Ancestry and Narrative in Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Blood Relations from Edgeworth to Hardy (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)

Book Description

This study addresses the question of why ideas of ancestry and kinship were so important in nineteenth-century society, and particularly in the Victorian novel. Sophie Gilmartin discusses what makes people believe that they are part of a certain region, race or nation, and what part is played by superstitious belief, invented traditions and fictions. Gilmartin's study shows that ideas of ancestry and kinship, and the narratives inspired by or invented around them, were of profound significance in the construction of Victorian identity.

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Second Edition (Yale Nota Bene)

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Another gem.
an excellent, if outdated, book
A Former Student's Opinion
This is just icky
Gibraltor

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Second Edition (Yale Nota Bene)
Sandra M. Gilbert , and Susan Gubar
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0300084587

Book Description

This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual.

Customer Reviews:

Another gem........2007-01-01

Could this have been titled "The Misreading of 19th Century Female Novelists"? "The Madwoman" is not an easy read: it's an academic effort and a superb effort at that. But the casual bronteelioteyre fan will be lulled into a sense of familiarity -- "yes, I remember reading that" -- only to discover too late that he / she has completely missed the point of all those famous 19th century novels, at least from the perspective of these two clever, insightful, witty women who somehow came together to write perhaps the definitive feminist view of 19th century female novelists. Taking just one example out of hundreds: after reading their discussion of Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey," I re-read the novel and couldn't stop laughing at this parody. Even more entertaining was the fact that so many critics panned "Northanger" when it came out, misreading that it was a parody of the entire genre of the romantic (with a small "r") novel of that era.

an excellent, if outdated, book.......2002-02-25

As a former student of Prof. Gubar, I can attest to the importance of this book within feminist literary circles: Gilbert and Gubar, Inc. created a piece of scholarship that transformed the way students of literature read literature. The book's place among feminist literary criticism today attests to the importance of their mission--were it not for Gilbert and Gubar, someone else, perhaps today, would be performing this kind of work. The fact remains, however, that the proliferation of feminist critique, whether from Robyn Wiegman or Lauren Berlant, makes this text an essential primer for feminist criticism, but not as compelling as the works it tacitly bore.

A Former Student's Opinion.......2001-09-28

As a former student of Susan Gubar, I would have to recommend this book to anyone interested in a deeper understading of the novels covered and also finding a different perspective to the traditional critical approaches. As a groundbreaking work, this collection critically looks at and analyzes many different aspects approaching the anxiety of female authorship. This work is truly interesting, and to all of the naysayers, I can vouch that the authors are have a very compelling and informed perspective. The second edition proves that it is a work that will be around for a very long time and that the work will not fall into obscurity, for it is a inspired work of literary criticism. I would recommend this to anyone who seeks a deeper look into the popular women novelists.

This is just icky.......2001-05-25

I apply a very simple standard to literary criticism: Read the critique then reread the original. If the critique improves my appreciation and understanding of the original, then I have spent my time wisely. This book fails that test.

Gilbert & Gubar seem to have little appreciation for the artistry of literary criticism. They seem incapable of writing concise, insightful sentences. They seem to have little appreciation for the rhythms and patterns of English; their sentences read approximately the same way a lopsided trash-can rolls down a hill. There's a lot of noise but not much is actually accomplished. This book cries out for a patient and caring First Year english instructor with a red pen.

Individual chapters seem to have promise, quickly drained by the authors inability to focus, summarise, analyse and bring their subject to life. Their analysis of the Bronte's had the astonishing effect of reducing my interest in these enthralling authors and their works. The Authors insight into the nineteenth century gothic is at best weak. They make much of minor issues and ignore broader themes linking their chosen authors and works.

At its best, reading literary criticism is an electrifying experience, one that inspires you to reach for the nearest great book and savor it as you would fine wine and great food. In the case of the Madwoman in the Attic, it inspires you to regard the library with weariness and a heavy heart. Simply stated, this is book is as tired as Kathy Lee's latest CD and equally awash in mawkish sentiment. I recommend any book by another, better critics - Harold Bloom, Camille Paglia, Cleanth Brooks, T. S. Eliot.

Gibraltor.......2000-12-20

This is a great re-structuring view of Women artists in the Victorian era. Once you've read this, everything looks different and it makes you want to re-visit novels like Jane Eyre and Middlemarch and Sense and Sensibility just to see how much they have changed. Madwomen is a work of creativity as much as criticism. It changes you. Once you have read this, you find yourself in a whole different ocean.

American Genius: Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks

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A Must-Have for the Collector
Best I've Seen on the Subject
An American Masterpiece Is More Like It

American Genius: Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks
David Erroll , and John Erroll
Manufacturer: Quantuck Lane
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1593720165

Book Description

Designed to protect America's riches from every threat, these beautiful devices represent the evolution of lock technology during the nineteenth century, its most creative period. Many of the hand-crafted masterpieces are decorated with beautiful engraving and casting, despite the fact that their mechanical interiors would rarely be seen. They reflect the great pride in creative workmanship and the mechanical genius that characterized America at the time. Here for the first time is a comprehensive compendium of these marvels of complexity and their the fascinating history. Stunning photographs by Anne Day and learned text by the authors illuminates a remarkable but little-known chapter in American technological achievement. Over 400 color photographs.

