Oxford letters & memoirs

"Written in the lucid intervals between the bouts of dementia that haunted his final years, Praeterita tells the story of John Ruskin's early life - the formation of his taste and intellect through education, travels in Europe, and encounters with great works of art and artists. In abandoning the traditional linear mode of autobiography, Ruskin opened up the form and was an important influence on Proust. He also provided a detailed portrait of pre-Victorian and Victorian England." "This edition of Praeterita is accompanied by Dilecta, Ruskin's own selection from letters, documents, and other writings, sent to him in response to Praeterita. Together these two works illuminate the life and mind of a towering intellect who left an extraordinary mark on the history of aesthetics and culture."--Jacket.

Letters covering the period of 1935 to 1961, from Thurber's confident prime as a writer and artist, to his last days when blindness and infirmity failed to quench the exuberance of his spirit or his prose.

""He's tart, tough-minded, terribly British...an imposing grand master of aphorism, argument and lightning-bolt one-liners." So Newsweek writer wrote of Sir Peter Medawar, the renowned British immunologist. "The most accomplished writer of popular-science essays," declared the Philadelphia Inquirer. Now this Nobel Prize-winning scientist and highly acclaimed author of Pluto's Republic, Aristotle to Zoos, and many other books has written a fascinating account of his own life. The image of man as a cross between Pascal's "thinking reed" and Falstaff's "forked radish," expressed in the title of Sir Peter's autobiography, stems from his humble desire "not to claim for myself as an author any distinction more extravagant than membership of the human race." But it is an exceptional life that unfolds in the pages of this incisive and witty memoir. Sir Peter describes his early years in Rio de Janiero, "the rude and barbaric life of Marlborough," Oxford in 1930s, his illnesses and recovery, and the rewards and frustrations of work in a wide variety of academic institutions around the world. Rich anecdotes abound--his early school days and family life, his musical education, his wife Jean and their family, his frequent visits to America, and much more. A sheer delight to read, this highly personal account illuminates the life of one of the most engaging and impressive men of out time"--Publisher description.

On August 2, 1914, Reverend Andrew Clark of rural Essex began to keep a diary of everything--news, views, gossip, letters, and circulars--pertaining to World War I. His vast compilation, here condensed and published for the first time, conveys with extraordinary immediacy what the war meant to men and women from every walk of life. This diary, written within earshot of the guns at the front, recounts the years of rationing and rampant xenophobia; of widespread resentment of the government; of grim rumors of German atrocities; of seemingly endless waiting for news from the battlefield; of hideous events that became everyday occurrences. Clark's diary is a vivid testimony to how the war profoundly altered people's lives and outlooks.