The Newberry Seminars Program is grounded in the idea that people enjoy learning in small classes through an open exchange of knowledge and conversation. Our program offers a stimulating series of non-credit, adult education classes that encourage dialogue on subjects in the humanities that relate to the Newberry’s vast collections. Experts teach literature, music, history, philosophy, religion, language, genealogy, and creative writing in the classrooms of one of the world’s premier research and reference libraries.
Seminars differ in size, duration, cost, and format. The Seminars Program includes three terms:
- Winter/Spring: mid-February through early May
- Summer: June through early August
- Fall: mid-September through early December
For a list of this term’s course offerings, please view our Seminar Schedule
Newberry Seminars
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "In this highly opinionated and highly readable history, Kurlansky makes a case for why 1968 has lasting relevance in the United States and around the world."--Dan Rather
To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.
In this monumental book, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television's influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, 1968 shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people--and led us to where we are today.
"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959. Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun." "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic." This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.
The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit.
More than thirty-five years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremonyis a work of enduring power. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Forging an interfaith dialog between traditions that typically stand at odds, this groundbreaking book explores the scriptural and spiritual tenets of Islam and Buddhism in relation to one another, creating a basis for comparison and analysis of the two traditions. Written by eminent scholars, this discussion juxtaposes foundational principles and practices by linking underlining principles and fostering a mutual appreciation between followers of both religions. This interfaith volume discusses metaphysical traditions and philosophical studies born of Islam and Buddhism, places them in context with each other, thus encouraging understanding, and providing a point of reference for continued learning and cooperation.
The avant-garde movements of Dada and Surrealism continue to have a huge influence on cultural practice, especially in contemporary art, with its obsession with sexuality, fetishism, and shock tactics. In this new treatment of the subject, Hopkins focuses on the many debates surrounding these movements: the Marquis de Sade's Surrealist deification, issues of quality (How good is Dali?), the idea of the 'readymade', attitudes towards the city, the impact of Freud, attitudes to women, fetishism, and primitivism. The international nature of these movements is examined, covering the cities of Zurich, New York, Berlin, Cologne, Barcelona, Paris, London, and recently discovered examples in Eastern Europe.
Hopkins explores the huge range of media employed by both Dada and Surrealism (collage, painting, found objects, performance art, photography, film), whilst at the same time establishing the aesthetic differences between the movements. He also examines the Dadaist obsession with the body-as-mechanism in relation to the Surrealists' return to the fetishized/eroticized body.
Hopkins explores the huge range of media employed by both Dada and Surrealism (collage, painting, found objects, performance art, photography, film), whilst at the same time establishing the aesthetic differences between the movements. He also examines the Dadaist obsession with the body-as-mechanism in relation to the Surrealists' return to the fetishized/eroticized body.
Europe's most westerly capital city was established by invaders and was for most of its history the locus of colonial administration, the engine room of foreign power, and a major site of indigenous resistance. From The Act of Union through nineteenth-century decline and into the early years of Irish independence it was a city identified with poverty, dirt, and decaying splendor. The Celtic Tiger produced sweeping changes, including massive new building projects, and the surprising revelation that Dublin has become fashionable. Siobhan Kilfeather finds the legacy of the past undergoing a series of transformations in the vibrant atmosphere of contemporary Dublin.
"Dubliners" was completed in 1905, but a series of British and Irish publishers and printers found it offensive and immoral, and it was suppressed. The book finally came out in London in 1914, just as Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" began to appear in the journal "Egoist" under the auspices of Ezra Pound. The first three stories in "Dubliners" might be incidents from a draft of "Portrait of the Artist," and many of the characters who figure in "Ulysses" have their first appearance here, but this is not a book of interest only because of its relationship to Joyce's life and mature work. It is one of the greatest story collections in the English language--an unflinching, brilliant, often tragic portrait of early twentieth-century Dublin. The book, which begins and ends with a death, moves from "stories of my childhood" through tales of public life. Its larger purpose, Joyce said, was as a moral history of Ireland.
