Sharing what he’s learnt during half a century’s creative work, John Greening gives us an insight into the life of a poet, playwright, editor, reviewer, teacher and performer. Eminently readable, amusing and informative, A High Calling is a rich resource for anyone with an interest in good writing.

Navigating a wide-ranging career, including a spell as a children’s magician and a time at the BBC with musicologist Hans Keller, as well as years spent living in Upper Egypt, we are taken on a journey around the globe and through time and literature. With an extraordinary cast of poets, including correspondence with Ted Hughes and a meeting with Seamus Heaney at Little Gidding, Greening paints a compelling portrait of the lives behind the writers we meet.

Rich in anecdote and literary insight and interwoven with autobiographical sketches and original poems, A High Calling is anything but lofty in its approach, and is chock-full with down-to-earth advice for readers and writers.

If you were attending school in the late-nineteenth century, it's very likely that your teacher would have taught you to memorize lines from "The Village Blacksmith" by renowned poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And on the classroom wall you'd probably see his portrait looking down benignly on you and your classmates. Longfellow was so famous and beloved by youth in this era that he was known as "the children's poet." Students not only memorized his poetry but sent him hundreds of letters.
In this charming biography, storyteller and author Sydelle Pearl recounts the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by drawing upon the letters he received from his young admirers. In their letters, children from yesteryear reveal details about their lives that reach across the years to young people today. The letters also highlight the unique, close relationship that children shared with Longfellow. A girl from West Virginia writes, "Thank you so much for writing for children.... It makes us feel that we are not forgotten." Others ask him about what he did as a boy or a young man. In one extraordinary gesture of friendship, the schoolchildren of Cambridge celebrated his birthday by presenting him with a chair created from the wood of the "spreading chestnut tree" made famous in his poem "The Village Blacksmith." Longfellow dedicated his poem "From My Arm-Chair" to these thoughtful children.
Complete with selected poems and photographs of the poet and his family, "Dear Mr. Longfellow" brings to life a famous figure of American literature and a distant, simpler age in the history of our country.

Acknowledged Legislator: Critical Essays on the Poetry of Martin Espada stands as the first-ever collection of essays on poet and activist Martin Espada. It is also, to date, the only published book-length, single-author study of Espada currently in existence. Relying on innovative, highly original contributions from thirteen Espada scholars, its principal aim is to argue for a long overdue critical awareness of and cultural appreciation for Espada and his body of writing. Acknowledged Legislator accomplishes this task in three fundamental ways: by providing readers with background information on the poet s life and work; offering an examination into the subject matter and dominant themes that are frequently contained in his writing; and finally, by advocating, in a variety of ways, for why we should be reading, discussing, and teaching the Espada canon. Divided into four distinct sections that modulate through several theoretical frames from Espada s attention to resistance poetics and concerns for historical memory to his oppositional critique of neoliberalism and support for a class consciousness grounded in labor rights Acknowledged Legislator offers a cohesive, forward-thinking interpretive statement of the poet s vision and proposes a critical (re)assessment for how we read Espada, now and in the future.

One Man's Inspiring Journey of Vision and Service
Part memoir and part anthology-this book is a spiritual autobiography. Don describes in vivid scenes the road he has taken through a long life and the epiphanies that have come to him along the turnings of that road. And because he has a gift of lyric poetry, he includes a rich selection of poems written as his life experience unfolds, marking the evolving of a sensitive spirit.

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, at age eighty-five, she had become the world's most popular author. At the end of 2004, following the death of Christie's daughter, Rosalind, a remarkable legacy was revealed: seventy-three handwritten volumes of notes, lists, and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays, and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in the beloved author's unmistakable handwriting, are revelations about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.

Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own autobiography, this remarkable book includes a wealth of excerpts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters--plus, two complete, recently discovered Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

For over seven centuries, Dante and his masterpiece, "The Divine Comedy," have held a special place in Western culture. The poem is at once a vivid journey through hell to heaven, a poignant love story, and a picture of humanity's relationship to God. It is so richly imaginative that a first reading can be bewildering. In response, Peter Hawkins has written an inspiring introduction to the poet, his greatest work, and its abiding influence. His knowledge of Dante and enthusiasm for his vision make him an expert guide for the willing reader.

Hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph), this book reflects candidly, sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old. Charming readers, writers, and critics alike, the memoir won the Costa Award for Biography and made Athill, then ninety-one, a surprising literary star. Diana Athill was one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Athill made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Writing in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old-the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.

This volume features selections from the New Directions founder's correspondence with Guy Davenport, the polymath artist and author of "The Geography of the Imagination." More than simply detailing an author/publisher relationship, these letters depict two fine minds educating and supporting each other in the service of literature.

English translation and appreciation by Peter Chen and Michael Tan Reviewed by Chan Chiu MingAn original English translation from the Chinese text:A companion edition of the book in Chinese is available - the original classical text translated into modern Chinese and profusely annotated by Associate Professor Dr Chan Chiu Ming of National Institute of Education, Singapore.

