THE MANUSCRIPT BOOKS OF EMILY DICKINSON. Edited by R. W. Franklin. 2 vols, 1442 pp. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-674-54828-0 (hbk.)

What do we mean when we speak of "an Emily Dickinson poem" ? If you think about it, we could mean one of at least five different things. We may be referring :

(1) to her poems as they are found in her original manuscripts;

(2) to their photographic facsimiles as in the present edition;

(3) to the Variorum editions of Thomas H. Johnson or R. W. Franklin which attempt to get over into typographic form as much as they can of her highly idiosyncratic manuscript drafts - with all of their variants and their peculiarities of line breaks, spacing, punctuation, and of alternate words about which she never made up her mind but placed neatly alongside or beneath many of her poems;

(4) to the reader's editions of Johnson and Franklin which offer what these Dickinson scholars and expert editors feel is _one_ (of many possible) sensible and acceptable readings out of the mass of variants;

(5) or finally we may be referring to her poems as altered, revised, regularized, tidied-up and smoothed out so as to be made to look more 'normal' and acceptable to ordinary readers. At this fifth and furthest remove from ED's own drafts, we are given a text by a towering genius as modified by someone who was far less than a genius, and who has usually damaged the poem in various ways.

The present 2-volume set of 'The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson' brings us as close to the real thing as most of us will ever get. It gives us photographic facsimiles, with full scholarly apparatus, not of all of her poems but of those she bound into forty fascicles, tiny hand-stitched manuscript-books that she squirreled away in her room and that were not to be discovered until after her death many years later.

Here you can see how her strange handwriting changed radically over the years. Here you can see all of the peculiarities of her spelling. Here you can see all those little asterisks which she used to indicate an alternate word elsewhere on the page, usually at the foot. Here you can also see all of her line breaks and her idiosyncrasies of spacing, both of which are often highly significant. Here, in a word, you can see the hand of a genius at work.

Personally I think we are extremely fortunate to have these two volumes, and that all lovers of ED's amazing poems, poems that are one of the wonders of the world, should be grateful to R. W. Franklin for the arduous labors that must have gone into his impeccable edition, an edition with full scholarly apparatus that provides a wealth of fascinating information about the forty fascicles.

The two large, heavy and sturdy volumes are stitched, bound in half cloth, beautifully printed on a very strong, smooth, ivory tinted paper that we are told is the finest paper in the world and I can well believe it, and they come in a buckram-covered box.

It's clear that no pains have been spared to give us, not only accurate and annotated photographic facsimiles of every page of the Manuscript Books, but also to give them to us in sturdy and beautiful volumes that are a fitting vehicle for the works of the amazing woman we know as Emily Dickinson. How astounded and gratified she would have been to have seen this set, a set that would warm the heart of any bibliophile, and that belongs in the collection of all Dickinson enthusiasts.

this book is the best if you love emily dickinson. it really inspires you to become a poet one day.

This book is both fascinating and broad enough to be reliable as a reference. Can be picked up and flicked through or read topically. Rivals Madigan et al. Excellent illustrations and on the right level for undergrads.

My professor intended this book to be a reference for the microbiology course he taught. I personally found the book to be so interesting and well done that I just dived right into it, and still find more new things each time I crack it open. As a dual Biochemistry and Microbiology major, this book is going on my reference shelf.

Really enjoyed the book! Even though I knew that the government hates business and success, especially out here in the People's Republic of California, the book was still an eye-opener. This book should be required reading for every voter and politician. (If even half the voters and politicians read this book, America would be a much better, more prosperous place.) Definitely a job well done!

I just hope a sequel isn't necessary!

Ralph Reiland is one of my professors at Robert Morris College. He uses this book in class and all the students love it. Any other text book would just give you definitions and lame reviews. Not Mom & Pop vs. the Dreambusters, it gives you the REAL WORLD look at things. This book gives you the street smarts needed to survive in this world. I would recommend this book to anyone who is serious about owning their own small business. Thank you Ralph for all that you have taught me.

A reading of Richard Brookhiser's recent (and highly recommended) *America's First Dynasty* sent me back to *Mont Saint Michel and Chartres*, a book I hadn't read in thirty years. I'm glad I returned to it, because a few years have, I trust, put me in a better position to appreciate what's going on in the book.

On one level, the most obvious one, Adam's book is a sometimes idiosyncratic history of Medieval art, literature, and religion that takes as its center of gravity the great Gothic cathedrals of the period--structures that Adams thinks sum up what the middle ages are all about. To read the book on this level alone is fine. It provides intriguing insights into, for example, courtly love and the cult of Mary.

But I now believe that, at a deeper level, the book is disguised autobiography on the one hand and a backhanded history of Adams's own time on the other. An at times overwhelming sense of nostalgia permeates the book. In reading Adams on the 11th century mystics, the debates of the schoolmen, the chansons of the troubadours, and the unified worldview of the middle ages, one can almost hear him sigh with longing to return to a world which, he thinks, was whole, unfractured, and pure--a world, as the medievals themselves would've said, which reflects "integritas." This reveals a great deal about the restless, unquiet nature of Henry Adams the man. But it also reveals the restless, unquiet nature of the modern era which spawned and molded him: the gilded age, the fast-paced first wave of capitalism, secularism, and consumerism, which has no center of gravity, no art, no tradition. And even though we claim to be living in a "postmodern" age, it seems to me that a great deal of the qualities Adams deplored in his own times are still with us and account for our own sense of homelessness.

