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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Hardcover – April, 1996
Author: Visit ‘s E. B. Sledge Page ID: 1557507473

Review

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific – the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary – into terms we mortals can grasp. Tom Hanks In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of–not the “good war”–but the worst war ever. Ken Burn Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece. The New York Review of Book

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001.

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Hardcover: 326 pagesPublisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1996)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1557507473ISBN-13: 978-1557507471 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #877,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8288 in Books > History > Military > World War II #9252 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation
Although the cover and the title may not sound that eloquent or poetic, make no mistake, Sledge’s elegy stands along perhaps 10 other wartime biographies written this century. He not only recounts war and the charnel houses of these two battles, but does it in a way that is both extremely moving in a prose style that is very reminiscent of the Robert Graves’ WWI "Goodbye to all That" or WWII’s Farley Mowat’s "And No Birds Sang."

Sledge, who is not a professional writer like the above gentleman but writes, in my opinion, equally as well. As such Sledge has written the quintessential experience of the Marine in the Pacific War. it is one of the best, eloquent, haunting, and poetic reads I have every come across, and more than most war memoirs it is very, very scary.

I think that one should be able to read through it quickly. I also liked it cause I ended up clawing through the jungle in the Horseshoe region on Peleliu and seeing nothing but gun positions, caves, and small human shaped holes in the coral landscape with Sake Bottles and used and unused cartridges in the holes.

I took this book to Peleliu in 1998. The Jungle has mostly come back and there are few tourists on the Island, and none off the very few trails. The caves are littered with broken Japanese Army helmets, some rusted badly, others with the green in good condition.

One can see nothing but jungle cleaved coral. After passing the usual "squid pots" (what the Japanese called the small coral caves and holes the dot the island), I was suddenly standing on an old oil drum, now rusted the same colour as the brown moss of the jungle. Then another drum…. rows of drums filled with coral.
This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one’s senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell’s own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell –it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese–some while they are still alive–he is disgusted
and sickened.
"With The Old Breed" is a stunning eye witness account of one Marines trip from Boot Camp to the South Pacific during World War II. Sledge writes an autobiographical and historical account of his own experiences as a member of K Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Coming late to the war in 1944, Sledge "only" participates in two of the famous 1st Marine battles – Peleliu and Okinawa. Throughout his account he speaks of his training, the closeness of combat and the horrors of war.
After initially enlisting in the Marines in 1942, Sledge enrolled in Marine ROTC but like may others in his class, he felt the call of the war and after a semester he went to boot camp. It was here that he got his first taste of Marine training. By this time the Marines had plenty of combat veterans who had been rotated home to fill the ranks of instructors. The effect of having veterans train the newest can be measured by their initial survival in combat. The instructors prepared Sledge and his peers well with tough, realistic training – training that would keep them alive in the first days in combat. His state side training was followed up with more once he reached the Pacific and a healthy dose of iron discipline. Again, the hard training paid off for Sledge. Later in the war the Marines ran out of time for proper training and integration of new troops. The result was dead Marines, to new to know what to do. Training and discipline were the difference between life and death in the initial days in combat. Sledge received and absorbed his training and went home without a scratch.
Though Sledge does not specifically address it, I was struck by the closeness of the combat he faced. Peleiu was a only 12 square miles – 6 miles long by 2 miles wide.
Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Format Hardcover Change April 15 1990 4 7 out With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B Sledge April savings coupon 1996 Hardcover ISBN 13 9781557507471 Editions of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Editions for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Published April 28th 1996 by US Naval Institute Press With the Old Breed Hardcover Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Amazon com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our

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With the Old Breed

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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Hardcover – April, 1996
Author: Visit ‘s E. B. Sledge Page ID: 1557507473

Review

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific – the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary – into terms we mortals can grasp. Tom Hanks In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of–not the “good war”–but the worst war ever. Ken Burn Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece. The New York Review of Book

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001.

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Hardcover: 326 pagesPublisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1996)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1557507473ISBN-13: 978-1557507471 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #877,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8288 in Books > History > Military > World War II #9252 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation
Although the cover and the title may not sound that eloquent or poetic, make no mistake, Sledge’s elegy stands along perhaps 10 other wartime biographies written this century. He not only recounts war and the charnel houses of these two battles, but does it in a way that is both extremely moving in a prose style that is very reminiscent of the Robert Graves’ WWI "Goodbye to all That" or WWII’s Farley Mowat’s "And No Birds Sang."

