九九藏書

A collection of short stories full of extraordinary people, some of them real - Jean Duval, Baudelaire's black mistress, Edgar Allan Poe and Lizzie Borden. Other characters flow from the author's imagination. She also wrote Nights at the Circus, The Magic Toyshop and Shadow Dance.

American Ghosts and Old World Wonders is a posthumously published anthology of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Chatto & Windus Ltd. and contains a collection of nine stories, one half of which deal with American folklore and the other with older myths and fairytales. It is introduced by Susannah Clapp.

The book is divided into two parts, the first (concerned with America) consists of Lizzie's Tiger, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Gun for the Devil and The Merchant of Shadows.

Part two (concerned with Europe: the Old World) contains The Ghost Ships, In Pantoland, Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost, Alice in Prague or The Curious Room and Impressions: The Wrightsman Magdalene.

The anthology's contents are also reprinted in the volume Burning Your Boats, which features all of Carter's short fiction.

It was 1958, and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had once been in love. Certainly the last person in town he thought he'd fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's Baptist minister. A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from other teens. She took care of her widowed father, rescued hurt animals, and helped out at the local orphanage. No boy had ever asked her out. Landon never would have dreamed of it. Then a twist of fate made Jamie his partner for the homecoming dance, and Landon Carter's life would never be the same. Being with Jamie would show him the depths of the human heart and lead him to a decision so stunning it would send him irrevocably on the road to manhood.

L. Frank Baum never imagined the impact The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would have on children's writing or the appeal the book would have to generations of readers. Although he wrote numerous books, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is easily his most enduring. Baum wanted to write a fairy tale that was American, not European, although he introduced elements of traditional European fairy tales (witches, castles, forests) into the story. By presenting a female protagonist, casual language, characters such as the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, and settings such as Kansas, Baum created a new approach to children's writing that is distinctly American.

Before The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, children's books were stilted morality tales designed to instruct or to frighten readers into behaving properly. Baum, however, presented a thrilling adventure from a child's point of view, showing the child's ability to solve her own problems and return to the security of her home.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz received praise from critics and readers alike. Critics applauded Baum's simple storytelling, his message, and his imaginative, believable characters. Readers fell in love with the wonders of Oz and demanded more books about this enchanted land. Although the book did not win any awards during Baum's lifetime, it was given the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1968.

Maya Angelou是美國文壇最耀眼的黑人女作家和詩人，成名作是一部名為I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings的自傳體小說。1993年她在美國總統Bill Clinton的就職儀式上特邀朗誦獻詩On the Pulse of the Morning，從而成為美國歷史上繼Robert Frost之後的官方詩人。

Still I Rise是Maya Angelou的詩歌代表作，是繼Martin Luther King的I Have a Dream之後美國黑人爭取民權的又一紀念碑式的作品。

Maya Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. Being a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, Dr. Angelou continues to travel the world making appearances, spreading her legendary wisdom.

A mesmerizing vision of grace, swaying and stirring when she moves, Dr. Angelou captivates her audiences lyrically with vigor, fire and perception. She has the unique ability to shatter the opaque prisms of race and class between reader and subject throughout her books of poetry and her autobiographies.

Dr. Angelou has authored twelve best-selling books including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, A Song Flung Up to Heaven and Even the Stars Look Lonesome

In 1981, Dr. Angelou was appointed to a lifetime position as the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

In January 1993, she became only the second poet in U.S. History to have the honor of writing and reciting original work at the Presidential Inauguration.

費德里科·加西亞·洛爾迦（federico garcia lorca,1989-1936）是20世紀最偉大的西班牙詩人、27年一代的代表人物。這位安達盧西亞之子把他的詩同西班牙民間歌謠創造性地結合起來，創造出了一種全新的詩體：節奏優美哀婉，形式多樣，詞句形象，想象豐富，民間色彩濃郁，易於吟唱，同時又顯示出超凡的詩藝。近70年來，他的詩歌作品對世界詩壇產生了巨大影響，難怪美國著名詩人勃萊談到他的作品時說：洛爾迦的詩歌佳作是人類智力的楷模。

