New Releases by Marina Warner

Light and shadow, reflection, colour and motion - these are the primary elements of visual art. Shadow play, tricks of perspective, anamorphoses and magic lanterns have fascinated artists and craftsmen throughout the centuries and continue to inspire and stimulate the imagination to this day. The Art of Illusion explores this world of perceptual paradox through the astonishing collection of the German experimental filmmaker Werner Nekes, and the work of contemporary artists including Christian Boltanski, Carsten Holler, Tony Oursler and Markus Raetz.The Art of Illusion illustrates a vast range of intriguing optical media and artworks from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries - manuscripts, prints and books, optical devices and experiments, early cameras, games and toys. This handsome volume incorporates optical tricks, puzzles and illusions, which are sure to make it a collector''s item.

From a highly original and profound commentator on the culture of the past and present comes this superb 25-year retrospective collection of her finest essays on fiction, drama, religion and fairy-tale.

"Like her award-winning novels, Marina Warner''s stories conjure up mysteries and wonders in a physical world, treading a delicate, magical line between the natural and the supernatural, between openness and fear. In ''Natural Limits''. a bereaved woman, contemplating the massacre of 11,000 virgins, comes to terms with the unimaginable. The title story and the ''Canary'' search for signs of evil or innocence written on the body, and a ''canary'' dies of toxic malice, while in ''Daughters of the Game'' and ''The Armour of San Gereone'' body doubles stand in for saints and film stars. Beneath a charismatic or saintly carapace there often turns out to be a man of straw. The ''insomniac princess'' finds that unheard melodies are indeed sweeter; whereas other stories give voice to the traditionall voiceless - the artist''s model, the film double, and, in a grisly reworking of the Brothers Grimm, a girl with bells not on her toes but on her hands. Here are fabulous images of saints and sinner, bats and nightingales, pink flesh and putrefaction in an electrifying new collection."

A story full of myth, mystery and great imaginative power about a young woman who searching for her lost baby son, like Mother Courage, appears in different guises across different centuries and cultures. She is the eternal refugee but ultimately, the survivor.

A brilliant examination of the allegorical uses of the female form to be found in the sculpture ornamenting public buildings as well as throughout the history of western art.

Ogres and giants, bogeymen and bugaboos embody some of our deepest fears, dominating popular fiction, from tales such as ''Jack the Giant Killer'' to the cannibal monster Hannibal Lecter, from the Titans of Greek mythology to the dinosaurs of JURASSIC PARK, from Frankenstein to MEN IN BLACK. Following her brilliant study of fairy tales, FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE, Marina Warner''s enthralling new book explores the ever increasing presence of such figures of male terror, and the stratagems we invent to allay the monsters we conjure up. From ogres to cradle songs, from bananas to cannibals, Warner traces the roots of our commonest anxieties, unravelling with vigorous intelligence, originality and relish, the myths and fears which define our sensibilities. Illustrated with a wealth of images - from the beautiful and the bizarre to the downright scary - this is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination.

Published to accompany the exhibition at Tate Modern 12 May - 17 December 2000.

Com seu foco de interesse centrado na representação da figura feminina (seja ela uma personagem ou a voz de uma narradora), ''Da Fera à Loira'' reexamina a misoginia de alguns dos mais célebres contos de fadas e, a partir deles, toda a história conturbada desse gênero e de suas muitas possibilidades expressivas, ainda hoje abertas à criação. Desde suas remotas origens na Antiguidade e nos oráculos das Sibilas, passando pelos contos que celebrizaram uma imagem cruel da mulher (nas figuras da bruxa, da madrasta malvada, da fofoqueira) e também do homem (como no caso notório de Barba Azul), os leitores acompanham uma historiadora capaz de desvelar não apenas os mitos veiculados pelos contos de fadas, mas também os mitos que cercam essas narrativas e que, sorrateiramente, costumam guiar a nossa compreensão.

Exhibition held at various locations 14 September 1996 - 1 June 1997.

Is Jurassic Park a work of covert misogynist propaganda? Does romanticizing childhood lead to abusing children? What secret correspondence links Mary Shelley''s Frankenstein to video games and Shakespeare''s Caliban to Hannibal Lecter? in what ways do our culture''s most hallowed legends inform the current debates over single mothers, the men''s movement, and animal rights? In these six dazzlingly intelligent and provocative essays, the distinguished English novelist and critic Marina Warner weaves classical mythology, pop culture, and today''s headlines into a potent work of cultural criticism that is both unsettling and entertaining. Ranging from Medeato Thelma and Louise and from myths of cannibalism to the politics of rape, Six Myths of Our Time is at once a celebration of the enduring power of fable and a welcome antidote to its more virulent manifestations in our public life.

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Inspired by "The Tempest", the novelist rewrites the drama of Ariel, Caliban and Sycorax in a Caribbean setting, exploring the colonial conflicts of an imaginary island and one family.