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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anna of Byzantium'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Apothecary Rose'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arabian Nights'
Readers for more than three centuries have delighted in The Arabian Nights--a world wherein magic is woven into the fabric of everyday life; a touching, exhilarating mixture of flamboyance, pathos, beauty, and humor. This first serious English translation fully exploits the Middle-Eastern storyteller's art and the variety of levels at which the stories move. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arabian Nights'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arabian Nights'
Full of mischief and valor, ribaldry and romance, The Arabian Nights is a work that has enthralled readers for centuries. The text presented here is that of the 1932 Modern Library edition for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the "most famous and representative" of the stories from the multivolume translation of Richard F. Burton.
The origins of The Arabian Nights are obscure. About a thousand years ago a vast number of stories in Arabic from various countries began to be brought together; only much later was the collection called The Arabian Nights or the Thousand and One Nights. All the stories are told by Shahrazad (Scheherazade), who entertains her husband, King Shahryar, whose custom it was to execute his wives after a single night. Shahrazad begins a story each night but withholds the ending until the following night, thus postponing her execution.
This selection includes many of the stories that are universally known though seldom read in this authentic form:
"Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp, " "Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman, " and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." These, and the tales that accompany them, make delightful reading, demonstrating, as the Modern Library noted in 1932, that Shahrazad's spell remains unbroken. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Arabian Nights'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights'
Adapted from Sir Richard F. Burton's lavish unexpurgated translation, this volume illuminates the sensual mystery and lushness of the original Arabic tales. It includes a wide variety of tales--from magic fairy tales to torrid erotic tales--that reveal a great deal about what life was like in the Middle East during the Medieval period.
* The companion volume to the popular Signet Classic edition of Arabian Nights (8/91), also edited by Jack Zipes
* Jack Zipes is the author of several books of fairy tales and is the editor of the Signet Classic edition of The Complete Fairy Tales Of Oscar Wilde (5/96)
* These volumes offer the uncensored, erotic versions of the tales, not the rewritten fairy tales for children [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Art of Courtly Love'
After becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, the social system of 'courtly love' soon spread. Evidence of the influence of courtly love in the culture and literature of most of western Europe spans centuries. This unabridged edition of codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into 'one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization.' This translation of a work that may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive, preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in English literature.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Atlas of Medieval Europe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beowulf'
The earliest extant poem in a modern European language, Beowulf was composed 400 years before the Norman Conquest. As a social document, this great epic poem reflects a feudal, newly Christian world of heroes and monsters, blood and victory and death. As a work of art, it rings with a beauty, power, and artistry that have kept it alive for more than twelve centuries.MASS MARKET PAPER [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Boy's King Arthur'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brother Cadfael's Penance'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cathedral Builders'
This elegantly illustrated, finely detailed account of how the magnificent Gothic cathedrals were erected also provides illuminating information on medieval society and the financial, political and spiritual roles of the men who inspired these splendid buildings. 94 photographs. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Clerkenwell Tales'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cloud of Unknowing'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling'
"God can be loved but he cannot be thought. He can be grasped by love but never by concepts. So less thinking and more loving."
