The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill

Book Description

An extremely entertaining compendium of bon mots, anecdotes, and trivia about Winston Churchill from a leading Churchill lecturer and performer -- useful for speakers, students, of history, and World War II buffs, as well as general readers.

Customer Reviews:

Must Read!.......2007-08-10

Have if you're like me and have a lot of friends that don't read (but love Blue Collar Comedy Tour...) then you can start using quotes right out of this book and they will think you just came down from the mountain of knowledge and wisdom. Hey you can even use this for those fun quotes at the bottom of your email! Look how global you can become, yes you!

Great book, very well organized and really a lot of fun to read. Winston Churchill was truly a clever man and would be on my top 10 list of Dudes I would like to have a Newcastle with.

Robb Boyd from Cisco's TechWiseTV is number one on the beer list...

Entertainment.......2007-06-08

A delightful book. I thought the author a little too sycophantic for my taste (I am an Australian after all) but the contents are very entertaining. You can dip into it at any place and read for two minutes or two hours and have a good chuckle.

review of wit and wisdom of Winston Churchill.......2005-09-12

The book is entertaining. It's the kind of book you don't just read through, but pick it up read a few sections at a time.

Utterly Delightful.......2004-10-23

A compact book with more than 1,000 quotations and anecdotes you can enjoy at any time.

Here are just a few:

Violet Asquith, the irrepressible daughter of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, found a kindred spirit in Churchill, who served in her father's Cabinet.

Once, in a flight of philosophical gloom, she turned to her dinner partner and said, "Winston, in terms of infinity, we are cosmic dust - we are just worms."

"Perhaps, Violet", Churchill replied, "but I am a glowworm."

* * *

If "Franglais" has been only recently coined to describe the bastardizing of the French language by English words, Churchill may have been the sire of this hybrid argot. Sometimes his additions to the noble Gallic tongue were even more attrocious than his accent.

During some delicate negotions at Casablanca, the stubborn Charles de Gaulle denounced an Allied plan to fuse him and his rival, French general Henri Giraud. Churchill, glaring at the Gaulle, delivered this concoction: "Si vous m'obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai!" (If you obstacle me, I will liquidate you!) A bewildered de Gaulle backed off.

* * *

In 1900, the twenty-six-year-old Churchill, after just being elected to Parliament, made a speaking tour of America. In Washington, he was introduced to a majestically endowed woman from Richmond, Virginia, who prided herself upon her devotion to the "lost cause of the Confederacy." Her family were Democrats who had opposed the Repubican policy of Reconstruction.

Anxious that Churchill should know her sentiments, she remarked as she gave him her hand, "Mr. Churchill, you see before you a rebel who has not been Reconstructed."

"Madam," he replied with a deep bow that surveyed her decolletage, "reconstruction in your case would be blasphemous."

Power of Words in the Majestic Battle of Ideas.......2003-11-04

In this book, James C. Humes gives his audience an excellent opportunity to conjure up a mental picture of Winston Churchill and his legacy. As a renaissance man, Churchill was more than a skilled politician and a gifted soldier. Perhaps more importantly, Churchill was a man of inspired words, whose work was ultimately crown by the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. Churchill often was far from politically correct and did not hesitate to say, write and do what he thought was right. Churchill's bluntness did not make him dear to everybody.

Humes first brings to light many of the great thoughts of Churchill in "Observations and Opinions." Humes classifies key words alphabetically without giving context so that readers can easily find a quote of their liking about a specific subject. Some readers might get frustrated about it if they are not familiar with the key milestones in the life and career of Churchill. These readers can read books such as "Churchill a Life", "Churchill a Study in Greatness", "Clementine Churchill The Biography of a Marriage" or "Winston and Clementine The Personal Letters of the Churchills" to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of Churchill for that purpose.

Humes forges ahead in a similar way in "Orations and Perorations", "Coiners of Phrases", "Saints and Sinners" and "Escapades and Encounters." In these sections, Humes is usually very good at giving his audience the context so that readers better understand where Churchill was coming from. Hours of fun and laughter are virtually guaranteed, especially in "Escapades and Encounters."

