In "Think of the Earth," Bertram Brooker intricately weaves together themes of human existence, environmental consciousness, and the intersection of art and nature. The prose is marked by Brooker's distinctive modernist style, characterized by vivid imagery and introspective narrative techniques that invite readers to grapple with their role within the cosmic order. Set against the backdrop of the early 20th century, the text serves as both a philosophical exploration and a poignant social...

An expatriate Englishman has a weekend of self-discovery in Manitoba: he falls in love, and realizes that he must become less introspective. The protagonist, Geoff Tavistock, visits a small town in rural Manitoba in 1907. Tavistock believes he is on a divinely inspired mission - to reconcile man with God once and for all

In "Think of the Earth," Bertram Brooker delivers a richly woven narrative that explores the intersection of human experience and the natural world. A captivating blend of fiction and philosophy, this novel employs a lyrical prose style that mirrors the rhythmic cycles of nature itself. Set against the backdrop of the rugged Canadian landscape, it invites readers to contemplate ecological themes and the existential anguish of modern existence, while simultaneously delving into the complexi...

Bertram Brooker won the country's first Governor General's Award for literature in 1936 for his novel Think of the Earth, and his explosive, experimental paintings hang in every major gallery in the country. He was Canada's first multidisciplinary avantgardist, successfully experimenting in literature, visual arts, film, and theatre. Brooker brought all of his experimental ambitions to his short fiction and prose. The Wrong World presents a rich sampling of his prose work...

A first-rate thriller from one of Canada's pioneer abstract painters.A cult leader announces a miracle will take place and she will rise to heaven. A medium prophesies the date, publicity gets to work, and all of America hums with anticipation. On the appointed day, she disappears and scientist Mortimer Hood, there to verify the miracle, must investigate how—and whether—the whole thing is a hoax, or if the priestess has been murdered.Originally published in...

The celebrated author of The Group offers a "clever, witty, polished" portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel ( The New York Times).Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circle...

Over 120 years after Oscar Wilde submitted The Picture of Dorian Gray for publication, the uncensored version of his novel appears here for the first time in a paperback edition. This volume restores material, including instances of graphic homosexual content, removed by the novel’s first editor, who feared it would be “offensive” to Victorians.

The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography,...

“Do you know the characteristic wine of Madeira?... I do not know whether Leacock ever drank Madeira himself—he was very much a Scotch-whisky man—but I enjoy Madeira greatly, and I never drink it without thinking of Leacock, who was sometimes dry, sometimes sweet, but who always leaves upon the tongue a hint of brimstone..."In his witty and illuminating introduction, which takes up the first third of the book, Robertson Davies invites us to join him in a Feast of Stephen. ...

Professor John Carey shows how early twentieth-century intellectuals imagined the 'masses' as semi-human swarms, drugged by popular newspapers and cinema, and ripe for extermination. Exposing the revulsion from common humanity in George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, W. B. Yeats and other canonized writers, he relates this to the cult of the Nietzschean Superman, which found its ultimate exponent in Hitler.Carey'...

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap?Shedding new light on novels by Thack...

A Bibliophile's Journey: Revisiting the Books That Shaped UsIs a book the same book—or a reader the same reader—the second time around? In this witty and poignant collection, seventeen renowned authors, including Sven Birkerts, Allegra Goodman, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Hampl, Phillip Lopate, and Luc Sante, revisit the books that made a deep impression in their youth. From Pride and Prejudice to Sue Barton, Student Nurse, and even the lyrics on the back of the Sgt. ...