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Writers and Their Notebooks
by Diana M. RaabPersonal reflections on the vital role of the notebook in creative writing, from Dorianne Laux, Sue Grafton, John Dufresne, Kyoko Mori, and more.This collection of essays by established professional writers explores how their notebooks serve as their studios and workshops—places to collect, to play, and to make new discoveries with language, passions, and curiosities. For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum to develop their writing voice, whether crafting fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Some include sample journal entries that have since developed into published pieces. Through their individual approaches to keeping a notebook, the contributors offer valuable advice, personal recollections, and a hearty endorsement of the value of using notebooks to document, develop, and nurture a writer’s creative spark.
Writers and Their Pets: True Stories of Famous Authors and Their Animal Friends
by Kathleen KrullDiscover how animals influenced 20 of the world’s most beloved authors, from Charles Dickens to J.K. Rowling. Did you know that a dog saved Pablo Neruda’s life? Or that Mark Twain had a cat named Bambino? Or that Edgar Allen Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulders? Writers and Their Pets tells these stories and many more with playful full-color illustrations that will delight not only children, but also literary experts, history lovers, and animal enthusiasts. Each short chapter focuses on one author’s life, using simple and entertaining text to weave tales of the pets that affected the lives and works of these writers, with illustrative artwork sprinkled throughout each page. This title features a diverse list of both male and female international authors, spanning from the 19th to the 21st century, including Beatrix Potter, E.B. White, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Kurt Vonnegut, Maurice Sendak, Ernest Hemingway, and and more.
Writers Between the Covers
by Shannon Mckenna Schmidt Joni RendonAs this exploration of the scandalous love lives of famous authors shows, what happened off the page was often a lot spicier than what was written on it.
A Writer's Diary: Being Extracts From The Diary Of Virginia Woolf (Persephone Bks. #Vol. 98)
by Virginia WoolfIn her journals and writing exercises, this novelist &“comes to us with all the brilliance, perceptiveness, and restraint we could wish&” (Kirkus Reviews). From 1918 to 1941, even as she penned masterpiece upon masterpiece, Virginia Woolf kept a diary. She poured into it her thoughts, feelings, concerns, objections, interests, and disappointments—resulting in twenty-six volumes that give unprecedented insight into the mind of a genius. Collected here are the passages most relevant to her work and writing. From exercises in the craft of writing; to locations, events, and people that might inspire scenes in her fiction; to meditations on the work of others, A Writer&’s Diary takes a fascinating look at how one of the greatest novelists of the English language prepared, practiced, studied, and felt as she created literary history. Edited by and with a preface from her husband, Leonard Woolf, A Writer&’s Diary is a captivating must-read study for Woolf fans, aspiring writers, and anyone who has ever wanted a glimpse behind the curtain of brilliance.
A Writer's House in Wales
by Jan MorrisThrough an exploration of her country home in Wales, acclaimed travel writer Jan Morris discovers the heart of her fascinating country and what it means to be Welsh. Trefan Morys, Morris's home between the sea and mountains of the remote northwest corner of Wales, is the 18th-century stable block of her former family house nearby. Surrounding it are the fields and outbuildings, the mud, sheep, and cattle of a working Welsh farm. She regards this modest building not only as a reflection of herself and her life, but also as epitomizing the small and complex country of Wales, which has defied the world for centuries to preserve its own identity. Morris brilliantly meditates on the beams and stone walls of the house, its jumbled contents, its sounds and smells, its memories and inhabitants, and finally discovers the profoundest meanings of Welshness.
Writers in America: The Four Seasons of Success
by Budd SchulbergStories of twentieth-century American literary giants, by the man who was their friend, peer, and confidant When he was introduced to F. Scott Fitzgerald as a potential partner on a screenplay, novelist and scriptwriter Budd Schulberg was surprised the author was still alive. In Schulberg&’s view, the pressures of success and the public&’s merciless judgment had destroyed Fitzgerald&’s talent early in his career—a situation that is arguably typical for many of America&’s great literary geniuses. In Writers in America, Schulberg shares memories and insights from his relationships with authors such as Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Nathaneal West, and Sinclair Lewis, as well as brilliant writers who never attained the success and recognition they deserved, such as Thomas Heggen. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Budd Schulberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author&’s estate.
