Performing Music History offers a unique perspective on music history and performance through a series of conversations with women and men intimately associated with music performance, history, and practice: the musicians themselves. Fifty-five celebrated artists-singers, pianists, violinists, cellists, flutists, horn players, oboists, composers, conductors, and jazz greats-provide interviews that encompass most of Western music history, from the Middle Ages to contemporary classical music, avant-garde innovations, and Broadway musicals. The book covers music history through lenses that include "authentic" performance, original instrumentation, and social context. Moreover, the musicians interviewed all bring to bear upon their respective subjects three outstanding qualities: 1) their high esteem in the music world as immediately recognizable names among musicians and public alike; 2) their energy and devotion to scholarship and the recovery of endangered musical heritages; and 3) their considerable skills, media savvy, and showmanship as communicators. Introductory essays to each chapter provide brief synopses of historical eras and topics. Combining careful scholarship and lively conversation, Performing Music History explores historical contexts for a host of fascinating issues.

What was it like to work behind the scenes, away from the spotlight's glare, in Hollywood's so-called Golden Age? The interviews in this book provide eye-witness accounts from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Terry Gilliam, to explore the creative decisions that have shaped some of Classical Hollywood's most-loved films.

The Gothic tradition continues to excite the popular imagination. John C. Tibbetts presents interviews and conversations with prominent novelists, filmmakers, artists, and film and television directors and actors as they trace the Gothic mode across three centuries, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through H.P. Lovecraft, to today's science fiction, goth, and steampunk culture. H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert (Psycho) Bloch, Chris (The Polar Express) Van Allsburg, Maurice Sendak, Gahan Wilson, Ray Harryhausen, Christopher Reeve, Greg Bear, William Shatner, and many more share their worlds of imagination and terror.

Horror novelist Peter Straub creates highly personalized fiction with an allusiveness and ambiguity that deny the genre's explicit nature. For him, the Gothic style is to be created and recreated in a changing world-Faustian pacts, buried secrets, haunted places, ghosts, vampires and succubi take on strange new shapes and effects. Stephen King describes his style as ""a synthesis of horror and beauty."" Drawing on interviews with Straub and featuring an exclusive interview with King, this study explores the work of the author who has been called ""a writer of rare wit and intelligence in a field beset with cynical potboilers.

"Peter Weir: Interviews" is the first volume of interviews to be published on the esteemed Australian director. Although Weir (b. 1944) has acquired a reputation of being guarded about his life and work, these interviews by archivists, journalists, historians, and colleagues reveal him to be a most amiable and forthcoming subject. He talks about the precious desperation of the art, the madness, the willingness to experiment in all his films; the adaptation process from novel to film, when he tells a scriptwriter, I'm going to eat your script; it's going to be part of my blood ; and his self-assessment as merely a jester, with cap and bells, going from court to court. He is encouraged, even provoked to tell his own story, from his childhood in a Sydney suburb in the 1950s, to his apprenticeship in the Australian television industry in the 1960s, his preparations to shoot his first features in the early 1970s, his international celebrity in Australia and Hollywood. An extensive new interview details his current plans for a new film.

Interviews discuss Weir's diverse and impressive range of work--his earlier films "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "The Last Wave," "Gallipoli," and "The Year of Living Dangerously," as well as Academy Award-nominated "Witness," "Dead Poets Society," "Green Card," "The Truman Show," and "Master and Commander." This book confirms that the trajectory of Weir's life and work parallels and embodies Australia's own quest to define and express a historical and cultural identity.

Peter Weir: Interviews is the first volume of interviews to be published on the esteemed Australian director. Although Weir (b. 1944) has acquired a reputation of being guarded about his life and work, these interviews by archivists, journalists, historians, and colleagues reveal him to be a most amiable and forthcoming subject. He talks about "the precious desperation of the art, the madness, the willingness to experiment" in all his films; the adaptation process from novel to film, when he tells a scriptwriter, "I'm going to eat your script; it's going to be part of my blood!"; and his self-assessment as "merely a jester, with cap and bells, going from court to court. " He is encouraged, even provoked to tell his own story, from his childhood in a Sydney suburb in the 1950s, to his apprenticeship in the Australian television industry in the 1960s, his preparations to shoot his first features in the early 1970s, his international celebrity in Australia and Hollywood. An extensive new interview details his current plans for a new film. Interviews discuss Weir's diverse and impressive range of work-his earlier films Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Gallipoli, and The Year of Living Dangerously, as well as Academy Award-nominated Witness, Dead Poets Society, Green Card, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander. This book confirms that the trajectory of Weir's life and work parallels and embodies Australia's own quest to define and express a historical and cultural identity.

First appearing in 1976, American Classic Screen was the publishing arm of The National Film Society. Intended for scholars and general readers interested in films from the golden age of cinema and beyond, the magazine ran for a decade and included original interviews, profiles, and articles that delved deep into the rich history of Hollywood. Contributors to the magazine included noted academics in the area of film studies, as well as independent scholars and authors eager to expand the world of cinema. Since the periodical's demise, however, many of the essays and articles have been difficult to find-at best-and in some cases, entirely unavailable. In American Classic Screen Features, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable essays and critical pieces written for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains fascinating accounts of Hollywood history including articles on Marilyn Monroe's first screen test, John Ford's favorite film, Olivia De Havilland's lawsuit against Warner Bros., Walt Disney's unfinished projects, and Stanley Kubrick's early noir classics, as well as such articles as "The Rise and Fall of the California Motion Picture Company," "Red Alert: Images of Communism in Hollywood," "Uncensored Garbo," and "The Lost Movie of Errol Flynn." This volume also contains in-depth examinations of classic films, including Birth of a Nation, The Big Parade, The Jazz Singer, King Kong, and Citizen Kane. This compendium of essays recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

