Best of
19th-Century

1981

Zemindar


Valerie Fitzgerald - 1981
    A magnificent love story unfolds against a backdrop of exotic splendor and stirring deeds as a young Englishwoman Laura Hewitt journeys to the East to the fabled fiefdom of the Zemindar, Guardian of the Earth.

Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition


Walt Whitman - 1981
    As Malcolm Cowley says in his introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass 'might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing', for it exhibits 'Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience.' Mr Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own introduction and Whitman's original introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership to whom the great poet really speaks.

The Tiger's Woman


Celeste De Blasis - 1981
    She came to San Francisco in flight from a secret so shattering, a man so dangerous, that no disguise could long shield her. Then she met Jason Drake--The Tiger--lover, gambler, empire builder, the one man whose power offered sanctuary.Bound by a cold bargain, she would follow him to the majestic isolation of the San Juan Islands. There, slowly, she could learn to be free...a tenuous love could grow-until the past caught up with them and set their world aflame, testing the very special love of...The Tiger's Woman

The Celebrated Cases of Sherlock Holmes


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1981
    The adventures of Sherlock Holmes The memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The return of Sherlock Holmes A study in scarlet The sign of four The hound of the Baskervilles.

Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814


Pierre Berton - 1981
    border was in flames as the War of 1812 continued. York's parliament buildings were on fire, Niagara-on-the-Lake burned to the ground and Buffalo lay in ashes. Even the American capital of Washington, far to the south, was put to the torch. The War of 1812 had become one of the nineteenth century's bloodiest struggles.Flames Across the Border is a compelling evocation of war at its most primeval level — the muddy fields, the frozen forests and the ominous waters where men fought and died. Pierre Berton skilfully captures the courage, determination and terror of the universal soldier, giving new dimension and fresh perspective to this early conflict between the two emerging nations of North America.

Mary Chesnut's Civil War


C. Vann Woodward - 1981
    Vann Woodward won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History, drawn from the diaries of a Southern aristocrat, records the disintegration and final destruction of the Confederacy.

An All-Round Ministry


Charles Haddon Spurgeon - 1981
    In 1865 he began an annual conference for them, and during his life delivered 27 Presidential Addresses. The very best of them are contained in this convenient paperback.

Chief Left Hand: Southern Arapaho


Margaret Coel - 1981
    Working from government reports, manuscripts, and the diaries and letters of those persons—both white and Indian—who knew him, Margaret Coel has developed an unusually readable, interesting, and closely documented account of his life and the life of his tribe during the fateful years of the mid-1800s.It was in these years that thousands of gold-seekers on their way to California and Oregon burst across the plains, first to traverse the territory consigned to the Indians and then, with the discovery of gold in 1858 on Little Dry Creek (formerly the site of the Southern Arapaho winter campground  and presently Denver, Colorado), to settle.Chief Left Hand was one of the first of his people to acknowledge the inevitability of the white man’s presence on the plain, and thereafter to espouse a policy of adamant peacefulness —if not, finally, friendship—toward the newcomers.Chief Left Hand is not only a consuming story—popular history at its best—but an important work of original scholarship. In it the author:Clearly establishes the separate identities of the original Left Hand, the subject of her book, and the man by the same name who succeeded Little Raven in 1889 as the principal chief of the Southern Arapahos in Oklahoma—a longtime source of confusion to students of western history;Lays to rest, with a series of previously unpublished letters by George Bent, a century-long dispute among historians as to Left Hand’s fate at Sand Creek;Examines the role of John A. Evans, first governor of Colorado, in the Sand Creek Massacre. Colonel Chivington, commander of the Colorado Volunteers, has always (and justly) been held responsible for the surprise attack. But Governor Evans, who afterwards claimed ignorance and innocence of the colonel’s intentions, was also deeply involved. His letters, on file in the Colorado State Archives, have somehow escaped the scrutiny of historians and remain, for the most part, unpublished. These Coel has used extensively, allowing the governor to tell, in his own words, his real role in the massacre. The author also examines Evans’s motivations for coming to Colorado, his involvement with the building of the transcontinental railroad, and his intention of clearing the Southern Arapahos from the plains —an intention that abetted Chivington’s ambitions and led to their ruthless slaughter at Sand Creek.

In The Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life of Higuchi Ichiyo, With Nine of Her Best Stories


Ichiyō Higuchi - 1981
    In her brief life she wrote poems, essays, short stories and a great, multivolume diary. This book is made up of a critical biography, interlaced with extracts from the diary, and Robert Danly's translations of nine representative stories.

