Stories of the lives and losses of the Post Office Rifles in World War I--men who came from all ranks and walks of life, brought together by their common pre-war employment as Post Office workers When World War I broke out, the post office was the biggest employer in the world. Spanning many ranks and walks of life, 12,000 men fought bravely with the Post Office Rifles. By the war's end, 1,800 of them had been killed. Those same men who not long before had been sorting and delivering mail, found themselves hoping their own letters would get through to their loved ones at home, and relying on the letters and parcels sent to them for their own much needed morale-boosts. Using the personal stories and letters of the men who joined the Post Office Rifles, this is a moving account of how the war touched the lives of ordinary men--how it changed communities, how women took up men's working roles, and, of course, the vital role the mail played in the war. Love letters, letters from the front line, much-welcomed parcels of food and cigarettes, and sad letters of condolence--together these tell the story of the fallen heroes.

Spike Milligan's letters contain some of the best material he ever wrote . . . Collected here for the first time are the funniest, rudest and most revealing of them - most of which have never been seen before - from one of the greatest comics of the twentieth century to some of its most famous politicians, actors, celebrities and rock stars (as well as a host of unlikely individuals on some surprising subjects): - rounded teabags ('what did you do with the corners?') - backless hospital gowns ('beyond my comprehension') - heartfelt apologies ('pardon me for being alive') and the imbalance of male and female ducks in London's parks. Here, then, is the real Spike Miligan: obsessive, rude, generous and relentlessly witty. 'Milligan's zaniness shines through' Telegraph 'The godfather of alternative comedy' Eddie Izzard Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

A Man of Letters traces the life, career, and commentaries on controversial issues of Thomas Sowell over a period of more than four decades through his letters to and from family, friends, and public figures ranging from Milton Friedman to Clarence Thomas, David Riesman, Arthur Ashe, William Proxmire, Vernon Jordan, Charles Murray, Shelby Steele, and Condoleezza Rice. These letters begin with Sowell as a graduate student at the University of Chicago in 1960 and conclude with a reflective letter to his fellow economist and longtime friend Walter Williams in 2005.

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, after decades of intense upheaval and debate, the role of the citizen was seen as largely political. But as Catherine O'Donnell Kaplan reveals, some Americans saw a need for a realm of public men outside politics. They believed that neither the nation nor they themselves could achieve virtue and happiness through politics alone. Imagining a different kind of citizenship, they founded periodicals, circulated manuscripts, and conversed about poetry, art, and the nature of man. They pondered William Godwin and Edmund Burke more carefully than they did candidates for local elections and insisted other Americans should do so as well. Kaplan looks at three groups in particular: the Friendly Club in New York City, which revolved around Elihu Hubbard Smith, with collaborators such as William Dunlap and Charles Brockden Brown; the circle around Joseph Dennie, editor of two highly successful periodicals; and the Anthologists of the Boston Athenaeum. Through these groups, Kaplan demonstrates, an enduring and influential model of the man of letters emerged in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

V. S. Pritchett is widely - and justly - regarded not only as one of the finest short story writers of this century, but as a critic and essayist of astonishing range, perception and originality. Combining an unpretentious common sense with a rare genius for the illuminating insight into the familiar and the neglected alike, his criticism is all the more valuable in an age in which the study of literature has become increasingly arid and arcane; and unlike so many of his academic counterparts, V. S. Pritchett has always had a remarkable ability to epitomise a writer's work - and convey his own enthusiasm for it - within the compass of a short and eminently accessible essay. First published in 1985, A Man of Letters brings together a selection of his finest and most representative work from the past forty years, ranging from Smollett and Peacock to Evelyn Waugh and Cyril Connolly, from Henry James and Nathanael West to Stendhal and Proust, from Nabokov and Machado de Assis to Manzoni and Dostoevsky. This wise and sparkling collection is, in itself, a lasting tribute to one of the greatest Men of Letters of our time.

The name Erasmus of Rotterdam conjures up a golden age of scholarly integrity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, when learning could command public admiration without the need for authorial self-promotion. Lisa Jardine, however, shows that Erasmus self-consciously created his own reputation as the central figure of the European intellectual world. Erasmus himself—the historical as opposed to the figural individual—was a brilliant, maverick innovator, who achieved little formal academic recognition in his own lifetime. What Jardine offers here is not only a fascinating study of Erasmus but also a bold account of a key moment in Western history, a time when it first became possible to believe in the existence of something that could be designated "European thought."

Aldous Huxley: The Political Thought of a Man of Letters argues that Huxley is not a man of letters engaged in politics, but a political thinker who chooses literature to spread his ideas. His preference for the dystopian genre is due to his belief in the tremendous impact of dystopia on twentieth-century political thought. His political thinking is not systematic, but this does not stop his analysis from supplying elements that are original and up-to-date, and that represent fascinating contributions of political theory in all the spheres that he examines from anti-Marxism to anti-positivism, from political realism to elitism, from criticism of mass society to criticism of totalitarianism, from criticism of ideologies to the future of liberal democracy, from pacifism to ecological communitarianism. Huxley clearly grasped the unsolved issues of contemporary liberalism, and the importance of his influence on many twentieth-century and present-day political thinkers ensures that his ideas remain indispensable in the current liberal-democratic debate. Brave New World is without doubt Huxley’s most successful political manifesto. While examining the impassioned struggle for the development of all human potentialities, it yet manages not to close the doors definitively on the rebirth of utopia in the age of dystopia.

The "world of letters" has always seemed a matter more of metaphor than of global reality. In this book, Pascale Casanova shows us the state of world literature behind the stylistic refinements--a world of letters relatively independent from economic and political realms, and in which language systems, aesthetic orders, and genres struggle for dominance. Rejecting facile talk of globalization, with its suggestion of a happy literary "melting pot," Casanova exposes an emerging regime of inequality in the world of letters, where minor languages and literatures are subject to the invisible but implacable violence of their dominant counterparts. Inspired by the writings of Fernand Braudel and Pierre Bourdieu, this ambitious book develops the first systematic model for understanding the production, circulation, and valuing of literature worldwide. Casanova proposes a baseline from which we might measure the newness and modernity of the world of letters--the literary equivalent of the meridian at Greenwich. She argues for the importance of literary capital and its role in giving value and legitimacy to nations in their incessant struggle for international power. Within her overarching theory, Casanova locates three main periods in the genesis of world literature--Latin, French, and German--and closely examines three towering figures in the world republic of letters--Kafka, Joyce, and Faulkner. Her work provides a rich and surprising view of the political struggles of our modern world--one framed by sites of publication, circulation, translation, and efforts at literary annexation.