Another informal, delightfully entertaining foray into the world of the Victorian novel by the author of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (1993). In 1836, when Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers to accompany comic prints, prose writing was ``a low-rent activity,'' Pool notes. Yet within ten years, Dickens was besieged by fans during a visit to America, and the novel was well on its way toward such solid respectability that George Eliot's books could be termed ``second Bibles.'' When Wilkie Collins broke through that respectability with his ``sensation novels,'' the public gleefully responded by snapping up not just his writing but Woman in White cloaks and perfume—the commercial tie-ins of the day. It is with a puckish sense of humor and a sharp ear for gossip that Pool puts a human face on his account of the progress of English publishing. In his hands, subjects such as the constraints and demands of serial writing, the power of lending libraries, and the challenges of satisfying an increasingly straitlaced public morality become plot twists with which his characters must contend. And what characters! Charlotte Brontâ innocently setting off rumors by dedicating the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, whose wife was insane. Thackeray and Dickens squabbling publicly, ostensibly over a magazine article about the author of Vanity Fair (Urged to make peace, Thackeray said, ``It is a quarrel, I wish it to be a quarrel, and it will always be a quarrel.''). Dickens haunted by memories of working in a blacking factory: ``I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children . . . and wander desolately back to that time.'' Elizabeth Gaskell enthusiastically producing a biography of her friend Charlotte Brontâ that turns out to be far more colorful than accurate. Great Books meets celebrity gossip: a rare, literate entertainment. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018365-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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