Tolkien

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Perry C. Bramlett

"John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a brilliant writer who continues to leave his imaginative imprint on the mind and hearts of readers. He was once called the "creative equivalent of a people," and for more than sixty years his Middle-earth tales have captivated and delighted readers of all ages from all over the world. The Hobbit has long been recognized as a children's fantasy classic, and the heroic romance the Lord of the Rings has been called the most influential story of all time. These stories have sold over 150 million copies worldwide and have been translated into over forty languages, and they, along with works such as the Silmarillion and the History of Middle-Earth, have convinced scores of readers and critics that Tolkien is the master writer of fantasy. Whether you've been a fan for years or you've just recently been hooked by the blockbuster Lord of the Rings movies, "I Am in Fact a Hobbit" is an excellent starting point into the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Book jacket."--Jacket.

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[by] Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976, having become the best-selling novelist in history. Her autobiography, published in 1977 a year after her death, tells of her fascinating private life, from early childhood through two marriages and two World Wars, and her experiences both as a writer and on archaeological expeditions with her second husband, Max Mallowan. Not only does the book reveal the true genius of her legendary success, but the story is vividly told and as captivating as one of her novels. - Publisher.

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Gary Waller

William Herbert (1580-1630), third earl of Pembroke, and Lady Mary Wroth (1587?-1653?) were first cousins, the nephew and niece of Sir Philip Sidney, whose family was one of remarkable literary and political importance. Herbert was a poet, a voluminous letter writer, and one of the Jacobean court's richest and most powerful courtiers and politicians. Wroth was arguably the most important woman writer of the period; she authored the first Petrarchan poetic sequence, the first prose romance, and one of the first plays in English by a woman. In addition to their connections as cousins and as writers, they were lovers and the parents of two illegitimate children. The Sidney Family Romance is both a "cultural biography" and a symptomatic reading of the sexual and textual relationships of Herbert and Wroth.^ Waller's analysis of their letters and literary works relies on a variety of critical apparatuses - social history, current political and social theories of the Jacobean period, and most notably (feminist) psychoanalytic theory. In both his biographical information and interpretive comments, Waller focuses on subject construction and gender construction of the early modern period, to find that Herbert's poems proceed from his life at court to engage in the gender politics of Petrarchan poetry, while Wroth's work proceeds from her disempowered position to project a desire for an autonomy which would lead to mutuality between the sexes. Waller tries to find ways of analyzing the "inner lives" of his subjects, in the absence of direct evidence, and with a paucity of documentation.^ He examines historical documents, including the writings of the two cousins, and recent historical research, along with contemporary studies of family interactions and gender construction and detailed case histories drawn from nearly a century of clinical and therapeutic studies. The author concludes with a discussion of the crisis of gender in the seventeenth century as a contemporary crisis as well. Family history has long been central to Renaissance studies. The Sidney Family Romance proceeds far beyond any previous works in bringing to bear the very rich and complicated network of ideas, observations, and literary images in the works of Herbert and Wroth.

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David Hannay

Biography of the author of some of the first novels written about the sea war against Napoleon, and some of the few written by a man actually present.