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Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide the contest; the appeal was the choice... Continue reading “Common Sense, by Thomas Paine (1776)” ›
Text page from the first edition of Ulysses The publishing history of James Joyce’s Ulysses is itself a complicated odyssey. Joyce began writing Ulysses, a modernist novel detailing one day (16 June 1904) in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom, in 1914. By 1918 he was sending typescript chapters to Ezra Pound to be published... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: Ulysses, by James Joyce (1922)” ›
“We have yet had no genius in America, with tyrannous eye, which knew the value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in Homer; then in the middle age; then in Calvinism. . . .Yet America... Continue reading “Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman (1855)” ›
THIS WORK has a greater aim than mere illustration; we do not introduce colours for the purpose of entertainment, or to amuse by certain combinations of tint and form, but to assist the mind in its researches after truth, to increase the facilities of instruction, and to diffuse permanent knowledge. Oliver Byrne (ca. 1810-1890) was... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, by Oliver Byrne (1847)” ›
Of the five Christmas books that Charles Dickens published in the 1840s, the first, A Christmas Carol (1843), is by far the most famous. The following year Dickens came out with The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In. Although the book sold well... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: The Chimes: A Goblin Story, by Charles Dickens” ›
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now... Continue reading “Rare Book of the Month: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley” ›
Alexandre Exquemelin’s first hand account of the life of a pirate in the Spanish Main is the source of much of today’s pirate lore. From Long John Silver to Jack Sparrow, fictional pirates have their roots in Exquemelin’s 17th century bestseller. The History of the Bucaniers of America has been called the ur-text of pirate... Continue reading “History of the Bucaniers of America, by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin” ›
T. S. Eliot’s bleak “anti-epic” The Waste Land is considered by many to be the most influential poetic work of the twentieth century. It was first published in book form by the New York firm Boni and Liveright in 1922, but Eliot offered the first British edition to Leonard and Virginia Woolf. The Woolfs had... Continue reading “The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, published at the Hogarth Press” ›
William Morris (1834-1896) is a towering figure in the artistic and cultural history of Victorian Britain. The multi-talented Morris was a poet, artist, and craftsman whose design influence persists to this day. Much of his work was in the decorative arts– textiles, furniture, stained glass, wallpapers, and book design. Morris is credited with founding the... Continue reading “The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press” ›
“What is the first law for all art? What answer would a great sculptor or a great painter make? I think simply this: ‘Look at Nature, study Nature, understand Nature– and then try to express Nature.’ … The dance is an art like these others, and it also must find its beginning in this great... Continue reading “Isadora Duncan: Vingt-Cinq Planches, by Jules Grandjouan” ›