Best Selling Books by Humphrey Carpenter

W. H. Auden disapproved of literary biography. Or did he? The truth is far more equivocal than at first seems apparent. There is no denying he delivered himself of such unambiguous pronouncements as ''Biographies of writers are always superfluous and usually in bad taste.''; and that he asked for his friends to burn his letters at his death, but, against that, Auden himself often reviewed literary biographies and normally with enthusiasm. Moreover he argued for biographies of writers such as Dryden, Trollope, Wagner and Gerard Manley Hopkins as their lives would tell us something about their art. Humphrey Carpenter himself nicely summarizes Auden''s ambiguity on this question. ''Here (referring to literary biography), as so often in his life, Auden adopted a dogmatic attitude which did not reflect the full range of his opinions, and which he sometimes flatly contradicted.'' Although the biography was not authorized it did receive the co-operation of the Auden Estate which gave permission for letters and unpublished works to be quoted. The result is a biography that was widely praised on first publication in 1981 and which continues to hold its own. Now is the obvious time to reissue it with the character of Humphrey Carpenter playing an important role in Alan Bennett''s The Habit of Art. In his introduction Alan Bennett writes ''When I started writing the play I made much use of the biographies of both Auden and Britten written by Humphrey Carpenter and both are models of their kind. Indeed I was consulting his books so much that eventually Carpenter found his way into the play.'' ''Carpenter is a model biographer - diligent, unspeculative, sympathetic, and extremely good at finding out what happened when and with whom . . . admirably detailed and researched study.'' John Bayley, The Listener ''an illuminating book; full of information, unobtrusively affectionate, it describes with unpretentious elegance the curve of a great poet''s life and work'' Frank Kermode, Guardian ''sharpens and usually lights up even the most canvassed parts of the Auden life and myth . . . a deeply interesting book about a deeply interesting life'' Roy Fuller, Sunday Times '' . . . the story of a remarkable man told by one of the best living biographers'' David Cecil, Book Choice

"Several million readers throughout the world have enjoyed The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. This is the authorized biography of their creator, J.R.R. Tolkien." --

''I really am quite useless as a wizard'', says Mr Majeika. But Class Three thinks Mr Majeika is an excellent wizard, particularly when his spells go wrong.

Samenhangende studie over het werk van een tiental auteurs van kinderboeken uit de periode 1860 tot 1930.

Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries, the author examines the friendship between and the social and literary gatherings of Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams who laughingly called themselves the Inklings.

The first truly comprehensive biography of the controversial poet. The compassionate narrative does not flinch before the poet''s eccentric personality and later involvement with Fascist ideology, and brings absorbing new detail to his years of incarceration for treason. Exhaustively researched. Carpenter also provides a bibliography of biographical references and notes on sources. Highly recommended. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Mr Majeika is the most magical teacher around! ''Do be careful, Mr Majeika, there might be real ghosts in there.'' When Class Three and Mr Majeika get on board a ghost train, they are in for a surprise. Real ghosts appear and the wicked Wilhemina Worlock isn''t far away. But Jody comes to the rescue - with a dragon to help her! Look out for more Mr Majeika adventures including: Mr Majeika and the School Trip Mr Majeika and the School Play Mr Majeika and the Lost Spell Book Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher Mr Majeika and the School Caretaker

''Use of magic by teacher strictly forbidden.'' Poor Mr Majeika goes to the bottom of the class when the school inspector comes to call. Things don''t get any easier when Mr Majeika turns himself into a lobster by mistake. Class Three somehow has to get Wilhemina Worlock to undo the spell...

Class Three has got a new computer and while exploring it, Mr Majeika manages to get the whole class trapped in the school website. Many adventures follow and Class Three meet bizarre characters before they can get out.

Mr Majeika is the most magical teacher around! ''Sometimes, '' whispered Jody. ''I think school dinners would be all right if it wasn''t for her.'' Mrs Chipchase, the nasty dinner lady, makes lunch hour at St Barty''s really unpleasant. That is, for everyone but her ''favourite friend'', Hamish Bigmore. Up to his usual tricks, Hamish is allowed to eat chocolate instead of ghastly school dinners! Mr Majeika decides it''s time to sort out the menu in his most magical way...! There are lots more Mr Majeika adventures to collect, including: Mr Majika and the Ghost Train Mr Majeika and the Lost Spell Book Mr Majeika and the Haunted Hotel Mr Majeika and the School Play Mr Majeika and the School Trip

''Oh dear,'' said Mr Majeika, ''I seem to have made the spell too strong.'' Class Three has fun during Book Week, when famous storybook characters suddenly appear! But there''s trouble ahead with Wilhemina Worlock the witch at the school''s Olympic Sports Day... Will Mr Majeika manage to magic up a solution?

