Book Description
Within this compendium, the very first knitting books have been translated from sketchy, often-inaccurate instructions into richly-colored, exciting patterns for modern-day accessories. This blend of history, mystery, and hands-on technique debunks myths about Victorian life as it inspires beginners and ambitious knitters alike. Included are instructions for Victorian lace as the Victorians never saw it—in glorious detail, up-close and on location in and around Cambridge, England. The lace patterns progress from the first, most basic, edgings to the sophistication of "real" lace. Forty patterns are included—scarves and shawls, capes, and fichus—with comprehensive information on the tools and techniques of lace knitting for beginners and enough challenges to keep experienced or ambitious knitters engaged. Delicate and decorative, historical lace patterns are within the reach of today's knitters in this book of adventurous ideas with a vintage touch.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful!.......2007-10-10
This is just the lace book I was looking for. Beautiful, elegant, and just challenging enough to keep you interested. I am almost finished with the cap shawl, but so far, I love this book!
Beautiful in every way.......2007-10-04
After looking at this book many times, I finally ordered it. For me, it will be used for just looking at the beautiful pictures. I know how to knit, but doubt that I will ever spend the time it would take to make one of these items. If someone wishes to make an item, the instructions seem to be very well written and very clear. I actually bought the book more for a "coffee table" type book, to just enjoy looking at the gorgeous photography as well as the unbelievably beautiful, gossamer like creations. Spectacular!
Beautiful Lace Shawls!.......2007-09-23
What a wonderful book! This book is loaded with patterns for absolutely gorgeous shawls. The author impliments a variety of fibers and colors into her work. The shawls are in a variety of shapes and sizes. Yes, there are even several examples of scarves! I've gone through my book countless times and it is full of page markers so that I can "quickly" find which project I want to make next. With most books this might be 3-5 projects. This is a large book and I have page markers going down the entire side of the book! I began a shawl last night and already I can see that it is going to be scrumptious! The pattern is so simple to understand that it will be finished in no time at all.
I highly recommend this wonderful book!
The delight of lace!.......2007-09-09
Jane Sowerby's book provides wonderful photographs, clear instructions, and many options for the knitter who loves to work with detail...but you do not have to be an expert to tackle her projects! It is one of the nicest collections of lace knitting...primarily for shawls...that I have found. I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Sowerby, and she is as charming as her works of art. I do recommend this book highly!
Gorgeous, inspiring.......2007-09-02
The settings and photos are excellent. The projects range from easy to experienced & everything inbetween. For those of you who learn new things easily and want to get creative, it also tells how to plan out your own shawls, with or without borders. Inspirational but initially daunting for those of us who have never tried lace. But the projects are just so lovely.... It wasn't enough to keep borrowing my friend's book - I had to buy my own. I have a project on my needles now & can't wait to wear my new - & gorgeous - shawl.
Book Description
Ben Wilson's The Making of Victorian Values is the history of an era rather like our own-a time when dissenters and rebels were hemmed in by conformists and hardheaded authoritarians, a time when a nation on the eve of global domination fretted about its future. It was, however, a period when those who argued that a British empire would be a disaster for liberty were eventually squashed by imperialists, just as those who railed against mindless materialism were in the end rolled over by industrialists and the promoters of luxury goods. The Making of Victorian Values reveals an era when people were obsessed with the need to appear authentic, and yet forever had doubts about who was and who wasn't-concerns familiar to the "me" age we know so well.
Wilson begins with the libertine spirit inspired by Byron, Shelley, and the Romantics; he ends with the rise and eventual victory of stolid middle-class values. The result is a radical tour de force, a brilliant reworking of the pre-Victorian age. Once portrayed by Paul Johnson in his bestselling The Birth of the Modern as the years when virtue finally trumped corruption, Wilson reveals a far more compelling story-and a more engrossing and scandalous one, too. It is a story about hypochondriacs and cranks, killjoys and dandies, rakes and priests, advocates of free-speech and those against it-people who were made awe struck by Britain's emerging role as the economic and political powerhouse of the world, but who were also deeply anxious about the responsibilities a vast empire might require.
