their American neighbours. Atwood has continually pondered the lack of an identifiable Canadian culture. For over thirty years her work has aided in fashioning a distinct Canadian literary identity. Her critical catalogue and analysis of Canadian Literature, Survival, offered "a political manifesto telling Canadians . . .[to] value their own" ( Sullivan, 265). In an attemptto focus on Canadian experiences, Atwood has populated her stories with Canadian cities, conflicts, and contemporary people, conscious of a landscape whose borders have been permeated by the frost of Nature, her colonizers and her neighbours. Her examination of how an individual interacts, succeeds,or stagnates within her world speaks to an emerging sense of self and often parallels the battles fought to establish self-determination.
In her novels, Margaret Atwood creates situations in which women, burdened by the rules and inequalities of their societies, discover that they must reconstruct braver, self-reliant personae in order to survive. Not too far from the Canadian blueprint of the voyageur faced with an inclement, hostile environment, these women struggle to overcome and to change systems that block and inhibit their security. Atwood's pragmatic women are drawn from women in the 1950s and 1960s: young women blissfully building their trousseaus and imagining a paradise of silver bells and picket fences.
Yet the author herself was neither encumbered nor restricted by the definition of contemporary female in her life as a child. Having grown up in the Canadian North, outside of societal propaganda, she could critically observe the behaviours that were indoctrinated into her urban peers who lacked diverse role models. As Atwood has noted, "Not even the artistic community offered you a viable choice as a woman" ( Sullivan, 103). Her stories deal with the transformation of female characters from ingenues to insightful women. By examining her heroes, their predators, and how they cope in society, we will discover where Atwood believes the ability to reconstruct our lives lies.
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS? "But pathos as a literarymode simply demands that an innocent victim suffer"(Sv,75). Unlike Shakespeare's hubris-laden kings or Jane Austen's pert and private aristocratic landowning families, Margaret Atwood relies on a collection of ordinary people to carry her tales: university students, museum workers, market researchers, writers, illustrators, and even housemaids. In her novels, almost all dwell on their childhood years in flashback or in the chronological telling of their stories. Many of her protagonists'early days are situated in a virtual Garden of Eden setting, replete with untamed natural environments. Exploring shorelines, gazing at stars, gathering rocks, and listening to waves, they are solitary souls, but not lonely individuals: innocent, curious, and affable creatures. Elaine Risley in Cat's Eye and an unnamed narrator in Surfacing are two women who recall idyllic days unfolded in a land of lakes, berries, and animals. Offred in The Handmaid's Tale, in her city landscape, also relates a tale of a happy childhood. She is a complacent and assured child, her mother a constant loving companion. In their comfortable milieus, these girls intuit no danger.
PATRICIA F. GOLDBLATT, after receiving her doctorate in 1996,has had her short stories, book reviews, and longer articles on literature and multicultural studies published in the United States( English Journal, Multicultural Review, Journal of Education), England ( Multicultural Teaching), Canada ( English Quarterly, Journalof the Canadian Society for Education Through Art, Canadian Women's Studies), and Korea ( Asian Journal of Women's Studies).
In fact, the novel is in a second sense a reconstruction of a reconstruction, a memoir of Offred's rebuilding of a self all but obliterated by the pain of her experience and the necessity of forgetting in order to survive. She must create, or recreate, herself after having been "erased" as a person.
"These are the kinds of litanies I use, to compose myself" She composes-puts together, sets down-herself as the novel's fictive reconstruction composes the story of her struggle to do so. Both senses of "compose" are present earlier in the book: "I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born". She composes, creates herself in opposition to those who would construct her socially, as an object, a walking womb.
This distrust of certainty becomes part of the linguistic texture of the novel, as Offred ponders the multiple possibilities of language, cherishing the ambiguity that the regime is ultimately unable to control, at least in her own case. Multiple meanings reveal alternate possibilities, and Offred's willingness to risk the alternatives appears in her narrative's last lines. Unsure whether the proffered route of escape is a trap, she nonetheless makes the leap: "And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light."
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in. Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded. There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.
Truth in Story telling Chapter 6
Truth in Storytelling 1: Aunt Lydia tells the future Handmaids that although aspects of the new way of life may seem atrocious they will eventually become ordinary. Offred recalls this statement while viewing six executed doctors hanging on the Wall. This is an explicit suggestion that accepted views/stories should be questioned.
