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The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q"- Poetry; Noughts and Crosses; Green Bays ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential reading for The Information Age
It may seem strange to recommend as essential modern reading a book that consists of a series of lectures on English Literature delivered in 1916.Arthur Qullier-Couch, or "Q" as he became known as an author of short stories, had recently been appointed Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University, England:and these lectures are a statement of his beliefs about knowledge.Knowledge, as distinct from information.

I suspect that the recent discoveries about how the brain develops (Matt Ridley's Nature via Nurture is a good text) will lead to an increasing emphasis in the next fifty years upon knowledge rather than information.At the beginning of the 21st Century our focus is exclusively upon information and communication.Our education system is geared not to gives us facts, but to teach us how to discover facts when we need them.Many social consequences parallelthis:not least the rise of feminism, it being very probably true that women are better at communication than men.

Quiller-Couch's thesis is the reverse of our universal present-day mindset.He argues (and I paraphrase grossly) that information is not only irrelevant, but that too much information can be at best distracting, and at worst, dangerous.The esssential features of human character- the battle between good and evil, of self and others - has remained unchanged throughout recorded history.Each person since the human race began has to resolve, or fail to resolve, this battle for themselves.The most gifted have been able to write about it, or compose music, or paint pictures of it.The very greatest of these works of art have a universal application:that is, the human context applies to anyone living in any age - Hamlet is not just about a medieval Dane.What differs from age to age is the language in which the context is expressed.

Until fairly recently a girl's school in the east of England had the school motto "Video, Audio, Disco".No prizes for guessing why it was changed.But in Latin it is a reasonable aspiration for a school:I see, I hear, I learn.So language changes and has different resonances at different times.To understand Shakespeare or Milton we have to study what the words meant at the time they were written.This means understanding the human dilemmas and issues that the dramatist/poet/author was trying to address.Our way into these works of literature is therefore through understanding the universal problems of human morality.QuillerCouch suggests the remarkable claim that anyone who has read and really understood Book 9 of Milton's Paradise Lost doesn't need to learn anything else, except what may be necessary to earn a living.And he goes further:having mastered Book 9 (or whatever) then, apart from the few other works of art of similar stature, any further and lesser knowledge is distracting.

This idea seems preposterous to a generation brought up to believe in information and a Freedom of Information Act.But I suspect that the pendulum may start to swing back in the next twenty years, and if this review is still posted here in fifty years, Quiller-Couch's ideas -updated with examples of universal great art from 1916 to 2050, and from a wider set of cultures than The West - may be nearer to cutting edge than obsolesence. ... Read more

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from the PREFACE:

Customer Reviews (2)

On the Art of Writing
This book is a classic on the subject of writing.It was a favorite of Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. In a third book, Q's Legacy, she relates how studying this book became the core of her writing education.She found Q to be both articulate and humorous.I find I agree.

The Book that Inspired Helene Hanff's Charing Cross
This slender volume is the book that began Helene Hanff's journey -- a path that led eventually to her writing the 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD series. Because I loved her books, I wondered what the master who taught her might have had to say. All I knew of him was what I had learned through Ms. Hanff.

This series of lectures, delivered in England more than nine decades ago, sparkles with a dry wit that is utterly endearing. No wonder his students loved him. Still, for someone who is the product of a late-20th century education, I must admit I was appalled by my ignorance of the classical references he made, expecting that his students would follow them with ease. Not a light-weight book, despite its compact size.

His challenge to his students, put forth in the first lecture, was to become a person [he said a man, but the statement applies to all of us] "of unmistakable intellectual breeding, whose trained judgment we can trust to choose the better and reject the worse." Not a bad goal for anyone, is it?

A word of warning. He quotes in Greek here and there -- and does not translate it, since all his students were expected to understand that language. Ditto Latin.

If you can manage only two chapters, try the first "Inaugural" and the last "On Style." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Time Gone Forever
To a lover of Social History in general and that of Cornwall in particular, this book is a 'must'.

Quiller-Couch (Q) wrote 'The Delectable Duchy' with a love and a respect for the common man.Cornwallis a part of England where a comfortable living was almost always out ofreach of the average inhabitant relying as they did on two staples : miningand fishing.Mining has always depended on the market price for metal.InNewlyn they call the south east wind the 'starvation wind' because thefishing boats could not enter or leave harbour in the days when sail wasthe only propulsion system.

'Q' captures the mood of the times so wellthat the reader can almost smell the salt wind and old ropes: the mewing ofthe seagulls and the ferocity of the ever present wind.He can and doeslapse into the vernacular very well which gives added emphasis to thepoignancy of some of the stories.

This is a collection of short stories,with each one a different facet of the Cornish psyche.Tears of sympathy,empathy and, conversely, laughter follow each other very quickly.

