Barrie Scraps

Back Flap of 1979 hardcover:

The Lost Boys. A selection of press reviews of Andrew Birkin's television play.

- "I doubt if biography has ever been better televised than in this sensitive and beautifully crafted masterpiece." The Daily Telegraph

- "It is only very rarely that a television drama comes along in which every constituent manages to provide a flawless contribution." The Financial Times

- "One of the finest pieces of television drama I have ever seen." The Listener

- "Andrew Birkin's convincing and compelling biographical trilogy is most beautifully and sensitively done." The Guardian

Inside front flap:
Summary of the biography "the pages that follow this meeting unfold the extraordinary story of Barrie's involvement with the Davies boys." Continues to back flap "the author of this book has included numerous quotations from Barrie's previously unpublished notebooks, which have been made available by Yale University. He has had the full co-operation of the Llewelyn Davies family, in particular the last surviving 'Lost Boy', Nico, and has been allowed to draw extensively on a fascinating family memoir written at a later date by Peter Davies, which the latter called 'The Morgue'. One of the many most attractive features of teh book are the illustrations, many of them taken by Barrie himself, which record the day to day activities of a beautiful family and are highly evocative of a period - the Edwardian - which now seems so remote." continued. "Andrew Birkin, helped in his research by Sharon Goode, conceived and wrote the script for the BBC production The Lost Boys, a trilogy of plays which received wide critical acclaim when first shown in 1978, and which was the BBC's drama entry for the 1979 Monte Carlo Festival." (end)

Observations:
1979 Edition: First published in Great Britain 1979 by Constable and Company Ltd 10 Orange Street London WCaH 7EG. Copyright 1979 by AB and Laurentic Film Productions Ltd.
Front cover is very attractive. Nostalgic picture of a boy dressed in what is supposed to be recognized as a Peter Pan costume, his legs spread wide apart and an impish expression on his face. The title and author's byline are written in gold and cream, very eye-catching. It feels like you're holding something of substance, with thick paper and faces peering back at you from every page. Tells a story not only with words, but with pictures, which set it apart from the traditional biography. An unexpected treasure-trove of documents and pictures, many of which were taken by JMB as a hobby. Each turn of the page reveals a picture (or many) which make AB's narrative come alive. Not so much a companion piece to the documentary, but a stand-alone work.
Inside the front and back covers, extensive family trees of the subjects being studied (Llewelyn Davies and Du Maurier) are shown.
Title page is coupled with the "to die..." illustration. Foreboding? Becomes very meaningful later in the book. The dedication, "To my Mother", seems rather innocent.
Two quotes. An A.E. Housman poem
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
"You’re old, but you're not grown up. You're one of us."
Alexander Puttnam, aged 11
What we gather about Birkin, before reading: closely tied with tv and screenwriting. Author picture is very youthful, ordinary, walking down abandoned railroad tracks. Artisticy emo? Downward directed eyes shaded by longer shaggy hair. Recent pictures of AB are still brooding, with hair that is still rebelliously long, but thinning.
Introduction begins with the "May God blast..." quote from one of Barrie's late journals.

2003 Edition:
Although the cover art has been slightly modified. Added the subtitle: The real story behind Peter Pan.
Back flap press reviews:
"Positively the most captivating book I have read in years . . . an absolutely gripping love story which is both moving and harrowing" Margaret Forster, Evening Standard
"A psychological thriller . . . one of the year's most complex and absorbing biographies" Gerald Clarke, Time
"My most unforgettable read of the year" Ronald Blythe, The Guardian
"A truly chilling story, wonderfully told" Sheridan Morley, The Times
"Unquestionably the best book on the subject, and unlikely to ever be surpassed" Sir Rupert Hart-Davis
"A terrible and fascinating story" Eve Auchincloss, Washington Post
"This stunningly constructed biography . . . is a story of obsession and the search for pure childhood; touching, moving charming, a revelation" Caroline Thompson, Los Angeles Times
"Originally published in 1979, this enchanting and richly illustrated account is reissued with a new preface and additional illustrations on the release of Neverland, a film based on Barrie's relationship with the Davies family, and the centenary of Peter Pan in 2004." Birkin's list of achievements has greatly expanded since the first edition. Listed on the back cover are his multiple awards from his film career, and mentions his three sons.
The inclusion of the sprawling family tree from the first edition has been overlooked, in favor of over a dozen additional glowing reviews from publications such as the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, and Boston Globe. "The most candid and perceptive biography to have been written on Barrie," quips the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. "A fascinating story beautifully constructed and told with grace, great sympathy, and skill..." Gillian Reynolds, Daily Telegraph.
Opposite the old dedication is the acknowledgement of the Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, to whom AB donated the copyright of the book in commemoration of JMB. Not showy.
Introduction to the Yale Edition includes recent revelations, and fills in some of the gaps between the 1979 edition and the 2003 edition. Recounts AB's beginnings as a JMB scholar. The biography's theme of direct and lengthy quotes from primary sources continues in the new introduction. Very upfront about the massive amounts of information left out, due to the page limitations (SHOW HIS AUDIENCE), and the numerous documents and such which have surfaced since. Tantalizing.

