Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date, from his childhood in Portsmouth, with his adoring, tragic mother and reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC, the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way, he recalls the girls, boys and booze; the friendships and the feuds; the grand struggles and lost causes; and the mistakes and misgivings that have characterised his life. Hitch-22 is, by turns, moving and funny, charming and infuriating, enraging and inspiring. It is an indispensable companion to the life and thought of our pre-eminent political writer.

Charlotte Brontes years in Belgium (184243) had a huge influence both on her life and her work. It was in Brussels that she not only honed her writing skills but fell in love and lived through the experiences that inspired two of her four novels: her first, The Professor, and her last and in many ways most interesting, Villette. Her feelings about Belgium are known from her novels and letters her love for her tutor Heger, her uncomplimentary remarks about Belgians, the powerful effect on her imagination of living abroad. But what about Belgian views of Charlotte Bronte? What has her legacy been in Brussels? How have Belgian commentators responded to her portrayal of their capital city and their society? Through Belgian Eyes explores a wide range of responses from across the Channel, from the hostile to the enthusiastic. In the process, it examines what The Professor and Villette tell Belgian readers about their capital in the 1840s and provides a wealth of detail on the Brussels background to the two novels. Unlike Paris and London, Brussels has inspired few outstanding works of literature. That makes Villette, considered by many to be Charlotte Brontes masterpiece, of particular interest as a portrait of the Belgian capital a decade after the country gained independence in 1830, and just before modernisation and expansion transformed the city out of all recognition from the villette (small town) that Charlotte knew. Her view of Brussels is contrasted with those of other foreign visitors and of the Belgians themselves. The story of Charlotte Brontes Brussels legacy provides a unique perspective on her personality and writing.

With an introduction by Harriet McDougal, Origins of The Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston explores the inspirations behind the acclaimed series The Wheel of Time, including a biography of Robert Jordan for the first time.

Explore never-before-seen insights into The Wheel of Time, including a brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan's unpublished notes and an alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World.

This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan's masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was (including a chapter that is the very first published biography of the author), how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature.

The second part of the book is a glossary to the 'real world' in The Wheel of Time. King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so is Alexander the Great and the Apollo Space Program, the Norse gods and Napoleon's greatest defeat - and so much more.

Sol Plaatje is celebrated as one of South Africa’s most accomplished political and literary figures. A pioneer in the history of the black press, editor of several newspapers, he was one of the founders of the African National Congress in 1912, led its campaign against the notorious Natives Land Act of 1913, and twice travelled overseas to represent the interests of his people. He wrote a number of books, including – in English – Native Life in South Africa (1916), a powerful denunciation of the Land Act and the policies that led to it, and a pioneering novel, Mhudi (1930). Years after his death his diary of the siege of Mafeking was retrieved and published, providing a unique view of one of the best known episodes of the South African War of 1899–1902. At the same time Plaatje was a proud Morolong, fascinated by his people’s history. He was dedicated to Setswana, and set out to preserve its traditions and oral forms so as to create a written literature. He translated a number of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana, the first in any African language, collected proverbs and stories, and even worked on a new dictionary. He fought long battles with those who thought they knew better over the particular form its orthography should take. This book tells the story of Plaatje’s remarkable life, setting it in the context of the changes that overtook South Africa during his lifetime, and the huge obstacles he had to overcome. It draws upon extensive new research in archives in southern Africa, Europe and the US, as well as an expanding scholarship on Plaatje and his writings. This biography sheds new light not only on Plaatje’s struggles and achievements but upon his personal life and his relationships with his wife and family, friends and supporters. It pays special attention to his formative years, looking to his roots in chiefly societies, his education and upbringing on a German-run mission, and his exposure to the legal and political ideas of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony as key factors in inspiring and sustaining a life of more or less ceaseless endeavour.

Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant (1902) is a posthumously published autobiography by Walter Besant. Although he is more widely known for his works of fiction and book-length studies of the city of London, Besant was also a gifted autobiographer whose unique sense of self and rich memories make for an entertaining, informative read. "I am supposing that [man] has the choice offered him, together with an outline of the future-not a future of fate laid down with Calvinistic rigour, but a future of possibility. And as time, past or future, does not exist in the other world, I am supposing that a man can be born in any age that he pleases." The son of a merchant, Walter Besant would combine ambition with wit to become one of Victorian England's leading intellectual figures. His autobiography is not just the portrait of a man, but a record of a century that saw empires rise and fall, industry outpace agriculture, and the life of humanity change forever, for better or worse. Unsatisfied with the success and fame he found in his literary work, Besant dedicated himself to social causes and was a true champion of the poor in London and around the world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Walter Besant's Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet Laureate of the Negro Race (1914) is a pamphlet on American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published nearly a decade after Dunbar's untimely death, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet Laureate of the Negro Race contains three essays on his life, his legacy, and his importance to American literature. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Dunbar was the son of parents who were emancipated from slavery in Kentucky during the American Civil War. In 1893, he published Oak and Ivy, a debut collection of poetry blending traditional verse and poems written in dialect. Over the next decade, Dunbar wrote ten more books of poetry, four collections of short stories, four novels, a musical, and a play. In his brief career, Dunbar became a respected advocate for civil rights, participating in meetings and helping to found the American Negro Academy. His lyrics for In Dahomey (1903) formed the centerpiece to the first musical written and performed by African Americans on Broadway, and many of his essays and poems appeared in the nation's leading publications, including Harper's Weekly and the Saturday Evening Post. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1900, however, Dunbar's health steadily declined in his final years, leading to his death at the age of thirty-three while at the height of his career. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, in her essay, reflects on the man her husband was, a "true poet" who "reached out and groped for the bigness of the out-of-doors, divining all that he was afterwards to see." In his piece, classical scholar William S. Scarborough argues for Dunbar's importance to African American history as "the first among ten million," as a man who "did not inherit, [but] originated." To close the collection, Reverdy C. Ransom briefly eulogizes a poet whose loss was a blow to a people and a nation, whose name must be spoken in the same breath as Wheatley, Browning, Shelley, Burns, Keats, and Poe. More than anything, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet Laureate of the Negro Race cements his reputation as an artist with a powerful vision of faith and perseverance who sought to capture and examine the diversity of the African American experience. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Paul Laurence Dunbar: Poet Laureate of the Negro Race is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

David Gilmour's biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of "The Leopard", one of the great novels of the twentieth century. A book whose imagery, once tasted, haunts the reader forever. "The Leopard" describes the golden era of the nineteenth-century Sicily in all its sensual, fading, aristocratic glory. But beneath the surface lurk Sicily's millenial contagions - corruption, brutality and inequality. Who wrote this masterpiece, this work of art? the answer is as unlikely as one might hope. This is a fascinating meditation on what it is that makes a writer.

Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky (1901) is a work of literary criticism by Dmitriy Merezhkovsky. Having turned from his work in poetry to a new, spiritually charged interest in fiction, Merezhkovsky sought to develop his theory of the Third Testament, an apocalyptic vision of Christianity's fulfillment in twentieth century humanity. In this collection of essays on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Merezhkovsky explores the spiritual dimensions of the written word by examining the interconnection of being and writing for two of Russian literature's most iconic writers. For Dmitriy Merezhkovsky, an author who always wrote with philosophical and spiritual purpose, the figure of the artist as a human being is a powerful tool for understanding the quality and focus of that artist's work. Leo Tolstoy, author of such classics as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, developed a reputation as an ascetic, deeply spiritual man who envisioned his art as an extension of his political and religious beliefs. Dostoevsky, while perhaps more interested in the psychological aspects of human life, pursued a similar path in such novels as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. In Merezhkovsky's view, these writers came to embody in their lives and works the particularly Russian conflict between truths both human and divine. Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky is an invaluable text both for its analysis of its subjects and for its illumination of the philosophical concepts explored by Merezhkovsky throughout his storied career. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Dmitriy Merezhkovsky's Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky is a classic work of Russian literature reimagined for modern readers.

