PDF Books in Children's Literary Criticism & Collections
Birds of Song and Story
by Elizabeth GrinnellSome barbarous peoples possess a rude taste for the beautiful plumage of birds, decorating their bodies in feathers of softest and brightest tints. But we have record of few, if any, savage tribes the world over which delight in bird melody. True, the savage may seek his food by sound, or even song, but to feast the ear on music for music's sake—ah..
Pictorial Beauty on the Screen
by Victor Oscar FreeburgIf I look upon a motion picture as a kind of substitute for some stage play or novel, it seems to me a poor thing, only a substitute for something better; but if I look upon it as something real in itself, a new form of pictorial art in which things have somehow been conjured into significant motion, then I get many a glimpse of touching beauty, an..
Mere Literature, and Other Essays
by Bryce WaltonA singular phrase this, “mere literature,”—the irreverent invention of a scientific age. Literature we know, but “mere” literature? We are not to read it as if it meant sheer literature, literature in the essence, stripped of all accidental or ephemeral elements, and left with nothing but its immortal charm and power. “Mere literature” is a serious..
The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus
by Mary MacgregorThe Story of Rome has been written, as you know, in your beautiful, quiet old garden. And as the story grew, the short cold days of winter passed and the long warm days of summer were here. In the garden a miracle had been wrought. It had become alive. After slow, persistent struggle with storm and frost, the delicate bare branches were no lo..
Impressions and experiences
by William Dean HowellsMy earliest memories, or those which I can make sure are not the sort of early hearsay that we mistake for remembrance later in life, concern a country newspaper, or, rather, a country printing-office. The office was in my childish consciousness some years before the paper was; the compositors rhythmically swaying before their cases of type; the pr..
That Marvel—The Movie
by Edward S. Van ZileTo grasp the past progress, the present significance and the future possibilities of the motion picture; to express them with restraint and yet with clarity; and to impress the mind of any reader with the logic, as well as with the sincerity, of his viewpoint: these are a few of the qualities in this book which make it interesting and important. Mr..
Style and the Man
by Meredith NicholsonGreat writers have rarely written of style, perhaps because it is so individual, so intimate a matter; and the trick of the thing may not, except in rare cases be communicated to the tyro. The convenient methods of absent treatment advertised by correspondence schools of authorship are of no avail in the business of style; style can no more be taug..
Short Story-Writing - An Art or a Trade?
by N. Bryllion FaginMoods may be uncomfortable, and sad, and painfully disturbing, but, on the other hand, they make pleasant music occasionally. Here I sit in the dusk, looking out into the street that is ordinarily so familiar to me, but has suddenly become blurred and weirdly mysterious in the gathering murk. A veil is over my eyes, which see the familiar houses ac..