Captain Marryat's "THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW FOREST" is a wonderful tale in narrative, historically rich and quite fascinating. This story of adventure, treachery, and love takes place during the English Civil War, when fellow countrymen are found enemies, and are set against each other, Roundhead and Cavalier, Parliament and the King. Many hoped for the same thing: justice. But, for a long time, neither could find it. In the midst of all were the Beverlies, the family of a faithful Cavalier, who died in service of the king. His four children were left orphaned when their mother died of grief. Then, word came to them that the Roundheads were going to burn down their estate, Arnwood. Fate sent them into the hands of an old forester, Jacob Armitage, and they escaped to his cottage. From there, the story unfolds. It is a classic worthy of shelving in libraries, in private or in public collections, recommended by many educators, and by me, with all due praise.

The Children of the new forest is a brilliant insight into what england was like in the 15th century. It tells how four wealthy children are without warning suddenly plunged into poverty, when the roundheads fire their house looking for the king. It tells how the heir of the burnt house and his brother and sisters strive to become what they should have been without the roundheads. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get hooked on something, but is not too hard. It is an excellent book to learn from and look at carefully, and is gripping to the very end.

This is a unique book with a quality and style that is timeless. True classic that every child would greatly benefit from reading.

William Roughead's accounts of great crimes from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland and England are about the most delicious mind candy I can think of; I opened this new edition from NYRB and almost couldn't put it down. While his vocabulary and style at times go a bit overboard in terms of their purpleness, he still presents very readable and exciting accounts of some incredible crimes which still haunt the popular imagination today (such as his account of the West Port murders of Burke and Hare, the body snatchers).

Re-issuing Roughead's work is really a feather in NYRB's cap, and yet I can't help wishing they had taken more pains with this edition. (Because of this, I felt I could not really offer it the five stars it otherwise would've deserved.) The introduction by Luc Sante is interesting, but not without errors: he notes that all of the crimes excepting those of Burke and Hare "are discoveries [on the part of Roughead]"; yet Roughead himself admits that Deacon Brodie's case has been dramatized many times, and inspired Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Madeleine Smith's trial inspired a film, "Madeleine," directed by David Lean in the 1950s. Similarly, no editor seems to have taken the time to annotate some of Roughead's more bizarre (or anachronistic, or peculiarly Scottish) terms: "douce" is used repeatedly for "sweet", and "lands" (apparently a term for the highrise towers in Edinburgh) recurs often too, yet there's nary a word of explanation. This lack of editorial interference is not welcome, especially since Roughead often refers repeatedly to other writings of his which his original audience would have recognized but which remain obscure to a contemporary reader.

Still, this book is a real treasure--and, as with all NYRB books, it comes on beautiful paper and with a gorgeous cover.

Simply put, William Roughead was and is the greatest true crime writer of them all. Combining unusually supple storytelling talents with an inimitable, pawky sense of humor, he remains the best prose stylist chronicling human depravity since, well, the compilers of the King James Bible. A Scot by birth, Roughead became a Writer to the Signet at the turn of the last century, a privileged position which allowed him to attend and write up the great murder trials of his day and his favorites from Great Britain's colorfully criminous past. Almost all of his works are shamefully out of print but are well worth searching out in used book stores: both his own popular accounts and his contributions to the more formally edited "Notable British Trials" series. Henry James was one of his many besotted fans, and even the briefest sample of his work makes it obvious why true crime buffs consider him the Master. "Classic Crimes" (which includes chapters on Deacon Brodie, Burke and Hare, Madeleine Smith, Dr. Pritchard and other irresistible villains) is the best collection of his work, and I would be remiss if I did not own that my introduction to his peerless work came via Toni Morrison, who confessed her own idolatrous admiration in the New York Times Book Review some two decades ago. If you like Roughead, you'll never be able to get enough. As Luc Sante writers in his perceptive introduction to this latest reprint, Roughead repeatedly creates narratives which contain "in full that collision of placid, well-furnished pedantry with savage howling atavism" that was the keynote of his fascination with evil--and Roughead did believe in evil--people. More of his genius is avalable on display in "Twelve Scots Trials," available from Amazon. co.uk. As Roughead so eloquently put it: "Murder has a magic of its own, its peculair alchemy. Touched by that crimson wand, things base and sordid, things ugly and of ill report, are transformed into matters wondrous, weird and tragical. Dull streets become fraught with mystery, commonplace dwellings assume sinister aspects, everyone concerned, howsoever plain and ordinary, is invested with a new value and importance as the red light fall upon each."