An accomplished biographer of figures ranging from Talleyrand to Cardinal Newman, Charlotte Blennerhassett (1843 1917) originally published this three-volume study in German. Reissued here is the English translation of 1889 by J.E. Gordon Cumming. Madame de Stael (1766 1817), an intellectual in Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century, was ranked by Auguste Comte as among the 'great men' of the era. A novelist, salonniere, literary and social critic, and follower of Rousseau, she became keenly involved in the opposition to Louis XVI. Volume 1 of Blennerhassett's authoritative study addresses Madame de Stael's life up to the Revolution, examining her ancestry, family, and marriage to the Swedish ambassador to France. The volume also covers her views on marriage, slavery, the Rights of Man, and the contemporary political turmoil.

'The story of Coleridge's life does undoubtedly echo that of his poem; this is a book that provides rewarding rereadings of both' - The Sunday Times A new biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, shaped and structured around the story he himself tells in his most famous poem, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Though the 'Mariner' was written in 1797 when Coleridge was only twenty-five, it was an astonishingly prescient poem. As Coleridge himself came to realise much later, this tale - of a journey that starts in high hopes and good spirits, but leads to a profound encounter with human fallibility, darkness, alienation, loneliness and dread, before coming home to a renewal of faith and vocation - was to be the shape of his own life. In this rich new biography, academic, priest and poet Malcolm Guite draws out how with an uncanny clarity, image after image and event after event in the poem became emblems of what Coleridge was later to suffer and discover. Of course 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is more than just an individual's story: it is also a profound exploration of the human condition and, as Coleridge says in his gloss, our 'loneliness and fixedness'. But the poem also offers hope, release, and recovery; and Guite also draws out the continuing relevance of Coleridge's life and writing to our own time. 'Forcefully and convincingly argued' - The Telegraph

Life and Letters of Toru Dutt (1921) is a biography of Toru Dutt. Comprising biographical sections by scholar Harihar Das, selections from her many letters, and commentary on her novels and translations, Life and Letters of Toru Dutt is an invaluable resource for information on a pioneering figure in Indian history and Bengali literature. Born in Calcutta to a family of Bengali Christians, Toru Dutt was raised at the crossroads of English and Indian cultures. In addition to her native Bengali, she became fluent in English, French, and Sanskrit as a young girl, eventually writing novels and poems in each language. Harihar Das' biography is an exhaustive record of her life from youth to young adulthood, granting particular attention to her travels in England and Europe, which Dutt herself describes in beautiful prose in letters to friends and family. Despite her limited body of work, Dutt's legacy as a groundbreaking writer remains firm in India and around the world. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Harihar Das and Toru Dutt's Life and Letters of Toru Dutt is a classic work of Bengali literature reimagined for modern readers.

From the entry of Shakespeare's birth in the Stratford church register to a Norwegian production of Macbeth in which the hero was represented by a tomato, this enthralling and splendidly illustrated book tells the story of Shakespeare's life, his writings, and his afterlife.

Drawing on a lifetime's experience of studying, teaching, editing, and writing about Shakespeare, Stanley Wells combines scholarly authority with authorial flair in a book that will appeal equally to the specialist and the untutored enthusiast. Chapters on Shakespeare's life in Stratford and in London offer a fresh view of the development of the writer's career and personality. At the core of the book lies a magisterial study of the writings themselves--how Shakespeare set about writing a play, his relationships with the company of actors with whom he worked, his developing mastery of the literary and rhetorical skills that he learned at the Stratford grammar school, the essentially theatrical quality of the structure and language of his plays. Subsequent chapters trace the fluctuating fortunes of his reputation and influence. Here are accounts of adaptations, productions, and individual performances in England and, increasingly, overseas; of great occasions such as the Garrick Jubilee and the tercentenary celebrations of 1864; of the spread of Shakespeare's reputation in France and Germany, Russia and America, and, more recently, the Far East; of Shakespearian discoveries and forgeries; of critical reactions, favorable and otherwise, and of scholarly activity; of paintings, music, films and other works of art inspired by the plays; of the plays' use in education and the political arena, and of the pleasure and intellectual stimulus that they have given to an increasingly international public.

Shakespeare, said Ben Jonson, was not of an age but for all time. This is a book about him for our time.

Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street - as a prolific writer. Before he came to London, as one of the "Best of Young British" novelists, and Literary Editor of the Spectator, we meet another A. N. Wilson. We meet his father, the Managing Director of Wedgwood, the grotesque teachers at his first boarding school, and the dons of Oxford - one of whom, at the age of just 20, he married, Katherine Duncan-Jones, the renowned Shakespearean scholar. The book begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self - whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood. His chapter on the High Camp seminary which he attended in Oxford is among the funniest in the book. We follow his unsuccessful attempts to become an academic, his aspirations to be a Man of Letters, and his eventual encounters with the famous, including some memorable meetings with royalty. The princesses, dons, paedophiles and journos who cross the pages are as sharply drawn as figures in Wilson's early comic fiction. But there is also a tenderness here, in his evocation of those whom he has loved, and hurt, the most.

A renowned Enlightenment polymath, Sir William Jones (1746-94) was a lawyer, translator and poet who wrote authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. Known initially for his Persian translations and political radicalism, Jones became further celebrated for his study and translation of ancient Sanskrit texts following his appointment to the supreme court in Calcutta in 1783. He spent the next eleven years introducing Europe to the mysticism and rationality of Hinduism through works such as his nine 'Hymns' to Hindu deities and his translation of the Sanskrit classic Sacontala, influencing Romantic writers from William Blake to August Wilhelm Schlegel. Volume 4 of his thirteen-volume works, published in 1807, contains Jones' extensive Indic scholarship and translations published in British periodicals such as Asiatick Researches and The Asiatick Miscellany, and includes the unprecedented 'On the Musical Modes of the Hindus' (1792) and 'On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus' (1791).

The sequel to I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS 'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' Barack Obama Maya Angelou's volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In the sequel to her bestselling I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou is a young mother in California, unemployed, embarking on brief affairs and transient jobs in shops and night-clubs, turning to prostitution and the world of narcotics. Maya Angelou powerfully captures the struggles and triumphs of her passionate life with dignity, wisdom, humour and humanity. 'She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY 'She was important in so many ways. She launched African American women writing in the United States. She was generous to a fault. She had nineteen talents - used ten. And was a real original. There is no duplicate' TONI MORRISON

Literary museums today must respond to new challenges; the traditional image of the author's home museum as a sacred place of literary pilgrimage centered around a national hero has been questioned, and literary museums have begun to develop new strategies centered not only on biography, but also literary texts, imagined spaces, different readers, historical contexts, architectural concepts, and artistic interventions. As this volume shows, the changing of spaces asks how literary museums create new ways of interlinking real and literary spaces, texts, objects, readers, and tourists.

One of the most popular Victorian writers, Samuel Smiles (1812 1904) made his name in 1859 with the original self-improvement manual Self-Help. His highly successful multi-volume Lives of the Engineers (also reissued in this series) contained biographies of men who had, like him, achieved greatness not through privilege but through hard work. Left incomplete at his death, edited by the social theorist Thomas Mackay (1849 1912) and first published in 1905, his autobiography opens with a vivid description of the Scottish garrison town of his birth during the Napoleonic wars. In his later years he was a vocal supporter of state education, and the value of education was a constant theme throughout his life. He remembers his schooldays here with clarity, writing that 'a good education is equivalent to a good fortune'. Straightforward and unpretentious, this book will be of interest to historians and readers fascinated by the Victorian drive for self-improvement.

A renowned Enlightenment polymath, Sir William Jones (1746-94) was a lawyer, translator and poet who wrote authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. Known initially for his Persian translations and political radicalism, Jones became further celebrated for his study and translation of ancient Sanskrit texts following his appointment to the supreme court in Calcutta in 1783. He spent the next eleven years introducing Europe to the mysticism and rationality of Hinduism, becoming a pioneer in comparative religion. Through works such as his nine 'Hymns' to Hindu deities and his translation of the Sanskrit classic Sacontala, Jones inspired and influenced Romantic writers from William Blake to August Wilhelm Schlegel. These thirteen volumes of his works, published in 1807, begin with a memoir by his friend and editor Lord Teignmouth (1751-1834). Volume 1 explores Jones' heritage and birth through to his departure for India.

