My qualifications: I used to live 4km from Hameln ("Hamelin", Anglicized), Germany! It's near Hanover, if you're looking on a map. Regardless, I was happy to find this treasure. This is the most vividly illustrated version I've seen.The illustrations are splendid, & the book is nice & large. After seeing ANATOLY IVANOV's illustrations, other versions just don't do the story justice. The text is printed in what i would decribe as "default" calligraphic italic, adding to its charm, if not its "authenticity". I give it a big 5 RATS!

This book would be a wonderful treasure for the pictures alone. Kate Greenaway, noted children's illustrator, has created a magical world of beautiful children, innocent faces, and romantic, nostalgic costumes. The colors on these pages are breathtaking, and the details (although Greenaway is always faulted for not drawing hands and feet well) are superb. This story is not for very young children, as it contains some troublesome themes. For the older child, perhaps 7+, the story might provoke some interesting post-read family discussions about honesty, trust, and the actual state of the children at the end of the tale. This is even a beautiful book to give to adults, as the messages about human nature can be appreciated on a deeper level.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a very different children's classic. Few other children's picture books tell a story in Victorian poetry. The book isn't just original; it is excellent. I have always enjoyed Robert Browning's poetry, and this is no exception. I was surprised at how easy it was to read this book compared to some of Browning's other verse, and it was pleasing to read, especially considering that this is focused toward children. I loved all of the poetic techniques used by Browning. His iambic tetrameter in couplets works very well for young readers, and I loved his use of anaphora and internal rhyme. The story is, of course, brilliant. It is the usual folk tale that every child has heard and needs to hear. It teaches its lesson, and Browning's version is even more entertaining than other versions. Also, the illustrations by Kate Greenway are fabulous. It is impossible to imagine this story in Browning's Victorian verse without Greenway's Victorian artistry. This is a true children's classic, it should definately last for years to come, and it makes and excellent buy for children or for libraries.

My son received this book as a birthday present and was thrilled to see the beautiful illustrations. All he could say was Wow!! We are looking forward to more books illustrated by Bud Peen.

This beautifully illustrated rendition of The Pied Piper is a real treasure. The story is a classic but remains a good lesson to us all. Bud Peen has captured the subtle colors of the period and his detailed work is a delight to the eye. I intend to gift this book to friends.

I found the book beautifully illustrated and the story itself is an important teaching tool. I enjoyed his artwork and I felt I was truly involved in the story. I can't wait to enjoy Bud Peen's next illustrated book.

I've just read some Amazon reviewers' responses to T. S. Eliot's poetry as testimony to his possibly being the greatest poet ever. Such an evaluation practically proves Eliot's insistent point about the cultural impoverishment of the present.

Indeed, Browning's masterwork may very well be the ultimate poetic epic in the English language, rivaled certainly not by Spenser, Wordsworth, and Pound but only by Chaucer and Milton. The fact that even the "trial of the century"--the O. J. Simpson case--did not produce widespread renewed interest in its literary predecessor and equivalent would produce surprise and disappointment were I not so aware that, outside of Shakespeare, the academic canon has been foreshortened (and engendered) to a tradition that begins with Virginia Woolf and ends with Sylvia Plath.

In "Ring and the Book" Browning takes the sordid event of an enraged husband murdering his helpless bride--the daughter of a prostitute and rescue project of a priest--to "explain the ways of God to man." The reader of the poem becomes, in effect, a "privileged" juror in the trial of the murderer, positioned through Browning's protean and powerful rhetoric within the consciousness of each of the principals before finally being enabled to glimpse the "truth" that affords meaning to human mutability and suffering.

The poem no doubt will remain in dust closets, largely unread even by literature Ph.D's. But there's little chance of its ever becoming lost. Like the priest-hero of the poem, a few priests of the imagination will ever so often make the poem's discovery and be lured into the quest of pursuing its singular meanings.