Sledge, who is not a professional writer like the above gentleman but writes, in my opinion, equally as well. As such Sledge has written the quintessential experience of the Marine in the Pacific War. it is one of the best, eloquent, haunting, and poetic reads I have every come across, and more than most war memoirs it is very, very scary.

I think that one should be able to read through it quickly. I also liked it cause I ended up clawing through the jungle in the Horseshoe region on Peleliu and seeing nothing but gun positions, caves, and small human shaped holes in the coral landscape with Sake Bottles and used and unused cartridges in the holes.

I took this book to Peleliu in 1998. The Jungle has mostly come back and there are few tourists on the Island, and none off the very few trails. The caves are littered with broken Japanese Army helmets, some rusted badly, others with the green in good condition.

One can see nothing but jungle cleaved coral. After passing the usual "squid pots" (what the Japanese called the small coral caves and holes the dot the island), I was suddenly standing on an old oil drum, now rusted the same colour as the brown moss of the jungle. Then another drum…. rows of drums filled with coral.
This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one’s senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell’s own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell –it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese–some while they are still alive–he is disgusted
and sickened.
"With The Old Breed" is a stunning eye witness account of one Marines trip from Boot Camp to the South Pacific during World War II. Sledge writes an autobiographical and historical account of his own experiences as a member of K Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Coming late to the war in 1944, Sledge "only" participates in two of the famous 1st Marine battles – Peleliu and Okinawa. Throughout his account he speaks of his training, the closeness of combat and the horrors of war.
After initially enlisting in the Marines in 1942, Sledge enrolled in Marine ROTC but like may others in his class, he felt the call of the war and after a semester he went to boot camp. It was here that he got his first taste of Marine training. By this time the Marines had plenty of combat veterans who had been rotated home to fill the ranks of instructors. The effect of having veterans train the newest can be measured by their initial survival in combat. The instructors prepared Sledge and his peers well with tough, realistic training – training that would keep them alive in the first days in combat. His state side training was followed up with more once he reached the Pacific and a healthy dose of iron discipline. Again, the hard training paid off for Sledge. Later in the war the Marines ran out of time for proper training and integration of new troops. The result was dead Marines, to new to know what to do. Training and discipline were the difference between life and death in the initial days in combat. Sledge received and absorbed his training and went home without a scratch.
Though Sledge does not specifically address it, I was struck by the closeness of the combat he faced. Peleiu was a only 12 square miles – 6 miles long by 2 miles wide.
Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Format Hardcover Change April 15 1990 4 7 out With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B Sledge April savings coupon 1996 Hardcover ISBN 13 9781557507471 Editions of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Editions for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Published April 28th 1996 by US Naval Institute Press With the Old Breed Hardcover Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Amazon com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our

Download With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa – April, 1996 PDF

ManilaHardi865


With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Hardcover – April, 1996
Author: Visit ‘s E. B. Sledge Page ID: 1557507473

Review

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific – the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary – into terms we mortals can grasp. Tom Hanks In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of–not the “good war”–but the worst war ever. Ken Burn Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece. The New York Review of Book

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001.

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Hardcover: 326 pagesPublisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1996)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1557507473ISBN-13: 978-1557507471 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #877,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8288 in Books > History > Military > World War II #9252 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation
Although the cover and the title may not sound that eloquent or poetic, make no mistake, Sledge’s elegy stands along perhaps 10 other wartime biographies written this century. He not only recounts war and the charnel houses of these two battles, but does it in a way that is both extremely moving in a prose style that is very reminiscent of the Robert Graves’ WWI "Goodbye to all That" or WWII’s Farley Mowat’s "And No Birds Sang."

Sledge, who is not a professional writer like the above gentleman but writes, in my opinion, equally as well. As such Sledge has written the quintessential experience of the Marine in the Pacific War. it is one of the best, eloquent, haunting, and poetic reads I have every come across, and more than most war memoirs it is very, very scary.

I think that one should be able to read through it quickly. I also liked it cause I ended up clawing through the jungle in the Horseshoe region on Peleliu and seeing nothing but gun positions, caves, and small human shaped holes in the coral landscape with Sake Bottles and used and unused cartridges in the holes.

I took this book to Peleliu in 1998. The Jungle has mostly come back and there are few tourists on the Island, and none off the very few trails. The caves are littered with broken Japanese Army helmets, some rusted badly, others with the green in good condition.

