Called “an altogether remarkable creation, his most accomplished novel to date” (The New York Times), What's Bred in the Bone is the second brilliant novel in Robertson Davies’ The Cornish Trilogy. Available as an eBook for the first time. Francis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small-town embalmer, a master art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis’s life were not always what they seemed. In this wonderfully ingenious portrait of an art expert and collector of international renown, Robertson Davies has created a spellbinding tale of artistic triumph and heroic deceit. It is a tale told in stylish, elegant prose, endowed with lavish portions of Davies’ wit and wisdom. “Davies’s make-believe universe has the appeal of a mystic’s vision… What’s Bred in the Bone is vintage Davies.” The Globe and Mail
Elma Clifford found herself thrust, hap-hazard, at the very last moment, into the last compartment of the last carriage of the train -- alone -- with an artist. Now, you and I, to be sure, most proverbially courteous and intelligent reader, might never have guessed at first sight, from the young man's outer aspect, the nature of his occupation. But she recognized him for what he was immediately, and she was right, and his name was Cyril Waring. He was the love of her life. Even in that first moment, Elma probably knew it. The trouble was, it seemed bound to be a short life. Before the train reached its next station, a tunnel through which it was travelling collapsed upon them. . . . All of a sudden a rapid jerk of the carriage pulled up their train unexpectedly. Elma was aware of a loud noise and a crash in front, almost instantaneously followed by a thrilling jar -- a low dull thud -- a sound of broken glass -- a quick blank stoppage. Next instant she found herself flung wildly forward into her neighbor's arms, while the artist, for his part, with outstretched hands, was vainly endeavoring to break the force of the fall for her. All she knew for the first few minutes was merely that there had been an accident to the train. Until the tunnel behind them collapsed as well, and then there was nothing either of them could do but wait. Wait, and, all but certainly, die.
Hailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in The Lyre of Orpheus. Available as an eBook for the first time. There is an important decision to be made. The Cornish Foundation is thriving under the directorship of Arthur Cornish when Arthur and his beguiling wife, Maria Theotoky, decide to undertake a project worthy of Francis Cornish– connoisseur, collector, and notable eccentric–whose vast fortune endows the Foundation. The grumpy, grimy, extraordinarily talented music student Hulda Schnakenburg is commissioned to complete E.T.A. Hoffmann’s unfinished opera Arthur of Britain, or The Magnanimous Cuckold; and the scholarly priest Simon Darcourt finds himself charged with writing the libretto. Complications both practical and emotional arise: the gypsy in Maria’s blood rises with a vengeance; Darcourt stoops to petty crime; and various others indulge in perjury, blackmail, and other unsavory pursuits. Hoffmann’s dictum, “the lyre of Orpheus opens the door of the underworld,” seems to be all too true—especially when the long-hidden secrets of Francis Cornish himself are finally revealed. Baroque and deliciously funny, this third book in The Cornish Trilogy shows Robertson Davies at his very considerable best.
Bringing together The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus, The Cornish Trilogy is available as an eBook for the first time. Woven around the pursuits of the energetic spirits and erudite scholars of the University of St. John and the Holy Ghost, this dazzling trilogy of novels lures you into a world of mysticism, historical allusion, and gothic fantasy that could only be the invention of the inimitable Robertson Davies. “A biting satire on the artistic muse . . . . This wonderful, witty novel should speak to a worldwide audience.”—Chicago Tribune
p.B. J. Whiting savors proverbial expressions and has devoted much of his lifetime to studying and collecting them; no one knows more about British and American proverbs than he. The present volume, based upon writings in British North America from the earliest settlements to approximately 1820, complements his and Archer Taylor's Dictionary of American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, 1820-1880. It differs from that work and from other standard collections, however, in that its sources are primarily not "literary" but instead workaday writings - letters, diaries, histories, travel books, political pamphlets, and the like. The authors represent a wide cross-section of the populace, from scholars and statesmen to farmers, shopkeepers, sailors, and hunters. Mr. Whiting has combed all the obvious sources and hundreds of out-of-the-way publications of local journals and historical societies. This body of material, "because it covers territory that has not been extracted and compiled in a scholarly way before, can justly be said to be the most valuable of all those that Whiting has brought together," according to Albert B. Friedman. "What makes the work important is Whiting's authority: a proverb or proverbial phrase is what BJW thinks is a proverb or proverbial phrase. There is no objective operative definition of any value, no divining rod; his tact, 'feel, ' experience, determine what's the real thing and what is spurious."
