More than a revised edition, THE COMPLETE PELICAN SHAKESPEARE includes new introductory essays for the plays and poems, edited versions of Shakespeare's texts that are in keeping with the most current scholarship and new textural notes. The result is a sort of one-stop Shakespeare, replete with information and aids for understanding the texts. The book also includes reproductions of the opening pages of the "First Folio" of 1623, as well as bibliographic information for finding further sources about Shakespeare's life, society and work. And, of course, Mr. Shakespeare's own contributions to the book are fine work, too.

In addition to being a treasure-trove for students or anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Shakespeare's work, the book is also a fine display copy, sure to be an impressive addition to any (sturdy) bookshelf. While not the best edition for commuters who want to delve into MACBETH on the train ride to work, THE COMPLETE PELICAN SHAKESPEARE is an impressive volume for any lover of the Bard's literature.

--- Reviewed by Rob Cline

Like many English majors in the sixties, I grew up reading this edition. The old one had a distinguished roster of editors and was pleasant to hold and read. In the latter category this new edition is a noble successor: clear type, full names of characters (no more "1 Serv."), and notes indicated by line numbers. This new edition fails however in its skimpy (9 pages!) of introductory matter and a masthead of editors who are fairly obscure. Still, I would award the plume to this volume for the first-time reader who wants a complete Shakespeare. The pleasant appearance that I mentioned above is important--we want a volume easy to handle and read. The editing is conservative and non-controversial (no more of the Oxford/Norton kinky titles--"The First Part of the Contention," sheesh--that's Henry VI, Part 2 to us plebians). And it's not as bulky as the power-lifter's Riverside and other editions. To sum up: if you have in your family or acquaintance a budding Shakespearean, this is still the one to buy. Seeing this book in the shop was like greeting an old friend. I look forward to hundreds of wonderful hours with it.

The two reviews below (as of this posting) are so complete and useful that I won't bother repeating what they've so articulately said. Both of them, however, express disappointment with the paucity of introductory material in the Pelican. Initially, I agreed with them. After the fullness of biography and background in the previous edition--not to mention the wonderful illustrations of the Globe by C. Walter Hodge--the cursory intros in the new Pelican took me as rather much of a letdown. (And why weren't the brief essays signed?) Part of the fun of any new Shakespeare, after all, is in the editorial bells and whistles!

On further thought and reading, however, I've changed my mind. The introductions to the individual plays and poetry continue to be full, thoughtful, and elegant (especially John Hollander's essay on the sonnets), and the annotations are clear and well-placed. The brief essays at the beginning of the volume provide only the essential background that the individual intros really can't. In that context, their "just the facts, ma'm" approach is refreshing and bound to be less intimidating to the first-time reader. I mean, how many students have been put off Shakespeare by the lengthiness and detail of preferatory material? Don't all the bells and whistles of other volumes imply to the fearful that one has to become a scholar simply to enjoy the show? One does need help, of course, but not a scholastic cloud. (The Norton is especially horrifying in this vein; woe to the 101 student whose instructor has chosen this for the class.)

The new Pelican does seem somehow "thinner" than its predecessor--but we might just as well say "sleeker." This is still by far the friendliest one-volume Shakespeare out there. In twenty years, this will be just as beloved as the first edition!

It is interesting that Wordsworth should never have published his most impressive poem. Norton calls it the "most original long poem since Milton's Paradise Lost," and it certainly deserves to be ranked alongside the master of the English epic. This poem was not published until after Wordsworth's death in 1850, and there are several versions of it (which are included in this book). The 1798-1799 version is very short, but the 1805 is expanded and includes many epic devices which Wordsworth borrowed from Milton and others. The 1850 version is basically a revised 1805 edition. It is not necessary that you read all three versions of the poem to understand its power, but it is useful to have them all at hand like this.

The Prelude is an autobiography about Wordsworth's early life. It is full of sublime images of the world through the eyes of a Romantic, and includes some of the most beautiful imagery ever set to verse in English (I believe). Wordsworth's reflections about the evils of ambition and self-absortion, among other things, are also very powerful.

This poem has been widely quoted by such Christian authors as CS Lewis, and has been admired by many great English poets. It is truly a masterpiece, an epic poem done in the tradition of English Romanticism. You can get this poem in many compilations, but usually in abridged form. This edition features the poem in its entirety, and in three version. This poem is essential to any study of English Romanticism.