One can see nothing but jungle cleaved coral. After passing the usual "squid pots" (what the Japanese called the small coral caves and holes the dot the island), I was suddenly standing on an old oil drum, now rusted the same colour as the brown moss of the jungle. Then another drum…. rows of drums filled with coral.
This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one’s senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell’s own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell –it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese–some while they are still alive–he is disgusted
and sickened.
"With The Old Breed" is a stunning eye witness account of one Marines trip from Boot Camp to the South Pacific during World War II. Sledge writes an autobiographical and historical account of his own experiences as a member of K Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Coming late to the war in 1944, Sledge "only" participates in two of the famous 1st Marine battles – Peleliu and Okinawa. Throughout his account he speaks of his training, the closeness of combat and the horrors of war.
After initially enlisting in the Marines in 1942, Sledge enrolled in Marine ROTC but like may others in his class, he felt the call of the war and after a semester he went to boot camp. It was here that he got his first taste of Marine training. By this time the Marines had plenty of combat veterans who had been rotated home to fill the ranks of instructors. The effect of having veterans train the newest can be measured by their initial survival in combat. The instructors prepared Sledge and his peers well with tough, realistic training – training that would keep them alive in the first days in combat. His state side training was followed up with more once he reached the Pacific and a healthy dose of iron discipline. Again, the hard training paid off for Sledge. Later in the war the Marines ran out of time for proper training and integration of new troops. The result was dead Marines, to new to know what to do. Training and discipline were the difference between life and death in the initial days in combat. Sledge received and absorbed his training and went home without a scratch.
Though Sledge does not specifically address it, I was struck by the closeness of the combat he faced. Peleiu was a only 12 square miles – 6 miles long by 2 miles wide.
Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Format Hardcover Change April 15 1990 4 7 out With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B Sledge April savings coupon 1996 Hardcover ISBN 13 9781557507471 Editions of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Editions for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Published April 28th 1996 by US Naval Institute Press With the Old Breed Hardcover Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Amazon com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our

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With the Old Breed

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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Hardcover – April, 1996
Author: Visit ‘s E. B. Sledge Page ID: 1557507473

Review

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific – the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary – into terms we mortals can grasp. Tom Hanks In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of–not the “good war”–but the worst war ever. Ken Burn Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece. The New York Review of Book

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001.

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Hardcover: 326 pagesPublisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1996)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1557507473ISBN-13: 978-1557507471 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #877,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8288 in Books > History > Military > World War II #9252 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation
Although the cover and the title may not sound that eloquent or poetic, make no mistake, Sledge’s elegy stands along perhaps 10 other wartime biographies written this century. He not only recounts war and the charnel houses of these two battles, but does it in a way that is both extremely moving in a prose style that is very reminiscent of the Robert Graves’ WWI "Goodbye to all That" or WWII’s Farley Mowat’s "And No Birds Sang."

Sledge, who is not a professional writer like the above gentleman but writes, in my opinion, equally as well. As such Sledge has written the quintessential experience of the Marine in the Pacific War. it is one of the best, eloquent, haunting, and poetic reads I have every come across, and more than most war memoirs it is very, very scary.

I think that one should be able to read through it quickly. I also liked it cause I ended up clawing through the jungle in the Horseshoe region on Peleliu and seeing nothing but gun positions, caves, and small human shaped holes in the coral landscape with Sake Bottles and used and unused cartridges in the holes.

I took this book to Peleliu in 1998. The Jungle has mostly come back and there are few tourists on the Island, and none off the very few trails. The caves are littered with broken Japanese Army helmets, some rusted badly, others with the green in good condition.

