Download or read book The Magnificent Spinster written by May Sarton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May Sarton’s powerful and profound novel of an extraordinary life, and of one woman’s efforts to preserve the force and vitality of her experiences on the pages of a book For the second time in my life—and I am now seventy—I am embarking on an effort which may well come to nothing but which has possessed my mind, haunts, and will not let me sleep. From her opening statement, Cam, the narrator of The Magnificent Spinster, declares her grand intentions: to write a novel—a worthy and important one in celebration of her recently deceased friend and teacher, Jane Reid, whose dearth of family threatens the memory of her almost tangible greatness. And so she writes, re-creating Jane’s childhood, adolescence, and years as a teacher—including the one in which Cam was her student. She writes of Jane’s irrepressible spirit and the charming letters Jane penned about her adventures, and she recounts Jane’s growing isolation as she aged, which, rather than softening her, only made her shine brighter. Raw, warm, and beautifully rendered, The Magnificent Spinster is a stunning achievement—part memoir, part epistolary recollection, and part novel within a novel about friendship, memory, and the power of a brilliant soul.
Download or read book The Magnificent Spinster written by May Sarton and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1989-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “magnificent spinster” is Jane Reid, a teacher who became not only a revered role model but a dear friend to Cam, the narrator of this novel within a novel. After Jane’s death, the accidental discovery of poems written by Cam in her youth to Jane prompts a flood of recollections—and frees Cam to imagine in fiction Jane’s passionately vibrant life.
Download or read book Writing with Intent written by Margaret Atwood and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the world's most passionately engaged and acclaimed literary citizens comes Writing with Intent, the largest collection to date of Margaret Atwood's nonfiction, ranging from 1983 to 2005. Composed of autobiographical essays, cultural commentary, book reviews, and introductory pieces to great works of literature, this is the award-winning author's first book-length nonfiction publication in twenty years. Arranged chronologically, these writings display the development of Atwood's worldview as the world around her changes. Included are the Booker Prize -- winning author's reviews of books by John Updike, Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, and others, as well as essays in which she remembers herself reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse at age nineteen, and discusses the influence of George Orwell's 1984 on the writing of The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood's New York Times Book Review piece that helped make Orhan Pamuk's Snow a bestseller can be found here, as well as a look back on a family trip to Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion, and her "Letter to America," written after September 11, 2001. The insightful and memorable pieces in this book serve as a testament to Atwood's career, reminding readers why she is one of the most esteemed writers of our time.
Download or read book Rumors from the Cauldron written by Valerie Miner and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An indispensable collection of essays reflecting on the historical and cultural relevance of feminist movements across the globe In these remarkably far-reaching writings, author and journalist Valerie Miner delivers a complex and engaging volume of essential reading. This book touches on topics ranging from suburban housewives to lesbian identity to feminist thought. Miner provides an important perspective on the interrelated concepts of authorship, gender identity, and social criticism. Included are examinations of the works of Grace Paley, Margaret Atwood, and May Sarton, meditations on writing, and reflections on the cultural legacy of feminism. Miner’s insights are both perspicacious and thought provoking. Written with profound passion and knowledge, these tracts are of tremendous value to all readers engaged with the politics of equality.
Download or read book May Sarton written by Margot Peters and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-05-04 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography of May Sarton: a brilliant revelation of the life and work of a literary figure who influenced her thousands of readers not only by her novels and poetry, but by her life and her writings about it. May Sarton's career stretched from 1930 (early sonnets published in Poetry magazine) to 1995 (her journal At Eighty-Two). She wrote more than twenty novels, and twenty-five books of poems and journals. The acclaimed biographer Margot Peters was given full access to Sarton's letters, journals, and notes, and during five years of research came to know Sarton herself--the complex woman and artist. She gives us a compelling portrait of Sarton the actress, the poet, the novelist, the feminist, the writer who struggled for literary acceptance. She shows us, beneath Sarton's exhilarating, irresistible spirit, the needy courtier and seducer, the woman whose creativity was propelled by the psychic drama she created in others. We watch young May at age two as she is abruptly uprooted from her native Belgium by World War I, a child ignored both by her mother, who was intent on her own artistic vision and reluctant to cope with a child, and by her father, obsessed with his academic research. We see Sarton as a young girl in America, and then later, at nineteen, choosing a life in the theatre, landing a job in Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory, and gathering what would become a tight-knit coterie of friends and lovers . . . Sarton beginning to write poetry and novels . . . Sarton making friends with Elizabeth Bowen and Julian Huxley, Erika and Klaus Mann, Virginia Woolf, the poet H.D.--charming and enlisting them with her work, her vitality, her hunger for love, driven by her need to conquer (among her conquests: Bowen, Huxley, and later his wife, Juliette). We see her intense friendships with literary pals, including Muriel Rukeyser (her lover), and Louise Bogan, Sarton's "literary sibling, who at once encouraged her and excluded her from a world in which Bogan was a central figure. We see Sarton begin to create in the spiritual journals that inspired the devotion of readers the image of a strong, independent woman who lived peacefully with solitude--an image that contradicted the reality of her neediness, loneliness, and isolation as she pushed away loved ones with her demands and betrayals. A fascinating portrait of one of our major literary figures--a book that for the first time reveals the life that she herself kept hidden.
