Annotated Books – serie

"Remarkably, a nineteen-year-old, writing her first novel, penned a tale that combines tragedy, morality, social commentary, and a thoughtful examination of the very nature of knowledge", writes Leslie S. Klinger. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often reductively dismissed as a monster film or a cautionary tale about experimental science gone haywire. Illuminating every hidden dimension of the "first truly modern myth", Klinger does for Shelley’s story of early nineteenth-century horror what he did for Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and H.P. Lovecraft, bringing this gothic tale to nightmarish life by reproducing the original text with the most lavishly illustrated and comprehensively annotated edition to date.

One summer afternoon in 1862, the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took a rowboat out on the Thames. With him were three young friends from the Liddell family—the sisters Lorina, Edith, and Alice. Dodgson often spun fairy tales on these boating trips to pass the time, and on this particular afternoon the story was particularly well received by Alice, who afterwards entreated him to write it down for her. Dodgson recalled the pivotal moment thusly: "In a desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards."The tale, initially titled Alice's Adventures Under Ground, became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which Dodgson published in 1865 as Lewis Carroll. So began the journey, now in its 150th year, of one of the most beloved stories of all time.The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition compiles over half a century of scholarship by leading Carrollian experts to reveal the history and full depth of the Alice books and their enigmatic creator. This volume brings together Martin Gardner’s legendary original 1960 publication, The Annotated Alice; his follow-ups, More Annotated Alice and the Definitive Edition; his continuing explication through the Knight Letter magazine; and masterly additions and updates edited by Mark Burstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. In these pages Lewis Carroll's mathematical riddles and curious wordplay, ingeniously embedded throughout the Alice works, are delightfully decoded and presented in the margins, along with original correspondence, amusing anecdotal detours, and fanciful illustrations by Salvador Dalí, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and a host of other famous artists.Put simply, this anniversary edition of The Annotated Alice is the most comprehensive collection of Alice materials ever published in a single volume. May it serve as a beautiful and enduring tribute to the charming, utterly original "new line of fairy-lore" that Lewis Carroll first spun 150 years ago.The deluxe anniversary edition of The Annotated Alice includes:A rare, never-before-published portrait of Francis Jane Lutwidge, Lewis Carroll's motherOver 100 new or updated annotations, collected since the publication of Martin Gardner's Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice in 1999More than 100 new illustrations, in vibrant color, by Salvador Dalí, Beatrix Potter, Ralph Steadman, and 42 other artists and illustrators, in addition to the original artwork by Sir John TennielA preface by Mark Burstein, president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, and all of Gardner's introductions to other editionsA filmography of every Alice-related film by Carroll scholar David Schaefer

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales is a remarkable treasure trove, a work that celebrates the best-loved tales of childhood and presents them through the vision of Maria Tatar, a leading authority in the field of folklore and children's literature. Into the woods with Little Red Riding Hood, up the beanstalk with Jack, and down through the depths of the ocean with the Little Mermaid, this volume takes us through many of the familiar paths of our folkloric heritage. Gathering together twenty-five of our most cherished fairy tales, including enduring classics like "Beauty and the Beast," "Jack and the Beanstalk," " ," and "Bluebead," Tatar expertly guides readers through the stories, exploring their historical origins, their cultural complexities, and their psychological effects. Offering new translations of the non-English stories by the likes of Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm, or Charles Perrault, Tatar captures the rhythms of oral storytelling and, with an extraordinary collection of over 300 often rare, mostly four-color paintings and drawings by celebrated illustrators such as Gustave Doré, George Cruikshank, and Maxfield Parrish, she expands our literary and visual sensibilities. As Tatar shows, few of us are aware of how profoundly fairy tales have influenced our culture. Disseminated across a wide variety of historical and contemporary media ranging from opera and drama to cinema and advertising, they constitute a vital part of our storytelling capital. What has kept them alive over the centuries is exactly what keeps life pulsing with vitality and variety: anxieties, fears, desires, romance, passion, and love. Up close and personal, fairy tales tell us about the quest for romance and riches, for power and privilege, and, most importantly, they show us a way out of the woods back to the safety and security of home. Challenging the notion that fairy tales should be read for their moral values and used to make good citizens of little children, Tatar demonstrates throughout how fairy tales can be seen as models for navigating reality, helping children to develop the wit and courage needed to survive in a world ruled by adults. This volume seeks to reclaim this powerful cultural legacy, presenting the stories that we all think we know while at the same time providing the historical contexts that unlock the mysteries of the tales. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales is a volume that will rank as one of the finest fairy tale collections in many decades, a provocative and original work to be treasured by students, parents, and children.

