Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Books and reading; English literature; Language Arts ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The English Language and its Literature
This is one of two books by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch used by Helene Hanff as the foundation of her education as a writer. Many people educate themselves who cannot afford education by reading all they can.My mother did not finish the eighth grade but knew more about American History and literature than most college kids today because she had a solid foundation of learning from an old fashioned teacher in a one room school house and a lifelong practice of reading.

Many may find this book dated and no doubt boring if possessed by a mind incurious of the literature of their country's language. However, there is no substitute for the motivation provided by a master of the language.

Essential reading for The Information Age
It may seem strange to recommend as essential modern reading a book that consists of a series of lectures on English Literature delivered in 1916.Arthur Qullier-Couch, or "Q" as he became known as an author of short stories, had recently been appointed Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University, England:and these lectures are a statement of his beliefs about knowledge.Knowledge, as distinct from information.

I suspect that the recent discoveries about how the brain develops (Matt Ridley's Nature via Nurture is a good text) will lead to an increasing emphasis in the next fifty years upon knowledge rather than information.At the beginning of the 21st Century our focus is exclusively upon information and communication.Our education system is geared not to gives us facts, but to teach us how to discover facts when we need them.Many social consequences parallelthis:not least the rise of feminism, it being very probably true that women are better at communication than men.

Quiller-Couch's thesis is the reverse of our universal present-day mindset.He argues (and I paraphrase grossly) that information is not only irrelevant, but that too much information can be at best distracting, and at worst, dangerous.The esssential features of human character- the battle between good and evil, of self and others - has remained unchanged throughout recorded history.Each person since the human race began has to resolve, or fail to resolve, this battle for themselves.The most gifted have been able to write about it, or compose music, or paint pictures of it.The very greatest of these works of art have a universal application:that is, the human context applies to anyone living in any age - Hamlet is not just about a medieval Dane.What differs from age to age is the language in which the context is expressed.

Until fairly recently a girl's school in the east of England had the school motto "Video, Audio, Disco".No prizes for guessing why it was changed.But in Latin it is a reasonable aspiration for a school:I see, I hear, I learn.So language changes and has different resonances at different times.To understand Shakespeare or Milton we have to study what the words meant at the time they were written.This means understanding the human dilemmas and issues that the dramatist/poet/author was trying to address.Our way into these works of literature is therefore through understanding the universal problems of human morality.QuillerCouch suggests the remarkable claim that anyone who has read and really understood Book 9 of Milton's Paradise Lost doesn't need to learn anything else, except what may be necessary to earn a living.And he goes further:having mastered Book 9 (or whatever) then, apart from the few other works of art of similar stature, any further and lesser knowledge is distracting.

This idea seems preposterous to a generation brought up to believe in information and a Freedom of Information Act.But I suspect that the pendulum may start to swing back in the next twenty years, and if this review is still posted here in fifty years, Quiller-Couch's ideas -updated with examples of universal great art from 1916 to 2050, and from a wider set of cultures than The West - may be nearer to cutting edge than obsolesence. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:IllOn the Difference between Verse and ProseYou will forgive me, Gentlemen, that having in my second lecture encouraged you to the practice of verse as well as of prose, I seize the very next opportunity to warn you against confusing the two, which differ on some points essentially, and always so as to demand separate rules—or rather (since I am shy of the word "rules") a different concept of what the writer should aim at and what avoid. But you must, pray, understand that what follows will be more useful to the tiro in prose than to the tiro in verse; for while even a lecturer may help you to avoid writing prose in the manner of Milton, only the gods— and they hardly—can cure a versifier of being prosaic.We started upon a promise to do without scientific definitions; and in drawing some distinctions to-day between verse and prose I shall use only a few rough ones; good, as I hope, so far asthey go; not to be found contrary to your scientific ones, if ever, under another teacher you attain to them; yet for the moment used only as guides to practice, and pretending to be no more.Thus I go some way—though by no means all the way—towards defining literature when I remind you that its very name (litterae—letters) implies the written rather than the spoken word; that, for example, however closely they approximate one to the other as we trace them back, and even though we trace them back to identical beginnings, the writer—the man of letters— does to-day differ from the orator. There was a time, as you know, when the poet and the historian had no less than the orator, and in the most literal sense, to "get a hearing." Nay, he got it with more pains: for the orator had his senate-house or his law-court provided, whereas Thespis jogged co fairs in a cart, and the Muse of H... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Do Not Buy the General Books Edition!
Very good book -- but the edition published by General Books is sloppily put together, unformatted, missing large chunks of text, contains garbled and nonsense words. Buy a different edition!