Wilson is heir to the great radical historians of the twentieth century, E. J. Hobsbawm and E. P. Thompson, among them. He brushes aside scholarly politesse and refuses to join in unnecessary academic point-settling, and his invigorating literary abilities will win many admirers who would otherwise know this history only through the works of nineteenth-century fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Those Virtuous Victorians.......2007-03-16
Ben Wilson's book, "The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837," is very good, with a few weaknesses; and I recommend it.
Ben Wilson helps to explain how British mores developed from the profligacy and loucheness of the late eighteenth century to the refinement and respectability of the Victorian era. His book resolved some questions I've had ever since I read Amanda Foreman's book about the late-eighteenth-century Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The duchess's behavior was very different from the typical (or at least ideal) Victorian behavior, and it highlights the changes that happened during the pre-Victorian period. Wilson argues that the rise of respectability and refinement was a result of the alliance between evangelical reformers and secular utilitarians, as well as the economic prosperity and upward mobility of the middle class (who benefited especially from the Industrial Revolution).
The middle class doesn't really come under discussion until the eleventh chapter, so its condition in the early part of the period at hand is not clear. Early in the book there is one amusing anecdote that sheds light on the state of the middle class: The sovereigns who had defeated Napoleon visited London in 1814 and supposedly asked where "the people" were. Apparently the crowds surrounding them seemed much too well-dressed to be "common folk."
Wilson's book is rich in detail from primary sources, if a little weak on analysis. The thread of his argument is not very tight throughout the body of the book, but he nicely profiles a number of writers and other influential people of the era.
There was one particular oversight, namely almost no discussion of Princess (later Queen) Victoria's upbringing. By contrast, he spends several pages on Princess Charlotte's (who never ascended the throne). Yet there is only one tantalizing hint about the nature of Victoria's rearing: in 1822, the chaplain to the duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) considered Thomas Bowdler's "Family Shakespeare" to be offensive--so he bowdlerized it! It is of course, simplistic to say that the sovereign dictated the social mores, but no doubt Queen Victoria's respectability was influential, especially in contrast to her disreputable predecessors.
Overall, this is an enjoyable book that will appeal especially to students of nineteenth-century Britain.
Chapter summaries:
Preface: Reasons for being interested in the development of Victorian values, especially desires to revive them by current politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.
Prologue: Two points of view on the the change under discussion: the rise of politeness and decline of coarseness vs. the rise of hypocrisy and cant and decline of sincerity and authenticity.
Intro to part I, "Hypochondria: 1789-1815": Economic prosperity was intermittent; fearful and uncertain Britons took refuge in religion.
1: It became fashionable to suffer from nervous complaints (the Duchess of Bedford claimed to be immune, as she "was born before nerves were invented"). Physicians Thomas Trotter and Thomas Beddoes viewed the society's and the body's health to be intertwined and advised sexual restraint. A quack (Samuel Solomon) played on people's shame to sell his Balm of Gilead.
2: Widespread fear of revolution; the crudeness of the lower classes. Beginning of profiles of Francis Place (who rose from the lower middle class to affluence) and Patrick Colquhoun (the census analyst who attributed the lower classes' poverty to extravagance and laziness).
3: Jeremy Bentham and the effort to reform the Poor Laws and the poor (by teaching thrift and discipline). Colquhoun encouraged the rich to be rational (some people heard "coldly inhumane") in response to the problems of the poor, and not just give them money.
4: The establishment of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and a profile of John Bowles, complete with his corruption.
5: The scandalous behavior and resulting lawsuits of the upper classes; the disconnect between love and marriage.
6: Upper classes' amusements and fashions. Profile of Beau Brummell, the trendsetting dandy who claimed to get the famous shine of his boots from champagne.
