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This 1922 book by poet and sometime cultural critic Vachel Lindsay might have been the first to treat the then-new medium of moving pictures as an art form, one that was potentially as rich, complex, mysterious as far older ones, and whose physical and aesthetic properties were only starting to be understood. The highlight of the book might be “The Motion Picture of Fairy Splendor,” which examines the relationship between film storytelling, magic, myths, legends and bedtime stories. It’s discombobulating, in a good way, to read Lindsay’s attempts to grapple with what, precisely, cinema is. Being supposedly sophisticated 21st century people, we all feel as though we know what cinema is, and don’t need to have the basics explained to us, but this is really just vanity and ignorance talking. Bottom line: You haven’t really, seriously thought about movies — what they are, and what they can and cannot do, and become — until you’ve read this book. (Salon.com)...

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Art

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Ballade of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 20, 2012. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the prince of paradox. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. For example, Chesterton wrote Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Poetry, Humor, Philosophy

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The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.” This audio read of Forstner’s journal was prompted by a tour of a captured WWII German U-505 submarine, which is a prime draw at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The sub’s interior is not for claustrophobics--a hunkered maze of pipes and valves, banks of engines and batteries that leave very little room for humans. Particularly arresting are the sleeping quarters--bunks cozy’d up with the 15 foot long torpedoes. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)...

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Adventure, History, Memoirs, Sea stories, War stories

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Little Lord Fauntleroy is a sentimental children's novel by American (English-born) author Frances Hodgson Burnett, serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1885. It was a runaway hit for the magazine and was separately published in 1886. The book was a commercial success for its author, and its illustrations by Reginal Birch set fashion trends. Little Lord Fauntleroy also set a precedent in copyright law in 1888 when its author won a lawsuit over the rights to theatrical adaptations of the work. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Children, Teen/Young adult

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Among monuments of narrative poetry, The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind, by William Wordsworth, occupies a unique place. Wordsworth published the first version of the poem in 1798, but continued to work on it for the rest of his life. The final version, which is the subject of this recording, was published posthumously in 1850, by Wordworth’s widow, Mary.The Prelude is the first major narrative poem in European literature which deals solely with the spiritual journey of the author. In this respect the only predecessor to which it can be compared in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is similarly a journey from personal confusion to certitude, from ignorance to realization. However, Dante starts his journey at the age of 35, and, through a lengthy rite of passage, involving both moral and intellectual purification, arrives at a state of illumination that he is not really able to describe. In The Prelude, on the other hand, illumination appears as the background on which the story is inscribed. Wordsworth is really no wiser at the end of his journey than he was at the start, but appears more accepting of the inexorable and sometimes b...

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Biography, Poetry

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Publication of The Kreutzer Sonata in 1889 was a significant intellectual event worldwide. Censored in Russia, it set off an explosive debate in Europe, America, and Asia on matters relating to sexual abstinence and the hypocrisy of marriage. The novella emphasizes Tolstoy's controversial view on sexuality, which asserts that physical desire is an obstacle to relations between men and women and may result in tragedy. The Kreutzer Sonata has been recognized as among the best examples of Tolstoy's art of storytelling.(Introduction by Dorlene Kaplan)...

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Fiction, Tragedy

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This is Edith Wharton's earliest published collection of short stories (1899). Like much of her later work, they touch on themes of marriage, male/female relationships, New York society, and the nature and purpose of art. One of the stories, The Twilight of the God, is written as a short play. The role of Warland is read by mb, and the role of Oberville by Bruce Pirie. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Short stories, Literature

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The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853. Intending to prove how the architecture in Venice exemplified the principles he discussed in his earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin examined the city in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. He discusses architecture of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods, and provides a general history of the city as well. The book aroused considerable interest in Victorian Britain and beyond. The chapter The Nature of Gothic (from volume 2) was admired by William Morris, who published it separately in an edition which is in itself an example of Gothic revival. It inspired Marcel Proust; the narrator of the Recherche visits Venice with his mother in a state of enthusiasm for Ruskin. The Stones of Venice is considered one of the most influential books of the 19th century. (Summary adapted from the Wikipedia by Leni)...