Customer Reviews:

A Must-Have for the Collector.......2007-04-04

Collectors will love the beautiful pictures and extensive information about vault clocks found only in this book.

Best I've Seen on the Subject.......2007-01-19

Fabulous photos with information you'll not see anywhere else. If you collect vault clocks you got to have this book.

An American Masterpiece Is More Like It.......2006-12-14

Beautiful is the very first word that comes to my mind when I opened up the new book American Genius by David and John Erroll. Never before has there been such a book to chronicle the history of men and their companies, that began, evolved and transformed the bank lock and time lock industries of the early America. As I began to read this book from cover to cover, the text quickly bore evidence as a living testimony to years of dedicated research. However, a book of this nature with only text could never do this historical subject justice. The beauty of the craftsmanship, detail and ingenuity of these mechanical masterpieces can truly only be appreciated through the exquisite visual images captured by renowned photographer Anne Day.

American Genius contains hundreds of beautiful, full color photographs to complement the text. Where an image might normally be worth a thousand words, Ms. Day's photos will leave you speechless.

When I think of the word "text", I'm likely reminded of a schoolbook or study guide of sorts. Yes, this book is full of history and stories, never compiled together in one place before, less the vision that began in the mind of John Erroll. But American Genius is so much more as it brings to light the obscure, the forgotten and coveted pieces of mechanical wonders that spoke of an era long gone, when a man's word was more precious than life itself. When he was proud to sign his work and stand behind it. Likely never considering those of us in the future that would ponder over the majesty and splendor of these masterpiece inventions.

Only 21 pages out of the 350 plus are without photographs or illustrations of one kind or another. Hardly a paragraph is written without a footnote. Three hundred and seventy-six annotations, presenting exhaustive documentation, further bear witness and evidence of all that has been written and assembled here. There is little room for conjecture or supposition within this volume, as the commentary exhaustively chronicles the facts of these mechanical masterpieces and their makers.

Much of what is seen and spoken of throughout this volume, is the embodiment of John Mossman's Collection. The balance of the masterpieces, covered in the book, reside in the personal collection of the author, John Erroll. The Mossman Collection is now permanently displayed at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of New York City. Many of our readers might be familiar with the Mossman Collection, as it is expressly covered in the book Lure of the Lock. However, you will find upon first assessment, American Genius is in a class by itself. Unmatched excellence is the attribute shouted from cover to cover of this tome.

Whether relatively new or an old timer to the lock industry shall not matter, for the authors of American Genius have blended beautiful and captivating photographs, with an eloquent lexis for all to enjoy.

There are sure to be many who will acquire this book that have nothing to do with our industry. Simply because of its own grandeur, American Genius will prevail on its own, far ahead of any predecessor of similar nature. It has no rival. Others are still in the painful process of writing books to further complement the history of locks from varied perspectives. The bar has now been set extremely high.

As a consequence of this exceptionally published manuscript, there are many of us who hope to see this work advance the circulation of new, lost or forgotten information, as well as surface additional examples of these masterpieces from years ago now long gone.

John Erroll is the curator for the Mossman Collection held at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of New York City. A retired clinical psychologist, now able to see the fruits of his many years of labor, a labor of love and passion exploding from the pages of American Genius.

My personal thanks to John, David, Anne and all the other individuals whose contributions have made American Genius much more than I ever could have imagined, and certainly more than worth waiting for.

All the royalties and proceeds from the book go to support the programs of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York. The General Society was founded in 1785 and started a free school and library in 1820. The school provides continuing education at no cost to members of the building trades so they may advance themselves in diverse fields ranging from project management to CAD/CAM for architects. The library offers public membership and focuses on the useful arts, building trades, construction and architecture.

John T. Grist, CML, CPS, CJS, CAI, GSAI
American Lock Collectors Association, Vice-President
North Georgia Security, President

Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898

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Pathbreaking work on race and revolution

Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898
Ada Ferrer
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807847836
Release Date: 1999-09-29

Book Description

In the late nineteenth century, in an age of ascendant racism and imperial expansion, there emerged in Cuba a movement that unified black, mulatto, and white men in an attack on Europe's oldest empire, with the goal of creating a nation explicitly defined as antiracist. This book tells the story of the thirty-year unfolding and undoing of that movement.

Ada Ferrer examines the participation of black and mulatto Cubans in nationalist insurgency from 1868, when a slaveholder began the revolution by freeing his slaves, until the intervention of racially segregated American forces in 1898. In so doing, she uncovers the struggles over the boundaries of citizenship and nationality that their participation brought to the fore, and she shows that even as black participation helped sustain the movement ideologically and militarily, it simultaneously prompted accusations of race war and fed the forces of counterinsurgency.