7: The protest when the Covent Garden Theatre remodeled and enclosed the boxes, thus making it impossible for people to see and be seen (especially gentlemen and their escorts).
Intro to part II, "The Arts of Peace: 1815-1821": Relief after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
8: More efforts to reform poor relief and the Mendicity Committee's portrayal of beggars as living secretly in luxury. In reality, begging was usually preferable to the cruelty and indignity of the parish relief system. One reformer in particular viewed poverty as caused by impiety and immorality.
9: The amateur policing system, licensing of public houses, and drinking habits (subsidized gin was cheaper than the more nutritious beer).
Intro to part III, "Rich and Respectable: 1821-1837": Wealth and the speculative bubble (which burst in 1925). Progress and cant--the progress of cant, and the cant of progress.
10: Byron's publication of "Don Juan," the public outrage, and his exile. The actor Thomas Kean's rise to celebrity and subsequent fall.
11: Progress due to the Industrial Revolution, and the gentrification of the middle classes. The advent of the suit meant that a wide range of middle and upper class men all looked the same, which contributed to etiquette. Also contributing was the idea (or delusion) of upward mobility: "the impression that it [rank] was obtainable by following the fashion and obeying rules of etiquette persisted." Explains how wealth led to sexual restraint.
12: The apparent increase in crime was actually an increase in enforcement of laws against petty crimes, punishments for which had been reduced from death to hard labor.
13: Conclusion.
Average customer rating:
- Deserves 20 stars! A Masterpiece!
- EXCELLENT Model Reference: Beautiful Pictures, Beautiful Homes
- A Must For Victorian House Owners
- a great victorian house book
- The pinnacle of the series
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America's Painted Ladies: The Ultimate Celebration of Our Victorians
Elizabeth Pomada ,
Michael Larsen ,
Douglas Keister , and
Elizabeth Pomanda
Manufacturer: Studio
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Binding: Paperback
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Authentic Color Schemes for Victorian Houses: Comstock's Modern House Painting, 1883
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Daughters of Painted Ladies
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Victorian Style: Classic Homes of North America
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Victorian Kitchens & Baths
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Victorian Domestic Architectural Plans and Details: 734 Scale Drawings of Doorways, Windows, Staircases, Moldings, Cornices, and Other Elements
ASIN: 0140238573 |
Customer Reviews:
Deserves 20 stars! A Masterpiece!.......2007-06-16
WOW!! This book is truly a feast for the eyes, and that's no exaggeration! There are so many first rate photos and plenty of text. Every page has multiple color photos. It is a very heavy book! The paper is high quality and the photos are extremely high resolution and stunningly beautiful. What a great job they did just in printing this book! If you love Victorian homes, then this book is a must have! I like it so much I think I will eventually buy a brand new hardcover copy of it (I bought a used paperback copy). I plan on getting all the other books in this series too. Some of the very best Victorian homes are in this book. They kind of remind me of Disneyland with all the colorful paint schemes and fanciful shapes and decorations.
EXCELLENT Model Reference: Beautiful Pictures, Beautiful Homes.......2005-09-28
Believe it or not but the main reason I purchased this beautiful book was for reference material for scale model building (i.e. LEGO, etc.). I was hunting forever for a book on Victorian homes--with pictures of the OUTSIDE (as most of the books on Victorian architecture deal with the classic interior designs, furniture, etc.). LEGO and Victorian homes go hand in hand, as this book's wonderful color pictures perfectly illustrate--who could imagine such combinations would actually look so stunning!? In addition to excellent photography the text is well written, with interesting facts about each home, why it's unique, yet how it fits into the overall "Painted Lady" lineage... excellent. :-)
A Must For Victorian House Owners.......2004-07-24
A fantastic book, a must for anyone who is thinking about painting a Victorian house. It was very helpful to me and my husband who had to come up with a color scheme for our three-story Queen Anne built in 1895.
If you're in the same boat, then you know that deciding on a color scheme for a detailed Victorian house isn't easy and takes careful thought and consideration. This book will help you. It will give you countless ideas, and just looking at the photos is inspiring.