"Backgrounds" collects a wealth of source material, much of it new to the Fourth Edition. New material includes Austen's correspondence with her publisher about the business of writing, revealing Austen's view of her own writing and career. In addition, there are two sets of verses--"Kitty, A Fair But Frozen Maid" and "Robin Adair"--referenced in Emma as well as responses (1815-1950) to Austen and her writing from, among others, Charlotte Brontë, Juliet Pollock, Virginia Woolf, D. W. Harding, and Edmund Wilson.
"Reviews and Criticism" includes twelve major interpretations of the novel, nine of them new to the Fourth Edition. New contributors include Jan Fergus, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Tony Tanner, Maaja Stewart, D. A. Miller, Emily Auerbach, Gabrielle D. V. White, Richard Jenkyns, and David Monaghan.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
"Reviews and Criticism" includes twelve major interpretations of the novel, nine of them new to the Fourth Edition. New contributors include Jan Fergus, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Tony Tanner, Maaja Stewart, D. A. Miller, Emily Auerbach, Gabrielle D. V. White, Richard Jenkyns, and David Monaghan.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
Chicago is a bona fide theater town, bursting with an explosive, innovative vitality that's fed every sector of the entertainment industry--from Hollywood to Broadway to Studio 8H--for as long as it's delighted adoring local fans. Ensemble is an in-depth, first-of-its-kind history of Chicago's internationally celebrated theater scene, spanning 65 years and told through first-person accounts from the people who made it happen.
Among many other topics, this book explores the early days of the fabled Compass Players and the legendary Second City in the '50s and '60s; the rise of internationally acclaimed ensembles like Steppenwolf in the '70s; the explosion of storefront and neighborhood companies that began in earnest in the '80s; and the enduring global influence of the city as the center of improv training and performance.
Drawing from more than 300 interviews, author Mark Larson has woven a narrative that expresses the spirit of Chicago's ensemble ethos: the voices of celebrities such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Asner, George Wendt, Michael Shannon, and Tracy Letts comingle with stories from designers, composers, and others who have played a crucial role in making Chicago theater so powerful, influential, and unique.
Translated from the Russian by Robert & Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson
With notes and an afterword by Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson In Andrey Platonov's The Foundation Pit, a team of workers has been given the job of digging the foundation of an immense edifice, a palatial home for the perfect future that, they are convinced, is at hand. But the harder the team works, the deeper they dig, the more things go wrong, and it becomes clear that what is being dug is not a foundation but an immense grave. The Foundation Pit is Platonov's most overtly political book, written in direct response to the staggering brutalities of Stalin's collectivization of Russian agriculture. It is also a literary masterpiece. Seeking to evoke unspeakable realities, Platonov deforms and transforms language in pages that echo both with the alienating doublespeak of power and the stark simplicity of prayer. This English translation is the first and only one to be based on the definitive edition published by Pushkin House in Moscow. It includes extensive notes and, in an appendix, several striking passages deleted by Platonov. Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson's afterword discusses the historical context and style of Platonov's most haunted and troubling work.
With notes and an afterword by Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson In Andrey Platonov's The Foundation Pit, a team of workers has been given the job of digging the foundation of an immense edifice, a palatial home for the perfect future that, they are convinced, is at hand. But the harder the team works, the deeper they dig, the more things go wrong, and it becomes clear that what is being dug is not a foundation but an immense grave. The Foundation Pit is Platonov's most overtly political book, written in direct response to the staggering brutalities of Stalin's collectivization of Russian agriculture. It is also a literary masterpiece. Seeking to evoke unspeakable realities, Platonov deforms and transforms language in pages that echo both with the alienating doublespeak of power and the stark simplicity of prayer. This English translation is the first and only one to be based on the definitive edition published by Pushkin House in Moscow. It includes extensive notes and, in an appendix, several striking passages deleted by Platonov. Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson's afterword discusses the historical context and style of Platonov's most haunted and troubling work.
![House Made of Dawn [50th Anniversary Ed] ( P.S. )](https://bookshop.newberry.org/sites/bookshop.newberry.org/files/imagecache/product_list/isbn_images/9780062909954.jpg)
A special 50th anniversary edition of the magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning classic from N. Scott Momaday, with a new preface by the author
A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his grandfather's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world--modern, industrial America--pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, claiming his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust.