First appearing in 1976, American Classic Screen was the publishing arm of The National Film Society. Intended for scholars and general readers interested in films from the golden age of cinema and beyond, the magazine ran for a decade and included original interviews, profiles, and articles that delved deep into the rich history of Hollywood. Contributors to the magazine included noted academics in the area of film studies, as well as independent scholars and authors eager to expand the world of cinema. Since the periodical's demise, however, many of the essays and articles have been difficult to find at best and in some cases, entirely unavailable. In American Classic Screen Profiles, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable profiles written for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains rare insights into some of the brightest stars of yesteryear, as well as gifted filmmakers, directors and craftsmen alike, including Fatty Arbuckle, Baby Peggy, Warner Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Beulah Bondi, George M. Cohan, Cecil B. DeMille, Boris Karloff, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Powell, Robert Redford, Mickey Rooney, William Wellman, and Natalie Wood.This compendium of profiles recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

First appearing in 1976, American Classic Screen was the publishing arm of The National Film Society. Intended for scholars and general readers interested in films from the golden age of cinema and beyond, the magazine ran for a decade and included original interviews, profiles, and articles that delved deep into the rich history of Hollywood. Contributors to the magazine included noted academics in the area of film studies, as well as independent scholars and authors eager to expand the world of cinema. Since the periodical's demise, however, many of the essays and articles have been difficult to find at best and in some cases, entirely unavailable. In American Classic Screen Interviews, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable interviews conducted for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains rare conversations with some of the brightest stars of yesteryear, as well as gifted filmmakers, celebrated animators, and highly revered historians, including Fred Astaire, Kevin Brownlow, Frank Capra, Stanley Donen, Olivia DeHavilland, Irene Dunne, Joan Fontaine, Friz Freleng, Margaret Hamilton, Winton C. Hoch, Henry King, Mervyn Le Roy, Fred MacMurray, Glen MacWilliams, Rouben Mamoulian, Clarence "Ducky" Nash, Paul Newman, Hermes Pan, Robert Preston, and Jane Withers. This compendium of interviews recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

Performing Music History offers a unique perspective on music history and performance through a series of conversations with women and men intimately associated with music performance, history, and practice: the musicians themselves. Fifty-five celebrated artists-singers, pianists, violinists, cellists, flutists, horn players, oboists, composers, conductors, and jazz greats-provide interviews that encompass most of Western music history, from the Middle Ages to contemporary classical music, avant-garde innovations, and Broadway musicals. The book covers music history through lenses that include "authentic" performance, original instrumentation, and social context. Moreover, the musicians interviewed all bring to bear upon their respective subjects three outstanding qualities: 1) their high esteem in the music world as immediately recognizable names among musicians and public alike; 2) their energy and devotion to scholarship and the recovery of endangered musical heritages; and 3) their considerable skills, media savvy, and showmanship as communicators. Introductory essays to each chapter provide brief synopses of historical eras and topics. Combining careful scholarship and lively conversation, Performing Music History explores historical contexts for a host of fascinating issues.

The Gothic tradition continues to excite the popular imagination. John C. Tibbetts presents interviews and conversations with prominent novelists, filmmakers, artists, and film and television directors and actors as they trace the Gothic mode across three centuries, from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," through H.P. Lovecraft, to today's science fiction, goth, and steampunk culture. H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert ("Psycho") Bloch, Chris ("The Polar Express") Van Allsburg, Maurice Sendak, Gahan Wilson, Ray Harryhausen, Christopher Reeve, Greg Bear, William Shatner, and many more share their worlds of imagination and terror.

This first book-length critical examination of the life and work of Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) reveals a major English writer whose prodigious output included stories of history, romance, and the supernatural. As Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda writes in his Foreword, Bowen may be "the finest British woman writer of the uncanny of the last century," a view that echoes the high regard of cultural historian Edward Wagenknecht, who called her "a literary phenomenon," one whose best work places her alongside such contemporaries as Edith Wharton and Daphne du Maurier. Publicly acclaimed-known only by a series of pseudonyms (including "Marjorie Bowen")-but privately inscrutable, she was and is a mysterious and complex character. Drawing for the first time upon archival resources and the cooperation of the Bowen Estate, this book reveals a woman who saw herself as a rationalist and serious historian, but also as a mystic and "dark enchantress of dread." Above all, through a lifetime of domestic storms and creative ecstasy, Bowen worked tirelessly as both a professional writer and a consummate artist, always seeking, as she once confessed, "to find beauty in dark places.

This is a critical study of the great British man of letters, G.K. Chesterton, with chapters devoted to the novels, stories, and essays that explore the darker fringes of his wild imagination. "Everything is different in the dark," wrote Chesterton; "perhaps you don't know how terrible a truth that is." Chesterton's frequent use of the image and theme of "gargoyles" provides the thematic structure of the book. It covers the detective stories of Father Brown and others, the locked rooms and miracle crimes that appear in his writing, his status as a science fiction writer, and the riddles and paradoxes of three works-Job, The Man Who Was Thursday, and the play, The Surprise. This volume also includes an interlude about Chesterton and Jorge Luis Borges and a robust appendix including interviews about the formation of Ignatius Press's Collected Chesterton.