And then, the book will appeal to any fan of Victorian architecture as well. I love looking at the numerous photos of the houses and find myself thumbing through it again and again. Every time I look at this book, I see something intriguing that I hadn't noticed before. Such a book serves to keep me inspired during the remainder of our home's renovation, which is trying at times.
a great victorian house book.......2004-01-31
i was speechless each picture was so beautiful , i love each and every house. a great book
The pinnacle of the series.......2003-08-14
Taller than any of the other books and nearly twice as thick as the thickest, this gorgeous 1992 volume (Ms. Pomada, isn't it time we got a fifth??), once again produced with the help of partner Larsen and photographer Keister, is, like "Daughters of Painted Ladies," a survey of Victorian homes from all over the country. From Searsport, ME, where the subtly detailed, white-bodied Mansard Carriage House Inn welcomes its guests, to a pink 1887 Steamboat Gothic in National City, near San Diego, here are dozens of Victorians, large and small, somber and vivid, plus an assortment of interiors, some fully period, others furnished in more contemporary style against the richly detailed background of the time. If you buy it to "get ideas" for your own Painted Lady, you'll find more than you can choose between. If you buy it just to look at, be prepared to spend hours drooling! A treasure trove for lovers of period detail, which is so admirably brought out by the creative combinations of color used in decorating these buildings.
Average customer rating:
- Better the second time around
- Woolf in Her Prime
- An expanding web
- Septimus Warren Smith
- Flowing prose
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Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Woolf, Virginia
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ASIN: 0151009988 |
Amazon.com
As Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning, a sky-writing plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards to decipher the message while the plane turns and loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplane's swooping path, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa and those whose lives brush hers--from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl's angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.
As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for the party she is giving that evening, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, to lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, to criticize and confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, and her wistful friendship with Sally Seton.
Woolf then explores the relationships between women and men, and between women, as Clarissa muses, "It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled the cold contact of man and woman, or of women together.... Her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?" While Clarissa is transported to past afternoons with Sally, and as she sits mending her green dress, Warren Smith catapults desperately into his delusions. Although his troubles form a tangent to Clarissa's web, they undeniably touch it, and the strands connecting all these characters draw tighter as evening deepens. As she immerses us in each inner life, Virginia Woolf offers exquisite, painful images of the past bleeding into the present, of desire overwhelmed by society's demands. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland
Book Description
Heralded as Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.
"Mrs. Dalloway was the first novel to split the atom. If the novel before Mrs. Dalloway aspired to immensities of scope and scale, to heroic journeys across vast landscapes, with Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf insisted that it could also locate the enormous within the everyday; that a life of errands and party-giving was every bit as viable a subject as any life lived anywhere; and that should any human act in any novel seem unimportant, it has merely been inadequately observed. The novel as an art form has not been the same since.
"Mrs. Dalloway also contains some of the most beautiful, complex, incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English, and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century."
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
Download Description
A masterpiece by one of the greatest writers in English literary history, Mrs. Dalloway is both a moving and innovative novel that breaks new ground in the representation of inner experience. A day in the life of a London woman, Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf's novel is a meditation on time, perception, memory and experience. Informed by the great novelists of the previous century as well as contemporary trends in philosophy, art and literature, Mrs. Dalloway is a towering achievement by an extraordinary artist.
Customer Reviews:
Better the second time around.......2007-08-27
This was the first Woolf novel that I read and i am glad that it was. I was a college freshman who had just seen The Hours. I was immediately drawn to this author. After reading it the first time, it is possible to know what the basic story is about: a woman giving a party and wondering about the choices she has made in the past. But each reading helps bring out so many details that are easy to miss. People may claim this is a hard read, but Mrs. Woolf's books were NEVER meant to be read quickly. The word usage and details are so precise that is should be read slowly to appreciate it more. A great book to start getting into Woolf.
