William Firebrace's Books

Memo for Nemo

By: William Firebrace

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A cultural history of living in the undersea, both fictional and real, from Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo to NASA’s ECC02 project. In Memo for Nemo, William Firebrace investigates human inhabitation of the undersea, both fictional and real. Beginning with Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo—an undersea Renaissance man with a library of 12,000 volumes on his submarine—and proceeding through aquariums, undersea photography, artificial seas on land, nuclear-powered submarines, undersea film epics, giant squid, and NASA satellites, Firebrace examines the undersea as a zone created by exploration and invention. Throughout, the history of undersea life is accompanied by an imagined undersea, envisioned by cultural figures ranging from Verne and Herman Melville to Orson Welles and Jimi Hendrix. Firebrace takes readers though the enormous sequence of rooms (impossible in real life) in Nemo’s submarine, recounts the competition among nineteenth-century cities to build the most spectacular aquatic world, and explains the workings of the bathysphere—an early underwater vessel modeled on a hot-air balloon. He considers the aquarium’s function in films as a sort of viewing lens, describes the chlorine-proof artificial sea life seen by passengers on the submarine ride at Disneyland, and reports that Jacques Cousteau’s famous underwater documentaries were in fact highly staged. The oceans of today are not those imagined by Verne; they are changing from both natural processes and human influence. Memo for Nemo documents the power of the undersea in both art and life.

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Page Count

280

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262544083

ISBN 13

9780262544085

Complete Works. The History of Pendennis

Vol. II

By: William Makepeace Thackeray

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Complete Works. The History of Pendennis

Vol. II

By: William Makepeace Thackeray

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

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Page Count

430

Publisher

BoD – Books on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

3385421608

ISBN 13

9783385421608

Vanity Fair

By: William Makepeace Thackeray

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Vanity Fair

By: William Makepeace Thackeray

I ran to the side of the ship. Help, help! Murder! I screamed, and my uncle slowly turned to look at me. I did not see any more. Already strong hands were pulling me away. Then something hit my head; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell to the ground . . .' And so begin David Balfour's adventures. He is kidnapped, taken to sea, and meets many dangers. He also meets a friend, Alan Breck. But Alan is in danger himself, on the run from the English army across the wild Highlands of Scotland . . .

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Page Count

1025

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198727712

ISBN 13

9780198727712

Mandeville

By: William Godwin

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Mandeville

By: William Godwin

William Godwin’s Mandeville was described as his best novel by Percy Shelley, who sent a copy to Lord Byron, and it was immediately recognized by its other admirers as a work of unique power. Written one year after the battle of Waterloo and set in an earlier revolutionary period between the execution of Charles I and the Restoration, Mandeville is a novel of psychological warfare. The narrative begins with Mandeville’s rescue from the traumatic aftermath of the Ulster Rebellion of 1641 and proceeds through his early education by a fanatical Presbyterian minister to his persecution at Winchester school, his constant (and not unjustified) paranoia, and his confinement in an asylum. Mandeville’s final, desperate attempt to prevent his sister’s marriage to his enemy ends with his disfiguration, which also defaces endings based on settlement or reconciliation. The novel’s events have many resonances with Godwin’s own period. The historical appendices offer contemporary reviews, including Shelley’s letter to Godwin praising Mandeville, material explaining the novel’s complex historical background, and contemporary writings on war, madness, and trauma.

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Page Count

530

Publisher

Broadview Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1460404912

ISBN 13

9781460404911

Book's by William Firebrace

Memo for Nemo

Memo for Nemo

Complete Works. The History of Pendennis

Complete Works. The History of Pendennis

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair

Mandeville

Mandeville

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