New Releases by Stanley Weintraub

By mid-1917, with the world war going badly on all fronts, and casualties burgeoning, Prime Minister David Lloyd George met with General Edmund Allenby, fresh from France. Lloyd George wanted “Jerusalem for Christmas” as a holiday “present” for the increasingly disillusioned British people. Its seizure would also eliminate the Ottomans, who had inflicted the dismaying disaster at the Dardanelles, as a factor in the war. As Allenby departed, the PM handed him George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land, remarking that it was a better guide to reaching Jerusalem than anything “in the pigeon holes of the War Office”. Having been raised on the Bible, Allenby, as this narrative illustrates, did indeed exploit it. He would also have unanticipated expertise from an unknown and unmilitary officer, T. E. Lawrence, who turned his Arabian “sideshow” into campaigns distracting the Turks and their German military leadership. The desert war would be hard-fought, but, that December, after centuries in Muslim hands and with its sacred sites intact, Jerusalem fell.

It was truly a white Christmas in the forests of the Ardennes in 1944, but that was cold comfort to the Allied soldiers trying to stop the Nazis from retaking Belgium in one of the most decisive battles of World War II. While a German loudspeaker taunted, "How would you like to die for Christmas?" the Allied forces dug in, despite freezing conditions. In a medieval chapel, General George S. Patton, who needed fair weather for airborne troop support to arrive, uttered what would become a famous prayer: "Sir...You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You''re on." His soldiers wouldn''t be home for the holidays, but as the skies cleared, they went on to win a battle and a war. In the tradition of his Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, acclaimed author Stanley Weintraub explores the irony and poignancy of waging war during a season dedicated to peace on Earth. Book jacket.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was the most notorious and misunderstood American artist of his time, and also the most influential. He is one of the most recognized names in painting because of his celebrated -- and endlessly satirized -- "Whistler''s Mother". Born in Mass., he wound up living most of his life in Russia, France, and England. His sense of belligerent alienation erupted in ways that were endlessly fascinating. His insatiable urge to take his grievances to court; his feuds and vendettas with Ruskin, Wilde, and Beardsley; his acid wit and libelous invective; his ability to set fashions in art, dress, even lifestyle; his love affairs and relentless social climbing -- his was a flamboyant life told "with clarity, judgment, and liveliness."

Stanley Weintraub, biographer of Queen Victoria and other major figures of her era, here unveils for the first time the largely hidden role of Prince Albert, establishing him as one of the greatest men of his days. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, Weintraub''s Uncrowned King delves into Prince Albert''s political, familial, financial, medical, and sexual life.

Demonstrating the influence of scholar-teacher Stanley Weintraub on his students, Shaw and Other Matters reflects the scope of that influence in its concern with a variety of literary figures - from Shaw to Joe Orton - and of topics such as war memoirs and golem/robots. The variety is there, as well, in the approaches to the subjects: Rodelle Weintraub''s dream analysis of Arms and the Man; Julie Sparks''s comparison of Shaw with Bellamy, Morris, and Bulwer-Lytton as world "betterers"; Michael Pharand''s evaluation of Shaw''s changing views of Napoleon; Kinley Roby''s tracing of Shaw''s exchanges of views on playwriting with Arnold Bennett; and Kay Li''s archetypal exploration of characters in Heartbreak House.

Offering a biography of Albert, this work examines how the Prince Consort was plucked from obscurity from a tiny German principality to sire the succession in the most powerful empire in the world. It examines his marriage, his popularity and the effect he made on Britain.

This is the first comprehensive annotated bibliography of works by and about Bernard Shaw. No book has appeared before that has surveyed all of the research and writing that the life and work of Bernard Shaw have evoked. The greatest dramaturgist in English after Shakespeare, Shaw was one of the dominant public figures of his time, a long lifetime (1856-1950) that began in the mid-Victorian period and extended into the Atomic Age. Inevitably, someone who straddled his age so visibly and so memorably, and whose works retain a continuing fascination, has been the subject of thousands of articles and hundreds of books, from criticism of individual works to multivolume biographies, editions, and studies. Stanley Weintraub has distilled his forty years of experience of Shaw studies to bring them into useful focus and sort out the significant writings from the burgeoning mass of publications. This book is an essential tool for both scholars and general readers interested in the multifarious world of Shaw. Readers will not only find out what has been done, but what still remains to be accomplished in Shaw studies; what Shaw''s influence has been on other writers; even where Shaw has appeared as a character in other writers'' poetry, fiction, and drama.

Biography of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).

Biografie over de Ierse schrijver (1856-1950)

"William Golding has written some of the most exciting fiction of the postwar period. This resourceful study of his novels examines them from the perspective of an original thesis: that each represents a response to a specific book by an earlier writer, transformed by Golding''s artistry into a wholly new work bearing his unmistakable imprint. By exploring the origins of Golding''s novels, the authors redefine the total creative process and clearly show the particular force and relevance of each work. Any serious reader of fiction will be interested in this original exposition of the Golding canon from Lord of the Flies, Golding''s reaction to a Victorian boys'' book, to The Spire, his Ibsenite novel"--Back cover.

A biography of the close friend of Max Beerbohm, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Arnold Bennett, Osbert Sitwell, Oscar Wilde and others of the London literary scene during the early 20th century.

This book traces the progress and texture of the friendship between T.E. Lawrence and George Bernard Shaw.