This book articulates a vision of the world and of the emotions it inspires in a cerebral, yet densely imaged poem. Wordsworth did not want the poem published for fears that it was too self-absorbed; adressing earlier reviews that have made this complaint, it is true that the poem is self absorbed in that it presents the vision of the world from an individual perspective...as all poems do. I find Eliot's use of quotations and footnotes drawing on his banks of memory and reading to be far more self-absorbed than this: a poem intended to communicated clearly. It is true that it is personal in that it was written to a friend with devotion and love, but this does not detract from the power of the language, the power of the vision, and the impact of the poem upon the age(s). As for comparing Wordsworth to a modernist, that comparison is difficult to make as the modernists rejected the romantic's formal language and optimism (both present in the prelude, despite moments of recognition of a bleak 'wasted' world).

I entirely disagree with the prevailing reviews on The Prelude. We have no other secular poem about the futile search for meaning in a meaningless world so fine as the Prelude: it is the Paradise Lost of those who search or long for a fleeting significance. What is significant about the poem is not that we believe what Wordsworth claims about the power of nature and the mind, but that he tried so hard to search out some sense of meaning and order- Wordsworth is the first Modernist writer before there was a name for his anxiety. This edition is wonderful in the way that it presents the 1805 and 1850 versions on opposite pages- it also contains the 1799 version- a real tour de force. Read The Prelude, read it carefully and take it too heart- there is no Song of Myself without Wordsworth's humane yet Promethean quest for significance.

A fascinating story and worthy tribute to Joseph Bazalgette, an underappreciated Victorina-era engineer responsible not only for designing and overseeing the construction of London's huge sanitary sewer system, but also the construction of Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments, forever changing the face and character of central London. We take so much of our modern cities for granted, not realizing that entire rivers are flowing under the streets, blissfully unaware of the level of vision and committment required to create an infrastructure that provides health and convenience.

The writing style is breezy and lucid, although the author has a distracting habit of repetition. Certain factoids, such as "the embankments reclaimed 52 acres of land" are repeated over and over again, and several favorite quotes are repeated at least 3 times.

I won't ever look at a modern city the same way.

While the title implies the book's focus will be London's "Great Stink" of 1858, it is in fact a short biography of the eminent Victorian civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette. Less remembered than his fellow engineers Isambard Brunel or Robert Stephenson, Bazalgette was the Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works for some 30 years.

During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of the great intercepting sewers of London which effectively removed the recurring threat of cholera from the city even before that disease's transmission mechanism was fully understood. In addition, the great Embankments along the Thames were designed and built by Bazalgette which make the modern waterfront as we know it today. He also built three bridges still standing across the Thames and designed many of the modern thoroughfares of London.

This book focuses on the long political battles waged in Parliament, the press, and within the City itself to solve the massive problem of human waste disposal in the world's largest western metropolis of the day. Although ostensibly about a civil engineer, there is not much engineering in the book - making it highly accessible to the layperson. Copious contemporary illustrations out of "Punch" and the "Illustrated London News" along with lengthy quotations from "The Times" make the Victorians' view of this smelly problem come to life. It's fortunate that this is not a scratch-and-sniff book.

The main chapters include those devoted to the invention of the water closet (a sewage nightmare), cholera and sanitation, and the building of the embankments. Throughout the book, small sidebars give potted biographies of key players and interested parties of the day such as Dickens, W.H. Smith, Gladstone, Dr. John Snow, and others. These are great little tidbits on the people featured in the main narrative and they are liberally sprinkled with caricatures from "Spy".

The book does touch on Bazalgette's early endorsement and use of Portland cement as a technical innovation as well as the quality assurance testing techniques that he enforced during his projects. So engineer, take heart! There are interesting bits for you as well.

If dark places under the heart of the metropolis is your area of interest, see also "London Under London" by Richard Trench & Ellis Hillman for sewers, the Tube, and more subterranean passages. And if you simply must have olfactory re-enforcement to imagine the past, try "Victorian Vapours" by Mary J. Dobson.

Halliday's book tells the story of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works (London's first metropolitan government) from 1856 to 1889.

His greatest achievement was building for London a sanitation system of unprecedented scale and complexity. Throughout history, the main cause of death has been the contamination of drinking water by sewage. In particular, cholera spread when the faeces of sufferers contaminated drinking water: cholera epidemics in London killed 6,536 people in 1831-32, 14,137 in 1848-49, and 10,738 in 1853-54.