A renowned Enlightenment polymath, Sir William Jones (1746-94) was a lawyer, translator and poet who wrote authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. Known initially for his Persian translations and political radicalism, Jones became further celebrated for his study and translation of ancient Sanskrit texts following his appointment to the supreme court in Calcutta in 1783. He spent the next eleven years introducing Europe to the mysticism and rationality of Hinduism through works such as his nine 'Hymns' to Hindu deities and his translation of the Sanskrit classic Sacontala, influencing Romantic writers from William Blake to August Wilhelm Schlegel. Volume 3 of his thirteen-volume works, published in 1807, contains Jones' 'Anniversary Discourses' (1784-94) addressed to the Asiatick Society as its president - including 'On the Hindus' (1786), a seminal work of comparative linguistics. It also contains his landmark essay of cultural comparison, 'On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India' (1784).

A renowned Enlightenment polymath, Sir William Jones (1746-94) was a lawyer, translator and poet who wrote authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. Known initially for his Persian translations and political radicalism, Jones became further celebrated for his study and translation of ancient Sanskrit texts following his appointment to the supreme court in Calcutta in 1783. He spent the next eleven years introducing Europe to the mysticism and rationality of Hinduism through works such as his nine 'Hymns' to Hindu deities and his translation of the Sanskrit classic Sacontala. Volume 6 of his thirteen-volume works, published in 1807, contains Jones' Poeseos Asiaticae Commentariorum (1774). A work of comparative literature after mentor Robert Lowth's De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum (1753) - in which Lowth established the Old Testament as a masterpiece of oriental literature - Poeseos provides detailed Latin commentary on the language and techniques of Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish poetry.

A renowned Enlightenment polymath, Sir William Jones (1746-94) was a lawyer, translator and poet who wrote authoritatively on politics, comparative linguistics and oriental literature. Known initially for his Persian translations and political radicalism, Jones became further celebrated for his study and translation of ancient Sanskrit texts following his appointment to the supreme court in Calcutta in 1783. He spent the next eleven years introducing Europe to the mysticism and rationality of Hinduism through works such as his translation of the Sanskrit classic Sacontala. Volume 13 of his thirteen-volume works, published in 1807, contains Jones' most critical engagements with Hinduism, including his translations of the Sanskrit Hitopadesa (Aesop-like fables of Hindu mythology) and sacred religious texts such as the Isa Upanishad. The volume also contains Jones' nine original 'Hymns' to Hindu deities, poems based on Hindu philosophy that influenced Romantics such as William Blake, Robert Southey and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Flamboyant and witty, Oscar Wilde was famous for being famous. The toast of late-nineteenth London society, he once boasted he could speak spontaneously on any subject, and his writings were as varied as his captivating conversation. One of the leading playwrights of his age, he also found fame as a poet, novelist and essayist. Of course, Wilde's literary success is bound up with the tragedy of his private life, and his very name evokes fascination. Including Wilde's funniest remarks and ripostes as well as deeper reflections, this collection of wit and wisdom will amuse, provoke and delight. 'There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.' Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890. 'Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.' Intentions, 'The Critic as Artist', 1891.

Margaret Ogilvy (1897) is a biography by J. M. Barrie. Although he is more widely known as a popular storyteller whose Peter Pan books are filled with the wit and wonder of history's greatest fairytales, Barrie was also a gifted memoirist and biographer. Margaret Ogilvy is the story of his mother and their life as a family in Scotland. Written in tribute to her influence on his life as a professional writer, Margaret Ogilvy was a bestselling book in the United States. "On the day I was born we bought six hair-bottomed chairs, and in our little house it was an event, the first great victory in a woman's long campaign; how they had been laboured for, the pound-note and the thirty threepenny-bits they cost, what anxiety there was about the purchase, the show they made in possession of the west room, my father's unnatural coolness when he brought them in..." From the remnants of memory, J. M. Barrie attempts to reconstruct his mother's life. He begins with tragedy, the death of his older brother, an event which changed his mother forever. From then on, he writes, "she got her soft face and her pathetic ways and her large charity," but before she could turn her loss into positive energy she struggled immensely with what would now be called depression. As he tries to express his gratitude for her sacrifice and support, Barrie crafts a loving portrait of the woman who gave him life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of J. M. Barrie's Margaret Ogilvy is a classic work of Scottish literature reimagined for modern readers.

Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged sixteen, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe, as she coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while she was still a teenager that Mary composed her canonical novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.

The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it? She's left plenty of evidence, and in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.

Published for the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.