藍斯頓休斯是美國中上最偉大的詩人之一。就像其他許許多多的作家，他的寫作題材來自於他的生活經驗，即他身邊的人、事、地。雖然休斯對來自於社會各階層的人都很友善，如：富人、中產階級及貧窮人，而這些所謂的低下階層的人們對他的詩作影響深遠 。休斯將這個措辭視為某種類型的讚賞，他欣賞這些人，因為「他們毫無疑問的接受美麗就是己身的想法。」您認為這句話代表了什麼意義？

也許這句話意指低下階層的人們能夠領會存在他們生活中的美好事物。休斯熱愛黑人音樂尤其是表達悲傷主題的藍調音樂。他在芝加哥、紐約、堪薩斯市及華盛頓特區內的俱樂部聆聽這 種音樂。他聽的歌是講述人們決心征服艱難。在「稱為藍調的歌曲」(Songs Called the Blues，1941)中，休斯形容這類音樂是「深受打擊卻打不垮的黑人唱腔」；1958年，在爵士及藍調音樂家(如：查爾斯明格斯Charles Mingus)的伴奏下，休斯將他的詩作錄製出版 。您曾聽過隨音樂吟誦的詩作嗎？

藍斯頓休斯藉由創作作品來表達對政治及不公的感受。他到他國旅行以學習他人是如何處理種族議題。儘管他是非常自由派的，休斯仍為持有保守觀點的非裔美人說話。例如1941年的「布克的敘事歌謠」(Ballad of Booker T.)即是休斯為前奴隸及保守的平等提倡者布克華盛頓 (Booker T. Washington) 所作的詩。這首詩將焦點放在華盛頓為爭取種族和平所做出的努力，而未對其做出任何批評：

Sometimes he had

compromise in his talk--

for a man must crawl

before he can walk

and in Alabama in '85

a joker was lucky

to be alive.

休斯以不得不「妥協」來解釋華盛頓的立場。為達目的，您是否曾妥協或改變您的觀點過？

Langston Hughes is one of America's greatest poets. Like so many writers, he wrote about what he knew -- the people, places and events around him. Although Hughes was friendly with people from all walks of life, the rich, the middle class and the poor, it was the people he called the low-down folks who had the greatest influence on his poetry. Hughes used this expression as a form of praise. He admired these people because they accept what beauty is their own without question. What do you think this means?

Perhaps the phrase means that the low-down folks appreciated the beauty that existed in their lives. Hughes loved the music of his people, especially the blues, songs that express sad themes. He heard this music in clubs in Chicago, New York, Kansas City and Washington, D.C. The songs he heard were about people who were determined to overcome hardships. In Songs Called the Blues (1941), Hughes said this music was sung by black, beaten but unbeatable throats. In 1958, Hughes recorded his poetry to the accompaniment of the music of jazz and blues artists such as Charles Mingus. Have you ever heard poetry recited to music?

Langston Hughes believed in using his art to get across his feelings about politics and injustice. He traveled to other countries to learn how they dealt with racial issues. Despite his own very liberal beliefs, Hughes defended African American activists who held more conservative views. For example, in the 1941 poem Ballad of Booker T., Hughes defends Booker T. Washington, a former slave and more conservative advocate for equality. Rather than criticize him, the poet focused on Washington's strategy to gain racial equality:

Sometimes he had

compromise in his talk--

for a man must crawl

before he can walk

and in Alabama in '85

a joker was lucky

to be alive.

Hughes explained Washington's position by saying he had to compromise. Have you ever had to compromise, or change your point of view, to get what you wanted?

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Pablo Neruda was born in Parall, Chile. He studied in Santiago in the twenties. From 1927 to 1945 he was the Chilean consul in Rangoon, in Java, and then in Barcelona. He joined the Communist Party after the Second World War. Between 1970 and 1973 he served in Allende』s Chilean Government as ambassador to Paris. He died shortly after the coup that ended the Allende Government.

Neruda's career as a poet began with love poetry and ended with love poetry. One of his very last works, written only days before his death, is The End, a love poem to [his wife] Matilde. There were, of course, changes; there were deviations during the period of Residence on Earth, for example; there were turns and innovations during the period of political and epic poetry that began in the late thirties and culminated in 1950 with Canto General, but there was also a remarkable continuity. Erotic poetry and love poetry were for Neruda an important, essential part of his poetic life.

