Letters to his family

Sample

Jenifer Glynn

"Living in Palestine as the wife of the British Attorney-General, Helen Bentwich was immersed in the politics and society of the early years of the British Mandate. Despite her connections she remained in some ways an outsider - a critical observer, writing candid weekly letters to her mother that give insight into the cauldron of races and traditions, the intolerance and the idealism, that lie behind the history of 20th-century Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. The selection of her letters in this book mixes political comment with details of personal life and gossip. The gossip reveals a society that has gone, but the political and religious problems are familiar today. Her family were well aware of the situation in Palestine, and she wanted to amuse rather than alarm them, but the frustrations and worries break through the letters' superficial cheerfulness to provide a picture of the period."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Sample

Elizabeth Wilson

Shostakovich: A Life Remembered is a unique study of the great composer Dimitri Shostakovich drawn from the reminiscences and reflections of his contemporaries. Using much material never previously published in English, as well as personal accounts from interviews and specially commissioned articles, Elizabeth Wilson has built up a fascinating chronicle of Shostakovich's life. Elizabeth Wilson sheds light on the composer's creative process and his working life in music, and examines the enormous and enduring influence that Shostakovich has had on Soviet musical life. Essential reading for anyone interested in the composer, the book also offers a fascinating perspective on the social and political history of Soviet Russia.

Sample

Honor McCusker

Based on a group of letters, mostly written to John Sullivan Dwight, covering the period from the 1840s to the 1890s, see page 5.

Sample

edited and annotated by Mary A. Hill

Historian Mary A. Hill, who earlier chronicled the life and work of feminist theorist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, turns to the private side of Gilman in this annotated collection of love letters the activist wrote to her second husband, Houghton Gilman, from 1897 to their marriage in 1900. She wrote these twenty- to thirty-page letters on an almost daily basis, revealing a private and passionate side very different from the public career that had won her justifiable national and international acclaim. Although Gilman's published writings have understandably received considerable scholarly attention, her private letters have not yet received the attention they deserve. Hill puts the letters into biographical and historical context in an introductory essay that also explains their theoretical and historical importance. The edited and annotated letters then follow in chapters, each preceded by an introductory essay. The book concludes with a biographical sketch of the remaining thirty-five years of Gilman's life, together with an assessment of the letters' historical and biographical significance.