In her most ambitious annotated work to date, Maria Tatar celebrates the stories told by Denmark's "perfect wizard" and re-envisions Hans Christian Andersen as a writer who casts his spell on both children and adults. Andersen's most beloved tales, such as "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Ugly Duckling," and "The Little Mermaid," are now joined by "The Shadow" and "Story of a Mother," mature stories that reveal his literary range and depth. Tatar captures the tales' unrivaled dramatic and visual power, showing exactly how Andersen became one of the world's ten most translated authors, along with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Marx. Lushly illustrated with more than one hundred fifty rare images, many in full color, by artists such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen will captivate readers with annotations that explore the rich social and cultural dimensions of the nineteenth century and construct a compelling portrait of a writer whose stories still fascinate us today.

Since its publication in 1868, the beloved children’s classic Little Women, has been handed down from mother to daughter. It has inspired an opera, three films and a musical. In this lavish four-colour edition, renowned Alcott expert John Matteson brings unprecedented vibrancy to the book, to the March family it creates and to the Alcott family who inspired it. With numerous photographs taken for this edition, readers discover the extraordinary links between the real and the fictional family. Matteson’s annotations bring us back in touch with the objects and culture of a distant but still-relevant time. His introductory essays examine Little Women’s pivotal place in children’s literature and tell the story of Alcott herself, a tale every bit as captivating as her fiction.

Of all of the rich fairy-tale collections that exist in countries throughout the world, few are better known than those gathered almost two centuries ago by a pair of German brothers—Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm—in their Children’s Stories and Household Tales, first published in 1812. Endlessly recast and reimagined in poetry and prose, on the screen and onstage, these stories are forever etched in our imagination. Here, in this bicentennial edition of The Annotated Brothers Grimm, Maria Tatar presents these timeless stories in a sumptuous and visually powerful format that helps reshape our understanding of the Brothers Grimm.Drawing from the final authoritative version in the mid-nineteenth century, Tatar, an internationally recognized scholar in the field of folklore and children’s literature, has translated and provided commentary for more than fifty Grimm stories, judiciously selecting tales that resonate with modern audiences and reveal the broad thematic range of the Grimm canon. Readers young and old will encounter popular classics, including “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” and “Rapunzel,” while discovering some of the lesser known yet equally captivating stories such as “Four Artful Brothers,” “The Water of Life,” and “The White Snake,” all new to this edition. Perhaps most noteworthy is Tatar’s decision to include tales excised from later editions, including a number of “adult” stories that were removed once the Grimms realized that parents were reading the stories to children.Tatar’s own translations are accompanied by insightful annotations that search for origins, uncover cultural complexities, and explore psychological effects. Nearly two hundred images of exquisite beauty, many of them new to this edition—by artists such as George Cruikshank, Gustave Doré, Kay Nielsen, and Arthur Rackham—are reproduced alongside the stories. With a brilliant introductory essay by A. S. Byatt, along with the Grimms’ original prefaces to their editions, a collection of reminiscences about “The Magic of Fairy Tales,” and essays on the lives of the Brothers Grimm and the cultural impact of their tales, The Annotated Brothers Grimm captures the magical appeal of the tales while also unlocking their potent mysteries.In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, this volume shows how the Grimms’ fairy tales animate our imaginations and remain with us long after we have put them aside. The Bicentennial Edition of The Annotated Brothers Grimm offers a treasury of cultural lore and wisdom that has been passed on from one generation to the next.

"Howard Phillips Lovecraft is beginning to emerge as one of that tumultuous period’s most critically fascinating and yet enigmatic figures", writes Alan Moore. But at the time of his death, Lovecraft was maligned by critics and ignored by the public. Leslie S. Klinger reanimates Lovecraft and charts the rise of the pulp writer. Lovecraft’s vast body of work—a mythos in which humanity is a blissfully unaware speck in a cosmos shared by ancient alien beings—is increasingly being recognised as the foundation for American horror and science fiction. With nearly 300 illustrations and more than 1,000 annotations, Klinger illuminates every hidden dimension of 22 of Lovecraft’s most canonical works.

The New Annotated African American Folktales revolutionises the canon like no other volume. Henry Louis Gates Jr and Maria Tatar assemble a ground-breaking collection of folktales, myths and legends that revitalise a vibrant African American past. Beginning with introductory essays and 20 seminal African tales, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics but also stories like “Witches Who Ride”, out-of-print tales from the Southern Workman and stories that bring Caribbean and Latin American literature in to the canon.

Originally published in 1885 by Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant’s landmark memoir has been annotated by Elizabeth Samet in this lavish edition. No previous edition combines such a sweep of historical and cultural contexts with the literary authority that Samet, obsessed with Grant for decades, brings to the table.Whether exploring novels Grant read at West Point or presenting majestic images culled from archives, Samet curates a richly annotated edition. Never has Grant’s transformation from tanner’s son to military leader been more insightfully and passionately explained than in this timely edition, appearing on the 150th anniversary of Grant’s 1868 presidential election.

