A highly wrought biography depicting a literary woman's self-authorship. Veteran literary biographer Gordon (Eliot's New Life, 1988, etc.) shows Charlotte Brontâ (181655) transmuting her deadening life into the flame and flesh of great fiction. The early death of her mother, Maria, in 1821, followed by the loss in 1825 of her two older sisters, 11-year-old Maria and 10-year-old Elizabeth, left young Charlotte to care for the remainder of her family and to ``shape herself,'' as she later did her fiction. Although self- described as the `` `puniest' of Papa's children,'' Charlotte outlived her n'er-do-well brother, Branwell (181748), and sisters Emily (181848), author of Wuthering Heights (1847), and Anne (182049), author of Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). The remote locale and inhospitable climate of the English moors were put to creative use by Charlotte, firing her fortitude and determination to write despite the obstacles that a woman of talent and ambition faced in Victorian England. In Gordon's account, Charlotte endured the numbing toil of two positions as governess, first in 1838 and again in 1841, and transformed these draining and disappointing attempts at economic independence into vital aspects of Jane Eyre (1847), her most famous novel, and Shirley (1849). As a teacher in Brussells from 1842 to 1844, Charlotte's unrequited love for the married headmaster of the Pensionnat Heger school resulted in the first of several depressive episodes and also sparked her first novel, The Professor (written in 1846, published in 1857), and illuminated aspects of her last, Villette (1853). Gordon gives us a Brontâ who forged self and work alike by dint of an inner fire, previously unseen within mythologies of the Brontâ family. The book certainly earns its subtitle: Gordon writes with such high drama that her language and imagery threaten to overwhelm her themes.
Pub Date: Jan. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-393-03722-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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