This is William Johnston's summary of the message of The Cloud of Unknowing. Nobody knows who wrote the book, or exactly where he lived, or whether he was a member of a religious order, or even, really, whether he was part of any church at all. The text first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century, and it has inspired generations of mystical searchers (from St. John of the Cross to Teilhard de Chardin). The mysterious conditions of its composition, however, focus the reader's attention squarely on the book's message--an almost Zen rendering of Christianity, which has a great deal to teach our querulous, doctrine-obsessed churches: "And so I urge you," the author writes, "go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest." --Michael Joseph Gross [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cloud of Unknowing: The Classic of Medieval Mysticism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Confession of Brother Haluin'
On his deathbed, Brother Haluin confesses to a shocking act in his past--and then recovers. To atone, Haluin determines to make a journey of expiation with Brother Cadfael and embarks on an arduous journey that leads to discoveries of deceit, betrayal, revenge . . . and murder. "Each addition to the series is a joy".--USA Today. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri'
The classic epic poem portrays an allegorical journey through hell and purgatory to reach heaven. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Excellent Mystery'
Ellis Peters is the pseudonym of Edith Pargeter. 1992 is the 15th anniversary of the first Brother Cadfael book, "A Morbid Taste for Murder". Other books by the author include "The Summer of the Danes" and "The Cadfael Companion". [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Favorite Tales from the Arabian Nights' Entertainments'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Feudal Society: The Growth and Ties of Dependence'
Feudal Society is the masterpiece of one of the greatest historians of the century. Marc Bloch's supreme achievement was to recreate the vivid and complex world of Western Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. For Bloch history was a living organism, and to write of it was an endless process of creative evolution and of growing understanding. The author treats feudalism as a vitalising force in European society. He surveys the social and economic conditions in which feudalism developed; he sees the structures of kinship which underlay the formal relationships of vassal and overlord. For Bloch these relationships are mutual as much as coercive, the product of a dangerous and uncertain world. His insights into the lives of the nobility and the clergy and his deep understanding of the processes at work in medieval Europe, are profound and memorable. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism: An Inquiry into the Analogy of the Arts, Philosophy, and Religion in the Middle Ages'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heretic's Apprentice'
Edgar Award-winner from the Mystery Writers of America and Silver Dagger Award-winer from the British Crime Writers Association, Ellis Peters presents the 16th chronicle of the bestselling medieval mystery series featuring Brother Cadfael. Ellis Peters' books are #1 bestsellers in England, and the Brother Cadfael mysteries have sold over a million copies there. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Historians in the Middle Ages'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of the Church in the Middle Ages'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'History of the Franks'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Holy Thief'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illuminator'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Kristin Lavransdatter'
The acknowledged masterpiece of the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian novelist Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter has never been out of print in this country since its first publication in 1927. Its story of a woman's life in fourteenth-century Norway has kept its hold on generations of readers, and the heroine, Kristin-beautiful, strong-willed, and passionate-stands with the world's great literary figures. Volume 1, The Bridal Wreath , describes young Kristin's stormy romance with the dashing Erlend Nikulausson, a young man perhaps overly fond of women, of whom her father strongly disapproves. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Leper of Saint Giles'
A savage murder interrupts an ill-fated marriage set to take place at Brother Cadfael's abbey, leaving the monk with a terrible mystery to solve. The key to the killing is hidden among the inhabitants of the Saint Giles leper colony, and Brother Cadfael must ferret out a sickness not of the body, but of a twisted mind. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850'
"Climate change is the ignored player on the historical stage," writes archeologist Brian Fagan. But it shouldn't be, not if we know what's good for us. We can't judge what future climate change will mean unless we know something about its effects in the past: "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". And Fagan's story of the last thousand years, centered on the "Little Ice Age," reminds us of what we could end up repeating: flood, fire, and famine--acts of God exacerbated by acts of man.
For all that he takes a broad--a very broad--view of European history, Fagan's writing is laced with human faces, fascinating anecdotes, and a gift for the telling detail that makes history live, very much in the style of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. When Fagan talks about the voyages of Basque fishermen to American shores (probably landing before Columbus sailed), he puts in the taste of dried cod and the terrifying suddenness of fogs on the Grand Banks. The Great Fire of London, what it was like when the Dutch dikes broke, the Irish Potato Famine, the year without a summer, ice fairs on the Thames, and volcanoes in the South Pacific--Fagan makes history a ripping yarn in which we are all actors, on a stage that has always been changing. --Mary Ellen Curtin [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mabinogion'
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
Preface by John Updike
The 11 stories of The Mabinogion, first assembled on paper in the fourteenth century, reach far back into the earlier oral traditions of Welsh poetry.
Closely linked to the Arthurian legends--King Arthur himself is a character--they summon up a world of mystery and magic that is still evoked by the Welsh landscape they so vividly describe. Mingling fantasy with tales of chivalry, these stories not only prefigure the later medieval romances, but stand on their own as magnificent evocations of a golden age of Celtic civilization.