William Weaks Morris was a writer defined in large measure by his southern roots. A seventh generation Mississippian, he grew up in Yazoo City, close enough to his mother's family to be frequently reminded of his heritage. Spending his college years at the University of Texas and Oxford University in England gave Morris a taste of the world and, perhaps, a deeper appreciation for his southern birthright. At the very least, these experiences gave him something to write home about. The product of exhaustive research, this volume is a comprehensive reference to Willie Morris' life and works. It also provides an in-depth literary biography based on hundreds of primary sources such as letters, newspaper articles and interviews. The book's principal focus, however, is Morris' literary legacy, which includes works such as North Toward Home, New York Days and My Dog Skip. Two annotated bibliographies - one for Morris' own writing and one focusing on secondary sources - comprise over 2100 entries. Each entry contains a concise, informative summary of the cited work. A chronology of Willie Morris' life and career is supplied for easy reference. Exclusive photographs, some provided by the Morris family, and an index are also included.

'A wonderful memoir, written with great linguistic brio. Candid, shrewd and moving - a classic of its kind,' William Boyd Howard Jacobson's funny, revealing and tender memoir of his path to becoming a writer. It's my theory that only the unhappy, the uncomfortable, the gauche, the badly put together, aspire to make art. Why would you seek to reshape the world unless you were ill-at-ease in it? And I came out of the womb in every sense the wrong way round. In Mother's Boy, Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson reveals how he became a writer. It is an exploration of belonging and not-belonging, of being an insider and outsider, both English and Jewish. Born to a working-class family in 1940s Manchester, the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants, Jacobson was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce. His father was a regimental tailor, as well as an upholsterer, a market-stall holder, a taxi driver, a balloonist, and a magician. Grappling always with his family's history and his Jewish identity, Jacobson takes us from the growing pains of childhood to studying at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis, and landing in Sydney as a maverick young professor on campus, through to his first marriage, the birth of his son and beyond. Full of Jacobson's trademark humour and infused with bittersweet memories of his parents, this is the story of a writer's beginnings. 'Laugh-out-loud glorious and uproarious of course - but don't let the self-ribbing fool you; this is deep and poignant,' Simon Schama

Throughout his life, James Boswell struggled to fashion a clear account of himself, but try as he might, he could not reconcile the truths of his era with those of his religious upbringing. Boswell's Enlightenment examines the conflicting credos of reason and faith, progress and tradition that pulled Boswell, like so many eighteenth-century Europeans, in opposing directions. In the end, the life of the man best known for writing Samuel Johnson's biography was something of a patchwork affair. As Johnson himself understood: "That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its name was BOSWELL." Few periods in Boswell's life better crystallize this internal turmoil than 1763-1765, the years of his Grand Tour and the focus of Robert Zaretsky's thrilling intellectual adventure. From the moment Boswell sailed for Holland from the port of Harwich, leaving behind on the beach his newly made friend Dr. Johnson, to his return to Dover from Calais a year and a half later, the young Scot was intent on not just touring historic and religious sites but also canvassing the views of the greatest thinkers of the age. In his relentless quizzing of Voltaire and Rousseau, Hume and Johnson, Paoli and Wilkes on topics concerning faith, the soul, and death, he was not merely a celebrity-seeker but-for want of a better term-a truth-seeker. Zaretsky reveals a life more complex and compelling than suggested by the label "Johnson's biographer," and one that 250 years later registers our own variations of mind.

This new volume in the "Literary Lives" series focuses on the career of the popular Victorian novelist Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), and provides a new account of his professional life in the literary world of nineteenth-century Britain. It draws on recently available business and personal correspondence to establish a fresh portrait of one of Victorian Britain's busiest authors, taking in Collins's notoriously complicated private life and his friendship with Charles Dickens, as well his work as journalist, reviewer and playwright. New insights are given into the international dimensions of Collins's career. There is discussion of Collins's best-known novels, including "The Woman in White," "The Moonstone" and "Armadale," but attention is also given to lesser-known works and to Collins's plays, which have long been neglected. The volume will appeal to all students of Wilkie Collins and also to those interested in the literary world of Victorian Britain and the social and business networks which lay at its heart.

Here at last in paperback is Frank McCourt's critically acclaimed and bestselling book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. "Teacher Man" is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises of teaching in public high schools. "Teacher Man" shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents.

For McCourt, storytelling itself is the source of salvation, and in "Teacher Man" the journey to redemption--and literary fame--is an exhilarating adventure.

