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Black Venus by Angela Carter. London. 1985. Chatto & Windus/Hogarth Press. hardcover. 121 pages. Jacket design by Don Macpherson. 0701139641.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   Extraordinary and diverse people inhabit this rich, ripe, occasionally raucous collection of short stories. Some are based on real people - Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s handsome and reluctant muse who never asked to be called the Black Venus, trapped in the terminal ennui of the poet’s passion, snatching at a little lifesaving respectability against all odds. Edgar Allen Poe, with his face of a tragic actor, demonstrating in every thought and deed how right his friends were when they said ‘No man is safe who drinks before breakfast.’ And Lizzie Borden, lying in bed one hot summer’s night in a turn-of-the-century New England mill town, dreaming about parricide. And some of these people are totally imaginary. Such as the seventeenth century whore, transported to Virginia for thieving, who turns into a good woman in spite of herself among the Indians, who have nothing worth stealing. And a girl, suckled by wolves, strange and indifferent as nature, who will not tolerate returning to humanity. To say nothing of the ‘infant prodigy of the pans’, the child chef who teaches himself French from cookery books (‘A for asperges. And one of them - ‘Call me the Golden Herm’ - takes off from a clue about the ambiguous nature of the changeling prince in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ who causes so much trouble between Oberon and Titania. Angela Carter wonderfully mingles history, fiction, invention, literary criticism, high drama and low comedy in a glorious collection of stories as full of contradictions and surprises as life itself. Angela Carter was born in 1940. She read English at Bristol University, spent two years living in Japan and from 1976-8 was a Fellow in Creative Writing at Sheffield University. She was visiting professor in the Writing Programme at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1980-81, and writer in residence at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 1984. Her first novel, SHADOW DANCE, was published in 1965, to be followed by THE MAGIC TOYSHOP (1967, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), SEVERAL PERCEPTIONS (1968, Somerset Maugham Award), HEROES AND VILLAINS (1969), LOVE (1971), THE INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINES OF DR HOFFMAN (1972), THE PASSION OF NEW EVE (1977) and NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS (1984). Angela Carter has also published two collections of stories, Fireworks (1974) and THE BLOODY CHAMBER (1979, Cheltenham Festival of Literature Award); and two works of non-fiction, THE SADEIAN WOMAN: AN EXERCISE IN CULTURAL HISTORY (1979) AND NOTHING SACRED (1982), a collection of her journalism from New Society and elsewhere. She also wrote, with Neil Jordan, the script for the film The Company of Wolves (1984).

Angela Carter (7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992) was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, picaresque and science fiction works. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth, in their list of ‘The 50 greatest British writers since 1945’ Born Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature. She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in NOTHING SACRED (1982) that she ‘learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised.’ She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, FIREWORKS: NINE PROFANE PIECES (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in THE INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINES OF DOCTOR HOFFMAN (1972). She then explored the United States, Asia and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son. As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in SHAKING A LEG. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and THE MAGIC TOYSHOP (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003). Her novel NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature. At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives. Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer.

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The Killing Of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers. New York. 2010. Knopf. hardcover. 569 pages. November 2010. Front-of-jacket image - ‘Retreat of Major Marcus Reno’s Command’ (detail) by Amos Bad Heart Bull. Jacket design by Jason Booher. 9780375414466.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   He was the greatest Indian warrior of the nineteenth century. His victory over General Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was the worst defeat inflicted on the frontier Army. And the death of Crazy Horse in federal custody has remained a controversy for more than a century. THE KILLING OF CRAZY HORSE pieces together the many sources of fear and misunderstanding that resulted in an official killing hard to distinguish from a crime. A rich cast of characters, whites and Indians alike, passes through this story, including Red Cloud, the chief who dominated Oglala history for fifty years but saw in Crazy Horse a dangerous rival; No Water and Woman Dress, both of whom hated Crazy Horse and schemed against him; the young interpreter Billy Garnett, son of a fifteen-year-old Oglala woman and a Confederate general killed at Gettysburg; General George Crook, who bitterly resented newspaper reports that he had been whipped by Crazy Horse in battle; Little Big Man, who betrayed Crazy Horse; Lieutenant William Philo Clark, the smart West Point graduate who thought he could ‘work’ Indians to do the Army’s bidding; and Fast Thunder, who called Crazy Horse cousin, held him the moment he was stabbed, and then told his grandson thirty years later, ‘They tricked me! They tricked me!’ At the center of the story is Crazy Horse himself, the warrior of few words whom the Crow said they knew best among the Sioux, because he always came closest to them in battle. No photograph of him exists today. The death of Crazy Horse was a traumatic event not only in Sioux but also in American history. With the Great Sioux War as background and context, drawing on many new materials as well as documents in libraries and archives, Thomas Powers recounts the final months and days of Crazy Horse’s life not to lay blame but to establish what happened.

