At a time when Verne is making a comeback in the US as a mainstream literary figure, Wesleyan is pleased to publish a new translation of one of his best-known novels, The Mysterious Island. Although several editions under the same title are in print, most reproduce a bowdlerized nineteenth-century translation which changes the names of the characters, omits several important scenes, and ideologically censors Verne's original text.The Mysterious Island was published in 1874, and it is one of Verne's longest novels. The plot depicts a group of men who have become castaways stranded on an island in the Pacific during the American Civil War. The novel describes their attempts not only to survive but also, with the aid of the scientific and technological know-how, to rebuild their world from the meager resources of the island. At the end, however, it is realized that Captain Nemo, from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, has secretly been helping the settlers. A marvelous adventure story, The Mysterious Island is also notable for its modern retelling of the utopian deserted-island myth, with repeated echoes of Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family Robinson. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices and an introduction by Verne scholar William Butcher, as well as reproductions of the illustrations from the original French edition.

The Syriac manuscript collection at the British Library is one of the largest and most important collections in any Western library. A great deal of it comes from Deir al-Suryan in Egypt, and without it our knowledge of Syriac Christianity today would not have been possible.

This Cambridge collection includes manuscripts that were formerly in private hands, most notably the manuscripts of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, which were presented to the University by King George I in 1715.

Companion Spider is the accumulated work of a poet and translator who goes more deeply into the art and its process and demands than anyone since Robert Duncan. Clayton Eshleman is one of our most admired and controversial poets, the translator of such great international poets as César Vallejo, Aimé Césaire and Antonin Artaud, and founder and editor of two important literary magazines, Sulfur and Caterpillar. As such, Eshleman writes about the vocation of poet and of the poet as translator as no one else in America today; he believes adamantly that art must concern itself with vision, and that poets learn best by an apprenticeship that is a kind of immersion in the work of other poets. Companion Spider opens with a unique eighty page essay called "Novices: A Study of Poetic Apprenticeship" addressed to the poet who is just starting out. Subsequent sections take up the art of translation, poets and their work, and literary magazine editing. The title is drawn from an extraordinary visionary experience which the author had, which becomes a potent metaphor for the creative process. Through the variety of poets and artists to whom he pays homage, Eshleman suggests a community which is not of a single place or time; rather, there is mutual recognition and responsiveness, so that the reader becomes aware of a range of artistic practices s/he might explore

Dean Young is one of the premier surrealist poets writing today. In Skid, his fifth book of poems, social outrage vies with comic excess. He embraces the autobiographical urge with fury and musically lush exclamations. Whether through the dark facts of mortality or the celebratory surprises of the imagination, these poems proclaim vitality and alertness, wasting nothing. From Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner’s "Meep! Meep!" to remembrances of lost loves and laments about the future, Young’s poems reveal his faith in the genius of calamity and the redemptive power of fun.

Brion Gysin (1916-1986) was a visual artist, historian, novelist, and an experimental poet credited with the discovery of the 'cut-up' technique -- a collage of texts, not pictures -- which his longtime collaborator William S. Burroughs put to more extensive use. He is also considered one of the early innovators of sound poetry, which he defines as 'getting poetry back off the page and into performance. ' Back in No Time gathers materials from the entire Gysin oeuvre: scholarly historical study, baroque fiction, permutated and cut-up poetry, unsettling memoir, selections from The Process and The Last Museum, and his unproduced screenplay of Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. In addition, the Reader contains complete texts of several Gysin pieces that are difficult to find, including "Poem of Poems," "The Pipes of Pan," and "A Quick Trip to Alamut."

The 4,000-page Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana is described as “the first and best encyclopedia for the study of early Syriac Christian literature” by the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. It is the standard encyclopedia in the field.

The 4,000-page Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana is described as “the first and best encyclopedia for the study of early Syriac Christian literature” by the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. It is the standard encyclopedia in the field.

The 4,000-page Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana is described as “the first and best encyclopedia for the study of early Syriac Christian literature” by the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. It is the standard encyclopedia in the field.

The 4,000-page Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana is described as “the first and best encyclopedia for the study of early Syriac Christian literature” by the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. It is the standard encyclopedia in the field.

The 4,000-page Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana is described as “the first and best encyclopedia for the study of early Syriac Christian literature” by the Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. It is the standard encyclopedia in the field.

The Syriac manuscript collection at the British Library is one of the largest and most important collections in any Western library. A great deal of it comes from Deir al-Suryan in Egypt, and without it our knowledge of Syriac Christianity today would not have been possible.

The Syriac manuscript collection at the British Library is one of the largest and most important collections in any Western library. A great deal of it comes from Deir al-Suryan in Egypt, and without it our knowledge of Syriac Christianity today would not have been possible.

The Syriac manuscript collection at the British Library is one of the largest and most important collections in any Western library. A great deal of it comes from Deir al-Suryan in Egypt, and without it our knowledge of Syriac Christianity today would not have been possible.

This Cambridge collection includes manuscripts that were formerly in private hands, most notably the manuscripts of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, which were presented to the University by King George I in 1715.

This Cambridge collection includes manuscripts that were formerly in private hands, most notably the manuscripts of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, which were presented to the University by King George I in 1715.