Book Description

A vibrant history of the British satire explosion of the early 1960s-from Private Eye and Beyond the Fringe to That Was the Week That Was-and its lasting influence on comedy. Humphrey Carpenter's A Great, Silly Grin is both a thoughtful history and a great deal of fun. The British satire boom of the early 1960s created a motherlode of styles and material for generations of bright comedians and social critics on both sides of the Atlantic and set a standard for clever humor that still shapes comedy and commentary in America today. Carpenter's history of that formative era revisits the 1960 Edinburgh Festival, when a staggeringly inspired satirical review startled a public steeped in the polite, bland banality of the 1950s; recalls the appearance in London coffee bars of a scruffy yellow pamphlet calling itself Private Eye, and looks back at the groundbreaking BBC television program That Was the Week That Was. Exclusive interviews with the people involved are woven together with a wealth of comic material, photographs-most from private collections and never before published-and other contemporary material to bring the era vividly to life. Carpenter also assess the satirical movement's impact in America. A Great, Silly Grin is a feast of nostalgia for those who remember its signature comedians fondly, and an insightful look back at a high-water mark for satire in the English speaking world.

Customer Reviews:

As Peter Cook used to say..........2003-08-30

Just read A Great Silly Grin: The British Satire Boom of the 1960s, by Humprey Carpenter. This period has long been a subject of interest to me despite the fact that I'm too young (and geographically challenged) to have seen most of the programs in the first place.

Besides being a linked series of show business biographies of key figures of the time (The Beyond the Fringe foursome, etc), the book raises some good discussion.

Just how much does satire really matter, if it does at that? As Peter Cook used to say, the peak of satire was 1930's Berlin--and look how much that did to prevent the rise of Hitler.

But the best part of the text may be the final chapter, which paints an unflattering picture of the state of the art in 2000-era Great Britain--and it's sobering how much of it applies to the US as well.

for Monty Python fans.......2002-08-26

Although it has aspirations to social history this is largely celebrity bio. Those who have an interest in Dudley Mooore, John Cleese, David Frost, Alan Benett, Jonathan Miller and so forth, and who remembember Beyond the Fringe and That Was The Week That Was will find it interesting. The number of characters becomes bewildering and boredom sets in as accounts of the obscure and forgotten multiply. It livens up when it recounts some of the skits we thought funny at the time.
It is perhaps deflating to realize that these satirical iconoclasts owed their initial careers to the British governmemt. They got their starts on the payrolls of the government-sponsored Edinburgh Festival and as employes of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Would they have fared as well in an open marketplace? Were they causes or beneficiaries of the breakdown in censorship in the 1960's? Carpenter touches on some of these questions but is, I think, too much in awe of the genius of those he writes about. While undoubtedly entertaining their talents for writing funny things and doing funny imitations were of a kind that is widespread.

Grin or Grimace?.......2002-07-30

Carpenter examines English cultural values during the years immediately following World War Two and focuses specifically on the 1960's when students from Oxford and Cambridge universities (with others) challenged those values with immensely entertaining satire. Theirs were significant contributions to a tradition of creative ridicule which extends back more than 2,500 years. Of course, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens are among those English authors properly renowned for their comic genius but are not usually thought of primarily as social satirists. Throughout the Age of Victoria and well into the 20th century, the British Empire flourished within a somewhat rigid social order, one which (generally) seemed to lack a sense of humor. By 1960, England had become "a bankrupt, defenseless little country run by a ridiculously elderly prime minister" (Harold Macmillan) when Jonathan Miller, Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett introduced "Beyond the Fringe" at the Edinburgh Festival. Out of that developed Private Eye magazine, The Establishment (a men's cabaret featuring satire), and the BBC's That Was the Week That Was. Carpenter devotes substantial attention to Miller, Cooke, Moore, and Bennett as they and others detonated a "boom" of social satire whose reverberations continued through Second City, Monty Python, and Saturday Night Live. Carpenter duly notes the influence of the Goon Show (Millgan, Sellers, et al) as well as American humorists such as Mort Sahl, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, and Tom Lehrer on their English counterparts. Of special interest to me is Carpenter's suggestion that, as England continued its decline among world powers in the 1960s, social satire served as a medication to deaden the pain. At one point, he reminds his reader of Cook's warning that England was then in danger of "sinking giggling into the sea." That has not as yet happened and never will but the image remains vivid nonetheless.

