Best of
20th-Century

1941

A Collection of Essays


George Orwell - 1941
    In this selection of essays, he ranges from reflections on his boyhood schooling and the profession of writing to his views on the Spanish Civil War and British imperialism. The pieces collected here include the relatively unfamiliar and the more celebrated, making it an ideal compilation for both new and dedicated readers of Orwell's work.

The Garden of Forking Paths


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    It was the first of Borges's works to be translated into English by Anthony Boucher when it appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in August 1948.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon


Rebecca West - 1941
    A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans, and the uneasy relationships amongst its ethnic groups. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country's history as well as its daily life.

Hangover Square


Patrick Hamilton - 1941
    London 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation with Netta who is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George. George is adrift in hell, until something goes click in his head and he realizes that he must kill her.

All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays


George Orwell - 1941
    Equally at home discussing Charles Dickens and Charlie Chaplin, he moved back and forth across the porous borders between essay and journalism, high art and low. A frequent commentator on literature, language, film, and drama throughout his career, Orwell turned increasingly to the critical essay in the 1940s, when his most important experiences were behind him and some of his most incisive writing lay ahead. All Art Is Propaganda follows Orwell as he demonstrates in piece after piece how intent analysis of a work or body of work gives rise to trenchant aesthetic and philosophical commentary."how to be interesting, line after line."Contents:Charles DickensBoys' WeekliesInside the WhaleDrama Reviews: The Tempest, The Peaceful InnFilm Review: The Great DictatorWells, Hitler and the World StateThe Art of Donald McGillNo, Not OneRudyard KiplingT.S. EliotCan Socialists Be Happy?Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador DaliPropaganda and Demotic SpeechRaffles and Miss BlandishGood Bad BooksThe Prevention of LiteraturePolitics and the English LanguageConfessions of a Book ReviewerPolitics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's TravelsLear, Tolstoy and the FoolWriters and LeviathanReview of The Heart of the Matter by Graham GreeneReflections on Gandhi

Why I Live at the P.O. and Other Stories


Eudora Welty - 1941
    Her reputation rests largely on her skill and delicacy in portraying a wide range of characters, rich and poor, black and white. Her style is marked by her perception of the Southern character, her ear for colloquial speech and her ability to endow her portraits of small-town life with a universal significance. Included are four stories that capture the heart of the American South.

Random Harvest


James Hilton - 1941
    But two years after he was reported missing in action, he appears in a Liverpool hospital with no memory of the time that has passed. Rainier marries and embarks on a life of relative success, but he still can’t recall his time on the battlefield—until the first bombs of the Second World War begin to fall. Suddenly, his memories flood back. Now, recollections of a violent battlefield, a German prison, and a passionate affair all threaten to fracture the peaceful life he has worked so hard to create. From the bestselling author of Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips—who also earned an Oscar for his screenwriting during Hollywood’s Golden Age—Random Harvest is a moving account of the trauma of war, the disruption of a seemingly ordinary life, and the courage required to find redemption in the face of the most overwhelming circumstances.

Dragon Seed


Pearl S. Buck - 1941
    Centering her story around the fictional family of Ling Tan, Buck recreates the heart wrenching devastation that war inflicted on these gentle innocent people. Ling Tan and his family were simple farmers living in peaceful isolation. Western technology, and likewise the machinery of war, were unknown in these outlying regions of China. And even though literacy was on the rise among the younger generations, the alarming reports of foreign aggression went largely ignored. For the peasants, the transition from one political ruler to another was virtually inconsequential; life revolved around their farms and their villages. Patriotism was not the concept of loving and defending a country; their land was their country. But as the invasion moves inland and the roads are jammed with survivors fleeing west, Ling Tan and his neighbors are forced to face the harsh realities of war. "Days passed and with the rulers gone the people held themselves the more steadfast knowing that they and they alone were left to stand against the enemy and upon each man himself now depended what would happen. So it had happened again and again in other times, for rulers anywhere are always the first to fly, and the people must stay behind to be steadfast.

The Swish of the Curtain


Pamela Brown - 1941
    Despite opposition from parents and friends, they finally overcome all obstacles and win a drama competition. It is a tale of triumph over adversity.

The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life


Flann O'Brien - 1941
    Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs. A scathing satire on narratives of Gaelic Ireland, this work brought down on the author's head the full wrath of those who saw themselves as the custodians of Irish language and tradition when it was first published in Gaelic in 1941.

A Curtain of Green and Other Stories


Eudora Welty - 1941
    A Curtain of Green both introduced and established Eudora Welty as in instinctive genius of short fiction, and in this groundbreaking collection, which includes "Powerhouse" and "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden," are the first great works of a great American writer.