What a great read!
I bought this with "Q's" On the Art of Reading.I'm halfway through this one and can't wait to start the other one.I'm constantly going back to review my old Latin/Greek HS and university readings and have enjoyed the process immensely.

On the Art of Writing
This book is a classic on the subject of writing.It was a favorite of Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. In a third book, Q's Legacy, she relates how studying this book became the core of her writing education.She found Q to be both articulate and humorous.I find I agree.

The Book that Inspired Helene Hanff's Charing Cross
This slender volume is the book that began Helene Hanff's journey -- a path that led eventually to her writing the 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD series. Because I loved her books, I wondered what the master who taught her might have had to say. All I knew of him was what I had learned through Ms. Hanff.

This series of lectures, delivered in England more than nine decades ago, sparkles with a dry wit that is utterly endearing. No wonder his students loved him. Still, for someone who is the product of a late-20th century education, I must admit I was appalled by my ignorance of the classical references he made, expecting that his students would follow them with ease. Not a light-weight book, despite its compact size.

His challenge to his students, put forth in the first lecture, was to become a person [he said a man, but the statement applies to all of us] "of unmistakable intellectual breeding, whose trained judgment we can trust to choose the better and reject the worse." Not a bad goal for anyone, is it?

A word of warning. He quotes in Greek here and there -- and does not translate it, since all his students were expected to understand that language. Ditto Latin.

If you can manage only two chapters, try the first "Inaugural" and the last "On Style." ... Read more

Product Description
"A new, special, large type edition of the most famous collection of English verse ever made." Complete and Unabridged. ... Read more

Product Description
At two o¿clock on May morning a fishing-boat, with a small row-boat in tow, stole up the harbour between the lights of the vessels that lay at anchor. She came on a soundless tide, with her sprit-mainsail wide and drawing, and her foresail flapping idle; and although her cuddy-top and gunwale glistened wet with a recent shower, the man who steered her looked over his shoulder at the waning moon, and decided that the dawn would be a fine one. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / Action ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1914.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent essay
This isn't a book of poems but rather an essay about poetry. He compares poetry to other things, like music and philosophy, and then discusses poetry on its own. He's obviously done a lot of reading becuuse he quotes many other writers to show what they think of poetry. I liked it a lot, and it's short- you can read it in about an hour.

Q and Poetry
"Poetry" is about poetry and not a book of poetry. It is Q's opinion of what is good poetry, and is a reprint of one of the hardback 'Fellowship Books' edited by Mary Stratton in 1914. There are plenty of blank pages for one's own notes (10). The content more than compensates for the awkward size (7.5ins. x 9.25ins.)but any reprint of this Master's work is a welcome addition to ones library. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Until his ninth year the boy about whom this story is written lived in a house which looked upon the square of a county town. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Comics ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Oxford Clarendon PressPublication date: 1910Subjects: English ballads and songsNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q"- Poetry; Noughts and Crosses; Green Bays ... Read more

Product Description
In me¿the only child of his second marriage; as Isabel had been the only child of his first¿he appeared to have lost- and of a sudden- all interest.' (Excerpt from Chapter 1) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Nice adventure tale
This is an adventure story about a boy in England in 1813 who finds a treasure map and then sails with 5 adults to an island near Jamaica to find the treasure. It has more than just adventure- several murders, mysterious people, a suicide, bad guys, and a little humor at the beginning. It's in first person, and the narrator is the 13-year-old boy. I can only stand to read books (and watch movies) with kids in them if the kids act like adults, and this one does. The book is written for adults, though I'm sure teenagers can handle it easily. The author writes well and is able to keep the story moving along by introducing mysteries along the way. The ending is very abrupt- I turned the last page, expecting nothing unusual, and bang, it was done. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more