3 comments about Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage Through Nineteenth-Century America.

1. Given that it has been over thirty years since the last definitive biography on this great artist has been written, I was fully prepared to find a few new facts and undiscovered pieces of Lane's art featured. What I read within this book was so, so much more. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage Through Nineteenth-Century America is nothing less than a revelation. (Perhaps a better title for this book would have been "Everything You Know About Fitz H. Lane is Wrong") With an easy, agreeable voice the author (Craig) guides the reader through the three distinct phases of Lane's life, exploring each period with an eye for detail unmached by any previous authority on this New England painter. Numerous myths are debunked, not the least of those being the fact that Lane has been referred to by the wrong name for over 70 years! (His name was actually Fitz HENRY Lane, not Fitz HUGH Lane.) Craig soundly illustrates how much this man has been misrepresented, and his artwork misinterpreted,for years.
   As well, never before published pieces of artwork by Lane are featured, new aspects of his life revealed (he was a Spiritualist, a Transcendentalist,and contrary to what we've been told, NOT a recluse)and a vision of this man more complete than ever before has been found. The images (36 full color plates, 120+ b&w's) are, as we'd expect from Lane, stunning. The only complaint I have about this book -and it's a small one- is that the book is a softcover, rather than a hardcover. Weird, but easy to overlook. Overall, a superb "outsider" art history book that entertains, informs, and surprises, all while forcing us to ask some hard questions about those who have been the leaders in American art scholarship for the last thirty years.
   
   P.S. I have been lucky enough to actually attend one of the author's lectures up on Cape Ann and Craig is as stimulating in person, never once looking at notes. It's as if he's talking about an old friend and not a long dead artist.



2. I concur with the previous reviewer and will not reiterate the salient points, however I think there are some other notable points. First, this book is very readable and able to capture and maintain a reader's interest. It is extemely well written and uses primary sources as well as secondary sources so it is well researched and the subject is obviously important to the author. Secondly, it provides an interesting viewpoint of Lane's times. I liked the description of life in New England in the early and mid-nineteenth century, particularly Lane's apparent involvement in transcendentalism,the development of Federalism and the Hudson River School, and the birth of an American art identity. Thirdly, the figures and colorplates are plentiful and beautifully reproduced. Lastly, the book is manageable, by that I mean it is not too long and can be easily read by anyone that would like a background on this famous luminist. I only wish that Craig could give lessons to other authors who attempt similar efforts!!



3. MY SON IS THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK, SO I AM A LITTLE BIAS. I BOUGHT THESE BOOKS AS A GIFT FOR 2 PEOPLE. THEY ARE HISTORY BUFFS AND WILL APPRECIATE HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THE RESEARCH REQUIRED TO PREPARE THIS BOOK.

5 comments about Emma Brown: A Novel From the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Bronte.

1. In EMMA BROWN, author Clare Boylan takes two chapters of an unfinished novel left behind by Charlotte Bronte and turns them into a complete novel. In doing so, she incorporates other pieces of Bronte's writing, including a short story published by her husband after her. The result, while perhaps not what Bronte herself intended (we'll never know), is a rich, multi-layered novel that makes for an engaging read.
   
   The novel's title character, Emma Brown, is introduced early in Bronte's opening chapters as Matilda Fitzgibbon, a young girl of about 13. Her background lies in shadow, although it soon becomes clear that she is not who she was pretending to be at the small, exclusive school for girls where she was residing. However, something about Matilda (later Emma) intrigues a local gentleman, William Ellin, who agrees to help her discover her way. He enlists the assistance of his friend and local widow, Isabella Chalfont (who also serves as the book's narrator).
   
   In an effort to draw Emma out, Mrs. Chalfont shares her own experience as a young girl; later, the reader gets a glimpse into Mr. Ellin's past as well. Then, as Emma's own history unfolds, we begin to learn that these three stories are surprisingly connected. Boylan's plot definitely becomes a bit TOO coincidental at this point, but by then, I was so engrossed in the lives of these three characters that I didn't mind. Although I can't vouch for whether this book will please fans of Charlotte Bronte, I do think that most fans of historical fiction would enjoy it, and thus I would not hesitate to recommend it.