Woolf in Her Prime.......2007-07-15
Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) was a well known writer, critic, feminist, and publisher. This was her fourth novel.
I read her first novel "The Voyage Out" before buying the present book, then skipped her second novel - which is considered to be a flop - then read "Jacob's Room," her third, then "Mrs. Dalloway," her fourth, and then "To The Lighthouse."
"The Voyage Out" is simple and straightforward work and it might remind the reader of a Jane Austen novel, but it set on a ship and then at a remote location. It is over 400 pages long, and has an Austen theme. After her second novel - which did not do very well - Woolf decided to be more risky and creative with the next book. She changed her style and approach to the novel and Woolf uses the stream of consciousness technique to bring a sense of the chaos and shortness of a young man's life around the time of World War I, Jacob's life, i.e.: from the pandemonium of Jacob's life as portrayed by Woolf through the use of the stream of the consciousness technique, we eventually have clarity in the novel. She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway."
She carries this writing style on into the similarly chaotic story "Mrs. Dalloway." Mrs. Dalloway, or simply Clarrisa Dalloway the character, was used in her first novel "The Voyage Out" but only as a minor character who the protagonist, Rachel, meets on a sea voyage. Mr. Dalloway makes a pass at Rachel and kisses her. Woolf brings them back in force here with their own novel.
The present story is set in the summer in post WWI London and it revolves around a few days in the life of Mrs. Dalloway. She has a party and during that period an old suitor, Peter Walsh, makes his return appearance from an overseas job posting in India, and does so after thirty years. Part of the story involves her thoughts about that relationship and her life choices. The second plot element is mental illness and the appearance of Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian wife Lucrezia. He is a war survivor but is suffering from depression. The third element is her present husband and his love for her.
The compressed in time and chaotic story which involves Clarrisa, her husband, Peter Walsh, and Septimus, lends itself to the stream of consciousness technique. Some make comparisons with Joyce and his stream of consciousness novel "Ulysses." In any case, Woolf uses it to advantage here. Finally, Woolf is an author who promoted aesthetic purity in fiction. But here she uses the novel as a chance to attack the care for the mental illnesses.
This is an excellent novel written by Woolf at her prime. Her approach lends itself to the subject and it is quite effective. If you want to read a conventional novel by Woolf, then I recommend her first novel, "The Voyage Out."
An expanding web.......2007-07-04
This is a spellweaver of a book, slipping lucidly from minute to minute over the course of a perfect London summer's day, its gossamer threads forming an expanding web as complex and interconnected as a symphony. I came to it after reading TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, written two years later (1925 and 1927). Both books are set in summer, and both are confined to a single physical setting. But whereas the house and garden in TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, nominally in Scotland, might almost be anywhere, London is a real and precise presence in MRS DALLOWAY, lovingly described over a range of several miles. The later book, though concentrating on two specific days, has a span of almost a decade; MRS DALLOWAY follows the classical unity of time, starting in the early morning and continuing until night in a single unbroken span (a precedent perhaps imitated by Ian McEwan in his SATURDAY). Conversely, while TO THE LIGHTHOUSE confines itself to about a dozen characters, MRS DALLOWAY moves in ever-expanding ripples, adding more and more people as guests arrive for Clarissa Dalloway's party in the book's concluding scene.
The hours of the day are marked by the sound of Big Ben: "First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air." The image of expanding and dissipating circles is central; as in TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, Woolf is preoccupied with the passage of time; both books are a memento mori. But neither one is grim; there is a summer freshness here, a feeling for the charm of society life in a great city, that fits the preliminary musical chimes of the great clock -- but the irrevocable toll of time is not forgotten. We see Clarissa Dalloway, a little over fifty, wife of a respected politician with an assured place in society. Like the sound of the clock, like ripples on the water, her circles have also expanded since her marriage, but have they also dissipated, dissolved in the air? Near the beginning of the book, she is visited by Peter Walsh, a former suitor whom she refused some thirty years before, now back home after many years in India. Both of them have changed, but the memories take her back and force her to weigh and reweigh her concepts of success and happiness.