Pablo Neruda was one of the most prolific poets of our century. To trace the development of even one aspect of his poetic world is far from easy. Yet in the case of his erotic poetry and his love poetry the outline of that development is clear enough. The early Neruda, from his first published book, Crepusculario, and then especially in Twenty Poems, is a sensualist and a materialist in his approach to love and woman…. [In Twenty Poems] Neruda intensifies the complete fusion between woman and Nature. Joy and despair, like Marisol and Marisombra, mingle and alternate in this book, but whatever the emotion of the moment, the poet is constant in his identification of woman with Nature, in his use of Nature imagery to describe woman, and in his conception of woman as a vehicle for a return to Nature. In these richly sensual poems, the style is still on the whole modern Romantic with symbolist overtones and the first few hints of the newer, more disturbing poetic styles. Yet they remain constructive poems, in that they are organized around experiences in which real human beings, Neruda himself and the women he loved, provide a stabilizing platform upon which each poem is built.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING[伊麗莎白·巴雷特·勃朗寧]于公元1806年出生在達翰姆（英格蘭北部一郡）。1838年，她出版了《撒拉弗和其它詩篇》[撒拉佛——六翼天使(九級天使中地位最高者)，又稱：熾愛天使]。1843年，由於當時英國的最高統治者是女性，伊麗莎白於國家詩人的提名得到了更加廣泛的支持。結果很不幸，她輸給了威廉·華茲華斯--同一時代的另一位偉大詩人[有機會筆者會撰文介紹此人]。此後不久，伊利沙白與羅伯特·勃朗寧——另一位有才華的詩人，結婚了。然而，伊麗莎白的父親，卻不同意這場婚事。於是，這對情侶決定出逃。並由此，引發了一場浪漫的婚姻。伊麗莎白與羅伯特·勃朗寧準備各自出發，逃往義大利，並在比薩會合，去繼續他們的生活。他們成功了。三年後，即1849年，他們已在義大利中部的佛羅倫薩定居。一日，伊麗莎白送給她的丈夫一件珍貴的禮物——44首她為丈夫寫的十四行詩，裏面有開始時的懷疑，與家庭抗爭的恐懼，與愛人的甜蜜，及最終愛的勝利的喜悅。同年，他們唯一的男孩出生了。一年後，即1850年，勃朗寧夫婦出版了那44首詩，但做了些偽裝。他們用葡萄牙十四行詩集為這44首詩命名。如此一來，讀者便會接受這些詩是由葡萄牙語翻譯過來的的暗示。於是，我們今天可以看到如此表達真愛和深愛的詩句。伊麗莎白的浪漫婚姻促成了她的，也是整個維多利亞時代的，最美麗的愛情商籟體詩。

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, Sometimes I drop my spoon.

Said the old man, I do that too.

The little boy whispered, I wet my pants.

I do that too, laughed the little old man.

Said the little boy, I often cry.

The old man nodded, So do I.

But worst of all, said the boy, it seems

Grown-ups don't pay attention to me.

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

I know what you mean, said the little old man.

INVITATION

If you are a dreamer,come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hoper-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...

If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

The Land of Happy

Have you been to the land of happy,

Where everyones happy all day,

Where they joke and they sing

Of the happiest things,

And everythings jolly and gay?

Theres no one unhappy in Happy

Theres laughter and smiles galore.

I have been to The Land of Happy-

What a bore

《大森林里的小木屋》是美國女作家勞拉·懷爾德(1867-1957)九部 小木屋系列小說中的第一部。本書講述了小姑娘勞拉和家人一起生活在大森林深處的小木屋裡的經歷。作家用細膩的筆觸描繪了拓荒者生活的點點滴滴：大自然一年四季的變化之美；收穫季節的歡樂和溫馨；惡劣環境中的生存和冒險……細緻生動、趣味橫生，讓讀者沉醉在往昔的質樸生活中。

