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LOST LOVE

Name: LOST LOVE
Author: George Cooper
ISBN: 1-55778-626-7

A TRUE STORY OF PASSION, MURDER, AND JUSTICE, NEW YORK 1869

by George Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1993

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In a well-crafted compilation of letters, lurid newspaper accounts, legal documents, and photographs and drawings of the day, Cooper (a former Columbia law professor) tells a story of high aspirations, of a failed marriage and a scandalous divorce, and of a 1860's-style murder that might have been dreamed up by William Dean Howells. Abby Sage is a young schoolteacher from an old Massachusetts family when, in 1857, she meets and marries 39-year-old Irish immigrant Daniel McFarland and travels west with him to the frontier town of Madison, Wisconsin. There, McFarland's supposed land holding turns out to be chimerical—just as McFarland turns out to be a ``beastly'' alcoholic prone to fantasy and violence. Abby has to support their growing family by writing and acting, and soon the couple and their two children return east, to New York. Meanwhile, Albert Deane Richardson, youngest son of Massachusetts farmers, also heads west—to Kansas and Colorado, to pursue a journalism career that places him in a Confederate prison during the Civil War and then brings him to the top of his profession in the heyday of newspaper publishing in New York's Printing House Square. It's here, in the late 1860's, that Abby and Albert meet in the homes and offices of mutual friends, including New York Tribune publisher Horace Greeley. But when Abby decides to leave the increasingly brutal McFarland and to accept Albert's offer of marriage, all hell breaks loose—and when McFarland shoots Albert dead in the mail room of the Tribune, public sentiment sides with him because he's seen as the victim of the new tide of fearsome women's rights then sweeping the nation. In a show trial, McFarland is acquitted (he ends up drinking himself to death in Leadville, Colorado). Abby, undaunted, publishes in the Tribune an account of her marriage and Albert's murder, and goes on to distinguish herself as a journalist. Evocative and entertaining popular history. (Eight pages of photographs)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993

ISBN: 1-55778-626-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.