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A PASSAGE TO EGYPT

Name: A PASSAGE TO EGYPT
Author: Katherine Frank
ISBN: 0-395-54688-5

THE LIFE OF LUCIE DUFF GORDON

by Katherine Frank ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 1994

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This absorbing account follows a remarkable 19th-century Englishwoman from her London childhood to her final years in Upper Egypt, where she shed many of her European trappings to become Noor ala Noor (Light from the Light), author and healer. With few playmates her own age, Lucie Austin's earliest friends included ``Bun Don'' (``Brother'' John Stuart Mill, then a teenager) and Jeremy Bentham, an adult in whose garden she played, avoiding the panopticon prison laid out on the flower beds. Her well-educated mother, Sarah, translated a travelogue and other works from German to help support a husband whose health was chronically fragile and whose career was a chronic failure. When Lucie, who as a youth unsettled acquaintances with a pet snake tucked into her sleeve or hair, married Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, she became, as Frank (A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontâ, 1990) notes, ``a delightful, albeit rather Bohemian hostess'' whose guests included Dickens and Thackeray. Alexander's career at the Treasury failed to advance, so Lucie, like Sarah, took up translation to supplement her family's modest income. In late 1859, Lucie was confronted with a new problem, tuberculosis, and by 1861 was warned she would not survive another English winter. After a trip to southern Africa, she returned to England and was again warned to go abroad. Leaving behind her husband and children, she set out for Egypt; there she spent most of the rest of her life and wrote Letters from Egypt, which made her an unwilling celebrity with European tourists. Unlike the typical English expatriate of her time, she shunned English communities, becoming devoted to the Arabs who surrounded her and to the country she called ``a palimpsest in which the Bible is written over Herodotus and the Koran over that.'' A memorable story that will challenge images of the 19th century as a sepia-toned world inhabited by static women.

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1994

ISBN: 0-395-54688-5

Page Count: 378

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
CRUSOE
by Katherine Frank

- BOOK REVIEW
INDIRA
by Katherine Frank

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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.