This translation of The Mabinogion has, since its first appearance in 1949, been recognized as a classic in its own right. It was last revised by Gwyn Jones and his wife, Mair, in 1993. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mabinogion'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mabinogion'
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
Preface by John Updike
The 11 stories of The Mabinogion, first assembled on paper in the fourteenth century, reach far back into the earlier oral traditions of Welsh poetry.
Closely linked to the Arthurian legends--King Arthur himself is a character--they summon up a world of mystery and magic that is still evoked by the Welsh landscape they so vividly describe. Mingling fantasy with tales of chivalry, these stories not only prefigure the later medieval romances, but stand on their own as magnificent evocations of a golden age of Celtic civilization.
This translation of The Mabinogion has, since its first appearance in 1949, been recognized as a classic in its own right. It was last revised by Gwyn Jones and his wife, Mair, in 1993. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Medieval England'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Medieval England: A Social History and Archaeology from the Conquest to 1600 A.D.'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopedia'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Middle Ages, 395-1500'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Monk's Hood'
A reissue of the third chronicle of Brother Cadfael. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain'
María Rosa Menocal's wafting, ineffably sad The Ornament of the World tells of a time and place--from 786 to 1492, in Andalucía, Spain--that is largely and unjustly overshadowed in most historical chronicles. It was a time when three cultures--Judaic, Islamic, and Christian--forged a relatively stable (though occasionally contentious) coexistence. Such was this period that there remains in Toledo a church with an "homage to Arabic writing on its walls [and] a sumptuous 14th-century synagogue built to look like Granada's Alhambra." Long gone, however, is the Córdoba library--a thousand times larger than any other in Christian Europe. Menocal's history is one of palatine cities, of philosophers, of poets whose work inspired Chaucer and Boccaccio, of weeping fountains, breezy courtyards, and a long-running tolerance "profoundly rooted in the cultivation of the complexities, charms and challenges of contradictions," which ended with the repression of Judaism and Islam the same year Columbus sailed to the New World. --H. O'Billovich [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Paradiso'
In The Inferno Dante journeyed to the depths of evil and the true nature of sin. In The Purgatorio he explored the renunciation of sin. Now, in The Paradiso, the final canticle in The Divine Comedy, Dante shares the ultimate goal of human strivingthe merging of individual destiny with universal order. One of the towering creations of world literature, this epic discovery of sublime truth is a work of almost mystical intensityan immortal hymn to God, Nature, Eternity, and, above all, the Love that moves the Sun and other stars. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Paradiso'
In The Inferno Dante journeyed to the depths of evil and the true nature of sin. In The Purgatorio he explored the renunciation of sin. Now, in The Paradiso, the final canticle in The Divine Comedy, Dante shares the ultimate goal of human strivingthe merging of individual destiny with universal order. One of the towering creations of world literature, this epic discovery of sublime truth is a work of almost mystical intensityan immortal hymn to God, Nature, Eternity, and, above all, the Love that moves the Sun and other stars. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Physician'
"Populated by engaging characters, rich in incicdent, and vivid in historical detail."
THE NEW YORKTIMES BOOK REVIEW
In the eleventh-century London, Rob Cole left poor, disease-ridden London to make his way across the land, hustling,juggling, peddling cures to the sick--and discovering the mystical ways of healing. It was on his travels that he found his own very real gift for healing--a gift that urged him on to become a doctor. So all consuming was his dream, that he made the perilous, unheard-of journey to Persia, to its Arab universities where he would undertake a transformation that would shape his destiny forever.... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pilgrim of Hate'
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Princes in the Tower'
"Comprehensive and insightful, THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER offers a unique perspective on a profound mystery." Faye KellermanDespite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain one of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill the young princes, as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as the dozens of modern accounts, Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder to arrive at a conclusion Sherlock Holmes himself could not dispute. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England'
Isabella arrived in London in 1308, the spirited twelve-year-old daughter of King Philip IV of France. Her marriage to the heir to Englands throne was designed to heal old political wounds between the two countries, and in the years that followed, she would become an important figure, a determined and clever woman whose influence would come to last centuries. But Queen Isabellas political machinations led generations of historians to malign her, earning her a reputation as a ruthless schemer and an odious nickname, the She-Wolf of France.