Snippets from Class Notes:

• Any sense of a source which was less-than-nice? Revenge? Unfair portrayl?
• Who has the most power in this? Sexton’s power was Linda.
• Uses many sources, many perceptions, to create a more balanced portrait. Yet, it still depends on the biographer. Duty to the community to tell the story – good or bad – to enhance the understanding of the subject.
• No biography is ever the complete story, but each adds to the photo album of the subject’s life. Footprints.
• Is one interpretation more “right” than the others?
• Not only can a life be interpreted in numerous ways and viewed through many lenses, but also, each source (letters, choices, events, photos, etc) can be understude and used by the biographer in countless ways. Malleable. Even how the biographer writes it (word choice) can decide the impression the reader is left with.
• Currently a trend to “out” the subject and find a revolutionary angle from which to dissect them. More of a sleuth than a scholar.
• “’The corpse,’ Waugh suggested, ‘has become the marionette. With bells on its fingers and wires on its toes it is jigged about to a “period dance” of our own piping’”. Necrophiliac Art, page 32. Martin Stannard.
• Biographer is also revealing themselves in their writing, and offering their own work to the critics (same source). Discusses privacy and who owns a life. Matters if they seeked out the job, or if it was offered to them.
• Postmodernism and Flaubert’s Parrot. Notes, Oct. 2^nd.
• For the paper, look for holes and other things which seem to be left out. Look for disconnects between the larger story and anecdotes. Why include the ones he chooses? Any trends?
• Birkin used mostly children’s memories, and friends and family. Critics are rare. Innocent views of “the innocent”. Barrie is treated as a sort of fairy tale creature, himself, and not as a serious playwright.
• Look at Birkin’s motivation and connection to the story and relationships. At this point, he was not yet a father and didn’t have a strong affinity to the story. Sort of fell into it. Separated enough to remain largely unbiased. Biographer’s point of view shapes the reader’s understanding of the subject. Especially with the inclusion of anecdotes.
• What is the impact of the selection and presentation of the material?
• Only took Joslin a year to write it, but it took her 30 years to digest it and form her own opinions. Obvious assertions and little “spin” on things like Addams’ relationship.
• Rampersad: “a good biography leaves its reader generally convinced about the authenticity of the reconstruction of the life and of the claims made for the life; but it must also leave the reader convinced that the life was worth reconstructing, so that the reconstruction, that is, the biography, was worth reading. A biography must be entertaining and instructive.” (2)
• Keeper of the flame.

NaNoWriMo

So, I've been using this blog as a handy storage space for random bits that I don't want to lose. NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, is only a few days away. I want to participate. I think, because I don't want to lug my laptop everywhere, I'm going to use this blog as my bounce-pad.

Yes, I just created bounce-pad.

I'm going to bounce my writing in here. It's my interim storage space for when I'm not on my desktop, where I can save it. Also, it might be good to have it all in cyber space, just in case my PC dies.

So yeah.
Let's just hope I can catch up on homework enough to allow myself to crank out a novel.

JMB Quote

From "Courage", his address to St. Andrews in 1922.

"My own theme [for an address] is Courage, as you should use it in the great fight that seems to me to be coming between youth and their betters; by youth, meaning, of course, you, and by your betters, us. I want you to take up this position: That youth have for too long left exclusively in our hands the decisions in national matters that are more vital to them than to us. Things about the next war, and why the last one ever had a beginning." page 5.

Library Project, for safe keeping.