*Mont Saint Michel and Chartres,* then, is more than a quaint turn-of-the-last-century history. Read correctly, it's also a mirror of our present discontent. Highly recommended.

Twenty years ago, I first read this book and was driven by Adams' compelling study of these two cathedrals to spend a decade studying Medieval and Renaissance literature. Adams at times finds his enthusiasm for his subjects embarrassing, but gives in to it nevertheless and writes a brilliant and joyous paean to these cathedrals and to the spirit that created them. Rereading this book now, twenty years later, I remember the thrill of reading it the first time, and it sparks my own enthusiasm all over again.

If you are interested in Moroccan carpets you should definitely have this book. This is by far the best book on the subject and the best book by Russell Pickering and his daughter Brooke Pickering. The pictures are fantastic. I have seen the rugs in this book in person and the pictures in the book are dead on accurate. The interspersing of pictures, text, and white space is masterful. Hali was involved in this book and it has the Hali look and the Alan Marcuson's masterful touch is very evident. Danny Shaffer is the editor and he does a great job. The book is easy to read and understand.

The illustrations and narrative of the MOROCCAN CARPETS by Russell and Brooke Pickering brings out the true allure of the Berber hand-loomed carpet showing the mood and feeling it lends to any setting. The exquisite designs and colors combine to create soft pastel formality or vibrant tribal decor. Working without the aide of a pattern, the artisan produces centuries-old motifs unique to each region reflecting the imagination and genius of the master weavers. This book gives us rare insight into the beauty of the Moroccan art of weaving.

This book teaches us a lot of methods in multivariate data analysis and the use of a model-building paradigm makes it easy to learn multivariate data analysis

A very informative and useful handbook for both practitioners and students. Each section provides a glossary, the statistic's theoretical assumptions, a step-by-step outline, a sample article that uses the statistics, and most importantly, the command code for SPSS and SAS. A must for anyone doing advanced level statistics!

Well written and easily readable book that offers practical project management tips in an effective format. As you follow the short chapters, different project management issues are covered practically and comprehensively. Although the book was written a while ago it is no less relevant. Arguably the most readable Project Management book and I have read Critical Chain !

Excellent book for PM, project participants and whoever is going to be participate directly or indirectly in life project. Present the project management culture and technique from a life sample of Zoo Dismantling project. It gave me an insights of project management in a very different angle ¡V (as I used to read a lot of project management books for both work practice and study purposes). I am really impressed at the creativity and knowledge of these two authors.
Highly recommend to all level of project managers.

Beautiful documentation of the pacific northwest style. The book gives a thorough history of the people, their lifestyle, inspirations for the work, and breakdown of the style and symbolism found in the carvings. The photos are clear and detail is sharp. There is a wide variety of subject and style shown throught the illustrations. Highly recommended

I have read and looked at many books about Northwest native art and culture but this book quickly overshadowed all the others I had read. It is a book filled with incredible photographs and a thorough explanation of this ancient culture. This book is history, beauty, a visit to the past, a visit to the future... a visit to now....it is a visit to extraordinary talent, it is a visit to a people whose imagination and reverence for nature and life could be an example to all of us in today's fragile world.

This not just another coffee table book..this is a must have for every person who loves art, who loves nature and who loves beauty. It is a walk with Northwest Native artists who talk to us through the words and photographs of Ralph and Karen Norris.

Great Book! I could not agree with this more. I recieved this book from a friends mom who loved it and passed it on to me! I highly reccomend that people read this book!

okay, so i haven't actually read the book itself, but i have read some of the articles the book is a compilation of, and they were insightful glimpses into a world i know very little about: the 24 hour convenient store. if the book is truly anything like the articles, it will be worth reading.

When I was six years old, my mother took me to see the amazing PNB production of Nutcracker with beautiful sets and costumes by Maurice Sendak. Afterward, she bought me this book. The illustrations are wonderful, the story (which goes far beyond the plot of the ballet) is fantastic, and it has become a family heirloom which we read every year at Christmastime. It has never failed to excite my imaginiation and I cannot wait to read it to my children.

Maurice Sendak's fabulous sets and costumes for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker are as much a beloved childhood memory for many of us in the Northwest as his well-known illustrations for Where the Wild Things Are. So when I saw this version of the Nutcracker with his illustrations, I simply had to have it. It does not disappoint! I read through it again and again, enchanted by the beautifully detailed full-page scenes and the charming characters dancing all around the text. And if you're only familiar with the ballet and have never read the original story, you'll be as amazed as I was at just how much more there is to the tale. Whether you're a fan of Sendak, the ballet, or just good children's fairy tales, this book is well worth the price.