Showing results by author "Michael Shelden"

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell. The Modern Scholar series continues its exploration of great authors with this course from esteemed professor Michael Shelden. In these lectures, Orwell, who also penned the epitome of the political satire, Animal Farm, is discussed in full, from his childhood in Henley-on-Thames to his final days.

Professor of English at Indiana State University and the author of the literary biography Mark Twain: Man in White, Michael Shelden is the perfect candidate to lead this series of lectures on one of the most important—and most influential—of all American authors. From Twain’s early history through his landmark achievements and the defining moments of his extraordinary life, Shelden imparts a learned understanding of both the man and his astounding body of work.

In his probing and revelatory biography of one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century, acclaimed biographer Michael Shelden breaks new ground in the evocation of George Orwell’s personal life and in our understanding of his art. Based on original interviews, previously undiscovered letters and documents, and astute literary detective work, Orwell is the major biography of one of the great yet elusive literary figures of our time. Shelden reveals the author of 1984 as a lively, engaging literary personality.

In modern memory, Winston Churchill remains the man with the cigar and the equanimity among the ruins. Few can remember that at the age of 40 he was considered washed up, his best days behind him. In Young Titan, historian Michael Shelden has produced the first biography focused on Churchill’s early career, the years between 1901 and 1915 that both nearly undid him but also forged the character that would later triumph in the Second World War.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden illuminates Mark Twain’s twilight years in this brilliant account of the legendary author’s life. Drawing heavily on Twain’s own letters and journals, Mark Twain: Man in White recounts both Twain’s private family experiences and his larger-than-life public image.

The Lost Generation from Professor Michael Shelden evokes one of the most creative periods in American literature. Paris of the 1920s served as a base for such authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. In these lectures, Professor Shelden details and provides fresh insight into the unending allure of the Lost Generation - and of the literary output that exerts a continuing influence nearly a century later.

Herman Melville's epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author's rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his "wicked book". Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.