The Chatto book of cabbages and kings

The Chatto book of cabbages and kings

'The time has come, the Walrus said / To talk of many things: / Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax - / Of cabbages - and kings ...' Sometimes, like Lewis Carroll's Walrus, writers throw narrative to the winds and break out into sheer enumeration - of food, of memories, of places, of things, of all the dizzying contents of the world. Ever since Homer's catalogue of ships, lists have been used as literary devices, for reasons as various as lists are themselves. There have been comic lists, passionate lists, lists of insults and accusations, lists that are sombre records, and elegantly playful lists, by authors as diverse as Jonathan Swift and Cole Porter, St Augustine and Dorothy Parker. This book brings together the best of them, in poetry and prose. Thoroughly international in scope, it invites readers to enjoy the unexpected subtlety of what may seem to be 'meer heaps'; and to relish the paradoxical attractions of these peculiar treasuries of language.

(Summary taken from the book)

Details

• Hardcover with Dust Jacket
• ISBN: 9780701134877
• Condition: Very good
  
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus London