These short fiction and prose pieces display the variety of Twain's imaginative invention, his diverse talents, and his extraordinary emotional range. Twain was a master of virtually every prose genre; in fables and stories, speeches and essays, he skilfully adapted, extended or satirized literary conventions, guided only by his unruly imagination. From the comic wit that sparkles in maxims from 'Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, ' to the parodic perfection of 'An Awful - Terrible Medieval Romance, ' to the satirical delights of The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It; from the warm nostalgia of...
These short fiction and prose pieces display the variety of Twain's imaginative invention, his diverse talents, and his extraordinary emotional range....
Questing after Pancho Villa's revolutionary forces, Ambrose Bierce rode into Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. He left behind him theDevil's Dictionary and a remarkable body of short fiction.
This new collection gathers some of Bierce's finest stories, including the celebrated Civil War fictions 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' and 'Chickamauga', his macabre masterpieces, and his tales of supernatural horror. Reminiscent of Poe, these stories are marked by a sardonic humour and a realistic study of tense emotional states. For more than seventy...
Questing after Pancho Villa's revolutionary forces, Ambrose Bierce rode into Mexico in 1913 and was never seen again. He left behind him theDevi...
Herman Melville's masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history Over a century and a half after its publication, Moby-Dick still stands as an indisputable literary classic. It is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable and enduring characters in...
Herman Melville's masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history Over a century and a half after its publication...
Satirist, novelist, and keen observer of the American scene, Mark Twain remains one of the world's best-loved writers. This delightful collection of Twain's favorite and most memorable writings includes selected tales and sketches such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, How I Edited an Agricultural Journal Once, Jim Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn, and A True Story. It also features excerpts from his novels and travel books (including Roughing It, The Innocents Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi, among others; autobiographical and polemical writings; as...
Satirist, novelist, and keen observer of the American scene, Mark Twain remains one of the world's best-loved writers. This delightful collection of T...
Engineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design the Moorlock Bridge in Canada, the most important project of his career. With the onset of middle age, however, he grows increasingly restless and discontented, so much so that while in London he recklessly reignites a love affair with the sweetheart of his youth, the Irish actress Hilda Borgoyne. Although the tryst allows Alexander to recapture an element that has been missing from his pedestrian life, the relationship torments his sense of...
Engineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design th...
This collection of essays describes the genesis of ten classic works of American literature. Using biographical, cultural, and manuscript evidence, the contributors tell the "stories of stories," plotting the often curious and always interesting ways in which notable American books took shape in a writer's mind.
The genetic approach taken in these essays derives from a curiosity, and sometimes a feeling of awe, about how a work of literature came to exist -- what motivated its creation, informed its vision, urged its completion. It is just that sort of wonder that first brings some...
This collection of essays describes the genesis of ten classic works of American literature. Using biographical, cultural, and manuscript evidence, th...
Bergsonian "vitalism" challenged the dominance of Spencerian determinism in the early twentieth century and seemed to offer a new foundation for belief in human freedom and individual possibility. Quirk traces the impact of Bergsonism upon the American sensibility and shows how individual writers -- particularly two such different artists as Willa Cather and Wallace Stevens -- appropriated vitalistic notions and made them serve the peculiar requirements of their own unique creative imaginations.
Originally published in 1990.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring...
Bergsonian "vitalism" challenged the dominance of Spencerian determinism in the early twentieth century and seemed to offer a new foundation for belie...