The evolution of British satire.......2002-06-03

Humphrey Carpenter's Great, Silly Grin follows contemporary British humor, beginning with the 1960 Edinburgh Festival when a satirical review Beyond the Fringe fostered a new breed of British humor. The evolution of British satire that followed through the 1960s receives close examination in this involving survey.

A Profane Wit : The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

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An Excellent Tribute to Rochester
Not quite what I expected...
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
The Libertine
A Bawdy Mirror to His Age

A Profane Wit : The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
James William Johnson
Manufacturer: University of Rochester Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1580461700

Product Description

Of the glittering, licentious court around King Charles II, John Wilmot the second Earl of Rochester was the most notorious. Simultaneously admired and vilified, he personified the rake-hell. Libertine, profane, promiscuous, he shocked his pious contemporaries with his doubts about religion and his blunt verses that dealt with sex or vicious satiric assaults on the high and mighty of the court. This account of Rochester and his times provides the facts behind his legendary reputation as a rake and his deathbed repentance. However, it also demonstrates that he was a loving if unfaithful husband, a devoted father, a loyal friend, a serious scholar, a social critic, and an aspiring patriot.

Customer Reviews:

An Excellent Tribute to Rochester.......2007-09-18

I really couldn't better some of the excellent reviews already made about this book, so I'll keep mine short. I've spent many years enthralled with the Earl of Rochester's work and life. I have read almost all of the biographies ever written about him, which are numerous, and in my opinion this is the crown jewel of Wilmot biographies. It is steeped in depth of detail, but the most important fact about it is that the author manages to keep personal opinion out of the bio the whole way through. He states the facts and leaves it up to the reader's discretion to form their own opinions, unlike some of the other Rochester biographers.
For those of you wanting the most up-to-date, detailed account of this wonderful poet's life, this is it. From birth to death and it's aftermath, this biography is the fullest and most accurate account of John Wilmot's life available. Poet, Libertine, Husband, Father, Lover, Cynic; every possible aspect of Wilmot's life and career are laid out for the reader here. While at times, the author possibly gives a little too much detail on persons not so important to the Wilmot story, the reader is richer for the knowledge in any case. Not only an excellent bio, but a great insight into the life and times of the court of Charles II.
Wilmot fans should not pass up the chance to read this. :)

Not quite what I expected..........2006-08-09

This is an extremely detailed account. It in fact reads much like a text book...dates included.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.......2006-07-08

With the release of THE LIBERTINE there is a renewed interest in the life and poetry of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. My own interest began when I was taking a class in Restoration Literature. While I was taking this class it was rumored that there was a movie version of the mad Earl's life out there somewhere (rumor was that it had been finished for some time but that studios were reluctant to release it) but then just a few weeks after the class was over a holiday release date was announced and I saw the film on opening night. I enjoyed it thoroughly as a person with a slightly more than casual interest in this character and time period. And left the film wanting to know more.

I think there are probably several groups of fans for the film. There are the fans who like Johnny Depp and will see anything he is in (I'm not one of those although I will admit to liking DONNIE BRASCO & Jim Jarmusch's DEAD MAN). But then there are those who come to the film because they are interested in Rochester himself. These fans can probably further be divided up into those who are amused by Rochester the legend ( the mad, bad, and dangerous to know libertine) and then there are those who are curious about Rochester the actual historical figure and author of many fine lyrics. James William Johnson's biography will appeal to those who have an interest in not only Rochester but the entire social, political, military, economic, and literary milieu of 1660's and 1670's London. I think the reader with only a casual interest in the subject might find this treatment to be too complete. I for one found this biography to be almost too exaustive; that might sound odd but Johnson spends so much time on Rochester's mother and her family politicking, for instance, that I found myself nodding off during these parts. The family tree at the end of the book is helpful if you are a completist and want to know every detail of John Wilmot AND his extended families lives (before his birth and after his death) but for me this was more than I really wanted or needed. In short Johnson is a Restoration scholar and Johnson's biography is really written for other Restoration scholars.

