The English Dane

This gripping nineteenth-century adventure stars Jorgen Jorgenson, who ran away to sea at fourteen and began a brilliant career by sailing to establish the first colony in Tasmania. Twists of fortune then found him captaining a warship for Napoleon before joining a British trading voyage to Iceland, where he staged an outrageous coup and ruled the country for two months. Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks to patronage by Joseph Banks and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgenson was dogged by his own excesses, and ended up transported as a convict to the very colony he helped to found. Here he reinvented himself again as an explorer, and, despite his sympathy for the people, was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances. Using unpublished sources and letters, Sarah Bakewell tells his astonishing tale with dazzling verve.

"Jorgen Jorgenson was a Dane who made Britain his adopted country. Restless for adventure and inspired by his hero Captain Cook, he came to London, and at twenty-three was among the small party who established a new colony - Tasmania. Amid many twists of fortune, he captained a ship for France against Britain, but then sailed with British traders to Iceland. This was his long-dreamed of moment of glory: staging an outrageous coup, for two months he ruled Iceland, proclaiming it free from Danish rule, its ancient rights restored. He was not yet thirty. Much lay ahead, including imprisonment in the hulks, patronage by Joseph Banks, and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgenson was always dogged by his own excesses. Inevitably he spiralled downwards, until he was transported as a convict to Tasmania, the very colony he helped to found. Here he rose again. He bacame an explorer, cutting through the bush on desperate missions in icy mountains and across flooded rivers; and despite his sympathy for the people, he was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances, described here." "Sarah Bakewell tells this tale using unpublished sources and letters. The odyssey she describes, crossing the world from island to island, illuminates the murky workings of British power while it also reveals her hero's charisma and painful self-division."--BOOK JACKET.

How to get on well with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love? How to live? This question obsessed Renaissance nobleman Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), who wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. Into these essays he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when it was dreaming, events in the appalling civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and over four hundred years later, readers still come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment - and in search of themselves. This first full biography of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored.

A guide to understanding the Danes that highlights their character and behaviour with warmth and wit.

Joseph A. Dane's What Is a Book? is an introduction to the study of books produced during the period of the hand press, dating from around 1450 through 1800. Using his own bibliographic interests as a guide, Dane selects illustrative examples primarily from fifteenth-century books, books of particular interest to students of English literature, and books central to the development of Anglo-American bibliography. Part I of What Is a Book? covers the basic procedures of printing and the parts of the physical book--size, paper, type, illustration; Part II treats the history of book-copies--from cataloging conventions and provenance to electronic media and their implications for the study of books. Dane begins with the central distinction between a "book-copy"--the particular, individual, physical book--and a "book"--the abstract category that organizes these copies into editions, whereby each copy is interchangeable with any other. Among other issues, Dane addresses such basic questions as: How do students, bibliographers, and collectors discuss these things? And when is it legitimate to generalize on the basis of particular examples? Dane considers each issue in terms of a practical example or question a reader might confront: How do you identify books on the basis of typography? What is the status of paper evidence? How are the various elements on the page defined? What are the implications of the images available in an online database? And, significantly, how does a scholar's personal experience with books challenge or conform to the standard language of book history and bibliography? Dane's accessible and lively tour of the field is a useful guide for all students of book history, from the beginner to the specialist.

The Great Dane - A Complete Anthology of the Dog gathers together all the best early writing on the breed from our library of scarce, out-of-print antiquarian books and documents and reprints it in a quality, modern edition. This anthology includes chapters taken from a comprehensive range of books, many of them now rare and much sought-after works, all of them written by renowned breed experts of their day. These books are treasure troves of information about the breed - The physical points, temperaments, and special abilities are given; celebrated dogs are discussed and pictured; and the history of the breed and pedigrees of famous champions are also provided. The contents were well illustrated with numerous photographs of leading and famous dogs of that era and these are all reproduced to the highest quality. Books used include: A History And Description Of The Modern Dogs Of Great Britain And Ireland by Rawdon B. Lee (1897), The Dog Book by James Watson (1906), Dogs And How To Know Them by Edward C. Ash (1925) and many others.