All the characters in the novel are known personally to Clarissa Dalloway, with the exception of only two: Septimus Warren Smith and his Italian wife Lucrezia, whose story, weaving in and out of the main one, takes up about a fifth of the whole. Septimus, a clerk by profession but something of a poet and aesthete, has returned from the war unable to feel. When his best friend is killed in the last days of the war, he congratulates himself on surviving without cracking up, but soon begins to recognize his lack of emotion for the curse that it is; he married Lucrezia largely in an attempt to overcome this. He must be one of the first victims of shell-shock to appear in literature (but not the last: see Pat Barker's magnificent REGENERATION and all of Jacqueline Winspear's MAISIE DOBBS series). Virtually everything in Woolf's mature novels is connected primarily by thought rather than through action, but this takes the principle even farther, linking Septimus to Clarissa in theme only, as her Doppelgänger; the author admitted as much in a later preface. In some ways they are opposites: Clarissa so full of life, a society hostess married to an establishment figure; and Septimus, potentially suicidal (like Woolf herself), a provincial nobody married to the daughter of a foreign innkeeper. And yet, for all his inability to feel, there is an immediacy to the scenes between Septimus and Lucrezia, whose lives are played out in emotional primary colors, whereas Clarissa's world, for all its brilliance, is in iridescent shimmers and half-tones.
And what of Mr. Richard Dalloway, MP? We see surprisingly little of him, but what we do see only emphasizes the theme of lost feeling that runs through the book. Something makes him realize that it has been years since he has told his wife of his love. So he buys a great bunch of flowers and we see him "walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that he loved her." The phrase is repeated again and again. When he does get home, the scene does not go quite like that, but it is a touching one all the same. For Richard is one of those Englishmen who can only show their feelings obliquely. Poor Peter Walsh, on the other hand, who weeps openly and is an emotional wreck, is considered a failure, "not quite the thing." And Clarissa, still precariously aware of both sides of her nature, must steer her way between the two. And we rejoice that she can.
Septimus Warren Smith.......2007-06-27
In this novel, we see into the consciousness of the characters, in particular, Clarrissa Dalloway and the war-beaten Septimus Warren Smith. Woolf writes with empathy which is based on her own inner torment. This causes him to commit suicide due to his aversion to being placed in an institution by Dr. Holmes Bradshaw. Unrequited love for Isabel Pole, resonant in the beginning, shown as his poetry is corrected by her in red ink. This must seem slightly amusing to the author, but I find it sad.
I think I am him.
Flowing prose.......2007-06-27
coherrant, long, rythmic sentences on daily life of upper middle class of 18th century london.I found the book interesting and a delight to read.
Book Description
North American Victorian architecture and interior design are explored in detail in this essential look at an enduring style. Packed with spectacular original photographs and informative text, this lively book opens a door to the ornate decorative past. It examines the architecture of this eclectic period as it has survived and is interpreted today, and explains through myriad examples how Victorian style can be recreated in every room of the house.
Customer Reviews:
Exactly What I Was Hoping For.......2005-10-20
I purchased this book to give me ideas on which type of pattern/material I should use to reupholster a Victorian settee frame I recently bought. After looking through the breathtaking photos on these glossy pages, I know exactly which material to go with. And of course, from viewing this book I have a desire to purchase other victorian pieces to accompany the settee. It's a step back in time that must be seen.
This is a wonderful book. Also, this book was like brand new although it is used. Just wish there were more pages.
Book Description
In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America.
Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each. As they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb.
Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women's achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.
Customer Reviews:
Captivating read!.......2007-08-29
For anyone who loves to read and is interested in Women's history, this book is for you! Trust me; you will not be able to put the book down.
I found it in a little used bookshop and was afraid additional copies to share might be scarce. I'm pleased to find it is still available for purchase here on Amazon.