The Dramatic Imagination: Reflections and Speculations on the Art of the Theatre


Robert Edmond Jones - 1941
    The volume includes A New Kind of Drama, To a Young Stage Designer and six other of Jones's reflections.

The Two Covenants


Andrew Murray - 1941
    After receiving his education in Scotland and Holland, he returned to South Africa and spent many years there as both a pastor and missionary. He wrote over two hundred books, including some of the most enduring classics of Christian literature. He and his wife, Emma, raised eight children, and it is said that their home was an endless stream of activity.

Entertaining is Fun: How to Be a Popular Hostess


Dorothy Draper - 1941
    Originally published in 1941, it was hailed in the original flap copy as "neither a cookbook nor a book of etiquette, but a vivacious and inspiring book on home entertaining."

The Colossus of Maroussi


Henry Miller - 1941
    As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text is inspired by the events that occurred. The text is ostensibly a portrait of the Greek writer George Katsimbalis, although some critics have opined that is more of a self-portrait of Miller himself.[1] Miller considered it to be his greatest work.

The Works of George Herbert


George Herbert - 1941
    Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.

The Wisdom of the Heart


Henry Miller - 1941
    Writing “from the heart,” always with a refreshing lack of reticence, Miller involves the reader directly in his thoughts and feelings. “His real aim,” Karl Shapiro has written, “is to find the living core of our world whenever it survives and in whatever manifestation, in art, in literature, in human behavior itself. It is then that he sings, praises, and shouts at the top of his lungs with the uncontainable hilarity he is famous for.”Here are some of Henry Miller’s best-known writings: an essay on the photographer Brassai; Reflections on Writing, in which Miller examines his own position as a writer; Seraphita and Balzac and His Double, on the works of other writers; and The Alcoholic Veteran, Creative Death, The Enormous Womb, and The Philosopher Who Philosophizes.

From This Day Forward


Elswyth Thane - 1941
    She was a Broadway star and was adored by the masses. On a chance encounter while vacationing in Maine she would meet the love of her life. Rodney Monroe, an ornithologist and adventurer, a professor and doctor, everything she was unfamiliar with. Before long they fall madly in love and Elizabeth decides to give up the stage for her new life, which is full of new obstacles. How can love keep two people so very different together? What power will it have over their two worlds as they meet in a clash? Can they survive each other and the odds long enough to find their peace together? Set around New York, South America and Mexico, this story is full of adventure, thrills and romance strong enough to change everything. From the way you look at nature, to the way you look for love.

The Oxford Companion to American Literature


James David Hart - 1941
    Hart's The Oxford Companion to American Literature has been an unparalleled guide to America's literary culture, providing one of the finest resources to this country's rich history of great writers. Now this acclaimed work has been completely revised and updated to reflect current developments in the world of American letters.For the sixth edition, editors James D. Hart and Phillip Leininger have updated the Companion in light of what has happened in American literature since 1982. To this end, they have revised the entries on such established authors as Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and Joyce Carol Oates, and they have added more than 180 new entries on novelists (T. Coraghessan Boyle, Tim O'Brien, Louise Erdrich, Don De Lillo), poets (Rita Dove, Weldon Kees), playwrights (Wendy Wasserstein, August Wilson), popular writers (Stephen King, Louis L'Amour), historians (James M. McPherson, David Herbert Donald, William Manchester), naturalists (Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey), and literary critics (Camille Paglia, Richard Ellmann). In addition, the Companion boasts more women's, African-American, and ethnic voices, with new entries on such luminaries as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, M.F.K. Fisher, William Least Heat-Moon, Ursula Le Guin, and Oscar Hijuelos, among many others.These additions represent only some of the revisions for the new edition. Of course, the basic qualities of the Companion that readers have grown to know and love over the years are as superb as ever. With over 5,000 total entries, The Oxford Companion to American Literature reflects a dynamic balance between past and contemporary literature, surveying virtually every aspect of our national literature, from the Pulitzer Prize to pulp fiction, and from Walt Whitman to William F. Buckley, Jr. There are over 2,000 biographical profiles of important American authors (with information regarding their styles, subjects, and major works) and influential foreign writers as well as other figures who have been important in the nation's social and cultural history. There are more than 1,100 full summaries of important American novels, stories, essays, poems (with verse form noted), plays, biographies and autobiographies, tracts, narratives, and histories. The new edition provides historical background and astute commentary on literary schools and movements, literary awards, magazines, newspapers, and a wide variety of other matters directly related to writing in America. Finally, the book is thoroughly cross-referenced and features an extensive and fully updated index of literary and social history.Ranging from Captain John Smith to John Updike, and from Anne Bradstreet to Anne Rice, the sixth edition of The Oxford Companion to American Literature is up to date, accurate, and comprehensive, a delight for both the casual browser and the serious student.