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, has become an icon of children’s literature and movies, both in America and around the world. One would think that with a creation so popular, the man behind the boy would be a popular subject for biographies, documentaries, and other idolizing practices. The author J. M. Barrie received a brief bout of popularity in 2004, when his life was interpreted into the somewhat fictionalized blockbuster movie, Finding Neverland. However, it has been thirty years since the tale of Barrie’s life and works has been put into print.[1] Of course, the daunting task of writing out a person’s life, especially one as extraordinary as Barrie’s, can be off-putting. Still, this is no reason for Barrie’s life to be forgotten, or merely remembered for creating one little boy in an imaginary world. To write J. M. Barrie’s biography would be an awfully big adventure, and one that I would be more than willing to accept. However, instead of signing my life away, I intend to lay out the necessary steps for success of any scholar and biographer of Barrie.

When researching the life of a person, it usually helps to know at least a basic summary of their life and works. In the case of Sir James Matthew Barrie, briefness is not possible. Even still, I’ll try squeeze in as much of the vital information as possible. Although he is best (and often singularly) known for his children’s play, Peter Pan, Barrie was many things in the literary world. He began as a young and untrained Scottish playwright, and then fell into the journalism business. From there, Barrie built upon his reputation as both journalist and playwright, and also wrote the biography of his mother. Although overall successful, much of Barrie’s life was overcast with multiple misfortunes, including many untimely deaths. During his seemingly unhappy marriage to the actress Mary Ansell, Barrie befriended London socialite, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and her five sons. From his time spent with the family, Barrie created the character Peter Pan. After their mother’s death, Barrie became the adoptive father of the five Llewelyn Davies boys. The story of these five boys is as much a part of the story of J. M. Barrie as his writings and opinions. Peter Llewelyn Davies, who never overcame the embarrassment of being linked to the fictional Peter Pan, went on to become a successful publisher. The youngest of the boys, Nicholas (‘Nico’) Llewelyn Davies, passed away in 1980. Fortunately, Andrew Birkin was able to spend countless hours with Nico, and collect all sorts of information about Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family which would have been otherwise lost. Although he is usually remembered only for Peter Pan, Birkin and others[2] have helped to illustrate Barrie as so much more than a children’s author.

Unlike the vast and scattered collections of many writers, the papers and trappings of J. M. Barrie are relatively consolidated, but largely untapped. The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, located on the campus of the University of Yale, is home to Barrie’s 46 surviving notebooks and a vast amount of other papers and items, collected and donated by Walter Beinecke Jr. in the mid 1960s. The internet inventory of the J. M. Barrie collection at the Beinecke Library was last updated in 1997, and also lists items such as speeches written by Barrie, correspondence, art, photographs, manuscripts, first-editions, and even Barrie’s will. This adds up to 65 boxes and 75 cases and volumes worth of Barrie ephemera. Birkin, the resident (and seemingly, only) expert on Barrie spent an entire summer working through this collection, and by best estimates, made it only about half-way through all of the writings.

By undertaking the huge task of compiling Barrie’s life into one book, Birkin unearthed many new sources that acted as windows into the past. His research included not only the collection at the Beinecke Library, but also private papers from the Llewelyn Davies family’s nanny, family correspondence and documents, pictures, and even Peter Llewelyn Davies’ attempts at a family biography. The most important source that Birkin had was his extensive interviews and correspondence with Nicholas Llewelyn Davies, the youngest of the five boys. Although oral histories are largely regarded as unverifiable and possibly detrimental for serious scholars, Nico was an invaluable source for Birkin and for all future Barrie scholars. Birkin bought all of Nico’s personal family papers, The Nico Collection, ”for no real reason other than emotional attachment” in 1979.[3] In the 2003 edition of his book Birkin mentions that he has come across multiple new sources for future Barrie followers to use, such as hundreds of letters, photographs, documents, and even other notebooks. After touring many countries as a display, Birkin sold the majority of his personal collections concerning Barrie to the Beinecke Library in 2003. However, before doing so, Birkin uploaded all of his notes, notebook translations, documents, ephemera, and even audio recordings onto a website (owned in part by the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children[4]) for any interested person to peruse.

