New Releases by DE VILLIERS

The epitome of symbolist drama. "Count Villiers de I''lsle-Adam", wrote Yeats, "swept together words behind which glimmered a spiritual and passionate mood, as the flame glimmers behind the dusky blue and red glass in an Eastern lamp". Paralleling the author''s own metaphysical studies (which moved from occultism to more orthodox idealisms and back to Catholicism), these positions were examined by his characters. Each is rejected, and it is with the dramatic discovery of the highest ideal that the work ends.

"Take one inventive genius indebted to the friend who saved his life; add an English aristocrat hopelessly consumed with a selfish and spiritually bankrupt woman; stir together with a Faustian pact to create the perfect woman--and voilà! Tomorrow''s Eve is served. Robert Martin Adams''s graceful translation is the first to bring to English readers this captivating fable of a Thomas Edison-like inventor and his creation, the radiant and tragic android Hadaly. Adams''s introduction sketches the uncompromising idealism of the proud but penurious aristocrat Jean Marie Mathias Philippe Auguste, Count Villiers de l''Isle-Adam, a friend and admired colleague of Charles Baudelaire, Stèphane Mallarmé, and Richard Wagner. Villiers dazzles us with a gallery of electronic wonders while unsettling us with the implications of his (and our) increasingly mechanized and mechanical society. A witty and acerbic tale in which human nature, spiritual values, and scientific possibilities collide, Tomorrow''s Eve retains an enduring freshness and edge." --Descripción del editor.

The study of language acquisition has become a center of scientific inquiry into the nature of the human mind. The result is a windfall of new information about language, about learning, and about children themselves. In Language Acquisition Jill and Peter de Villiers provide a lively introduction to this fast-growing field. Their book deals centrally with the way the child acquires the sounds, meanings, and syntax of his language, and the way he learns to use his language to communicate with others. In discussing these issues, the de Villiers provide a clear and insightful treatment of the classic questions about language acquisition: Does the child show a genetic predisposition for speech, or grammar, or semantics which makes him uniquely able to learn human language? What kinds of learning are involved in acquiring language and what kinds of experience with a language are necessary to support such learning? Is there a critical period during the child''s development which is optimal for language acquisition? And what kind of psychological disabilities underlie the failure to acquire language?

Baldick offers the only available English translation of these twenty-seven tales.

Pierre de Villiers (ca. 1657-1720) and brothers Abraham (ca. 1659-1720) and Jacques (1661-1735) were either sons or grandsons of Pierre de Villiers of La Rochelle, France. The three brothers emigrated from France (via Holland) to Cape Town, South Africa in 1689, and settled on farm land nearby, receiving land grants in 1694. Pierre married Marie Elizabeth Taillefer in 1694, and his brothers married two sisters, Suzanne and Marguerite Gardiol. Descendants and relatives lived in various parts of South Africa.

The inspiring story of Graça Machel, and her dream to instill a love for reading and learning in the children of Mozambique and the rest of Africa.