2. I was very intrigued with the idea of this book and the task that Ms. Boylan was undertaking. And I have to say she started off beautifully. She is obviously familiar with Bronte's style and rythm. However, the final few chapters diverge slightly, almost as if Ms. Boylan is tired of writing as Bronte and decides she wants to give the book a 20th or 21st century feel. The style changes, the scenarios and the way the characters interact with each other is suddenly different. She also wraps up the ending a little too neatly. All that was missing was a big fat bow on it.
   Overall, the book was an enjoyable read, but by the end, I could only roll my eyes at how neatly all the characters were tied to each other.



3. I like the novels of Clare Boylan ("Holy Pictures"--her first novel was a bit overstuffed and almost crazed in its scope, but it was memorable and a page-turner nontheless.) In "Emma Brown," Boylan takes 20 sparse pages of notes from Bronte for a novel that was fated never to be written and she fleshes it out. It doesn't read at all like Bronte; the crisp prose is missing and this is definitely in Boylan's more ornate voice.
   
   Emma Brown is about a girl with a mysterious past and it takes us through the seamiest parts of London. This departure from Bronte's usual venues of rural town life are excused by letters written at the end of Bronte's life where she has clearly expanded her horizons beyond Haworth as a celebrated writer. Emma is a bit like all Bronte's characters, alone in the world, with powerful figures in the background and always searching for true love and a way to maintain integrity in the face of severe trials and temptations.
   
   As a gothic novel, this has a lot of merit and is a very fine novel. What is really uncanny, however, is that the beginning of the novel is almost a copy of "The Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The treatment of the show pupil at a ladies' seminary and the soon-to-be-destitute heiress's ornate wardrobe is amazingly similar, and her treatment by the tough-minded headmistress and proprietress of the seminary is right out of that famous children's classic.
   
   I didn't find the Bronte voice, as some have, in this book except right at the beginning (possible the 20 pages Bronte actually did write0 but it doesn't matter. As a novel set in Victorian days, it's wonderful enough and despite some melodrama, well-written.



4. I love the Victorian era and this book provides a wonderful glimpse into its underside. The intricate plot keeps both readers and main characters discovering and learning.
   
   Highly Recommended.
   
   James Conroyd Martin, Author of PUSH NOT THE RIVER
   Push Not the River



5. When I saw this book had been built on two chapters that Bronte' never had the chance to expand, I decided to read it as itself, without expectation of hearing the author's true voice as it exactly was. Some of the coincidences are too neatly wrapped up (the reappearance and eventual real death of Finch, anyone?) The descriptions of deprivation and poverty are sometimes difficult to stomach, especially in terms of the children who suffer in them. It would have been interesting to see the where Bronte's interest in social conditions would have lead if she had lived a bit longer. Emma is an attention-grabbing character, with her intelligence and resourcefulness. I agree there are a lot of parallels to A Little Princess, and I think that she may have been more multi-dimensional if the author had departed more from the riches-to-rags-and-locked-in-the-attic pattern. Overall, you probably won't find this book on a list of required reading for a college Victorian literature course, but it was an enjoyable read during my breaks at work.

5 comments about Mina.

1. The year is 1848. Fifteen-year-old Mina Pigot wants to flee to America with her brother Daniel after her whole family dies during the Irish Potato Famine. However, her plans to emigrate America are tarnished and she ends up working at the stables of an English country estate. Before landing at the English estate, she and her brother lose contact with each other when they are obligated to separate. Now she must disguise herself as a boy and hide her red hair with dirt. But when the manager finds the "boy" unfit for work after an incident with a horse, she starts working at the kitchens with the dark and mysterious Mr. Serle. None of the snooty servants at the estate knows she's Irish and she cannot tell them such a thing, but she finds a kindred spirit in Serle, especially after he tells her that he is a Jew who had fled the slums in Rome and has dreams of going to America. But will Mina trust him enough to share her secrets? There are various twists throughout the novel.
   
