Henry James

Shari Benstock

Edith Wharton

Peter G. Beidler

House of Mirth + Turn of the Screw 2nd Ed

Original Articles and Translations

John Gower's Literary Transformations in the Confessio Amantis

In February of 1897 a family of six—four generations, including twin infant sons and their aged great-grandmother—was brutally murdered in rural North Dakota. The weapons used were a shotgun, an axe, a pitchfork, a spade, and a club. Several Dakota Indians from the nearby Standing Rock reservation were arrested, and one was tried, pronounced guilty and sentenced to be hanged. The conviction was reversed by the state supreme court, which ordered a new trial. Only a week later, however, a mob of thirty angry men broke into the county jail in the middle of the night, dragged three of the five accused Indians out, and hanged them from a butcher’s windlass. These events were fodder for hundreds of newspaper articles, letters, and legal documents. Many of those documents, including the transcript of the trial convicting one of the Indians and the statement by the state supreme court reversing the conviction, are collected in this work, and, with the author’s commentary, tell a disturbing tale of racism and revenge in the pioneer West, one that provided the basic story line for Ojibwe novelist Louise Erdrich’s acclaimed novel The Plague of Doves.

A Documentary History of the 1897 Killings That Inspired Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves

Murdering Indians

Representations of masculinity in Chaucer's works examined through modern critical theory.

Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde

Masculinities in Chaucer

Peter G. Beidler's Reader's Companion is an indispensable guide for teachers, students, and general readers who want fully to appreciate Salinger's perennial bestseller. Now nearly six decades old, The Catcher in the Rye contains references to people, places, books, movies, and historical events that will puzzle many twenty-first-century readers. Beidler's guide provides some 250 explanations to help readers make sense of the culture through which Holden Caulfield stumbles as he comes of age. It provides a map showing the various stops in Holden's Manhattan odyssey. Of particular interest to readers whose native language is not English is the glossary of more than a hundred terms, phrases, and slang expressions. In his introductory essay, 'Catching The Catcher in the Rye,' Beidler discusses such topics as the three-day time line for the novel, the way the novel grew out of two earlier-published short stories, the extent to which the novel is autobiographical, what Holden looks like, and the reasons for the enduring appeal of the novel. The many photographs in the Reader's Companion give fascinating glimpses into the world that Holden has made famous. Beidler also provides discussion of some of the issues that have engaged scholars down through the years: the meaning of Holden's red hunting hat, whether Holden writes his novel in an insane asylum, Mr. Antolini's troubling actions, and Holden's close relationship with his sister and his two brothers. Readers of A Reader's Companion to J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye will wonder how they managed without it before.

A Reader's Companion to J. D. Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye

A Student Guide to Chaucer's Middle English shows where Chaucer's English came from, when it developed, and especially how to pronounce it. The guide contains information on the International Phonetic Alphabet, iambic pentameter, and the Great Vowel Shift. It also has word lists and transcription exercises. Refined during four decades of Beidler's own teaching, this booklet is now widely available for the first time.

A Student Guide to Chaucer's Middle English

The Turn of the Screw at the Turn of the Century

Ghosts, Demons, and Henry James

Gay Barton

"A revised and expanded, comprehensive guide to the novels of Native American author Louise Erdrich from Love Medicine to The Painted Drum. Includes chronologies, genealogical charts, complete dictionary of characters, map and geographical details about settings, and a glossary of all the Ojibwe words and phrases used in the novels"--Provided by publisher.

A Reader's Guide to the Novels of Louise Erdrich

Peter G. Beidler's Reader's Companion is an indispensable guide for teachers, students, and general readers who want fully to appreciate Salinger's perennial bestseller.

Peter G. Beidler

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