Simply put, William Roughead was and is the greatest true crime writer of them all. Combining a supple prose style with an inimitable, pawky sense of humor, he remains the best prose stylist chronicling human depravity since, well, the authors of the King James Bible. A Scot by birth, Roughead became a Writer to the Signet, a privileged position which allowed him to attend and write up the great murder trials of his era (1870-1952). His works are shamefully out of print and are well worth searching out in used book stores: both his commercial collections and his contributions to the "Notable British Trials" series. Henry James was one of his many devoted fans and even the briefest sample of his prose makes it obvious why true-crime buffs consider him the master. "Classic Crimes"(which includes chapters on Deacon Brodie, Burke and Hare, Madeleine Smith, Dr. Pritchard, William Palmer, etc.) is the best collection of his work in print and I would be remiss if I did not mention that I owe my introduction to this peerless writer to Toni Morrison, who confessed her own idolatrous admiration in a New York Times Book Review piece more than 20 years ago. If you like his stuff you'll never be able to get enough of it. (Also worth securing are the works of Roughead's friend, the American Edmund Pearson, whose "Studies in Murder" was reprinted last last by the Ohio State University Press.) As Roughead so eloquently put it: "Murder has a magic of its own, its peculiar alchemy. Touched by that crimson wand, things base and sordid, things ugly and of ill report, are transformed into matters wondrous, weird and tragical. Dull streets become fraught with mystery, commonplace dwellings assume sinister aspects, everyone concerned, howsoever plain and ordinary, is invested with a new value and importance as the red light falls upon each."

This book is a good read. I have heard that there is a sequal coming (due for release Dec 1996????). Highly recomende

"A LIKELY STORY", by Guy Clapshaw Merlin Books, LTD, Braunton, Devon, England, 1995 ISBN 0 86303 692-9 Here's a great autumn read for the aeronautically inclined. Air New Zealand senior captain Guy Clapshaw relates in these hilarious 389 pages how his career progressed from 1940's British schoolboy aerodelling and obsession with night fighters in the Battle of Britain to RAF flight training (of a sort known then) and his long career in aviation spanning the globe and over thirty-five years. Captain Clapshaw is a storyteller among the very best in the field of aviation, without the darkness of some...more like an autobiographical "And there I was flat on my back..." only better than perhaps you can imagine. Full of living detail of life in early 1960s Britain, 1970s New Zealand and the culture of the times as well as the unforgettable aviators, businessmen and bureaucrats. And the planes. Earnest Gann, only without the tragedy...this is 'high' COMEDY. These are REALLY funny episodes, one after another..not always so "politically correct" (Noooobody expects a cultural revolution heh heh heh!) and you must keep your seatbelt fastened at all times when reading or even thinking about it...no wonder he wrote a book! I met Guy Clapshaw in 1996 when he layed over in Japan on an ANZ charter, and we flew my rubber powered Comet B-26 together in the Tsutzumigaoka airfield ruins near my home. (Before the new road went in.) It had some trim problem and after trying everything he sagely suggested launching downwind...worked like a charm! The old schoolboy aeromodeller, forever. I know as a fact that he has a Diels Dornier Pfiel, TA-152 and Lavochkin, among many other FF and other scale models. Try it, you'll like it.

an enjoyable tale from begining to end. if you like the english style of humor and flying/aircraft, you'll love this book. I hope the sequel is in the works.

Although it follows his award-winning work, Deep Play, it cannot be described as a sequel. The Totem Pole is an account of a singular event in the author's life: a climbing accident in Australia that resulted in brain damage and partial paralysis. His rehabilitation is marked by the frightening uncertainty of how much (or how little) progress he will make. Climbing had been the essence of his life, and now no one can tell him if and when he will ever climb again.For an early dropout from school (at his father's urging), Pritchard has an amazing writing talent. "Deep Play" showed signs of his ability, but "The Totem Pole" brings Pritchard's talent to full flower.The only disappointment in the book is the middle section, where he switches from his narrative to a transcription of a taped diary made during his rehabilitation. The transcripts are a noticeable dropoff in the writing, but help reveal the inspired level with which the book begins and ends.A standout in the genre of climbing books, Joe Simpson fans will not be disappointed.

The Totem Pole is an heroic tale of the human spirit in overcoming horrific trauma, told with complete candor, considerable insight, and an ultimate triumphal joy. The Totem Pole is highly recommended, inspiring reading.