Chapter 7
Truth in Storytelling 2: Offred wishes to be telling a story, and yet she has no audience and she has no control over the outcome because she wishes to tell the truth. She wants control and she wants to affect an audience. All she can do is pretend and hope for a future audience.
Chapter 12
Truth in Storytelling 3: The evening of the Ceremony in which Offred is ritualistically inseminated, she describes her mental preparation as "composing herself." She tries to rewrite herself as she was rewritten at the Red Center. Atwood also implies the second meaning of compose, to calm.
Chapter 13
Truth in Storytelling 4: During Testifying, Janine tells the story of her rape and interprets it one way. After the Aunts and the other Handmaid's ridicule her she interprets it another way.
Chapter 18
Truth in Storytelling 5: Offred believes three contradictory stories about what has happened to Luke since the last time she saw him. She has created each story herself based upon what she believes could be possible based upon the limited information she has about the world of Gilead. Each story is simultaneously true because she lacks the knowledge of what really has happened to Luke. These contradictory beliefs allow her to be both suicidal and hopeful.
Chapter 23
Truth in Storytelling 6: At the end of the first night Offred spends in the Commander's study, he asks her for a kiss. She says she imagined stabbing him while acting out this semblance of love. Then she retracts this story and says she did not imagine it, though perhaps she should have.
Chapter 39
Truth in Storytelling 7: Offred learns from Moira that her mother has been sent to the Colonies. She had previously believed her to be dead. Now she must mourn for her death again.
Chapter 40
Truth in Storytelling 8: Offred describes her first arranged meeting with Nick twice. The first story emphasizes the sensual and the second story emphasizes their dialogue. She gives more credibility to the second rendition, but denies that either is true. She asserts that a reconstruction can never be really true.
Chapter 41
Truth in Storytelling 9: Offred wishes her story were different. She wishes is were a different story entirely and that she had told it better, but she also wishes to tell the truth. She says her painful, fragmented story does include the truth.
Truth in Storytelling 10: Offred believes different stories about her feelings for Nick at different times. Some days she thinks she is in love. Some days she thinks she has adapted to the conditions. Her truth fluctuates.
Chapter 43
Truth in Storytelling 11: Aunt Lydia tells the Handmaids that the man they are about to Particicute raped a pregnant women and killed her unborn child. This story inspires livid hatred in all the Handmaids. However, as we find out later, the man committed political crimes and never raped a woman.
Historical Notes
Truth in Storytelling 12: The goal of Pieixoto's talk is discuss verification of the Handmaid's Tale as a historical document. He and his colleagues are unable to ascertain the identity of the Handmaid or back up the specifics of her story. However, they can place the document within the time period suggested by its narrator and pinpoint the person who may have been the Commander she describes. Pieixoto describes the historian's job as grasping for echoes of an incomplete story.

Previous Offred: The Handmaid stationed at the Commander's home before Offred. Offred finds a message carved in her boudoir by one of the previous Handmaids. She repeats it to herself like a mantra, 'Nolite te bastardes carborundorum,' which means don't let the bastards grind you down. Offred discovers that the previous Handmaid met the Commander in his study as she does and that she hung herself after Serena discovered their secret trysts.
