The Oxford Book of the Sea (Oxford Books of Prose) Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Oxford Book of the Sea (Oxford Books of Prose) Book

Jonathan Raban's anthology The Oxford Book of the Sea is just that: a collection of writings about the sea--not about voyages or naval battles, or fishing or swimming, but rather passages that define the water itself. Open the book to any page and you'll find descriptions of the sea in all its infinite variability. Benjamin Franklin writes: "The water is now visibly changed.... Abundance of dolphins are about us...;" H.M. Tomlinson describes a storm thus: "In the early afternoon the waves had assumed serious proportions. They soared by us in broad, somber ranges, with hissing white ridges, an inhospitable and subduing sight." Even Jane Austen has something to say about the sea: "The terrific grandeur of the ocean in a storm, its glassy surface in a calm, its gulls and its samphire, and the deep fathoms of its abysses, its quick vicissitudes, its direful deceptions..." Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and John Milton are just a few of the contributors to this magnificent paean to the sea. This is a book meant to be sampled and savored in small bites. Read a poem here, a letter there, an excerpt from David Copperfield or Rabbit at Rest, or a few lines from a diary entry. The collection spans nearly 1,000 years of the English-speaking world's experience of the sea; in all that time it has lost none of its power to enchant, inspire, and terrify. The Oxford Book of the Sea is a terrific read for seafarers and landlubbers alike.Read More

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  • Product Description

    The sea has served as a source of inspiration for writers throughout the ages. Now, in The Oxford Book of the Sea, bestselling author Jonathan Raban has compiled a remarkable anthology of our changing visions of the sea, a rich treasury of writings as varied and enthralling as the ocean itself. Arranged chronologically, and spanning everything from Anglo-Saxon poetry to modern oceanography, these excerpts capture the work of poets, novelists, scientists, and explorers. We read pieces from Samuel Eliot Morison, James Boswell, Charles Dickens, Rachel Carson, Charles Darwin, and John Barth, among many others. And for those who love great writing, Raban not only includes passages from the great sea classics--such as Moby Dick, and The Old Man and the Sea--but also lesser known gems by such writers as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, E.B. White, and Emily Dickinson. For everyone interested in the sea, and those drawn to fine writing, The Oxford Book of the Sea is a bountiful, alluring, and essential collection.

  • 0192801945
  • 9780192801944
  • Jonathan Raban
  • 20 September 2001
  • Oxford University Press
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 544
  • New edition
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