Best of
Epic

1989

Paint The Wind


Cathy Cash Spellman - 1989
    1864. A plantation is ravaged by border raiders. Ten-year-old Fancy Deverell is saved by a wise old slave named Atticus, who sets her on an extraordinary journey that will lead her headlong into the rough-and-tumble days of the Old West. The novel sweeps along with the relentless rhythm of those turbulent times...from a westering circus train to the gold and silver fields of Colorado, from the cutthroat world of the New York stage and the arcane shadows of magic and mysticism to the last legendary and tragic struggles of Geronimo and the Apache Nation. To survive, Fancy must learn what it takes for a woman to climb from poverty to fame and fortune in a universe that belongs to the ruthless and the male. Before she's through, there isn't much that Fancy won't have done, or bargained, or sold for her dreams...and the price of her deliverance. For Paint The Wind is first and last the story of feisty, tempestuous, and vulnerable Fancy Deverell. Far too beautiful for her own good, she wants it all - love, power, money, security - and she'll get it, too, if she can keep her heart out of the way of the three men who so desperately want her: CHANCE McALLISTER - his gambler's luck is legendary, like his prowess in bed, and Chance is precisely the kind of rogue Fancy wants. HART McALLISTER - a giant of a man with a soul and talent to match, Chance's brother is an artist whose paintings of the dying Apache Nation will hang in the Louvre...but it won't mean a damn to him if he can't have Fancy. JASON MADIGAN - a wizard at making deals and breaking lesser men, is someone who kills for sport. And Fancy is the only woman he has ever needed to own, whatever the cost. Fancy's journey is a tale of self-discovery and of spiritual growth that takes as many strange turns as life itself. The men and women who bring their dreams and drives to it are as colorful and various as the thousands who journeyed west: the stalwart, honorable madam and the gunfighter who loves her...the brilliant dwarf with the secret past...the cunning Chinese wise man who knows the cure for opium addiction...the old prospector who would sacrifice everything but integrity for the Mother Lode...the thespian who yearns for one last great role to play...the mysterious Gypsy who mastered the forbidden arts and now must win back her soul. Against this huge, vividly rendered, multi-charactered canvas, three resolute men do battle for the woman called Fancy in a novel that for its scope and grandeur belongs on the shelf with the classic epics of our time.

The Bayeux Tapestry


Lucien Musset - 1989
    A fragile web of woollen thread on linen, its brilliant colours undimmed after nearly a thousand years, this masterpiece is unique as a complete example of an art form beloved of the aristocracy in the Romanesque era - the historiated' or narrative embroidery. The momentous story it tells is that of one of the turning-points in English and European history, the struggle for the succession to the English throne which culminated in the Battle of Hastings in the fateful year of 1066. The version told is that of the Normans who commissioned it - of Harold's perjury and its dreadful price, death and defeat in battle. Yet the sympathies of the English hands that designed and created it are equally evident. And the Tapestry itself is so close to the events it describes, and portrays them in such vivid detail, as to make it in its own right a historical source of the first order, not only for the political crisis of 1064-66 but also for the social history of eleventh-century life.This book presents a full-colour reproduction of the entire Tapestry, with a detailed commentary alongside each episode, equipping the reader to follow the story blow by blow and this marvellous work of art step by step. In addition, a preliminary study sets the Tapestry in its artistic, cultural and historical context. The late Lucien Musset, Emeritus Professor of the University of Caen, studied the Tapestry of nearby Bayeux for nearly fifty years. This erudite but highly readable survey distils a lifetime's scholarship into a wise and impeccably researched synthesis which enables the modern reader to appreciate what the Tapestry meant in the context of its time, at the start of the last millennium.

Argonautica, Book 3


Apollonius of Rhodes - 1989
    It tells of Jason's successful expedition with the Argonauts to recover the Golden Fleece from Colchis on the Black Sea. Medea, a young Colchian princess, falls in love with Jason and helps him survive the ordeals imposed by her father. The description of Medea's emotional suffering exercised a profound influence on subsequent writers and especially on Virgil in his account of Dido and Aeneas. Dr. Hunter's edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the poem and its poet, an up-to-date text of Book III and a full commentary that discusses the problems of language and translation. He also delves into the poetic meaning of the work and Apollonius' creative use of the Homeric heritage.

The Orphans' Home Cycle: Roots in a Parched Ground / Convicts / The Widow Claire / Courtship / Valentine's Day / Lily Dale / 1918 / Cousins / The Death of Papa


Horton Foote - 1989
    A collection of plays.

Shake Down the Stars


Frances Donnelly - 1989
    Romantic saga which follows the fortunes of three beautiful friends as they prepare themselves for the turmoil of World War II.