Sunday, December 26, 2021

Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1994)

William Shakespeare.
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Edited by Peter Holland.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
This edition first published in 1994.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: The Oxford Shakespeare; Oxford World's Classics.

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Editor:
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Wikipedia Articles:

Shakespeare: English Renaissance Drama: England during Shakespeare's Time:
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In Our Time:
  • Melvyn Bragg, Helen Hackett, Tom Healy, Alison Findlay, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 18 April 2019.
  • Melvyn Bragg, Juliette Wood, Diane Purkis, Nicola Bown, "Fairies," In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 11 May 2006.

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Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1955)

Albert Camus.
The Myth of Sisyphus.
Translated by Justin O'Brien.
New York: Vintage International (Vintage Books / Penguin Random House), 2018.
First published: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.
Originally published: Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Librairie Gallimard, France, 1942.

Book Information: Publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Author Information:
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In Our Time:
  • Melvyn Bragg, Peter Dunwoodie, David Walker, Christina Howells, "Camus," In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 03 January 2008.
    • Professor Peter Dunwoodie, Emeritus Professor of French Literature, Department of English and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London.
    • David H. Walker is/was Emeritus Professor of French, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield.
    • Christina Howells, Emeritus Professor of French, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.

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Sunday, December 19, 2021

Reynolds, Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times (2021)

David S. Reynolds.
Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times.
New York: Penguin Books, 2021.

Book Information: Publisher; Author's Website; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Author Information:
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Wikipedia Articles:
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In Our Time:
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Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (2008)

William Shakespeare.
The Taming of the Shrew.
Edited by H. J. Oliver.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
(This edition first published in 1982.)

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: The Oxford Shakespeare; Oxford World's Classics.

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Editor:
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Wikipedia Articles:

Shakespeare: English Renaissance Drama: England during Shakespeare's Time:
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Some alternatives to The Oxford Shakespeare edition:
  • The Taming of the Shrew. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series. Edited by Barbara Hodgdon. London: Methuen Drama, A & C Black Publishers Ltd, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Three Shrew Plays: Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew with The Anonymous The Taming of a Shrew and Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed. Hackett Classics. Edited by Barry Gaines and Margaret Maurer. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2010.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
The two above mentioned editions of The Taming of the Shrew also contain the text of the anonymous The Taming of a Shrew which is not included in The Oxford Shakespeare edition. In his Introduction to The Oxford Shakespeare edition Oliver carefully explains why A Shrew is a poor copy of Shakespeare's The Shrew and that Shakespeare's work certainly preceded A Shrew even if A Shrew appeared in print first. At first, it was confusing to me why such scholarly effort has been expended on distinguishing The Shrew from A Shrew.
Some reasons: (a) The earlier publication of A Shrew in 1594, 1596 and 1607 before the first publication of Shakespeare's The Shrew in 1623 perhaps gave or gives A Shrew some degree of legitimacy that is does not deserve and so it must be quashed. (b) A Shrew makes greater use of the Christopher Sly framing which implies that perhaps Shakespeare made some revisions to his original text which A Shrew copied and the later form of The Shrew published in 1623 reflects experience gained with theater production during the 1590s and later. This is of great interest to scholars. (c) The repeated publication of the inferior A Shrew tells us something about the popularity of The Shrew and the competitive world of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater.

The Introductions to The Oxford Shakespeare editions of Shakespeare's plays are not hand-holding expositions for children. They assume the reader is already very familiar with the play and are written with greater scholarly depth than one might expect. They do repay careful reading. Oliver's is one of the better ones I have read so far. (The abundant footnotes to the main text provide more help than a reader might need.)

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Thursday, November 25, 2021

Camus, The Stranger (1993)

Albert Camus.
The Stranger.
Translated by Matthew Ward.
Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
Everyman's Library volume 139.

This translation first published: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
Originally published in French as L'Étranger by Librairie Gallimard, France in 1942.

Book Information: Publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series.

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Author Information:
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In Our Time:
  • Melvyn Bragg, Peter Dunwoodie, David Walker, Christina Howells, "Camus," In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, 03 January 2008.
    • Professor Peter Dunwoodie, Emeritus Professor of French Literature, Department of English and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London.
    • David H. Walker is/was Emeritus Professor of French, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield.
    • Christina Howells, Emeritus Professor of French, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (2014)

Barbara W. Tuchman.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014.
(First published: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.)

