A highly detailed, literary tit for tat for fans of publishing and literary history.
An account of 18th-century literary shenanigans.
Three centuries ago, there were no marketing and sales juggernauts at publishing houses, so authors and booksellers had to find other means to publicize their books. It was not always a virtuous process. Rogers, a noted authority on Alexander Pope, delivers a lively tale about one of the nastiest and most famous protracted feuds in literary history: between the Catholic poet Pope and Edmund Curll, a “rascally publisher” of obscene items who “spent his career dodging…the law.” Telling the story in the form of a trial, Rogers unearths reams of primary source materials or “exhibits” and extensive quotations to show how the clashes between them evolved. After a fulsome assessment of the time—politics, religion, battles of wit, Grub Street—the London they lived in, and sketches of the two antagonists, the trial begins. In 1714, Pope published his five canto The Rape of the Lock; Curll, with no right to it, nonetheless issued his own edition. The feud had officially begun. Beginning in 1716, each assaulted the other via a series of damaging pamphlets. Pope was busy with his edition of Shakespeare’s plays and his translation of the Odyssey while Curll spent some time in jail for lewd publications. The publication of Pope’s The Dunciad, Rogers writes, was “more than a work of literature. Its appearance constituted an event.” Curll was mentioned in it often, and he responded with his Popiad. The feud took its “strangest turn yet” with Pope’s published letters, which Curll pirated, resulting in the now-famous 1741 copyright case, Pope v. Curll, which Pope won. In an enlightening, overlong narrative, Rogers delivers the case, one lying “thickly documented in the archives.” Readers can deliver their own verdict: Who was the most maligned?
A highly detailed, literary tit for tat for fans of publishing and literary history.Pub Date: June 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78914-416-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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