One can see nothing but jungle cleaved coral. After passing the usual "squid pots" (what the Japanese called the small coral caves and holes the dot the island), I was suddenly standing on an old oil drum, now rusted the same colour as the brown moss of the jungle. Then another drum…. rows of drums filled with coral.
This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one’s senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell’s own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell –it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese–some while they are still alive–he is disgusted
and sickened.
"With The Old Breed" is a stunning eye witness account of one Marines trip from Boot Camp to the South Pacific during World War II. Sledge writes an autobiographical and historical account of his own experiences as a member of K Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Coming late to the war in 1944, Sledge "only" participates in two of the famous 1st Marine battles – Peleliu and Okinawa. Throughout his account he speaks of his training, the closeness of combat and the horrors of war.
After initially enlisting in the Marines in 1942, Sledge enrolled in Marine ROTC but like may others in his class, he felt the call of the war and after a semester he went to boot camp. It was here that he got his first taste of Marine training. By this time the Marines had plenty of combat veterans who had been rotated home to fill the ranks of instructors. The effect of having veterans train the newest can be measured by their initial survival in combat. The instructors prepared Sledge and his peers well with tough, realistic training – training that would keep them alive in the first days in combat. His state side training was followed up with more once he reached the Pacific and a healthy dose of iron discipline. Again, the hard training paid off for Sledge. Later in the war the Marines ran out of time for proper training and integration of new troops. The result was dead Marines, to new to know what to do. Training and discipline were the difference between life and death in the initial days in combat. Sledge received and absorbed his training and went home without a scratch.
Though Sledge does not specifically address it, I was struck by the closeness of the combat he faced. Peleiu was a only 12 square miles – 6 miles long by 2 miles wide.
Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Format Hardcover Change April 15 1990 4 7 out With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B Sledge April savings coupon 1996 Hardcover ISBN 13 9781557507471 Editions of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Editions for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Published April 28th 1996 by US Naval Institute Press With the Old Breed Hardcover Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Amazon com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our

Download With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa – April, 1996 PDF

ManilaHardi865

Related Posts:

With the Old Breed

Add Comment

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Hardcover – April, 1996
Author: Visit ‘s E. B. Sledge Page ID: 1557507473

Review

Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific – the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary – into terms we mortals can grasp. Tom Hanks In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of–not the “good war”–but the worst war ever. Ken Burn Of all the books about the ground war in the Pacific, [With the Old Breed] is the closest to a masterpiece. The New York Review of Book

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

E. B. Sledge was born in Mobile, Alabama. In late 1943 he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was then sent to the Pacific where he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. After returning from the war he immediately began working on a book based on the notes he had taken while posted in the Pacific theatre, which became With the Old Breed. Sledge joined the biology faculty of Alabama College, where he taught until his retirement. Sledge died on March 3rd, 2001.

–This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Hardcover: 326 pagesPublisher: US Naval Institute Press (April 1996)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1557507473ISBN-13: 978-1557507471 Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds Best Sellers Rank: #877,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8288 in Books > History > Military > World War II #9252 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Transportation
Although the cover and the title may not sound that eloquent or poetic, make no mistake, Sledge’s elegy stands along perhaps 10 other wartime biographies written this century. He not only recounts war and the charnel houses of these two battles, but does it in a way that is both extremely moving in a prose style that is very reminiscent of the Robert Graves’ WWI "Goodbye to all That" or WWII’s Farley Mowat’s "And No Birds Sang."

Sledge, who is not a professional writer like the above gentleman but writes, in my opinion, equally as well. As such Sledge has written the quintessential experience of the Marine in the Pacific War. it is one of the best, eloquent, haunting, and poetic reads I have every come across, and more than most war memoirs it is very, very scary.

I think that one should be able to read through it quickly. I also liked it cause I ended up clawing through the jungle in the Horseshoe region on Peleliu and seeing nothing but gun positions, caves, and small human shaped holes in the coral landscape with Sake Bottles and used and unused cartridges in the holes.

I took this book to Peleliu in 1998. The Jungle has mostly come back and there are few tourists on the Island, and none off the very few trails. The caves are littered with broken Japanese Army helmets, some rusted badly, others with the green in good condition.