As an English major at the University of Pittsburgh, I was never exposed to this series of dramatic monologues. It's a pity, because when I finally stumbled across it, Browning went from being just another 19th-century poet to my favorite English language poet of them all, at one fell swoop. The Ring and the Book is based on a real-life murder trial in 17th century Rome. The story is told from multiple perspectives, changing with every new section of the book; we hear from the "Man on the Street", the murderer, the victim on her death-bed, and even the Pope. The details of the story are far too convoluted to explain in summary and do anything resembling justice to the book, but it can be safely said that once you've begun, you're in for a whirlwind ride through a carnival of a trial that makes the O.J. Simpson affair look like a parking-ticket dispute by comparison. The truly stand-out feature of The Ring and the Book is not in the story itself, however, but in the telling. Browning handles the English language like a virtuoso emulating angel's choruses on a Stradivarius. If the book suffers any single flaw, it is the simple fact that at times, Browning writes these lines almost TOO well, making it difficult for the reader to pay attention to the actually progression of the story, as said reader becomes entraced by the beauty of the poetry. (In particular, I consider Caponsacchi's description of the flight from Arezzo beginning at line 1152 of Book VI to be one of the best written passages in literature of all time.) Dramatic blank verse hasn't seen genius of this level since Milton wrote of the angelic Fall. It's a pity this book isn't more widely recognized and discussed, for it deserves recognition as one of the best-constructed poetic stories of history, and the pinnacle of 19th century authorship.

Many thanks to daughter Sue, for this book filled many gaps in my knowledge of missing ships and shipmates. It supplied information on how they died and when. It made me know how lucky I was to survive the war, for I was one of them. I have spent many hours with this wonderful book, and will spend many more. Dale M. Bowen.

Of all the elements of Allied victory in World War II, perhaps the single most vital was American industrial production. The figures speak for themselves: over 5000 new ships carried an average of 8000 tons of cargo for every hour of the war. This unprecedented feat came at a price. Thousands of seamen and over 700 ships went down in attacks by U-boats, aircraft, and mines, in famous invasions and lonely waters.
Their sacrifice is detailed in this impressive record, the entries organized chronologically and listing the date, time, and position at the time of attack, the owner and operator, master, year built, tonnage, draft, cargo, armament, and other details, this information supplemented by a narrative describing the action, casualties, and the fate of the survivors. Highly recommended as essential for the WWII reference shelf, and of interest to all students of that conflict.

(The "score" rating is a feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books,)

The reader interested in a basic history of the Byzantine Empire and its literary and artistic legacy will find this book appealing. Unlike other authors, Professor Browning does not hold the conventional view that the Byzantine Empire as we know it began with the establishment of the capital city of Constantinople in A.D. 330. Rather, he takes into account the evolution of Roman civilization in the East from its initially pagan Latinized form to its final definition as a Hellenic Christian state around A.D. 500. Throughout the book, the author describes in excellent manner the development of Byzantine art and letters vis-a-vis the political, economic, and social changes affecting the state during its nearly 1000 years of existence. Maps illustrating the geographical growth and decline of the Empire are included, along with a chronological table and a list of emperors. A good bibliography refers the reader to more detailed works on topics such as the structure of the Byzantine government and military, the Greek Church, and the social customs of the day. The maps may be a little hard to follow at first as different time periods are overlapped in each of them. Also, the full-color plates which graced the book's first edition by Scribner's are missing from this revised CUA Press edition. Maps and plates aside, "The Byzantine Empire" provides an effective, readable primer on the Byzantine world

I especially enjoyed Prof. Berry's pithy musings about railroads and breastmilk, a connection many of us have long pondered but have never dared utter.

...if he's on your M.A. reading list.

This is a wonderful book about changing patterns in U.S. family life. It includes thought provoking theological reflections, ethicial analysis, and practical suggestions.

I've read other poems but no such poem like one written by a browning.The world lost one great poet

"How Do I Love Thee?" was a romantic true love story. In the book, Robert Browning gave Elizabeth "Ba" Barret the courage to love and live life. Ba was an invalid who lived with a widowed, controlling father of seven children. Although, Ba was his pride and joy, he kept her captive through her illness. Ba's poetry caused Robert Browning to fall in love with her and wish to meet her. The two poets' friendship blossomed through their letters; after they met face to face it soon became love. Soon Ba's father was the only thing standing in the way of their true happiness.

The book begins with a curious statement which holds your attention through the first few chapters. "How Do I Love Thee?" becomes very interesting after Ba and Robert finally meet face to face. The author's incorporation of the love poems of Elizabeth Barret Browning and Robert Browning was terrific addition to the story. The end was disappointing, but the book as a whole was a fantastic true love story of two amazing poets.