Thomas Powers is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and writer best known for his books on the history of intelligence organizations. Among them are INTELLIGENCE WARS: AMERICAN SECRET HISTORY FROM HITLER TO AL-QAEDA; HEISENBERG’S WAR: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE GERMAN BOMB; and THE MAN WHO KEPT THE SECRETS: RICHARD HELMS AND THE CIA. For most of the last decade Powers kept a 1984 Volvo at a nephew’s house in Colorado, which he drove on frequent trips to the northern Plains. He lives in Vermont with his wife, Candace.

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Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter. New York. 1996. Henry Holt. hardcover. 462 pages. April 1996. Jacket illustration by John Wesrmark. Introduction by Salman Rushdie. 0805044620.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   From early reflections on jazz and Japan, through vigorous refashionings of vampires and werewolves, to stunning snapshots of real-life outcasts and the glorious but tainted world of ‘the rich and famous,’ this complete collection of Angela Carter’s short stories gathers together four published books-’Fireworks,’ ‘The Bloody Chamber,’ ‘Black Venus,’ ‘American Ghosts’ and ‘Old World Wonders’-with her early work and uncollected stories. ‘A strange, compelling book. an undoubted success.’ -The New York Times.

Angela Carter (7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992) was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, picaresque and science fiction works. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth, in their list of ‘The 50 greatest British writers since 1945’ Born Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature. She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in NOTHING SACRED (1982) that she ‘learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised.’ She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, FIREWORKS: NINE PROFANE PIECES (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in THE INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINES OF DOCTOR HOFFMAN (1972). She then explored the United States, Asia and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son. As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in SHAKING A LEG. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and THE MAGIC TOYSHOP (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003). Her novel NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature. At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives. Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer.

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Hits: 1867

American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main Street by Paula Rabinowitz. Princeton. 2014. Princeton University Press. hardcover. 390 pages. September 2014. Jacket painting: Guy Pene Du Bois, ‘Portia in a Pink Blouse,’ 1942. Jacket design by Pamela Lewis Schnitter. 9780691150604.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   ‘There is real hope for a culture that makes it as easy to buy a book as it does a pack of cigarettes.'--a civic leader quoted in a New American Library ad (1951) American Pulp tells the story of the midcentury golden age of pulp paperbacks and how they brought modernism to Main Street, democratized literature and ideas, spurred social mobility, and helped readers fashion new identities. Drawing on extensive original research, Paula Rabinowitz unearths the far-reaching political, social, and aesthetic impact of the pulps between the late 1930s and early 1960s. Published in vast numbers of titles, available everywhere, and sometimes selling in the millions, pulps were throwaway objects accessible to anyone with a quarter. Conventionally associated with romance, crime, and science fiction, the pulps in fact came in every genre and subject. American Pulp tells how these books ingeniously repackaged highbrow fiction and nonfiction for a mass audience, drawing in readers of every kind with promises of entertainment, enlightenment, and titillation. Focusing on important episodes in pulp history, Rabinowitz looks at the wide-ranging effects of free paperbacks distributed to World War II servicemen and women; how pulps prompted important censorship and First Amendment cases; how some gay women read pulp lesbian novels as how-to-dress manuals; the unlikely appearance in pulp science fiction of early representations of the Holocaust; how writers and artists appropriated pulp as a literary and visual style; and much more. Examining their often-lurid packaging as well as their content, American Pulp is richly illustrated with reproductions of dozens of pulp paperback covers, many in color. A fascinating cultural history, American Pulp will change the way we look at these ephemeral yet enduringly intriguing books.

Paula Rabinowitz is professor of English at the University of Minnesota. Her books include Black & White & Noir: America’s Pulp Modernism, and she is the coeditor of Habits of Being, a four-volume series on clothing and identity.