The Rochester that makes it onto film is, as one might suspect, a sensationalized version of the real thing. Thats not to say that the things in the film did not happen (most of them did) but the film makes it look like the life was all salacious scandal and street theatre. It wasn't. The film also seems to take great pains to show you the great pains that John Wilmot went through in the last three years of his life as his body and face suffered the effects of a syphilis that was greatly aggravated by alcoholism. The film, intentionally or no, creates a martyr. To the filmmakers Rochester's atrophy is presented as a kind of heroic metaphor for unwillingness to compromise (even if that unwillingness to compromise meant that he lived only for the moment and only for himself). This probably tells us more about ourselves and our times and values than about the social times and values of 1660's and 1670's London--we seem to be socially programmed to equate a short life with a beautiful life. This is probably due to the allure of an early death promulgated by rock star's and actor's and artsits's of various stripes dying young; but then maybe this has always been true. I suppose the short beautiful life myth always assumes that its better to burn out than to fade away. That would be the myth on the mind of the filmmakers (or the myth that the filmakers rely on to bring audiences to the film). This mythos implies that some people are just not meant to or able to live a normal life, or at least not able to accept the limits and boundaries that most accept. These types are Depps's specialty. Johnson's book is, however, to its credit, not about perpetuating a legend or a mythos. In fact Johnson's book goes a long way in exploring the life or inhabiting the life in order to show us what Rochester did within the confines of a very limited set of social and intellectual possibilities. Rochester's drink-driven poetry and riotous actions were attempts at a kind of semblance of freedom that he actually did not have. When sober the reality was that he was confined to a very specific social station and almost all of the major decisions of his life were decided by his superiors (his mother, teachers, king). His life was virtually dictated to him every step of the way. It is not surprising that he struck out against authority (including his own). But he also (in verse and in life) struck out against women, and (as his critics were quick to point out) he often caused trouble that others had to pay for (sometimes with their lives).

In his own day Rochester was Restoration England's most celebrated bad boy, but that fame or infamy only lasted about five years ( a time in which he claims he was perpetually drunk). By the time he was 30 he was already a has-been on the London social scene. The public lost interest in him partly because he could no longer do what had made him so famous (the syphilis caused sexual malfunction) and also because the climate of the country had changed and grown more morose due to war, plague, and fire. But also the public lost interest in him because bad boys become tiresome after awhile; they wear out their welcome. In the last years of his life he was someone the public loved to hate.

There are several biographies of Rochester out there. I think each biography has something to offer. If you are interested in this whole time period then Johnson's biography is the best because it situates Rochester's life among the other lives and the major trends and happenings of the time. If Johnson's biography has a weakness it might just be that he does so much contextualizing that you feel like the focus is on the time period as much as it is on Rochester himself. Another option is to track down a copy of the out of print biography of Rochester by the novelist Graham Greene. This biography called LORD ROCHESTER'S MONKEY was written in the 1930's but not published until the 1970's (for censorship reasons). It's concise and lavishly illustrated and I found a nice used first edition here on Amazon for pennies. The advantage of the Greene biography is that he concentrates on the major events of Rochester's life with an especially keen focus on the Elizabeth Barry relationship and an equally keen focus on Rochester's intellectual-emotional world view and temperament. (Many in Rochester's day read Hobbes and were influenced by Hobbes materialism and it was Hobbes' philosophy, some argue, that led to the rampant selfism that Rochester was so famous for but Greene argues that Rochester never totally followed this program of thought and even struggled against it as he attempted to evolve some kind of classically inspired social ethic that is, sometimes, evidenced in his poetry). Perhaps one problem with Rochester the poet is that he almost always writes through some masque or persona and he seems never to have written except when incensed at someone and so the poetry tends to be polemical or invective or scathing satire but rarely, if ever, do you get a measured estimation of his real values and beliefs. Greene, as you would expect, is especially good at analyzing Rochester's lyrics and what makes them so interesting. Johnson's reading of individul poems is informed by current gender theory and since Rochester often wrote in the guise of a woman this works. Greene's book is a nice option for those who are literary but do not require (or desire) the academic armature and trendy theorizing as well as the leave-no-stoned-unturned thoroughness that you get with scholarly biographies. If you have the time read both the Johnson and the Greene.