Writers In Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light
by David BurkeNo city has attracted so much literary talent, launched so many illustrious careers, or produced such a wealth of enduring literature as Paris. From the 15th century through the 20th, poets, novelists, and playwrights, famed for both their work and their lives, were shaped by this enchanting locale. From natives such as Molière, Genet, and Anaïs Nin, to expats like Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Gertrude Stein, author David Burke follows hundreds of writers through Paris's labyrinthine streets, inviting readers on his grand tour. Unique in scope and approach, Writers in Paris crosses from Right Bank to Left and on to the Ile de la Cité as it explores the alleyways and haunts frequented by the world's most storied writers. Burke focuses not only on their writing but on their passions, ecstasies, obsessions, and betrayals. Equally appealing to Francophiles and serious readers, this engaging book includes maps and more than 100 evocative photographs.
A Writer's Life
by Gay TaleseThe inner workings of a writer's life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life--the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor's Wife), and, focusing on his own family, the American immigrant experience (Unto the Sons). How has Talese found his subjects? What has stimulated, blocked, or inspired his writing? Here are his amateur beginnings on his college newspaper; his professional climb at The New York Times; his desire to write on a larger canvas, which led him to magazine writing at Esquire and then to books. We see his involvement with issues of race from his student days in the Deep South to a recent interracial wedding in Selma, Alabama, where he once covered the fierce struggle for civil rights. Here are his reflections on the changing American sexual mores he has written about over the last fifty years, and a striking look at the lives--and their meaning--of Lorena and John Bobbitt. He takes us behind the scenes of his legendary profile of Frank Sinatra, his writings about Joe DiMaggio and heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, and his interview with the head of a Mafia family.But he is at his most poignant in talking about the ordinary men and women whose stories led to his most memorable work. In remarkable fashion, he traces the history of a single restaurant location in New York, creating an ethnic mosaic of one restaurateur after the other whose dreams were dashed while a successor's were born. And as he delves into the life of a young female Chinese soccer player, we see his consuming interest in the world in its latest manifestation.In these and other recollections and stories, Talese gives us a fascinating picture of both the serendipity and meticulousness involved in getting a story. He makes clear that every one of us represents a good one, if a writer has the curiosity to know it, the diligence to pursue it, and the desire to get it right.Candid, humorous, deeply impassioned--a dazzling book about the nature of writing in one man's life, and of writing itself.From the Hardcover edition.
A Writer's Notebook (Vintage International)
by W. Somerset MaughamFilled with keen observations, autobiographical notes, and the seeds of many of Maugham's greatest works,A Writer's Notebookis a unique and exhilarating look into a great writer's mind at work. From nearly five decades, Somerset Maugham recorded an intimate journal. In it we see the budding of his incomparable vision and his remarkable career as a writer. Covering the years from his time as a youthful medical student in London to a seasoned world traveler around the world, it is playful, sharp witted, and always revealing. Undoubtedly one of his most significant works,A Writer's Notebookis a must for Maugham fans and anyone interested in the creative process.
Writers on the Spectrum
by Julie BrownFrom Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale characters to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and Emily Dickinson's poetic imagery, the writings and lives of some of the world's most celebrated authors indicate signs of autism and Asperger's Syndrome. Through analysis of biographies, autobiographies, letters and diaries, Professor Julie Brown identifies literary talents who display characteristics of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and uncovers the similarities in their writing that suggest atypical, autistic brains. Providing close readings of authors' works, Brown explores writing processes, content, theme, structure and writing style to reveal the underlying autistic traits that have influenced their writing. The book provides an overview of ASD and common threads in autistic writing followed by an illuminating exploration of how these threads are evident in the literature of both well-known and lesser known authors. This groundbreaking study of autism in literature will be of interest to anyone with a professional or personal interest in literature or the autistic mind.
