“A great travel writer and more importantly a great traveler.” —Sydney Morning Herald When A. J. Mackinnon quits his job in Australia, he knows only that he longs to travel to the well at the world’s end, a mysterious pool on a remote Scottish island whose waters, legend has it, hold the secret to eternal youth. Determined not to fly—he claims it would feel as though he were cheating—he sets out with a backpack, some fireworks, and a map of the world and trusts that chance will take care of the rest. Traveling by land and sea, train, truck, horse, and yacht, Mackinnon travels across the world, getting caught up in a series of hilarious, sometimes surreal, adventures. He survives a near-fatal bus crash in Australia, accidentally marries a Laotian princess, is attacked by a Komodo dragon, and does time in a sketchy Chinese jail, among many other mishaps and misadventures along the way. Each new continent and each new mode of transport brings the possibility of a near-miss or happy accident, all on the quest for eternal youth. This is the astonishing true story of a remarkable voyage.

What fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? In Portable Property, John Plotz examines the new role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with religious sentiments, family ties, and national identity intact. In an empire defined as much by the circulation of capital as by force of arms, the challenge of preserving Englishness while living overseas became a central Victorian preoccupation, creating a pressing need for objects that could readily travel abroad as personifications of Britishness. At the same time a radically new relationship between cash value and sentimental associations arose in certain resonant mementoes--in teacups, rings, sprigs of heather, and handkerchiefs, but most of all in books. Portable Property examines how culture-bearing objects came to stand for distant people and places, creating or preserving a sense of self and community despite geographic dislocation. Victorian novels--because they themselves came to be understood as the quintessential portable property--tell the story of this change most clearly. Plotz analyzes a wide range of works, paying particular attention to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Anthony Trollope's Eustace Diamonds, and R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone. He also discusses Thomas Hardy and William Morris's vehement attack on the very notion of cultural portability. The result is a richer understanding of the role of objects in British culture at home and abroad during the Age of Empire.

"The present volume includes talks Frye gave that were tape-recorded but for which there is no extant manuscript, taped interviews and responses to questions not included in the volume of interviews of the Collected Works; a previously undiscovered notebook and portions of others, including an extensive series of notes on romance (93,000 words); a brief in opposition to the Macpherson Report on undergraduate education at the University of Toronto; an address about the contribution of Victoria College to Canadian culture; reviews that were until recently unknown to me and the other editors of the Collected Works; a reply to a questionnaire from the American Scholar, and an early essay on poetic diction."--Page xiii

This portable NRSV Bible is available in eye-catching binding styles at extremely attractive prices. Its compact size makes it the perfect companion for people on the go, while its clear typeface makes it eminently readable.