This is the only book to date that I have had to stop reading
to wipe away tears of laughter. A proper, laugh out loud riot
that takes the Arthurian legends, and adds a new perspective
to the myth and magic .. lusty maidens, beggars, a overbearing
oaf as the Lord of the Manor, a priest who 'shrives' the sins of
the Lady and her Daughter by trials of the flesh ...it's not what
Errol Flynn portrayed at all. Imagine the 3 Musketeers films
(the ones with Olly Reed & Michael York), and the humour is in
a similar vein to these cinematic classics. If you like your
olden day heroes untarnished, clean and honourable, then don't
read this book. I'll never think about the Knights of the Round
Table in the same way again. Very funny, very well written with
some memorable phrases that I have used to good effect in the
years since reading it. Not recommended reading for funerals
or other such solemn occasions. Messrs Pratchett and Adams have
written some excellent books (I've read the lot) but they pale
when compared to this 'laugh until your face hurts' masterpiece.

I finally received, from an endearing, if not downright useful cousin, a copy (hardbound , first edition in fact) of Rude Tales and Glorious -- the elusive print of an equally elusive author named Nicholas Seare (aka Trevanian aka UT Professor Rod Whitaker -- he of the numerous PhD's and other alphabetically-induced suffixes).

At the risk of waxing quotidian, my only regret is not having read this piece of literature sooner. This is an irreverent, audaciously humorous send-up of Arthurian history -- albeit Arthuriana's numerous manifestations and interpretations (and those are just the "ations," as Trevanian would say.)

Chaucer finds a more than worthy if not altogether brilliant extension of his idea in Seare's work.

The novel, in classic Trevanian-esque jest and joust (similarly used in Incident at Twenty Mile) purports to have had a solid foundation in history -- Rude Tales and Glorious claiming to be a contemporary translation of the author's ancestor's work.

Set in a Welsh knight's castle on a wintry evening, two beggar's claiming to be Launcelot and the Lady Elaine(of 600 years past) regale the dinner party with tales of the "real" Arthurian history in exchange for the orts and leavings of the feast -- "generously" given by a tale-thirsty lord.

Completing the cast at dinner are the typical suspects of this genre; the bungling knight and his warped-sense of valor (along the liberal democratic tradition), a hypocritical lothario of a priest ( also along the same liberal democratic tradition), lusty maidens (thus given to same previously-mentioned political affinity), and the servile servants (as they should be..being of the conservative republican staff). All complemented with similarly-inclined characters in the tale (of Arthur) within a tale.

All this is told in melliflous euphony evidenced in the English gentry's pedant in vocabulary and Twain's subtle comedy. Existent too, are Seare's/Trevanian's distaste for his perpetual foe -- the merchant, coupled with light-hearted jabs (though painful enough) at the Academic Illuminati of which Seare/Trevanian/Whitaker was, for a considerable portion of his life, a part of.

The entire body of work is prefaced with the autumnal sentimentality that Seare/Trevanian allows to epiphanize quite rarely though elegantly (inspired, no doubt, by the aesthete on poetic melancholy, Kawabata Yasunari) in his other works.

The tale is charmingly irreverent, and the telling is valiant and inspired!

Hope everyone has the opportunity and the pleasure to read this fine work.

Boy, do I consider myself lucky to have found a copy of "Rude Tales and Glorious". Any book that has me laughing aloud as often as this deservs to be the foundation for a religion. Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett should be so funny (and they nearly are, but that's another review).

I've just come back from Glastonbury, and having read this book first helped a great deal. I'm reading it again, and am feeling so enlightened. If you love Avalon, you must have this book.

Anyone interested in the background behind the mysts of Avalon will enjoy this book. I found it well-researched, fairly easy to read, and quite informative. A great collection to my library.

In preparing our list of Christmas books to share with others, we had to search far and wide on amazon to find this particular book, a paperback edition of the classic Night Before Christmas.

This is the book I've used for years when reading this story to my own children, passing on Tasha Tudor and other illustrators. Why?

Although we can find the same poem and pay a lot more, with award winning illustrators, the illustrations provided by Douglas Gorsline are surely the best. They are quite colorful, and offer details little children love looking into...cats lie sleepily on the window sill, we see an overview of the town, the presents spilling from the open sack are intriguing and plentiful, and Jolly St. Nick is -- well, quite Jolly (as you can see by looking at the cover!)

The story is an "abridged version" - I'm not sure about other parents, but we read this on Christmas Eve, and we only have so much time and energy. Everything we remember from the classic poem by Clement Clarke Moore is in this version.

