Anonymity

Anonymity

Author: John Mullan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0691230927

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Some of the greatest works in English literature were first published without their authors' names. Why did so many authors want to be anonymous--and what was it like to read their books without knowing for certain who had written them? In Anonymity, John Mullan gives a fascinating and original history of hidden identity in English literature. From the sixteenth century to today, he explores how the disguises of writers were first used and eventually penetrated, how anonymity teased readers and bamboozled critics--and how, when book reviews were also anonymous, reviewers played tricks of their own in return. Today we have forgotten that the first readers of Gulliver's Travels and Sense and Sensibility had to guess who their authors might be, and that writers like Sir Walter Scott and Charlotte Brontë went to elaborate lengths to keep secret their authorship of the best-selling books of their times. But, in fact, anonymity is everywhere in English literature. Spenser, Donne, Marvell, Defoe, Swift, Fanny Burney, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, Lewis Carroll, Tennyson, George Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Doris Lessing--all hid their names. With great lucidity and wit, Anonymity tells the stories of these and many other writers, providing a fast-paced, entertaining, and informative tour through the history of English literature.


Paris

Paris

Author: Andrew Hussey

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2010-07-22

Total Pages: 696

ISBN-13: 1608192377

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If Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon described daily life in contemporary Paris, this book describes daily life in Paris throughout its history: a history of the city from the point of view of the Parisians themselves. Paris captures everyone's imaginations: It's a backdrop for Proust's fictional pederast, Robert Doisneau's photographic kiss, and Edith Piaf's serenaded soldier-lovers; a home as much to romance and love poems as to prostitution and opium dens. The many pieces of the city coexist, each one as real as the next. What's more, the conflicted identity of the city is visible everywhere-between cobblestones, in bars, on the métro. In this lively and lucid volume, Andrew Hussey brings to life the urchins and artists who've left their marks on the city, filling in the gaps of a history that affected the disenfranchised as much as the nobility. Paris: The Secret History ranges across centuries, movements, and cultural and political beliefs, from Napoleon's overcrowded cemeteries to Balzac's nocturnal flight from his debts. For Hussey, Paris is a city whose long and conflicted history continues to thrive and change. The book's is a picaresque journey through royal palaces, brothels, and sidewalk cafés, uncovering the rich, exotic, and often lurid history of the world's most beloved city.


Lewd

Lewd

Author: D. W. Kreger

Publisher: Windham Everitt Publishing

Published: 2019-05-25

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 9780983309949

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Did you ever wonder why you can use any word for poop except for the word sh*t? You can say excrement, poop, poo, poo-poo, feces, defecation, caca, dung, manure, stool, fecal matter, and human waste. You can even say the word crap. But, the word "sh*t" is banned by the federal government. You can be fined by the FCC for saying it on broadcast TV or radio. Here's the weird thing; among all these words, it's sh*t, and sh*t alone that's illegal. Any other synonym is ok. Why is that? They all mean exactly the same thing. What's so special about this one word? The same is true for the "F" word. You can say sex, copulation, fornication, shag, boff, hump, diddle, score, or bone, and it's legal. You can even say screw. It's not polite, but it's allowed. But, the word f*ck alone is banned by the US government. And the same thing is true for the word c*nt. There's a lot of slang words for vagina, and they're all allowed on broadcast media. All, that is, except for the "C" word. Why is that? What is so different about these words that makes them illegal when all their synonyms are ok? Well it turns out that all of these banned, four-letter words all have something in common. Something that makes them different. And, it has nothing to do with being obscene. In fact, there was once a time when these were just common words and not considered dirty at all. Now, finally, this book reveals the secret behind English dirty words and exactly how these particular lewd words became so offensive that they were outlawed by the federal government.


Donna Tartt's The Secret History

Donna Tartt's The Secret History

Author: Tracy Hargreaves

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2001-09-01

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9780826453204

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This series gives readers accessible and informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential contemporary novels. Each title includes a biography of the novelist and a full-length study of the novel.


The Secret History of the Mongols

The Secret History of the Mongols

Author: Urgunge Onon

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0700713352

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This fresh translation of one of the only surviving Mongol sources about the Mongol empire, brings out the excitement of this epic with its wide-ranging commentaries on military and social conditions, religion and philosophy, while remaining faithful to the original text.


The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov

The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov

Author: Andrea Pitzer

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-03-05

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1453271678

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A startling and revelatory examination of Nabokov’s life and works—notably Pale Fire and Lolita—bringing new insight into one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic authors Novelist Vladimir Nabokov witnessed the horrors of his century, escaping Revolutionary Russia then Germany under Hitler, and fleeing France with his Jewish wife and son just weeks before Paris fell to the Nazis. He repeatedly faced accusations of turning a blind eye to human suffering to write artful tales of depravity. But does one of the greatest writers in the English language really deserve the label of amoral aesthete bestowed on him by so many critics? Using information from newly-declassified intelligence files and recovered military history, journalist Andrea Pitzer argues that far from being a proponent of art for art’s sake, Vladimir Nabokov managed to hide disturbing history in his fiction—history that has gone unnoticed for decades. Nabokov emerges as a kind of documentary conjurer, spending the most productive decades of his career recording a saga of forgotten concentration camps and searing bigotry, from World War I to the Gulag and the Holocaust. Lolita surrenders Humbert Humbert’s secret identity, and reveals a Nabokov appalled by American anti-Semitism. The lunatic narrator of Pale Fire recalls Russian tragedies that once haunted the world. From Tsarist courts to Nazi film sets, from CIA front organizations to wartime Casablanca, the story of Nabokov’s family is the story of his century—and both are woven inextricably into his fiction.


The Secret History of Us

The Secret History of Us

Author: Jessi Kirby

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2017-08-01

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 0062299476

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“Jessi Kirby’s books just keep getting better and better, and The Secret History of Us is her best yet. It beautifully touches on all the most important things in life—love, family, friendship, memory, and bacon. I loved it.”—Morgan Matson, New York Times bestselling author of The Unexpected Everything In this gorgeously written, emotional novel that fans of Sarah Dessen will enjoy, a teenage girl must piece together the parts of her life she doesn’t remember after a severe collision leaves her with no memory of the past four years. When Olivia awakes in a hospital bed following a near-fatal car accident, she can’t remember how she got there. She figures it’s because she was in a coma for a week, but as time goes on, she realizes she’s lost more than just the last week of her life—she’s lost all memory of events that happened years ago. Gone is any recollection of starting or graduating high school; the prom; or her steady boyfriend Matt. Trying to figure out who she is feels impossible when everyone keeps telling her who she was. As Liv tries to sort out her family and friends’ perceptions of her, the one person she hasn’t heard enough from is Walker, the guy who saved her the night her car was knocked off that bridge into the bay below. Walker is the hardened boy who’s been keeping his distance and the one person that has made Liv feel like her old self…whoever that is. With feelings growing for Walker, tensions rising with Matt, and secrets she can’t help but feel are being kept from her, Olivia must find her place in a life she doesn’t remember living.


The Secret History of Fantasy

The Secret History of Fantasy

Author: Peter S. Beagle

Publisher: Tachyon Publications

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 9781892391995

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Tired of the same old fantasy? Here are nineteen much-needed antidotes to clichâed tales of swords and sorcery. Fantasy is back, and it's better than ever!