Americans have a gift for coining proverbs. "A picture is worth a thousand words" was not, as you might imagine, the product of ancient Chinese wisdom -- it was actually minted by advertising executive Fred Barnard in a 1921 advertisement for Printer's Ink magazine. After all, Americans are first and foremost a practical people and proverbs can be loosely defined as pithy statements that are generally accepted as true and useful. The next logical step would be to gather all of this wisdom together for a truly American celebration of shrewd advice.A Dictionary of American Proverbs is the first major collection of proverbs in the English language based on oral sources rather than written ones. Listed alphabetically according to their most significant key word, it features over 15,000 entries including uniquely American proverbs that have never before been recorded, as well as thousands of traditional proverbs that have found their way into American speech from classical, biblical, British, continental European, and American literature. Based on the fieldwork conducted over thirty years by the American Dialect Society, this volume is complete with historical references to the earliest written sources, and supplies variants and recorded geographical distribution after each proverb.Many surprised await the reader in this vast treasure trove of wit and wisdom. Collected here are nuggets of popular wisdom on all aspects of American life: weather, agriculture, travel, money, business, food, neighbors, friends, manners, government, politics, law, health, education, religion, music, song, and dance. And, to further enhance browsing pleasure, the editors have provided a detailed guide to the use of the work. While it's true that many of our best known proverbs have been supplied by the ever-present "Anonymous," many more can be attributed to some very famous Americans, like Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Alva Edison, Abigail Adams, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name but a few offered in this fascinating collection.Who wouldn't want to know the origin of "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings?" This uniquely American proverb and many more are gathered together in A Dictionary of American Proverbs. A great resource for students and scholars of literature, psychology, folklore, linguistics, anthropology, and cultural history, this endlessly intriguing volume is also a delightful companion for anyone with an interest in American culture.
This unique and authoritative dictionary contains over 1,100 of the most widely used proverbs in English and uses research from the Oxford English Corpus, the world's largest language databank. This edition has been revised and fully updated and includes numerous entirely new entries. It also features expanded coverage of foreign language proverbs currently in use in English. With an emphasis on examples of usage, including the earliest written evidence of its use, this A-Z guide provides a thorough - and fascinating - history for every entry. Arranged in A-Z format and with a useful thematic index, A Dictionary of Proverbs is ideal for browsing and perfectly suited for quick reference. Look up your old favourites, learn punchy new expressions to get your point across, and find the answer to that crossword clue. Seeing is believing: find proverbs relevant to every aspect of life in this entertaining and informative collection.
A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs & Proverbial Phrases Found in Literary Sources of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a unique collection of proverbial language found in literary contexts. It includes proverbial materials from a multitude of plays, (auto)biographies of well-known actors like Britain's Laurence Olivier, songs by William S. Gilbert or Lorenz Hart, and American crime stories by Leslie Charteris. Other authors represented in the dictionary are Horatio Alger, Margery Allingham, Samuel Beckett, Lewis Carroll, Raymond Chandler, Benjamin Disraeli, Edward Eggleston, Hamlin Garland, Graham Greene, Thomas C. Haliburton, Bret Harte, Aldous Huxley, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, George Orwell, Eden Phillpotts, John B. Priestley, Carl Sandburg, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jesse Stuart, Oscar Wilde, and more. Many lesser-known dramatists, songwriters, and novelists are included as well, making the contextualized texts to a considerable degree representative of the proverbial language of the past two centuries. While the collection contains a proverbial treasure trove for paremiographers and paremiologists alike, it also presents general readers interested in folkloric, linguistic, cultural, and historical phenomena with an accessible and enjoyable selection of proverbs and proverbial phrases.
This unique and authoritative dictionary contains over 1,100 of the most widely used proverbs in English, utilizing the latest research from the Oxford Languages team to source them. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated, broadening the cultural range of the proverbs selected, and covering sayings of international origins. With a strong emphasis on concisely explaining the meaning of the proverbs described, the dictionary also provides additional examples of usage, and includes a fascinating history for many entries. Arranged in A-Z order and with a useful thematic index, A Dictionary of Proverbs is ideal for browsing and perfectly suited for quick reference. Look up your old favourites, learn punchy new expressions to get your point across, and find the answer to that crossword clue. It is never too late to learn: find proverbs relevant to every aspect of life in this entertaining and informative collection.
An Indispensable Resource on Advanced Methods of Analysis of Human Skeletal and Dental Remains in Archaeological and Forensic Contexts Now in its third edition, Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton has become a key reference for bioarchaeologists, human osteologists, and paleopathologists throughout the world. It builds upon basic skills to provide the foundation for advanced scientific analyses of human skeletal remains in cultural, archaeological, and theoretical contexts. This new edition features updated coverage of topics including histomorphometry, dental morphology, stable isotope methods, and ancient DNA, as well as a number of new chapters on paleopathology. It also covers bioarchaeological ethics, taphonomy and the nature of archaeological assemblages, biomechanical analyses of archaeological human skeletons, and more. Fully updated and revised with new material written by leading researchers in the field Includes many case studies to demonstrate application of methods of analysis Offers valuable information on contexts, methods, applications, promises, and pitfalls Covering the latest advanced methods and techniques for analyzing skeletal and dental remains from archaeological discoveries, Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton is a trusted text for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals in human osteology, bioarchaeology, and paleopathology.
