This is the first collection of literary parodies, both poetry and prose, written during the English Romantic period. Many anthologies of literary parody have been published during the past century, but no previous selection has concentrated so intensively on a single period in English literary history, and no period in that history was more remarkable for the quantity and diversity of its parody. There was no Romantic writer untouched by parody, either as subject or as author, or even occasionally as both. Most parodies were intended to discredit the Romantics not only as poets but as individuals, and to disarm the threat they were seen as posing to establish literary and social norms. Because it focuses on the "swarm of imitative writers" about whom Robert Southey complained in an 1819 letter to Walter Savage Landor, this collection throws light on a large and often overlooked body of work whose authors had much more serious purposes than mere ridicule or amusement. Romantic parody situates itself between the eighteenth-century craft of burlesque and the nonsense verse that Victorian parody often became. This anthology demonstrates that parody is concerned with power: that it expresses ideological conflict, dramatizing clashes of ideas, styles, and values between different generations of writers, different classes and social groups, and even between writers of the same generation and class. Parody is not an inherently conservative mode; politically, it serves the whole range of opinion from extreme left to extreme right. While several of the parodies are playful - a few even affectionate - most angrily testify to the political, social, and aesthetic divisions embittering the times. Some parodies have aged more gracefully than others. But all contribute to a more vivid understanding of the era and to the reception accorded the most important Romantic writers. The venom and alarm of the response those writers provoked may surprise anyone who takes it for granted that the Romantics easily made their way into the mainstream of English literature. This volume reprints parodies by the major Romantics (including Coleridge, Keats, Byron, and Shelley) as well as by minor, obscure, and anonymous contemporaries. Several longer, better-known texts are given in their entirety, e.g., Peter Bell, Peter Bell III, and The Vision of Judgment, and there are also examples from distinguished collections such as Rejected Addresses, The Poetic Mirror, and Warreniana. Numerous shorter works are taken from periodicals of the time (such as Blackwood's or The Satirist), and many of these are reprinted for the first time since their initial publication. The foreword by Linda Hutcheon, "Parody and Romantic Ideology," examines the theoretical implications of Romantic parodies. The introduction, headnotes, and annotations by the editors place the parodies in their historical, social, and literary contexts.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Living history through the eyes of a young German girl. Based on a true story. Like many little girls, Helga Reiter dreams of horses. More than anything, the six-year-old wants to learn to ride and become a great equestrian. But, in 1941, the world is at war... Having overrun much Europe and North Africa, Germany's glorious military has no spare horses for frivolous childhood dreams. Stubborn as any good German shoulder, Helga, contrives several ill-fated attempts to ride. By late 1944, Helga has no choice but to forgo her dream and face a terrible reality. Her country is losing the war. As Germany is crushed between the Soviet and Allied advance, the Reiter family struggles to survive one day at a time.

A Penguin Classic Written at a time of profound anxiety caused by the illness of his mother, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck draws on his memories of childhood in these stories about a boy who embodies both the rebellious spirit and the contradictory desire for acceptance of early adolescence. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, the cycle does not end with a hero “matured” by circumstances. As John Seelye writes in his introduction, reversing common interpretations, The Red Pony is imbued with a sense of loss. Jody’s encounters with birth and death express a common theme in Steinbeck’s fiction: They are parts of the ongoing process of life, “resolving” nothing. The Red Pony was central not only to Steinbeck’s emergence as a major American novelist but to the shaping of a distinctly mid twentieth-century genre, opening up a new range of possibilities about the fictional presence of a child’s world. This edition contains an introduction by John Seelye. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The ten-year twins are delighted when a scruffy brown pony appears almost on their doorstep in the summer holiday. Reuben, a bit of a dare-devil, or stupid as his sister Esme says, decides to ride Mr Nibbs. That was it! The twin’s lives change forever. It turns out that Mr Nibbs is a special agent sent to recruit them into a world of different realities. Old Woman, who is also Young Man, and an Earth Guardian, has noted the children have the qualities needed to join the elite corps of young spiritual warriors training to protect the Earth from further human harm. The mythical flying horse Pegasus is called in to assist with their training. Through their adventures with Pegasus they meet all sorts of beings. Eventually some friends are brought in for support, including the girl, Rose, Esme’s strange friend. Esme’s dream animals walk with her in the dense three dimensional world of ordinary human reality. There is one big problem. Once recruited, the children come to the attention of the Magnificent Master of Malicious Magic. This unhappy Being feeds off fear and wants the world to remain full of chaos. He doesn’t want the children to succeed. They will need protecting!