Download or read book The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid Publishing People Series written by H G Wells and published by . This book was released on 2020-11 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps-for the thing has happened again and again-there slowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a strange twist of the labellum, or some subtler colouration or unexpected mimicry. Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate green spike, and, it may be, even immortality. For the new miracle of nature may stand in need of a new specific name, and what so convenient as that of its discoverer? "John-smithia"! There have been worse names. It was perhaps the hope of some such happy discovery that made Winter Wedderburn such a frequent attendant at these sales-that hope, and also, maybe, the fact that he had nothing else of the slightest interest to do in the world. He was a shy, lonely, rather ineffectual man, provided with just enough income to keep off the spur of necessity, and not enough nervous energy to make him seek any exacting employments. He might have collected stamps or coins, or translated Horace, or bound books, or invented new species of diatoms. But, as it happened, he grew orchids, and had one ambitious little hothouse.

Download or read book The Flowering of the Strange Orchid written by H. G. Wells and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Orchid Thief written by Susan Orlean and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief “Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.”—The Washington Post Book World “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description.”—Boston Sunday Globe “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.”—The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book The Flowering of the Strange Orchid written by H. G. Wells and published by . This book was released on 2023-08-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Flowering of the Strange Orchid written by H. G. Wells and published by . This book was released on 2019-10 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Size: 6" x 9" inch Cover: Soft, matte cover Great size to carry everywhere in your bag, for work, high school, college Makes a great Christmas, birthday, graduation or beginning of the school year gift for Women and Girls

Download or read book The Flowering of the Strange Orchid written by H G Wells and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-04-22 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps-for the thing has happened again and again.

Download or read book Orchid written by Jim Endersby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prize-winning history of the orchid: “an engaging and enlightening account of one of the Earth's most mythologized botanical wonders” (Richard Conniff, author of House of Lost Worlds). At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have had varying forms of significance in countless cultures over time. Following the orchid’s journey from Ancient Greek medicine to twentieth century detective novels, science historian Jim Endersby explores the flower’s four recurring themes: science, empire, sex, and death. Orchids were a symbol of the exotic riches sought by 19th century Europeans in their plans for colonization. They became subjects of scientific scrutiny for Charles Darwin, who investigated their methods of cross-pollination. As Endersby shows, orchids—perhaps because of their extraordinarily diverse colors, shapes, and sizes—have also bloomed repeatedly in films, novels, plays, and poems, from Shakespeare to science fiction. Featuring many gorgeous illustrations from the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Orchid: A Cultural History was awarded the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize by the History of Science Society. It is an enchanting tale not only for gardeners and plant collectors, but anyone curious about the flower’s obsessive hold on the imagination in history, cinema, literature, and more.

Download or read book The Vampire Book written by J Gordon Melton and published by Visible Ink Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ultimate Collection of Vampire Facts and Fiction From Vlad the Impaler to Barnabas Collins to Edward Cullen to Dracula and Bill Compton, renowned religion expert and fearless vampire authority J. Gordon Melton, PhD takes the reader on a vast, alphabetic tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the blood-sucking undead. Digging deep into the lore, myths, pop culture, and reported realities of vampires and vampire legends from across the globe, The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead exposes everything about the blood thirsty predator. Death and immortality, sexual prowess and surrender, intimacy and alienation, rebellion and temptation. The allure of the vampire is eternal, and The Vampire Book explores it all. The historical, literary, mythological, biographical, and popular aspects of one of the world's most mesmerizing paranormal subject. This vast reference is an alphabetical tour of the psychosexual, macabre world of the soul-sucking undead. In the first fully revised and updated edition in a decade, Dr. J. Gordon Melton (president of the American chapter of the Transylvania Society of Dracula) bites even deeper into vampire lore, myths, reported realities, and legends that come from all around the world. From Transylvania to plague-infested Europe to Nostradamus and from modern literature to movies and TV series, this exhaustive guide furnishes more than 500 essays to quench your thirst for facts, biographies, definitions, and more.