Although the Beinecke Library is in possession of Birkin’s collection, their online inventory of J. M. Barrie papers, which is open to the public for research, has not been updated in a decade. Birkin alluded to the idea that the library would keep their newer acquisitions “under lock and key” for a while, and the preliminary survey of the collection instructs all those interested to contact the curator for information about items not catalogued. In the 1970s, at the request of Birkin, all of the available notebooks belonging to Barrie were copied onto microfilm. Sets of these can be purchased directly from Beinecke, to avoid months of working with the originals. Between these microfilms and Birkin’s website (JMBarrie.co.uk), I could make a lot of progress without leaving my apartment, let alone Michigan.

One of the most difficult aspects of sifting through the Barrie papers is Barrie himself. His handwriting is notoriously cramped and scribbled, to the point of it being illegible. Birkin spent an entire summer translating the 46 notebooks into his own form of notes, and guesses that he was not able to transcribe a third of the 46 journals. Not only would the journals need to be deciphered, but Barrie left behind a legacy of plays, articles, letters, photographs (many taken by him, as an amateur hobby), and other trinkets. Even with a post modernistic approach to studying Barrie’s life that opts for content over chronology, I have a feeling that no one biographer could create a solid and truthful image of Barrie in words.[5] The man spent his life trying to capture time and childhood, and trying to explain his own feelings on paper. To assume that a definitive biography could be written about the man who was so adamantly against easy explanations is exactly what Barrie feared.

The copyright circumstances surrounding Barrie’s works are confusing, and to be quite honest, I don’t know how I would go about gaining permission to publish experts. Birkin has been forthright about not caring who quotes him, as long as they give whatever credit due. However, much of the papers are not Birkin’s to give. Barrie has no descendents which would deter a biographer. Rather, a board of special trustees was created for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, which holds all rights to the Peter Pan idea, story, image, and everything else associated with the boy who wouldn’t grow up (often referred to as the Peter Pan Gift). Also, since Birkin generously donated the copyright of his own book to this same charity, quoting Birkin would have to be consented by this board of trustees. However, that is merely Birkin’s work and Barrie’s Peter Pan. According to Birkin’s website, the copyright to the rest of Barrie’s works was temporarily extended until 2007.[6] Therefore, I’m not sure if Barrie’s works have become part of the public domain and are available to all, or if they’ll continue to be under a confusing copyright law. Since the Beinecke Library is now in possession of the Barrie collection donated in the 1960s, and the not-yet-catalogued collection bought from Birkin a few years ago, permission must also be gained by Beinecke to research and reproduce anything under their control. Beyond Beinecke and Barrie’s actual works, not many other sources exist. Although permissions might be difficult to obtain, at least I would only be dealing with a few different organizations, and not an entire web of distant relatives and spiteful scholars.

Birkin’s dedication and perseverance laid much of the ground work for future writers and scholars of Barrie, but left an unknown amount of primary source material waiting to be explored. Because the subject of Barrie is unexplainably unpopular for biographers (but does well in book sales and with critics), it’s difficult to say how much there is left to be discovered. To write an insightful and fresh biography of Barrie, I estimate that research alone would take months. My plan of attack, or plan of organizing the material and notes, follows.

Notes and Research:

Thanks to technology, researching and keeping track of notes has become much more manageable. I think the best course of action, for me, would be to compile my notes in Word, or another program. That way, they’re easily searchable. I’d also keep a somewhat up-to-date version on paper to protect against losing everything if there’s a computer problem, or if I need a hard copy. I would obtain a copy of Barrie’s journals on microfilm, and use Oakland’s Kresge Library to scan them onto the computer. Also, since there’s such a massive amount of source material on Birkin’s website, computers and internet would be vital for me. I’m paranoid about losing files and work, so I would most likely create a website, or at least a huge blog, where I could upload notes and other files, like a back-up place to save everything on the off chance that my own computer explodes.

The Archives and Travel:

The fact that Barrie’s papers are almost exclusively collected at the Beinecke Library seems like a huge perk and a win-win situation. Although I’d like to stretch out and enjoy my time in the vault there, I have a feeling that even if I rushed through it all, I would still be at Yale for months on end. But, again through the magic of technology, I would definitely pursue a good relationship with the curator! I would, of course, visit the collection multiple times to sift through everything and take notes. Birkin was able to charm Beinecke into putting Barrie’s notebooks onto microfilm in the 1970s. I think it could be possible for them to take digital photos of sources I may need (or maybe I’m just too optimistic). Either way, I would plan to spend at least a month’s time at Beinecke, probably in the form of numerous weekends, or perhaps a week here or there. The first step would be to update the rough inventory of the collection from 1997, and then determine what was imperative to my research, what might be important, and what I would have to do without.