Now the acclaimed author of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alison Weir, reexamines the life of Isabella of England, historys other notorious and charismatic medieval queen. Praised for her fair looks, the newly wed Isabella was denied the attentions of Edward II, a weak, sexually ambiguous monarch with scant taste for his royal duties. As their marriage progressed, Isabella was neglected by her dissolute husband and slighted by his favored male courtiers. Humiliated and deprived of her income, her children, and her liberty, Isabella escaped to France, where she entered into a passionate affair with Edward IIs mortal enemy, Roger Mortimer. Together, Isabella and Mortimer led the only successful invasion of English soil since the Norman Conquest of 1066, deposing Edward and ruling in his stead as co-regents for Isabellas young son, Edward III. Fate, however, was soon to catch up with Isabella and her lover.
Many mysteries and legends have been woven around Isabellas story. She was long condemned as an accessory to Edward IIs brutal murder in 1327, but recent research has cast doubt on whether that murder even took place.
Isabellas reputation, then, rests largely on the prejudices of monkish chroniclers and prudish Victorian scholars. Here Alison Weir gives a startling, groundbreaking new perspective on Isabella, in this first full biography in more than 150 years. In a work of extraordinary original research, Weir effectively strips away centuries of propaganda, legend, and romantic myth, and reveals a truly remarkable woman who had a profound influence upon the age in which she lived and the history of western Europe.
Engaging, vibrant, alive with breathtaking detail and unforgettable characters, Queen Isabella is biographical history at its finest. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Quest for a Maid'
Aware of her sister's deadly efforts to secure the Scottish throne for Robert de Brus, Meg realizes she must protect the young Norwegian princess who has been chosen as rightful heir. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville'
Sir John Mandeville, a medieval English knight, was either one of history's greatest explorers or one of its greatest liars, depending on how one reads the pages of his Travels. Christopher Columbus took his words as a veritable guidebook, using it, Giles Milton writes, to convince the Spanish crown to fund his American voyages. The Victorians were not so kind, dismissing the wanderer--who, after all, wrote that in the Indian Ocean "there is a race of great stature, like giants ... they have one eye only, in the middle of their foreheads"--as an uncritical fabulist at best, a charlatan at worst.
Giles Milton, a student of exploration history, gives us reasons aplenty to question Mandeville's accuracy at points, but he is inclined to think that the knight actually did see at least some of the things he reported in his enormously influential book. Tracing Mandeville's trail to the Middle East and beyond, he considers the historical realities that underlie Mandeville's tales, from the gems that lie strewn among the reeds of Indonesia (which Milton guesses might be crystal-like secretions from bamboo plants) to the fabulous Christian kingdom of Prester John somewhere far out on the plains of Mongolia (where, Milton reminds us, Nestorian Christians were once common). His conclusion, well argued in the course of this witty and delightful book, is that although Mandeville is not always taken literally, he really did go crusading off in distant lands, and he certainly deserves to be rediscovered today, not least for what his work tells us about the medieval mind.
Readers new to Mandeville will find this a spirited introduction, and those already fond of The Travels will enjoy following Milton's parallel voyages. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller'
Sir John Mandeville, a medieval English knight, was either one of history's greatest explorers or one of its greatest liars, depending on how one reads the pages of his Travels. Christopher Columbus took his words as a veritable guidebook, using it, Giles Milton writes, to convince the Spanish crown to fund his American voyages. The Victorians were not so kind, dismissing the wanderer--who, after all, wrote that in the Indian Ocean "there is a race of great stature, like giants ... they have one eye only, in the middle of their foreheads"--as an uncritical fabulist at best, a charlatan at worst.