Download or read book A Spinster s Luck written by Rhonda Woodward and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Rhonda Woodward, a writer with “sparkle and heart,” comes a beloved Signet Regency Romance—available digitally for the first time. Luck has always eluded Celia Langston. When her parents passed away ten years ago, she had to make her own way in the world, forsaking a come-out Season in London—and any chance at marriage. But Celia, now a governess, has never been one for self-pity. Rather, at the age of six-and-twenty, she has accepted the lot Fate has dealt her—that of a spinster…With his handsome face, reputation for bravery in the war, and princely fortune, the Duke of Severly has never suffered for want of female companionship. The crème de la crème hang on his every word. So when he takes notice of his nephews’ governess—for even the plainest of gray dresses cannot conceal her regal poise and delicious curves—Severly surprises even himself. For one, he has never admired a woman below his station, let alone a governess. For another, Celia seems to hold a grudge against him. But her rejection of him only fans the flames of his desire, and Severly knows he’s in for a long and difficult chase…“Rhonda Woodward shows a definite flair for the Regency period.”—The Romance Reader“A talented writer.”—Rakehell“[Rhonda Woodward has] historically accurate writing that shines.”—All About Romance
Download or read book A Study Guide for Peter Taylor s A Spinster s Tale written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for Peter Taylor's "A Spinster's Tale," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
Download or read book Women Aging written by Helen Rippier Wheeler and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 1997 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guide with more than two thousand bibliographic entries and cross-references. It includes journal articles, book chapters, essays, and doctoral dissertations, as well as complete books.
Download or read book The Novels of May Sarton Volume One written by May Sarton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three luminous novels from a New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist whose “prose leaves compelling echoes in one’s mind” (The New York Times Book Review). Throughout her long and acclaimed career, May Sarton refused to be categorized. As a memoirist, poet, and novelist, she broke new ground by openly exploring homosexuality, gender inequality, and other once taboo social issues. Gathered here in one volume are three of her most memorable and moving works of fiction. Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing: Widely regarded as her most important work, Sarton’s 1965 semiautobiographical novel centers upon Hillary Stevens, an author now in her twilight years. As she prepares to publish anew, Stevens sits down to discuss her life, the arc of her creative journey, and her love affairs—with both men and women. “The plot of this short novel is deceptively simple, the mood subtle, the feeling intense” (The New York Times Book Review). A Shower of Summer Days: The Irish estate home Dene Court has been shuttered for years—but this summer Violet Dene Gordon and her husband Charles return from British Burma, electrifying life in the sleepy village that adjoins Violet’s childhood home. As an added complication, Violet’s American niece is being sent to Ireland to separate her from an unsuitable romantic attachment. A National Book Award finalist, “A Shower of Summer Days establishes once and for all [Sarton’s] unmistakable authority” (The New York Times Book Review). The Magnificent Spinster: This “absolutely compelling . . . monument to love . . . [and] friendship” is actually the story of two women: Cam, the novel’s narrator, and the recently deceased Jane Reid. Unmarried and childless, Jane left no family to remember her, so Cam sets out to immortalize the life of her quietly remarkable friend and teacher in fiction (The Cleveland Plain Dealer).
Download or read book A spinster s tour in France the states of Genoa c during 1827 written by and published by . This book was released on 1828 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Spinster s Tour in France the States of Genoa Etc During the Year 1827 written by Elizabeth Strutt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advice on European travel for unaccompanied British ladies in the early nineteenth century.
