Eliot Asinof and the Truth of the Game: A Critical Study of the Baseball Writings
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The late Eliot Asinof (1919-2008), renowned author of Eight Men Out, on which the movie version was later based, also wrote 14 other full length books, including 4 more on baseball. In addition, he produced countless articles, interviews, short stories, and screenplays in a writing career spanning over half a century. This is the first detailed critical study for both his baseball and non-baseball output. His entire oeuvre is explored, as well as pertinent themes, major characters and the current status of his literary reputation. A major addition to the scholarly work on this minor-league baseball player turned author.
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Chrétien de Troyes and the Dawn of Arthurian Romance
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During the late 12th century, the Arthurian legends first took their form in the imagination of French-speaking romancers. Foremost among these poets was the great Chrétien de Troyes, credited with incorporating into the Arthurian tradition the quest for the Holy Grail and the adulterous affair between Lancelot and Guinevere. This critical text explores the French roots of the legends and the source material of the individual characters, with special attention to the creative role played by de Troyes, whose contribution to the saga continues to shape and inform the modern imagination.
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Perpetua of Carthage: Portrait of a Third-Century Martyr
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This book studies the life and times of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicity and their companions, all martyred at Carthage in 203 A.D. Unlike most early Christian saints, whose lives are often shrouded in legend and myth, Perpetua left an authentic prison diary, later completed by an anonymous eyewitness to her execution, that is now considered a classic of Christian, Latin and feminist literature. Perpetua was also unusual in that she was wealthy, educated, married, and a young mother. The book includes the first English translations of French archaeological scholarship covering the discovery of the martyrs’ tombs.
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Ulysses S. Grant, 1861-1864: His Rise from Obscurity to Military Greatness
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On May 3, 1861, Illinois Governor Richard Yates appointed a Mexican War veteran with Democratic sympathies and southern ties to be chief mustering officer at Camp Yates in Springfield. And so began Ulysses S. Grant’s reluctantly revived military career. Over the next three years, Grant would have a chance to display a myriad of talents few suspected, including a remarkable penchant for organization, decided skill at written communication and a quick understanding of military potential. By March 1864, Grant had risen to lieutenant general, a rank last held by George Washington. This biography details the three years which saw Ulysses S. Grant’s extraordinary rise from mediocre shop clerk to general-in-chief of the U.S. Army. Beginning with Grant’s work at his family’s leather shop in Galena, Illinois, it records his re-entry into a military life as a volunteer from Illinois. Grant’s most spectacular campaigns, including Vicksburg and Chattanooga, are discussed in depth. Special emphasis is placed on events such as politicking, rumors and intrigue which took place between the various battles. Other topics include Grant’s personal qualities and background, his extraordinary good fortune and the general’s informal and unorthodox command style. Grant was not a stereotypical warrior, and his true story was, in many respects, stranger than fiction. Moreover, Farina asks and answers, "What happened in between the battles?" Learn the true story about a hero who, against America’s cultural grain, wasn't perfect. |
De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon
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The question may be met with chagrin and even derision by traditionalists, but the identity of the Bard is not definitely decided. During the 20th century, Edward de Vere, the rogue courtier poet and flamboyant bad boy of the Elizabethan era, became the leading candidate for an alternative Shakespeare. This book tells all the many credible reasons “William Shakespeare” may have been a pen name used by de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, to disguise his aristocratic political leanings while producing some of the greatest theatrical agitprop ever witnessed by public audiences. This text presents the controversial argument for de Vere’s authorship of the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare, offering the available historical evidence and moreover the literary evidence to be found within the works. Divided into sections on the comedies and romances, the histories and the tragedies and poems, this fresh study closely analyzes each of the 39 plays and the sonnets in light of the Oxfordian authorship theory. The vagaries surrounding Shakespeare, including the lack of information about him during his lifetime, especially relating to the “lost years” of 1585–1592, are also analyzed, to further the question of Shakespeare’s true identity and the theory of de Vere as the real Bard. This is a valuable reference book for researchers from both sides of the authorship debate, especially since Farina’s perspective is not one of an academic, nor a performer.
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