|
Showing 1 - 7 of
7 matches in All Departments
The Complete Short Stories is the most comprehensive collection of
O’Brian’s short fiction ever published. An essential volume,
certain to enchant O’Brian admirers as well as readers who are
fortunate enough to be journeying with him for the very first time.
Patrick O’Brian is acclaimed as one of the greatest historical
novelists of the twentieth century, celebrated throughout the world
for his masterful roman fleuve, the Aubrey‒Maturin series. But he
was also a prolific writer of short stories, and it is in this form
that he first made his mark. Encompassing stories written in his
unvarnished youth to tales told by a seasoned traveller, this is
the most comprehensive collection of O’Brian’s short fiction
ever published. It is a treasure chest, overflowing with riches,
containing more than sixty tales, including rarities, uncollected
works, and forgotten jewels that have been out of print for
decades. These are stories of friendship, travel, adventure and the
wonders of the natural world. Some are enchantingly funny, others
exciting, terrifying, passionate. All of them prove Patrick
O’Brian to be a true master of the form.
The first ever collection of poems by the acclaimed author of the
Aubrey/Maturin series of Napoleonic naval adventures. As we have
stood with Jack and Stephen on the deck of the Surprise and other
ships, readers around the world have been transported to a place
and time at once familiar and exotic, routine and dramatic. At all
times, Patrick O’Brian’s deep knowledge of the period and
profound empathy with the landscape of the sea has ensured there is
always a firm hand on the tiller. The writer’s command of
language is combined with the poet’s eye for visual detail to
remarkable, and unforgettable effect. In The Uncertain Land and
Other Poems, those same strengths are vividly displayed as
O’Brian leads us on a journey through his own life. Here, we see
a writer full of a young man’s spirit, challenging life, and here
an author reflecting an old man’s melancholy at youth gone; in
between, as he describes the places that he lived and people that
he encountered, are poems of sly observation, wry humour and
delicate beauty. Through more than 100 poems, O’Brian reveals
insights into the world that captivated him while he was at work on
a succession of novels that would reach its apotheosis in the
Aubrey/Maturin adventures, which would secure his reputation as
‘the Homer of the Napoleonic Wars’. Intensely personal,
allusive and unique, this is the work of a lifetime, published now
for the very first time.
An intimate portrait of Patrick O’Brian, written by his stepson
Nikolai Tolstoy. Patrick O’Brian was one of the greatest British
novelists of the twentieth century, securing his place in literary
history with the bestselling Aubrey–Maturin series, books that
have sold millions of copies worldwide and been hailed as the best
historical fiction of all time. An exquisite novelist, translator
and biographer, O’Brian moved in 1949 to Collioure in the south
of France, where he led a secluded life with his wife Mary and
wrote all his major works. The twenty books that make up the
beloved Aubrey–Maturin series earned O’Brian the epithet
‘Jane Austen at sea’ for their authentic depiction of
Nelson’s navy, and the relationship between Captain Jack Aubrey
and his friend and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin. Outside his
triumphant popularity in fiction, O’Brian also wrote erudite
biographies of both Pablo Picasso and Joseph Banks, as well as
publishing translations of Simone de Beauvoir and Henri Charrière.
In A Very Private Life, Nikolai Tolstoy draws upon his close
relationship with his stepfather, as well as his notebooks, letters
and photographs, to capture a highly researched but intimate
account of those fifty years in Collioure that were the richest of
O’Brian’s writing life. With warm and honest reflection, this
biography gives insight into the genius of the little-known man
behind the much-loved writing. Tolstoy also tells how, through a
sad irony, unjust attacks on O’Brian’s private life destroyed
much of the happiness he had gained from his achievement just as
his literary career attained greater acclaim.
In May 1945, as World War II drew to a close in Europe, some 30,000
Russian Cossacks surrendered to British forces in Austria,
believing they would be spared repatriation to the Soviet Union.
The fate of those among them who were Soviet citizens had been
sealed by the Yalta Agreement, signed by the Allied leaders a few
months earlier. Ever since, mystery has surrounded Britain's
decision to include among those returned to Stalin a substantial
number of White Russians, who had fled their country after the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and found refuge in various European
countries. They had never been Soviet citizens, and should not have
been handed over. Some were prominent tsarist generals, on whose
handover the Soviets were particularly insistent. General Charles
Keightley, the responsible British officer, concealed the presence
of White Russians from his superiors, who had issued repeated
orders stipulating that only Soviet nationals should be handed
over, and even then only if they did not resist. Through a
succession underhanded moves, Keightley secretly delivered up the
leading Cossack commanders to the Soviets, while force of
unparalleled brutality was employed to hand over thousands of
Cossack men, women, and children to a ghastly fate. Particularly
sinister was the role of the future British Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan, whose own machinations are scrutinized here. Following
the publication of Count Nikolai Tolstoy's last book on the subject
in 1986, the British government closed ranks, and three years later
an English court issued a GBP1,500,000 judgment against him for
allegedly libeling the British chief of staff who issued the fatal
orders. Since then, however, Count Tolstoy has gradually acquired a
devastating body of heretofore unrevealed evidence filling the
remaining gaps in this tragic history. Much of this material
derives from long-sealed Soviet archives, to which Tolstoy received
access by a special decree from the late Russian President Boris
Yeltsin. What really happened during these murky events is now
revealed for the first time.
|
Arthurian Literature XXV (Hardcover)
Elizabeth Archibald, David F. Johnson; Contributions by Carolyne Larrington, Martine Meuwese, Michael W Twomey, …
|
R1,798
R530
Discovery Miles 5 300
Save R1,268 (71%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
The most recent research in matters Arthurian, by leading scholars
in the field. The essays in this volume represent a wide range of
Arthurian subjects, reaching as far back as the sixth century, and
as far forward as the nineteenth; they include studies of Arthur as
an icon of an independent England in the reign of Henry VIII, the
source of Geoffrey of Monmouth's knowledge of Merlin, Malory's
Morte Darthur, and the works of Chretien - both in literature and
in depictions of scenes from his romances in ivory caskets from the
Middle Ages and beyond. Of special interest is the appearance for
the first time in print of a newly discovered Arthurian text: a
letter in Anglo-Norman French purportedly written by Morgan le Fay.
Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English, University of Durham;
DAVID F. JOHNSON is Professor of English, Florida State University.
CONTRIBUTORS: CAROLYNE LARRINGTON, MARTINE MEUWESE, STEWART
MOTTRAM, RALUCA RADULESCU, NICOLAI TOLSTOY, MICHAEL TWOMEY
|
You may like...
Tenet
John David Washington, Robert Pattinson
Blu-ray disc
(1)
R54
R45
Discovery Miles 450
|