A Writer's People
by V. S. NaipaulIn his first book of non-fiction since 2003, V.S. Naipaul gives us an eloquent, candid, wide-ranging narrative that delves into the sometimes inadvertent process of creative and intellectual assimilation.Born in Trinidad of Indian descent, a resident of England for his entire adult life, and a prodigious traveller, Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilisation to another." In A Writer's People, he discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on, Derek Walcott, Flaubert and his own father among them; how Anthony Powell and Francis Wyndham influenced his first encounters with literary culture; what we have retained-and forgotten-of the world portrayed in Caesar's The Gallic War and Virgil's Aeneid; how the writings of Gandhi, Nehru and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal the authors and their nation. And he brings the same scrutiny to bear on his own life: his years in Trinidad; the gaps in his family history; the "private India" kept alive through story, ritual, religion and culture; his ever-evolving reaction to the more complicated and demanding true India he would encounter for the first time when he was thirty.Part meditation, part remembrance, as elegant as it is revelatory, A Writer's People allows us privileged insight-full of incident, humour and feeling-into the mind of one of our greatest writers."He brings to non-fiction an extraordinary capacity for making art out of lucid thought. . . . I can no longer imagine the world without Naipaul's writing." Los Angeles Times Book ReviewFrom the Hardcover edition.
A Writer's People: Ways Of Looking And Feeling (Vintage International Ser.)
by V. S. NaipaulThe Nobel Prize-winning author delivers an eloquent, candid, wide-ranging narrative that delves into the sometimes inadvertent process of creative and intellectual assimilation.&“Bracing, surprising.... A meditation on art and life.&” —The New York Review of BooksV. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilization to another." In A Writer's People, he takes us into this process that has shaped both his writing and his life.Naipaul discusses the writers to whom he was exposed early on—Derek Walcott, Gustave Flaubert, and his father, among them—and his first encounters with literary culture. He illuminates the ways in which the writings of Gandhi, Nehru, and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal the authors themselves and their nation. And he brings the same scrutiny to bear on his own life: his early years in Trinidad; the empty spaces in his family history; his ever-evolving reactions to the more complicated India he would encounter for the first time at age thirty.
Writers' Retreats: Literary Cabins, Creative Hideaways, and Favorite Writing Spaces of Iconic Authors
by Neil BurkeyFeaturing over 50 writers and their getaways--get a glimpse into the creative habits of some of the greatest writers of the last two centuries. From Henry David Thoreau's famous cabin at Walden Pond and James Baldwin's 'Welcome Table' in Provence, to Roald Dahl's garden hut and Toni Morrison's sunrise-lit couch at dawn, Writers' Retreats reveals the quirky, private, and sometimes curious places where literary magic has happened. Each location is brought to life through illustration and the writer's own words on what made that place so perfect for creating.An exploration of famous literary writers of past and present, from Emily Dickinson and Marcel Proust to Margaret Atwood, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Alice Munro, this is the perfect bookish gift for both writers and booklovers to feed their fascination with what ignited the creativity behind their favorite works of literature.
A Writer's Story
by Marion Dane BauerExplores the influences that led the author to become a writer, including the importance of inspiration.
Writers Who Changed History (DK History Changers)
by DKExplore the fascinating lives and loves of the greatest novelists, poets, and playwrights.Lavishly illustrated with photographs and paintings of writers’ homes, studies, and personal artifacts—along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence—Writers Who Changed History introduces the key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each writer, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world’s greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays.Introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured novelist, playwright, or poet, biographical entries trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each individual and influenced their work, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. Each entry explains how the person’s writing developed during their lifetime and sets it in context, conveying a powerful sense of the place and the period of history in which they lived.Covering an eclectic range of authors from the Middle Ages to the present day, Writers Who Changed History provides a compelling glimpse of the lives and loves of each great writer.
Writing a Professional Life: Stories of Technical Communicators On and Off the Job
by Gerald J. Savage Dale L. SullivanThis is the first collection of narratives by practicing technical communicators telling their own personal stories about the workplace and their lives on the job. The authors portray a wide range of jobs: writers, editors, interface designers, marketing writers, and trainers working in 9 different technical fields, including software, R&D, engineering , medicine, transportation, and telecommunications. The stories vividly demonstrate the unique power of narrative as a teaching and learning tool. Unlike fabricated cases, these real-life narratives show new and veteran technical writers at work on the job, dealing with tasks, clients, and co-workers, and revealing their insights, values, and attitudes about their work. The stories also show the skills required in the profession and the ethical and other issues raised in the course of the workday. For anyone interested in technical communication and professional writing.
Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1950–2013
by Matthew Gleeson Lawrence Ferlinghetti Giada DianoThis long-awaited volume provides a panoramic portrait of art and life across the twentieth century, from Mexico to Morocco, Paris to Rome, and beyond. Over the course of an adventured-filled life, now in its tenth decade, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been many things: a poet, painter, pacifist, publisher, courageous defender of free speech, and owner of San Francisco’s legendary City Lights bookstore. Now the man whose A Coney Island of the Mind became a generational classic reveals yet another facet of his manifold talents, presenting here his travel journals, spanning over sixty years. Selected from a vast trove of mostly unpublished, handwritten notebooks, and edited by Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson, Writing Across the Landscape becomes a transformative work of social, cultural, and literary history. Beginning with Ferlinghetti's account of serving as a commanding officer on a Navy sub-chaser during D-Day, Writing Across the Landscape dramatically traverses the latter half of the twentieth century. For those only familiar with his poetry, these pages present a Lawrence Ferlinghetti never before encountered, an elegant prose stylist and tireless political activist who was warning against the pernicious sins of our ever-expansive corporate culture long before such thoughts ever seeped into mainstream consciousness. Yet first and foremost we see an inquisitive wanderer whose firsthand accounts of people and places are filled with pungent descriptions that animate the landscapes and cultures he encounters. Evoking each journey with a mixture of travelogue and poetry as well as his own hand-drawn sketches, Ferlinghetti adopts the role of an American bard, providing panoramic views of the Cuban Revolution in Havana, 1960, and a trip through Haiti, where voodoo and Catholicism clash in cathedrals "filled with ulcerous children's feet running from Baron Hunger." Reminding us that poverty is not only to be found abroad, Ferlinghetti narrates a Steinbeck-like trip through California's Salton Sea, a sad yet exquisitely melodic odyssey from motel to motel, experiencing the life "between cocktails, between filling stations, between buses, trains, towns, restaurants, movies, highways leading over horizons to another Rest Stop…Sad hope of all their journeys to Nowhere and back in dark Eternity." Particularly memorable is his journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1957, which turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which he, lacking a proper visa, is removed from a Japan-bound freighter and forced back across the Russian steppe to Moscow, encountering a countryside more Tolstoy than Khrushchev, while nearly dying in the process. Readers are also treated to glimpses of Ezra Pound, "looking like an old Chinese sage," whom Ferlinghetti espies in Italy, as well as fellow Beat legends Allen Ginsberg and a dyspeptic William S. Burroughs, immured with his cats in a grotto-like apartment in London. Embedded with facsimile manuscript pages and an array of poems, many never before published, Writing Across the Landscape revives an era when political activism coursed through the land and refashions Lawrence Ferlinghetti, not only as a seminal poet but as an historic and singular American voice.