本書以小女孩天真無邪的眼光觀察生活中的點點滴滴。大森林里的梅花鹿、大懶熊、冬天的白雪、春天樹上的綠芽，還有小木屋裡溫暖的火光、媽做的可口點心、爸的悠揚琴聲，都是羅蘭最甜蜜的童年回憶。 本書沒有太多曲折的情節，但它是精彩的、令人感到愉悅的、經久不衰的世界兒童文學的經典名著。全書文辭妙趣橫生，涉及到自然、探險、動物、親情、成長等許多青少年關注的興趣點，可以引起青少年的極大閱讀興趣，是對他們的求知和成長大有益處的高價值圖書。

Laura Ingalls's story begins in 1871 in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Four-year-old Laura lives in the little house with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their trusty dog, Jack.

Pioneer life is sometimes hard, since the family must grow or catch all their own food as they get ready for the cold winter. But it is also exciting as Laura and her folks celebrate Christmas with homemade toys and treats, do the spring planting, bring in the harvest, and make their first trip into town. And every night they are safe and warm in their little house, with the happy sound of Pa's fiddle sending Laura and her sisters off to sleep.

And so begins Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved story of a pioneer girl and her family. The nine Little House books have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier past and a heartwarming, unforgettable story.

白雪公主是家喻戶曉的童話故事，本書中的白雪公主完全擺脫了童話的模式，成了一個普通的現代女性，有煩惱，有心事。會壓抑，也會有妒忌心，還充滿了女權意識。此書充滿了一種黑色幽默，堪稱荒誕派文學的經典之作。

《白雪公主後傳》是美國文學大師巴塞爾姆最重要的作品。在大師的筆下，白雪公主已成為一個普通的現代女性，是個有七情六慾的真實人：有壓抑感，落魄感和妒忌心，也仍然想入非非，做著與現實生活格格不入的童話中的夢。她仍然希望像原來那樣，成為關注的中心。她已經厭煩了這個家和自己的家庭角色，對歧視女性的社會忿忿不滿，聽厭了矮人們喋喋不休的陳問濫調，因此內心充滿改變現狀的渴求。絕望中，她甚至盼望著能有一次帶性醜聞的冒險，能打破單凋乏味的生活……作家用貌似瘋狂的敘述來表達一種玩世不恭的譏誚，以反映當代人滑稽無奈的眾生相。

The Dead Father is a gargantuan half-dead, half-alive, part mechanical, wise, vain, powerful being who still has hopes for himself--even while he is being dragged by means of a cable toward a mysterious goal. In this extraordinary novel, marked by the imaginative use of language that influenced a generation of fiction writers, Donald Barthelme offered a glimpse into his fictional universe.

唐納德·巴塞爾姆Donald Barthelme（1931年4月7日—1989年7月23日）是美國後現代主義小說家，代表作是《白雪公主》。他一生寫了大量的短篇小說，並曾從事新聞記者、雜誌編輯等工作，並曾在紐約城市大學任教。

雖然以短篇小說文明，巴塞爾姆一生中亦著有四部中長篇小說：《白雪公主》（Snow White），《死去的父親》（The Dead Father），《天堂》（Paradise）以及 The King。他的一百多篇短篇收集在 《Come Back, Dr. Caligari》、 《Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts》《City Life》和《Sadness》等書中。另外，它的大部分作品彙集在了《故事六十篇》（Sixty Stories）和《故事四十篇》（Forty Stories）之中。巴塞爾姆還著有一些非小說書籍，如：《Guilty Pleasures》、《Not-Knowing: The Essays and Interviews of Donald Barthelme》。並和女兒一道寫了兒童文學作品《The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine》，並因此在1972年獲得美國國家圖書獎。

巴塞爾姆的短篇小說作品通常只重視偶然和片斷，而並傳統、完整的敘述並不多見。一些作品背離了小說傳統表現方式，甚至在一些作品里採用大量非文字的表達方式例如插入讓讀者難以捉摸的圖片或者單調的色塊。人們對他的作品有褒有貶。褒者認為巴塞爾姆的作品思維方式奇特、觀點獨到，貶者認為他的作品毫無意義不能理解。他也是美國最富有影響力的後現代主義作家之一。