"...we expect the already great and famous to do great things, but we easily overlook the achievements of.......2007-05-27
the more humble among us."
Aptly sums up thirty-six year old Norwegian immigrant Helen Estby's 1886 walk with her eighteen year old daughter, Clara, 3500 miles across America. The trek was attempted for financial reasons, its completion with certain stipulations and within a seven-month time span would result in a $10,000 windfall for the cash strapped family. Unfortunately, due to negative feelings about the journey, during which Mrs. Estby left the care of her eight younger children in the hands of her husband, most of the information about it was not only not saved, but was intentionally destroyed by her descendants. Surmounting obstacles like difficult terrain, inclement weather, bad guys and a lack of money (the contract did not allow them to solicit donations) and the judgmental feelings of the many at the time who felt their behavior was in appropriate, the Estbys showed their detractors that they had the right stuff. The problem with the story, frankly, is a lack of firsthand information, which would have made its telling more personal and compelling: an okay story about a fantastic feat. Good companion reads: Tomboy Bride by Harriet Fish Backus, Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels, In a Far Country by John Taliaferro and Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 by Stephen E. Ambrose.
Fabulous read - and perfect gift for a reader friend.......2007-05-07
I have purchased a dozen copies of Bold Spirit because I enjoyed this true, almost unbelievable, story so much, and have found that all recipients shared my enthusiasm. I'm grateful that someone unearthed Helga Estby's incredible tale - this book gives you quite an insight into a truly remarkable life that her scandalized family tried their best to bury.
We've Come a Long Way.......2007-04-10
BOLD SPIRIT: HELGA ESTBY'S FORGOTTEN WALK ACROSS VICTORIAN AMERICA is an unforgettable story of Helga and Clara Estby's trek from Spokane, Washington to New York. The book is an interesting biographical and historical narrative of the mother and daughter's trip because it is about ordinary people, and how their lives paralleled the historical past in terms of women's history, social and cultural history, and immigration history. Hunt stresses the restrained lives in which Helga and Clara lived, but emphasizes their desire to walk cross-country within the contiguous United States to raise funds to save their farm; a challenging and unusual feat during the late nineteenth century especially for women and the roles they lived.
The major argument about the book is that Hunt lacked enough primary documents in order to provide a complete account of the Estby's journey. However, the crux of the story involves women's suffrage, and the Estby's struggle for acceptance within a patriarchal society that looked down on women's progressive activity, especially Norwegian immigrant women who also experienced severity as well. Hunt successfully weaves a story and history about two women who lived during one of the most tumultuous periods in American history, which is closely connected to the family. With inspiration from a history essay written by eighth-grader Doug Bahr, grandson of Thelma Estby, and the remaining sole document of the Estby's trip, a scrapbook owned by Thelma, Helga's granddaughter, which reveals the remaining account of their trip from two newspaper articles from the Minnesota Times, Hunt was able to tell the Estby's story with the addition of research and a compilation of secondary sources. Despite the limited personal accounts from Helga and Clara, the articles reveal their adventure of scenic views of their trip, which consisted of the fading American frontier of pioneering days of the past and the somewhat fearful encounter of Native Americans amidst a transformed modern America constructed Union Pacific Railroad, and the beckoning cityscapes of Chicago and New York. Ironically, upon the completion of their journey, the women would face further personal hardships in terms of finding a way to return home and discovering the deaths of two family members.
BOLD SPIRIT is an insightful and visual narrative that shows the fabric of America. Linda Lawrence Hunt proves that a story that has been hidden for centuries as a result of familial strife that involved social and cultural norms that was expected during the nineteenth century, finally can be told. Thus Helga and Clara's history is a shared history that is worth reading and understanding.
Half a story.......2007-04-09
The author makes a valiant attempt to create an entire narrative out of a few shreds of fact. I was interested in Helga's story (though long passages of the book are tedious going), but in the end, I was hugely frustrated by the complete lack of information on the daughter who accompanied her step for step.