"I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born." Chapter 12, pg. 66

Context of the Handmaid's Tale

Novels in this genre present imagined worlds and societies that are not ideals, but instead are terrifying or restrictive. Atwood's novel offers a strongly feminist vision of dystopia. She wrote it shortly after the elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, during a period of conservative revival in the West partly fueled by a strong, well-organized movement of religious conservatives who criticized what they perceived as the excesses of the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing power of this “religious right” heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in previous decades would be reversed. In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women's rights. In the novel's nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded on a “return to traditional values” and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s—namely, widespread access to contraception, the legalization of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters—have all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write. Atwood's novel also paints a picture of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and -environmental degradation. Some of the novel's concerns seem dated today, and its implicit condemnation of the political goals of America's religious conservatives has been criticized as unfair and overly paranoid. Nonetheless, The Handmaid's Tale remains one of the most powerful recent portrayals of a totalitarian society, and one of the few dystopian novels to examine in detail the intersection of politics and sexuality. The novel's exploration of the controversial politics of reproduction seems likely to guarantee Atwood's novel a readership well into the twenty-first century.Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for “traditional values.” Aunt Lydia supervised the women, giving speeches extolling Gilead's beliefs that women should be subservient to men and solely concerned with bearing children. Aunt Lydia also argued that such a social order ultimately offers women more respect and safety than the old, pre-Gilead society offered them. Moira is brought to the Red Center, but she escapes, and Offred does not know what becomes of her. They play Scrabble (which is forbidden, since women are not allowed to read), and he lets her look at old magazines like Vogue. At the end of these secret meetings, he asks her to kiss him.Ofglen reveals to Offred that she is a member of “Mayday,” an underground organization dedicated to overthrowing Gilead. Meanwhile, Offred begins to find that the Ceremony feels different and less impersonal now that she knows the Commander. Their nighttime conversations begin to touch on the new order that the Commander and his fellow leaders have created in Gilead. When Offred admits how unhappy she is, the Commander remarks, “[Y]ou can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.”After some time has gone by without Offred becoming pregnant, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick secretly and pass the child off as the Commander's. Serena promises to bring Offred a picture of her daughter if she sleeps with Nick, and Offred realizes that Serena has always known the whereabouts of Offred's daughter. The same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebel's, where the Commanders mingle with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira working there. The two women meet in a bathroom, and Offred learns that Moira was captured just before she crossed the border. She chose life in Jezebel's over being sent to the Colonies, where most political prisoners and dangerous people are sent. After that night at Jezebel's, Offred says, she never sees Moira again. The Commander takes Offred upstairs after a few hours, and they have sex in what used to be a hotel room. She tries to feign passion. Soon after Offred returns from Jezebel's, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to Nick's room. Offred and Nick have sex. Soon they begin to sleep together frequently, without anyone's knowledge. Offred becomes caught up in the affair and ignores Ofglen's requests that she gather information from the Commander for Mayday. One day, all the Handmaids take part in a group execution of a supposed rapist, supervised by Aunt Lydia. Ofglen strikes the first blow. Later, she tells Offred that the so-called rapist was a member of Mayday and that she hit him to put him out of his misery.old Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the secret police coming for her. At home, Serena has found out about Offred's trip to Jezebel's, and she sends her to her room, promising punishment. Offred waits there, and she sees a black van from the Eyes approach. Then Nick comes in and tells her that the Eyes are really Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the Commander's futile objections, on her way either to prison or to freedom—she does not know which.
The Commander - The Commander is the head of the household where Offred works as a Handmaid. He initiates an unorthodox relationship with Offred, secretly playing Scrabble with her in his study at night. He often seems a decent, well-meaning man, and Offred sometimes finds that she likes him in spite of herself. He almost seems a victim of Gilead, making the best of a society he opposes. However, we learn from various clues and from the epilogue that the Commander was actually involved in designing and establishing Gilead.The Commander The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offred's Commander and the immediate agent of her oppression. As a founder of Gilead, he also bears responsibility for the entire totalitarian society. In person, he is far more sympathetic and friendly toward Offred than most other people, and Offred's evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life. At times, his unhappiness and need for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of Gilead's strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling sympathy for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recognize that if the Commander is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself helped construct and that his prison is heaven compared to the prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his visits with Offred are selfish rather than charitable. They satisfy his need for companionship, but he doesn't seem to care that they put Offred at terrible risk, a fact of which he must be aware, given that the previous Handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the Commander were discovered. The Commander's moral blindness, apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, are highlighted by his and Offred's visit to Jezebel's. The club, a place where the elite men of the society can engage in recreational extramarital sex, reveals the rank hypocrisy that runs through Gileadean society. Offred's relationship with the Commander is best represented by a situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster. “How easy it is to invent a humanity,” Offred thinks. In other words, anyone can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or considerate, his responsibility for the creation of Gilead and his callousness to the hell he created for women means that he, like the Nazi guard, is a monster.
Serena Joy Though Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcome—being confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaid—suggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes might not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serena's obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring our sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her frustration on Offred. She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman. The climactic moment in Serena's interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but Serena gets an equal reward from Offred's pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore, Serena's offer to show Offred a picture of her lost daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offred's daughter's whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred's loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own. Serena's lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gilead's social order, which relies on the willingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, selfish woman, and Atwood implies that such women are the glue that binds Gilead.