Writing America
by Shelley Fisher FishkinAmerican novelist E.L. Doctorow once observed that literature "endows places with meaning." Yet, as this wide-ranging new book vividly illustrates, understanding the places that shaped American writers' lives and their art can provide deep insight into what makes their literature truly meaningful. Published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Historic Preservation Act, Writing America is a unique, passionate, and eclectic series of meditations on literature and history, covering over 150 important National Register historic sites, all pivotal to the stories that make up America, from chapels to battlefields; from plantations to immigration stations; and from theaters to internment camps. The book considers not only the traditional sites for literary tourism, such as Mark Twain's sumptuous Connecticut home and the peaceful woods surrounding Walden Pond, but also locations that highlight the diversity of American literature, from the New York tenements that spawned Abraham Cahan's fiction to the Texas pump house that irrigated the fields in which the farm workers central to Gloria Anzaldúa's poetry picked produce. Rather than just providing a cursory overview of these authors' achievements, acclaimed literary scholar and cultural historian Shelley Fisher Fishkin offers a deep and personal reflection on how key sites bore witness to the struggles of American writers and inspired their dreams. She probes the global impact of American writers' innovative art and also examines the distinctive contributions to American culture by American writers who wrote in languages other than English, including Yiddish, Chinese, and Spanish. Only a scholar with as wide-ranging interests as Shelley Fisher Fishkin would dare to bring together in one book writers as diverse as Gloria Anzaldúa, Nicholas Black Elk, David Bradley, Abraham Cahan, S. Alice Callahan, Raymond Chandler, Frank Chin, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Countee Cullen, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jessie Fauset, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Jovita González, Rolando Hinojosa, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Lawson Fusao Inada, James Weldon Johnson, Erica Jong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Irena Klepfisz, Nella Larsen, Emma Lazarus, Sinclair Lewis, Genny Lim, Claude McKay, Herman Melville, N. Scott Momaday, William Northup, John Okada, Miné Okubo, Simon Ortiz, Américo Paredes, John P. Parker, Ann Petry, Tomás Rivera, Wendy Rose, Morris Rosenfeld, John Steinbeck, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Yoshiko Uchida, Tino Villanueva, Nathanael West, Walt Whitman, Richard Wright, Hisaye Yamamoto, Anzia Yezierska, and Zitkala-Ša. Leading readers on an enticing journey across the borders of physical places and imaginative terrains, the book includes over 60 images, and extended excerpts from a variety of literary works. Each chapter ends with resources for further exploration. Writing America reveals the alchemy though which American writers have transformed the world around them into art, changing their world and ours in the process. Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Literary Landscape1 Celebrating the Many in One Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, Long Island, New York2 Living in Harmony with Nature Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts3 Freedom's Port The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, New Bedford, Massachusetts4 The House that Uncle Tom's Cabin Built Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Hartford, Connecticut5 The Irony of American History The Mark Twain Boyhood Home, Hannibal, Missouri, and the Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut6 Native American Voices Remember Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota7 "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" The Paul Laurence Dunbar House, Dayton, Ohio8 Leaving the Old World for the New The Tenement Museum, New York City9 The Revolt from the Village The Original Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota10 Asian American Writers and Creativ...
Writing and Being
by Nadine GordimerWhether talking about her own writing, interpreting the works of others, or giving us a window on the world that "we in South Africa are attempting to reconstruct," Nadine Gordimer has much to tell us about the art of fiction and the art of life. In this deeply resonant book Gordimer examines the tension for a writer between life's experiences and narrative creations. She asks first, where do characters come from--to what extent are they drawn from real life? We are touching on this question whenever we insist on the facts behind the fiction, Gordimer suggests, and here she tries to unravel the mysterious process that breathes "real" life into fiction. Exploring the writings of revolutionaries in South Africa, she shows how their struggle is contrastingly expressed in factual accounts and in lyrical poetry. Gordimer next turns to three writers linked by their search for a life that transcends their own time and place: in distinctive and telling ways, Naguib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe, and Amos Oz defy accepted norms of loyalty to the mores and politics of their countries. Their search in Egypt, Nigeria, and Israel for a meaningful definition of home testifies to what it must be: the destination of the human spirit beyond national boundaries. Ending on a personal note, Gordimer reveals her own experience of "writing her way out of" the confines of a dying colonialism.
Writing and Wrestling with the Heart: Jan Karonfs Washington National Cathedral Lecture
by Jan KaronIn this Penguin eSpecial, Jan Karon, the bestselling author of the Mitford and Father Tim novels, tells the personal story of her life as a writer. Illuminating the way in which faith has influenced both her life and her writing, Karon also discusses her calling as an author--a calling she received early but took years to answer. Only an incredible leap of faith gave her the courage to give up all she had, risking everything to follow this call. Intimate, funny, and straight-from-the-heart, this eSpecial is a superb companion to Jan Karon's novels, providing a revealing glimpse into the life of a novelist who has moved so many people with her words.
