Reprint, Winter 1994

Plutarch’s Parallel Lives was written at the beginning of the second century A.D., and the work offers a social history of the ancient world, the world of the Greeks and the Romans. A new edition of Plutarch’s Lives Volume 1 has been published as part of the Modern Library of the World’s Best Books [$19.00 cloth]. Bison Books has republished Lloyd Lewis’ Sherman: Fighting Prophet with an introduction by Brooks D.Simpson, a biography of William Tecumseh Sherman, the Union general famous or infamous for his devastating march through Georgia during the final phases of the Civil War [$20.00 paper]. Another Civil War general is the subject of Roy Morris, Jr.’s Sheridan: The Life & Wars of General Phil Sheridan, the calvary general who defeated J.E.B.Stuart at Yellow Tavern and wrought havoc through the Valley of Virginia in the closing days of America’s bloodiest conflict. A new edition of Sheridan is available as a Vintage Book [$14.00]. Vintage has also reprinted The Diary of Latoya Hunter: My First Year in Junior High, the story of a young adolescent beginning her first year at Junior High School 80 in the Bronx [$8.00]. Kent State has published a new edition of Willy Schumann’s Being Present: Growing up in Hitler’s Germany, an autobiography by a professor at Smith College who was six years old when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 [$14.00 paper].

At the time of his death in 1991, Howard Nemerov was one of the most widely honored poets in America, but he had also distinguished himself as one of the finest writers in nearly every literary genre. His diversity is reflected in the paperback edition of A Howard Nemerov Reader, which includes some of his finest poems as well as short stories, essays, and the only available edition of his hilarious novel Federigo, Or, the Power of Love. The Nemerov Reader is available from Missouri [$16. 95]. Knopf has published a paper edition of James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover which contains the complete text of “The Book of Ephraim,” “Mirabell’s Books of Number,” and “Scripts for the Pageant,” plus a Coda: The Higher Keys [$16.00]. Norton has published paper editions of Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by M.D. Herter [$9.95], and Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet also translated by M.D.Herter [$6.95]. Beacon Press has issued a paperback edition of Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems, winner of the 1992 National Book Award for Poetry. This collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet brings together poems from each of her eight previous books and 30 previously unpublished poems written in 1991 and 1992 [$14.00]. Two HarperPerennial reprints are Walking Swiftly: Writings in Honor of Robert Ely, a collection of essays honoring the poet’s 65th birthday [$10.00], and The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry edited by Stephen Mitchell [$9.00]. A paper edition of Richard Poirier’s Poetry & Pragmatism is now available in paperback from Harvard [$12.95]. Poirier examines the creative but mostly hidden alliance between American pragmatism and American poetry.

Robert B. Asprey’s The German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I follows the careers of two great German generals from the execution of the Schlieffen Plan in 1914 and First Marne in the West to the final massive offensive on the Western Front in 1918, an offensive that almost succeeded in breaking four years of stalemate. A new edition of this contribution to the history of World War I is available as a Quill Paperback [$15.00]. Yale has republished David P.Chandler’s The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945, a book Michael Leifer writing in The Journal of Asian Studies described as “a masterly work of scholarship that combines judicious assessment with meticulous attention to sources and detail” [$17.00 paper; also available in cloth $37.50]. Arlette Farge and Jacques Revel’s The Vanishing Children of Paris: Rumor and Politics before the French Revolution is now available as a Harvard paperback [$12.95]. Helen Nader’s Liberty in Absolutist Spain: The Hapsburg Sale of Towns, 1516—1700 was hailed by the American Historical Review as “a masterpiece of the historian’s craft in a neglected area” at the time of its original publication by Johns Hopkins in 1990.It later received the American Historical Association’s Annual Leo Gershoy Award. John Hopkins is now out with a paper edition of Liberty in Absolutist Spain [$18.95]. Johns Hopkins also has an expanded paper edition of George Rosen’s A History of Public Health with an introduction by Elizabeth Fee and a biographical essay and new bibliography by Edward T.Morman. Originally published in 1958, Rosen’s book has remained the only comprehensive international account of the history of public health [$19.95]. Shortly after Norton published Ramon Eduardo Ruiz’s Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, New York Newsday concluded that this history “may very likely become the most accessible and comprehensive introduction in English to Mexico’s past and present. . . . A triumph.” An epic ranging from Mexico’s Olmec, Aztec, and Mayan heritage to its present-day role as a dependent, struggling, and economically unstable modern country, this history has been reprinted in paperback [$14.95]. Mexico also figures in Carlos Fuentes’ The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World, a paper edition of which was recently published by Houghton Mifflin [$19.95].

After reading the original Harvard edition of Millicent Bell’s Meaning in Henry James, which appeared in 1991, critic Susan Sontag commented: “I admire Millicent Bell’s eloquent, wise, subtle book. There can be no higher praise than to say it is entirely worthy of its great subject: our most immense writer and the questions about narrative method and moral intelligence raised by his work.” Ms. Bell’s study is now available as a Harvard paperback [$16.95]. Georgia has come out with a second edition of Madan Sarup’s An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism, a study which traces the impact of post-structuralist thought not only on literary criticism, but on other disciplines such as philosophy, politics, and psychoanalysis [$14.95 paper; also available in cloth $30.00]. New Directions is in the process of bringing out the entire works of Tennessee Williams in paper editions under the collective title The Theatre of Tennessee Williams. Volume IV of Williams’ works appeared late last year and featured three plays from his “middle period,” plays that are among his most significant and successfully dramatized works. The plays are respectively, “Sweet Bird of Youth,” “Period of Adjustment,” and “The Night of the Iguana” [$19.95 paper].

The dustjacket on the new edition says, “Romola always occupied a special place in George Eliot’s own affections. Looking back at the end of her career she remarked, “I felt some wonder that anyone should think I had written anything better.”” Today’s readers now have an opportunity to compare Romola with Eliot’s other work since Oxford has published a Clarendon Edition of the novel with the text taken from the serialization which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine between July 1862 and August 1863.This new edition of Romola is edited by Andrew Brown, and it does not come cheap [$125.00 cloth]. Georgia has reprinted another classic in the history of the English novel, namely The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Tobias Smollett’s last published novel and most celebrated work which came out originally in June 1771 three months before the author’s death [$20.00 paper]. Johns Hopkins has issued paper reprints of two short story collections by Guy Davenport, the collections respectively being The Jules Verne Steam Balloon with nine stories [$12.95], and Ecologues with eight [also $12.95]. Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses was a national bestseller in 1993, and also won the National Book Award. A paper edition of this prize-winning novel has been published by Vintage Books [$12.00]. Vintage has also reprinted two of McCarthy’s earlier novels, one being Child of God [$10.00], and the other being Outer Dark [$10.00], Other recent Vintage Books include Abdelrahman Munif’s The Trench, the second volume of the Egyptian novelist’s critically acclaimed City of Salt trilogy [$14.00]; two novels by Philip K.Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said [$10.00], and Now Wait for Last Year [also $10.00]; John Hersey’s Antonietta, a novel about a violin by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Bell for Adano and Hiroshima [$10.00]; and Shelby Foote’s Follow Me Down, a novel about a murder trial in Mississippi in the 1950’s [$11.00].