Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough PDF Author: John James Ross
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312600763
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Bard meets "House" in this illumination of the medical mysteries surrounding 10 of the English language's most heralded writers, including John Milton, Jonathan Swift, and Jack London.

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough PDF Author: John James Ross
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312600763
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Bard meets "House" in this illumination of the medical mysteries surrounding 10 of the English language's most heralded writers, including John Milton, Jonathan Swift, and Jack London.

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough PDF Author: John J. Ross, MD
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250012074
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The doctor suddenly appeared beside Will, startling him. He was sleek and prosperous, with a dainty goatee. Though he smiled reassuringly, the poet noticed that he kept a safe distance. In a soothing, urbane voice, the physician explained the treatment: stewed prunes to evacuate the bowels; succulent meats to ease digestion; cinnabar and the sweating tub to cleanse the disease from the skin. The doctor warned of minor side effects: uncontrolled drooling, fetid breath, bloody gums, shakes and palsies. Yet desperate diseases called for desperate remedies, of course. Were Shakespeare's shaky handwriting, his obsession with venereal disease, and his premature retirement connected? Did John Milton go blind from his propaganda work for the Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell, as he believed, or did he have a rare and devastating complication of a very common eye problem? Did Jonathan Swift's preoccupation with sex and filth result from a neurological condition that might also explain his late-life surge in creativity? What Victorian plague wiped out the entire Brontë family? What was the cause of Nathaniel Hawthorne's sudden demise? Were Herman Melville's disabling attacks of eye and back pain the product of "nervous affections," as his family and physicians believed, or did he actually have a malady that was unknown to medical science until well after his death? Was Jack London a suicide, or was his death the product of a series of self-induced medical misadventures? Why did W. B. Yeats's doctors dose him with toxic amounts of arsenic? Did James Joyce need several horrific eye operations because of a strange autoimmune disease acquired from a Dublin streetwalker? Did writing Nineteen Eighty-Four actually kill George Orwell? The Bard meets House, M.D. in this fascinating untold story of the impact of disease on the lives and works of some the finest writers in the English language. In Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough, John Ross cheerfully debunks old biographical myths and suggests fresh diagnoses for these writers' real-life medical mysteries. The author takes us way back, when leeches were used for bleeding and cupping was a common method of cure, to a time before vaccinations, sterilized scalpels, or real drug regimens. With a healthy dose of gross descriptions and a deep love for the literary output of these ten greats, Ross is the doctor these writers should have had in their time of need.

Orwell's Cough

Orwell's Cough PDF Author: John Ross
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781780742250
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“The doctor suddenly appeared beside Will, startling him. Though he smiled reassuringly, the poet noticed that he kept a safe distance. In a soothing, urbane voice, he explained the treatment: stewed prunes to evacuate the bowels; succulent meats to ease digestion; cinnabar and the sweating tub… Desperate diseases called for desperate remedies.” Did Will Shakespeare’s doctors addle his brain with cinnabar and mercury? Was Jane Eyre inspired by the plagued school that claimed the Brontë clan? Did writing 1984 kill George Orwell? Dr John Ross of Harvard Medical School opens his surgery to consult with the likes of Milton, Swift, Melville, Joyce, and Jack London, exploring the history of medicine as never before, from the Bard’s cloaked visits to Southwark to cure his unsavoury rashes to the arsenic-and-horse-serum jabs given for Yeats’s fevers. With novelistic flair and deep expertise, Ross reveals a wholly absorbing new view on the writer’s life.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher: epubli
ISBN: 3753145130
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
"Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel", often published as "1984", is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated. The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Big Brother, the leader of the Party, enjoys an intense cult of personality despite the fact that he may not even exist. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Outer Party member who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters into a forbidden relationship with a colleague, Julia, and starts to remember what life was like before the Party came to power.