Overall Estimation:

I’ve always been a fan of J. M. Barrie. It seems as if the more that I learn about him, the more interested and attached I become. Most likely, I would meander through this research project (if there isn’t a deadline to meet), and enjoy it immensely. In Birkin’s case, he was working with a deadline and felt no strong connection to Barrie until the end of his research, documentary, and book. The trouble with pinning down a time is that I couldn’t possibly know and understand Barrie’s life by the time I die, let alone write it all out on paper. Although I would want to focus both on his literary works and his personal life, I would have to set parameters for my writing. The trouble is, I’m not sure what those parameters would be, yet.

---

[1] Andrew Birkin, author of J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, published his story of Barrie’s life in 1979. A revised edition was published by Yale in 2003.

[2] Another biography of Barrie is apparently in the works, or just recently released. Lisa Chaney’s Hide-and-Seek with Angels: A Life of J. M. Barrie (St. Martin’s Press) is said to shed a much less favorable light on Barrie.

[3] I’m going to include the emails I’ve received from Mr. Birkin, because I’m just too boastful. I’ll staple them to the back if you’d like to see them. They’re not that interesting, but I wanted to include them, all the same.

[4] In 1929, Barrie donated all of his rights in Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London.

[5] Andrew Birkin took a rather unconventional approach when writing J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, sandwiching his narrative between excerpts from Barrie’s letters, notebooks, etc. Also, in his Introduction he asserts that he is not writing a biography of Barrie, but rather “’An attempt to dig up the dead and twist a finger in their sockets’ [as Barrie put it] … a love story told through the words and images of the dramatis personae concerned.”

[6] This was decided in 1987, according to the Berne Convention’s 50-years-from-author’s-death ruling (Barrie having died in 1937).

J.M. Barrie

Research information on J.M. Barrie.
http://www.jmbarrie.co.uk/
All Peter Pan materials copyright Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children's Charity.


A plethora of sources, all depending on how vast the study is. Can span from research on one work, his life time, or research which envelops not only Barrie, but all of the other lives he influenced.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, housed at Yale and thus far, still unpublished. Said to be utterly illegible at times. Birkin estimates that he translated about 2/3 of Barrie's 46 notebooks. Beyond this, they are important and untapped sources. Beinecke also houses a vast amount of Barrie papers and memorbelia which are not even catalogued, studied, or published at this time. The majority of the materials were collected by Walter Beinecke Jr., and donated to the library in the 1960s. The last update to the catalogue of the collection was in 1997, and according to the website, the entire collection is open for research.
According to Birkin, copies of the original 1975 microfilms of Barrie's notebooks can be purchased directly from the Beinecke library.
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/beinflat/general.BARRIE.HTM

"Mary Hodgson Collection" - donated by her niece to Birkin, this collection added to his research for the biography in 1977. Personally owned by Birkin (?)

"Nico Collection" - thousands of pieces, the majority being notes and letters, bought by Andrew Birkin from Nico Llewelyn-Davies before his death in 1980. As the youngest and last surviving adopted son of J.M. Barrie, Nico was a wealth of information to Birkin, and made an unequaled contribution to the memory and study of J. M. Barrie, the writer and the man. Personally owned by Birkin.

"Peter Davies Collection" - a wealth of the publisher's own papers and memorbelia about his own life, his family, and J. M. Barrie. Donated in 1992, by his son, Rivvy. Personally owned by Birkin (?)

"There’s a good deal of further “primary source material” in the form of extensive correspondence and hours of taped interviews between 1975-1980 with the (then) surviving dramatis personae of the saga: Gerrie Llewelyn Davies, Eiluned and Medina Lewis, Angela and Daphne du Maurier, Lord Boothby, Elisabeth Bergner and many others, including ten hours of audio tape with Nico himself." - Birkin's website, personally owned (?)

JMBarrie.co.uk - Birkin's personal site, with an archive of the majority of J.M. Barrie regalia from his research, and the years between then and now. A full website has been available since 2004, and Birkin continues to add to it as more becomes available.