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Art, Travel

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Pompey, the son of Julio and Phyllis, was born A.D. 1735, at Bologna in Italy, a place famous for lap-dogs and sausages. At an early age he was carried away from the boudoir of his Italian mistress by Hillario, an English gentleman illustrious for his gallantries, who brought him to London. The rest of the history is really a chain of social episodes, each closed by the incident that Pompey becomes the property of some fresh person. In this way we find ourselves in a dozen successive scenes, each strongly contrasted with the others. It is the art of the author that he knows exactly how much to tell us without wearying our attention, and is able to make the transition to the next scene a plausible one. (Summary by Edmund Gosse in Gossip in a Library http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11628)...

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Fiction, Satire

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Reuben Sachs is a London lawyer whose political aspirations do not include marriage to Judith Quixano, the daughter of a respectable but unexeptional family. But without Reuben, a woman like Judith might have a bleak future in mid-19th century England: a loveless marriage or lifelong dependancy are apparently her only options... A feminist, a Jew, and a lesbian, Amy Levy wrote about Anglo-Jewish cultural mores and the lives of would-be independent women in Victorian society. Levy was as repelled by contemporary literature's occasional paragon (e.g., Daniel Deronda) as by its more frequent anti-Semitic stereotypes. REUBEN SACHS was her attempt at an honest, warts-and-all account of middle class Jewish life in late-19th century London. While many of Levy's contemporaries condemned the book as a shanda fur die goyim (an embarassment), Oscar Wilde wrote: Its directness, its uncompromising truths, its depth of feeling, and above all, its absence of any single superfluous word, make REUBEN SACHS, in some sort, a classic. Amy Levy (1861-1889) was born in London and educated in Brighton and at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her social set incl...

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Fiction

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That the little boy loved Uncle Remus and his stories was so obvious that the tale-spinning sessions began drawing additional listeners. Daddy Jack, an old Africa man visiting from down-state; Sis Tempy, the strong chief of the mansion's servants; and Tildy, a young and pretty servant-girl - all found their way to Uncle Remus' rude cabin when their duties or interests permitted, to sit around the hearth and hear the wonderful tales of the animals, and foremost among them, Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox. It turned out that some of the tales had different ways of telling, and the visitors took their turns at being the story-teller. Always one or more clever animals humbled or hornswoggled others among their community with flattery, wide-eyed mystery, or outright fraud. After the success of Harris' Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings ( /uncle-remus-by-joel-chandler-harris/ ), he went on to write eight more books compiling the tales he himself had heard on the plantation in his young days. This is the first of those sequels....

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Fiction, Children, Animals

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“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?” “We are dominated by journalism.... Journalism governs for ever and ever.” One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now. This compendium work - skilfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason - ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged immorality of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The disastrous outcome of these trials provides an ironic conclusion to the earlier knockabout exchanges between Oscar and his reviewers. In these he is at his flamboyant best, revelling in the publicity he pretends to disdain. His brave performances in the dock did nothing, however, to save him from hard labour, the treadmill and complete physical and moral breakdown which the law found it necessary to inflict on him. In contrast to th...

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Literature, Biography, Philosophy

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The Two Paths is a collection of five lectures delivered in 1858 and 1859 by John Ruskin on art and architecture. This is how the author himself presents the book: The following addresses, though spoken at different times, are intentionally connected in subject; their aim being to set one or two main principles of art in simple light before the general student, and to indicate their practical bearing on modern design. The law which it has been my effort chiefly to illustrate is the dependence of all noble design, in any kind, on the sculpture or painting of Organic Form. The most famous of these, the fifth lecture, is commonly known simply as The Work of Iron (Summary by Leni)...

