Federico Gualdi à Venise

Sample

edited and with an introduction by Desmond Hawkins

The publication of the diaries of successive generations of the Grove family is of considerable importance. Spanning more than a century, from 1809 to 1925, and described by one scholar as 'like a Jane Austen novel, but for real', they chart the rise of a Wiltshire/Dorset border family from county gentry to aristocratic Victorian grandees, before finally tracing the much steeper trajectory of the family's decline. The Grove family home was Ferne House, near Shaftesbury. And it is at Ferne in 1809 that the eighteen-year-old Harriet Grove began this remarkable series of diaries. But Harriet was no ordinary diarist, for her later attempts to scratch out references to 'my dear Bysshe' testify to her affair with her cousin, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom she was then deeply in love. In 1811 the diary of her older sister Charlotte takes up the narrative. Charlotte's entire life was spent within walking distance of Ferne. Gossip adds spice to a rural world that is as measured and unchanging as the parson's wife she became. The third diarist, her nephew Thomas, was cast in a very different mould. Captain of dragoons, baronet, member of parliament, master of Ferne, Thomas effortlessly absorbed the delusions of grandeur of the Victorian heyday. His diaries span the years 1855 to 1897, ultimately recording the collapse of British agriculture and a financial crisis that brought the family to the brink of ruin. The diaries of his daughter-in-law, Agnes, which run from 1882 to 1925, bear the imprint of the Whig aristocracy. Born a daughter of General Pitt-Rivers and cousin of Bertrand Russell, noted for her wit and beauty, Agnes Grove's passionately held beliefs in women's rights and her long friendship with Thomas Hardy give her diaries a resonance that brings her gloriously to life.

Sample

Dion Cassius

Brings to life for us the unrest and conspiracies, the struggle over the imperial succession, the prodigies and portents, the military campaigns all the way from Ethiopia to Yugoslavia. The author shows us the ruthless power-seeking as the 400-year-old republic finally collapsed and makes a great set-piece of the battle of Actium -- where Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra to become master of the world. He also inserts fictionalized speeches into his narrative, which offer his own profound political reflections or dramatize the many different attitudes to the emperor. The fascinating debate between the great general Agrippa and Maecenas (the patron of Horace and Virgil) on the merits of republicanism and monarchy confronts issues which are still very much alive today.

Sample

translated with an introd. by Ian Scott-Kilvert

Nine selections from the Greek historian's famous Lives, spotlighting key Roman figures from the earliest years of the Republic to the beginning of the Empire.

Sample

Kenneth S. Whitton

"The story of Goethe and Schubert unfolds in an era that saw German art song evolve from folk song. Author Kenneth Whitton explores Goethe's involvement with the music and musicians of his time, demonstrating that he had well-developed musical taste and sensibilities; for his part Schubert was surprisingly well read in the literature of his time and attuned to intellectual and cultural developments. The author details the efforts made by friends to acquaint Goethe with Schubert's Lieder, and Schubert with Goethe's poems and even - unsuccessfully - with Goethe himself."--BOOK JACKET. "Ultimately 80 Lieder and Lied fragments resulted from their collaboration. Professor Whitton discusses both text and music for each Schubert setting of a Goethe poem."--BOOK JACKET.