This is the story of a man who was at the pinnacle of his career in the morning, and in the afternoon was lapsing in and out of consciousness, fighting for his life on a sea-swept ledge on a remote Tasmanian sea stack. The account follows the events of that Friday 13th an subsequent memories of the Tasmanian hospital, journey home, and painful experiences during rehabilitation in Clatterbridge.

The whole story ebbs and flows wildly with emotion, and you can only wonder at Pritchard's strength of character, and marvel at his ability to tell his story in such a clear manner.

See also (...)for further details of Pritchard's experiences.

Sometimes, history is written by but a handful of individuals; that certainly was the case with the first British settlements in Australia. The term "Empire" is to some extent misleading, in that it gives an exaggerated idea of monolitihic power: the totality of the resources that the British Empire had committed to colonizing Australia in 1789 were a few decrepit ships laden with convict women and supplies, and a ragged band of half-starved colonists left on the Australian coast for over a year without any contact with the rest of the world. Sian Rees vividly evokes the vastness of the oceans separating these early settler ships from their homeland and from each other as they traveled the high seas, not encountering a soul for weeks or months at a time, and lets the reader feel the isolation of the early colonists - those on the second ship, wondering if there was even still a settlement in Australia to be reached, and those already on land, wondering if the promised relief from Great Britain would ever arrive, or if the authorities in London had forsaken them.

Unfortunately, while this book succeeds in giving one a better understanding of the general process surrounding British colonization of Australia, and the many hardships involved, this was not its primary goal and otherwise I found it lacking. It is not precisely, as the cover claims, "the true story" of the ship and its convict women, since none of the women left any written record at all of their experience. It is rather a mixture of the women's names and the crimes they were convicted of (gleaned from London criminal records) braided together with an assortment of facts from contemporary travellers' accounts, sailors' reminiscences, and other source material which gives the flavor of the period but does not directly relate to the story of the ship and its women. Far, far too many times, Sian Rees resorts to phrases including "it is possible that..." or "must have been" or "would have started" or "presumably" or "probably"... Rees does rely heavily on the published memoirs of John Nicol, a sailor on the Lady Julian; her reliance on Nicol makes it all the more jarring that she freely dismisses him whenever his memoirs contradict her assumptions, as when after quoting him dozens of times she dismisses his memory of a particular incident saying "this was in memoirs written when he was an old man, which are inaccurate in other details."

I really wanted to like this book, and the author is to be commended for trying to rescue the forgotten story of the female convicts. But this is light reading, not rigorous history, and where the documentary sources just aren't there she might have done better to write a historical novel and fictionalize freely rather than build a "non-fiction" book out of a tapestry of conditional statements.

In the foreward to this engaging narrative, Ms. Rees informs us that "when the American colonies defeated British soldiers and tax collectors, they also stopped accepting British criminals. By 1783, therefore, Britain had to find somewhere else in the world to transport its criminals." Australia was the place. Just as Jamestown, the early colony in Virginia, needed an infusion of marriageable women to allow it to grow (one of the three events of the red-letter year, 1619, was the arrival of a shipload of unmarried women), so would the penal colony in Sydney Cove.

Beginning with a description of the "crimes" for which women were sentenced to capital punishment and proceeding through the trials, prison conditions, and alternate punishment of banishment, Ms. Rees traces the voyage of the first group of women convicts to Australia. From the onset, she admits that her primary sources are limited and one, the diary of one of the crew of the Lady Julian, is somewhat doubtful because it was written so long after the fact. Even so, she has pulled together court records, contemporary British accounts of prison conditions, accounts of later voyages and other sources into a very impressive piece of research, and a very readable story.

In particular, her accounts of ship-board births, the pecking order among the female prisoners, the rights the crew assumed (both for sexual favors and for selling them in the ports of call) are fascinating reading.

An exquisitely penned and thoughtfully researched account of life in post-Revolutionary War England.

The horrific means of coping with an over-populated society included shipping women convicts to the Austrailian colonies for "crimes" ranging from hankerchief theft to manslaughter.

Disregard the title's implications. This book is a gripping account of how more than 200 women and children survived a ghastly voyage and how many emerged as heroines.

It's one of those books you don't want to end and will contemplate long after the last page is read.

Naturally, a detailed history of the English speaking peoples would take a great many volumes, more than the 4 in Churchill's work. Not surprisingly, it's a little sparse in detail in some places. This is not generally a problem, since details about politics and battles from the 12th century are not well documented anyways. This work does an admirable job hitting the highlights, and it is very easy to read. It is logically set out, with some maps (I would have liked more) to help clarify certain situations.

I especially liked the earliest two volumes. While they cover the most ground in terms of years (and are therefore the least detailed), they cover the time that most people know the least about. Thus, it was almost like hearing the stories for the first time (or, at least, unfiltered through the words of Shakespeare).

There are some questionable choices of material, however. For instance, the French revolution is covered in detail. While an important event, it did not happen to English people directly - a statement of the results and the reaction in England would have sufficed. Contrast this with the very sparse (2 pages, I think) coverage of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1746 - this was a major event for the Scottish nation (at least, for the Highlands), and does not receive appropriate consideration. There are numerous other instances of questionable emphasis - virtually nothing is said of the colonisation of America until the American Revolution, and Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are only mentioned when in conflict with England. Are they not also "English Speaking People"?

These are minor flaws, however. All in all, I recommend picking it up if you see it in a used bookstore somewhere. It doesn't have the personal feel of Churchill's "Second World War" set, but it is a fascinating and enjoyable romp through the ages.

This is an EXCELLENT book. With his fine writing skills, Churchill teaches nearly 1,000 years of history in an educated, interesting, moving, suspenseful, and even entertaining manner. He also offers beautiful photographs of certain historical figures. One thing he does very well is that he gives a scholarly view of historical figures (like King Henry VIII) who are subjected to harsh and inaccurate views. My only complaint about this book is that he speeds over some things that should have been given more attention. (Just make sure this is not your only book on the subject.) If I was teaching history, I would most probably have my students buy this. Letting this book go out of print (in my opinion) was a MAJOR MISTAKE!

I have read and interviewed 86 authors (of every genre possible) for our Library radio station WYPL here in Memphis since the inception of our 'Book Talk' program in 1993. Unfortunately it was never my good fortune to know or talk to Prime Minister Churchill. I first read "The History of The English Speaking Peoples" as a young man shortly after WWII. The physical reading of this monumental work is an excercise in sheer pleasure as you are dealing with not only a word merchant without peer but one of the greatest intellects of the twentieth century. If you want to see your English Language used at its most agreeable consonance, but straight to the point like a rapier, then understand that Churchill is probably the best example we have had since the Bard. Churchill hadn't the time to do the background research for the four volumes so his staff did it for him. They gave him their notes daily and this amazing man dictated every word to his secretary. If you write, as I do, you understand this MO as a nearly impossible feat -- and in view of the quality of his thougthts and his writing -- a stupendous task. Originally a set of four (and very expensive now if you were fortunate enough to find them) they have now been combined into one large book which you still have trouble finding. I bought this one for my nephew as a result of a conversation he and I had had about the 'package' of 'rights' that each of us here in the United States enjoys as (we think) our entitlement. In the first three hundred pages alone Mr. Churchill traces back, in lucid, electric prose, the history of British Common law for nearly two thousand years and shows us how that protective mantel was drawn over us thread by thread, piece by piece and step by step. The rest of the book is full of the cultural protein of the politics of time -- but I warn you, you must be careful reading this work. Mr. Churchill is addictive and he has about twenty thousand other pages out there just as meaty. Rus Morgan author of "Blackberries Got No Thorns", "The Voodoo Vortex" and "Luci".

Michael Bell's Food For The Dead is not only a great book about American history and folklore, it is a very entertaining read as well. Though a non-ficition book, it does not fall victim to an overought style like most books in the genre can. Bell's writing is very easy to read and very informative. He does not shy away from the truth and always gives his opinions (and justifies them!).

Bell investigated (for nearly 20 years) the vampire legend which began in New England (and still exists there) starting in the late 1600s. It seemed that people believed that the consumption, a deadly desease at the time, was caused by vampires. Bell takes many scenarios and cases he has found throughout New England and investigates them, trying to explain the origin of the legend as well as its outcome.

The book lags a little when Bell tries to link the whole phenomenon with popular myth. This vampire legend differs greatly from the Dracula legend we are used to these days. These vampires are not night-walkers and blood sucking fiends, they kill from their grave! His short lesson in pop culture history is a little too long and a little too obvious for my taste.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a great lesson in history and in American folklore. This is one book that I will want to come back to again and again. This is one of the rare non-fiction book about vampires which does make sense and which does take the reader somewhere we haven't been before. It offered me something new and different, which is rare in this day and age. And for that, Bell's Food For The Dead deserve to stand on a high pedestal on top of all the other paranormal/non-fiction books out there.