   Mina is quite a beautiful historical novel with attention to detail and a dark, compelling story that will keep you reading until its final pages. You get a glimpse of poverty in nineteenth century England and Ireland and the things the Irish had to go through to survive. The story is quite poignant, but with a touch of hopefulness that keeps you wanting the best things to happen to the main characters. Serle is a wonderful character who takes Mina under his wing and has nothing but her best interests at heart, even during the times when she expresses her prejudice toward Jews when she had no idea that he was Jewish. Mina is also a great heroine with flaws as well as virtues. She is exasperating when she isn't compelling and I enjoyed the parts in which she nurses Serle when he suffers from a bout of Malaria. Those were some very touching scenes. The best thing about this novel is the setting. I love this unique backdrop of Victorian's underbelly and life of poverty. I also liked the descriptions of the kitchen and the food. It made me hungry when reading those very descriptive parts. The first-person narrative (Mina's POV) isn't always likeable and I would have preferred the narrative to be in third person. I think it would have worked better that way. The story lags in the middle toward the end, but gains strength in the final chapters. All in all, as said before, Mina is a wonderful piece of historical fiction that, aside from a few flaws, is wonderful and readable and I cannot recommend this book enough.



2. Set against the background of an English estate where Mina conceals her gender to hide the intricate secrets of her recent past. Quickly discovered she is set to work in the kitchen and forms a bond with Mr. Serle, the chief cook, who is also on the path of discovering how the hardships of the past affect the views one hold toward the world.
   
   The road each has traveled to arrive and work in the same kitchen is an important one and holds many clues about the people they were and have become. Mina is fifteen and almost ignorantly Irish-Catholic; the victim of Ireland's famine. Mr. Serle, an Italian Jew, is the casualty of Christian hatred and more. Ceely, handles this with arresting, salient prose which keeps the story from drifting to a muffled dead narrative wherein a novel like this (the exchanging of two main characters stories) can so easily slip.
   
   What is so laudable about MINA is how credibly the friction and tension is explored between Mina and Serle which springs up so appropriately, yet, not explosively. Cultural differences are explained, words exchanged and pondered, still for Mina things don't always make sense but Serle prods her to keep her mind open and their companionship is key and lovingly stroked by the author.
   
   Though set during the famine, this novel carries with it many notions and ideals still pertinent to us today.
   
   (Note -- Mina's change of gender is not a spoiler)



3. I just finished this book this afternoon and felt compelled to write a review here. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in narratives relating to the Irish famine -- the details of Mina's experiences in Ireland and on the boat were fully fleshed out and made picturing the events easily vivid.
   
   I think my favorite aspect of the book, though, is the character of Mr. Serle and Mina's relationship with him, which I thought was just perfectly as it should be. Love comes in all forms. The book ends with a clear note of hope, and I would love to read a sequel some day.



4. This book left me wanting to know what happens next to Mina and to learn more of the Irish Potato Famine(I must admitt I tend to avoid adversity in my reading for entertainment). Feeling left behind when you realize a book is ending must mean something.



5. This book and it's sequal "Bread and Roses" are two of the most touching novels I have read in a long time. They are excellent on many levels: the story in itself is compelling and one you won't want to stop reading, the philosophical insight into the human heart by Ms. Ceely is thoughtful and reminiscent of Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte. In fact, the relationship between the two main characters is similar to those found in the classic novels of those authors. Anyone who is a fan of historical fiction and a love story in the purest sense will thoroughly enjoy these books.

No comments about Lowell: The River City (MA) (Postcard History Series).

1 comments about Birds of New England.

1. I purchased this book to use as a field guide for an upcoming trip to New England. The drawings are ok...but the range maps are great. It's a nice size for traveling with!

2 comments about Haunted Inns of New England.