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Hits: 1897

The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. Princeton. Princeton University Press. hardcover. 519 pages. Cover illustration by Andrea Dezsö. Illustrated by Andrea Dezsö. 9780691160597.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, followed by a second volume in 1815, they had no idea that such stories as 'Rapunzel,' 'Hansel and Gretel,' and 'Cinderella' would become the most celebrated in the world. Yet few people today are familiar with the majority of tales from the two early volumes, since in the next four decades the Grimms would publish six other editions, each extensively revised in content and style. For the very first time, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm makes available in English all 156 stories from the 1812 and 1815 editions. These narrative gems, newly translated and brought together in one beautiful book, are accompanied by sumptuous new illustrations from award-winning artist Andrea Dezsö. From 'The Frog King' to 'The Golden Key,' wondrous worlds unfold--heroes and heroines are rewarded, weaker animals triumph over the strong, and simple bumpkins prove themselves not so simple after all. Esteemed fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes offers accessible translations that retain the spare description and engaging storytelling style of the originals. Indeed, this is what makes the tales from the 1812 and 1815 editions unique--they reflect diverse voices, rooted in oral traditions, that are absent from the Grimms' later, more embellished collections of tales. Zipes's introduction gives important historical context, and the book includes the Grimms' prefaces and notes. A delight to read, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm presents these peerless stories to a whole new generation of readers.

The Brothers Grimm (or Die Brüder Grimm), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together specialized in collecting and publishing folklore during the 19th century. They were among the best-known storytellers of folk tales, and popularized stories such as 'Cinderella' ('Aschenputtel'), 'The Frog Prince' ('Der Froschkönig'), 'Hansel and Gretel' ('Hänsel und Gretel'), 'Rapunzel', 'Rumpelstiltskin' ('Rumpelstilzchen'), and 'Snow White' ('Schneewittchen'). Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812. The brothers spent their formative years in the German town of Hanau. Their father's death in 1796 caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years after. They both attended the University of Marburg where they developed a curiosity about German folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folk tales. The rise of romanticism during the 19th century revived interest in traditional folk stories, which to the brothers represented a pure form of national literature and culture. With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folk tales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857, their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200. In addition to writing and modifying folk tales, the brothers wrote collections of well-respected German and Scandinavian mythologies, and in 1838 they began writing a definitive German dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), which they were unable to finish during their lifetime. The popularity of the Grimms' collected folk tales has endured well. The tales are available in more than 100 languages and have been later adapted by filmmakers including Lotte Reiniger and Walt Disney, with films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty. In the mid-20th century, the tales were used as propaganda by the Third Reich; later in the 20th century psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the value of the work, in spite of the cruelty and violence in original versions of some of the tales, which the Grimms eventually sanitized.

Jack Zipes is the translator of 'The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm' (Bantam), the editor of 'The Great Fairy Tale Tradition' (Norton), and the author of 'Grimm Legacies' (Princeton), among many other books. He is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Andrea Dezsö is a visual artist who works across a broad range of media. Her permanent public art is installed in two NYC subway stations, at CUNY Fiterman Hall, and at the US Embassy in Bucharest. Dezsö exhibits in museums and galleries worldwide and is associate professor of art at Hampshire College.

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Hits: 1821

What Became Of Jane Austen? And Other Questions by Kingsley Amis. New York. 1971. Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich. hardcover. 223 pages. 0151958602.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   Although Kingsley Amis’s reputation rests mainly on his novels, he has since 1955 established himself as one of England’s wittiest and most trenchant essayists and critics. The remarkable variety of his ideas and interests makes the present volume as stimulating and recurrently surprising as it is enjoyable. There is literary criticism of writers as diverse as Hans Christian Andersen, Jules Verne, and Miss Austen herself (Janeites will take umbrage), and of novels from SORRELL AND SON to PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT and LOLITA (‘one of the troubles with LOLITA is that, so far from being too pornographic, it is not pornographic enough’). There are articles on such widely assorted topics as horror movies, fictional detectives, and the National Eistedfodd of Wales, and accounts of the author’s experiences as judge at a beauty contest, with a poet named Dylan Thomas, and with one named Yevgeny Yevtushenko. And there are assorted fragments of autobiography (a reminiscence of the first school he attended, a memoir of his father) and confession (why he wrote a James Bond novel, why he left the Left). This is, in short, a miscellany, and a bracing one; its arrangement is not random, and it should be read straight through rather than browsed in. Kingsley Amis’s characteristically witty, challenging, sometimes enraging voice proves also to be that of a rationalist, a moralist, a man of good sense – and a writer of some of the best prose of our day.