There may be more important literary movements than the Angry Young Men but there can be few as consciously (or unconsciously) entertaining. The Angry Young Men were an absurdly diverse group, often wildly at odds and, indeed, often wholly unacquainted with each other. This cavalcade of misunderstandings, wild statements, mediocrity and genuine achievement can now be seen as the first and most perfect example of how the media both helps and ruins literature. Humphrey Carpenter''s extremely funny new book celebrates the strange group of varying talents who at different times were believed to be Angry Young Men.

It started with Beyond the Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival of 1960. Four Cambridge undergraduates, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett had created a satirical revue, which by its iconoclastic irreverence destroyed what Humphrey Carpenter describes as ''the culture of deference'' so prevalent in the preceding decade. Satire was quick to spread: The Establishment Club, ''London''s first satirical nightclub'', opened in Soho: Private Eye began to appear: and That Was The Week That Was started to be screened on the BBC on Saturday nights. Why was there this sudden upsurge of satire? What really happened in those years? Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Ned Sherrin, Richard Ingrams and the late John Wells were all interviewed by Humphrey Carpenter. Their stories have been woven together to create a narrative which vibrantly brings alive this period of social and cultural change. ''It''s an interesting story, and I think that it''s never been really got quite right (before now), largely because it hasn''t been set in its social context. . . This is the first detailed, scholarly account of this peculiar episode in British cultural history, and I suspect will remain a definitive one.'' Jonathan Miller

''Music teacher? What music teacher?'' The sudden arrival of a new music teacher throws St barty''s School into confusion. Mysterious smells start coming from the staffroom and creepy-crawlies appear out of nowhere. The new arrival is, of course, Wilhelmina Worlock, a wicked witch with some nasty tricks. It''s up to Mr Majeika to try to outwit her...

''I really am quite useless as a wizard.'' But Class Three thinks Mr Majeika is an excellent wizard, particularly when his spells go wrong! First Hamish Bigmore ends up on TV, then a real giant appears in the school play. And finally Mr Majeika gets the whole class lost on a magic carpet! There''s always an adventure with Mr Majeika around...

Spike Milligan was one of our best-loved comics as well as one of our most original. In this first major assessment of Spike''s life and career, the highly respected biographer Humphrey Carpenter has - through copious research and access to many of those closest to the great man - unearthed a character who could be as difficult and contradictory as he was generous and talented. The creator of The Goons was to influence a whole generation of comics, yet was never to feel fully valued. His periods of depression were matched by periods of high creativity - there were poems, novels, volumes of biography, as well as TV series and a one-man show as Spike searched for his best means of expression. There was also, as revealed here, his inveterate womanising. Married three times and with four children to whom he was devoted, two illegitimate children were to remain barely acknowledged, Detailing both his private and professional life, Humphrey Carpenter gives us the most revealing portrait yet of this highly complex genius.

Biografía sobre las figuras de Tolkien, C.S. Lewis y el brillante grupo de escritores que surgieron en el Oxford de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Durante años, un reducido número de catedráticos y profesores de Oxford, así como algunos de sus amigos, se reunían en un pub cada martes por la tarde para tomar unas cervezas, debatir sobre cuestiones como la mitología, la religión o la literatura, y leerse mutuamente las obras que estaban escribiendo. Este grupo, que incluía a intelectuales de la talla de Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien y Charles Williams, era conocido por el nombre de Los Inklings y tuvo una gran influencia en el mundo literario de la época. Humphrey Carpenter, quien escribió la aclamada biografía de J.R.R. Tolkien, se basa en cartas y diarios inéditos, a los que tuvo acceso especial, para narrar esta apasionante historia. "Un triunfo de habilidad y tacto... ni una frase aburrida o floja." KINGSLEY AMIS, ''New Statesman''

"What do a North-Indian prince, a Chinese teacher, and a carpenter''s son from the Roman Province of Galilee and an Arabian merchant have in common? The Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad each founded a system of though which in its own way has shaped the lives and thinking of countless generations across the world. What are the distinctive features of these four great traditions? Why have they had such a profound and lasting influence on the way people think today? Readers of these four lucid and authoritative accounts will gain new insight into the different ways in which men and women in both East and West have sought to make sense of some of the most intractable problems of human existence"--from back cover.

