Bob Blaisdell

A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life. In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and occasional embarrassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary. When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov’s talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov’s domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their family's serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama. In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon.

Poetry has long been a source of comfort and inspiration in times of struggle and celebration, and this carefully curated selection of over 100 American and British poems offers readers a profound collection of verse for those who are steadfast in their faith or those who are looking to renew it. This beautiful gift edition includes two of John Donne's "Holy Sonnets," Ben Jonson's "To the Holy Trinity," Christina Rosetti's "Wrestling," Emily Bront 's "Last Lines," and other poems by Andrew Marvell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and more.

A Dover Original, this collection of essays, letters, poems, and speeches by the bold women who joined the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century will educate and inspire all who are interested in this era of American history. The collection includes the work of 26 remarkable women whose efforts, at great risk to their own safety, became instrumental in fighting slavery, including Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Mary Prince, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Tubman, Angelina and Sarah Grimk , and more.

The story behind the origins of Anna Karenina and the turbulent life and times of Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is one of the most nuanced characters in world literature and we return to her, and the novel she propels, again and again. Remarkably, there has not yet been an examination of Leo Tolstoy specifically through the lens of this novel. Critic and professor Bob Blaisdell unravels Tolstoy’s family, literary, and day-to-day life during the period that he conceived, drafted, abandoned, and revised Anna Karenina. In the process, we see where Tolstoy’s life and his art intersect in obvious and unobvious ways. Readers often assume that Tolstoy, a nobleman-turned-mystic would write himself into the principled Levin. But in truth, it is within Anna that the consciousness and energy flows with the same depth and complexities as Tolstoy. Her fateful suicide is the road that Tolstoy nearly traveled himself. At once a nuanced biography and portrait of the last decades of the Russian empire and artful literary examination, Creating Anna Karenina will enthrall the thousands of readers whose lives have become deeper and clearer after experiencing this hallmark of world literature.

One of the most significant and far-reaching events in U. S. history, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 sharpened and brought to a head a number of crucial questions concerning slavery, states' rights, the legal status of blacks, and the effects of the Dred Scott decision. The debates were held as part of the campaign for the Illinois senatorial seat, pitting the two-term incumbent, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, against the lesser-known Abraham Lincoln, a successful lawyer and former state politician who was the Republican candidate. Paving the way for modern discussions between political candidates, the Lincoln-Douglas debates fascinated nineteenth-century America and catapulted Lincoln into the spotlight. Although he lost the race to Douglas, the stature and recognition Lincoln gained during the exchanges helped propel him to the presidency in 1860, just two years later. This volume features rousing speeches by each candidate and the rejoinders and replies.

"All I have learned, I learned from books," declared Abraham Lincoln -- and this book offers ample learning from the sixteenth president's wise and often witty remarks. Drawn from speeches, letters, and other sources, these thoughts and opinions range from considerations of human nature and spirituality to the burdens and privileges of the presidency along with many other topics of enduring interest. Selections include comments on morality ("It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.") and the pursuit of happiness ("Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.") as well as friendship ("I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down."), human frailty ("It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't."), and other thought-provoking subjects.

Inexpensive but substantial, this anthology begins with Thoreau's great 19th-century essay and concludes in the present day. Selections include Tolstoy's ""I Cannot Be Silent,"" Bertrand Russell's ""Civil Disobedience and the Threat of Nuclear Warfare,"" and speeches and writings by Gandhi, Emma Goldman, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Andrei Sakharov, and many others.

"This is a fantastic compilation of some really important pieces of American Literature. If you are a college student or even a motivated high school student, you will definitely want this on your bookshelf. Most importantly though, if you are someone who just genuinely enjoys reading and would like to expand your repertoire to some of the best in American literature, this is the book for you " -- Old Musty BooksRanging from colonial times to the mid-19th century, this compact and inexpensive anthology offers a fascinating overview of early American literature. The authoritative texts are supplemented with informative introductory notes and suggestions for further reading. Starting with Cherokee creation myths and Powhatan's moving speech, "Why Should You Destroy Us, Who Have Provided You with Food," the 18th-century selections include the writings of poets Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley; preacher Jonathan Edwards; statesmen Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and others. From the early and mid-19th century come excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark; stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Louisa May Alcott; the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman; and essays, speeches, verse, and memoirs by other prominent Americans.

This concise anthology covers works by major American authors dating from the end of the Civil War to the rise of the Jazz Age. Introductory notes and suggestions for further reading supplement selections by Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and many others.

First time I've read a collection from Native American Writers. Won't be my last. Important collection that examines the contrast and sometimes conflict between Whites and Native Americans and also conflicts between full-blood and half-blood. Very interesting and enlightening. Loved it -- BookBunnyPR This new anthology of short fiction by Native Americans features a wide range of contemporary writers. It includes stories dating from the early twentieth century by Pauline Johnson, daughter of a Mohawk chief, whose works helped define Canadian literature; Zitkala-Sa, a Sioux writer whose books were among the first to bring Native American stories to wider recognition; John M. Oskison, whose Cherokee ancestry informed his tales of the cultural clash faced by children of mixed marriages; and D'Arcy McNickle, Cree activist and anthropologist. Ten additional stories date from the 1960s through the twenty-first century, ranging in their settings from Canada to New Mexico. Selections include Leslie Marmon Silko's The Man to Send Rain Clouds, Crow's Sun by Duane Niatum, Beading Lesson by Beth H. Piatote, Sherman Alexie's War Dances, and other tales that explore cultural borders and intersections, dramatizing the ways in which people discover their own heritage as well as the wider world.

This inexpensive compilation of great oratory by ancient Greeks and Romans will be useful to students of history as well as those looking to hone their public speaking skills. Contents include Pericles' oration in favor of the Peloponnesian War and Julius Caesar on the punishment of the Catiline conspirators, in addition to speeches by Alcibiades, Demosthenes, Cicero, and many others.

This anthology of entertaining tales features the works of early American authors such as Benjamin Franklin and stories by 20th-century writers, including Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, and James Thurber. Additional contributors include Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, James Branch Cabell, and others.

These gripping tales from the trenches of France and Belgium offer firsthand testimony to the mayhem that devastated Europe from 1914 to 1918. Written mostly by veterans, they offer moving accounts of life and death amid the constant terror of bombs, poison gas, and machine guns. In addition to the more familiar perspectives of American and British soldiers, the tales encompass German, French, and Russian points of view. Featured stories include "Introduction to the Trenches," a narrative of a soldier's first night in No Man's Land by Imagist poet Richard Aldington; Mary Borden's "Blind," based on her service as a nurse in a hospital on the Western Front; and "A Raid Night," in which H. M. Tomlinson recounts a zeppelin attack on London. Additional contributors include Rudyard Kipling, Ford Madox Ford, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield, and others. Editor Bob Blaisdell introduces the anthology and provides notes on each author.