Beautifully rendered and deeply affecting, House Made of Dawn has moved and inspired readers and writers for the last fifty years. It remains, in the words of The Paris Review, "both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature."
"Invisible Man" is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for 16 weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood, " and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
Using historical documents and translated by Régine Pernoud, Joan of Arc seeks to answer the questions asked by Joan's contemporaries as well as us: Who was she? Whence came she? What had been her life and exploits? First published in the United States in 1966 by Stein and Day, this book reveals the historical Joan, described in contemporary documents by her allies as well as her enemies.
THE STORY: Most persons are familiar with the story of Joan of Arc, so it is necessary only to say that this is a play within a play, the outer play (as it were) showing a group of actors in rehearsal on a bare stage, preparing to produce a Joan of Arc play. The story of Joan’s visions and pilgrimage to court, her restoring faith to the French and the victory she wins, are beautifully dramatized. But Anderson has woven into the Joan story a parallel action, which takes place outside the Joan play proper, in which he shows the meaning of faith today and the necessity of believing in something. The actress who plays Joan claims that the role should show her never compromising her ideals, and she is ready to leave the cast because she thinks the part and the direction of herself shows Joan doing just that. But she learns, from her director and fellow players, that life is a series of compromises, and that she herself, as an actress, like the historical Joan, can and should give in on small things in order to achieve the greatest good in a larger sense. In acting her part through to the end, she learns the lesson that Joan taught the world, of great faith and idealism, tempered by reality and the acceptance of the necessary limitations which are in all of us.
A targeted and insightful guide to the stages of writing fiction and memoir without falling into common traps, while wisely navigating the writing life, from an award-winning author and longtime teacher "A book-length master class." --The Atlantic Writing well does not result from following rules and instructions, but from a blend of spontaneity, judgment, and a wise attitude toward the work--neither despairing nor defensive, but clear-eyed, courageous, and discerning. Writers must learn to tolerate the early stages, the dreamlike and irrational states of mind, and then to move from jottings and ideas to a messy first draft, and onward into the work of revision. Understanding these stages is key. The Kite and the String urges writers to let playfulness and spontaneity breathe life into the work--letting the kite move with the winds of feeling--while still holding on to the string that will keep it from flying away. Alice Mattison attends also to the difficulties of protecting writing time, preserving solitude, finding trusted readers, and setting the right goals for publication. The only writing guide that takes up both the stages of creative work and developing effective attitudes while progressing through them, plus strategies for learning more about the craft, The Kite and the String responds to a pressing need for writing guidance at all levels.
We live in an electronic world, saturated with electronic sounds. Yet, electronic sounds aren't a new phenomenon; they have long permeated our sonic landscape. What began as the otherworldly sounds of the film score for the 1956 film Forbidden Planet and the rarefied, new timbres of Stockhausen's Kontakte a few years later, is now a common soundscape in technology, media, and an array of musical genres and subgenres. More people than ever before can produce and listen to electronic music, from isolated experimenters, classical and jazz musicians, to rock musicians, sound recordists, and the newer generations of electronic musicians making hip-hop, house, techno, and ambient music. Increasingly we are listening to electronic sounds, finding new meanings in them, experimenting with them, and rehearing them as listeners and makers.
Live Wires explores how five key electronic technologies--the tape recorder, circuit, computer, microphone, and turntable--revolutionized musical thought. Featuring the work of major figures in electronic music--including everyone from Schaeffer, Varèse, Xenakis, Babbitt, and Oliveros to Eno, Keith Emerson, Grandmaster Flash, Juan Atkins, and Holly Herndon--Live Wires is an arresting discussion of the powerful musical ideas that are being recycled, rethought, and remixed by the most interesting electronic composers and musicians today.
NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING VIOLA DAVIS AND CHADWICK BOSEMAN From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and The Piano Lesson comes the extraordinary Ma Rainey's Black Bottom--winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. The time is 1927. The place is a run-down recording studio in Chicago. Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer, is due to arrive with her entourage to cut new sides of old favorites. Waiting for her are her Black musician sidemen, the white owner of the record company, and her white manager. What goes down in the session to come is more than music. It is a riveting portrayal of black rage, of racism, of the self-hate that racism breeds, and of racial exploitation.
