J. J. Jusserand (1855–1932)

The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare - J. J. Jusserand
This was translated from French by Elizabeth Lee in 1893, three years after its publication and she took the opportunity to revise and enlarge the original. The first couple of chapters provide a history of the novel from the time of Beowulf through the Norman invasion of 1066 and up to the time of John Lyly in the 1570’s. There follows chapters on the major writers and their followers between 1580 and 1605.

Jusserand or Lee calls Lyly the father of the English novel and the chapter on his works and his influence is fairly good. I have read Lyly and so I can appreciate the criticism of his unique writing style. The following chapters are on Robert Greene and his followers, Sir Philip Sidney and his pastoral romance, Thomas Nashe and the picaresque and realist novels and finally the first half of the seventeenth century after Shakespeare (however this final chapter dismisses almost all of the English authors of this period)

This book would serve as a useful introduction to the major novelists of the late Elizabethan period, It showcases the most critically acclaimed novels by the authors, but it is not in any way exhaustive. Shakespeare is mentioned in the title and the book highlights possible source materiel for his plays, but again there is not much detail. A useful book: now free on the internet and I would rate it as 3 stars.… (mais)

3411. What Me Befell: The Reminiscenses of J. J. Jusserand (read Feb 24, 2001) The author was the French ambassador to the US from 1902 to 1925, and is, so far as I know, the only non-American to win a Pulitzer Prize. (He was awarded the first Pulitzer for History in 1917.) The book only gets up to 1909 because the author died (in 1932) before he could get any further with his memoirs. Before he gets caught up in his admiration for Teddy Roosevelt I found the book of interest, as it tells of his literary interests and of his diplomatic service in Paris, London, Tunis, Constantinople, and Denmark, before coming to Washington in 1902. I was caught by the title, and the book ranks with other books I have read because of their title, such as I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia, by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, which I read Feb 26, 1987, because I had long been attracted by the title. Others in that category are I Came Out of the 18th Century; by John Andrew Rice (read 3 Feb 1979). Right Hand, Glove Uplifted; by Sister M. Mileta Ludwig (read 30 Jan 1983), and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy (read 9 Apr 1952).… (mais)