Download or read book Strange Flowers written by Donal Ryan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD NOVEL OF THE YEAR Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Awards “Mr. Ryan writes conspicuously beautiful prose… The fleeting happiness and abiding melancholy of the asymmetry, heightened by the intimately rendered surroundings, brings out Mr. Ryan’s most sensuous and emotive writing.” –The Wall Street Journal From the Booker nominated author of The Queen of Dirt Island, Donal Ryan's new novel follows the Gladney family across three generations seeking the true meaning of what it is to find home and love. In 1973, twenty-year-old Moll Gladney takes a morning bus from her rural home in Ireland and disappears. Bewildered and distraught, Paddy and Kit must confront an unbearable prospect: that they will never see their daughter again. Five years later, Moll returns from London. What - and who - she brings with her will change the course of her family's life forever. Beautiful and devastating, this exploration of loss, alienation and the redemptive power of love reaffirms Donal Ryan as one of the most talented and empathetic writers at work today.

Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire written by Simon Bacon and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 1746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Monster with a Thousand Faces written by Brian J. Frost and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Frost chronicles the history of the vampire in myth and literature, providing a sumptuous repast for all devotees of the bizarre. In a wide-ranging survey, including plot summaries of hundreds of novels and short stories, the reader meets an amazing assortment of vampires from the pages of weird fiction, ranging from the 10,000-year-old femme fatale in Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror to the malevolent fetus in Eddy C. Bertin’s “Something Small, Something Hungry.” Nostalgia buffs will enjoy a discussion of the vampire yarns in the pulp magazines of the interwar years, while fans of contemporary vampire fiction will also be sated.

Download or read book Flora Curiosa written by Chad Arment and published by . This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flora Curiosa compiles twenty classic botanical (and mycological) short stories from science fiction and fantasy. Stories include Rappaccini's Daughter (Hawthorne), The American's Tale (Doyle), The Man-Eating Tree (Robinson), The Balloon Tree (Mitchell), The Flowering of the Strange Orchid (H. G. Wells), The Treasure in the Forest (H. G. Wells), The Purple Pileus (H. G. Wells), The Purple Terror (White), A Vine on a House (Bierce), Professor Jonkin's Cannibal Plant (Garis), The Willows (Blackwood), The Voice in the Night (Hodgson), The Orchid Horror (Blunt), The Man Whom the Trees Loved (Blackwood), The Pavilion (Nesbit), The Sumach (Daubeny), The Green Death (McNeile), Si Urag of the Tail (Cook), Green Thoughts (Collier), and The Walk to Lingham (Dunsany).

Download or read book Orchid Fever written by Eric Hansen and published by Methuen Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true story of one of the world's strangest plants and humanity's oddest obsessions: the orchid, brought to book by the author, traveller and self-confessed orchid obsessive.

Download or read book Science fiction written by Everett Franklin Bleiler and published by Kent State University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complementing Science-Fiction: The Early Years, which surveys science-fiction published in book form from its beginnings through 1930, the present volume covers all the science-fiction printed in the genre magazines--Amazing, Astounding, and Wonder, along with offshoots and minor magazines--from 1926 through 1936. This is the first time this historically important literary phenomenon, which stands behind the enormous modern development of science-fiction, has been studied thoroughly and accurately. The heart of the book is a series of descriptions of all 1,835 stories published during this period, plus bibliographic information. Supplementing this are many useful features: detailed histories of each of the magazines, an issue by issue roster of contents, a technical analysis of the art work, brief authors' biographies, poetry and letter indexes, a theme and motif index of approximately 30,0000 entries, and general indexes. Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years is not only indispensable for reference librarians, collectors, readers, and scholars interested in science-fiction, it is also of importance to the study of popular culture during the Great Depression in the United States. Most of its data, which are largely based on rare and almost unobtainable sources, are not available elsewhere.

Download or read book There Plant Eyes written by M. Leona Godin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight. “[A] thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy." —The New Yorker There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil). Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history. A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the world.

Download or read book The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters written by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From vampires and demons to ghosts and zombies, interest in monsters in literature, film, and popular culture has never been stronger. This concise Encyclopedia provides scholars and students with a comprehensive and authoritative A-Z of monsters throughout the ages. It is the first major reference book on monsters for the scholarly market. Over 200 entries written by experts in the field are accompanied by an overview introduction by the editor. Generic entries such as 'ghost' and 'vampire' are cross-listed with important specific manifestations of that monster. In addition to monsters appearing in English-language literature and film, the Encyclopedia also includes significant monsters in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African and Middle Eastern traditions. Alphabetically organized, the entries each feature suggestions for further reading. The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars and an essential addition to library reference shelves.

Download or read book Flowers written by William C. Burger and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2009-12-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading botanist and popular science writer examines the crucial role flowers have played in life's evolutionary scheme as a fundamental energy resource for most of the biosphere.