Dr. Mutter's Marvels

Dr. Mutter's Marvels PDF Author: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592409253
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
A mesmerizing biography of the brilliant and eccentric medical innovator who revolutionized American surgery and founded the country’s most famous museum of medical oddities Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia, performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools—or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the mid-nineteenth century. Although he died at just forty-eight, Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. Brilliant, outspoken, and brazenly handsome, Mütter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia’s renowned Mütter Museum. Award-winning writer Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz vividly chronicles how Mütter’s efforts helped establish Philadelphia as a global mecca for medical innovation—despite intense resistance from his numerous rivals. (Foremost among them: Charles D. Meigs, an influential obstetrician who loathed Mütter’s “overly modern” medical opinions.) In the narrative spirit of The Devil in the White City, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the “[P. T.] Barnum of the surgery room.”

Why Orwell Matters

Why Orwell Matters PDF Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786725893
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
"Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century." --Boston Globe In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture toward which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the seven decades since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens' polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.

Orwell's Nose

Orwell's Nose PDF Author: John Sutherland
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780236964
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In 2012 writer John Sutherland permanently lost his sense of smell. At about the same time, he embarked on a rereading of George Orwell and—still coping with his recent disability—noticed something peculiar: Orwell was positively obsessed with smell. In this original, irreverent biography, Sutherland offers a fresh account of Orwell’s life and works, one that sniffs out a unique, scented trail that wends from Burmese Days through Nineteen Eighty-Four and on to The Road to Wigan Pier. Sutherland airs out the odors, fetors, stenches, and reeks trapped in the pages of Orwell’s books. From Winston Smith’s apartment in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which “smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats,” to the tantalizing aromas of concubine Ma Hla May’s hair in Burmese Days, with its “mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coconut oil, and jasmine,” Sutherland explores the scent narratives that abound in Orwell’s literary world. Along the way, he elucidates questions that have remained unanswered in previous biographies, addressing gaps that have kept the writer elusively from us. In doing so, Sutherland offers an entertaining but enriching look at one of the most important writers of the twentieth century and, moreover, an entirely new and sensuous way to approach literature: nose first.

Down and Out in Paris and London

Down and Out in Paris and London PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Namaskar Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell: Step into the world of social observation and personal experience with George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London." This autobiographical work recounts Orwell's firsthand experiences of poverty and hardship in the two cities. His exploration of the lives of the working class and the struggles of the marginalized provides a poignant and insightful narrative. Why This Book? "Down and Out in Paris and London" offers a gritty and compassionate portrayal of poverty and social inequality, drawing from George Orwell's own experiences. Orwell's keen observations and his exploration of societal disparities make this work a compelling read for those interested in social justice and firsthand accounts of challenging life circumstances.

Animal Farm

Animal Farm PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781946963444
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
2021 Facsimile of the 1945 Edition. This is now considered a classic Satire on dictatorship and one of Orwell's most enduring short novels. Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. The future, however, is far from certain as the drama plays out in actual events. A cautionary tale. Reviews "Animal Farm remains our great satire on the darker face of modern history."-Malcolm Bradbury "As lucid as glass and quite as sharp...[Animal Farm] has the double meaning, the sharp edge, and the lucidity of Swift."-Atlantic Monthly "A wise, compassionate, and illuminating fable for our times."-The New York Times "Orwell has worked out his theme with a simplicity, a wit, and a dryness that are close to La Fontaine and Gay, and has written in a prose so plain and spare, so admirably proportioned to his purpose, that Animal Farm even seems very creditable if we compare it with Voltaire and Swift."-Edmund Wilson, The New Yorker "Orwell's satire here is amply broad, cleverly conceived, and delightfully written."-San Francisco Chronicle "The book for everyone and Everyman, its brightness undimmed."-Ruth Rendell

George Orwell

George Orwell PDF Author: Mark Connelly
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476666776
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
George Orwell (1903-1950) is one of the most influential authors in the English language. His landmark novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) have been translated into many foreign languages and inspired numerous stage and film adaptations. His well-known essays "A Hanging" and "Shooting an Elephant" are widely anthologized and often taught in college composition classes. The writer is credited with inventing the terms "Big Brother," "thought crime," "unperson" and "double think." His name itself has become an adjective--"Orwellian." Seventy years after its publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four remains very popular, its sales surging in an era of enhanced surveillance and media manipulation. This literary companion provides an extensive chronology and more than 175 entries about both his literary works and personal life. Also included are discussion questions and research topics, notable quotations by Orwell and an extensive bibliography of related sources.