A new full-length collection of high fantasy by Dave Smeds. A lover spun from moonlight. A wife banished for carrying the child of a demon. A queen, beheaded ten years ago, whose sage counsel may still save the realm. Here are tales of swords, of magic, of romance. And of the struggle to be splendid of heart whether the opponent be within or without.
Transporting stories of intrigue, superstition and rivalry from a European master, in English for the first time In this stark, haunting collection, Miklós Bánffy narrates with wry wisdom stories of cunning, betrayal and myth ranging from classical antiquity to the Transylvania of his own day. These are communities of sharp rivalries and religious superstition: young Borbálka, about to marry an unsuitable man, receives strange counsel from a suspicious figure in her village; four men seek to exploit the captive Gavrila Lung for money, while mountain wolves howl in the distance; when Old Damaskin betrays his stepson to hold on to his land, his wife extracts bizarre revenge. Translated into English for the first time by the award-winning Len Rix, this collection further establishes Bánffy as one of the foremost European writers of the twentieth century.
Smoke returns to the homeland of his people to find its cities in ruins and barbarians sweeping through the land. Raven and the others find themselves bogged down in the political dealings of their new family and all the while, the darkness plots its next move...
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1959.
One hundred million people have played World of Warcraft in the 12 years since its inception. Those people did more than play; they worked, they fought, they triumphed, they held entire game servers hostage, they even married each other in real life. They developed new identities, swapping their workaday selves for warriors, mages, assassins, and healers. Blood Plagues and Endless Raids explores a wild, incredibly complex culture partly through the author's engaging personal story but also through the stories of other players and developers. It represents the definitive (and only) account of one of the world's biggest pop culture phenomena.
“The Enchanting Encounter with the East” belongs to cross-cultural studies and focuses on the attempts of European literati to get acquainted with the bizarre realm of the Far East during the Late Middle Ages. It turns out that western intellectuals lured by the marvels and myths of the Far East did a lot of spadework before taking a route that led to unfamiliar oriental realms. On this thorny path, many Eurocentric medieval fantasies had been debunked. The book shows how global connections had surfaced centuries before industrialization. The book falls into the genre of non-fiction history and centers on the recognition of lands and cultures of India, China, and the Mongols by the Latin medieval society. The storyline is based on the original online research and presents authentic arguments based on the author’s engagement with the sources. The readers might enjoy as well as profit from this comprehensive reference that does not require deep background knowledge. The content is provided in clear language and is supplemented with a bibliography and illustrations that will enrich the entire work.
Through attuned close readings, this volume brings out the imaginative and formal brilliance of Percy Bysshe Shelley's writing as it explores his involvement in processes of dialogue and influence. Shelley recognizes that poetic individuality is the reward of connectedness with other writers and cultural influences. 'A great Poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight', he writes, 'and after one person and one age has exhausted all its divine effluence which their peculiar relations enable them to share, another and yet another succeeds, and new relations are ever developed, the source of an unforeseen and an unconceived delight' (A Defence of Poetry). He is among the major Romantic poetic exponents and theorists of influence, because of his passionately intelligent commitment to the onward dissemination of ideas and feelings, and to the unpredictable ways in which poets position themselves and are culturally positioned between past and future. The book has a tripartite structure. The first three chapters seek to illuminate his response to representative texts, figures, and themes that constitute the triple pillars of his cultural inheritance: the classical world (Plato); Renaissance poetry (Spenser and Milton); Christianity and, in particular, the concept of deity and the Bible. The second and major section of the book explores Shelley's relations and affinities with, as well as differences from, his immediate predecessors and contemporaries: Hazlitt and Lamb; Wordsworth; Coleridge; Southey; Byron; Keats (including the influence of Dante on Shelley's elegy for his fellow Romantic) and the great painter J. M. W. Turner, with whom he is often linked. The third section considers Shelley's reception by later nineteenth-century writers, figures influenced by and responding to Shelley including Beddoes, Hemans, Landon, Tennyson, and Swinburne. A coda discusses the body of critical work on Shelley produced by A. C. Bradley, a figure who stands at the threshold of twentieth-century thinking about Shelley.
First Published in 1929 A Handbook for History Teachers is an attempt on the part of a number of teachers (many of them members of the S. E. London branch of the Historical Association) to offer some practical help in the choice of historical material for children. It discusses themes like schemes of work in elementary junior and senior schools, textbooks for pupils under fifteen, class library books for pupils under fifteen, book lists for teachers, and sources for the preparation of history stories by the teacher. This is an essential read for history teachers and education.
Weyland has been at war. Invaded by a technologically advanced enemy, the cities sacked, and what fragile peace remained torn apart by a civil war. All anyone should want is a return to peace. But Jacob Carneham still wants his revenge; and if he can lure the invaders into the mountain he can have it. He can kill them all. If he does, there may never be peace again. If he doesn't, Weyland will never be free of the threat of invasion. The northern horse lords are planning an attack. A future Empress is fighting to save her daughter. Jacob's son is trying to restore peace and stability to Weyland, alongside the rightful King. And behind it all is a greater struggle, which may spell the end for them all . . .
