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THE COLLECTOR

Name: THE COLLECTOR
Author: Jack Nisbet
ISBN: 978-1-57061-613-2

DAVID DOUGLAS AND THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST

by Jack Nisbet ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2009

Nisbet’s writing could use some polish, but he provides a solid piece of scholarship and synthesis.

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An admiring, brisk portrait of 19th-century Scottish plant collector David Douglas.

Historian and teacher Nisbet (The Mapmaker’s Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau, 2005, etc.) brings Douglas into focus in the early 1820s, when the Horticultural Society of London sent him to the Americas to gather specialized knowledge of the flora and fauna. The explorer brought enormous energy and enthusiasm to the rigors of his profession and did brilliant work, but also made mistakes and behaved crapulously. He wrote fairly well, if a bit floridly (“it rained a little during the night, which cooled the atmosphere and added a hue to Nature’s work, which is truly grand”), a trait shared by his biographer (“the mouth of the Detroit River, where the tongue of Ontario licks beneath Michigan’s rising shoulder”). Nisbet’s well-researched narrative has considerable bounce and drama, summoning a fully fledged image of Douglas from 1823 to 1834, mainly in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a portrait of a true adventurer: clothes in tatters, his knee infected and eyesight dimming, chewing a plug of tobacco as he comments on the plants, animals and humans he meets, the construction of native canoes and tribal cooking, assiduously chronicling everyday tribulations in his “journal of occurrences.” The author also clearly draws Douglas’s transformation from collector to celestial observer and cartographer when, despite his talent for bringing home the goods, neither the Horticultural nor the Linnean Society would assign him a new mission. Eventually a patron sent him on a fact-finding trip to Hawaii, where he died after falling into a bullock trap, where, unfortunately, there also happened to be a trapped bullock.

Nisbet’s writing could use some polish, but he provides a solid piece of scholarship and synthesis.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-57061-613-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Sasquatch

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.