John Harold Plumb

Morris Bishop

Spanning an age that witnessed great achievements in the arts and sciences, this definitive overview of the Italian Renaissance will both captivate ordinary readers and challenge specialists. Dr. Plumb’s impressive and provocative narrative is accompanied by contributions from leading historians, including Morris Bishop, J. Bronowski, Maria Bellonci, and many more, who have further illuminated the lives of some of the era’s most unforgettable personalities, from Petrarch to Pope Pius II, Michelangelo to Isabella d'Este, Machiavelli to Leonardo. A highly readable and engaging volume, THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE is a perfect introduction to the movement that shaped the Western world.

The Italian Renaissance

Depicts life in medieval times in terms of historical events, social and economic trends, and religious and cultural achievements.

The Middle Ages

Comedy, tragedy, realism and fantasy are woven into this collection of Greek and Roman narratives of love, war, and sea adventures.

A Classical Storybook

Cornell University is fortunate to have as its historian a man of Morris Bishop's talents and devotion. As an accurate record and a work of art possessing form and personality, his book at once conveys the unique character of the early university—reflected in its vigorous founder, its first scholarly president, a brilliant and eccentric faculty, the hardy student body, and, sometimes unfortunately, its early architecture—and establishes Cornell's wider significance as a case history in the development of higher education. Cornell began in rebellion against the obscurantism of college education a century ago. Its record, claims the author, makes a social and cultural history of modern America. This story will undoubtedly entrance Cornellians; it will also charm a wider public. Dr. Allan Nevins, historian, wrote: "I anticipated that this book would meet the sternest tests of scholarship, insight, and literary finish. I find that it not only does this, but that it has other high merits. It shows grasp of ideas and forces. It is graphic in its presentation of character and idiosyncrasy. It lights up its story by a delightful play of humor, felicitously expressed. Its emphasis on fundamentals, without pomposity or platitude, is refreshing. Perhaps most important of all, it achieves one goal that in the history of a living university is both extremely difficult and extremely valuable: it recreates the changing atmosphere of time and place. It is written, very plainly, by a man who has known and loved Cornell and Ithaca for a long time, who has steeped himself in the traditions and spirit of the institution, and who possesses the enthusiasm and skill to convey his understanding of these intangibles to the reader." The distinct personalities of Ezra Cornell and first president Andrew Dickson White dominate the early chapters. For a vignette of the founder, see Bishop's description of "his" first buildings (Cascadilla, Morrill, McGraw, White, Sibley): "At best," he writes, "they embody the character of Ezra Cornell, grim, gray, sturdy, and economical." To the English historian, James Anthony Froude, Mr. Cornell was "the most surprising and venerable object I have seen in America." The first faculty, chosen by President White, reflected his character: "his idealism, his faith in social emancipation by education, his dislike of dogmatism, confinement, and inherited orthodoxy"; while the "romantic upstate gothic" architecture of such buildings as the President's house (now Andrew D. White Center for the Humanities), Sage Chapel, and Franklin Hall may be said to "portray the taste and Soul of Andrew Dickson White." Other memorable characters are Louis Fuertes, the beloved naturalist; his student, Hugh Troy, who once borrowed Fuertes' rhinoceros-foot wastebasket for illicit if hilarious purposes; the more noteworthy and the more eccentric among the faculty of succeeding presidential eras; and of course Napoleon, the campus dog, whose talent for hailing streetcars brought him home safely—and alone—from the Penn game. The humor in A History of Cornell is at times kindly, at times caustic, and always illuminating.

A History of Cornell

(Continued) Includes writings by Agnes Hunt, E.F. Benson, Norman Douglas, Ernest Bramah, Stephen Leacock, Saki, Hilaire Belloc, Max Beerbohm, Harry Graham, G.K. Chesterton, Maurice Baring, Lord Dunsany, A.E. Coppard, Robert Lynd, A. Neil Lyons, Adrian Porter, P.G. Wodehouse, Katherine Mansfield, A.P. Herbert, E. Delafield, Rose Macaulay, Aldous Huxley, F.L. Lucas, D.B. Wyndham Lewis, Bruce Marshall, James Laver, Noel Coward, Jan Struther, John Collier, Roy Campbell, Stella Gibbons, Patrick Barrington, Evelyn Waugh, Eric Knight, William Plomer, T.H. White, John Betjeman, Peter Fleming, R.A.A. Robertson, Nathaniel Gubbins, Daniel Pettiward, Angela Milne, Angela Thirkell, Eliot Crawshay-Williams.

A Treasury of British Humor

Classic anthology updated for the modern student with selections in French, introductory material (introductions to each period and its culture, and short biographies of the authors) and notes in English. Each century has its own volume.

A Survey of French Literature

From the rich store of medieval tales, Morris Bishop brings together a delightful collection of thirty-five stories. Some are romantic, some religious, some realistic, some even scurrilous. There are merry tales and moral tales, sagas, allegories, and fables. They vary widely in theme and their characters represent every class of medieval society. The tales in A Medieval Storybook vividly illustrate medieval life and thought. Above all they excel as stories, and demonstrate the high level attained by narrative art in the Middle Ages and the great gift the medieval writers had for creating lively and memorable characters. Some of the stories in the book were translated by Bishop; others were translated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Line drawings by Alison Mason Kingsbury add considerably to the charm of this collection.

A Medieval Storybook

The French texts of works by such distinguished authors as Montaigne, Descartes, and Voltaire are presented together with biographical sketches and explanatory notes

Morris Bishop

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