In 1905, a young wife arrived in a strange land to join her mining engineer husband. The challenges of her new life proved both exciting and dangerous. She recorded her domestic-and, later, historical-adventures with youthful enthusiasm and naive bigotry in this series of engaging autobiographical essays. Her literary time capsules capture the attitudes and mores of the era while revealing a woman gently reared to live a life quite different than the difficult one she chose.

How far can you push a single traditional quilt block? How many different designs can you create from a simple graphic? A dozen years ago, Eleanor Dugan set out to make three or four variations on the block, 'Borrow from Peter to Pay Paul, ' using polka dot fabrics. Today, she has completed 33 innovative art quilts and is still counting. Find fun and inspiration in these light-hearted evolutions. You'll never look at a simple quilt block in the same way again-in your own work and the work of others.

Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were an unlikely pair to make movie history. He was a tall, fair-haired, classically trained baritone from the opera and concert stage. She was a petite redhead who had danced her way out of the chorus to become a musical comedy star on Broadway. This unlikely pair collided almost accidentally on a movie sound stage in the dark days of the Depression. The sparks ignited a nation, creating some of the greatest musicals of the Golden Age of Hollywood, films that continue to enchant and inspire. New, revised edition in paperback.-Complete filmography -Plots for their 40 films-Complete music and song credits-Complete discography-Biographies-Historical overviews-590 photos"One of the 10 best film books of the year-special award for research," Classic Images.

Madeleine de Scudry was the bestselling novelist in seventeenth-century Europe, translated into a half-dozen languages including English and Arabic. She was forced to publish under her brother's name and achieved such fame that he was elected to the Acadmie Franaise. She lived in a time of dark savagery and cynicism, yet she persisted in believing in kindness, compassion, loyalty, and joy. She sought absolute anonymity and gained only notoriety. And for what was she notorious? For profligacy and prudery, for passionate sensuality and icy frigidity, for arrogance and shyness, for vanity and modesty, for outrageous falsehoods and painful honesty. She was accused of corrupting the morals of the most licentious age since Caligula's, and then accused (by the same enemies) of being a virgin! She spoke out eloquently against the slavery of marriage and love, and she became involved in one of the most profound, impassioned, intense, enduring, and unlikely love affairs in history. She was a meek and servile woman who enraged her inferiors, an arrogant poseur who delighted princes, a forceful feminist who sulked and flirted and pretended to be stupid. Ridiculed for being dour, crabbed, and humorless, she beguiled, enchanted, enthralled. She was, in short, a paragon of paradox. And she has been utterly forgotten.

Madeleine de Scudry was the bestselling novelist in seventeenth-century Europe, translated into a half-dozen languages including English and Arabic. She was forced to publish under her brother's name and achieved such fame that he was elected to the Acadmie Franaise. She lived in a time of dark savagery and cynicism, yet she persisted in believing in kindness, compassion, loyalty, and joy. She sought absolute anonymity and gained only notoriety. And for what was she notorious? For profligacy and prudery, for passionate sensuality and icy frigidity, for arrogance and shyness, for vanity and modesty, for outrageous falsehoods and painful honesty. She was accused of corrupting the morals of the most licentious age since Caligula's, and then accused (by the same enemies) of being a virgin! She spoke out eloquently against the slavery of marriage and love, and she became involved in one of the most profound, impassioned, intense, enduring, and unlikely love affairs in history. She was a meek and servile woman who enraged her inferiors, an arrogant poseur who delighted princes, a forceful feminist who sulked and flirted and pretended to be stupid. Ridiculed for being dour, crabbed, and humorless, she beguiled, enchanted, enthralled. She was, in short, a paragon of paradox. And she has been utterly forgotten.

Madeleine de Scudry was the bestselling novelist in seventeenth-century Europe, translated into a half-dozen languages including English and Arabic. She was forced to publish under her brother's name and achieved such fame that he was elected to the Acadmie Franaise. She lived in a time of dark savagery and cynicism, yet she persisted in believing in kindness, compassion, loyalty, and joy. She sought absolute anonymity and gained only notoriety. And for what was she notorious? For profligacy and prudery, for passionate sensuality and icy frigidity, for arrogance and shyness, for vanity and modesty, for outrageous falsehoods and painful honesty. She was accused of corrupting the morals of the most licentious age since Caligula's, and then accused (by the same enemies) of being a virgin! She spoke out eloquently against the slavery of marriage and love, and she became involved in one of the most profound, impassioned, intense, enduring, and unlikely love affairs in history. She was a meek and servile woman who enraged her inferiors, an arrogant poseur who delighted princes, a forceful feminist who sulked and flirted and pretended to be stupid. Ridiculed for being dour, crabbed, and humorless, she beguiled, enchanted, enthralled. She was, in short, a paragon of paradox. And she has been utterly forgotten.

Madeleine de Scudry was the bestselling novelist in seventeenth-century Europe, translated into a half-dozen languages including English and Arabic. She was forced to publish under her brother's name and achieved such fame that he was elected to the Acadmie Franaise. She lived in a time of dark savagery and cynicism, yet she persisted in believing in kindness, compassion, loyalty, and joy. She sought absolute anonymity and gained only notoriety. And for what was she notorious? For profligacy and prudery, for passionate sensuality and icy frigidity, for arrogance and shyness, for vanity and modesty, for outrageous falsehoods and painful honesty. She was accused of corrupting the morals of the most licentious age since Caligula's, and then accused (by the same enemies) of being a virgin! She spoke out eloquently against the slavery of marriage and love, and she became involved in one of the most profound, impassioned, intense, enduring, and unlikely love affairs in history. She was a meek and servile woman who enraged her inferiors, an arrogant poseur who delighted princes, a forceful feminist who sulked and flirted and pretended to be stupid. Ridiculed for being dour, crabbed, and humorless, she beguiled, enchanted, enthralled. She was, in short, a paragon of paradox. And she has been utterly forgotten.