Isaac Taylor (1787 1865) was known as Isaac Taylor of Stanford Rivers, to distinguish him from his father, Isaac Taylor of Ongar, engraver and dissenting minister. He, his brother Jefferys, and their sisters Ann and Jane, were all writers, and their mother was the well-known 'Mrs Taylor of Ongar', some of whose books are also reissued in this series. The younger Isaac felt drawn to the Church of England, and made a name for himself with studies of the Church Fathers and the classics (he is said to have coined the word 'patristic'). This two-volume collection of writings by three generations of the Taylor family was compiled and published in 1867 by the Isaac Taylor of the next generation. Volume 2 contains essays and verses by the four siblings, their father Isaac, and a cousin, Jemima, of which the most notable is the long short story 'Display' by Jane Taylor."

Probably the greatest British novelist of his generation, Graham Greene's own story was as strange and compelling as those he told of Pinkie the Mobster, Harry Lime, or the Whisky Priest. A restless traveller, he was a witness to many of the key events of modern history - including the origins of the Vietnam War, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the betrayal of the double-agent Kim Philby, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the guerrilla wars of Central America. Traumatized as a boy and thought a Judas among his schoolmates, Greene tried Russian Roulette and attempted suicide. He suffered from bipolar illness, which caused havoc in his private life as his marriage failed, and one great love after another suffered shipwreck, until in his later years he found constancy in a decidedly unconventional relationship. Often called a Catholic novelist, his works came to explore the no man's land between belief and unbelief. A journalist, an MI6 officer, and an unfailing advocate for human rights, he sought out the inner narratives of war and politics in dozens of troubled places, and yet he distrusted nations and armies, believing that true loyalty was a matter between individuals. A work of wit, insight, and compassion, this new biography of Graham Greene, the first undertaken in a generation, responds to the many thousands of pages of lost letters that have recently come to light and to new memoirs by those who knew him best. It deals sensitively with questions of private life, sex, and mental illness; it gives a thorough accounting for the politics of the places he wrote about; it investigates his involvement with MI6 and the Cambridge five; above all, it follows the growth of a writer whose works changed the lives of millions.

Throughout Maya Angelou's life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now in "Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, " Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant-and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.
Angelou tells us about the time she was expelled from school for being afraid to speak-and her mother baked a delicious maple cake to brighten her spirits. She gives us her recipe for short ribs along with a story about a job she had as a cook at a Creole restaurant (never mind that she didn't know how to cook and had no idea what Creole food might entail). There was the time in London when she attended a wretched dinner party full of wretched people; but all wasn't lost-she did experience her initial taste of a savory onion tart. She recounts her very first night in her new home in Sonoma, California, when she invited M. F. K. Fisher over for cassoulet, and the evening Deca Mitford roasted a chicken when she was beyond tipsy-and created Chicken Drunkard Style. And then there was the hearty brunch Angelou made for a homesick Southerner, a meal that earned her both a job offer and a prophetic compliment: "If you can write half as good as you can cook, you are going to be famous."
Maya Angelou is renowned in her wide and generous circle of friends as a marvelous chef. Her kitchen is a social center. From fried meat pies, chicken livers, and beef Wellington to caramel cake, bread pudding, and chocolate eclairs, the one hundred-plus recipes included here are all tried and true, and come from Angelou's heart and her home. "Hallelujah! The Welcome Table "is a stunning collaboration between the two things Angelou loves best: writing and cooking.

"From the Hardcover edition."

This two-volume biography of William Wordsworth (1770 1850) was published in 1851 by his nephew, Christopher (1807 85), a scholar who later became bishop of Lincoln. The introductory chapter argues against the presentation of a 'life', or a critical assessment of Wordsworth's works. The poet felt strongly that the life was in the works, and that they should 'plead their own cause before the tribune of Posterity'. Nevertheless, an elucidation of the facts of Wordsworth's life would - precisely because his poems are so personal - help the reader to understand his verse; and to be best understood, it should be studied chronologically, for which a 'biographical commentary' would be essential. Christopher Wordsworth, having agreed to undertake this task, describes in Volume 2 the family's move to Rydal Mount in 1811, and continues to 1850. An appendix provides documents on the history of the family."

As the year 1386 began, Geoffrey Chaucer was a middle-aged bureaucrat and sometime poet, living in London and enjoying the perks that came with his close connections to its booming wool trade. When it ended, he was jobless, homeless, out of favour with his friends and living in exile. Such a reversal might have spelled the end of his career; but instead, at the loneliest time of his life, Chaucer made the revolutionary decision to 'maken vertu of necessitee' and keep writing. The result - The Canterbury Tales - was a radically new form of poetry that would make his reputation, bring him to a national audience, and preserve his work for posterity. In The Poet's Tale, Paul Strohm brings Chaucer's world to vivid life, from the streets and taverns of crowded medieval London to rural seclusion in Kent, and reveals this crucial year as a turning point in the fortunes of England's most important poet.

Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2017 'Against anything I had ever been told was possible, I was turning white. On the surface of my skin, a miracle was quietly brewing . . .' Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde-brick. Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke's life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street. Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing. From one of Australia's most exciting writers, and the author of the multi-award-winning FOREIGN SOIL, comes THE HATE RACE: a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.

The definitive biography of Vera Brittain, acclaimed author of Testament of Youth. With a new introduction by Mark Bostridge. 'Riveting and authoritative' Kate Figes, Independent on Sunday 'Honest, precise and smart' Natasha Walter, Guardian 'They succeed triumphantly... A fascinating portrait' Fiona MacCarthy, Observer Vera Brittain is most widely known as the woman who immortalized a lost generation in her haunting autobiography of the Great War, Testament of Youth. This biography is the most comprehensive, authoritative life of one of the most remarkable women of her time. Based on unpublished papers and first-hand knowledge, the authors create a candid and sympathetic portrait of the writer, pacifist and feminist. They reveal the truth about Vera Brittain's 'semi-detached' marriage, her friendship with Winifred Holtby, and her relationships with her brother Edward and fiance Roland Leighton, killed in the First World War, memories of whom haunted her all her days. Shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize, the NCR Non-Fiction Prize and the Fawcett Prize.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary novel by Wolfgang von Johann Goethe, originally published in 1774. In a series of letters to a friend, Werther recounts his time in the simple village of Walheim and the peasants he befriends there. He falls in love with Charlotte, but is tortured by his emotions as she is soon to be married and cannot return his love. The novel is celebrated as an early example of Romantic literature and its influence on later writings sustains its continued importance.

Frederick forsyth has seen it all. And lived to tell the tale…

At eighteen, Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with the RAF. At twenty-five, he was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War. Before he turned thirty, he was in Africa controversially covering the bloodiest civil war in living memory. Three years later, broke and out of work, he wrote his game-changing first novel, The Day of the Jackal. He never looked back.

Forsyth has seen some of the most exhilarating moments of the last century from the inside, travelling the world, once or twice on her majesty’s secret service. He’s been shot at, he’s been arrested, he’s even been seduced by an undercover agent.

But all the while he felt he was an outsider. This is his story.

This study explores the poetics and politics of self in J. M. Coetzee's "autre"-biographical works "Scenes from Provincial Life". The author provides a detailed analysis of Coetzee's conception of self in his fictionalized memoirs, as well as of philosophical, aesthetic and political implications of "autre"-biography. She reads these works as literary figurations of an estranged self, maintaining that they engage with deeply historical but also universal questions of the relation between self and power. Coetzee's fictionalized memoirs, she argues, are thus not merely dramatizations of the inherent elusiveness of the self but a critique of systems and discourses of normativization and oppression.

A homage to a remarkable poet and his world. 'At The Loch of Green Corrie is more than merely elegant, more than a collection of albeit fascinating insights, laugh-out-loud observations and impressively broad erudition' - Sunday Herald 'You could easily make a case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - Scotsman For many years Andrew Greig saw the poet Norman MacCaig as a father figure. Months before his death, MacCaig's enigmatic final request to Greig was that he fish for him at the Loch of the Green Corrie; the location, even the real name of his destination was more mysterious still. His search took in days of outdoor living, meetings, and fishing with friends in the remote hill lochs of far North-West Scotland. It led, finally, to the waters of the Green Corrie, which would come to reflect Greig's own life, his thoughts on poetry, geology and land ownership in the Highlands and the ambiguous roles of whisky, love and male friendship. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is a richly atmospheric narrative, a celebration of losing and recovering oneself in a unique landscape, the consideration of a particular culture, and a homage to a remarkable poet and his world.

A meditation on the big-box superstore, from 2022 Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux For half a century, French writer Annie Ernaux has restlessly explored stories and subjects often considered unworthy of artistic reflection. In this exquisite meditation, Ernaux turns her attention to the phenomenon of the big-box superstore, a ubiquitous feature of modern life that has received scant attention in literature. Recording her visits to a single superstore in Paris for over a year, Ernaux captures the world that exists within its massive walls. Culture, class, and capitalism converge, reinscribing the individual's role and rank within society while absorbing individuality into the machine of mass consumerism. Through Ernaux's eyes, the superstore emerges as a "great human meeting place, a spectacle," a space where we come into direct contact with difference. She notes the unexpectedly intimate encounters between customers; how our collective desires are dictated by the daily, seasonal, and annual rhythms of the marketplace; and the ways that the built environment reveals the contours of gender and race in contemporary society. With her relentless powers of observation, Annie Ernaux takes the measure of a place we thought we knew, calling us to question the experiences we overlook and to gaze more deeply into ordinary life.