In "Food for the Dead" folklorist Michael Bell brings to life tales of terror based on events that took place long ago in the rural cemeteries of New England.
Bell writes of evil spirits and vampires with candor, explaining why bodies were exhumed by rural folk in desperate attempts to thwart the ancient plague of tuberculosis. His style is scholarly without being pondereous. Down to earth, if you'll pardon a pun.
Stories of digging up bodies, removing and burning hearts are well documented. But what would lead ordinary folk to such drastic remedies? Tape recorder and camera in hand, Bell has traveled the back roads of Rhode Island, Connecticutt, New Hampshire and Vermont for 20 years seeking answers to that question.
In the first chapter Bell introduces his readers to Lewis Everett Peck, a descendant of Mercy Brown, whose grave was opened on March 17, 1892, in the hamlet of Exeter, Rhode Island. Peck tells in graphic detail how Mercy's body had turned over in the casket, how her heart still had blood in it and how her heart was burned and the ashes fed to her consumptive brother, Edwin.
Nowhere in Peck's story is Mercy identified as a vampire. But the gruesome details are accurate. And of such fabric are folk tales woven.
With the skill of a practiced story teller Bell soon makes his readers comfortable with his grisly subject. One trail leads to another as he connects first with Mercy, then with Nellie Vaughn, Nancy Young and the Tillinghast and Rose families. He uses newspaper files, countless interviews, family and church histories to build his case.
That bodies were exhumed and corpses mutilated is without question. But why resort to such extremes? Why give credence to ghosts and evil spirits? Bell offers one opinion with these words: "We derive comfort from giving tangible form to phenomena beyond our understanding...By personifying death and disease, we can more easily identify, objectify and perhaps forestall one and eradicate the other."
Did vampires once prey upon innocent country folk? You'll have to read Bell's book "Food for the Dead -- On the Trail of New England's Vampires."
(Carroll & Graf, 337 pp.)

Wow! Next to "Vampires, Burial and Death," probably the best non-speculative look at "real" vampires I've read.
They didn't use the word "vampire" back in the day. The ritual (described in detail by Michael Bell) for the treatment of consumption involved a little bit of exhumation, perhaps some dismemberment, maybe some cannibalism, stuff like that. Today, it would be tough to imagine your entire family dying one by one, and a local elder saying, "Hey, if you dig up Betsy, the first one who died, you may be able to save the rest of your family. Here's how ..."
The most interesting aspect of this book is that it gives an indirect sampling of what folklorists actually do. All the research, detective work, footwork and interviewing seems a lot more substantial than just collecting urban legends or whatever. Buy it!

This is a history of Anglo-Saxon medicine and medical knowledge. In so far that that knowledge of healing herbs and techniques was considered quasi-magical in Anglo-Saxon times rather than being understood as an applied science or as a kind of philosophy, I suppose there is some connection to the history of witchcraft as the reviewer below suggests. And, in fact, Pollington does touch on the subject of pre-Christian Germanic religion and the role of healers in it (which can be considered witchcraft, if one wants to use that term broadly). Still, on the whole, this is really a book about the history of science and medicine, and readers should expect that *that* is the primary focus.

The basic organization of the book is cyclopaedic. It is not so much a survey of Anglo-Saxon healing knowledge or techniques, or a scholarly analysis thereof, as a catalog of sources that provide information on Anglo-Saxon healing knowledge. Several of these works are actually reproduced in full, in both Old English and modern English, while others merely have detailed quoted excerpts. There is little to no commentary on the contents of these works-- they are simply presented for the reader to examine.

What little analysis/discussion there is takes place in the opening chapter, which addresses questions of knowledge sources (e.g. how much Anglo-Saxon healing knowledge came from classical sources, how much from biblical/Christian sources, and how much from native folk medicine traditions). Pollington argues for the existence of a thriving pre-Christian, pre-classical Germanic folk medical tradition and seeks to describe its nature and function (which is cast largely in terms of general 'shamanic' functions and techniques). Though interesting, and certainly plausible, the fact of the matter is that there just isn't enough evidence out there to either make or refute this claim-- and it has to be taken as a plausible, but unverifiable, speculative idea. Perhaps Pollington could have added a little more weight to this claim by subjecting some of the texts he presents to analysis in way that supplies evidence for this claim (i.e. to show that some texts describe techniques that weren't part of classical/Christian medical lore-- but alas, he really doesn't give that here.

