The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere - Hardcover

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1929766130 ISBN 13: 9781929766130

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2001

Synopsis

In his magnificent interpretation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow s poem, Christopher Bing seamlessly weaves history and imagination into a rich portrait of an American hero. A meticulous researcher, Bing includes material that provides texture to history, maps that follow the British campaign to quell the rebellious citizenry, as well as the patriot s ride into the Massachusetts night of April, 1775. Documents firmly affixed into the book, including the British general s orders to his troops and Revere s own deposition relating the events, give the reader not only a visual experience but a tactile one as well. Far more than a brilliantly presented history lesson, this book represents a tour de force of coherent artistic vision. In an extraordinary series of rich and moody engravings, from the mysteriously shimmering rigging of the British sloop, The Somerset, looming in a moonlit Boston harbor to the taut urgency of a man and his horse galloping at a combustible moment in the American experience, this book illuminates our country s past unlike any other.

About this title

About the Author:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), a professor of French and Spanish at Harvard University, was one of the first American academics to have a truly global interest in literature. He became convinced that America was in need of its own mythology, poeti

Christopher Bing, whose first book, "Casey at the Bat," was named a 2001 Caldecott Honor Book, lives with his wife and three children in Lexington, Massachusetts, in a house directly on the Freedom Trail, the route on which Paul Revere rod

From Publishers Weekly:

Bing (Casey at the Bat) once again brings his love of history and attention to detail to bear in Longfellow's classic poem. Even before the famous opening lines ("Listen, my children, and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere"), he is busily setting the stage with period window dressing, including faux marbled endpapers cluttered with what looks like original documents (letters that open with an authentic-looking wax seal, newspaper accounts, etc.) plus a variety of found objects, from antique spectacles to a quill pen, seamlessly integrated with the aid of 21st-century technology. He presents the text itself on pages that appear yellowed with age. Pen-and-ink drawings on scratchboard, resembling period engravings, are washed with color cool midnight blues warmed by the glow of candlelight and brightened by the silvery light of the moon. Bing employs the poem's inherent drama. The stanza beginning "Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,/ Wanders and watches, with eager ears," for instance, finds the lamplighter flattened against the corner of a house as he spies on the British grenadiers. If a few of the spreads are difficult to distinguish (e.g., "The shadowy something far away,/ Where the river widens to meet the bay" that triggers the lamplighter's signal cannot be deciphered, for instance, and it is hard to tell that there's a "second lamp in the belfry"), aspiring historians will overlook them in favor of the cornucopia of relevant facts incorporated into the endpapers including Revere's original deposition to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. For more sophisticated youngsters, Bing's impressive volume helps tell the tale of what happened that April night in 1775. Ages 7-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1929766130
• ISBN 13: 9781929766130
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Bing Christopher