1. Being from a town in New England with a large number of the featured haunted inns, I was excited to read this book. I was even married at one and my grandmother worked at another in the 1930s. I did learn a few things about the history of the inns, which was great. Unfortunately, the writing was... off. I laughed out loud at several bits (one innkeeper had a "never-ending seven year dispute" with a zoning board) and cringed at others, especially the parts that seemed to kowtow to every inns' staff. It read like a school project rather than an actual professional finished glossy product. The book really could have done with an editing overhaul to make the stories more easily appreciated.



2. If you enjoy New England history and like a good bone-chilling fright in the dark, you will enjoy this book. Mark invites you along on his journey of open-minded discovery, and his detailed descriptions of the locations will make you feel as though you are walking through the front door along with him.
   
   The stories highlight the history and hauntings of many New England Inns, most not widely known and off the beaten path (although the well-worn Lizzie Borden surfaces yet again; perhaps interesting to those not from New England). The first-hand interviews are with contemporary people at real locations, and in almost all cases the Inn's name, town, and telephone number are included. Many photographs are included as well.
   
   I picked this up while staying at the Daniel Webster Inn, not knowing what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised. I believe you will find this an easy, delightful read. Mark's prose is a bit sugary, but to his credit the stories are told totally without embellishment, allowing the readers to judge the validity of the stories for themselves.
   
   Be sure to read this one on a dark, stormy night, curled up in front of a roaring fire!

4 comments about The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835.

1. Cott argues that the market revolution in early America brought about the creation of a seperate women's "sphere" of domesticity. She further contends that the placement of women in a seperate "private sphere." can be termed the "cult of domesticity" She concludes by making the claim that the cult of domesticity allowed women to forge bonds through churches and fellow homemakers which helped bring about the first femenist movements of the early nineteenth century. The work stands as the primer for the revisionists' view of new women's "anti-victimization" history.



2. When I first began to read 'The Bonds of Womenhood' I found the concepts general and the progress slow. Despite this slow start, Nancy Cott's work soon pulls you in to her convincing arguments and compelling presentation. By the conclusion one can appreciate the structure of the argument as much as the message, history, and interpretation she conveys in the text. I recommend this book to those who wish to begin a modern and fair interpretation of Gender history and Women's issues. There are few scholarly books that are enjoyable to read and this one in particular is commendable.



3. Unless your extremely into History and like reading term papers you better just skip this book. I had to read this book for a college history course and the read was so dull and boring, there is nothing in the book that pulls the reader in and I doubt anyone that reads this book will have a hard time making up excuses to get away and do something else. Learning about history should be fun, not so horribly boring that you want to commit bodily harm to yourself rather then reading it. For what this book is, the length of the reading is completely unneeded.



4. As I noted previously in a review of Paul E. Johnson's A Shopkeeper's Millennium, an account of the rise of the industrial capitalists of Rochester, New York in the 1830's, in any truly socialist understanding of history the role of the class struggle plays a central role. However, the uneven development of society throughout history has created other forms of oppression that need to be address. In America the question of the special oppression of blacks as a race clearly fits that demand. And everywhere the woman question cries out for solution.
   
   Any thoughtful socialist wants to, in fact needs to, know how the various classes in society were formed, and transformed, over time. I have mentioned previously that a lot of useful work in this area has been done by socialist scholars. One thinks of E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, for example. One needs to have a sense about the evolution of the forms of woman's oppression, as well. One does not, however, need to be a socialist to do such research in order to provide us with plenty of ammunition in our fight for a better world. One of the great developments of the past thirty or forty years is the dramatic increase in research, led by the feminist resurgence, on woman's history. The book under review here Nancy Cott's study of the role of women in early capitalist America, The Bonds of Womanhood, is an early such addition.
   
