New and noteworthy - Book Review

Contemporary Review, Feb, 2003

Our first item is Alistair Cooke's America ([pounds sterling]20.00) from WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON. This is a new edition of the first, 1973 version which was in its turn a by-product of the popular broadcaster and historian's television series on America. The author, now in his nineties, has not revised the text but he has added a short new Foreword. The first edition, which sold one and a half million copies, was written in a very different world. Were the author to start over again he might perhaps produce a less optimistic history as the America he described sinks under the waves of new, mass immigration and cultural take-over. This book is as much a monument to a vanishing civilisation as a history of the United States.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS has brought out another new title in its 'illustrated history' series, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece ([pounds sterling]19.95 and US$35.00), edited by Prof. Paul Cartledge. Perhaps in an attempt to pander to certain sections of the expected U.S. market the contributors have adopted the 'BCE' and 'CE' for BC and AD. Despite this somewhat silly aura of pseudo-learning the book gives those coming to the study of Hellenic life a sound introduction, enormously helped by the numerous illustrations.

Travel is the theme that unites three new titles from as many publishers. From PICADOR we have Tim Mackintosh-Smith's edition of The Travels of Ibn Battutah ([pounds sterling]20.00). The travels discussed here took place in the fourteenth century when Ibn Battutah set out from Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca. His travels lasted twenty-nine years, took him over 75,000 miles and through over forty modern countries. The editor has already written a book describing his own travels in the footsteps of Battutah and here we have the original travel journal, albeit in an abridged version which nevertheless conveys the mystery and excitement of the original manuscript. PHOENIX PRESS, in association with the Windrush Press has added a new title to its Traveller's History series. This latest release is Richard Tames' A Traveller's History of Oxford ([pounds sterling]9.99). Once one recovers from the fact that the author is a Cambridge man one discovers that this entertaining and instructive volume combines a travel gui de to the University and City of Oxford with a history. The book's basic structure is an historical narrative hut there is plenty of information for visitors, such as suggested tours. It is altogether a pleasant introduction to the University and its rich history. The final title, from CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, is a new addition to its companion series: The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing edited by Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs ([pounds sterling]45.00). This collection of fifteen essays by scholars from a wide range of fields looks at travel writing in English since the early sixteenth century. The essays are divided into three groups: surveys, such as the Grand Tour and exploration outside Europe; sites, such as the Arabian peninsula, Africa, India, Ireland and the American West; and, finally, topics, such as the theory of travel writing and its relation to ethnography.

CASSELL, for over 150 years a publisher of reference books and dictionaries, has brought out a new volume in its Brewer's series: this is Brewer's Curious Titles compiled by Ian Crofton ([pounds sterling]14.99). The 1500 plus entries include the titles of plays, musical compositions, novels, paintings and poems. Mr Crofton has chosen titles that 'are either curious in themselves, or that have a curious story behind them'. The volume, which begins with D. H. Lawrence's novel, Aaron's Rod, ends with the 1967 film, You Only Live Twice. The entries in between are 'not intended as a comprehensive cultural companion, but as an exploration of byways, oddities and serendipities'. There are also entries for 'features' that have inspired a variety of titles such as Faust or Don Juan. Quite wisely the editor has omitted television programmes and popular music. As a quick guide to understanding, this volume cannot be beaten.

New literary titles include a new paperback edition of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 1861 translation of Dante's The New Life (Vita Nuova) published by New York Review Books and distributed in the U.K. by GRANTA BOOKS ([pounds sterling]7.99). This edition has a Preface by Michael Palmer which puts this early work by Dante into perspective and shows how Rossetti's translation has influenced other writers, especially Ezra Pound. This pleasant edition also contains several pages devoted to 'other poems pertaining to the new life'. New editions of the classics leads us to a collection from PHOENIX devoted to poetry. 'Phoenix Poetry' contains ten small volumes, each priced at [pounds sterling]5.99 and each measuring seven inches by four and a half inches. The poets included are: Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, R. S. Thomas, Christina Rossetti, Robert Brooke and Wilfred Owen, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, W. B. Yeats and, finally, a volume entitled Poetry Please, the first hardback edition of popul ar poems taken from Radio Four's programme of the same name. The volumes are attractively presented and their size makes them perfect companions. The final new literary title is The Cult of Chatterton amongst English Poets 1770-1820: A Checklist, a pamphlet written by A. D. Harvey and published by TOUCAN PRESS, The White Cottage, Rue de Carteret, Castel, Guernsey, GY5 7YG, Channel Isles. This pamphlet was published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Chatterton's birth in 1752 and is limited to 200 copies available from the publisher. Mr Harvey's aim is to give us a 'more complete listing of poetical tributes to Chatterton up to 1820' and to point out 'some of the aspects of the Chatterton myth which inspired versifiers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century'.