In the long hot summer of 1858, the stench from rotting sewage in the Thames drove MPs from Westminster. The 'Great Stink' forced them, belatedly, to act. Bazalgette was charged with building a system to prevent sewage getting into Londoners' drinking water, which he did. The 1866 cholera epidemic killed 5,596 people in the East End, the sole part of London that had not yet been protected by Bazalgette's intercepting system. After the system was completed, cholera would never again kill Londoners. Bazalgette had turned the Thames from the filthiest to the cleanest metropolitan river in the world and added some twenty years to Londoners' lives.

But this was not Bazalgette's only success. He constructed the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments, where he introduced the use of Portland cement. He laid out Shaftesbury Avenue, Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross Road, the Embankment Gardens, Battersea Park and Clapham Common. He built the bridges at Hammersmith, Putney and Battersea. He introduced the Woolwich Free Ferry and designed the Blackwall Tunnel.

In 1889, the London County Council replaced the Board: Bazalgette's successes had proven the value of local government for great cities. Roy Porter wrote that Bazalgette stands with Wren and Nash 'as one of London's noblest builders'. John Doxat wrote, "this superb and farsighted engineer probably did more good, and saved more lives, than any single Victorian public official."

"Pleasant" is a good way to describe the Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. These romanticised renderings of life in twelfth century England, however unreal, make the era seem pleasant enough that you almost want to live there. The countryside is lovely, there is usually a hint of romance in the air, and life moves at a measured, unrushed pace. No pavement, no pollution, no hustle and bustle. Seldom mentioned are the poverty, hunger, disease, and general stench (people rarely bathed). Life, especially in the cloister, is a bucolic idyll.

In "A Raven In The Foregate", Abbot Radulfus returns from a church council with a new priest for the Foregate. Father Adam having recently died, Radulfus brings back Father Ailnoth at the recommendation of Bishop Henry. Ailnoth, however, turns out to be a harsh and stiff-necked young priest and manages to alienate his flock before turning up dead on Christmas morning. There are plenty of suspects, not the least of whom is young Benet, nephew of Ailnoth's housekeeper.

With plenty of potential suspects, this would seem to be an intricate and challenging mystery, but ultimately the plot is not as involved as one might wish. The outcome is a happy one, if a bit too neat and satisfactory for everyone involved, but not too hard to see coming.

Like most of the books in this series, "A Raven In The Foregate" is only an average mystery. What makes this and the other Cadfael tales enjoyable is the pleasant world Peters creates and the idyllic, unhurried way in which she tells the tale. These are nice books to read and, on the strength of that I recommend them, especially to those who like a bit of history and romance along with their whodunits.

The mystery is a bit trite and too neatly wrapped up at the end, but this remains a good read because of Peter's strong characters and setting and great metaphysical questioning.

The 'other' Washington finally gets his day
Reviewed by William W. Starr in
The State (South Carolina's larged newspaper; 8/10/2001, page E24)

Mr. Starr's review is quoted below:

"WILLIAM WASHINGTON: Cavalryman of the Revolution By Stephen E. Haller Heritage Books, 237 pages, $28 (paperback) Here's a new biography of the "other" Washington in the American Revolution, the one named William, second cousin to George. George may have gotten most of the attention (--) this is apparently the first book-length biography of William (--) but the latter made some mighty strong contributions to South Carolina during the war, even though he wasn't a native. William Washington was born in Virginia, and we don't know much about what shaped his life until the Revolution. Once the war started, however, he proved to be a formidable cavalry officer, bold and courageous, sometimes impetuous, a fighter who won much more than he lost. He spent much of the Revolutionary War years in the Palmetto State, battling Cornwallis and Lord Rawdon and especially the arrogant but gifted British cavalry officer Banastre Tarleton. In fact, the two of them flailed away at each other frequently in skirmishes and full-fledged battles, at times both nearly losing their lives and sufferingcapture. Washington saw plenty of action at major battles in the state including Cowpens, Hobkirk Hill and Eutaw Springs. Gen. Nathanael Greene, commanding American armies in the South, called the dependable Washington his "arm" in the bloody warfare. His recklessness caught up with him at Eutaw Springs in 1781 when he was wounded and captured by the British. He spent the last part of the war as a prisoner in Charleston, winning his freedom when the British evacuated the city. In the postwar period, he married and settled in his adopted state, serving in the General Assembly for 17 years, declining offers to run for governor because he preferred the congenial life of a planter and, he insisted, because he was not a native (--) a modesty shared by none of today's politicians. This biography is a lively, well-researched book that should delight historical-minded readers. The author is the manager of archives and records for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia."

