Major Stories & Essays

Major Stories & Essays PDF Author: Henry James
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781883011758
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Henry James was the preeminent American writer of the late 19th century, a master of fiction who was also a subtle and audacious literary theorist. This volume brings together the most important of his short stories and novellas with his most significant critical writings. Selected from Library of America's authoritative five-volume edition of James's complete stories, the works collected here--among them "Daisy Miller," "The Aspern Papers," "The Beast in the Jungle," "The Turn of the Screw," and "The Great Good Place"--display his astonishing creative range, encompassing social comedy and supernatural horror, acute psychological portraiture and penetrating analysis of cultural conflict. A selection of James's criticism includes "The Art of Fiction," his declaration of the novelist's freedom, the celebrated preface to The Portrait of a Lady, and fascinating discussions of Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman, Shakespeare, and Balzac.

Major Stories & Essays

Major Stories & Essays PDF Author: Henry James
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781883011758
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Henry James was the preeminent American writer of the late 19th century, a master of fiction who was also a subtle and audacious literary theorist. This volume brings together the most important of his short stories and novellas with his most significant critical writings. Selected from Library of America's authoritative five-volume edition of James's complete stories, the works collected here--among them "Daisy Miller," "The Aspern Papers," "The Beast in the Jungle," "The Turn of the Screw," and "The Great Good Place"--display his astonishing creative range, encompassing social comedy and supernatural horror, acute psychological portraiture and penetrating analysis of cultural conflict. A selection of James's criticism includes "The Art of Fiction," his declaration of the novelist's freedom, the celebrated preface to The Portrait of a Lady, and fascinating discussions of Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman, Shakespeare, and Balzac.

The Writing Life

The Writing Life PDF Author: Annie Dillard
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061863823
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
"For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling, conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." — Chicago Tribune From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life. In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood—illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard’s own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.

Why I Write

Why I Write PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
ISBN: 1913724263
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

New Essays on Poe's Major Tales

New Essays on Poe's Major Tales PDF Author: Kenneth Silverman
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521422437
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
A variety of critical approaches illuminate different facets of Poe's complex imagination by concentrating on such famous tales as The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

New Essays on Hawthorne's Major Tales

New Essays on Hawthorne's Major Tales PDF Author: Millicent Bell
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521428682
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This book examines in detail some of Hawthorne's most important and most beloved stories.

Understanding the Essay

Understanding the Essay PDF Author: Patricia Foster
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1554810205
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This is a book on how to read the essay, one that demonstrates how reading is inextricably tied to the art of writing. It aims to treat the essay with the close attention that has been given to other literary genres, and in doing so it suggests the beauty and depth of the form as a whole. At once personal appreciations and acute critical assessments, the pieces collected here broaden our perspective on the essay as a major literary art, tracing its history from William Hazlitt to Joan Didion.

These Precious Days

These Precious Days PDF Author: Ann Patchett
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063092808
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

How To Write An Autobiographical Novel

How To Write An Autobiographical Novel PDF Author: Alexander Chee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1328764419
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2018 by New York Magazine, the Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, NPR, and Time, among many others, this essay collection from the author of The Queen of the Night explores how we form identities in life and in art. As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as “masterful” by Roxane Gay, “incendiary” by the New York Times, and "brilliant" by the Washington Post. With his first collection of nonfiction, he’s sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing ​— ​Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley ​— ​the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack. Named a Best Book by: Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library, Boston Globe, Paris Review, Mother Jones,The A.V. Club, Out Magazine, Book Riot, Electric Literature, PopSugar, The Rumpus, My Republica, Paste, Bitch, Library Journal, Flavorwire, Bustle, Christian Science Monitor, Shelf Awareness, Tor.com, Entertainment Cheat Sheet, Roads and Kingdoms, Chicago Public Library, Hyphen Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, The Coil, iBooks, and Washington Independent Review of Books Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction * Recipient of the Lambda Literary Trustees' Award * Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay * Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography

Our Stories

Our Stories PDF Author: John Martin Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199705305
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this collection of essays on the metaphysical issues pertaining to death, the meaning of life, and freedom of the will, John Martin Fischer argues (against the Epicureans) that death can be a bad thing for the individual who dies. He defends the claim that something can be a bad thing--a misfortune--for an individual, even if he never experiences it as bad (and even if he does not any longer exist). Fischer also defends the commonsense asymmetry in our attitudes toward death and prenatal nonexistence: we are indifferent to the time before we are born, but we regret that we do not live longer. Further, Fischer argues (against the immortality curmudgeons, such as Heidegger and Bernard Williams), that immortal life could be desirable, and shows how the defense of the (possible) badness of death and the (possible) goodness of immortality exhibit a similar structure; on Fischer's view, the badness of death and the goodness of life can be represented on spectra that display certain continuities. Building on Fischer's previous book, My Way a major aim of this volume is to show important connections between issues relating to life and death and issues relating to free will. More specifically, Fischer argues that we endow our lives with a certain distinctive kind of meaning--an irreducible narrative dimension of value--by exhibiting free will. Thus, in acting freely, we transform our lives so that our stories matter.

Fun Home

Fun Home PDF Author: Alison Bechdel
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618871711
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.