Writing Beat and Other Occasions of Literary Mayhem
by John TytellThe story and history of the Beats couldn't be found in the traditional libraries or archives of academic research. For preeminent historian of Beat culture John Tytell, it had to be found in the bars, towns, roads, and hangouts of these writers and figures. And as Writing Beat demonstrates, the same techniques apply to new and future writers.Approaching the history of post-war twentieth century American literature, and in particular the Beat literary movement of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and others, Tytell finds himself uniquely positioned as an eyewitness to many of these stories. In this book, he shares his insight with the reader. As he interviewed, drank, traveled, and survived countless moments with some of these literary legends, Tytell discovered much about the craft of nonfiction, biography, and the nature of history. Writing Beat demonstrates, through Tytell's growth as a professor and historian of the Beats, lessons learned and hazards encountered for those aspiring to become writers themselves.As we approach the sixtieth anniversary of Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Writing Beat reminds us writers do not spring to life fully formed, and the struggle to get to literature can be a blast.
Writing Beat and Other Occasions of Literary Mayhem
by John TytellThe story and history of the Beats couldn't be found in the traditional libraries or archives of academic research. For preeminent historian of Beat culture John Tytell, it had to be found in the bars, towns, roads, and hangouts of these writers and figures. And as Writing Beat demonstrates, the same techniques apply to new and future writers. Approaching the history of postwar twentieth-century American literature, and in particular the Beat literary movement of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and others, Tytell finds himself uniquely positioned as an eyewitness to many of these stories. In this book, he shares his insight with the reader. As he interviewed, drank, traveled, and survived countless moments with some of these literary legends, Tytell discovered much about the craft of nonfiction and biography, and the nature of history. Writing Beat demonstrates, through Tytell's growth as a professor and historian of the Beats, lessons learned and hazards encountered for those aspiring to become writers themselves. As we approach the sixtieth anniversary of Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Writing Beat reminds us writers do not spring to life fully formed, and the struggle to get to literature can be a blast.
Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice
by bell hooksWhat are the conditions needed for our nation to bridge cultural and racial divides? By "writing beyond race," noted cultural critic bell hooks models the constructive ways scholars, activists, and readers can challenge and change systems of domination. In the spirit of previous classics like Outlaw Culture and Reel to Real, this new collection of compelling essays interrogates contemporary cultural notions of race, gender, and class. From the films Precious and Crash to recent biographies of Malcolm X and Henrietta Lacks, hooks offers provocative insights into the way race is being talked about in this "post-racial" era.
Writing Biography in Greece and Rome:
by De Temmerman, Koen and Demoen, Kristoffel Koen De Temmerman Kristoffel DemoenAncient biography is now a well-established and popular field of study among classicists as well as many scholars of literature and history more generally. In particular biographies offer important insights into the dynamics underlying ancient performance of the self and social behaviour, issues currently of crucial importance in classical studies. They also raise complex issues of narrativity and fictionalization. This volume examines a range of ancient texts which are or purport to be biographical and explores how formal narrative categories such as time, space and character are constructed and how they address (highlight, question, thematize, underscore or problematize) the borderline between historicity and fictionality. In doing so, it makes a major contribution not only to the study of ancient biographical writing but also to broader narratological approaches to ancient texts.
Writing Black Beauty: Anna Sewell, the Creation of a Novel, and the Story of Animal Rights
by Celia BrayfieldThe story of a remarkable woman who wrote a novel that not only became a classic, but also changed the way human society views and treats animals. Born in 1829 to a young Quaker couple, Anna Sewell grew up in poverty in London. She was fourteen when she fell and injured her ankle, which left her permanently disabled. Rejecting the life of a Victorian invalid, she developed an extraordinary empathy with horses, learning to ride side-saddle and to drive a small carriage. Rebellious and independent-minded, Anna suffered periods of severe depression as a young woman. She left the Quaker movement, but remained close friends with the women writers and abolitionists who had been empowered by its liberal principles. It was not until she became terminally ill, aged 51, that she found the courage to write her own book. Tragically, she died just five months after the book was published in 1877. Black Beauty is now recognised as the first anthropomorphic novel, and it had an extraordinary emotional impact on readers of all ages. After modest success in Britain, it was taken up by a charismatic American, George Thorndike Angell, a campaigner against animal cruelty who made it one of the bestselling novels of all time. Using newly discovered archive material, Celia Brayfield shows Anna Sewell developing the extraordinary resilience to overcome her disability, rouse the conscience of Victorian Britain and make her mark upon the world.