(From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" to "He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!" In between we have everything, from the names of the eight tiny reindeer, to a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly, including dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky".

In other words, don't be scared off by 'abridged'!)

Perhaps a hardcover edition might be more appropriate if you're giving a gift (unless you're giving to more than one child), but this book is one of the best offers we've found!

A classic done simply and inexpensively!

I discovered this book 31 years ago, for my daughter and it is still loved by all the family. The illustrations are wonderful, warm, charming and delightful and bring a special meaning to the story. We still read it to all the young children on Christmas Eve and for adults we read the story and pass a grab bag gift every time the word THE is mentioned. It would not be Christmas without this book. It is magical.

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

Wallace Fowlie's translation of Rimbaud's complete poeticworks, together with a selection of Rimbaud's letters, provides themost complete and reliable English translation of Rimbaud's poetry and a useful companion to the many books on Rimbaud's life. While Fowlie's translations are workmanlike and somewhat unimaginative, they are generally faithful to the original French text. Moreover, because the original French version and the English translation are on facing pages, the reader can easily compare Fowlie's translation with the reader's own understanding and interpretation of the French text. In this respect, the book is particularly useful if you have some French fluency.

All translations are, by their nature, inauthentic since there is never a perfect correspondence between the resonant images and meanings of the original language and the new language into which a text is translated. Translation is, as one critic has said, "like kissing someone through a veil"; the sensations (meanings) of the original are occluded by the translative process. Recognizing this inevitable deficiency, all that a reader can ask is that a translation approximate, as closely as possible, the linguistic meaning of the original. Fowlie has achieved this, more so than many other translators of Rimbaud, who have corrupted the integrity of Rimbaud's original meanings by their own creative and symbolistic interpretive renderings.

Fowlie also has provided solid translations of Rimbaud's important letters, particularly the letters of May, 1871, to George Izambard and Paul Demeny which articulate Rimbaud's precocious and iconoclastic aesthetic view of the role of the poet. If the book has any real shortcoming, it is the truncated and relatively unintersting biographical section and a lack of detailed notes. However, those failings can be excused by the fact that Wylie's book achieves its main objective--bringing a complete text of Rimbaud's poems to the English speaking world. If you are studying Rimbaud and the biographical details of his early life, and you cannot read the original French, Wylie's collection is indispensable

Wallace Fowlie's translation of Rimbaud's complete poeticworks, together with a selection of Rimbaud's letters, provides themost complete and reliable English translation of Rimbaud's poetry and a useful companion to the many books on Rimbaud's life. While Fowlie's translations are workmanlike and somewhat unimaginative, they are generally faithful to the original French text. Moreover, because the original French version and the English translation are on facing pages, the reader can easily compare Fowlie's translation with the reader's own understanding and interpretation of the French text. In this respect, the book is particularly useful if you have some French fluency.

All translations are, by their nature, inauthentic since there is never a perfect correspondence between the resonant images and meanings of the original language and the new language into which a text is translated. Translation is, as one critic has said, "like kissing someone through a veil"; the sensations (meanings) of the original are occluded by the translative process. Recognizing this inevitable deficiency, all that a reader can ask is that a translation approximate, as closely as possible, the linguistic meaning of the original. Fowlie has achieved this, more so than many other translators of Rimbaud, who have corrupted the integrity of Rimbaud's original meanings by their own creative and symbolistic interpretive renderings.

Fowlie also has provided solid translations of Rimbaud's important letters, particularly the letters of May, 1871, to George Izambard and Paul Demeny which articulate Rimbaud's precocious and iconoclastic aesthetic view of the role of the poet. If the book has any real shortcoming, it is the truncated and relatively unintersting biographical section and a lack of detailed notes. However, those failings can be excused by the fact that Wylie's book achieves its main objective--bringing a complete text of Rimbaud's poems to the English speaking world. If you are studying Rimbaud and the biographical details of his early life, and you cannot read the original French, Wylie's collection is indispensable

I ... found Fowlie's over-literal translations ugly and lame. But I think this may be deliberate. The unbeautifulness of the translations forces you back to the exquisite French original. It's a joy to have these poems as Rimbaud wrote them, and a bilingual edition is a must for the non-French-reader. If you want a beautiful English translation, I recommend reading Paul Schmidt's in conjunction with this one.

The book is very complete, covers most of the field in protein NMR studies. The book is well organised, with plenty of figures to facilitate easy understanding of the subject. Overall, I find it is very helpful for anyone who will be interested in protein NMR research. I have actually seen quite a number of copies in a few NMR laboratories and I would recommand this book to all those who are looking for an complete introductory book in NMR and protein study.