Clarence C. Strowbridge

My thanks goes to Dover Publications for the ARC via NetGalley.

This anthology is exactly what it purports to be - a collection of short fiction written by well-known and slightly lesser-known female literary figures. The stories are entertaining and accessible, of various genres and complexity, and the very short introductions at the beginning of each do a good job placing the works and their authors in the context of the larger picture. It is an altogether brilliant method of sampling the work of writer and deciding whether to research her further, and it goes a lot way towards parting the curtains of time and blowing the dust off a significant, but unfortunately neglected part of literary achievement. The fact that this bears repeating in our so-called modern society is sad, but women can write, have written, and continue to write a lot and continue to write well, and deserve anthologies of their own, especially since they live in a world where their work is often looked down upon, elbowed out of collections and left to gather cobwebs.
An additional thing of note is that we are talking about the art of the short story, in its own way neglected in favour of the novel, so I wonder if it would be too much to say that this anthology focuses on a special kind of literary intersectionality.
Aimed at academic and general audiences alike, the collection covers a time-span of about one hundred years.
… (meer)

100 Favorite English and Irish Poems is a rare find. An inexpensive book that sticks to, and I think accomplishes, its goal - to provide a starting point for exploring English and Irish poetry. No more; no less. The poems are arranged chronologically based on the individual author's birth year. There is a brief explanation of each author's inspiration for the selected poems, and a little information about author themselves.

Aside from 2 or 3 days in second grade when my teacher taught the class about haiku, none of my K through 12th grade teachers saw fit to have their students study poetry. I did not take any poetry classes in college. For me, with no foundation in poetry, this book is a good start. Very limited, with a very narrow focus, but a starting point. I know that the selection of poetry, and poets, in this book is an infinitesimal representation of the world of poetry, and poets.

I'd like to see Dover publish a "Favorite Poems" series that covers many more cultures, and ethnicities.… (meer)