Carefully examining the tensions between racism and antiracism contained within Cuban nationalism, Ferrer paints a dynamic portrait of a movement built upon the coexistence of an ideology of racial fraternity and the persistence of presumptions of hierarchy.

Customer Reviews:

Pathbreaking work on race and revolution.......2000-01-20

Insurgent Cuba tracks the transformation of racial and gendered narratives of the revolution from the abolition of slavery to the war of independence. In this fascinating and pathbreaking book, Professor Ferrer reveals that, with the emergence of late 19th century Cuban nationalism, narratives of race, slavery, and the place of black people in the revolution shift dramatically. Through the voices of leaders like Jose Marti, black insurgents were constructed as color-blind patriots committed to the liberation of Cuba, not slaves and ex-slaves attempting to overthrow the regime of slavery and demand equal rights. Black people were transformed in these three decades from a problem and threat to the republic to the symbols of Cuban nationalism's commitment to multiracial democracy. Anti-racism became a weapon in the hands of Cuban revolutionaries in their battle against Spain, which changed the status of black insurgents, put them on a pedestal in a way, and made their stories fundamental to the narrative of the new republic--one that is colorblind and willing to incorporate everyone as long as they are patriots. For blacks and mulattoes, this discourse gave them a platform to complain about racism in the ranks of the army, in everyday life, everywhere. On the other hand, the ellision of racism in the discourse of Cuban nationalism and the celebration of multiracial republicanism was often used against critics of racism in Cuba. "To speak of race, then," Ferrer writes, "was to challenge the depth of racial and national unity." Any attempts to mobilize on the basis of racial solidarity was then dismissed as divisive and unpatriotic. By reconstructing these different narratives in the context of specific revolts and campaigns, Ferrer offers us a stunning alternative narrative of the struggle for Cuban Independence. Insurgent Cuba is perhaps the best book available on race and Cuba.

Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)

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Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question (Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Women Writers | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0521641020

Book Description

This collection of essays focuses attention on a number of Victorian women writers popular in their own time but forgotten or neglected by literary history, from Margaret Oliphant and Charlotte Yonge to Mary Ward, Marie Corelli, "Ouida" and E. Nesbit. Particular emphasis is given to writings concerned with "the woman question." Discussions of marriage, matriarchy and divorce, satire, suffragette writing, writing for children, and links between literature and art illuminate the complex cultural and literary roles, and the engaging contributions, of Victorian women writers.

British Gunmakers: Historical Data on the Birmingham, Scottish and Regional Gun Trade in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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British Gunmakers: Historical Data on the Birmingham, Scottish and Regional Gun Trade in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Nigel S. Brown
Manufacturer: Quiller Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1904057500

Dickens And Empire: Discourses Of Class, Race And Colonialism In The Works Of Charles Dickens (Nineteenth Century)

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Dickens And Empire: Discourses Of Class, Race And Colonialism In The Works Of Charles Dickens (Nineteenth Century)
Grace Moore
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0754634124

Disorienting Fiction: The Autoethnographic Work of Nineteenth-Century British Novels

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Disorienting Fiction: The Autoethnographic Work of Nineteenth-Century British Novels
James Buzard
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691095558

Book Description

This book gives an ambitious revisionist account of the nineteenth-century British novel and its role in the complex historical process that ultimately gave rise to modern anthropology's concept of culture and its accredited researcher, the Participant Observer. Buzard reads the great nineteenth-century novels of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and others as "metropolitan autoethnographies" that began to exercise and test the ethnographic imagination decades in advance of formal modern ethnography--and that did so while focusing on Western European rather than on distant Oriental subjects.

Disorienting Fiction shows how English Victorian novels appropriated and anglicized an autoethnographic mode of fiction developed early in the nineteenth century by the Irish authors of the National Tale and, most influentially, by Walter Scott. Buzard demonstrates that whereas the fiction of these non-English British subjects devoted itself to describing and defending (but also inventing) the cultural autonomy of peripheral regions, the English novels that followed them worked to imagine limited and mappable versions of English or British culture in reaction against the potential evacuation of cultural distinctiveness threatened by Britain's own commercial and imperial expansion. These latter novels attempted to forestall the self-incurred liabilities of a nation whose unprecedented reach and power tempted it to universalize and export its own customs, to treat them as simply equivalent to a globally applicable civilization. For many Victorian novelists, a nation facing the prospect of being able to go and to exercise its influence just about anywhere in the world also faced the danger of turning itself into a cultural nowhere. The complex autoethnographic work of nineteenth-century British novels was thus a labor to disorient or de-globalize British national imaginings, and novelists mobilized and freighted with new significance some basic elements of prose narrative in their efforts to write British culture into being.

Sure to provoke debate, this book offers a commanding reassessment of a major moment in the history of British literature.

Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century

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Inventing New England: Regional Tourism in the Nineteenth Century
Dona Brown
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560987995

A Guide to the Impressionist Landscape: Day Trips from Paris to Sites of Great Nineteenth-Century Paintings

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A Guide to the Impressionist Landscape: Day Trips from Paris to Sites of Great Nineteenth-Century Paintings
Patty Lurie
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0821217968

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