As his writing reflects, Melville was extraordinarily well read. "Contexts" collects important sources for each novel, including writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amasa Delano, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"Criticism" includes twenty-eight essays about the novels sure to promote classroom discussion. Contributors include Leo Marx, Elizabeth Hardwick, Frederick Busch, Robert Lowell, Herschel Parker, Carolyn L. Karcher, Thomas Mann, and Hannah Arendt.
A Selected Bibliography is included.
"Criticism" includes twenty-eight essays about the novels sure to promote classroom discussion. Contributors include Leo Marx, Elizabeth Hardwick, Frederick Busch, Robert Lowell, Herschel Parker, Carolyn L. Karcher, Thomas Mann, and Hannah Arendt.
A Selected Bibliography is included.
"This slim book--seven essays, punctuated by enigmatic, haunting paintings by Ana Teresa Fernandez--hums with power and wit."--Boston Globe
"The antidote to mansplaining."--The Stranger
"Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions."--Salon
"Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society."--San Francisco Chronicle Top Shelf
"Solnit [is] the perfect writer to tackle the subject: her prose style is so clear and cool."--The New Republic
"The terrain has always felt familiar, but Men Explain Things To Me is a tool that we all need in order to find something that was almost lost."--National Post
In her comic, scathing essay, "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.
This updated edition with two new essays of this national bestseller book features that now-classic essay as well as "#YesAllWomen," an essay written in response to 2014 Isla Vista killings and the grassroots movement that arose with it to end violence against women and misogyny, and the essay "Cassandra Syndrome." This book is also available in hardcover.
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including the books Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark, both also with Haymarket; a trilogy of atlases of American cities; The Faraway Nearby; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper's and a regular contributor to the Guardian.
In her comic, scathing essay, "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.
This updated edition with two new essays of this national bestseller book features that now-classic essay as well as "#YesAllWomen," an essay written in response to 2014 Isla Vista killings and the grassroots movement that arose with it to end violence against women and misogyny, and the essay "Cassandra Syndrome." This book is also available in hardcover.
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of eighteen or so books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including the books Men Explain Things to Me and Hope in the Dark, both also with Haymarket; a trilogy of atlases of American cities; The Faraway Nearby; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at Harper's and a regular contributor to the Guardian.
'Was her life to be always like this? - always bringing some new source of inward strife?' When the miller Mr Tulliver becomes entangled in lawsuits, he sets off a chain of events that will profoundly affect the lives of his family and bring into conflict his passionate daughter Maggie with her inflexible but adored brother Tom. As she grows older, Maggie's discovery of romantic love draws her once more into a struggle to reconcile familial and moral claims with her own desires. Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie seeks personal happiness and inner peace but risks rejection and ostracism in her close-knit community. Opening with one of the most powerful fictional evocations of childhood, The Mill on the Floss (1860) vividly portrays both the 'oppressive narrowness' and the appeal of provincial England, the comedy as well as the tragedy of obscure lives. George Eliot's most autobiographical novel was also her most controversial, and has been the subject of animated debate ever since. This edition combines the definitive Clarendon text with a lively new introduction and notes. ABOUT THE SERIES:
For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
- A new edition of one of Eliot's best-loved novels whose central figure, Maggie Tulliver, is one of English literature's great female characters
- A compelling story of a young girl's growth to adulthood, and the conflicts that arise from her growing independence
- New introduction emphasizes Eliot's significance as a writer of fiction, and the literary qualities that have sometimes been overshadowed by her interest in philosophical ideas. It examines the importance of reading in the novel, its preoccupation with gender, and complex relationship with feminism
- Full notes identify allusions and the significance in particular of literary references, and also pay attention to significant textual changes between manuscript and successive editions
- Use the definitive Clarendon text of the novel
- Up-to-date Bibliography
New to this Edition:
- Introduction by Juliette Atkinson, informed by the latest critical and scholarly thinking on the novel
- New and expanded Notes
- Up-to-date Select Bibliography
- Re-set text retains the defnitive Clarendon text and improves print appearance
As selected by the author, Opened Ground includes the essential work from Heaney's twelve previous books of poetry, as well as new sequences drawn from two of his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray, and several previously uncollected poems. Heaney's voice is like no other--by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive (Helen Vendler, The New Yorker)--and this is a one-volume testament to the musicality and precision of that voice. The book closes with Heaney's Nobel Lecture: Crediting Poetry.