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Art

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As the New York Times said in 1903, this lesser-known work by Jerome K. Jerome does not display the wit of Congreve or even the glittering sort Mr. Jerome employs in some of his other books. It takes the form of imaginary conversations between the writer and a number of un-named characters at the afternoon tea table. The Woman of the World, the Old Maid, the Girton Girl, the Philosopher and the Minor Poet wax lyrical on subjects like marriage, art, society and politics. Frequently they appear to prefer the sound of their own voice to that of others. Although I couldn't agree with the NY Times that it is the Baedeker guide to conversation, it is certainly an eye-opening glimpse into this now almost extinct art. The participants are already bemoaning the lack of invigorating conversation in society: Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

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The year is 1838. The scene is the dense Honduran forest along the Copán River. Two men, John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, are about to rediscover Mayan civilization. Their guide, slashing through the rampant growth with his machete, leads them to a structure with steps up the side, shaped like a pyramid. Next they see a stone column, fourteen feet high, sculptured on the front with a portrait of a man, “solemn, stern and well fitted to excite terror,” covered on the sides with hieroglyphics, and with workmanship “equal to the finest monuments of the Egyptians.” Stephens records these discoveries and also his travels in Central America, where he had been sent by President Van Buren as special ambassador to the ill-fated Republic of Central America. The republic being engulfed in civil war when Stephens arrives in Guatemala, he finds himself dodging revolutionary armies while he hunts for a “legitimate government” to which to present his credentials. Catherwood, meanwhile, directs his immense artistic talent to illustrating views of Mayan architecture. Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan was a best...

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Adventure, Travel, Art, History

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Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was at one time Ambassador to the Hague, negotiated the second Treaty of Vienna, was a founding governor of London’s Foundling Hospital, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Secretary of State. Having no legitimate children, his heir was his third cousin (another Philip) whom he adopted. Although known as a hard, calculating man, he is most well known for his letters to his natural son (i.e., illegitimate son) (also called Philip). When Philip died in 1768, the letters are addressed to his grandchildren (Philip’s two sons, Charles, and, yes, Philip!). (Sibella Denton) From the introduction: “The proud Lord Chesterfield would have turned in his grave had he known that he was to go down to posterity as a teacher and preacher of the gospel of not grace, but—the graces, the graces, the graces. Natural gifts, social status, open opportunities, and his ambition, all conspired to destine him for high statesmanship. If anything was lacking in his qualifications, he had the pluck and good sense to work hard and persistently until the deficiency was made up. Something remained lacking, and not all his consumm...

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Biography, Memoirs, Advice, Philosophy

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In introducing the English version of this book I venture to bespeak a welcome for it, not only for the light which it throws on some little-known incidents of the South African war, but also because of the keen personal interest of the events recorded. It is more than a history. It is a dramatic picture of the hopes and fears, the devotion and bitterness with which some patriotic women in Pretoria watched and, as far as they could, took part in the war which was slowly drawing to its conclusion on the veld outside. I do not associate myself with the opinions expressed by the writer as to the causes of the war or the methods adopted to bring it to an end, or as to the policy which led to the Concentration Camps, and the causes of the terrible mortality which prevailed during the first months of their existence. On these matters many readers will hold different opinions from the writer, or will prefer to let judgment be in suspense and to look to the historian of the future for a final verdict. We are still too near the events to be impartial. But this book does not challenge or invite controversy. Fortunately for South Africa, most ...

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History, Memoirs, Tragedy, War stories

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volunteers bring you 13 recordings of A Cry From an Indian Wife by E. Pauline Johnson,. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 29, 2012. In 1892 the opportunity of a lifetime came to this young versifier, when Frank Yeigh, the president of the Young Liberals' Club, of Toronto, conceived the idea of having an evening of Canadian literature, at which all available Canadian authors should be guests and read from their own works. Among the authors present on this occasion was Pauline Johnson, who contributed to the programme one of her compositions, entitled A Cry from an Indian Wife; and when she recited without text this much-discussed poem, which shows the Indian's side of the North-West Rebellion, she was greeted with tremendous applause from an audience which represented the best of Toronto's art, literature and culture. She was the only one on the programme who received an encore, and to this she replied with one of her favourite canoeing poems. The following morning the entire press of Toronto asked why this young writer was not on the platform as a professional reader; while two of the dailies even contained editori...

