Literature Criticism

Hardcover. London, Peter Owen , 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 256 pages. An acclaimed and most unusual biography of Baudelaire, showing him ensnared by his passions for poetry, prostitutes, and drugs.A crucial link between romanticism and modernism, Charles Baudelaire is a pivotal figure in European literature and thought. His influence on modern poetry is immense. In the English language, where his literary reputation is less well known, it is his link with drug culture that gives him contemporary resonance. It is commonly known that Baudelaire used opium. Many writers have described him as being addicted to the drug, but none of his biographers, Frank Hilton argues, has fully understood the effect of opiate addiction on the personality and, in the case of Baudelaire, the extent to which it damaged his life and work. In this original contribution to Baudelaire studies Hilton contends that the drug is at the root of all Baudelaire's problems and in particular--something that constantly tormented him--his chronic inability to apply himself to any prolonged creative work. Unquestionably, there is significantly more to Baudelaire than his opium addiction. But a proper awareness of what it did to the poet helps to illuminate those puzzling aspects of his life and behavior that were not previously understood. Written with the general reader in mind, Baudelaire in Chains will give those who know little or nothing about him a comprehensive picture of his life. To those who know a great deal it will present him in an unexpected light.

Hardcover. Dallas TX, Spence Publishing Company, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with light fading to spine, 224 pages. One of the twentieth century's most widely read writers and its most influential Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis has nevertheless eluded the understanding of the numerous scholars who have approached him only as a religious thinker and man of letters. A new book by a leading Lewis authority explores the full range of his manifold genius and finds for the first time the surprising secret of Lewis's enduring literary and spiritual achievement. It will astonish Lewis's admirers and critics alike to learn that he was far from the settled convert he appeared to be. Yet this very unsettledness, which Lewis himself found alarming, was the source of the appealing tension in his work and of his unrelenting commitment to his apologetic vocation. It was in the service of this vocation that he exercised his overarching rhetorical genius-a dazzling adroitness at suiting word, voice, and argument to a particular purpose-always militant, compelling, and persuasive. As Professor Como explores Lewis's hitherto uncharted inner landscape-the core of both his spiritual insight and his intellectual greatness-there emerges a more complex and integrated figure than we have known before. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Austin TX, University of Texas Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 201 pages. A fascinating look at the theories behind fairy tales and fantasy. The works of J.R.R.Tolkien and his essay 'On Fairy Stories' is a major focus of the book as are German fairy tales or Marchen and Marx and Fairy tales. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Metheun, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 192 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Illustrated in color and b&w. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard , 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 244 pages. Notable collection of writings about children's books by such contributors as Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, Paula Fox, Arnold Lobel, etc. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Santa Rosa CA, Black Sparrow Press, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 67 pages. Printed paper over boards backed in brown cloth with matching paper spine label. Acetate dust jacket. Remainder mark to top edge.

Hardcover. Grand Rapids MI, Eerdmans Publishing , 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 199 pages. A brief account of Williams' life and examination of his early poems, the criticism, biographies and plays, the novels, the Arthurian poems and his theological writings. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly rubbed dust jacket, 290 pages. These brief essays appeared in a regular column that Rexroth did for The Saturday Review of Literature. The subjects include many of the standard classic texts from world literature, i.e., Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Gibbon, Whitman, Tolstoy, etc. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, 1st US, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket, 492 pages. Includes his renowned essays on Churchill, Hobsbawn, Max Eastman, De Gaulle, and Simone Weil. No markings.