When all's said and done, this is still a worthy book on a subject about which little has been written. Given that the two other major studies of the subject-- Oswald Cockayne's "Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England" (1864) and Henry S. Wellcome's "Anglo-Saxon Leechcraft" (1912)are long, long out of print, this contitutes the best available published source on the subject of Anglo Saxon medical knowledge-- and provides translations of important Anglo-Saxon medical texts that might otherwise be unavailable to readers without access to a good university library. The definitive work on Anglo-Saxon medicine is yet to be written-- if indeed it is writable at all-- butseems likely that Pollington's book will be the best one around for quite some time.

Pollington does two things that make me very happy. He cites his sources, and he tells you what assumptions he is making. So, it is easy to ignore him when he goes off on Dumizilian-style tripartate healing theory (which is utter bunk).

The rest of the book is very useful. He brings together a lot of material that is extremely difficult to track down. His translations are reasonable and accurate, if not inspired. It is well organized, and he gives a lot of context from Latin and Greek sources.

Pollington isn't New Age. This isn't some Llewellyn "how to be an authentic Anglo-Saxon witch" fantasy. This is serious scholarship. However, it is readable enough to be of use to most Anglo-Saxon reconstructionists, with enough meat to satisfy a true scholar.

I took a bit of a risk with this book, I specialise in complimentary therapies but tend to use the meridian & chakra systems, and occassionaly the four elements/humours. I am extremely interested in healing & its history, and payday came so I bought it! I have really enjoyed reading it, and discovering a bit more about my own country's healing traditions. It was also nice to see some source material (translation & original)in the book, rather than just hearing anothers opinion on nebulous evidence, thus allowing the reader to make their own observations. As a practicing witch I also found the material on healers as witches & shamans fascinating, and also the chapters on magic, charms & tree lore (an interesting adjunct to my knowledge on Ogham). Another appealing feature of this book is the writing style which is clear, rather than being filled out with pretentious phrases & outmoded words, a rarity in a historical book! Anyone who is really interested in this countrys healing traditions and their sources, witchcraft or just early English history in general could do a lot worse than buying this book.

This work's primary selling point is that it's very complete. And its biggest drawback is that . . . it's very complete. There's more material in this volume than you can ever put to use. You come away from a straight read feeling overwhelmed, and you come away from a skimming or a search by subject feeling like you missed something. Still, if you're looking for specific material on something relating to King Arthur, this is probably your best bet. If you're looking to be entertained by the Arthurian story, buy yourself a copy of The Once And Future King.

If you are serious about studying the Arthurian legends, you need this book. If you have no other reference work, this should be the one on your shelf. Lacy & Co. deserve heaps of praise on their heads for this volume! It covers aspects of the legends themselves in differing countries and in different eras. It covers art work. It covers music. It covers particular characters. It covers theories relating to the backgrounds to the legends, both historical and folklorical. The entries are readable, clear, and give lots of information so that you can follow up on any given topic. I cannot praise this book enough! Every library should have a copy (including many personal libraries...).

This is the new, updated edition of The New Arthurian Encyclopedia published in hardcover in 1991. As with the older version, it provides more than 500 new entries that cannot be found in the 1986 Arthurian Encyclopedia. The update also contains a 40-page section compiling the various addendums that have appeared in The Arthurian Yearbook since 1991. It is disappointing to note, however, that these new items were not incorporated into the main work.

Arranged alphabetically, the Encyclopedia remains the most invaluable reference resource for the Arthurian Legend. Each entry is written and signed by a scholar of Arthurian studies, and is followed, where necessary, by a short bibliography. The index is much easier to use than the one in the original volume. A must have for any collection.

This book brings the life and times of a WWII RAF pilot to life and gives the reader a feeling for the day to day struggle they faced. Mr. Deere's description of the Battle of Britain and the hours of waiting on stand by and then flying for yoiur life is thrilling. The luck required to survive (as many of his comrades did not) and the skill to advance are well represented in this book. I'd recommend it for anyone looking to understand the RAF pilots of WWII.

It's a real loss that this book is not on print anymore. Deere, altough being superficial when to comes to characters descriptions (a common feature in WW II biographical fighter pilots books) has a very nice writing style. This book was first published in 1959.

For a thrilling eye to eye account of the Battle of Britain particularly of the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk from the point of view of a pilot who literally experienced "Nine Lives", this book comes highly recommended.