Interesting copyright circumstances. Taken from Birkin's site - "The late Joan Ling used to run the Barrie Estate, on behalf of Barrie’s literary heirs, to works other than those embraced by the Peter Pan Gift. She - and the Asquith family - generously allowed me to quote from Barrie’s other works (including letters and notebooks) without restriction. Joan died many years ago, and the Estate was officially wound up in 1987 when Barrie’s works went out of copyright, as per the Berne Convention’s 50-years-from-author’s-death ruling (Barrie having died in 1937). But when the Convention’s ruling was extended to 70 years, Barrie (and a great many other authors/artists/composers) suddenly found their posthumous shelf-lives extended by another 20 years - in Barrie’s case, until 2007."

Book List

I've been meaning to compile a to-read list for ages. However, every time I try to do so, it turns out to be a disorganized nightmare. I'm thinking that if I do it in the blog, I'll have the ability to access it more often. Now, let's hope I can re-remember what I want/need to read! In fact, I think I might turn this blog into a book blog! Woo hoo! I'd love it, but I feel sorry for anyone who tries to read it...

Edit: If the title is in green, that means I own it. Hooray!

Acheve, Chinua
Things Fall Apart

Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Adams, Richard
Watership Down

Addams, Jane
Twenty Years at Hull House

Alcott, Louisa May
Little Women (again)
Little Men

Alexander, Robert
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

Anita, Tarr C.
J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan In and Out of Time: A Children's Classic at 100

Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale

Austen, Jane
Emma
Mansfield Park
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility

Baldwin, James
Go Tell it on the Mountain

Bawdin, Nina
Carrie's War

Beagle, Peter S.
The Last Unicorn

Bennett, Alan
The Complete Talking Heads
The History Boys
The Uncommon Reader

Berendt, John
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Blume, Judy
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret

Bradbury, Ray
Farenheit 451

Braddon, M. E.
Lady Audley's Secret

Bradley, James
Flags of Our Fathers

Bronte, Charlotte
Jane Erye

Browne, Hester
The Little Lady Agency

Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange

Caldwell, Laura
The Year of Living Famously

Calloway, Colin
Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America

Capote, Truman
In Cold Blood

Chaucer, Geoffrey
The Canterbury Tales

Chevalier, Tracy
Girl with a Pearl Earring

Chopin, Kate
The Awakening (again)

Clancy, Tom
The Hunt for Red October

Coelho, Paulo
The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Colt, George Howe
The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home

Conrad, Joseph
Heart of Darkness (again)

Davies, Peter Ho
The Welsh Girl

Dew, Robb Forman
The Evidence Against Her

Dickens, Charles
A Christmas Story
A Tale of Two Cities
Bleak House
Great Expectations (again)
Oliver Twist

Doctorow, E. L.
Ragtime (again)

Eliot, George
Middlemarch
Silas Marner

Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Self-Reliance (again)

Eugenides, Jeffrey
Middlesex: A Novel

Faulkner, William
As I Lay Dying
The Sound and the Fury

Fischer, David Hackett
Paul Revere's Ride (again)
Washington's Crossing

Fitch, Janet
White Oleander (again)

Fitzgerald, F. Scott
The Great Gatsby (again)

Foer, Jonathan Safran
Everything is Illuminated

Follett, Ken
The Pillars of the Earth

Forester, E. M.
A Room With a View
Howards End

Fresan, Rodrigo
Kensington Gardens

Gibbons, Kaye
Ellen Foster

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
The Yellow Wallpaper

Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a Geisha

Goldman, William
The Princess Bride

Golding, William
Lord of the Flies (again)

Gregory, Philippa
The Constant Princess
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Queen's Fool

Gruen, Susan
Water for Elephants (again)

Hansberry, Lorraine
A Raisin in the Sun

Hardy, Thomas
Jude the Obscure
Tess of D'Ubervilles

Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The Scarlet Letter

Heller, Joseph
Catch-22

Hemingway, Ernest
A Farewell to Arms
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Nick Adams Stories
The Sun Also Rises

Herbert, Frank
Dune

Hosseini, Khaled
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Kite Runner

Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World

Irving, John
A Prayer for Owne Meany
The World According to Garp

Isenberg, Nancy
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr

James, Henry
The Aspern Papers (again)
The Bostonians
The Portrait of a Lady

Joyce, James
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Dubliners
Ulysses

Kerouac, Jack
On the Road

Kesey, Ken
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Kidd, Sue Monk
The Mermaid Chair
The Secret Life of Bees

Kingsolver, Barbara
Prodigal Summer

Kinsella, Sophie
Remember Me?

