Lawrence I. Berkove's Books

A Prescription for Adversity

The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

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A Prescription for Adversity

The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

A Prescription for Adversity makes the revolutionary case that Ambrose Bierce, far from being a bitter misanthrope, was instead both a compassionate and moral author. Berkove, focusing on Bierce's short fiction, establishes the necessity of recognizing the pattern of his intellectual and literary development over the course of his career. The author shows that Bierce, probably the American author with the most extensive experience of the Civil War, turned to classical Stoicism and English and French Enlightenment literature in his postwar search for meaning. Bierce's fiction arose from his ultimately unsatisfying encounters with the philosophies those sources offered, but the moral commitment as well as the literary techniques of heir authors, particularly Jonathan Swift, inspired him. Dating Bierce's fiction, and introducing uncollected journalism, correspondence, and important new literary history and biographical information, Berkove brings new insights to a number of stories, including "A Son of the Gods" and "A Horseman in the Sky," but especially "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," and presents compelling readings of the Parenticide Club tales and "Moxon's Master." A Prescription for Adversity substantiates how Bierce at his best is one of the few American authors who rises to the level of Mark Twain, and the only one who touches Jonathan Swift. A work of both biography and literary criticism, this book rescues Ambrose Bierce and his literature from the neglect to which it has been assigned by "ill-founded, obtuse and unproductive approaches based on skewed notions of his personality and forced or facile readings of individual stories.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Ohio State University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814208940

ISBN 13

9780814208946

Heretical Fictions

Religion in the Literature of Mark Twain

By: LAWRENCE I. BERKOVE,Joseph Csicsila

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Heretical Fictions

Religion in the Literature of Mark Twain

By: LAWRENCE I. BERKOVE,Joseph Csicsila

Heretical Fictions is the first full-length study to assess the importance of Twain’s heretical Calvinism as the foundation of his major works, bringing to light important thematic ties that connect the author’s early work to his high period and from there to his late work. Berkove and Csicsila set forth the main elements of Twain’s “countertheological” interpretation of Calvinism and analyze in detail the way it shapes five of his major books—Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger—as well as some of his major short stories. The result is a ground-breaking and unconventional portrait of a seminal figure in American letters.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

University of Iowa Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1587299372

ISBN 13

9781587299377

How Butterflies Got Colored Wings

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

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How Butterflies Got Colored Wings

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

Did you ever wonder… how butterflies got their beautiful colors? Follow a white butterfly on its quest to help a beautiful flower weather a bad storm, it takes all of the butterfly’s courage and love to help the flower, and in the end the flower shows its gratitude by giving the butterfly a magnificent gift of color. This charming fable about courage, love, and gratitude is told in a beautiful picture book that parents (and grandparents) will enjoy reading and rereading with children.

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Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501148710

ISBN 13

9781501148712

A Prescription for Adversity

The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

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A Prescription for Adversity

The Moral Art of Ambrose Bierce

By: Lawrence I. Berkove

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

256

Publisher

Ohio State University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814208940

ISBN 13

9780814208946

Book's by Lawrence I. Berkove

A Prescription for Adversity

A Prescription for Adversity

Heretical Fictions

Heretical Fictions

How Butterflies Got Colored Wings

How Butterflies Got Colored Wings

A Prescription for Adversity

A Prescription for Adversity

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