Moira Throughout the novel, Moira's relationship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gilead claims to promote solidarity between women, but in fact it only produces suspicion, hostility, and petty tyranny. The kind of relationship that Moira and Offred maintain from college onward does not exist in Gilead. In Offred's flashbacks, Moira also embodies female resistance to Gilead. She is a lesbian, which means that she rejects male-female sexual interactions, the only kind that Gilead values. More than that, she is the only character who stands up to authority directly by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the Red Center. The manner in which she escapes—taking off her clothes and putting on the uniform of an Aunt—symbolizes her rejection of Gilead's attempt to define her identity. From then on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira represents an alternative to the meek subservience and acceptance of one's fate that most of the Handmaids adopt. When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a prostitute at Jezebel's, servicing the Commanders. Her fighting spirit seems broken, and she has become resigned to her fate. After embodying resistance for most of the novel, Moira comes to exemplify the way a totalitarian state can crush even the most independent spirit
Aunt Lydia - The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates. Aunt Lydia works at the “Red Center,” the reâ‘education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears only in Offred's flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydia's slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gilead's words echoing in their heads. Nick - Nick is a Guardian, a low-level officer of Gilead assigned to the Commander's home, where he works as a gardener and chauffeur. He and Offred have a sexual chemistry that they get to satisfy when Serena Joy orchestrates an encounter between them in an effort to get Offred pregnant. After sleeping together once, they begin a covert sexual affair. Nick is not just a Guardian; he may work either as a member of the Eyes, Gilead's secret police, or as a member of the underground Mayday resistance, or both. At the end of the novel, Nick orchestrates Offred's escape from the Commander's home, but we do not know whether he puts her into the hands of the Eyes or the resistance. Ofglen - Another Handmaid who is Offred's shopping partner and a member of the subversive “Mayday” underground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is found out, and she hangs herself rather than face torture and reveal the names of her co-conspirators. Cora - Cora works as a servant in the Commander's household. She belongs to the class of Marthas, infertile women who do not qualify for the high status of Wives and so work in domestic roles. Cora seems more content with her role than her fellow Martha, Rita. She hopes that Offred will be able to conceive, because then she will have a hand in raising a child. Janine - Offred knows Janine from their time at the Red Center. After Janine becomes a Handmaid, she takes the name Ofwarren. She has a baby, which makes her the envy of all the other Handmaids in the area, but the baby later turns out to be deformed—an “Unbaby”—and there are rumors that her doctor fathered the child. Janine is a conformist, always ready to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the Aunts and to all authority figures. Offred holds Janine in contempt for taking the easy way out. Luke - In the days before Gilead, Luke had an affair with Offred while he was married to another woman, then got a divorce and became Offred's husband. When Gilead comes to power, he attempts to escape to Canada with Offred and their daughter, but they are captured. He is separated from Offred, and the couple never see one another again. The kind of love they shared is prohibited in Gilead, and Offred's memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, passionless state of male-female relations in the new society. Offred's mother - Offred remembers her mother in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead world—she was a single parent and a feminist activist. One day during her education at the Red Center, Offred sees a video of her mother as a young woman, yelling and carrying a banner in an anti-rape march called Take Back the Night. She embodies everything the architects of Gilead want to stamp out. Aunt Elizabeth - Aunt Elizabeth is one of the Aunts at the Red Center. Moira attacks her and steals her Aunt's uniform during her escape from the Red Center. Rita - A Martha, or domestic servant, in the Commander's household. She seems less content with her lot than Cora, the other Martha working there. Professor Pieixoto - The guest speaker at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The Handmaid's Tale. He and another academic, working at a university in the year 2195, transcribed Offred's recorded narrative; his lecture details the historical significance of the story that we have just read.
