Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

    These studios, a return to classical art training, are based on the nineteenth-century model of teaching artists by pairing them with a master artist over a period of years. Students begin by copying masterworks, then gradually progress to painting as their skills develop. Classical Drawing Atelier is an atelier in a book—and the master is Juliette Aristides, a classically trained artist. On every page, Aristides uses the works of works of Old Masters and today’s most respected realist artists to demonstrate and teach the principles of realist drawing and painting, taking students step by step through the learning curve yet allowing them to work at their own pace. Unique and inspiring, Classical Drawing Atelier is a serious art course for serious art students.

    . .We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert, but what was it like for a commoner? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Catch the omnibus to work and wash laundry while wearing a corset? How To Be A Victorian is a new approach to history, a journey back in time more intimate, personal, and physical than anything before. It is one told from the inside out--how our forebears interacted with the practicalities of their world--and it's a history of those things that make up the day-to-day reality of life, matters so small and seemingly mundane that people scarcely mention them in their diaries or letters. Moving through the rhythm of the day, from waking up to the sound of a knocker-upper man poking a stick at your window, to retiring for nocturnal activities, when the door finally closes on twenty-four hours of life, this astonishing guide illuminates the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work, and play.If you liked The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century or 1000 Years of Annoying the French, you will love this book.

    Nature was the fountainhead of his inspiration and his refuge from what he considered the follies of society. Heedless of his friends’ advice to live in a more orthodox manner, he determinedly pursued his own inner bent, which was that of a poet-philosopher, in prose and verse. Carl Bode brings together the best of Thoreau’s works in The Portable Thoreau, a comprehensive collection of the writings of a unique and profoundly influential American thinker.

    This book gives insight to the poet Alfred Tennyson from a biographical sketch to the many examples of his great poetry.

    0-8109-4964-4$60.00 / Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

    Containing many unseen pieces of art and comics from the creator who has brought us THB, Heavy Liquid and 100%.

    Literary journals bound by magnets, or designed to look like junk mail. The sharp wit, gorgeous design, and playful why not invention of independent literary publisher McSweeney's have earned it a large and loyal following and made its journals, books, The Believer magazine, and Wholphin DVDs collectible favorites of readers and graphic designers alike. Created by the McSweeney's staff to commemorate their 11th (or 12th) anniversary, this book showcases their award-winning art and design across all the company's activities. It features hundreds of images, interviews with collaborators such as Chris Ware and Michael Chabon, and dozens of insights into McSweeney's quirky creative process and the visual experience of reading.

    The murders in London between 1888-91 attributed to Jack the Ripper constitute one of the most mysterious unsolved criminal cases. This story is the result of many years meticulous research. The author reassesses all the evidence and challenges everything we thought we knew about the Victorian serial killer and the vanished East End he terrorized.

    How is an achievement of this magnitude to be explained? Stephen Greenblatt brings us down to earth to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life, could have become the world’s greatest playwright.

    Solzhenitsyn reveals the entire apparatus of Soviet repression -- the state within the state that ruled all-powerfully. Through truly Shakespearean portraits of its victims -- men, women, and children -- we encounter secret police operations, labor camps and prisons; the uprooting or extermination of whole populations, the "welcome" that awaited Russian soldiers who had been German prisoners of war. Yet we also witness the astounding moral courage of the incorruptible, who, defenseless, endured great brutality and degradation. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 -- a grisly indictment of a regime, fashioned here into a veritable literary miracle -- has now been updated with a new introduction that includes the fall of the Soviet Union and Solzhenitsyn's move back to Russia.

    It is the sexual memoir of a well-to-do gentleman who began at an early age to keep a diary of his erotic behavior. He continues this record for over 40 years, creating in the process a unique social & psychological document. Authorship of the book is mysterious. Henry Spencer Ashbee, a book collector, writer & bibliographer notable for his particular focus on sexuality is suspected by some to be "Walter". He is very likely the compiler of the book's index, the provider of some editorial assistance & the person who saw the text into print.Gershon Legman was 1st to link "Walter" & Ashbee in Legman's introduction to the 1962 reprints of Ashbee's bibliographies. The 1966 Grove Press edition of 'My Secret Life' included an expanded version of that essay.More recently, however, Ian Gibson's 'The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee' (2001, ISBN 0-571-19619-5) provides a detailed review of circumstantial evidence arguing that Ashbee wrote 'My Secret Life', presumably weaving fantasy & anecdotes from friends in with his own real-life experiences. Just prior to this, in May 2000, Channel 4 UK broadcast a documentary, 'Walter-The Secret Life of a Victorian Pornographer', which also claimed that Ashbee was Walter.

    These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) are available in one volume, which presents an indelible collective portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens—as depicted by one of the great writers of this or any other time.

    Wright drew on his own experiences and research into the history of the British intelligence community. Published first in Australia, the book was banned in England (but not Scotland) due to its allegations about government policy and incidents. These efforts ensured the book's notoriety, and it earned considerable profit for Wright.

    One of these principles is what Harold Speed calls "dither," the freedom that allows realism and the artistic vision to play against each other. Very important to any artist or work of art, this quality separates the scientifically accurate from the artistically accurate. Speed's approach to this problem is now considered a classic, one of the few books from the early years of this century that has continued to be read and recommended by those in the graphic arts.In this work, Harold Speed approaches this dynamic aspect of drawing and painting from many different points of view. He plays the historical against the scientific, theory against precise artistic definition. He begins with a study of line drawing and mass drawing, the two basic approaches the artist needs to learn. Further sections carry the artistic vision through unity and variety of line and mass, balance, proportion, portrait drawing, the visual memory, materials, and procedures. Throughout, Speed combines historical backgrounds, dynamic aspects which each technique brings to a work of art, and specific exercises through which the young draughtsman may begin his training. Although not a technique book in the strict sense of the terms, The Practice and Science of Drawing brings to the beginner a clear statement of the principles that he will have to develop and their importance in creating a work of art. Ninety-three plates and diagrams, masterfully selected, reinforce Speed's always clear presentation.Harold Speed, master of the art of drawing and brilliant teacher, has long been cited for this important work. For the beginner, Speed will develop a sense for the many different aspects which go into an artistic education. For the person who enjoys looking at drawings and paintings, Speed will aid developing the ability to see a work of art as the artist meant it to be seen.