My Dear Mother: Stormy Boastful, and Tender Letters By Distinguished Sons--From Dostoevsky to Elvis - Softcover

Gordon, Karen Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156512121X ISBN 13: 9781565121218

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1997

Synopsis

This fascinating collection of letters between sons and mothers offers an intimate and unexpected glimpse into the mind and heart of the artist. Here are letters by over fifty writers, painters, and musicians, from boyhood to manhood--including Elvis Presley, Ezra Pound, E. B. White, Paul Cezanne, Henry James, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Richard Wagner, Victor Hugo, Jean Cocteau, Tennessee WIlliams, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

About this title

About the Author:

Karen Elizabeth Gordon is the author of seven books, including her mischievous language handbooks The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, The New Well-Tempered Sentence, and Torn Wings and Faux Pas. She divides her time between California and France.

From Library Journal:

Gordon (The Transitive Vampire, Times Bks., 1984) and freelance journalist Johnson have assembled a collection of letters home by writers whose common bond is fame. Contributors include inter alios Gustave Mahler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jack Kerouac, Paul Klee, and Elvis Presley. The letters range from the banal ("I am sending you my dirty laundry," Gustave Courbet) to William Faulkner's lovely description of the Luxembourg Gardens and Toulouse-Lautrec's charming letter to his aunt's dog on the birth of a new litter. The letters are grouped according to the age of the writer, from youth to maturity. The collection contains a sprinkling of missives from mothers to their sons, including some of the most interesting ones in the book, e.g., Sarah Bernhardt's description of a boat trip to South America and Jeanne Proust's observations of English tourists in the Louvre. Not a scholarly production aimed at revealing the actual relationships between the men and their mothers, it is a diverting but insubstantial selection of letters penned by the famous. Recommended for public libraries.?Caroline A. Mitchell, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 156512121X
• ISBN 13: 9781565121218
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232