One can see nothing but jungle cleaved coral. After passing the usual "squid pots" (what the Japanese called the small coral caves and holes the dot the island), I was suddenly standing on an old oil drum, now rusted the same colour as the brown moss of the jungle. Then another drum…. rows of drums filled with coral.
This account by E.B. Sledge, a Marine PFC who landed on Peleliu and
Okinawa, details the violence and brutality of these two battles so
realistically that it is a disturbing and haunting book. Peleliu was
supposed to last 3 to 4 days, but went on for 2 months and cost the
Marines 1,262 dead and 5,274 wounded. The statistics from Okinawa
contain a action, and 26,221 neuropsychiatric "non-battle
casualties." At Peleliu, Sledge "had tasted the bitterest
essence of war, the sight of helpless comrades being slaughtered, and
it filled me with disgust." Peleliu was a jagged coral island
which caused cuts and tears on contact with human flesh, and there was
a lot of such contact. "It was almost impossible to dig a
protective foxhole in the rock." Once inland one’s senses were
overwhelmed by the sight and smell of corpses filled with maggots,
human excrement on top of coral everywhere, dysentery, rotting
American and Japanese rations, huge flies, knee deep mud, rainstorms,
tropical oven heat, snapping bullets, and exploding shells. More than
once Sledge saw a Marine slide down a ridge into rotting Japanese
corpses to find himself covered with maggots and vomiting from the
smell. Peleliu was an "assault into hell;" the landscape
"hell’s own cesspool." After the landing, with Marines
suffering from heat prostration, even the water came from hell –it
came in old oil drums, and the oil residue caused the troops to retch
in the broiling sun. When Sledge sees his comrades cutting gold teeth
from the Japanese–some while they are still alive–he is disgusted
and sickened.
"With The Old Breed" is a stunning eye witness account of one Marines trip from Boot Camp to the South Pacific during World War II. Sledge writes an autobiographical and historical account of his own experiences as a member of K Company, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division. Coming late to the war in 1944, Sledge "only" participates in two of the famous 1st Marine battles – Peleliu and Okinawa. Throughout his account he speaks of his training, the closeness of combat and the horrors of war.
After initially enlisting in the Marines in 1942, Sledge enrolled in Marine ROTC but like may others in his class, he felt the call of the war and after a semester he went to boot camp. It was here that he got his first taste of Marine training. By this time the Marines had plenty of combat veterans who had been rotated home to fill the ranks of instructors. The effect of having veterans train the newest can be measured by their initial survival in combat. The instructors prepared Sledge and his peers well with tough, realistic training – training that would keep them alive in the first days in combat. His state side training was followed up with more once he reached the Pacific and a healthy dose of iron discipline. Again, the hard training paid off for Sledge. Later in the war the Marines ran out of time for proper training and integration of new troops. The result was dead Marines, to new to know what to do. Training and discipline were the difference between life and death in the initial days in combat. Sledge received and absorbed his training and went home without a scratch.
Though Sledge does not specifically address it, I was struck by the closeness of the combat he faced. Peleiu was a only 12 square miles – 6 miles long by 2 miles wide.
Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Format Hardcover Change April 15 1990 4 7 out With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E B Sledge April savings coupon 1996 Hardcover ISBN 13 9781557507471 Editions of With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Editions for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa Published April 28th 1996 by US Naval Institute Press With the Old Breed Hardcover Amazon com Customer Reviews With the Old Breed At Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for With the Old Breed At Peleliu and Okinawa at Amazon com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our

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Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015
Author: Jonathan Bate ID: 0062362437

Review

“An incisive, humane and deeply absorbing account of Hughes’s life and work.” (New York Times)

“An excellent biography: compulsively readable, elegantly assembled… and sensitive to the many aspects of Hughes’s grand and complicated character.” (Christopher Wiman, Wall Street Journal, front page review)

“An intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life…” (Washington Post)

“…Bate has provided new depth to Ted Hughes’ biography…” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Imaginative, comprehensive…worthy of becoming the standard life of Hughes. Illuminating, elegant, and excellent.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scrupulous and lucid… [Hughes] was a dedicated and brilliantly sharp-eyed recorder of material that might or might not one day get hammered into poetry, and even the tiny pieces that Bate gives us glitter.” (The Guardian)

“Illuminating.” (Daily Mail (London))

About the Author

Jonathan Bate is a biographer, critic, and broadcaster. His many books include The Genius of Shakespeare, described by Sir Peter Hall as "the best modern book on Shakespeare"; a biography of the poet John Clare, which won Britain's two oldest literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize; Soul of the Age, an intellectual life of Shakespeare, which was runner-up for the Biography Prize of PEN America; and The Song of the Earth, a pioneering book on poetry and the environment. He is also the author of a novel, The Cure for Love, and the hit one-man play for Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English literature at Oxford University. Married to the author Paula Byrne, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to higher education and was knighted in 2015 for his services to literary scholarship.

Hardcover: 672 pagesPublisher: Harper (October 13, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0062362437ISBN-13: 978-0062362438 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #17,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Poetry #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
I have waited for this book a long time! As a devotee of the poetry of both Plath and Hughes, and a biography addict, I was hoping for something that would move beyond the partisanship and bias that seems to hound so much work on either, particularly Hughes, and something that would be a writerly life, along the lines of Charlotte Bronte: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser — that is, something that did not skirt the problematic life but which did not sensationalize it, and linked any biographical information to the literary development. I was not disappointed.