Download or read book At Seventy written by May Sarton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the American Book Award: May Sarton’s honest and engrossing journal of her seventieth year, spent living and working on the Maine coast. May Sarton’s journals are a captivating look at a rich artistic life. In this, her ode to aging, she savors the daily pleasures of tending to her garden, caring for her dogs, and entertaining guests at her beloved Maine home by the sea. Her reminiscences are raw, and her observations are infused with the poetic candor for which Sarton—over the course of her decades-long career—became known. An enlightening glimpse into a time—the early 1980s—and an age, At Seventy is at once specific and universal, providing a unique window into septuagenarian life that readers of all generations will enjoy. At times mournful and at others hopeful, this is a beautiful memoir of the year in which Sarton, looking back on it all, could proclaim, “I am more myself than I have ever been.”
Download or read book Old Maids to Radical Spinsters written by Laura L. Doan and published by Urbana : University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the authors whose works are studied in 13 contributions are Ivy Compton-Burnett, E.M. Forster, Barbara Pym, May Sarton, Gail Godwin, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf. The theme is the cultural stereotyping of unmarried women and the evolution of that image. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book After the Stroke written by May Sarton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling feminist author’s “lyrical, candid, sensitive” account of her efforts to regain her health, art, and sense of self after a stroke (Publishers Weekly). Feeling cut off and isolated—from herself most of all—after suffering a stroke at age 73, May Sarton began a journal that helped her along the road to recovery. She wrote every day without fail, even if illness sometimes prevented her from penning more than a few lines. From her sprawling house off the coast of Maine, Sarton shares the quotidian details of her life in the aftermath of what her doctors identified as a small brain hemorrhage. What they did not tell her was the effect it would have on her life and work. Sarton’s journal is filled with daily accounts of the weather, her garden, beloved pets, and her concerns about losing psychic energy and no longer feeling completely whole. A woman who had always prized her solitude, Sarton experiences feelings of intense loneliness. When overwhelmed by the past, she tries to find comfort in soothing remembrances of her travels, and struggles to learn to live moment by moment. As Sarton begins to regain her strength, she rejoices in the life “recaptured and in all that still lies ahead.” Interspersed with heartfelt recollections about fellow poets and aspiring writers who see in Sarton a powerful muse, this is a wise and moving memoir about life after illness.
Download or read book Understanding May Sarton written by Mark K. Fulk and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The writings of feminist author May Sarton, though often underappreciated during her lifetime, have attracted a wider audience since her death in 1995. This text is a guide to Sarton's poetry, novels, and memoirs for students and the interested general reader. Fulk (English, John Brown U.) provides biographical background information, discusses the primary themes in Sarton's writing, and emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of her thought. c. Book News Inc.
Download or read book The Older Woman in Recent Fiction written by Zoe Brennan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical study explores late twentieth century novels by women writers--including Doris Lessing, May Sarton and Barbara Pym--that feature female protagonists over the age of sixty. These novels' discourses on aging contrast with those largely pejorative ones that dominate Western society. They break the silence that normally surrounds the lives of the aged, and this book investigates how older female protagonists are represented in relation to areas such as sexuality, dependence and everyday life. Beginning with an investigation of popular opinions about aging and a survey of hypotheses from disciplines including gerontology, psychology and feminism, the text reviews literary critical attitudes toward fictions of aging; analyzes representations of physically dependent characters, whose anger over their failing bodies is often eased by relationships with their female friends; discusses how paradigms of female sexuality exclude the possibility of older women being sexually desirable; examines characters that live a contented life, finding a more polemical side to them than is noted in more conventional literary critiques; and analyzes the aged sleuth in classical detective fiction.
Download or read book The Journals of May Sarton Volume One written by May Sarton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in one volume: Three exquisite meditations on nature, healing, and the pleasures of the solitary life from a New York Times–bestselling author. In a long life spent recording her personal observations, poet, novelist, and memoirist May Sarton redefined the journal as a literary form. This extraordinary volume collects three of her most beloved works. Journal of a Solitude: Sarton’s bestselling memoir chronicles a solitary year spent at the house she bought and renovated in the quiet village of Nelson, New Hampshire. Her revealing insights are a moving and profound reflection on creativity, oneness with nature, and the courage it takes to be alone. Plant Dreaming Deep: Sarton’s intensely personal account of how she transformed a dilapidated eighteenth-century farmhouse into a home is a loving, beautifully crafted memoir illuminated by themes of friendship, love, nature, and the struggles of the creative life. Recovering: In this affecting diary of one year’s hardships and healing, Sarton focuses on her sixty-sixth year, which was marked by the turmoil of a mastectomy, the end of a treasured relationship, and the loneliness that visits a life of chosen solitude. By turns uplifting, cathartic, and revelatory, Sarton’s journals still strike a chord in the hearts of contemporary readers. Through them, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, “we are able to see our own experiences reflected in hers and we are enriched.”
