Showing results for "last days" in Literary History & Criticism

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Justin Avoth and Laurence Dobiesz. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Christopher Rowe read by Justin Avoth. 'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just' Plato's...

In her last days, Sylvia Plath struggled to break out from the control of the towering figure of her husband Ted Hughes. In the antique mythology of his retinue, she had become the gorgon threatening to bring down the House of Hughes. Drawing on recently available court records, archives, and interviews, and reevaluating the memoirs of the formidable Hughes contingent who treated Plath as a female hysteric, Carl Rollyson rehabilitates the image of a woman too often viewed solely within the confines of what Hughes and his collaborators wanted to be written.

Lily Cole stars as Helen of Troy, ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’, in Simon Armitage’s vivid, visceral adaptation of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. For 10 years, the Greeks have been laying siege to Troy to win back their abducted queen, Helen. But as the war drags on, and the battlefields run scarlet with blood, the opposing forces are entrenched in a bitter stalemate. As gods and mortals squabble amongst themselves for the spoils of war, the exhausted warriors go to extreme lengths in a desperate grab for victory....

Last Days of Pompeii is a captivating novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, penned in 1834. Once a bestseller, this literary gem has faded into obscurity, yet it vividly depicts the catastrophic destruction of Pompeii following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Through its rich characters, the novel explores the contrasts between the opulent lifestyle of first-century Rome and the ancient cultures that preceded it, as well as the emerging societal trends. The protagonist, Glaucus, embodies the Greek spirit overshadowed by Roman dominance, while his rival, Arbaces, symbolizes the enduring ...

Journey back to the year 1900 through the eyes of a French naval officer stationed in China during the tumultuous Boxer Rebellion. This compelling narrative captures the stark realities of war, yet it goes beyond the chaos to unveil the rich and enigmatic civilization that the so-called barbarian forces encountered. With a blend of admiration and a hint of colonial perspective, the author offers a vivid account that invites readers to reflect on both the horrors and the beauty of a world in conflict. (Summary by Peter Tucker)

Through the rising action of his life in literature, Lennon’s remembrances track the influence not only of his literary pater familias, Norman Mailer, but his actual father, a booze-bitten blue-collar bibliophile with his own reputation for genius, and how together these mentors forged and focused the 20/20 literary vision Lennon takes to the work of some of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century, from Baldwin and Bishop to Didion and DeLillo and, not least, Mailer himself.