Kingsley Amis was born in South London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he was an Honorary Fellow. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught at the University College of Swansea, Princeton University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He started his career as a poet and continued to write in that medium ever since. His novels include LUCKY JIM (1954). TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU (1960), THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE (1966), ENDING UP (1974), THE ALTERATION (1976), JAKE’S THING (1978) and STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984). His novel, THE OLD DEVILS, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1986. Among his other publications are NEW MAPS OF HELL, a survey of science fiction (1960), RUDYARD KIPLING AND HIS WORLD (1975) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (1981). He published his COLLECTED POEMS in 1979, and has also edited THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE and THE FABER POPULAR RECITER. Kingsley Amis was awarded the CBE in 1981.

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 Mary Ann Carroll: First Lady of the Highwaymen by Gary Monroe. Gainesville. University Press of Florida. hardcover. 192 pages. September 2014. 8 x 10. 9780813049694.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   Beach scenes on hotel walls, Poinciana trees in the White House. ‘Here, Monroe tells perhaps his most compelling tale of all—about the only Highwaywoman, Mary Ann Carroll ‘ —Jeff Klinkenberg, author of Alligators in B-Flat. ‘A tale of triumph, personal survival, discipline, and, finally, of faith ‘—Linda Hudson, mayor, Fort Pierce, Florida. In the years since the art world discovered them, much has been made of the Highwaymen—the loosely knit band of African American painters whose edenic Florida land scapes, created with inexpensive materials and sold out of their cars, ‘shaped the state’s popular image as much as oranges and alligators’ (New York Times) But lost in the legends surrounding the group is the mesmerizing story of Mary Ann Carroll, the only female ‘Highwayman ‘ In 1957, sixteen-year-old Carroll met Harold Newton, later dubbed the original Highwayman He had red flames on his car and was painting a landscape along the side of the road The young African American girl was shocked: here was a black man who didn’t work in the orange groves, who made a living off his paintings It wasn’t long before she was creating and selling her own landscapes, and the other Highwaymen, taking note of her startling use of color, welcomed her into the fold Carroll sold her first painting at eighteen - remarkable for any young artist, unheard of for a black woman artist in the South Like her Highwaymen brethren, she travelled across the state, selling her art at hotels, offices, and restaurants where she was not allowed to drink, eat, or even sit If the Highwaymen faced discrimination at every door they knocked on, then the challenges were magnified for Carroll She took pride in always having her pristine Buick gassed and ready to go and her small handgun cleaned and ready to use After years of virtual obscurity, Carroll was invited to the First Lady’s Luncheon in 2011, where she presented a painting of her iconic poinciana to Michelle Obama Mary Ann Carroll is the never-before-told story of a black female artist’s hard- fought journey to feed her family and make a name for herself in a man’s world.

 GARY MONROE, professor of fine arts and photography at Daytona State College, is the author of numerous books, including The Highwaymen: Florida’s African-American Landscape Painters, The Highwaymen Murals: Al Black’s Concrete Dreams, and Harold Newton: The Original Highwayman Harold Newton The Highwaymen The Original Highwayman.

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Hits: 1923

Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley. New York. 1958. Harper & Brothers. hardcover. 147 pages.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED is not fiction. It is a shocking, yet calm, estimate of what has been done (since the publication of BRAVE NEW WORLD in 1932), what is being done and what may very soon be done to turn men into compliant robots. The enemies of freedom are subtle, often unobserved, and far more numerous than we suppose. Mr. Huxley reveals them with the lucidity and scientific insight for which he is famous. With overpowering impact, the book is a challenge to complacency and a plea that mankind should educate itself in freedom before it is too late.

Aldous Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but it was his first novel, CROME YELLOW (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by ANTIC HAY (1923), THOSE BARREN LEAVES (1925) and POINT COUNTER POINT (1928) - bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgment on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in ALONG THE ROAD (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work BRAVE NEW WORLD (published in 1932 this warned against the dehumanizing aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel EYELESS IN GAZA (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as MUSIC AT NIGHT (1931) and ENDS AND MEANS (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (TIME MUST HAVE A STOP, 1944 and ISLAND, 1962) and non-fiction (THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, 1945, GREY EMINENCE, 1941 and the famous account of his first mescalin experience, THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION, 1954. Huxley died in California on 22nd November 1963.

