Recommendations based on "Queen Victoria"

A definitive new collection of Oscar Wilde’s best prison letters and poetry, with an introduction by Colm ToibinBankrupt and with his reputation in ruins, Oscar Wilde wrote the astonishing letter “De Profundis” to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, while in prison. Editor Colm Toibin, the acclaimed author of The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, and Brooklyn, describes it as Wilde’s “greatest piece of prose writing.” Also included is “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Wilde’s most famous poem and one of the greatest ballads in the English language, as well as other letters Wilde wrote from prison that reveal the true effects of incarceration on the people he met. Based on the Penguin Classics edition of the Complete Letters, this collection features a new introduction, notes, and appendices.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A history of book making cites examples from as far back as the eighth century, reveals the stories behind the makings of famous works, and includes such chapters as The Book Maker's Craft and Scrolls and Scribes.

One summer afternoon in 1862, the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took a rowboat out on the Thames. With him were three young friends from the Liddell family—the sisters Lorina, Edith, and Alice. Dodgson often spun fairy tales on these boating trips to pass the time, and on this particular afternoon the story was particularly well received by Alice, who afterwards entreated him to write it down for her. Dodgson recalled the pivotal moment thusly: "In a desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards."The tale, initially titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which Dodgson published in 1865 as Lewis Carroll. So began the journey, now in its 150th year, of one of the most beloved stories of all time.The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition compiles over half a century of scholarship by leading Carrollian experts to reveal the history and full depth of the Alice books and their enigmatic creator. This volume brings together Martin Gardner’s legendary original 1960 publication, The Annotated Alice; his follow-ups, More Annotated Alice and the Definitive Edition; his continuing explication through the Knight Letter magazine; and masterly additions and updates edited by Mark Burstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. In these pages Lewis Carroll's mathematical riddles and curious wordplay, ingeniously embedded throughout the Alice works, are delightfully decoded and presented in the margins, along with original correspondence, amusing anecdotal detours, and fanciful illustrations by Salvador Dalí, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and a host of other famous artists.Put simply, this anniversary edition of The Annotated Alice is the most comprehensive collection of Alice materials ever published in a single volume. May it serve as a beautiful and enduring tribute to the charming, utterly original "new line of fairy-lore" that Lewis Carroll first spun 150 years ago.The deluxe anniversary edition of The Annotated Alice includes:A rare, never-before-published portrait of Francis Jane Lutwidge, Lewis Carroll's motherOver 100 new or updated annotations, collected since the publication of Martin Gardner's Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice in 1999More than 100 new illustrations, in vibrant color, by Salvador Dalí, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and 42 other artists and illustrators, in addition to the original artwork by Sir John TennielA preface by Mark Burstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, and all of Gardner's introductions to other editionsA filmography of every Alice-related film by Carroll scholar David Schaefer

A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August*Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street JournalThe fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”Praise for A Distant Mirror“Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books“A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal“Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—Commentary

Since its publication in 1908, Anne of Green Gables has been an enduring bestseller and arguably Canada’s most famous novel. This Norton Critical Edition offers an unrivaled selection of contextual and critical material, edited by two leading Montgomery scholars. “Backgrounds” brings together fourteen relevant excerpts from Montgomery’s journals, letters, and juvenilia along with literary selections from, among others, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Caroline Oliphant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Louisa May Alcott. The cultural context of Anne of Green Gables is explored through the writings of Carole Gerson, Kate Wood, and Mary Henley Rubio. “Criticism” is divided into “Early Reviews and Responses” and “Modern Critical Views.” Eight reviews from 1908 to 1942 include Canadian, American, and British assessments. Critical essays are provided by, among others, Northrop Frye, Elizabeth Epperly, T. D. MacLulich, Juliet McMaster, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, and Elizabeth Waterston. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual—though, as she maintained, a virgin—Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years—from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558—and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs.From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition—and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen.

Montgomery-Hyde met many of the people involved in Oscar Wilde's life, including Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross and Vyvyan Holland, Wilde's son, in order to write this biography of Wilde. He has also written books on Baldwin, Stalin, Chamberlain and Mrs Beeton.

Anthony Stradivari the Celebrated Violin Maker (Dover Books On Music: Violin)Renowned nineteenth-century musicologist François-Joseph Fétis assembled this authoritative survey with the assistance of noted violin maker and dealer Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Focusing on the work of the Italian master violin maker Stradivarius, this volume explores the early history and construction of stringed instruments. In addition, this valuable resource provides rare, contemporary glimpses of the world of Paganini, Schumann, and Berlioz.A reprint of a rare 1864 publication, this study offers intriguing historical information to violinists, music historians, and music lovers of all ages. A new Introduction by famed musicologist Stewart Pollens provides further insights.

This Norton Critical Edition presents a generous selection of William Wordworth's poetry (excluding The Prelude) and prose works along with supporting materials for in-depth study. Together, the Norton Critical Editions of Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose and The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850 are the essential texts for studying this author. Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose includes a large selection of texts chronologically arranged, thereby allowing readers to trace the author's evolving interests and ideas. An insightful general introduction and textual introduction precede the texts, each of which is fully annotated. Illustrative materials include maps, manuscript pages, and title pages. “Criticism” collects thirty responses to Wordsworth's poetry and prose spanning three centuries by British and American authors. Contributors include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Felicia Hemans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lucy Newlyn, Stephen Gill, Neil Fraistat, Mary Jacobus, Nicholas Roe, M. H. Abrams, Anne K. Mellor, Michael O'Neill, and Geoffrey Hartman, among others. The volume also includes a Chronology, a Biographical Register, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines of Poems.

"There is scarcely one letter by Van Gogh which I, who am certainly no expert, do not find fascinating." --W. H. Auden In addition to his many remarkable paintings and drawings, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) left behind a fascinating and voluminous body of correspondence. This highly accessible book includes a broad selection of 265 letters, from a total of 820 in existence, that focus on Van Gogh's relentless quest to find his destiny, a search that led him to become an artist; the close bond with his brother Theo; his fraught relationship with his father; his innate yearning for recognition; and his great love of art and literature. The correspondence not only offers detailed insights into Van Gogh's complex inner life, but also re-creates the world in which he lived and the artistic avant-garde that was taking hold in Paris. The letters are accompanied by a general introduction, historic family photographs, and reproductions of 87 actual pages of letters that contain sketches by Van Gogh. Selected from the critically acclaimed 6-volume set of letters published by the Van Gogh Museum in 2009, Ever Yours is the essential book on Van Gogh's letters, which every art and literature lover needs to own.