The Timeless Land


Eleanor Dark - 1941
    These were times of hardship, cruelty and danger. They were also the times of conflict between the Aborigines and the white settlers.

The Lottery in Babylon


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    "The Lottery in Babylon"/"La lotería en Babilonia", first appeared in 1941 in the literary magazine Sur, and was then included in the 1941 collection The Garden of Forking Paths (El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan), which in turn became the part one of Ficciones (1944)

History as a System and other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History


José Ortega y Gasset - 1941
    Four stimulating essays: “The Sportive Origin of the State,” “Unity and Diversity of Europe,” “Man the Technician,” and “History as a System.” The essays by Ortega in this volume were originally published under the title Toward a Philosophy of History.

Home by the River


Archibald Rutledge - 1941
    Built in 1730 the stately mansion and its extensive grounds and woodlands are now one of South Carolina's state parks, located 40 miles northeast of Charleston. The restoration of the house, and reminiscences of Rutledge's early years there captures the true spirit of Hampton.

Remember Today


Elswyth Thane - 1941
    Now Sierra is a movie star, James a writer, and everything conspired to keep them apart until their guardian angels stepped in. Set during the Depression, this is an unforgettable story of friendship and romance, told with wry humor and an unexpected look at the movie business of that time.

Lost in the Horse Latitudes


H. Allen Smith - 1941
    They are characterized by dead calms, light, baffling winds and hot, dry weather. If a ship came along and got stuck in one of those dead calms, drinking water might soon run out and then everyone would go berserk, including the horses (if they were onboard). In fact as passengers and crew clambered around in their berserkness, the horses might get thrown overboard. At least that's H. Allen Smith's story -- and he's sticking to it.Always quick to see the zany side of even the most serious of situations and known as a prankster, Smith descended on the Paramount lot like a plague of locusts and then proceeded to offer such vital contributions as mowing the lawn and asking for the men's room. He rubbed elbows daily with such great names as Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen, W. C. Fields, and James Cagney as well as leading agents, directors and producers.Since Smith and non-conformity have always been a devastatingly funny combination, his misadventures in movieland, as well as his views about whoever or whatever captured his attention, rate top billing in the annals of the human comedy.

The Red Decade: The Stalinist Penetration of America


Eugene Lyons - 1941
    The classic work on Communism in America duting the thirties.

My Love Must Wait


Ernestine Hill - 1941
    the story of Matthew Flinders navigator, explorer and lover.When Matthew Flinders, the first man to chart and circumnavigate Australia, set sail from England in July 1801, he left behind the intrigues of his homeland but also his young bride of only a few weeks, Ann Chappell. He didn′t see her again for more than nine years. During that time he carried out incredible feats of seamanship and navigation, made the first charts of much of the coastline of Australia, and was shipwrecked and later held prisoner by the French on Mauritius.Meticulously researched and written with great insight and sensitivity, My Love Must Wait is both a tender portrayal of faithful devotion, and a stirring re-creation of the courage and endurance of one of history′s greatest seamen.

Cape Horn and Other Stories from the End of the World


Francisco Coloane - 1941
    Set in the hauntingly beautiful and dangerously remote lands of southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, the narration acquires a magical tone in describing the strife of man in the doubly isolating landscape of human nature within the surrounding environment.

Gretel at St. Bride's


Mary K. Harris - 1941
    Bride's in the middle of the term, but even so they don't guess just how much excitement Gretel's arrival is going to mean to them. Particularly to the timid Jane, who will gain assurance just when she (and Gretel) need it most. For Gretel is a refugee from troubled Germany, and the ways of an English school are strange to her.

Masochism In Sex And Society


Theodor Reik - 1941
    

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight


Vladimir Nabokov - 1941
    Many people knew things about Sebastian Knight as a distinguished novelist, but probably fewer than a dozen knew of the two love affairs that so profoundly influenced his career, the second one in such a disastrous way. After Knight's death, his half brother sets out to penetrate the enigma of his life, starting with a few scanty clues in the novelist's private papers. His search proves to be a story of mystery and intrigue as any of his subject's own novels, as baffling, and, in the end, as uniquely rewarding.

American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman


F.O. Matthiessen - 1941
    Centering the discussion around five literary giants of the mid-nineteenth century-Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. Matthiessen elucidates their conceptions of the nature and function of literature, and the extent to which these were realized in their writings.

The Guide to Horoscope Interpretation


Marc E. Jones - 1941
    The whole view of a horoscope using planetary patterns.