Offred Offred is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel, and we are told the entire story from her point of view, experiencing events and memories as vividly as she does. She tells the story as it happens, and shows us the travels of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and kind. She possesses enough faults to make her human, but not so many that she becomes an unsympathetic figure. She also possesses a dark sense of humor—a graveyard wit that makes her descriptions of the bleak horrors of Gilead bearable, even enjoyable. Like most of the women in Gilead, she is an ordinary woman placed in an extraordinary situation. Offred is not a hero. Although she resists Gilead inwardly, once her attempt at escape fails, she submits outwardly. She is hardly a feminist champion; she had always felt uncomfortable with her mother's activism, and her pre-Gilead relationship with Luke began when she became his mistress, meeting him in cheap hotels for sex. Although friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistance, she is never bold enough to join up herself. Indeed, after she begins her affair with Nick, she seems to lose sight of escape entirely and suddenly feels that life in Gilead is almost bearable. If she does finally escape, it is because of Nick, not because of anything she does -herself. Offred is a mostly passive character, good-hearted but complacent. Like her peers, she took for granted the freedoms feminism won and now pays the price. The Commander The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offred's Commander and the immediate agent of her oppression. As a founder of Gilead, he also bears responsibility for the entire totalitarian society. In person, he is far more sympathetic and friendly toward Offred than most other people, and Offred's evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life. At times, his unhappiness and need for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of Gilead's strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling sympathy for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recognize that if the Commander is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself helped construct and that his prison is heaven compared to the prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his visits with Offred are selfish rather than charitable. They satisfy his need for companionship, but he doesn't seem to care that they put Offred at terrible risk, a fact of which he must be aware, given that the previous Handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the Commander were discovered. The Commander's moral blindness, apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, are highlighted by his and Offred's visit to Jezebel's. The club, a place where the elite men of the society can engage in recreational extramarital sex, reveals the rank hypocrisy that runs through Gileadean society. Offred's relationship with the Commander is best represented by a situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster. “How easy it is to invent a humanity,” Offred thinks. In other words, anyone can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or considerate, his responsibility for the creation of Gilead and his callousness to the hell he created for women means that he, like the Nazi guard, is a monster. Serena Joy Though Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcome—being confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaid—suggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes might not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serena's obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring our sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her frustration on Offred. She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman. The climactic moment in Serena's interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but Serena gets an equal reward from Offred's pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore, Serena's offer to show Offred a picture of her lost daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offred's daughter's whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred's loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own. Serena's lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gilead's social order, which relies on the willingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, selfish woman, and Atwood implies that such women are the glue that binds Gilead. Moira Throughout the novel, Moira's relationship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gilead claims to promote solidarity between women, but in fact it only produces suspicion, hostility, and petty tyranny. The kind of relationship that Moira and Offred maintain from college onward does not exist in Gilead. In Offred's flashbacks, Moira also embodies female resistance to Gilead. She is a lesbian, which means that she rejects male-female sexual interactions, the only kind that Gilead values. More than that, she is the only character who stands up to authority directly by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the Red Center. The manner in which she escapes—taking off her clothes and putting on the uniform of an Aunt—symbolizes her rejection of Gilead's attempt to define her identity. From then on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira represents an alternative to the meek subservience and acceptance of one's fate that most of the Handmaids adopt. When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a prostitute at Jezebel's, servicing the Commanders. Her fighting spirit seems broken, and she has become resigned to her fate. After embodying resistance for most of the novel, Moira comes to exemplify the way a totalitarian state can crush even the most independent spirit. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.Women's Bodies as Political Instruments Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically decreased birthrates, the state's entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women's bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state. Despite all of Gilead's pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in which women are treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novel's key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her desires; now, she is just a mound of flesh surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful. Gilead seeks to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them docile carriers of the next generation. Language as a Tool of Power Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the needs of the new society's elite. Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual names strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms “Unwomen” and “Unbabies.” Blacks and Jews are defined by biblical terms (“Children of Ham” and “Sons of Jacob,” respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their persecution easier. There are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer the correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. Specially created terms define the rituals of Gilead, such as “Prayvaganzas,” “Salvagings,” and “Particicutions.” Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a state's repression of its subjects and its perversion of language (“Newspeak” in George Orwell's 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaid's Tale carries on this tradition. Gilead maintains its control over women's bodies by maintaining control over names. The Causes of Complacency In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they receive some slight amount of power or freedom. Offred remembers her mother saying that it is “truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” Offred's complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her situation restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence. The physical affection and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to gather information about the Commander. Women in general support Gilead's existence by willingly participating in it, serving as agents of the totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has no power in the world of men, she exercises authority within her own household and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously guards what little power she has and wields it eagerly. In a similar way, the women known as Aunts, especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They indoctrinate other women into the ruling ideology, keep a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same function for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwood's message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women mustered strength and stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference. In Gilead the tiny rebellions of resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.Rape and Sexual Violence Sexual violence, particularly against women, pervades The Handmaid's Tale. The prevalence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified to the founders their establishment of the new order. The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, that they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. Certainly, the official penalty for rape is terrible: in one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their bare hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of the resistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel's, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite. Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Religious Terms Used for Political Purposes Gilead is a theocracy—a government in which there is no separation between state and religion—and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic servants are called “Marthas” in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local police are “Guardians of the Faith”; soldiers are “

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Places in Emma: Southend-ON-Sea

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