What, oh what, became of Clara? How can the author present as history an account that focuses on only one of the two persons involved? Did Clara marry? Did she have children and grandchildren? Did she ever speak or write of her epic walk? Was she shunned by the family, as her mother was? We simply don't know, after reading this book, and are left to wonder why there is no further information on Clara.
Ultimately, this book is a failed historical account of an intriguing personal adventure. Another reviewer suggested the story would have made a much better novel than nonfiction; considering the lack of primary information, I have to agree.
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Men at Work: Art and Labour in Victorian Britain (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies)
Tim Barringer
Manufacturer: Paul Mellon Center BA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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| History & Criticism
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| Abstract Expressionism
| Ancient & Classical
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Reading the Pre-Raphaelites
ASIN: 0300103808 |
Book Description
For artists of the increasingly mechanized Victorian age, questions about the meaning and value of labour presented a series of urgent problems: Is work a moral obligation or a religious duty? Must labour be the preserve of men alone? Does the amount of work bestowed on a painting affect its value? Should art celebrate wholesome rural work or reveal the degradations of the industrial workplace? In this highly original book, Tim Barringer considers how artists and theorists addressed these questions and what their solutions reveal about Victorian society and culture.
Based on extensive new research, Men at Work offers a compelling study of the image as a means of exploring the relationship between labour and art in Victorian Britain. Barringer arrives at a major reinterpretation of the art and culture of nineteenth-century Britain and its empire as well as new readings of such key figures as Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin.
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Decorative Victorian glass
Cyril Manley
Manufacturer: Van Nostrand Reinhold
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Design & Decorative Arts
| Arts & Photography
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General
| Arts & Photography
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ASIN: 0442258720 |
Book Description
Finely rendered line drawings, based on photographs of authentic Victorian and Edwardian era designs, depict lovely floral and foliate motifs, a remarkable array of geometrics, transitional designs showing Art Nouveau influence, and much more
— all in a wide range of sizes and shapes.
Customer Reviews:
Jeff's review.......2007-04-03
The cover gives 14 color examples. The 78 pages are packed with
an average of 8 black and white outlines to a page.
This is a lot of ideas but would be challenging to enlarge for
pattern making. A limited range of symetric styles are divided
into four groups.
Design by eras/styles.......2007-01-10
This book is not my cup of tea, but it's great for someone who's looking for a design from a certain era. The book is broken down by the different eras or styles: Victorian Geometric, Art Nouveau, Victorian Floral, Edwardian, and 1920's. All the designs have a lot of horizontal and vertical lines in them. Also, it's all in black and white so you have to use your imagination to color it. The back of the front cover and back cover has examples in color.
Stained Glass Designs from Dover.......2006-08-08
This is an excellent resource book for stained glass artisans. It has a variety of styles and eras in easy to duplicate drawings. Projects range from easy to intricate, designs (in some instances) can be mixed and matched.
Dover has a good selection of stained glass books which provide wonderful references to many and varied types of stained glass design.
Helpful!.......2006-07-21
I've been looking for ideas for simple patterns; this book helped me a lot!
Great book and great ideas.......2006-07-06
This book is great for traditional patterns, specially for the ones from Great Bretain. It shows different types of patterns depending on the period of influence, like Edwardian, Art Deco and others. I wished the patterns showed some color!!!!
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Shakespeare's Victorian Stage: Performing History in the Theatre of Charles Kean
Richard W. Schoch
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Theater
| Performing Arts
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History & Criticism
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19th Century
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London
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ASIN: 0521622816 |
Book Description
This is the first book to explore the revivals of Shakespeare's history plays, Henry V, Henry VIII, King John, Macbeth, and Richard II, as staged by the actor-manager Charles Kean in mid-Victorian London. These celebrated productions, renowned for their attention to antiquarian detail, provided an opportunity for audiences to participate in the Victorian obsession with history. Many illustrations are previously unpublished and the book will be of interest to scholars and students of theater history, Shakespeare studies and Victorian culture.
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