An accessible, contemporary guide to the art of dramatic writing
During the ten years that Stuart Spencer has taught playwriting, he has struggled to find an effective playwriting handbook for his courses. Although most of the currently popular handbooks have good ideas in them, they all suffer from the same problems: they're poorly organized; are composed mostly of quirky, idiosyncratic advice on how specific playwrights have gone about writing their own work; and are full of abstract theorizing on the nature of art. As a result, they fail to offer any concrete information on how to construct a well-written play or any useful guidelines and exercises. Moreover, few of these books are actually written by working playwrights. Out of frustration, Spencer wrote his own book. The result, The Playwright's Guidebook, is a clear, concise, and engaging handbook. Spencer addresses the important principles of structure, includes insightful writing exercises that build upon one another, explores the creative process, and troubleshoots recurrent problems that playwrights actually face.
Proof is the winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
One of the most acclaimed plays of the 1999-2000 season, Proof is a work that explores the unknowability of love as much as it does the mysteries of science.
One of the most acclaimed plays of the 1999-2000 season, Proof is a work that explores the unknowability of love as much as it does the mysteries of science.
It focuses on Catherine, a young woman who has spent years caring for her father, Robert, a brilliant mathematician in his youth who was later unable to function without her help. His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribblings. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance -- and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.
Ron Carlson has been praised as a master of the short story (Booklist). In this essay collection, Ron Carlson Writes a Story, he offers a full range of notes and gives rare insight into a veteran writer's process by inviting the reader to watch over his shoulder as he creates the short story The Governor's Ball.
This is a story of a story he begins, and proceeds to offer practical advice for creating a great story, from the first glimmer of an idea to the final sentence. Carlson urges the writer to refuse the outside distractions--a second cup of coffee, a troll through the dictionary--and attend to the necessity of uncertainty, the pleasures of an unfolding story. The Governor's Ball--included in its entirety--serves as a fascinating illustration of the detailed anatomy of a short story.Ron Carlson has been praised as "a master of the short story" (Booklist). In this essay collection, Ron Carlson Writes a Story, he offers a full range of notes and gives rare insight into a veteran writer's process by inviting the reader to watch over his shoulder as he creates the short story "The Governor's Ball."
"This is a story of a story" he begins, and proceeds to offer practical advice for creating a great story, from the first glimmer of an idea to the final sentence. Carlson urges the writer to refuse the outside distractions―a second cup of coffee, a troll through the dictionary―and attend to the necessity of uncertainty, the pleasures of an unfolding story.
"The Governor's Ball"―included in its entirety―serves as a fascinating illustration of the detailed anatomy of a short story.
In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into 'Joan Dark', a member of the 'Black Straw Hats' (a Salvation Army-like group) in twentieth century Chicago. The play charts Joan's battle with Pierpont Mauler, the unctuous owner of a meat-packing plant. Like her predecessor, Joan is a doomed woman, a martyr and (initially, at least) an innocent in a world of strike-breakers, fat cats, and penniless workers. Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs as part of its epic dramaturgical structure.
The play, which was never staged in Brecht's lifetime, is published here with a new translation, a full introduction and Brecht's own notes on the text.In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into 'Joan Dark', a member of the 'Black Straw Hats' (a Salvation Army-like group) in twentieth century Chicago. The play charts Joan's battle with Pierpont Mauler, the unctuous owner of a meat-packing plant. Like her predecessor, Joan is a doomed woman, a martyr and (initially, at least) an innocent in a world of strike-breakers, fat cats, and penniless workers. Like many of Brecht's plays it is laced with humor and songs as part of its epic dramaturgical structure.
Hailed by T. S. Eliot as "a dramatic delight," George Bernard Shaw's only tragedy traces the life of the peasant girl who led French troops to victory over the English in the Hundred Years' War. An avid socialist, Shaw regarded his writing as a vehicle for promoting his political and humanitarian views and exposing hypocrisy. With Saint Joan, he reached the height of his fame, and it was this play that led to his Nobel Prize in Literature for 1925.
