The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know

Book Overview

In this sequel to the best-selling The American Reader, mother-and-son team Diane and Michael Ravitch have gathered together the best and most memorable poems, essays, songs, and orations in English history, capturing in one compact volume writings that have shaped not only England, but democratic culture around the globe.
Here are words that changed the world, words that inspired revolutions as well as lovers, dreamers, and singers, words that every educated person once knew--and should know today. Framed by two inspiring speeches--Queen Elizabeth before the invasion of the Spanish Armada and Winston Churchill during the dark days of World War II--the book features work by William Wordsworth and W.H. Auden, Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and many other extraordinary writers. Readers will find ardent love poems such as Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love" and Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" We also find more philosophical works such as Yeat's "The Second Coming" and Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." There are excerpts from Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, Walter Pater and John Ruskin, Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle, and other influential thinkers. In addition, the book includes song lyrics ranging from "Greensleeves" to "Rule, Britannia," and works that, though not considered classics, were immensely popular in their day and capture the spirit of an era, such as W.E. Henley's "Invictus" ("I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul"). The editors also provide brief, fascinating biographies of each writer.
An exquisite gift, The English Reader offers the best of the best--the soaring language and seminal ideas that fired the imagination of the English-speaking world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195077296
• ISBN13: 9780195077292
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Not your average anthology

This is one of those books you think initially think would intimidate and overwhelm you; but from the first word it actually reads like a novel you can't put down. We are all fortunate that the Ravitch team writes so accessibly and engagingly. This book has already become part of my nightly bedtime routine; I look forward to reading a selection every night. "The English Reader" should be in everyone's library -- or at everyone's bedside. It's a lively treasure.

An Engaging Reader

"Life imitates art," declares Oscar Wilde in The Decay of Lying, one of the many wonderful pieces of writing collected in The English Reader. Yet most of us are woefully ignorant of the art or at least the literature that our lives imitate. This indispensable anthology proves how instrumental the literary arts have been in creating the culture we know. It also proves something else--that great literature is fun to read. Thank you to Michael and Diane Ravitch for this educational and engaging book.

Pleasant memories

The English Reader wakes one up to remember all the past days when one read these wonderful pieces and a life of business took one away from their enjoyment. It's like stopping to smell the roses. Thank you

Preserving the Culture

No one's better than educational historian Diane Ravitch at pointing out what's missing from today's schooling and doing something about it. This new anthology brings together poems, stories, songs and other literature that used to be part of the common experience of all educated men and women and have been replaced by second-rate material designed to be easy to read, raising scores without raising knowledge. Nothing in one of today's textbook readers will be remembered for long, while the pages of this book contain phrases, lines, whole paragraphs that touch us, stay in our memories, and connect us with each other through our common knowledge of these classics of our common culture. An excellent gift for any child, parent, teacher, or friend; these selections are sure to resonate and provide lasting pleasures.

Ravitch and the Defense of Civilization Through Literature

This book deserves greater raves than does civilization itself. It is a scrupulous selection of inspired thought and passion as codified in the immortal conveyance of the English language. It is not limited to literature, strictly speaking. It embraces the great legacy of written speech and does not propagandize or promote literary or political trends of thought for their own sake. Michael and Diane Ravitch, who is the greatest personality in contemporary American education and the chief moral force behind reverence for the genius of tradition, have included some of the huge talents of English literature who are in danger of being forgotten because of the new and morbidly relaxed priorities of schools: Carlyle,George Herbert, Carlyle, Spenser, etc.Unlike the books that insinuate themselves into typical classroom "libraries," picked for political correctness but usually lacking literary merit,the specimens chosen by Michael and Diane Ravitch do true honor to the dignity of the great issues of the day, such as feminism. For example, instead of having quotes from Oprah Winfrey or Barbara Streisand represent the feminist current of thought, they have Virginia Woolf and E. Pankhurst, the brilliant British sufragette activist and orator. As an English teacher who is distressed to witness the slipping away of expressive power and with it the authority of history and the human heart, I plead with all the folks reading this review to secure this precious book for yourselves and to work hard to prevail upon school boards and other educational decision makers to use it to provide critical learning nutrition to a starved generation.