If you are interested in this period I would also recommend an excellent PBS miniseries called THE LAST KING (available on DVD). Rochester himself makes only a couple of brief appearances but this is an excellent and entertaining way to familiarize yourself with the England of Charles II and the surronding cast of characters (Lady Castlemaine, Duke of Buckingham, Nell Gwynn, etc...) that will be mentioned in any Rochester biography.

The Libertine.......2006-04-17

I must confess that I had never heard of John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, until I saw the Johnny Depp movie "The Libertine". After that, I just had to read a biography of a person who appeared to be extremely interesting. This work was not a disappointment, for it detailed Wilmot's life and times, and also went deeply into both his prose and his poetry. He certainly was a mirror to the Restoration Age, and is unfairly forgotten now, but I hope that the movie, and this well-written book, bring him back to the recognition that he so justly deserves.

A Bawdy Mirror to His Age.......2006-01-17

If you like your poetry naughty, you don't have to resort to collections of bawdy limericks. You can in good conscience take up the work of one of the most amazing personalities who ever made rhymes, John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester. Along with using all the words and subjects that would these days force him onto satellite radio, Rochester filled his lively poetry with classical allusions and vast learning, as well as commenting on current affairs. Dr. Johnson was one who could surely take offense at the tone of Rochester's work, but didn't: "In all his works there is sprightliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence; what more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed?" This extraordinarily irregular and short life is taken up in _A Profane Wit: The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester_ (University of Rochester [ha!] Press) by James William Johnson. A large volume which draws upon sources previously unavailable to biographers, it is a serious academic evaluation of a spectacular poet.

Rochester was born in 1647. He absorbed a Puritan doctrine from his mother and the tutors she hired for him, and despite all the evidence of his subsequent rakish behavior, he never shook off the imbued religious emotions and guilt. At Oxford he entered Wadham College and began his sexual life, perhaps with homosexual debauchery (Wadham was known as "Sodom"). His tutor may have initiated him into it, but also helped the young man as an upcoming classicist and poet. He began to write poetic tributes to King Charles, with the purpose of reminding the King that he was Lord Wilmot's son. It worked; the King started an annual pension, and Rochester eventually entered the King's service, bravely doing naval duty in the Dutch wars and more importantly becoming a Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber. Rochester had a reputation for being able to seduce virgins, while the King preferred experienced lovers; Rochester dutifully took on the role of gathering maidenheads and instructing the women in the techniques of love in preparation for the King's bed. Johnson lists the successive liaisons with mistresses, and quotes from the poems assigned to them. Rochester treated his wife with respect (if one excuses the infidelities) but often treated mistresses with meanness and contempt. There is a strong strain of misogyny in his poetry, to the point of brutishness. Rochester condemned women for lust, hypocrisy, biological filth, and capacity to spread disease. There have been moralists who have thought that his obscene satires were not written to stimulate but rather to disgust and thus reduce desire. Johnson also shows that Rochester, less frequently, was able to write mildly feminist verses and in his plays give empathy to the female perspective.

Rochester's end was entirely satisfactory to moralists. He died at thirty-three, consumed by venereal disease, and he also had a deathbed conversion, capping a life of paganism and doubt with an ostensible acceptance of standard Protestantism. The conversion of this prodigal became a staple of sermonizers and pamphleteers, who thus had the paradoxical duty of explaining, in order to show contrast, just how bad a fellow Rochester had been. They undoubtedly drew upon exaggerated stories of his behavior, but his life was full enough of scandal. His poems and plays illuminate a rowdy time, and even the royal take on it. There was even more he could have told, and historians must ever regret that his mother arranged after his death that his _History of the Intrigues of the Court of Charles II_ should be promptly burned. Johnson's intricate biography makes plain many of the intrigues of the time, and quotes well from Rochester's writings, although those really interested in the works will be delighted to have the Penguin Classics edition of _John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: Selected Works_ handy as they go through the biography. In the poem "Tunbridge Wells", find these lines about the odd persons and events at a famous watering hole, which could well do for the poet himself:

Bless me, thought I, what thing is man, that thus
In all his shapes he is ridiculous:
Ourselves with noise of reason we do please
In vain: humanity's our worst disease.

Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)

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Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)
Steven H. Gale
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0824059905

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HUMOR IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF BRITISH LIFE AND LITERATURE
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis's title character observes that Jokes and Flippancy are valued so highly by the English, "who take their 'sense of humour' so seriously that a deficiency in this sense is almost the only deficiency at which they feel shame." J.B. Priestly, too, in a related observation comments: "It is curious that so few foreigners have noticed that we English are a humorous race....In no other country will you hear so much talk about a sense of humour."

COVERS HUMOROUS LITERATURE FROM MEDIEVAL TO MODERN TIMES
Now for the first time, a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work tackles the subject of humor as it has been expressed in British literature, from Beowulf to the present. The 206 signed original essays represent the work of 119 scholars from seven countries and diverse disciplines. Major literary figures such as Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, G.B. Shaw, and Noel Coward are included, as well as lesser known lights such as Francis Beaumont, Stella Gibbons, and George Du Maurier. Readers may be surprised to learn that other literary luminaries such as W.H. Auden, Winston Churchill, Samuel Johnson, and Edith Sitwell have also produced humorous writings.

ANALYZES LITERARY AND COMIC TECHNIQUES
The most important feature of the essays is their literary analysis, which provides an overview of the author's writings, as well as in-depth analyses of comic techniques in the subject's major works. A biography helps place the writer in historical context, providing such information as the place and date of birth, education, honors and achievements, marital status, and place and date of death. In addition to the signed essays, the Encyclopedia includes a preface, a chronological index, a list of pseudonyms, an introduction, a list of the contributors, and an index.

The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis)

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The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in Britis)
Diana Donald
Manufacturer: Paul Mellon Centre BA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300066058

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William Pitt commissioned them. Alexander Pope collected them. The Prince of Wales bribed their makers to stop them from being produced. Not even the most respected and sharp-penned political cartoonist of our time wields the influences, or, it could be argued, possesses the artistic skills of the satirical engravers of England in the 18th century who elevated caricature to the level of high art. Diana Donald, a professor of art history at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, illuminates the art and meaning of more than 200 etchings by the top practitioners of the day (Rowlandson, Gillray, the Cruikshank brothers) as well as less-skilled amateurs and professionals who were popular once but are now mostly forgotten.

Book Description

The late eighteenth century in England was the first great age of cartooning, and English caricature prints of the period have long been enjoyed for their humor and vitality. Diana Donald presents the first major study of these caricatures, showing that they were a widely disseminated form of political expression and propaganda as subtle and elegant as the written word.

Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England

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Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England
Tamara L. Hunt
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1840142685

The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford Historical Monographs)

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The Satirical Gaze: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford Historical Monographs)
Cindy McCreery
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0199267561

Book Description

This is the first scholarly study to focus on satirical prints of women in the late eighteenth century. This was the golden age of graphic satire: thousands of prints were published, and they were viewed by nearly all sections of the population. These prints both reflected and sought to
shape contemporary debate about the role of women in society. Cindy McCreery's study examines the beliefs and prejudices of Georgian England which they revealed.

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AL HIRSCHFELD ALWAYS DRAWS RAVES. AND THEN SOME!

Hirschfeld's British Aisles
Al Hirschfeld
Manufacturer: Glenn Young Books/Applause
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1557836744

