The Annotated Gulliver’s Travels

 

Happy New Year, and a Happy Birthday to J. R. R. Tolkien, who if he were alive would have been 130 years old today, equal to the third oldest Hobbit in history. That would be Gerontius (the Old) Took, Bilbo’s grandfather. Bilbo would of course surpass him by one year shortly before going over sea. Of course, the oldest was Gollum/Smeagol (‘of Hobbit kind’) at 589, but then, he had extended help.

Today I also received the first book of the year, The Annotated Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, with notes by Isaac Asimov. This was ordered on December 30^th as one of a batch I sent off for with money I got for Christmas. It arrived surprisingly early.

Now, I cannot exactly claim the Travels as one of my very favorite books, although it is of course a classic of enormous cultural influence and importance which I have greatly enjoyed when the mood strikes me. Therefore, it was with some dismay that I realized that I had sold my old paperback and was without any ‘real world’ copy. But there was a very felicitous remedy for my dilemma.

          I love an annotated edition, and I had read this one years ago, either in high school or college. I had never particularly cared for Isaac Asimov, either authorially or personally, but I could not fault his research or his marshalling of facts, and I enjoyed the selections from contemporary art and the illustrations selected from editions of over two hundred years (including some pictures by Fritz Eichenberg, one of my favorite artists). With Christmas money in hand, I finally popped on this deal.

    It is going, of course, onto the shelf with my other annotated books, as soon as I have thoroughly gone through it again. It is, of course, a famous work of satire, a travelogue of wonders, an adventure tale, proto-science fiction (which is why I suppose Asimov was chosen to annotate it), and yet it has somehow been relegated to the children’s shelf for the last century or so. This may be attributed to the “conceit of big and little men” as Samuel Johnson sniffingly dismissed Swift’s creation, with its suggestion of elves and giants. But it is more and other than that.

Items from the Wish List

Bone Adventures by Jeff Smith 

For the youngest fans of the bestselling graphic novel series BONE, Jeff Smith has created two hilarious tales to delight beginning readers.

In Finders Keepers, the Bone cousins find a coin -- finders keepers! -- but the boys can't agree on how to spend it. Fone Bone wants an apple and bananas they can share. Smiley Bone wants an ice cream cone with a pickle on top. And Phoney Bone wants to build a giant statue... of himself! Whose idea will win out?

In Smiley's Dream Book, Smiley Bone walks through the woods on a beautiful morning. During his journey, he meets a flock of friendly and playful birds. Smiley is having such a good time that he must find a fantastical way to keep up with his new friends as they soar into the big, blue sky.

These wonderfully funny tales, told with lively artwork and expressive word balloons, will engage young readers like the best Sunday comics. – Amazon.

The Art of Alice in Wonderland by Stephanie Lovett Stoffel  (Author)

A collection of works by different artists who have offered their interpretations of Alice and her topsy-turvy world. – Amazon.

Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle by Peter S. Beagle  (Author)

When New York Times Bestselling writer Tad Williams described Peter S. Beagle as a 'bandit prince out to steal reader's hearts' he touched on a truth that readers have known for fifty years. Beagle, whose work has touched generations of readers around the world, has spun rich, romantic and very funny tales that have beguiled and enchanted readers of all ages.

Undeniably, his most famous work is the much loved classic, The Last Unicorn, which tells of unicorn who sets off on quest to discover whether she is the last of her kind, and of the people she meets on her journey. Never prolific, The Last Unicorn is one of only five novels Beagle has published since A Fine and Private Place appeared in 1960, and was followed by The Folk of the Air, The Innkeeper's Song, and Tamsin.

During the first forty years of his career Beagle also wrote a small handful, scarcely a dozen, short stories. Classics like 'Come Lady Death,' 'Lila and the Werewolf,' 'Julie's Unicorn,' 'Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros,' and the tales that make up Giant Bones. And then, starting just five years ago, he turned his attention to short fiction in earnest, and produced a stunning array of new stories including the Hugo and Nebula Award winning follow up to The Last Unicorn, 'Two Hearts,' WSFA Small Press Award winner 'El Regalo,' and wonderful stories like the surrealist 'The Last and Only,' the haunting 'The Rabbi's Hobby' and others.

Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle collects the very best of these stories, over 200,000 words worth, ranging across 45 years of his career from early stories to freshly minted tales that will surprise and amaze readers. It's a book which shows, more than any other, just how successful this bandit prince from the streets of New York has been at stealing our hearts and underscores how much we hope he’ll keep on doing so. – Amazon.

The Elizabethans by A. N. Wilson 

A time of exceptional creativity, wealth creation, and political expansion, the Elizabethan age was also more remarkable than any other for the Technicolor personalities of its leading participants. Apart from the complex character of the Virgin Queen herself, A. N. Wilson’s The Elizabethans follows the stories of Francis Drake, a privateer who not only defeated the Spanish Armada but also circumnavigated the globe with a drunken, mutinous crew and without reliable navigational instruments; political intriguers like William Cecil and Francis Walsingham; and Renaissance literary geniuses from Sir Philip Sidney to Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Most crucially, this was the age when modern Britain was born and established independence from mainland Europe, both in its resistance to Spanish and French incursions and in its declaration of religious liberty from the pope and laid the foundations for the explosion of British imperial power. – Amazon.

The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders by Isidore Haiblum  (Author)

Paperback original. Cover art by David Johnston. "The first Yiddish science fiction novel ever."

The Annotated Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift  (Author), Issac Asimov (Editor)

Jonathan Swift's classic satire is annotated and profusely illustrated in an edition that includes discussions of Swift's life and politics and the medicine, geography, and astronomy of his times.