In the six centuries since her martyrdom, Joan of Arc has inspired artists, musicians, and writers. Shaw's heroine is unlike any previous interpretation -- not a witch, saint, or madwoman but a pre-feminist icon, possessed of innate intelligence and leadership qualities that challenge the authority of church and state. She is also a real human being, warm and sincere, whose flaws include an obstinacy that leads to her undoing. This edition includes a substantial, informative Preface by the author.
In the six centuries since her martyrdom, Joan of Arc has inspired artists, musicians, and writers. Shaw's heroine is unlike any previous interpretation -- not a witch, saint, or madwoman but a pre-feminist icon, possessed of innate intelligence and leadership qualities that challenge the authority of church and state. She is also a real human being, warm and sincere, whose flaws include an obstinacy that leads to her undoing. This edition includes a substantial, informative Preface by the author.
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of Shaw's powerful historical drama about Joan of Arc, which led him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature--part of the official Bernard Shaw Library
A Penguin Classic With Saint Joan, which distills many of the ideas Shaw had been exploring in earlier works on politics, religion, feminism, and creative evolution, he reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove "the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition." He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, and brave--a rebel and a woman for Shaw's time and our own. This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw's Preface of 1924; the cast list of the first production of Saint Joan; a chronology; and the essay "On Playing Joan" by Imogen Stubbs.
A Penguin Classic With Saint Joan, which distills many of the ideas Shaw had been exploring in earlier works on politics, religion, feminism, and creative evolution, he reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove "the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition." He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, and brave--a rebel and a woman for Shaw's time and our own. This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume includes Shaw's Preface of 1924; the cast list of the first production of Saint Joan; a chronology; and the essay "On Playing Joan" by Imogen Stubbs.
A new edition of the later selected work of a Nobel Prize-winning poet
Often considered to be the greatest poet of our age (The Guardian), Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past. He saw poetry as a vocation and credited it with the power to persuade the vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values. Paul Muldoon wrote that Heaney was the only poet I can think of who was recognized worldwide as having moral as well as literary authority.
Shortly before his death in 2013, Seamus Heaney began to compile Selected Poems 1988-2013, and although he was unable to complete the project, his choices have been followed here. This volume encapsulates the finest work from Seeing Things (1991) with its lines of loss and revelation; The Spirit Level (1996) where we experience the poem as ploughshare that turns time / Up and over.; the landmark translation of Beowulf (1999); Electric Light (2001), a book of origins and oracles; and his final collections, District and Circle (2006) and Human Chain (2010), which limn the interconnectedness of being, our lifelines to our inherited past.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes fifty-seven carefully chosen documents that illuminate Poe's prolific but short career, among them reviews, prefaces, and correspondence by Poe as well as thematic pieces dealing with Transcendentalism and alternative romanticism, sciences of the mind, sensation fiction, and the South and slavery.
Fourteen judiciously selected critical essays address Poe's poetry, fiction, politics, and psychology. Contributors include Floyd Stovall, Robert C. McLean, Richard Wilbur, James W. Gargano, Joseph J. Moldenhauer, Paul John Eakin, Grace Farrell, Liahna Klenman Babener, Barton Levi St. Armand, Joseph N. Riddel, J. Gerald Kennedy, John Carlos Rowe, Terence Whalen, and John T. Irwin.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Fourteen judiciously selected critical essays address Poe's poetry, fiction, politics, and psychology. Contributors include Floyd Stovall, Robert C. McLean, Richard Wilbur, James W. Gargano, Joseph J. Moldenhauer, Paul John Eakin, Grace Farrell, Liahna Klenman Babener, Barton Levi St. Armand, Joseph N. Riddel, J. Gerald Kennedy, John Carlos Rowe, Terence Whalen, and John T. Irwin.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Edgar Allan Poe’s works, with their gothic and often obsessive themes, have had a significant influence on American literature.
In this Norton Critical Edition, G. R. Thompson has fully introduced, annotated, and edited each text.