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New Maps Of Hell: A Survey Of Science Fiction by Kingsley Amis. New York. 1960. Harcourt Brace & Company. hardcover. 161 pages. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   In this hilarious, inspiring and provocative series of essays, Kingsley Amis introduces every reader to the wonders and value of science fiction writing. He surveys the magnificent panorama of this world of fact and fantasy, of Jules Verne and H G Wells, of madly ingenious inventions and cosmic disaster, of bug-eyed monsters and credible human experiments, of revolutionary inventions and awesome transformations, of exploration of the outer reaches of space, and of strange worlds within the universe. New Maps of Hell is a warm and witty exploration of a world many readers may be yet to discover.

Kingsley Amis was born in South London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he is an Honorary Fellow. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught at the University College of Swansea, Princeton University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He started his career as a poet and has continued to write in that medium ever since. His novels include LUCKY JIM (1954). TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU (1960), THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE (1966), ENDING UP (1974), THE ALTERATION (1976), JAKE’S THING (1978) and STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984). His novel, THE OLD DEVILS, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1986. Among his other publications are NEW MAPS OF HELL, a survey of science fiction (1960), RUDYARD KIPLING AND HIS WORLD (1975) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (1981). He published his COLLECTED POEMS in 1979, and has also edited THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE and THE FABER POPULAR RECITER. Kingsley Amis was awarded the CBE in 1981.

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The Golden Age Of Science Fiction by Kingsley Amis (editor). London. 1981. Hutchinson & Company. hardcover. 370 pages. 009145770x.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   An anthology of science fiction short stories by Anthony Boucher, Philip Latham, Frederick Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, James Blish, Kurt Vonnegut, J. G. Ballard, Robert Sheckley, H. Beam Piper, Cordwainer Smith, Arthur C. Clarke, Harry Harrison, Damon Knight, Isaac Asimov, F. L. Wallace, Jerome Bixby, Poul Anderson. Kingsley Amis locates "the golden age of science fiction" somewhere between its flowering in the late 40s and the lapse into self-consciousness in the early 60s. The stories in this anthology, which includes most of the greatest names in science fiction, come from the years 1949-62. They offer an astonishingly varied range, but all of them illustrate Amis's summing up of the achievements of the ‘golden age’: In the words of Kingsley Amis, ‘what they wrote was far more inventive, more fictional, fictitious, fictive than any other kind of fiction.’

Kingsley Amis was born in South London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he is an Honorary Fellow. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught at the University College of Swansea, Princeton University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He started his career as a poet and has continued to write in that medium ever since. His novels include LUCKY JIM (1954). TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU (1960), THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE (1966), ENDING UP (1974), THE ALTERATION (1976), JAKE’S THING (1978) and STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984). His novel, THE OLD DEVILS, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1986. Among his other publications are NEW MAPS OF HELL, a survey of science fiction (1960), RUDYARD KIPLING AND HIS WORLD (1975) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (1981). He published his COLLECTED POEMS in 1979, and has also edited THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE and THE FABER POPULAR RECITER. Kingsley Amis was awarded the CBE in 1981.

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Hits: 1962

Spectrum V: A Fifth S. F. Anthology by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (editors). London. 1966. Gollancz. hardcover. 272 pages. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   The SPECTRUM science fiction anthologies edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest have been hailed, one after another, as being unquestionably at the top of their class. Appealing both to the regular science fiction addict and also to the casual reader, this new collection, the fifth in the series, presents a cross-section of science-fiction ideas to tickle and stimulate every palate. The eight stories deal, amongst other things, with how humanity can graduate into Galactic society; why 28 days on the Moon can change entirely a spaceman’s fundamental concept of life; how strange plants on a distant planet reproduce; and how, scientifically, the impossible can be achieved in about two weeks! The authors are F. L. Wallace; Walter M. Miller; Raymond F. Jones; James H. Schmitz; Tom Godwin; Theodore L. Thomas; Paul Ash and Richard Ashby. As usual, Amis and Conquest have started the Anthology with a provoking commentary on science fiction as a genre and, as in previous books in the series, nearly every story is published here for the first time in volume form.

Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) was born in South London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he is an Honorary Fellow. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught at the University College of Swansea, Princeton University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He started his career as a poet and has continued to write in that medium ever since. His novels include LUCKY JIM (1954). TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU (1960), THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE (1966), ENDING UP (1974), THE ALTERATION (1976), JAKE’S THING (1978) and STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984). His novel, THE OLD DEVILS, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1986. Among his other publications are NEW MAPS OF HELL, a survey of science fiction (1960), RUDYARD KIPLING AND HIS WORLD (1975) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (1981). He published his COLLECTED POEMS in 1979, and has also edited THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE and THE FABER POPULAR RECITER. George Robert Acworth Conquest, (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) known as Robert Conquest - was an Anglo-American historian and poet best known for his influential works of Soviet history which include The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the 1930s (1968, 4th ed., 2008). He was a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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My Enemy's Enemy by Kingsley Amis. New York. 1963. Harcourt Brace & World. hardcover. 224 pages. Jacket design by Paul Bacon Studios. 

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   There are surprises in this first collection of stories by one of the most prominent members of England’s new generation of writers. Satire is here, along with characteristically apt and original turns of phrase, but the tone is more sober than that in any of Kingsley Amis’s four novels, and we discover fresh aspects of a talent that until now has seemed predominantly comic. The closing phases of the war in Europe provide a background for two short stories and a novella about a Corps of Signals company in Belgium, which dramatize with acerb irony the dismay felt by adherents of the old order as a radically different England begins to emerge from the conflict. There are other ironies in three contrasting stories set in postwar England: sad and wry in an account of strife between a sluttish young woman and a detestable social worker; gentler in a swift sketch portraying a girl of eighteen on her first date with an office superior; overtly compassionate in a substantial and beautifully modulated tale about a man in his sixties who discovers fresh truths about himself and human nature in general when he attends the funeral of the woman he has loved. The final story, in which an aficionado of science fiction successfully tries his own hand at that mode, brings to a subtly disturbing close a volume of uncommon interest and variety.

Kingsley Amis was born in South London in 1922 and was educated at the City of London School and at St John’s College, Oxford, of which he is an Honorary Fellow. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught at the University College of Swansea, Princeton University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He started his career as a poet and has continued to write in that medium ever since. His novels include LUCKY JIM (1954). TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU (1960), THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE (1966), ENDING UP (1974), THE ALTERATION (1976), JAKE’S THING (1978) and STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984). His novel, THE OLD DEVILS, won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1986. Among his other publications are NEW MAPS OF HELL, a survey of science fiction (1960), RUDYARD KIPLING AND HIS WORLD (1975) and THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION (1981). He published his COLLECTED POEMS in 1979, and has also edited THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF LIGHT VERSE and THE FABER POPULAR RECITER. Kingsley Amis was awarded the CBE in 1981.

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The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. New York. 1977. Norton. hardcover. 602 pages. Painting by Domenica di Michelino, ‘Dante and His Poem’ (detail). Jacket design by Mike McIver. Translated by John Ciardi. 0393044726.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   This brilliant, standard translation of one of the great classics of Western literature is now made available in a single-volume hardcover edition, for the first time complete and in final form. Although Dante is one of the two who 'divide the world between them,' the world had to wait until now for a truly accessible translation of Dante into spoken English. Archibald MacLeish describes Ciardi's version as 'a text with the clarity and sobriety of a first-rate prose translation wich at the same time suggests in powerful and unmistakable ways the run and rhythm of the great original, 'a spectacular achievement.'

Durante degli Alighieri (Dante 1265–1321), was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later called Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature. In Italy he is called il Sommo Poeta (‘the Supreme Poet’) and il Poeta. He, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called ‘the three fountains’ and ‘the three crowns’. Dante is also called ‘the Father of the Italian language.’

Poet, educator, critic, John Ciardi has won countless awards, much praise, and a strong following for his own poetry. He was the poetry editor of the Saturday Review for sixteen years, director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference for seventeen years, and an essayist of both wit and powerful insight.

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We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire by Suzanna Reiss. Berkeley. University of California Press. paperback. 330 pages. August 2014. American Crossroads, 39. 6 x 9. 1 map, 12 images. 9780520280786.

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   This history of U.S.-led international drug control provides new perspective on the economic, ideological, and political foundations of a Cold War American empire. We Sell Drugs is grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching to the U.S. from Peru and Bolivia. Coca was one of two seminal substances in international drug control. More than a narrow account of the biography of a famous plant and its equally famous derivative products—Coca-Cola and cocaine—Suzanna Reiss situates these commodities within a landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Reiss provides a geographic and legal anchor for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality. The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is part of a powerful toolbox for ordering international trade, national economies, and society’s habits and daily lives. In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, colonialism, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a weapon for ordering domestic and international affairs.

