The way to Xanadu
[New ed.]
Our rough guess is there are 48,500 words in this book.
At a pace averaging 250 words per minute, this book will take 3 hours and 14 minutes to read. With a half hour per day, this will take 7 days to read.
How long will it take you?
This book will take an estimated to read at a reading speed averaging words per minute. With 30 minutes per day, this will take to read.
Enter your reading speedYou can take one of our WPM reading speed tests to find your reading speed.
Create a free account to track your reading progress, build your reading list, and set reading goals.
Word Count
48,500 words, Guess
Page Count
194 pages
Identifiers
- Open LibraryOL16510352M
- Internet Archivewaytoxanadu0000alex_u0n7
- ISBN-101857991036
- ISBN-139781857991031
- LibraryThing16375
and 3 more
- Goodreads2983594
- OCLC Control Number31376201
- Better World Books9781857991031
Classifications
- DDC910.4
- LCCPR4480.K83 A44 1994
Description
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure-dome decree..." So begins Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," one of the most famous and captivating poems in the English language. It is also the starting point for this mesmerizing and wide-ranging account of Caroline Alexander's quest to experience firsthand the places that collectively inspired Coleridge's legendary poetic vision of the mythic seat of pleasure. Driven by a lifelong fascination with this poetic masterpiece and by her limitless curiosity, Alexander brilliantly reconstructs the origins of Coleridge's haunting images as she leads us across three continents - from the windswept steppes of Inner Mongolia, where the great Khan held sway, to North Florida with its "mighty fountains," to Kashmir's mystical and holy cave of ice, to sacred "Mount Abora" in Ethiopia. Alongside her meticulous literary detective work, Alexander offers us the richly strange histories of these places, and conveys with her unfailing eye their surpassing natural wonder. Her witty and elegant chronicles also present an amazing array of characters - from stony-faced officials upholding the great wall of Chinese bureaucracy to tough-minded Floridians battling the bureaucracy of our own federal government. . As Alexander reminds us, Coleridge, who composed his great work in an opium reverie, himself never actually visited the places he evoked so powerfully, but merely read about them in a diverse collection of travel and discovery narratives, which were definitively catalogued in 1927 by the renowned scholar John Livingston Lowes. The power of these works to feed the poet's imagination inspires Alexander's intriguing speculation about the value and purpose of travel writing in our own age. Endlessly entertaining and richly informative, The Way to Xanadu is an utterly original blend of travel writing and literary scholarship.
Subjects
Topics
People
Other Editions
- The way to Xanadu
Similar Books
The poetical works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: complete in one volume.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The rime of the ancient mariner.
Illus. by Gustave Doré. With a new introd. by Millicent Rose.
Lyrical ballads: 1798
by William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge ; edited and an introduction and notes by Thomas Hutchinson.
Coleridge: Early Visions
Richard Holmes
Collected letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
edited byEarl Leslie Griggs. Vol.2, 1801-1806.
Reader Reviews
No reviews yet for this book.
Be the first to share your thoughts!