One of the most celebrated and prolific authors of the Victorian era, Anthony Trollope (1815-82) requested that his autobiography be published posthumously. The two-volume work, first published in 1883 and reissued here in the second edition of that year, recounts his childhood, successful career at the Post Office, and multiple achievements as a writer. Well received by the critics of the time, the work reveals the incredible discipline that enabled Trollope to write forty-seven novels in the course of his career. Of particular interest to literary scholars, the reflections on his early life show how his unhappy childhood and his father's financial problems influenced his fiction. Volume 1 covers Trollope's education and early Post Office career, before discussing his first authorial efforts. Two of Trollope's non-fiction works, North America (1862) and Australia and New Zealand (1873), have also been reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

One of the most celebrated and prolific authors of the Victorian era, Anthony Trollope (1815-82) requested that his autobiography be published posthumously. The two-volume work, first published in 1883 and reissued here in the second edition of that year, recounts his childhood, successful career at the Post Office, and multiple achievements as a writer. Well received by the critics of the time, the work reveals the incredible discipline that enabled Trollope to write forty-seven novels in the course of his career. Of particular interest to literary scholars, the reflections on his early life show how his unhappy childhood and his father's financial problems influenced his fiction. Volume 2 goes into greater detail on Trollope's writing technique, and includes his thoughts on fellow writers and literary criticism. Two of Trollope's non-fiction works, North America (1862) and Australia and New Zealand (1873), have also been reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

When Rilke died in 1926, his reputation as a great poet seemed secure. But as the tide of the critical avant-garde turned, he was increasingly dismissed as apolitical, too inward. In Rilke: The Last Inward Man, acclaimed critic Lesley Chamberlain uses this charge as the starting point from which to explore the expansiveness of the inner world Rilke created in his poetry. Weaving together searching insights on Rilke's life, work and reception, Chamberlain casts Rilke's inwardness as a profound response to a world that seemed ever more lacking in spirituality. In works of dazzling imagination and rich imagery, Rilke sought to restore spirit to Western materialism, encouraging not narrow introversion but a heightened awareness of how to live with the world as it is, of how to retain a sense of transcendence within a world of collapsed spiritual certainty.

Kurt Wolff (1887-1963) was a singular presence in the literary world of the twentieth century, a cultural force shaping modern literature itself and pioneering significant changes in publishing. During an intense, active career that took him from Weimar Germany to New York City, where he founded Pantheon Books, Wolff nurtured an extraordinary array of writers, among them Franz Kafka, Lou Andreas-Salome, Boris Pasternak, Gunter Grass, Robert Musil, Paul Valery, Julian Green, Giuseppe Lampedusa, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. His essays and letters, many published here for the first time in English, illuminate the complex relations - between publisher and author, publisher and editor, publisher and reading public - that work at their best, as in Wolff's case, to sustain culture.

Gregory Sumner guides readers through a biography of 15 of Kurt Vonnegut's best known works, giving them a poignant portrait of Vonnegut and his resistance to celebrating the traditional values associated with the American dream - grandiose ambition, unbridled material success and individualism.

This is the first biography of the Jewish-American intellectual Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of the influential magazine Commentary. As both an editor and a writer, he spearheaded the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and - after he 'broke ranks' - the neoconservative response. For years he defined what was at stake in the struggle against communism; recently he has nerved America for a new struggle against jihadist Islam; always he has given substance to debates over the function of religion, ethics, and the arts in our society. The turning point of his life occurred, at the age of forty near a farmhouse in upstate New York, in a mystic clarification. It compelled him to 'unlearn' much that he had earlier been taught to value, and it also made him enemies. Revealing the private as well as the public man, Thomas L. Jeffers chronicles a heroically coherent life.

Authoritative biography of cult writer William Burroughs (1914-1997). It has been 50 years since Norman Mailer asserted, 'I think that William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.' This assessment holds true today. No-one since then has taken such risks in their writing, developed such individual radical political ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media - Burroughs has written novels, memoirs, technical manuals and poetry, he has painted, made collages, taken thousands of photographs, made visual scrapbooks, produced hundreds of hours of experimental tapes, acted in movies and recorded more CDs than most rock groups. Made a cult figure by the publication of NAKED LUNCH, Burroughs was a mentor to the 1960s youth culture. Underground papers referred to him as 'Uncle Bill' and he ranked alongside Bob Dylan and the Beatles, Buckminster Fuller and R.D. Laing as one of the 'gurus' of the youth movement who might just have the secret of the universe. Based upon extensive research, this biography paints a new portrait of Burroughs, making him real to the reader and showing how he was perceived by his contemporaries in all his guises - from icily distant to voluble drunk. It shows how his writing was very much influenced by his life situation and by the people he met on his travels around America and Europe. He was, beneath it all, a man torn by emotions: his guilt at not visiting his doting mother; his despair at not responding to reconciliation attempts from his father; his distance from his brother; the huge void that separated him from his son; and above all his killing of his wife, Joan Vollmer.

One morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and immensely popular schoolteacher, he was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggle, he could no longer face the darkness of manic depression. With razor-sharp precision,Swing Low tells his story in his own voice, taking us deep inside the experience of despair. But it is also a funny, winsome evocation of country life: growing up on farm, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a happy, strong family in the midst of private torment. A humane, inspiring story of a remarkable man, father, and teacher.