As the title suggests, this book concerns the art and life of the world's only "American Linear Impressionist", Lilian Westcott Hale. Born in Connecticut in 1881, Hale was educated primarily at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lived for many years in nearby Dedham, moving to Charlottesville, Virginia after the death of her beloved educator, art critic, author, and painter husband, Philip Leslie Hale. A woman, Hale far outpaced the success of many men, including her husband. During her early decades of activity, Hale garnered innumerable naational awards, accolades, and prizes, and international acclaim for her oil portraits of children, women in interiors, and charcoal sketches of snowy landscpes, all created in an Impressionist style utilizing only vertical strokes. Hale was the originator and sole practitioner of a technique which paradoxically used line in an Impressionist manner. While her classic art fell out of favor during the Modernist 1940s and later, it is now once again very much in vogue. My relationship with the artist's only child, her daughter, Nancy, was of immeasurable assistance in the production of this book. Diane Elizabeth Kelleher Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 2013.

The lessons of love are universal. This is the message that shines brightly in this specific tale of feline enamourment. Anyone, and everyone, who has ever loved and lost a pet will enjoy this true, autobiographical story about love and loss and the recovery of the loving spirit. After the death of her beloved Charlie, Lizzie is heart-broken. Yet, as she finds the will to open her heart again, this time to a new feline companion who desperately needs a nice home, she finds that love and happiness triumph.

Regarding William Faulkner’s novel, Light in August, the majority of critics view Lena Grove as an insignificant character. It is the intent of this thesis to right the discourse by showing that Lena Grove is a major figure: generally, symbolically, and when considered in her role as a literary device. Generally, Lena Grove functions as an eccentric individual and a Southern folk figure; symbolically she has become a pagan fertility goddess, an “opposite equal” to Joanna Burden, and a Persephone-Kore figure. As a literary device she comprises the entity who most closely offers us a set of “horizons of expectations” closest to a straightforward linear plotline. Even when we are in the “deconstructed” phases of her plotline, that is, embroiled in the construction of one of the other three plotlines, that of Joe Christmas, Byron Bunch or Reverend Gail Hightower, we consistently think of Lena Grove and wonder where she is in her journey across the South and her journey through life. In Light in August, in her own unique manner, Lena Grove is a major figure - ever present.

Innovative and yet traditional, Laura Coombs Hills (1859-1952) was renowned for both her miniatures on ivory and, later, her pastels of flowers. “Queen of Miniature Painters”, “...a veritable John Singer Sargent of miniature painting” and “Dean of Flower Pastels” were merely some of the many accolades ascribed to this New England artist. However, Hills’ accomplishments and contributions to America’s art historical culture entailed so much more. Sense, Sensibility and Sensation: The Marvelous Miniatures and Perfect Pastels of Laura Coombs Hills, America’s Lyrical Impressionist was conceived and written as an atypical art history book to better explore Hills’ many contributions to American culture, with a view toward a broader understanding of Hill’s ethos. Beyond the presentation of her unique, biographical history as an independent, woman-entrepreneur, this book explores Hill’s role in perpetuating a sense of individualism associated more closely with the concepts of home, hearth, and honor of the nineteenth century than the psychological anomie associated with the Modernism of the twentieth, - her own time. In addition, on the pages of this book will be found relevant discussions regarding Hills’ ties to Sense, Sensibility and Sensation, that is, to the idea of individualism associated with nineteenth century miniatures and Walt Whitman’s celebration of America; the notion of beauty associated with Contemplative Romanticism espoused by Edmund Burke; the sentiments of the “Romance poets” (Lord Byron and Percy B. Shelley); as well as the nineteenth century color theories of Michel Chevreul favored by the Impressionists. Moreover, notions of “democratic empiricism”, “aesthetic lyricism”, and Hills’ passion for “symphonic colors” – are all contributory factors which help to identity Laura Coombs Hills as what I have termed “America’s Lyrical Impressionist”.

As the title suggests, this book concerns the art and life of the world's only "American Linear Impressionist", Lilian Westcott Hale. Born in Connecticut in 1881, Hale was educated primarily at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lived for many years in nearby Dedham, moving to Charlottesville, Virginnia after the death of her beloved educator, art critic, author, and painter husband, Philip Leslie Hale. A woman, Hale far outpaced the success of many men, including her husband. During her early decades of activity, Hale garnered innumerable national awards, accolades, and prizes, and international acclaim for her oil portraits of children, women in interiors, and charoal sketches of snowy landscapes, all created in an Impressionist style utilizing only vertical strokes. Hale was the originator and sole practitioner of a technique which paradoxically used line in an Impressionist manner. While her classic art fell out of favor during the Modernist 1940s, it is now once again very much in vogue.

Presents extended reviews of noteworthy books, short reviews, essays and articles on topics and trends in publishing, literature, culture and the arts. Includes lists of best sellers (hardcover and paperback).