The Book of Wonderful Characters: Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons in all Ages and Countries - Couverture rigide

Wilson, Henry

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1341093964 ISBN 13 : 9781341093968

Editeur : Palala Press, 2015

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In the old coaching times of England, there was scarcely a village in which the mail-coach changed its horses but had its eccentric oddity of some kind or another, and this oddity was as certain to be at the inn-yard, to see and be seen by the travelling strangers, as the master of the house himself. But now, wheii we go to a country town, there is nothing to be seen but a railway station, with its usual complement of guards, porters, po Ucemen, c., as like as two peas are to the one we left miles away. The life-like although fictitious description of the railway station and refreshment rooms at Mugby Junction, may be apphed to every other station in England. I ndeed, the tendency of the present day, in England, is directly opposed to the spirit of individual exclusiveness which, as the great encourager of eccentricity of character, once prevailed over all the country. Science is no longer locked up in a few colleges, royal societies, or inaccessible volumes. Through the pubhc press, discoveries and theories, once the monopoly of a few philosophers, have become the common property of the multitude; and what is true of science is still more true of literature. Genius now sends its light into cottages; for works that were once too costly for even the opulent are now so cheap as to be found on the labourers shelf. With the fine arts it is just the same. I f, as it is said, the spirit of the great artists has died out, yet the taste for their works is still with us. By the improvements of engraving, and the invention of casts, the genius of the great artists is spreading everywhere abroad. Their conceptions are no longer pent up in galleries, open to but a few, but meet us in our houses, and are the refined household treasures of millions.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: P

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Printmaker James Caulfield (1764–1826) spent much of his career publishing illustrated books about 'remarkable persons'. He began his first series around 1788 and continued it sporadically from 1790 to 1795, with books on a similar theme continuing to appear in the first decades of the nineteenth century. More than forty years after his death, this collection of biographies (produced in collaboration with Henry Wilson (fl. 1820–30)) was republished in 1869. The edition's introduction explains that the renewed interest in these characters comes from the fact that 'we have nearly lost all, and are daily losing what little remains of, our individuality'. The vignettes, accompanied by engravings of each individual, describe a wide-ranging group - from the man who died aged 152 to a 'remarkable glutton' to a woman who lived on the smell of flowers - their only common factor being that they were in some way 'wonderful'.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Palala Press
• Date d'édition: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1341093964
• ISBN 13: 9781341093968
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 546