More amazing adventures with Mr Majeika, the ex-wizard, turned teacher, and his class at St Barty''s School. This time there''s a trip down a magic river, a battle to save St Barty''s from the wrecking ball, and work experience for Class Three.

When Class Three and Mr Majeika go to the circus, it''s definitely not as fun as they imagined. Everyone''s a bit old, creaky and rubbish really! So when Mr Majeika casts a small spell to help the performers with their circus show, it''s no surprise that Billy Balance, the slack rope walker, kidnaps Mr Majeika so that Mr Majeika can magically help him everytime! Things get worse whilst Mr majeika is trapped when Wilhelmina Worlock takes the opportunity to turn Class Three''s classroom into a circus and the children spend all afternoon running away from lions and alligators! But Mr Majeika''s magic saves the day, Class Three and the circus end up on the news and once again Mr Potter, the headmaster, misses it all!

A super magical story featuring Mr Majeika, the popular wizard turned teacher! Fun and magic combine as usual in this new Mr Majeika story. The pupils in Class 3 at St Barty''s School are not impressed when their headteacher imposes strict rules of behaviour for Halloween. Mr Majeika uses a little magic to make the evening memorable but nasty Hamish Bigmore tells the local press and gets the wizard-teacher the sack. School without magic seems rather boring and Mr Majeika doesn''t last long in the other jobs he tries. His long-time enemy, Wilhelmina Warlock is clearly behindall the trouble; she and the dreaded Hamish must be defeated before life can return to normal. Look out for more Mr Majeika adventures including MR MAJEIKA AND THE GHOST TRAIN MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL TRIP MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL BOOK WEEK MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL PLAY

When old Mr Jenks retires, St Barty''s School advertises for a new caretaker. Unfortunately there''s only one applicant - Hamish Bigmore''s Uncle Wilf who is just as rude and bad-tempered as Hamish. When Mr Majeika is hurt in an accident it becomes clear that Uncle Wilf is working for the wickedest of witches, Wilhelmina Warlock! It''s up to Mr Majeika to work his magic and put things right again.

Mr Majeika is the most magical teacher around! Oh, don''t be cowards,'' said Jody. ''I''m sure it''s perfectly safe.'' Mysteriously stranded in the fog at night. Mr Majeika and Class Three find themselves in a creepy hotel near Hadrian''s Wall, where some very spooky things start to happen. Strange lights, ghostly sounds and vanishing people... Look out for more Mr Majeika adventures including: Mr Majeika and the School Trip Mr Majeika and the School Play Mr Majeika and the Lost Spell Book Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher Mr Majeika and the School Caretaker

La biografía del padre de la Tierra Media. Humphrey Carpenter, autor entre otros libros de una biografía del poeta W.H. Auden, narra en esta obra la larga carrera de J.R.R. Tolkien, desde las vicisitudes de una infancia difícil a los trabajos y obligaciones de la vida académica, como profesor en la Universidad de Oxford. Carpenter escribió esta biografía del creador de la Tierra Media consultando documentos inéditos, y entrevistando a parientes y amigos.

A Great, Silly Grin opens at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival, where a staggeringly inspired satirical revue called Beyond the Fringe startled a public steeped in the polite, bland banality of the 1950s. From there it is a short trip to the coffee bars of London, where the appearance of a scruffy yellow pamphlet calling itself Private Eye overturned the way Britons looked at their world. The apotheosis of the satire boom, and the progenitor of so many American comedy acts, was the groundbreaking BBC television program "That Was the Week That Was," which combined elements of sketch comedy and evening-news broadcast to produce something essential, hilarious, and, on occasion, scandalous. Humphrey Carpenter''s history of this tumultuous and exciting era introduces us not only to the people involved in its creation--Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Michael Frayn, Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, and David Frost--but also their routines and sketches.

The teachings of Jesus, their differences with those of his contemporaries, and their representation in modern Christian churches are discussed from the point of view of an unbiased historian.

A very different look at some of Shakespeare''s stories told from a minor character''s point of view. A humorous look at Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer''s Night Dream, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Henry V and others.

"Includes comprehension questions, vocabulary, and questions for class discussion, essays, and projects." Also includes chronology of Tolkien''s life and quotations from The letters of J.R.R Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien.