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books tagged “victorian era”
books tagged “victorian era”
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmesby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0140057242 (0-14-005724-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'Book summary:(Please note that all Timeless Classic Books have been carefully formatted manually with full annotation and proper photo and/or illustration placement since our start in 2010/2011. Each cover is designed with paid or public domain artwork that is pertinent to the title. Each and ever cover is unique. None have ever been used twice.)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891-92) brings together the first twelve short stories Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Holmes and Watson. These follow Holmes's introduction in the first two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. [via]More editions of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:
Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandby Lewis CarrollISBN 0020423500 (0-02-042350-0)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found Thereby Lewis Carroll, John TennielISBN 0140301690 (0-14-030169-0)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There'Book summary:That Alice. When she's not traipsing after a rabbit into Wonderland, she's gallivanting off into the topsy-turvy world behind the drawing-room looking glass. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll's masterful and zany sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she makes more eccentric acquaintances, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the White Queen, and a somewhat grumpy Humpty Dumpty. Through a giant and elaborate chess game, Alice explores this odd country, where one must eat dry biscuits to quench thirst, and run like the wind to stay in one place. As in life, Alice must stay on her toes to learn the rules of this game. Through the Looking Glass immediately took its rightful place beside its partner on the shelf of eternal classics. And luckily for generations of enraptured children, Carroll was again able to persuade John Tenniel to create the fantastic woodblock engravings that have become so indelibly associated with the Alice stories. For almost 130 years, Alice's curious adventures have amused, perplexed, and delighted readers, young and old. This gorgeous, deluxe boxed set of both volumes contains engravings from Tenniel's original woodblocks that were discovered in a London bank in 1985, and reproduced for the first time here. "'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures?'" What indeed? (All ages) [via]
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American Victorian: A Style and Source Bookby Lawrence Grow, Dina Von ZweckISBN 0060912839 (0-06-091283-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Victorian: A Style and Source Book'Book summary:Great resource for restorers and decorators. Tons of pictures. [via]
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And Only To Deceiveby Tasha AlexanderISBN 006114844X (0-06-114844-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'And Only to Deceive'Book summary:From gifted new writer Tasha Alexander comes a stunning novel of historical suspense set in Victorian England, meticulously researched and with a twisty plot that involves stolen antiquities, betrayal, and murder
And Only to Deceive
For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the Viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly. His journals reveal him to have been a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who, to her surprise, was deeply in love with his wife. Emily becomes fascinated with this new image of her dead husband and she immerses herself in all things ancient and begins to study Greek.
Emily's intellectual pursuits and her desire to learn more about Philip take her to the quiet corridors of the British Museum, one of her husband's favorite places. There, amid priceless ancient statues, she uncovers a dark, dangerous secret involving stolen artifacts from the Greco-Roman galleries. And to complicate matters, she's juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond the marrying kind. As she sets out to solve the crime, her search leads to more surprises about Philip and causes her to question the role in Victorian society to which she, as a woman, is relegated.
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Anna and the Kingby Margaret LandonISBN 0064408612 (0-06-440861-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anna and the King'Book summary:"Are you the lady who is to teach the royal family?"
She inclined her head slightly. "I am."
"Have you friends in Bangkok?"
"I know no one in Bangkok at all."When Anna arrives on a crowded dock in Siam in 1862, she is afraid her friends might have been right: A country as "backward" as Siam is no place for a proper young Englishwoman. And when she meets the king, who is unbearably headstrong and arrogant, she is quite positive she has made a huge mistake.
But then Anna begins her post as governess to the royal children (all sixty-seven of them!), and it's not long before they taught her to love the beauty and excitement of this strange new land. Suddenly she has more friends than she could ever hope for. Yet in the kingdom of Siam, there are rules Anna cannot accept. And as her relationship with the king grows, the conflicts between them grow too. If they are to overcome their differences, Anna and the King will have to meet somewhere between East and West&.
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Anna and the King of Siamby Margaret Landon, Margaret AyerISBN 0060954884 (0-06-095488-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anna and the King of Siam'Book summary:Anna Leonowens, a proper Englishwoman, was an unlikley candidate to change the course of Siamese (Thai) history. A young widow and mother, her services were engaged in the 1860's by King Mongkut of Siam to help him communicate with foreign governments and be the tutor to his children and favored concubines. Stepping off the steamer from London, Anna found herself in an exotic land she could have only dreamed of lush landscape of mystic faiths and curious people, and king's palace bustling with royal pageantry, ancient custom, and harems. One of her pupils, the young prince Chulalongkorn, was particularly influenced by Leonowens and her Western ideals. He learned about Abraham Lincoln and the tenets of democracy from her, and years later he would become Siam's most progressive king. He guided the country's transformation from a feudal state to a modern society, abolshing slavery and making many other radical reforms.
Weaving meticulously researched facts with beautifully imagined scenes, Margret Landon recreates an unforgettable portrait of life in a forgotten extotic land. Written more than fifty years ago, and translated into dozens of languages, Anna and the King of Siam (the inspiration for the magical play and film The King and I)continues to delight and enchant readers around the world.
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Courtesansby Katie HickmanISBN 0007113919 (0-00-711391-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Courtesans'Book summary:This title tells of the extraordinary lives and times of a small group of women who, during the course of the 19th century, rose from impoverished obscurity to become some of the most powerful, independent and wealthy women the world had ever seen. These were women who took control of their lives - and those of other people - and made the world do their will. Men ruined themselves in desperate attempts to gain and retain a courtesan's favours, but a courtesan was always courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well educated, a courtesan was often unusually literate and literary and so was courted for her conversation as well as her physical company. Courtesans were extremely accomplished and, in the 19th century, exerted a powerful influence as leaders of fashion and society. They were not received at Court, and inhabited their own parallel world - the demi-monde - complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette and protocol, but nonetheless even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement. This text focuses on the stories of four outstanding women, each told as a mini-biography. Harriet Wilson, Lola Montez, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters were women of very different personalities and talents. Spanning just over a 100 years, their lives exemplify the dazzling existence of the courtesan. They were admired by many, queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. [via]
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Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Centuryby Katie HickmanISBN 0060935146 (0-06-093514-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century'Book summary:During the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a small group of women rose from impoverished obscurity to positions of great power, independence and wealth. In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will.
Men went to great lengths in desperate attempts to gain and retain a courtesan's favors, but she was always courted for far more than sex. In an age in which women were generally not well educated she was often unusually literate and literary, and courted for her conversation as well as her physical company. Courtesans were extremely accomplished and exerted a powerful influence as leaders of fashion and society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.
In this riveting social biography, Katie Hickman focuses on five outstanding women -- Sophia Baddeley, Elizabeth Armistead, Harriette Wilson, Cora Pearl and Catherine Walters -- each of whose lives exemplifies the dazzling existence of the courtesan. She reveals their extraordinary exploits -- including their stints in Paris, New York and California -- and offers insights into the glamorous history of courtesan life.
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Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteriaby Sigmund FreudISBN 0020509871 (0-02-050987-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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England in the Nineteenth Centuryby David ThomsonISBN 0140201971 (0-14-020197-1)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'England in the Nineteenth Century'Book summary:254pages. in12. broché. [via]
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England in the Nineteenth Century: 1815-1914by D. ThomsonISBN 014013770X (0-14-013770-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Far from the Madding Crowdby Thomas HardyISBN 0060956968 (0-06-095696-8)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Far from the Madding Crowd'Book summary:It's Time To Rediscover
The Wonderful Books
We All Cherish.First published in 1874, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first commerically successful novel. Set in the fictional Wessex countryside in the 1840s, it tells the story of the beautiful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene. Forced to choose between three suitors, Bathsheba makes a disastrous decision, which leads to both tragedy and true love.
Far from the Madding Crowd remains one of the most enduring English novels of our time, and one of Hardy's most popular. [via]
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Flashman and the Redskinsby George MacDonald FraserISBN 0002226618 (0-00-222661-8)
Hardcover, Harper & Collins
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Flashman and the Tiger and Other Extracts from The Flashman Papersby George MacDonald FraserISBN 0002259516 (0-00-225951-6)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Gilded City: Scandal and Sensation in Turn of the Century New Yorkby M. H. DunlopISBN 0060937726 (0-06-093772-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Hound of the Baskervillesby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0140001115 (0-14-000111-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'Book summary:We owe 1902's The Hound of the Baskervilles to Arthur Conan Doyle's good friend Fletcher "Bobbles" Robinson, who took him to visit some scary English moors and prehistoric ruins, and told him marvelous local legends about escaped prisoners and a 17th-century aristocrat who fell afoul of the family dog. Doyle transmogrified the legend: generations ago, a hound of hell tore out the throat of devilish Hugo Baskerville on the moonlit moor. Poor, accursed Baskerville Hall now has another mysterious death: that of Sir Charles Baskerville. Could the culprit somehow be mixed up with secretive servant Barrymore, history-obsessed Dr. Frankland, butterfly-chasing Stapleton, or Selden, the Notting Hill murderer at large? Someone's been signaling with candles from the mansion's windows. Nor can supernatural forces be ruled out. Can Dr. Watson--left alone by Sherlock Holmes to sleuth in fear for much of the novel--save the next Baskerville, Sir Henry, from the hound's fangs?
Many Holmes fans prefer Doyle's complete short stories, but their clockwork logic doesn't match the author's boast about this novel: it's "a real Creeper!" What distinguishes this particular Hound is its fulfillment of Doyle's great debt to Edgar Allan Poe--it's full of ancient woe, low moans, a Grimpen Mire that sucks ponies to Dostoyevskian deaths, and locals digging up Neolithic skulls without next-of-kins' consent. "The longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one's soul," Watson realizes. "Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay ... while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet ... it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths." Read on--but, reader, watch your step! --Tim Appelo [via]
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A Journey to the Center of the Earthby Jules VerneISBN 0140022651 (0-14-002265-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth'Book summary:It was a secret message by an ancient alchemist, found on a crumbling scrap of parchment. And if Saknussemm was right, then every theory about the molten core of the earth is wrong. Prof. Otto Lidenbrock has to learn the truth. So Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel, and the Icelandic hunter Hans climb down the cone of an arctic volcano and into... [via]
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Journey to the Centre of the Earthby Robert Baldick, Jules VerneISBN 0140367152 (0-14-036715-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth'Book summary:Once an ancient book is opened by the eccentric Professor Lidenbrock, his life - and the life of his nephew Axel - is changed forever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a priceless parchment that will lead them on the expedition to end all expeditions. So begins a voyage thousands of feet under the sea, as the pair embark on a terrifying journey to find what lies at the centre of the earth. [via]
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Lark Rise to Candlefordby Flora ThompsonISBN 0140117563 (0-14-011756-3)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lark Rise to Candleford'Book summary:A collection of Flora Thompson's three accounts of her experiences during her childhood and youth: "Lark Rise", "Over to Candleford" and "Candleford Green". The book is set in three closely-related Oxfordshire communities: a hamlet, the nearby village and a small market town. [via]
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The Life and Times of Charles Dickensby Peter AckroydISBN 0060922656 (0-06-092265-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life and Times of Charles Dickens'Book summary:Detailed and definitive, this profile of the Victorian writer explores the private life of the complicated, insecure, and wildly ambitious man who became the best-known author of his day. By the author of Hawksmoor and T. S. Eliot. Reprint. [via]
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Love in the Time of Victoria: Sexuality and Desire Among Working-Class Men and Women in 19Th-Century Londonby Francoise Barret-DucrocqISBN 0140173269 (0-14-017326-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Love in the Time of Victoria: Sexuality and Desire Among Working-Class Men and Women in 19Th-Century London'Book summary:Using firsthand documents uncovered in the archives of a London foundling hospital, Barret-Ducrocq offers a marvelously acute census of Victorian sexual and moral attitudes. [via]
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The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmesby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0140007857 (0-14-000785-7)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'Book summary:Stephen King started writing Storm of the Century as a novel, but it evolved into the teleplay of an ABC TV miniseries. Set in Maine's remote Little Tall Island, the tale is all about vivid small-town characters, feuds, infidelities, sordid secrets, kids in peril, and gory portents in scrambled letters. The calamitous snowstorm is nothing compared to the mysterious mind-reading stranger Linoge, who uses magic powers to turn people's guilt against them--when he's not simply braining them with his wolf-head-handled cane. Don't even glance at that cane--it can bring out the devil in you. Just as The Shining was concerned with marriage and alcoholism as much as it was with bad weather and worse spirits, Storm of the Century is more than a horror story. It's creepy because it's realistic.
But it's also unusually visual. Linoge's eyes ominously change color, wind and sea wreak havoc, a basketball leaves blood circles with each bounce. The 100-year storm no doubt hits harder onscreen than on the page, but the snow is a symbol of the more disturbing emotional maelstrom that words evoke perfectly. And the murders of folks we've gotten to know is entirely terrifying in print. The crisp discipline of the screenplay format makes this book better than lots of King's more sprawling novels--the end doesn't wander and the dialogue crackles. Here's the real test: It's impossible to read parts 1 and 2 and not read part 3, "The Reckoning." --Tim Appelo [via]
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Oscar and Lucindaby Peter CareyISBN 0060915927 (0-06-091592-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Oscar and Lucinda'Book summary:Oscar Hopkins is a high-strung preacher's kid with hydrophobia and noisy knees. Lucinda Leplastrier is a frizzy-haired heiress who impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. In the early parts of this lushly written book, author Peter Carey renders the seminal turning points in his protagonists' childhoods as exquisite 19th-century set pieces. Young Oscar, denied the heavenly fruit of a Christmas pudding by his cruelly stern father, forever renounces his father's religion in favor of the Anglican Church. "Dear God," Oscar prays, "if it be Thy will that Thy people eat pudding, smite him!" Lucinda's childhood trauma involves a beautiful doll bought by her struggling mother with savings from the jam jar; in a misguided attempt to tame the doll's unruly curls, young Lucinda mutilates her treasure beyond repair. Neither of these coming-of-age stories quite explains how the grownup Oscar and Lucinda each develop a guilty passion for gambling. Oscar plays the horses while at school, and Lucinda, now an orphaned heiress, finds comfort in a game of cards with an odd collection of acquaintances. When the two finally meet, on board a ship bound for New South Wales, they are bound by their affinity for risk, their loneliness, and their awkwardly blossoming (but unexpressed) mutual affection. Their final high-stakes folly--transporting a crystal palace of a church across (literally) godforsaken terrain--strains plausibility, and events turn ghastly as Oscar plays out his bid for Lucinda's heart. Yet even the unconvincing plot turns are made up for by Carey's rich prose and the tale's unpredictable outcome. Although love proves to be the ultimate gamble for Oscar and Lucinda, the story never strays too far from the terrible possibility that even the most thunderstruck lovers can remain isolated in parallel lives. [via]
Panati's Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias: The Origins of Our Most Cherished Obsessionsby Charles PanatiISBN 0060964774 (0-06-096477-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Penguin Companion to Trollopeby Richard Mullen, James MunsonISBN 0140235582 (0-14-023558-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Portrait of a Ladyby Henry JamesISBN 0075536374 (0-07-553637-4)
Softcover, McGraw-Hill College
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Portrait of a Lady'Book summary:This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.
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The Portrait of a Lady is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who "affronts her destiny" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase of writing, this novel reflects James's continuing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old, often to the detriment of the former. It also treats in a profound way the themes of personal freedom, responsibility, betrayal, and sexuality.
Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Pride and Prejudiceby Jane AustenISBN 0060933259 (0-06-093325-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice'Book summary:"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The Professor and the Madmanby Simon WinchesterISBN 0061030228 (0-06-103022-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Professor and the Madman'Book summary:The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
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Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionaryby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060839783 (0-06-083978-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Professor and the Madman: A Tale Of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary'Book summary:The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
More editions of Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary:
- Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 006099486X (0-06-099486-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0060175966 (0-06-017596-6)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - The Professor and the Madman: A Tale Of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0060839783 (0-06-083978-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 006099486X (0-06-099486-X)
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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyamby Peter Avery, Omar Khayyam, John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs, Edward FitzgeraldISBN 0140059547 (0-14-005954-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'Book summary:Philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, Khayyam as a poet possesses a singular originality. His poetry is richly charged with evocative power and offers a view of life characteristic of his stormy times, with striking relevance to the present day. This translation by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs is beautifully and lavishly illustrated in colour with numerous examples of Persian miniature painting. It also contains a valuable introduction and several appendices, including an essay on Persian painting. [via]
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Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaamby Omar Khayyam, Robert Graves, Omar Ali ShahISBN 0140034080 (0-14-003408-0)
Hardcover, Penguin
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Sign of Fourby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0140058559 (0-14-005855-9)
Softcover, Viking Pr
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The Sleep of Reason: Fantasy and Reality from the Victorian Age to the First World Warby Derek JarrettISBN 0060160497 (0-06-016049-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Oxford English Dictionaryby Simon WinchesterISBN 0140271287 (0-14-027128-7)
Softcover, Penguin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Oxford English Dictionary'Book summary:The making of the "Oxford English Dictionary" was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the "OED's" editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him. What he found was incredible - Minor was a millionaire American civil war surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder and yet who dedicated his entire cell-bound life to work on the English language. [via]
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A Tale of Two Citiesby Charles Dickens, Linda JenningsISBN 0140373365 (0-14-037336-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tale of Two Cities'Book summary:This stirring tale of resurrection, renunciation and revolution is one of Charles Dickens' most popular novels. The two cities are Paris and London. Dr Manette has been confined for 18 years in the Bastille because he found out the Marquis de Evremonde and his brother had ill treated a girl and mortally wounded a young boy. He has just been released and brought to England.Charles Darnay, who conceals the fact that he is the Marquis' nephew has left France and renounced his heritage because he hates the cruelty of the French nobility. He falls in love with Lucie, Dr Manette's daughter, and they get married. During the terrible revolution he goes to Paris to try and save a faithful servant, but is himself arrested and condemned to death and is saved only at the last moment by Sydney Carton, a reckless wastrel of an English barrister whose character is redeemed by his generous devotion to Lucie. Carton, who strongly resembles Darnay in appearance smuggles the latter out of prison and takes his place on the scaffold. [via]
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The Valley of Fear: Library Editionby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0140057102 (0-14-005710-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Valley of Fear: Library Edition'Book summary:To the police it is a formidable case and they are grateful for the razor brain of the great detective Sherlock Holmes. There are perplexing details - wedding ring missing together with one dumb-bell, the odd behaviour of the widow and a card inscribed "VV 341" lying by the faceless body. [via]
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The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbedby Judith FlandersISBN 0007131887 (0-00-713188-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed'Book summary:Judith Flanders takes a novel approach to rediscovering the lives of our 19th century forebears in her The Victorian House. She pays them a visit. Perhaps mindful of the success of the Channel 4 series, The 1900 House and The 1940s House, Flanders steps back a few decades earlier to embark on a room-by-room guide to a typical mid-Victorian family home. We start in the bedroom and work our way downstairs through the principal parts of a middle-class home. Particular attention is paid to the operations side of the household--the bathroom, the kitchen and the scullery--where the Victorian preoccupation with cleanliness and food is well-described. Flanders is also good at drawing out the decorative functions of the Victorian home, bringing out the separate male and female domains of the drawing room and the parlour.
A wealth of detail--from advice books such as Mrs Beeton's cookbooks, novels, contemporary magazines and autobiographies--is crammed into each room. This is more than an inventory of interior design. Flanders uses the house as a base from which Victorian attitudes towards servants, marriage, illness, death and religion can be explored. There remains a small quibble: this book should really be titled "The Middle-class House of Victorian London". We are not taken to any provincial homes. And a question mark remains over how representative Flanders' rather grand Victorian house is, heaving as it does with servants, hot water and ornate furnishings. As she herself notes, few Victorian families could afford more than one servant at the very most, many married couples still lived with their older relatives and hardly anyone owned their own home. --Miles Taylor [via]
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Wide Sargasso Seaby Jean RhysISBN 0140028781 (0-14-002878-1)
Hardcover, Penguin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wide Sargasso Sea'Book summary:In 1966 Jean Rhys reemerged after a long silence with a novel called Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys had enjoyed minor literary success in the 1920s and '30s with a series of evocative novels featuring women protagonists adrift in Europe, verging on poverty, hoping to be saved by men. By the '40s, however, her work was out of fashion, too sad for a world at war. And Rhys herself was often too sad for the world--she was suicidal, alcoholic, troubled by a vast loneliness. She was also a great writer, despite her powerful self-destructive impulses.
Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up in the West Indies on a decaying plantation. When she comes of age she is married off to an Englishman, and he takes her away from the only place she has known--a house with a garden where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched."
The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë's book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell--that of the madwoman in the attic, Rochester's terrible secret. Antoinette is Rhys's imagining of that locked-up woman, who in the end burns up the house and herself. Wide Sargasso Sea follows her voyage into the dark, both from her point of view and Rochester's. It is a voyage charged with soul-destroying lust. "I watched her die many times," observes the new husband. "In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty."
Rhys struggled over the book, enduring rejections and revisions, wrestling to bring this ruined woman out of the ashes. The slim volume was finally published when she was 70 years old. The critical adulation that followed, she said, "has come too late." Jean Rhys died a few years later, but with Wide Sargasso Sea she left behind a great legacy, a work of strange, scary loveliness. There has not been a book like it before or since. Believe me, I've been searching. --Emily White [via]
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