Suzanna Reiss is assistant professor of history at the University of Hawai’i Manoa.

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Johnson Without Boswell by Hugh Kingsmill. New York. 1941. Knopf. hardcover. 318 pages. 

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   ‘Boswell’s LIFE OF JOHNSON is in some respects a first draft of Boswell’s autobiography. Some say that Boswell resurrected Johnson; others that Johnson lies imprisoned in Boswell’s book. How Boswell posthumously possessed Johnson and, like a great theatrical director, produced him for an audience of readers as a tremendous John Bull character, was brilliantly indicated by an anthology called JOHNSON WITHOUT BOSWELL , put together in 1940 by Hugh Kingsmill.’ - an extract from Michael Holroyd’s Biography Lecture on the Orange Word Stage at the Hay festival, June 9, 2002.

Hugh Kingsmill Lunn (21 November 1889 – 15 May 1949), who dropped his last name for professional purposes, was a versatile British writer and journalist. Writers Arnold Lunn and Brian Lunn were his brothers. Hugh Kingsmill Lunn was born in London and educated at Harrow School and the University of Oxford. After graduating he worked for a brief period for Frank Harris, who edited the publication Hearth and Home in 1911/2, alongside Enid Bagnold; Kingsmill later wrote a debunking biography of Harris, after the spell had worn off. He began fighting in the British Army in World War I in 1916, and was captured in France the next year. After the war, he began to write, initially both science fiction and crime fiction. In the 1930s he was a contributor to the English Review; later he wrote a good deal of non-fiction for this periodical's successor, the English Review Magazine. His large output includes criticism, essays and biographies, parodies and humour, as well as novels, and edited a number of anthologies. He is remembered for saying 'friends are God's apology for relations', with a notable flavour of Ambrose Bierce. The dictum was subsequently used by Richard Ingrams for the title of his memoir of Kingsmill's friendships with Hesketh Pearson and Malcolm Muggeridge, two intimate friends whom he influenced greatly.Muggeridge drew a darker attitude from Kingsmill's sardonic wit. Dawnist was Kingsmill's word for those infected with unrealistic or utopian idealism — the enemy as far as he was concerned. Kingmill’s works include: The Will To Love (1919) novel, The Dawn's Delay (1924) stories, Blondel (1927), Matthew Arnold (1928) biography, After Puritanism, 1850-1900 (1929), An Anthology Of Invective And Abuse (1929), The Return of William Shakespeare (1929) novel, Behind Both Lines (1930) autobiographical, More Invective (1930) anthology, The Worst of Love (1931) anthology, After Puritanism (1931), Frank Harris (1932) biography, The Table Of Truth (1933), Samuel Johnson (1933) biography, The Sentimental Journey (1934) biography of Charles Dickens, The Casanova Fable: A Satirical Revaluation (1934) with William Gerhardi, What They Said At The Time (1935) anthology, Parents and Children (1936) anthology; Brave Old World (1936) humour, with Malcolm Muggeridge, A Pre-View Of Next Year's News (1937) humour, with Malcolm Muggeridge, Skye High: The Record Of A Tour Through Scotland In The Wake Of The Samuel Johnson And James Boswell.(1937) travel, with Hesketh Pearson, Made On Earth (1937) anthology on marriage, The English Genius: a survey of the English achievement and character (1938) editor, essays by W. R. Inge, Hilaire Belloc, Hesketh Pearson, William Gerhardi, E .S. P. Haynes, Douglas Woodruff, Charles Petrie, J. F. C. Fuller, Alfred Noyes, Rose Macaulay, Brian Lunn, Rebecca West, K. Hare, T. W. Earp, D. H. Lawrence (1938) biography, Next Year's News (1938) humour, with Malcolm Muggeridge, Courage (1939) anthology, Johnson Without Boswell: A Contemporary Portrait of Samuel Johnson (1940) editor, The Fall (1940), This Blessed Plot (1942) travel, with Hesketh Pearson, The Poisoned Crown (1944) essays on genealogies, Talking Of Dick Whittington (1947) travel, with Hesketh Pearson), The Progress Of A Biographer (1949), The High Hill of the Muses (1955) anthology, The Best of Hugh Kingsmill: Selections from his Writings (1970) edited by Michael Holroyd, Bernard Shaw, His Life and Personality.

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