“Backgrounds and Contexts” includes fifty-seven carefully chosen documents that illuminate Poe’s prolific but short career, among them reviews, prefaces, and correspondence by Poe as well as thematic pieces dealing with Transcendentalism and alternative romanticism, sciences of the mind, sensation fiction, and the South and slavery.
Fourteen judiciously selected critical essays address Poe’s poetry, fiction, politics, and psychology. Contributors include Floyd Stovall, Robert C. McLean, Richard Wilbur, James W. Gargano, Joseph J. Moldenhauer, Paul John Eakin, Grace Farrell, Liahna Klenman Babener, Barton Levi St. Armand, Joseph N. Riddel, J. Gerald Kennedy, John Carlos Rowe, Terence Whalen, and John T. Irwin.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
The masterful collection from the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Wild Iris and Vita Nova
Louise Glück has long practiced poetry as a species of clairvoyance. She began as Cassandra, at a distance, in league with the immortal; to read her books sequentially is to chart the oracle's metamorphosis into unwilling vessel, reckless, mortal and crude. The Seven Ages is Glück's ninth book, her strangest and most bold. In it she stares down her own death, and, in doing do, forces endless superimpositions of the possible on the impossible--an act that simultaneously defies and embraces the inevitable, and is, finally, mimetic. over and over, at each wild leap or transformation, flames shoot up the reader's spine.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
The masterful collection from the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Wild Iris and Vita Nova
Louise Glück has long practiced poetry as a species of clairvoyance. She began as Cassandra, at a distance, in league with the immortal; to read her books sequentially is to chart the oracle’s metamorphosis into unwilling vessel, reckless, mortal and crude. The Seven Ages is Glück’s ninth book, her strangest and most bold. In it she stares down her own death, and, in doing do, forces endless superimpositions of the possible on the impossible—an act that simultaneously defies and embraces the inevitable, and is, finally, mimetic. over and over, at each wild leap or transformation, flames shoot up the reader’s spine.
"It is a meditation on Chicago's old soul . . . a witty, seductive, live-wire and greatly entertaining dark comedy that you just don't want to end." -Chicago Tribune "Superior Donuts is a soulful play, full of humor and humanity... drawn with deep affection. Letts is a writer whose words are alive with poignancy and wit." - David Rooney, Variety "A source of comic bliss." - Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times Superior Donuts takes place in the historic Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, where Arthur Przybyszewski runs the donut shop that has been in his family for sixty years. Franco Wicks, a young black man and Arthur's only employee, wants to modernize the shop, while Arthur is more content to spend the day smoking weed and reminiscing about his Polish immigrant father. This provocative comedy, set in the heart of one of Chicago's most diverse communities, explores the challenges of embracing the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Tracy Letts was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County, which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007 before playing Broadway, London's National Theatre, and a forty-week US tour. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalist Man from Nebraska; Killer Joe, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed film; and Bug, which has played in New York, Chicago, and London and was adapted into a film. Letts is an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and garnered a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Superior Donuts takes place in the historic Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, where Arthur Przybyszewski runs the donut shop that has been in his family for sixty years. Franco Wicks, a young black man and Arthur's only employee, wants to modernize the shop, while Arthur is more content to spend the day smoking weed and reminiscing about his Polish immigrant father. This provocative comedy, set in the heart of one of Chicago's most diverse communities, explores the challenges of embracing the past and the redemptive power of friendship.
Tracy Letts was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County, which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007 before playing Broadway, London's National Theatre, and a forty-week US tour. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalist Man from Nebraska; Killer Joe, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed film; and Bug, which has played in New York, Chicago, and London and was adapted into a film. Letts is an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and garnered a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The plays that Nina Shengold and Eric Lane have collected in this volume range from monologues to an eight-character farce. They take in the metaphysical slapstick of David Ives's The Philadelphia and the breathtaking ferocity of Dana Yeaton's Helen at Risk, and contain parts across the entire spectrum of age, race, and gender. Eminently producible, ideally suited for the classroom and audition, Take Ten is a marvelous resource for actors, directors, and producers, as well as a stimulating read for lovers of the theatre.