Japonisme: The Japanese Influence on Western Art Since 1858


Siegfried Wichmann - 1981
    This volume shows the influence of Japan on the fine and decorative arts of the period.

Mr. Kipling's Army: All the Queen's Men


Byron Farwell - 1981
    The battles it fought are household words, but the idiosyncracies and eccentricities of its soldiers and the often appalling conditions under which they lived have gone largely unrecorded. Byron Farwell explores here the lives of officers and men, their foibles, gallantry, and diversions, their discipline and their rewards.

No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920


T.J. Jackson Lears - 1981
    He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for cultural self-sufficiency through the Arts and Crafts movement. Lears argues that their antimodern impulse, more pervasive than historians have supposed, was not "simple escapism," but reveals some enduring and recurring tensions in American culture.

Simon's Waif


Mira Stables - 1981
    Various kindly ladies interested themselves in her welfare and she even made a modest début in Society.Her success attracted the attention of her wealthy grandfather, who decided that she would make a suitable bride for his heir, but rank and wealth held no appeal for Harriet, whose heart was already given.Once again she was obliged to run away, but this time she found safety and happiness in the care of the man she loved.

Tales from M. Saltykov-Shchedrin


Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin - 1981
    "The Mighty Bogatyr" and "The Eagle-Patron of Arts" are biting satires on autocracy; "The Crow That Went in Search of Truth" and "The Old Nag" picture the misery of the Peasants; the conceited lion of "Bears in Government" with his ludicrous "self-pawed" inscriptions, is a well-aimed thrust at the illiterate resolutions of Tsar Alexander III, while the Bruins in the same tale ridicule the woebegone ministers of tsarist Russia. But the message of the tales and the bitter truth conveyed in them go far beyond the limits of any one epoch, assuming ever new poignancy and actuality. "The sole object of my literary work," wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, "was unfailingly to protest against greed, hypocrisy, falsehood, theft, treachery, stupidity..." The Tales, which he wrote during the last years of his life (1826-89), epitomize the entire work of the great satirist who did so much for the cause of revolutionary thought in Russia.

Dear Fred


K.M. Peyton - 1981
    To Laura's parents, her passionate hero-worship was an embarrassment. The only people who understood her feelings were Uncle Harry and his strange protege, Tiger, a runaway boy with a lithe body and fiery nature who kissed Laura secretly behind the stable door.

Kierkegaard's Philosophy: Self Deception and Cowardice in the Present Age


John D. Mullen - 1981
    Others we read to discover the nature of ourselves. In the second group, Soren Kierkegaard stands alone as a towering figure, a man who revolutionized our concept of the human condition. His insights go to the core of the dilemmas that haunt the modern mind and spirit. This clear and enlightening study provides a fascinating analysis of Kierkegaard's thinking and its practical applications. The reader comes in contact with a vision of perils and potential of individual existence that is far more profound than the shallow questions and easy answers offered by the swarm of contemporary "self-help" panaceas. The book leaves one with a realization of the vast depths that lie within us, and of the daring and determination it takes to explore them in order to become all that a human being can and should be. This edition was published in 1981 by NAL Penguin Inc.

Halfway Down Paddy Lane


Jean Marzollo - 1981
    Fifteen-year-old Kate finds herself transported back in time to 1850 in her Massachusetts town, where she must adjust to the prejudices against Irish immigrants, working long hours in a cotton mill, and, tragically, falling in love with her own brother.

Authority


Richard Sennett - 1981
    Why have we become so afraid of authority? What real needs for authority do we have—for guidance, stability, images of strength? What happens when our fear of and our need for authority come into conflict? In exploring these questions, Sennett examines traditional forms of authority (The father’s in the family, the lord’s in society) and the dominant contemporary styles of authority, and he shows how our needs for, no less than our resistance to, authority have been shaped by history and culture, as well as by psychological disposition.

This Loving Land


Dorothy Garlock - 1981
    They arrive to find that Sam has been killed, but his son Slater will honour his father's promise.

Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980


Erlene Stetson - 1981
    Collects a wide range of poetry by Black women writers including Ntozake Shange, Maya Angelou, Margaret Walker, and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Georgiana


Marian Devon - 1981
    To prevent a duel between the two men, Georgiana bravely intervenes on her brother's behalf--even as it leads her to an altogether different sort of confrontation with the lord. . . .

Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Literature and its Background, 1760-1830


Marilyn Butler - 1981
    Butler relates the French and American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the expansion of agriculture, trade, and industry, and growing economic and social pressures to the cultural forces which shaped their work. She reveals the common factors which engaged the separate efforts of so many individual creative minds, and the fierce personal and artistic politics of an age in the midst of profound change. Demonstrating that the literature produced during this dynamic, restless time is not as homogenous as is generally assumed, Butler illuminates the ways in which these various experimental works reflected radically new sensibilities and aspirations.

Wah’Kon-Tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road


John Joseph Mathews - 1981
    Miles to recreate the world of the Osage during the last quarter of the Nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth century. Using his own experiences, Mathews stressed the spirituality, dignity, and humor of the Osages as they acculturated to the non-Indian world and adapted some of its aspects for their own use.

Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Women's Lives in Nineteenth-Century England, France, and the United States


Erna O. Hellerstein - 1981
    

Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865


Robert M. Utley - 1981
    Between 1848 and 1865 the men in blue fought nearly all of the western tribes. Robert Utley describes many of these skirmishes in consummate detail, including descriptions of garrison life that was sometimes agonizingly isolated, sometimes caught in the lightning moments of desperate battle.

A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky's Novel


Victor Terras - 1981
    Victor Terras’s companion work provides readers with a richer understanding of the Dostoevsky novel as the expression of a philosophy and a work of art.     In his introduction, Terras outlines the genesis, main ideas, and structural peculiarities of the novel as well as Dostoevsky’s political, philosophical, and aesthetic stance. The detailed commentary takes the reader through the novel, clarifying aspects of Russian life, the novel’s sociopolitical background, and a number of polemic issues. Terras identifies and explains hundreds of literary and biblical quotations and allusions. He discusses symbols, recurrent images, and structural stylistic patterns, including those lost in English translation.

The Chatelaine


Claire Lorrimer - 1981
    Only her father, Willoughby Tetford, a self-made millionaire, was shrewd enough to have any misgivings when his lovely daughter left America. Willow herself, innocent, and deeply in love with her new husband, had complete trust and confidence in the future as she arrived at Victorian England. Willow happiness seemed complete when Lady Clotilde Rochford, the matriarchal French grandmother, handed her the keys of the house and told she was the new Chatelaine, Willow believed she held the keys not only to the multitude of rooms of which she was now the mistress but also to love and happiness. And when On her arrival, she is greeted warmly by her four brothers-in-law: Tony, quiet and studious; Pelham, teasing and flirtatious; the spoilt Francis; and the sensitive Rupert.Gradually disillusion set in as Rowell proved to be cruel, unfaithful and greedy. Willow didn't know her dowry had saved the Rockford family from destitution or that the estate was ruled by the ruthless Grandmere who would stop at nothing to protect the family's reputation. Old Lady Rochford obsessed with past events, of which Willow is ignorant, wreaks fearful havoc on Willow's life. Although bitterly disappointed with her life, Willow maintained her beauty and dignity as the years passed. The only thing she did know was that over the years, another man was touching her heart, a man who represented everything that her husband was not, stiring her sould, and arousing passions she could not deny....

Proletarian Nights: The Workers' Dream in Nineteenth-Century France


Jacques Rancière - 1981
    Through a study of worker-run newspapers, letters, journals, and worker-poetry, Rancière reveals the contradictory and conflicting stories that challenge the coherence of these statements celebrating labor.This updated edition includes a new preface by the author, revisiting the work twenty years since its first publication in France.

The Young Victoria


Alison Plowden - 1981
    Left fatherless at the age of eight months, her early years were difficult, brought up by her German mother in an atmosphere of family feuds and jealousy. Succeeding to the throne at 18, however, she began a triumphant reign.

Bring Warm Clothes: Letters And Photos From Minnesota's Past


Peg Meier - 1981
    You'll find actual letters, journal entries, photos and more woven into a marvelous documentary of Minnesota. Discover what Minnesota was like for her people--explorers, farmers, homemakers, socialites, children, laborers, lawyers and lumberjacks. A classic in its 13th printing.

Fitting Death for Billy the Kid


Ramon F. Adams - 1981
    

The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914


Paul Kennedy - 1981
    The result reaches far beyond a diplomatic narrative of relations between the two countries. It concerns itself with a thorough comparison of the two societies, their political cultures, economies, party politics, courts, the role of the press and pressure groups, and other factors. The work therefore contributes to the larger debate on the nature of foreign policy, as well as to the specific controversies over the British-German antagonisms that eventually led to war.