Gerhard Symons Books

The Animal Farm: A fairy Story is the critique of the totalitarian socialist states of the twentieth century, in the form of a fable. Perhaps Orwell's finest creation. It was first published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin, and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he had tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole". *This book contains a biography of the author.

"This revised Norton Critical Edition, like its predecessor, is the only edition available that includes both the 1890 Lippincott's and the 1891 book version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Under the editorial guidance of Wilde scholar Michael Patrick Gillespie, students have the opportunity to read comparatively both published versions of this controversial novel." ""Backgrounds" and "Reviews and Reactions" allow readers to gauge The Picture of Dorian Gray's sensational reception when the 1890 version appeared and to consider the heated public debate over art and morality that followed its publication. Joris-Karl Huysmans, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde offer a sense of the diverse opinions on these topics. Eight contemporary reviews and comments on the novel are reprinted, among them four opinions from the St. James's Gazette immediately after publication in 1890, each followed by Oscar Wilde's vehement reply." ""Criticism" includes seven new essays on the novel that reflect key changes in interpretive theory in recent years and reveal the broad range of perspectives associated with Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Simon Joyce, Donald L. Lawler, Sheldon W. Liebman, Maureen O'Connor, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, John Paul Riquelme, and Michael Patrick Gillespie provide their varied assessments. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included."--BOOK JACKET.