   I have mentioned in other reviews of this period in American history that the changes from an agrarian/mercantile society as found at the time of the American Revolution to the contours of an industrial society in the Age of Jackson were dramatic and longstanding. This was also the case with the role of women. Women, due to their biological function, have always been central to the cohesion of the family throughout class history. The form that has taken however has varied with changes in the economic superstructure. Thus such occurrences, due to the nature of industrial development, as the decrease in extended families, the dividing of work from the home, the putting out system, the dominance of the male as `breadwinner' and the domestication of women as center of family life had profound changes in the way the family related to the world, the way children were socialized and the way woman subordinated their desires and creativity to the tasks at hand. Sound familiar?
   
   Professor Cott makes her case for this observable change by looking at changes of various types of New England families from self-sufficient farmers to producers for the market, etc. She also relies heavily, as all historians of necessity must, on the record left behind by women mainly through their diaries. There are certain methodological problems inherent in that approach and a tendency to generalize off of the relatively small numbers for whom a record survives but nevertheless her early work is the starting place for a better understanding of the crisis in the family that occurred with the rise of capitalism in America.
   
   I would note as a sidelight that her digging up various self-help manuals for child-rearing and other domestic responsibilities was quite interesting. Dr. Spock in the last generation and today Oprah and Doctor Phil and their ilk thus come from a long pedigree of those who had something to say about the correct raising of YOUR children. Read on.

1 comments about The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton: Christendon in Dublin, Irish Impressions, the New Jerusalem, a Short History of England, the Patriotic Idea, Explaining the English, London, What Are (Collected Works, Volume 20).

1. This 650-page behemoth contains some of the most passionate and lyrical non-fiction by GK that I've come across. His travel commentaries reel off so many inspired observations and insights on such a broad range of topics, it's almost impossible to summarize.
   
   "Christendom in Dublin" is a real gem. While visiting Dublin to attend the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, GK waxes eloquent on conversion, the Eucharist as the essence of faith, and the singular truth of Christ he finds amid the incredible shapes and sizes of the Faith and the faithful. A couple quotes:
   
   "There are those who tell us we must broaden our ideas, by which they mean disembody or discolour them, in order to make a universal religion for men...The truth is flatly the other way."
   
   "And I sometimes wondered whether even political democracy would not be a little more practical if people prepared for the General Election as they did for the Eucharistic Congress, with prayer and penance rather than with publicity and lies."
   
   "The New Jerusalem" is a poetic description of the city seen in the light of its awesome history, as well as a penetrating commentary on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and modern Europe.
   
   "It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money."
   
   "As for our own society, if it proceeds at its present rate of progress and improvement, no trace or memory of it will be left at all. Some think this would be an improvement in itself." How prophetic!
   
   "A Short History of England", which contains no actual dates (!), shows GK at his absolute best when it comes to distilling general principles from a dizzying array of facts. His command of the facts is superb, and his interpretation, which stood in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom of the time, rings truer than ever and ought to be heard.
   
   "The ninteenth-century historians went on the curious principle of dismissing all people of whom tales are told, and concentrating upon people of whome nothing is told."
   
   Speaking of the existence of an external God and against the idea of faith as a purely interior phenomenon, he says, "I do not, in my private capacity, believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb; nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul, and denying its dependence on God or other good things. I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."
   
   What is particularly helpful in this history is GK's accounting of England's great historical transitions--from barbarism to medieval society, from the Middle Ages to "Reformation", and from there to modern capitalism. He is unsurpassed in his ability to discern the subtle shifts in attitude and social convention that set the stage for monumental change.
   
   Without doubt, one of the strongest non-fiction volumes in the entire Ignatius collection.

No comments about Rochester (MA) (Images of America).

1 comments about The Islands of Boston Harbor.

1. Edward Rowe Snow holds a place in my heart. I remember when I was younger and taking the tours of Boston Harbor with this extrodanary historian.

   I had the first edition of this book and was lost to me when I was young. Every books store would say, "Sorry, this book is unavaiable, or out of print." I am very glad they re-released these treasures.

   This book has the ledgend of the Lady in Black of George's Island.

   Read if you are interested in New England History or you are from Boston. Great Book.