Kipling, Rudyard
Kim

Kostova, Elizabeth
The Historian

L'Engle, Madeleine
A Wrinkle in Time

Lalwani, Nikita
Gifted

Lamb, Wally
She's Come Undone

Lamott, Anne
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Lee, Harper
To Kill a Mockingbird (again)

London, Jack
The Call of the Wild

Kingsolver, Barbara
The Poisonwood Bible

Maguire, Gregory
Lost
Mirror Mirror
Son of a Witch
What-the-Dickens
Wicked (again)

Mansfield, Katherine
The Collected Stories (again)

McCourt, Frank
Angela's Ashes
Teacher Man: A Memoir

McCullough, David
1776
John Adams
Truman

McEwan, Ian
Attonement
On Chesil Beach

Middlebrook, Diane
Anne Sexton: A Biography

Miller, Arthur
Death of a Salesman (again)

Milton, John
Paradise Lost

Mintz, Steven
Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood

Mitchell, Margaret
Gone With the Wind

Montgomery, L. M.
Anne of Green Gables series (again)
Kilmeny of the Orchard

Morrison, Toni
Beloved

Nabokov, Vladimir
Lolita

Nemirovsky, Irene
Suite Francaise

Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife

Notaro, Laurie
Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive

O'Brien, Tim
The Things They Carried (again)

Orwell, George
1984
Animal Farm

Packer, Ann
The Dive From Clausen's Pier

Pearl, Matthew
The Dante Club

Plath, Sylvia
The Bell Jar

Rand, Ayn
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead

Rivenbark, Celia
Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom

Rotundo, E. Anthony
American Manhood

Russo, Richard
Bridge of Sighs
Empire Falls

Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de
The Little Prince

Salinger, J. D.
Catcher in the Rye (again)
Franny and Zooey

Schocket, Eric
Vanishing Moments: Class and American Literature

Scott, Sir Walter
Ivanhoe
Waverly

Sebold, Alice
The Lovely Bones

Sedaris, David
Me Talk Pretty One Day (again)
Naked

Seton, Anya
Green Darkness

Sinclair, Upton
The Jungle

Steinbeck, John
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath (again)

Tolkien, J. R. R.
Lord of the Rings

Tolstoy, Leo
Anna Karenina

Updike, John
Rabbit, Run

Vivante, Arturo
Truelove Knot: A Novel of World War II

Walker, Alice
The Color Purple

Warren, Robert Penn
All the King's Men

Waugh, Evelyn
A Handful of Dust
Brideshead Revisited

Welsh, Irvine
Trainspotting

Wharton, Edith
The Age of Innocense
The House of Mirth

Wick, Lori
The Princess

Whiteley, Opal
Opal: The Journal of an Understanding Heart

Whitman, Walt
Leaves of Grass (again)

Wiesel, Elie
Night (again)

Wilde, Oscar
Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wilder, Thorton
Our Town (again)

Winsor, Kathleen
Forever Amber

Woolf, Virginia
Mrs. Dalloway
To the Lighthouse

Divert Thine Eyes

Disclaimer: On the off chance that anyone reads this.... don't bother this post. I just needed some sort of typing program thingie to compile my homework for the semester, since Kresge doesn't have Word at the front desk. Bah humbug.

Or, if you'd like to pity me, please continue reading.
Friday, September 7th:
HST 390:
- Read Lears, Something for Nothing, Intro (p. 1 - 24)

Weekend of September 8th:
HST 390:
- Print and read Gene Wise, "'Paradigm Dramas' in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement," American Quarterly 31 (1979) from JSTOR.
- Print and read Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., "A New Context for a New American Studies?" American Quarterly 43 (1991).
- Print and read Steven Watts, "The Idiocy of American STudies: Poststructuralism, Language, and Politics in the Age of Self-Fulfilment," American Quarterly 43 (1991). (For Wednesday)
- See two optional articles listed in the syllabus.
ENG 401:
- Read Hamilton's Biography: A Brief History (page 128 by Tuesday, finished by Thursday).
- Read Menard's "The Biography Business" on e-reserve.
HST 322:
- Read Ellen Carol DuBois's "Outgrowing the compact of the Fathers: Equal Rights, etc" on JSTOR.
- Begin reading Gender and Jim Crow.