In 2014, The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft was published and devoured by the Lovecraft community and general readers alike. The landmark volume included twenty-two stories but there are many others worthy of attention, including Lovecraft’s favourites.In this follow-up, twenty-five more Lovecraft stories are re-presented as well as a number of never-before-seen revisions and collaborations with other authors. Included are “Rats in the Wall”, a post–First World War story about the terrors of the past and the newly contextualised “The Horror at Red Hook”, which has been adapted recently by Victor LaValle. The stories magnify the creative ideas and writing processes of the literary genius. Best-selling author and editor Klinger reanimates Lovecraft with clarity and historical insight, offering a revelatory volume in which the author’s story-writing method is uncovered, his vivid dreams are recorded and first drafts of stories are seen in immaturity. In addition to his ground-breaking writing, we glimpse a personal side of Lovecraft: his favourite stories are highlighted and his vulnerability as a young writer is obvious.With hundreds of annotations and dozens of rare images, Beyond Arkham provides the complete picture of Lovecraft’s achievements in fiction. No lover of Gothic literature will want to be without this literary keepsake.

Starting in 1999 with the publication of The Definitive Annotated Alice, the Norton and Liveright annotated books have become the leading series of classic, illustrated works in the English language. The long-anticipated publication of The Annotated Arabian Nights extends this tradition with a strikingly modern translation—the first of Shahrazad’s tales into English by a woman—as well as erudite notes that will illuminate the stories for both dedicated readers and newcomers. Yasmine Seale’s translations from both Arabic and French capture the musicality and rhythm of the Nights’ poetry and prose, while Paulo Lemos Horta’s annotations wrestle with the extraordinarily complex origins and history of the stories, showing that, far from being inventions of French antiquarians or English explorers, they have clear antecedents in Arabic folklore and tradition. This stunningly illustrated edition selects core stories as well as treasured later additions such as “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba” to offer an unparalleled account of a cornerstone of world literature that can be treasured by children, students and literature-lovers alike.

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." So begins Virginia Woolf’s beloved fourth novel. First published in 1925, Mrs. Dalloway has long been considered Woolf’s masterpiece. A pivotal work of literary modernism, its simple plot—centred on an upper-class Londoner preparing to give a party—is complicated by Woolf’s satire of the English social system.For decades, Woolf’s rapturous style and vision of individual consciousness have challenged and inspired readers, novelists and scholars alike. In this annotated volume based on the original British edition, acclaimed essayist and Oxford don Merve Emre mines Woolf’s diaries and notes on writing to take us into the making of Mrs. Dalloway, revealing the novel’s artistry and astonishing originality. Alongside her generous commentary, Emre offers hundreds of illustrations and little-seen photographs from Woolf’s life. The result is not only an essential volume for students and Woolf devotees but an incomparable gift to all lovers of literature.

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn," Ernest Hemingway once declared. First published in 1885, the book has delighted millions of readers, while simultaneously riling contemporary sensibilities, and is still banned in many schools and libraries. Now, Michael Patrick Hearn, author of the best-selling The Annotated Wizard of Oz, thoroughly reexamines the 116-year heritage of that archetypal American boy, Huck Finn, and follows his adventures along every bend of the mighty Mississippi River. Hearn's copious annotations draw on primary sources including the original manuscript, Twain's revisions and letters, and period accounts. Reproducing the original E. W. Kemble illustrations from the first edition, as well as countless archival photographs and drawings, some of them previously unpublished, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn is a book no family's library can do without; it may well prove to be the classic edition of the great American novel.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the quintessential American fairy tale. Michael Patrick Hearn, the world's leading Oz scholar, now provides a fascinating new annotation that not only reacquaints readers with the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion, but also illuminates the colorful background of this treasured American classic. This edition explores numerous contemporary references, provides character sources, and explains the actual meaning of the word "Oz." A facsimile of the rare 1900 first edition appears with the original drawings by W.W. Denslow, as well as 25 previously unpublished illustrations. There is a bibliography of L. Frank Baum's published work, every notable "Oz" edition, and the stage and cinematic productions from 1939's The Wizard of Oz, to the 1974 Broadway hit, The Wiz. A beautiful, awe-inspiring work, The Annotated Wizard of Oz is an enduring tribute to the timeless joy of The Wizard of Oz, and a classic to rival Baum's own.

The publication of Leslie S. Klinger's brilliant new annotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's four classic Holmes novels in 2005 created a Holmes sensation. Klinger reassembles Doyle's four seminal novels in their original order, with over 1,000 notes, 350 illustrations and period photographs, and tantalizing new Sherlockian theories. Inside, readers will find:A Study in Scarlet (1887)—a tale of murder and revenge that tells of Holmes and Dr. Watson's first meeting;The Sign of Four (1889)—a chilling tale of lost treasure...and of how Watson met his wife;The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901)—hailed as the greatest mystery novel of all time; andThe Valley of Fear (1914)—a fresh murder scene that leads Holmes to solve a long-forgotten mystery.Whether as a stand-alone volume or as a companion to the short stories, this classic work illuminates the timeless genius of Conan Doyle for an entirely new generation.