Because Thomas Hardy is so closely associated with the rural Wessex of his novels, stories, and poems, it is easy to forget that he was, in his own words, half a Londoner. Focusing on the formative five years in his early twenties when Hardy lived in the city, but also on his subsequent movement back and forth between Dorset and the capital, Mark Ford shows that the Dorset-London axis is critical to an understanding of his identity as a man and his achievement as a writer. Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner presents a detailed account of Hardy's London experiences, from his arrival as a shy, impressionable youth, to his embrace of radical views, to his lionization by upper-class hostesses eager to fete the creator of Tess. Drawing on Hardy's poems, letters, fiction, and autobiography, it offers a subtle, moving exploration of the author's complex relationship with the metropolis and those he met or observed there: publishers, fellow authors, street-walkers, benighted lovers, and the aristocratic women who adored his writing but spurned his romantic advances. The young Hardy's oscillations between the routines and concerns of Dorset's Higher Bockhampton and the excitements and dangers of London were crucial to his profound sense of being torn between mutually dependent but often mutually uncomprehending worlds. This fundamental self-division, Ford argues, can be traced not only in the poetry and fiction explicitly set in London but in novels as regionally circumscribed as Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil, and those who dared to tell his tale.

Volume I includes: New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his 'brother-in-law'. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales. Original discussion on Christopher Marlowe's famous drama and his 'atheistic' rendition of the Faustian myth, including a unique and controversial analysis of the A and B texts. The days of the Faust puppet plays. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's unfinished Faust drama.

Volume II features: A unique, in-depth account Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his masterpiece, Faust, Parts One and Two. An examination of the early sketches of his classic drama. Includes detailed revealations of Goethe's hidden symbolism in the text, his interest in history and science, the occult, alchemy, Freemasonry and his warnings to future generations.

"As a compendium of useful facts, there's not likely to be a replacement any time soon. Bucchianeri pursues every avenue of Faustian analogue with a dogged persistence that would win accolades from Ahab. ... Bucchianeri's unceasing search for source materials brings together in one place the many texts that build the Faust legend from the late Middle Ages onward, ..." - Dr. K.A. Laity, College of Saint Rose, Journal of Folklore Research

..". two large-format volumes is sure to provide enterprising readers with a lavish diet of documentary matter, commentary, and conjecture on the Faust tradition from its medieval origins to the 'almost unapproachable zenith' which it attained in the year of Goethe's demise. ... Bucchianeri investigates each controversial incident in turn, drawing parallels with historical figures, Dante's Divine Comedy, Arthurian and other late medieval legends, and citing sources which range from the Bible to Copernican astronomy. ... The distinctive quality of Bucchianeri's commentary lies in tireless contextualization, with each incident in Faust's career related to specific historical events, cultural phenomena, or to background circumstances; ... In Volume II, key stages of Goethe's career are graphically recounted with the help of over two thousand footnotes ... there is no denying the near-boundless enthusiasm with which Bucchianeri approaches even the most recondite passages of Faust II." - Dr. Osman Durrani, University of Kent, Modern Language Review

FUN FOR DETECTIVE NOVEL FANS - the whole family will love this high-stakes game featuring 64 characters and clues from Agatha Christie's novels PLAY AND LEARN - this board game comes with a leaflet packed with Agatha Christie trivia. Learn about Poirot's toughest cases, Agatha Christie's medicine cabinet and more! GREAT GIFT - perfect for dedicated crime fans and bingo players SOMETHING TO TREASURE - this is a quality product made to last, with bespoke illustration and sleek and stylish packaging EXPLORE THE ENTIRE SERIES - this game is part of the bestselling bingo series, a collection of games for nature lovers and enthusiastic board gamers. Other games in the series include James Bond Bingo, Bug Bingo, Cat Bingo, Dog Bingo, Monkey Bingo, Ocean Bingo and Royal Bingo Follow the trail of murder, blackmail and mystery set by the Queen of Crime. Travel down the Nile, on the Orient Express and into the drawing rooms of quaint English country cottages hot on the heels of Poirot, Miss Marple and other famous characters while you play this fun new bingo game. Includes a booklet packed full of Agatha Christie trivia for discerning crime fans.

The brief life and meteoric career of Sylvia Plath have been the subject of fascination since her suicide in 1963 at age thirty. This concise, well-researched biography recounts the facts of her troubled life based on the latest updated research. Biographer Connie Ann Kirk has consulted the Plath archives at Smith College and the University of Indiana--Bloomington, as well as Plath's unabridged journals published in 2000. She has also interviewed a Plath contemporary who knew her.
What emerges is a balanced portrait that takes a neutral stance between the divided factions in the blame game surrounding her suicide. Kirk describes the outrage directed against Plath's estranged husband, Ted Hughes. Many accused him, not only of causing her death because of his philandering, but also of heavy-handed editing of her posthumous work. But Kirk notes that others have attributed her tragic end mainly to deep-seated psychological factors over which she and those close to her had little control: her lifelong battle with depression; her difficult relationship with her parents, especially her father; and the pressures of balancing a literary career with the roles of wife and mother.
This excellent, very readable biography includes photographs, a timeline, a family tree, a list of books in Sylvia Plath's personal library, and a bibliography of works by and about her.