Book Information: Publisher; Wikipedia; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Author Information:
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Video: Barbara Tuchman
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Wikipedia Articles:
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Tuchman tells this history from the perspective of the French. Most of my reading on this period has been from the English point of view, so Tuchman's work is an interesting contrast.

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Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (1998)

Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Canterbury Tales.
Translated by David Wright.
London: The Folio Society, 1998.
(This translation was first published in 1985 by Oxford University Press.)

This book is currently available as:

Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Canterbury Tales.
Translated by David Wright.
Introduction and Notes by Christopher Cannon.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: Oxford World's Classics.

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Author Information:
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In Our Time:
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Some readily available editions of the original (Middle English) Chaucer include:
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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (1996)

Robert Aldrich.
Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion.
New York: St. Martin's Press (Palgrave Macmillan), 1996.

Book Information: Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Author Information:
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Wikipedia Articles:
  • French colonial empire, 1534–1980.
    (After reading Aldrich's Greater France I feel obliged to warn the reader that this Wikipedia article treats many topics in a very abbreviated manner.)
  • Overseas France, France d'outre-mer, l'Outre-mer, les DOM-TOM.
Miscellaneous Items:
  • Copra, "dried coconut kernels from which coconut oil is expelled", noted by Aldrich as an export commodity from some French colonies.
  • groundnut, Bambara groundnut, a legume from West Africa.

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Aldrich's Greater France is a very good introduction to the French overseas empire since 1830; however, it appears that it is currently out-of-print. Aldrich's Notes and Bibliography contain extensive references to the French literature so I am sure his book remains a useful guide for more serious students and readers of French. Some more recently published books (in English) on this topic include:
  • Frederick Quinn. The French Overseas Empire. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers (Greenwood Publishing Group), 2000.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Todd Shepard. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2006.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hémery. Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, 1858-1954. Translated by Ly Lan Dill-Klein. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
  • David Todd. A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021.
    [Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]

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Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Tombs, France 1814-1914 (1996)

Robert Tombs.
France 1814-1914.
Harlow, England: Longman (Pearson Education Limited), 1996.
London: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 2014.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

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Author Information:
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Wikipedia Articles:
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In Our Time Episodes on Nineteenth Century France:
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Tombs' book France 1814-1914 is the best book on French history that I have read so far. Gildea's Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914 (2008) is a good descriptive, chronological, introductory, survey of Nineteenth Century France, perhaps necessary to prepare one for Tombs' book. But don't stop with Gildea's book. Your preparation with Gildea's book will be rewarded by Tombs' book.

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Wednesday, September 08, 2021

Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (2008)

William Shakespeare.
The Comedy of Errors.
Edited by Charles Whitworth.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
(This edition first published in 2002.)

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: The Oxford Shakespeare; Oxford World's Classics.

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Wikipedia Articles:

Shakespeare:
  • William Shakespeare (1564–1616).
  • The Comedy of Errors, written sometime between 1589 and 1595, according to Wikipedia.
    In the Introduction Charles Whitworth argues that the play was written in 1594 and first performed in late December of that year.
    It "was not published until it appeared in the First Folio in 1623" (Wikipedia).
  • Plautus (c. 254 – 184 BC), Menaechmi.
    Note: This Oxford World's Classics edition of The Comedy of Errors includes the text of Plautus' Menaechmi translated into English by William Warner (1558–1609) and first published in 1595.
  • Plautus, Amphitryon.
  • Apollonius of Tyre.
  • Shakespearean comedy.
English Renaissance Drama: England during Shakespeare's Time:
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Saturday, August 28, 2021

Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2008)

William Shakespeare.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Edited by Roger Warren.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

Book Series: The Oxford Shakespeare; Oxford World's Classics.

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Wikipedia Articles:

Shakespeare: English Renaissance Drama: England during Shakespeare's Time:
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Saturday, July 31, 2021

Gildea, Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914 (2008)

Robert Gildea.
Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914.
London: Penguin Books, 2008.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Book Information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.

The UK edition was published as a volume in the series "The New Penguin History of France".
UK edition: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.co.uk.

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Author Information:
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Wikipedia Articles:
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In Our Time Episodes Related to Nineteenth Century France:
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