Miniature Vignettes

Hubert Crackanthorpe (1870-1896) made a critically significant contribution to the evolution of the modernist short story in Britain. His unexplained death in Paris at the age of 26 cut short a highly promising literary career. The striking realism of Crackanthorpe's first collection of short stories, Wreckage (1893), followed by the psychologically complex Sentimental Studies and posthumous Last Studies (1896), together with the prose poems of Vignettes (1896), were much admired by Henry James and his contemporaries, Dowson, Johnson and Symons, as the work of a leading, innovative writer of critical Decadence. Indeed his stories combine an unrelenting realism with a conscious aestheticizing of their often troubling, bleak subject matter. As co-editor of the short-lived periodical, The Albermarle and campaigning literary journalist, Crackanthorpe was a key critical participant in central literary and artistic debates of the early 1890s: 'facts' versus 'effects' in literature; the efficacy of realism/naturalism; questions of taste, 'reticence' and the handling of controversial subject matter. This fully annotated, critical text comprises the most extensive collection to date of Crackanthorpe's writing. As well as uncollected stories, the volume includes a short story never previously published in book form. This edition also contains a selection of Crackanthorpe's critical writings and a bibliographical survey of his work.

First published in 1997, Reinventing Allegory asks how and why allegory has survived as a literary mode from the late Renaissance to the postmodern present. Three chapters on Romanticism, including one on the painter J. M. W. Turner, present this era as the pivotal moment in allegory's modern survival. Other chapters describe larger historical and philosophical contexts, including classical rhetoric and Spenser, Milton and seventeenth-century rhetoric, Neoclassical distrust of allegory, and recent theory and metafiction. By using a series of key historical moments to define the special character of modern allegory, this study offers an important framework for assessing allegory's role in contemporary literary culture.

The fantasy of a male creator constructing his perfect woman dates back to the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Yet as technology has advanced over the past century, the figure of the lifelike manmade woman has become nearly ubiquitous, popping up in everything from Bride of Frankenstein to Weird Science to The Stepford Wives. Now Julie Wosk takes us on a fascinating tour through this bevy of artificial women, revealing the array of cultural fantasies and fears they embody. My Fair Ladies considers how female automatons have been represented as objects of desire in fiction and how “living dolls” have been manufactured as real-world fetish objects. But it also examines the many works in which the “perfect” woman turns out to be artificial—a robot or doll—and thus becomes a source of uncanny horror. Finally, Wosk introduces us to a variety of female artists, writers, and filmmakers—from Cindy Sherman to Shelley Jackson to Zoe Kazan—who have cleverly crafted their own images of simulated women. Anything but dry, My Fair Ladies draws upon Wosk’s own experiences as a young female Playboy copywriter and as a child of the “feminine mystique” era to show how images of the artificial woman have loomed large over real women’s lives. Lavishly illustrated with film stills, artwork, and vintage advertisements, this book offers a fresh look at familiar myths about gender, technology, and artistic creation.

PATTERNS Carving a Halloween Sign By Vernon DePauw Use a few simple tools to create a folk-art sign Jack o’Phantom By Floyd Rhadigan Easy carved “folds” make this silly spook look like it’s floating On-the-Go Carving Desk By Tom Noller Quick and easy plywood box protects your tools and contains your chips FEATURES Depth-Defying Art By Kathleen Ryan Rick Harney’s portraits are so much less than they appear Change of Heart By Toni Fitzgerald Brian Paul Kolakowski found his third calling in wood A Tough Nut to Crack By Kathleen Ryan Russian artist Arkady Tsesarsky turns ugly nuts into ivory-like miniature marvels Winning Wonders Meet the winners of the third 2016 People’s Choice Contest PROJECTS Realistic Lighthouse By Bob Hershey The natural shape of cottonwood bark makes it perfect for this project Building a Whimsical Bank By Bill Powell Forget bark: Use basswood blanks and shallow relief techniques to make a village worth visiting Sweet Treats By Jack Proseilo These easy-to-carve trinkets look good enough to eat Carving a Crone By Suzy Fueshko Use a delicate touch with your tools to create this haunting carving Make a Majestic Bison By Jim Willis Use hand tool to re-create this American icon Wise Wizard Practice Piece By Mike Pounders Pick a feature and exaggerate it to enhance your skills and customize your carving Learning to Carve Soap By Barbara Millikan Good clean fun can be the beginning of a lifelong passion for carving Carving a Caricature Woodsman By Jim Feather Turn the head to give your carving movement and personality Carving a Train-in-Station Like a ball-in cage, this captive locomotive slides on its rails

Do the Romans have anything to teach us about the way that they saw the world, and the way they ran their empire? How did they deal with questions of frontiers and migration, so often in the news today? This collection of ten important essays by C. R. Whittaker, engages with debates and controversies about the Roman frontiers and the concept of empire. Truly global in its focus, the book examines the social, political and cultural implications of the Roman frontiers in Africa, India, Britain, Europe, Asia and the Far East, and provides a comprehensive account of their significance.