Giles Milton, a student of exploration history, gives us reasons aplenty to question Mandeville's accuracy at points, but he is inclined to think that the knight actually did see at least some of the things he reported in his enormously influential book. Tracing Mandeville's trail to the Middle East and beyond, he considers the historical realities that underlie Mandeville's tales, from the gems that lie strewn among the reeds of Indonesia (which Milton guesses might be crystal-like secretions from bamboo plants) to the fabulous Christian kingdom of Prester John somewhere far out on the plains of Mongolia (where, Milton reminds us, Nestorian Christians were once common). His conclusion, well argued in the course of this witty and delightful book, is that although Mandeville is not always taken literally, he really did go crusading off in distant lands, and he certainly deserves to be rediscovered today, not least for what his work tells us about the medieval mind.
Readers new to Mandeville will find this a spirited introduction, and those already fond of The Travels will enjoy following Milton's parallel voyages. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Saint Peter's Fair'
At the annual fair of Saint Peter, an unseem ly quarrel breaks out between the local burghers and the mon ks, as to who shall benefit from the levies the fair provide s. Afterwards a merchant is found dead and Brother Cadfael i s called upon to investigate. ' [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Seeing Stone'
› Find signed collectible books: 'St. Peter's Fair'
When a merchant bound for St. Peter's Fair is found with a slender dagger piercing his heart, Brother Cadfael is on the case. Two murders later, he realizes that no one--least of all the merchant's lovely niece--is safe. "Colorful, convincing details on the workings of a medieval fair".--Kirkus Reviews. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Story of King Arthur and His Knights'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tale of Genji'
One of the world's oldest novels and the greatest single work of Japanese literature, this 11th-century romance centers on the lives and loves of an emperor's son. It offers a vast tapestry of the intrigues and rivalries of court life, as well as an exquisitely detailed portrayal of a decaying aristocracy. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tale of Genji-One'
brilliant account of courtly life in medieval Japan, [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales from the Arabian Nights: Selected from the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night'
This retelling of the magnificent tales told by Scheherazade to the King of India in order to save her life includes such magical classics as ""Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,"" ""Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp,"" and many other favorites. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Time and Chance'
The Sunne in Splendour confirmed Sharon Kay Penman's place in the upper echelons of historical fiction, combining a breathtaking panoply of the past with an acute psychological observation of her characters. Time and Chance is the second part of her planned trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, beginning in the glory years of their reign. Penman conjures for us an astonishing era in which Henry battles with the Welsh and the French king, appoints Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, and, by taking a mistress, makes a bitter enemy of his wife.
Readers know the scalpel-like precision of Penman's character building from her earlier work, and the emotional lives of Henry and the troubled Eleanor are powerfully realized. As in the first book of the sequence, When Christ and His Saints Slept, conflict is ever the driving force. Henry and Eleanor's remarkable partnership was proving highly fecund, both politically, and physically, as Eleanor gave birth to five sons and three daughters, laying to rest her reputation as a barren queen and founding a dynasty that was to last three centuries. But auguries of trouble ahead were apparent: war with the Welsh; acrimonious battles with Eleanor's first husband, King Louis VII of France. But the truly destabilizing factor was Henry's decision to appoint his friend and confidant Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry had assumed that the worldly, ambitious Becket would be the perfect ally, and was devastated when the new archbishop cast off his own worldly past as he embraced his role as Defender of the Faith, swapping dissolution for piety.
As Penman vividly demonstrates, Henry saw Becket's action as a humiliating betrayal. One of the most famous murders in history followed, with further conflict in the kingdom caused by Henry's liaison with the daughter of a baron. In bedding Rosamund Clifford, Henry put his marriage and even his kingship at risk. As always, Penman handles her research lightly; the personal drama is the engine of her narrative, with each fresh scandal and intrigue delivered with a beguiling combination of relish and restraint. She is assured in her detailing of the political and ecclesiastical clashes of the court, but it is Henry II who strides her novel like a colossus--just as he did the kingdom he ruled. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The White Company'
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