Geoffrey Wall

#2

"A new and newly annotated selection of letters--the only selected edition available in hardcover--from the English eighteenth-century historian, novelist, and politician whose correspondence is one of the most admired in English literature. Author of the first gothic novel and son of the first prime minister of Great Britain, Horace Walpole had wide-ranging interests that included literature, politics, world affairs, collecting, antiquities, and architecture, and to his numerous correspondents he wrote on these and other topics in prose that is celebrated for its charm, eloquence, and wit. This new Everyman's edition offers an extensive selection of Walpole's letters, helpfully arranged by subject so the reader can choose from themes including social life, the Court, politics, literature, and the evolution of his Gothic castle and art and book collections at Strawberry Hill. This edition offers new annotations throughout, with introductions to its various sections and a general introduction on Walpole as a letter writer. In addition, the text of the letters has been corrected and previously excised passages have been restored"-- "A selection of the famous letters of Horace Walpole, the eighteenth-century English writer, art historian, antiquarian, and politician, newly edited by Stephen Clarke and arranged thematically for the general reader"--

#3

1989

"How is it that Flaubert, the last of the great French romantics, still seems so incredibly modern? In this biography, Geoffrey Wall investigates why it is that the author of Madame Bovary still exerts such a hold upon our imaginations." "Gustave Flaubert lived quietly at home with his widowed mother, writing wonderful novels at a rate of five words an hour and escaping to Paris, for refreshment, every few months. A great traveller - to Corsica, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Morocco - he kept company with courtesans, actresses, acrobats, gypsies, idiots and simpletons of every stripe. Flaubert detested his respectable, provincial neighbours, referring to them, on a bad day, as 'the bourgeoisie'. They, in turn, heaped infamy upon his name and contrived to have him persecuted for writing an immoral book. Decent people avoided his company and he returned the compliment." "Flaubert's characters, his novels and his stories live on in the popular literary imagination with the same authority as those of Shakespeare and Joyce. An Egyptian hermit tormented by voluptuous devilish visions; a melancholoy doctor's wife eating arsenic to escape debt and despair; a Carthaginian priestess of the moon ritually caressing a giant snake; an old countrywoman who worships a stuffed parrot. Ancient or modern, sublime or ludicrous, Flaubert's characters are visionaries. They travel towards the dark places of the mind, and their fate prompts our pity, fear and laughter."--BOOK JACKET.