An irresistible comedy with thrills and derring do set in the news room. Hildy wants to break away from journalism and go on a belated honeymoon. There is a jailbreak and into Hildy's hands falls the escapee as hostage. He conceals his prize in a rolltop desk and phones his scoop to his managing editor. Their job is to prevent other reporters and the sheriff from opening the desk and finding their story.
To the great lords of her time as well as the politicians of the Church expediency was God. So the Maid had to die. So to Warwick and Cauchon, her life has the'somewhat artificial, and certainly impersonal, quality of a play. Short scenes from it are played out during the trial as they struggle to turn her simplicity into heresy. But it is the glory of her life rather than the tragedy that is the triumphant climax of the play.5 women, 13 men
The first of Trollope's popular Barsetshire novels, set in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester, The Warden centers on the honorable cleric Septimus Harding, one of Trollope's most memorable characters. When Harding is accused of mismanaging church funds, his predicament lays bare the complexities of the Victorian world and of nineteenth-century provincial life. And, as Louis Auchincloss observes in his Introduction, "The theme of The Warden presents the kind of social problem that always fascinated Trollope: the inevitable clash of ancient privilege with modern social awareness."
When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family's camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota community and are eventually integrated into their kinship circles. Ella Cara Deloria's tale follows Blue Bird and her daughter, Waterlily, through the intricate kinship practices that created unity among her people. Waterlily, published after Deloria's death and generally viewed as the masterpiece of her career, offers a captivating glimpse into the daily life of the nineteenth-century Sioux. This new Bison Books edition features an introduction by Susan Gardner and an index. Purchase the audio edition.
When Blue Bird and her grandmother leave their family’s camp to gather beans for the long, threatening winter, they inadvertently avoid the horrible fate that befalls the rest of the family. Luckily, the two women are adopted by a nearby Dakota community and are eventually integrated into their kinship circles. Ella Cara Deloria’s tale follows Blue Bird and her daughter, Waterlily, through the intricate kinship practices that created unity among her people.
Waterlily, published after Deloria’s death and generally viewed as the masterpiece of her career, offers a captivating glimpse into the daily life of the nineteenth-century Sioux. This new Bison Books edition features an introduction by Susan Gardner and an index.
"[Zamyatin's] intuitive grasp of the irrational side of totalitarianism-- human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself--makes [We] superior to Huxley's [Brave New World]."--George Orwell Translated by Natasha Randall - Foreword by Bruce Sterling Written in 1921, We is set in the One State, where all live for the collective good and individual freedom does not exist. The novel takes the form of the diary of mathematician D-503, who, to his shock, experiences the most disruptive emotion imaginable: love. At once satirical and sobering--and now available in a powerful new translation--We is both a rediscovered classic and a work of tremendous relevance to our own times.
A collection of the groundbreaking feminist writer's most famous works, with a thought-provoking introduction by bestselling author Kate Bolick Wonderfully sardonic and slyly humorous, the writings of landmark American feminist and socialist thinker Charlotte Perkins Gilman were penned in response to her frustrations with the gender-based double standard that prevailed in America as the twentieth century began. Perhaps best known for her chilling depiction of a woman's mental breakdown in her unforgettable 1892 short story 'The Yellow Wall-Paper', Gilman also wrote Herland, a wry novel that imagines a peaceful, progressive country from which men have been absent for two thousand years. Both are included in this volume, along with a selection of Gilman's major short stories and her poems. New York Times bestselling author Kate Bolick contributes an illuminating introduction that explores Gilman's fascinating yet complicated life. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Wonderfully sardonic and slyly humorous, the writings of landmark American feminist and socialist thinker Charlotte Perkins Gilman were penned in response to her frustrations with the gender-based double standard that prevailed in America as the twentieth century began. Perhaps best known for her chilling depiction of a woman's mental breakdown in her unforgettable 1892 short story 'The Yellow Wall-Paper', Gilman also wrote Herland, a wry novel that imagines a peaceful, progressive country from which men have been absent for two thousand years. Both are included in this volume, along with a selection of Gilman's major short stories and her poems. New York Times bestselling author Kate Bolick contributes an illuminating introduction that explores Gilman's fascinating yet complicated life.