To areader interested in conditions of the late 1800's, I thoroughly recommendthis book.

R.E. BuckinghamJuly 12 2000 ... Read more

Book Description
They are names to conjure with: Sir Galahad, Sir Launcelot, Queen Guenevere -- rising here alongside names of mythic heroes whose tales have been too-long forgotten: Sir Peredur, Sir Geraint, and the Fair Maiden of Astolat . . .

Beatrice Clay's Stories brings together the works of Thomas Malory, who penned the classic Morte d'Arthur, and Charlotte Guest, whose translations of ancient Welsh tales helped inspire Tennyson's poetic masterpiece, The Idylls of the King.

Clay's retelling of Arthurian tales remain as vibrant today as when they first became a popular success eighty years ago. ... Read more

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Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch - who published much of his fiction under the pseudonym 'Q' - was born in Cornwall in 1863, and the county, its history, and its people were to have a marked influence on his life and writing. After moving to London to pursue a writing career, the author returned to his native county in 1892, and maintained a permanent residence there until his death in 1944.

He established a reputation as a literary critic and editor, and was also a successful novelist: his final, unfinished novel, CASTLE D'OR, was completed by another writer with strong Cornish connections, Daphne du Maurier. Yet Quiller-Couch was also interested in the unseen and unknown, and this prompted him to turn his hand, time and again, to supernatural stories, which are scattered amongst his collections of short stories.

S.T. Joshi has now collected together the finest of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's weird tales. They range from the gently humorous drolls 'Widdershins' and 'My Grandfather, Hendry Watty' to the outright horror of 'The Haunted Dragoon' and 'The Legend of Sir Dinar', and include such classics of the supernatural as 'A Pair of Hands', 'The Seventh Man', and Quiller-Couch's best-known ghost story, the haunting 'The Roll-Call of the Reef'. In his introduction, Joshi discusses the author's life and times, providing a fascinating look at this most accomplished and respected writer.

CONTENTS: Introduction; Psyche; 'Doubles' and Quits; Old Aeson; A Dark Mirror; The Magic Shadow; The Haunted Dragoon; A Blue Pantomime; The Roll-Call of the Reef; My Grandfather, Hendry Watty; Widdershins; The Legend of Sir Dinar; Oceanus; The Seventh Man; The Room of Mirrors; A Pair of Hands; The Lady of the Ship; The Mystery of Joseph Laquedem; The Laird's Luck; Phoebus on Halzaphron; The Haunted Yacht; John and the Ghosts; The Talking Ships; The Horror on the Stair; The Bend of the Road; Mutual Exchange, Limited; Not Here, O Apollo! ... Read more

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* ... Read more

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Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch short stories, novels, criticism, and edited anthologies, including the "Oxford Book" series. He was Assistant Editor of the Liberal weekly The Speaker, and from 1912 until his death was Professor of English at Cambridge University.

Writing under the pen name "Q", Sir Arthur produced a variety of work, including adventure stories, historical fiction, satire, stories of the supernatural, and mysteries. Poison Island is an adventure after Robert Louis Stevenson. Harry Brooks is sent at age fourteen by his widowed father for a classical education at Mr. Stimcoe's Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen.

Mr. Stimcoe is a drunk, and the school a travesty, but Harry meets the mysterious Captain Coffin. Coffin is building a ship to voyage to the Honduras, where he expects to find large amounts of gold, while avoiding the poison of the title. The Captain has a map, but is the treasure real, or a product of drunken imagination? Harry will find out. ... Read more

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In me—the only child of his second marriage; as Isabel had been the only child of his first—he appeared to have lost- and of a sudden- all interest.\' (Excerpt from Chapter 1) ... Read more

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In me—the only child of his second marriage; as Isabel had been the only child of his first—he appeared to have lost- and of a sudden- all interest.\' (Excerpt from Chapter 1) ... Read more

Book Description
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch wrote short stories, novels, criticism, and edited anthologies, including the Oxford Book series. He was Assistant Editor of the Liberal weekly The Speaker, and from 1912 until his death was Professor of English at Cambridge University.

Writing under the pen name "Q", Sir Arthur produced a variety of work, including adventure stories, historical fiction, satire, stories of the supernatural, and mysteries.

Dead Man's Rock was Q's first published novel. The genesis came from a curious bit of family lore, in which his great grandfather Richard had a key hanging from a beam, with instructions that no one should take it down till he returned.Richard was lost at sea during a war, and the key was never touched. What might it have unlocked? Hence the inspiration for the story. A family in poverty, great wealth to be unlocked by a key, two parties vying for it, and a curse on the treasure the key could unlock. ... Read more