Product Description
Eight essays on the ultimate temptations of humankind include Thomas Pynchon on Sloth, John Updike on Lust, Gore Vidal on Pride, A. S. Byatt on Envy, and Joyce Carol Oates on Despair. Reprint. LJ. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Lightweight
This book is a collection of eight essays. The first seven are each written on the subject of one of the "deadly" sins of sloth, anger, lust, gluttony, pride, avarice and envy. The eight is on despair. Each of the famous authors ruminates on the sin, looking at it from his or her unique perspective.

Overall I found the essays well written, and the book to be easy to read. This book makes for some lightweight reading, short and simple, but without much substance. Overall, I don't recommend it.

Pynchon, Gordon, Updile, Vidal, Trevor, Howard, Byatt, Oates
Eight essays on Sloth, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Avarice, Envy, and Despair (yes that's 8 sins).To be honest I bought it because of Pynchon, (whose essay -if you are even a slight fan- makes the buy worth it) butread on to the back cover.I quickly discovered that these authorscompiled around the topic of sins is a great way to see inside thesewriters styles and appraoch to a similar idea.Some I'd read before, andothers introduced themselves in this novel.All were unique andinteresting in their own right, especially for someone -me- who isn'tterribly interested in sins.Highly reccomended! ... Read more

Product Description
A richly illustrated anthology of stories inspired by objects from Henry Wellcome’s museum, one of the 20th century’s most mysterious and bizarre collections. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

what was all the fuss about?
I was looking forward to reading this book and found it dull and not very original. Didfinish it, and felt like I had wasted my time.

I tried but I couldnt read it
I really tried. I came here to Amazon to see if I was the only one who struggled with this book. I wasn't. The effort finally became too much and I am giving up after reading about a third of this book. Life is too short

Boring, tedious, unbearable...
I was quite excited about the story. The idea is marvellous. UNFORTUNATELY - and I am saying this with much regret - it is utterly ruined by the author's inability to write. Her prose does not breathe, does not lead you forward. Reading it, I had a sensation of driving an old heavy car on a bumpy road. The style is absolutely hopeless.
Now about the inserts. LaMotte's poems resemble more those of Emily Dickinson than those of a Victorian English lady - only much worse, without Dickinson's genius. Ash's "poetry" is tedious mumbo-jumbo.

In a novel, every detail must be meaningful, serving the whole, leading somewhere. This "novel" resembles an overcrowded attic, an awful mixture of bad short poems, bad longer poems, bad stories, two-dimensional characters, etc. etc.

I am saying all this with a heavy heart - I WAS looking forward to reading this novel, and now I can't even follow the story, which is buried under the piles of nonsense. I can't bear the thought of another 300 pages of this. I shall have to settle for the movie. At least, then it would be over in a couple of hours - and I will know what happened, because this is the only thing that sustains my interest.

Modern literature is a sorry affair, as is modern poetry. This "piece" is yet another confirmation of this sad fact. Well, back to the Classics ! ... Read more

Product Description
A facsimile edition of Austen's irreverent parody on the history of England, written when the author was sixteen years old, features the original illustrations by Austen's sister, Cassandra, an introduction by A. S. Byatt, and notes by Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Any true Austen fan should have this darling little book!
On a trip to the British Library during a Jane Austen tour, we were privileged to actually "handle" the original volume.The facsimile is very nicely done.This hilarious "history" provides early evidence of JA's literary brilliance, and Cassandra's illustrations are simply delightful.

Highly entertaining insight into young Jane
I love this book!Austen's sometimes snarky and amusingly judgmental conclusions of which rulers were good and bad.I love her loathing of Queen Elizabeth and her spirited defense of Mary Queen of Scots.The drawings by Cassandra are also excellent.I do wish that she'd written a longer history as Austen's colorful version of English history is a delightful read for all true Austen fans.

A must have for Jane Austen fans
As a young girl, Jane, in her own witty style decided to write "The History of England".It's certainly not an accurate history, but a young girl's view of the world in which she lives.The text is printed in her own handwriting and is charming and fun to read.

Jane Austne's funniest book
This hilarious little book is full of wonderfully biased observations on the Kings and Queens of England between henry the 4th and Charles the 1st.Of Henry VI she writes fiercely "I cannot say much for this monarch's sense, nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian"She is a supporter of Richard III's claim to innocence, averring that he may not have murdered his wife for "if Perkin Warbeck were really the Duke of York, why not might Lambert Simnel be the widow of Richard?"She includes a very rique charade on the homosexual habits of king James I.I feel that Sellar and Yeatman, who wrote '1066 and All That'may have derived inspiration from this book, her N.B. at the beginning 'there will be very few Dates in this History' has a very Sellar and yeatman sound. I increasingly find Jane Asuten's Juvenilia more amusing than her later works, and this book is a prime example.

Austen's brief History of time (and slightly rewritten)
Jane Austen wrote these short snippets on a number of the rulers of England in chronological order - using, as she says, 'very few dates'.The result is a wonderful collection of highly prejudicial outlines of various Kings and Queens - and after all the purpose of history to be scandalous and slanderous can be undermined by sticking too closely to extraneous detail such as dates and so on.The whole thing would probably take you much less than hour to read. Austen proves her talent for sharp observation and wit from an early age for this little book was written while she was still a teenager in the early 1790's. Its a lovely introduction to her writing for those who haven't had much to do with Austen before but are keen to try her out. ... Read more

Product Description
This vivid, rich and moving saga is played out against the great, rippling tides of the day, taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich, and the trenches of the Somme. A whole generation grew up unaware of the darkness ahead, in their innocence, they were betrayed unintentionally by the adults who loved them. ... Read more