Book Description

With commentary throughout by Julie Andrews, John Russell, Cameron Mackintosh, Simon Callow, Ralph Steadman, Michael Blakemore, Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, Tony Walton, Lynn Redgrave, Barry Humphries, Peter Shaffer, Julie Christie, Kevin Brownlow, Nicholas Wright, Mel Gussow, Sheridan Morley, and Al Hirschfeld. That Al Hirschfeld drew New York and that Hirschfeld drew Hollywood is hardly news. But it will come as a revelation to even the artist's most ardent fans that in the Hirschfeld archive over five hundred works are dedicated to his British subjects. Until Louise Kerz Hirschfeld connected all the dots, evidence of the artist's life-long Anglomania had remained dispersed among hundreds of portfolios in different locations. Mrs. Hirschfeld has convened the first-ever reunion of actors, directors, playwrights, politicians, publicans, musicians, enough to gloriously fill a new volume populated with nearly eight decades of Hirschfeld on Great Britain, or as we have come to think of it, Hirschfeld's British Aisles! Here are the fabled luminaries of the West End: Gielgud, Richardson, Olivier, Coward, Guinness, Scofield, captured in their moments of stage glory by the only recording device allowed in the theatre: Al Hirschfeld's pencil. Also includes Peter Ustinov, Gertrude Lawrence, Rex Harrison, Jeremy Irons, Julie Andrews, Jonathan Price, and others. Even Twiggy, the only human thinner than Hirschfeld's lines, makes an appearance.

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AL HIRSCHFELD ALWAYS DRAWS RAVES. AND THEN SOME!.......2006-02-01

All hail Hirschfeld, and, more importantly, all hail this trio of tomes featuring works by the premier theater and entertainment illustrator of the 20th century. For decades, Big Al's works adorned the cover of Sunday's New York Times Arts and Leisure sections, sketches celebrating plays, musicals, movies and celebrities gracing Gotham that particular week. The bearded, rotund artist (sort of a secular Santa for show-biz folk) was ubiquitous at opening nights in and out of town. And, of course, each week, there were the "Ninas," his daughter's name, hidden, sometimes once, sometimes up to eight times, in each sketch. (The number next to his signature would clue us in on the number of times Nina's name was hidden.) Cross-country phone calls wailing, "Where's the last Nina?" ensued on many a Sunday afternoon.
Nina-searchers can now glut themselves on Hirschfeld's British Aisles, a collection culled from the New York Times; as a special treat, there are welcome commentaries from such big name Brits as Julie Andrews, Dame Edna, Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Lynn Redgrave.
A veddy nice job, but the real treats are Hirschfeld's Harlem and The Speakeasies of 1932. In Harlem, we can see the artist's style develop; before the detailed line drawings we have come to expect came almost impressionistic pencil shadings, at once more personal and mysterious, more abstract, and evocative and startling in their originality. Harlem has, as well as several historical essays, text by a band of authorities, including Bobby Short, Lena Horne, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee and Savion Glover.
The Speakeasies of 1932 is a fascinating look at the dives and divine watering holes of that noble experiment, prohibition. Sketches of bars, bartenders and patrons, along with a written description of the joints, are included. Added to this fizzy mix are drink recipes from each bar; we should, perhaps, avoid the cocktail simply called "Smoke," from an establishment called O'Leary's on the Bowery. The principle ingredient? Two cans of Sterno.
Art should teach us something about the past, about ourselves, about our society. But it should also be fun. Al Hirschfeld accomplished all of this with pencil, pen and ink. If you aren't familiar with his work, meet this terrific triumvirate. And if you are familiar with dear Al (and Nina), then enjoy a reunion with old and treasured friends.

The Best British Stand-Up and Comedy Routines

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The Best British Stand-Up and Comedy Routines

Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Love, Sex & Marriage | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0786718587

Book Description

With an introduction to each artist, transcripts and audio of the routines and special added extra material bring you the following.

• Rory Bremner, the best impressionist in the world, does Prince Charles
• Monty Python’s unmatched Dead Parrot
• Eddie Izzard’s bizarre world reaches its height in Cats and Dogs
• Lenny Henry does Delbert Wilkins, the Brixton wide-boy born of the famous 80s riots
• Rowan Atkinson and Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen get stuck in a spiral of one-downmanship
• Steve Coogan introduces his chain-smoking alter-ego Paul Calf (not to be confused with Pauline Calf)
• Pete and Dud send up British reserve and push each other to the limits of comic invention in The Psychiatrist
• Jo Brand, the queen of British stand up, on the attractions of her birthplace, Hastings
• Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson give their prophetic, comedic best in The End of the World
• Bill Hicks, the late American comedy supreme, asks another of his penetrating questions in "What is Pornography?"

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APES & ANGELS 2E
CURTIS JR.
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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How the Irish Became White

ASIN: 1560986476

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