Ann Arbor MI, University of Michigan Press, 2nd pr., 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 334 pages. Sunning to spine, else near fine in wrappers. Edited by Anne Wright. A volume in the "Poets on Poetry". Previous owner's signature on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 472 pages. The prose writings of Charles Olson (1910-1970) have had a far-reaching and continuing impact on post-World War II American poetics. Olson's theories, which made explicit the principles of his own poetics and those of the Black Mountain poets, were instrumental in defining the sense of the postmodern in poetry and form the basis of most postwar free verse. The Collected Prose brings together in one volume the works published for the most part between 1946 and 1969, many of which are now out of print. A valuable companion to editions of Olson's poetry, the book backgrounds the poetics, preoccupations, and fascinations that underpin his great poems. Included are Call Me Ishmael, a classic of American literary criticism; the influential essays "Projective Verse" and "Human Universe"; and essays, book reviews, and Olson's notes on his studies. In these pieces one can trace the development of his new science of man, called "muthologos," a radical mix of myth and phenomenology that Olson offered in opposition to the mechanistic discourse and rationalizing policy he associated with America's recent wars in Europe and Asia. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Chatto and Windus, 1st, 1960, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 260 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front flyleaf. Hardcover. Gilt title on spine. Covers bound in purple cloth. Boards have a touch of age wear at edges. Gutter split at title page, otherwise, binding tight. Clean inside. Edges and preliminary pages have some age-yellow and foxing. Still in great shape for its age.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in an unclipped dust jacket, 248 pages. Errata slip laid in. Name on blank prelim pages. Otherwise clea.

Hardcover. NY, Barnes & Noble Books, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 208 pages. Light edge wear, fading to dust jacket. Foxing to edges and end papers. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 238 pages. This collection of reviews and criticism, written from 1962 through 1967, is an example of literary journalism at its best. Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre, Muriel Spark, and Saul Bellow are among the literatti examined. Clean copy.

Softcover. University Press of Mississippi, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 320 pages. Here is a collection of interviews that cover the period from 1967 through 1993. Many are translations of interviews that originally appeared in French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, or Swedish periodicals. Several are published here for the first time in any language. Giving attention to Sontag's education and the development of her aesthetic and moral temperament, they cover Sontag's rich career as a distinguished writer, filmmaker, dramatist, and cultural critic. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in gilt, 166 pages. Virtues's place in Spanish drama is partly as one of the few to attempt tragedy, partly as one of the precursors of the national comedia, but above all as a pivotal figure in an important transitional period of Spain's political and cultural history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Minneapolis MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket that has a closed tear to the front panel. 523 pages with index. A collection of significant critical pieces about Kenneth Burke's work. 67 selections by 56 contributors arranged chronologically. Among the selections are reviews, essay-reviews, essays, excerpts from books, and some previously unpublished material. Collectively, they chart Burke's development and assess his achievements as a contemporary American man of letters. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Edinburgh, John Grant, Revised/Reprint, 1896, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 301 pages. Cloth boards. Previous owners bookplate on front inside cover. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. Athens GA, University of Georgia Press, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with mild edgewear, 253 pages. Considered depraved by some and magnificent by others, Lady Chatterley's Lover was a genetic controversy the world over, inspiring landmark judicial opinions. After 50 years it's literary reputation is not yet secure -- the scent of pornography still clings. In DH Lawrence's" Lady " outstanding critics, assessing the work from a different perspective, reveal vast importance to her literature and our culture. Edited by Michael Squires and Dennis Jackson, these essays offer vigorous and perceptive readings that see the novel as it could not have been viewed at the time when it first appeared.

Softcover. Chicago, Gateway Books, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 517 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Lewisburg ME, Bucknell University Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with fading to spine and spine edge, 144 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. America has had a love affair with the hard-boiled detective since the 1920s, when Prohibition called into question who really stood on the right and wrong side of the law. And nowhere did this hero shine more than in crime fiction. In Detectives in the Shadows, literary and cultural critic Susanna Lee tracks the evolution of this truly American character type from Race Williams to Philip Marlowe and from Mike Hammer to Jessica Jones. Lee explores how this character type morphs to fit an increasingly troubled world, offering compelling interpretations of The Wire, True Detective, and Jessica Jones. 216 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1st, 1903, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 2 Volumes. Blue cloth covers. Volume 1 - 358 pages. Previous owners bookplate on inside front cover. Area of foxing at top left corner of half title page. Light moisture wrinkle to front/back covers at upper right/left corners - this does not effect text block. Title in gilt on spine. Clean, tight copy. Volume 2 - 330 pages plus 32 pages of ads. Previous owners bookplate on front endpaper. Blue stain along gutter of half title, and title page. Title in gilt on spine. Clean, tight copy.