NOTE: rating "stars" were assigned by the author (not original reviewer, Mr. Starr) in order to comply with "form field" entry requirement by amazon in order to post a review.

William Washington: Cavalryman Of The Revolution is the biography of Lieutenant Colonel William Washington who was also a cousin of George Washington. William belonged to a small, loyal cadre of key field officers who served with distinction in the Continental Army throughout the entire war. William first distinguished himself as an infantry officer at Trenton in 1776, and then was transferred to the Continental Light Dragoons and served in the Middle states from 1777 to 1779. He is perhaps best remembered as a cavalry commander in the South from 1780 to 1771, where he fought in all of the major battles of General Nathaniel Greene's campaign to drive the British from the Carolinas. William was a gallant battlefield commander who personally led his men and was so valuable to the Carolina campaign that General Green referred to William Washington as his "arm". Strongly recommended reading for students of American military history in general, and the American revolution in particular, William Washington: Cavalryman Of The Revolution is enhanced with a chronology of William's life (including his romance with Jane Elliot and his political career after the war), a comprehensive bibliography, illustrations and maps, and a full name index.

Terrific for identifying regional plants and animals. Too heavy to carry in the field.

Every year the book is updated to include new prescription and nonprescription drugs. I like the fact that it is in paperback and affordable. It is easy to understand. What I found most helpful was that it tells you all the possible side effects and drug interactions. I have found this book invaluable and will continue to buy the updated versions for years to come.

The book was very educational. The authors really knew what they were talking about. They understood how tough it can be to be a trainer and the obsticles we are faced with every day.

They gave an abundance of information to overcome any training hurdle.

This one is an official history and as such makes for fairly dry reading. It is indispensible for academics but the reader seeking aviation adventure should look elsewhere. It rates a 10 as a reference source (how could it miss?) However on any other level, it rates a 5. So split the difference and give it a 7. See the "WWII Aviation Booklist" for more reviews: http://www.ampsc.com/~prophet/booklist.html

Finally a book addressing the pioneering, perils and success of establishing such a great airline has been written. William A. Krusen's book did justice to all of them from the founding fathers to pilots, pursers and stewardesses -the name of flight attendants had not been invented yet-, mechanics, radio operators, baggage handlers, everybody did his or her work very professionally which in the final analysis helped PANAGRA set the standards that so many new airlines tried to emulate.

The book is 200% correct when praising Panagra for having taught Southamericans what transportation by air was all about starting with the acquisition of airplanes, setting up meteorological and radio stations, navigational aids, and most of all setting up very strict safety standards -which according to some well known world figures in the aviation industry it made them the safest and most safety-minded airline ever anywhere in the world. Their culture in spite of having disappeared more than 30 years ago still is there.

The book falls short though in what is a cardinal rule for identifying airplanes, instead of referring to them as P-1 (the first plane to enter the fleet, and so on) the authors should have done a bit more of research so when describing any particular event they should have identified them as lets say N49550 a Hyper DC-3, or N88937 a DC-4, and so on. As you know airplanes, like people, like to be referred to by their "baptism" names, not by their social security number, airplanes also have their own identities, and pride.

Also I would have just loooooved to see color pictures of the various airplanes specially any showing the bright yellow stripes they painted on the wings, 3 on each side for DC-3s and I guess 4 for bigger airplanes.

I would say that the book should have been more balanced in the amount of pages devoted to the various stages the airline wenth through, like for instance it was too heavy on the early times that is from its first flight in the 20s through the 40s, and too short chapters from the 40s on to the fateful day in April of 1967 when J. Peter Grace and Harding Lawrence held a press conference in N.Y. (was it at the Waldorf?) announcing the demise of Panagra, an airline very close to my heart. I was living in N.Y. at that time and I felt betrayed, as if a proverbial stab in the back had been placed on all of us who enjoyed flying PANAGRA.

Other than this, I enjoyed reading it enormously, sufficient would be for me to say that I finished reading it in a couple of nights, and I am going to start my second reading next week.

P.S. Needless to say my first flight just had to be on a Panagra airplane, it was a DC-3 which flew my dad, a sister and me from Quito to Guayaquil in the summer of 1948. I guess she was N30008 or N30014 (too excited to write down the tail number I was)