A Study Guide for James Thurber's "The Princess and the Tin Box," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
In a cold, gloomy castle where all the clocks have stopped, a wicked Duke amuses himself by finding new and fiendish ways of rejecting the suitors for his niece, the good and beautiful Princess Saralinda.
The third novel in the New York Times bestselling Thursday Next series is “great fun—especially for those with a literary turn of mind and a taste for offbeat comedy” (The Washington Post Book World). “Delightful . . . the well of Fforde’s imagination is bottomless.”—People “Fforde creates a literary reality that is somewhere amid a triangulation of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, and Miss Marple.”—The Denver Post With the 923rd Annual Bookworld Awards just around the corner and an unknown villain wreaking havoc in Jurisfiction, what could possibly be next for Detective Thursday Next? Protecting the world’s greatest literature—not to mention keeping up with Miss Havisham—is tiring work for an expectant mother. And Thursday can definitely use a respite. So what better hideaway than inside the unread and unreadable Caversham Heights, a cliché-ridden pulp mystery in the hidden depths of the Well of Lost Plots, where all unpublished books reside? But peace and quiet remain elusive for Thursday, who soon discovers that the Well itself is a veritable linguistic free-for-all, where grammasites run rampant, plot devices are hawked on the black market, and lousy books—like Caversham Heights—are scrapped for salvage. To top it off, a murderer is stalking Jurisfiction personnel and nobody is safe—least of all Thursday. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT
The life of James Thurber (1894-1961) touched many representative areas of the American twentieth century; and in the course of working in and with and for (and sometimes against) the several worlds he at various times inhabited, he produced a body of work that is as impressive in its variety as in its quantity. Mr. Bowden has provided a bibliography of all known and authentic Thurber items: newspaper stories, columns, and feature articles; short humorous pieces of the kind the New Yorker has designated "the casual"; more formal essays; fables; parodies; short stories in a remarkable variety of forms and moods; book and drama reviews; children's novels; autobiographical reminiscences; prefaces; plays; short poems; and hundreds of drawings. For the most part, Thurber wrote short pieces; and, being a professional writer, he tried to get as much mileage out of each as possible. Typically, a short piece would appear first in a periodical, then would be incorporated into one of his books, and finally would become a part of one of the later collected books such as The Thurber Carnival or Alarms and Diversions, from which it might very well be picked up, in turn, for inclusion in an anthology or for a second periodical appearance. Despite Thurber's tendency to husband and preserve his creative capital, however, he was also-and perhaps even more typically-creatively prodigal and prolific. He wrote much and he drew much, and he scattered his work widely in magazines and newspapers. Those items he wished to preserve he collected in book form; those that, presumably he did not, he allowed to be forgotten. Mr. Bowden's exhaustive study of the Thurber canon does much to suggest the working habits, the productivity, and the stature of a writer, historian, satirist, humorist, commentator, and critic of his times, in whose full critical assessment this bibliography will serve as an invaluable tool. Edwin T. Bowden is professor of English at the University of Texas.