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Adventure, Historical Fiction, History, Nature, Politics, Romance, Tragedy, War stories, Poetry

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A fascinating look back at the state of the art of chemistry 100 years ago, this book by James C. Philip, PhD, an assistant professor of chemistry at The Imperial College of Science and Technology, Kensington, provides a description in non-technical language of the diverse and wonderful way which chemical forces are at work, and their manifold application in modern life in 1910. Professor Philip relates many of the key chemical discoveries of early academic researchers in the context of the practical uses to which these discoveries were applied in the early 20th century. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

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Science

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“(T)he past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.” Published originally as “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” this is not so much a work of sober political analysis; rather it can be summed up as a rhapsodic manifesto on behalf of the Individual. Socialism having deployed technology to liberate the whole of humanity from soul-destroying labour, the State obligingly withers away to allow the free development of a joyful, anarchic hedonism... “Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.” Far from abandoning the epigram in favour of the slogan, Wilde wittily assails several of his favourite targets: the misguided purveyors of philanthropy; life-denying ascetics of various kinds; the army of the half-educated who constitute themselves the enemies of Art - and those venal popular journalists who cater to them... “Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, ca...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Economics/Political Economy, Politics

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Capital, Volume I is the first of three volumes in Karl Marx’s monumental work, Das Kapital, and the only volume to be published during his lifetime, in 1867. Marx’s aim in Capital, Volume I is to uncover and explain the laws specific to the capitalist mode of production and of the class struggles rooted in these capitalist social relations of production. Marx said himself that his aim was “to bring a science [i.e. political economy] by criticism to the point where it can be dialectically represented”, and in this way to “reveal the law of motion of modern society”. By showing how capitalist development was the precursor of a new, socialist mode of production, he aimed to provide a scientific foundation for the modern labour movement. In preparation for his book, he studied the economic literature available in his time for a period of twelve years, mainly in the British Museum in London.(Summary by Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy, Politics, Economics/Political Economy

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The introduction to Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of world history is often used to introduce students to Hegel's philosophy, in part because Hegel's sometimes difficult style is muted in the lectures, and he discourses on accessible themes such as world events in order to explain his philosophy. Much of the work is spent defining and characterizing Geist or spirit. Geist is similar to the culture of people, and is constantly reworking itself to keep up with the changes of society, while at the same time working to produce those changes through what Hegel called the cunning of reason. Another important theme of the text is the focus on world history, rather than regional or state history. The obscure writings of Jakob Böhme had a strong effect on Hegel. Böhme had written that the Fall of Man was a necessary stage in the evolution of the universe. This evolution was, itself, the result of God's desire for complete self-awareness. Hegel was fascinated by the works of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, and by the French Revolution. Modern philosophy, culture, and society seemed to Hegel fraught with contradictions and tensions, ...

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Philosophy, History

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Bertram Wooster's manservant, Jeeves, is renown for his ability to apply his keen intellect to solve all problems domestic, and Bertie's friends and relatives flock to him for his counsel. But Wooster, jealous of Jeeves's fame, decides to step in and take over as the fixer of his pal's engagement, his aunt's gambling debts and old school-mate's desire to propose marriage. How far will Bertie sink them all in the soup? Will Jeeves come to the rescue? Right Ho, Jeeves features of course Bertie and Jeeves as well as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Tuppie Glossop, Aunt Dahlia and Anatole the high-strung French chef in this P.G. Wodehouse farce of England's upper crust. (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

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Comedy

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volunteers bring you 20 recordings of Siberia by James Clarence Mangan. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for September 2, 2012. James Clarence Mangan wad born in Dublin. He was educated at a Jesuit school where he learned the rudiments of Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. He attended three different schools until the age of fifteen. Obliged to find a job in order to support his family, he became a lawyer's clerk, and was later an employee of the Ordnance Survey and an assistant in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Poetry, Adventure, Nature, Tragedy