Although the Hughes estate has accused Bate of violating his purview (a "literary" life), I think he has managed to produce just that. He has done so in the face of a huge obstacle, which is the blocking by the estate of his permission to quote anything but small fragments of Hughes’s writing.

Bate’s sophistication begins with the very title of this book: "An Unauthorized Life." Although the most immediate and literal meaning is that permission from the estate was revoked and therefore the biography is not authorized in that fashion, Bate also believes that Hughes sought in many ways to live outside the confines of what society "authorized" in terms of his behaviors and responses, preferring to be led by his inner compass and sense of his inner mythical life. Finally, Bate says that the unpublished archival materials, which are massive, are part of the unauthorized life, the life behind the scenes of the published, "authorized" poet and writer. This sophisticated use of language and of thinking about a life is apparent throughout the book and is one of its primary delights.
Download Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015 PDF

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Ted Hughes

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Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015
Author: Jonathan Bate ID: 0062362437

Review

“An incisive, humane and deeply absorbing account of Hughes’s life and work.” (New York Times)

“An excellent biography: compulsively readable, elegantly assembled… and sensitive to the many aspects of Hughes’s grand and complicated character.” (Christopher Wiman, Wall Street Journal, front page review)

“An intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life…” (Washington Post)

“…Bate has provided new depth to Ted Hughes’ biography…” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Imaginative, comprehensive…worthy of becoming the standard life of Hughes. Illuminating, elegant, and excellent.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scrupulous and lucid… [Hughes] was a dedicated and brilliantly sharp-eyed recorder of material that might or might not one day get hammered into poetry, and even the tiny pieces that Bate gives us glitter.” (The Guardian)

“Illuminating.” (Daily Mail (London))

About the Author

Jonathan Bate is a biographer, critic, and broadcaster. His many books include The Genius of Shakespeare, described by Sir Peter Hall as "the best modern book on Shakespeare"; a biography of the poet John Clare, which won Britain's two oldest literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize; Soul of the Age, an intellectual life of Shakespeare, which was runner-up for the Biography Prize of PEN America; and The Song of the Earth, a pioneering book on poetry and the environment. He is also the author of a novel, The Cure for Love, and the hit one-man play for Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English literature at Oxford University. Married to the author Paula Byrne, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to higher education and was knighted in 2015 for his services to literary scholarship.

Hardcover: 672 pagesPublisher: Harper (October 13, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0062362437ISBN-13: 978-0062362438 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #17,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Poetry #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
I have waited for this book a long time! As a devotee of the poetry of both Plath and Hughes, and a biography addict, I was hoping for something that would move beyond the partisanship and bias that seems to hound so much work on either, particularly Hughes, and something that would be a writerly life, along the lines of Charlotte Bronte: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser — that is, something that did not skirt the problematic life but which did not sensationalize it, and linked any biographical information to the literary development. I was not disappointed.

Although the Hughes estate has accused Bate of violating his purview (a "literary" life), I think he has managed to produce just that. He has done so in the face of a huge obstacle, which is the blocking by the estate of his permission to quote anything but small fragments of Hughes’s writing.

Bate’s sophistication begins with the very title of this book: "An Unauthorized Life." Although the most immediate and literal meaning is that permission from the estate was revoked and therefore the biography is not authorized in that fashion, Bate also believes that Hughes sought in many ways to live outside the confines of what society "authorized" in terms of his behaviors and responses, preferring to be led by his inner compass and sense of his inner mythical life. Finally, Bate says that the unpublished archival materials, which are massive, are part of the unauthorized life, the life behind the scenes of the published, "authorized" poet and writer. This sophisticated use of language and of thinking about a life is apparent throughout the book and is one of its primary delights.
Download Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015 PDF

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Ted Hughes

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Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015
Author: Jonathan Bate ID: 0062362437

Review

“An incisive, humane and deeply absorbing account of Hughes’s life and work.” (New York Times)

“An excellent biography: compulsively readable, elegantly assembled… and sensitive to the many aspects of Hughes’s grand and complicated character.” (Christopher Wiman, Wall Street Journal, front page review)

“An intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life…” (Washington Post)

“…Bate has provided new depth to Ted Hughes’ biography…” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Imaginative, comprehensive…worthy of becoming the standard life of Hughes. Illuminating, elegant, and excellent.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scrupulous and lucid… [Hughes] was a dedicated and brilliantly sharp-eyed recorder of material that might or might not one day get hammered into poetry, and even the tiny pieces that Bate gives us glitter.” (The Guardian)

“Illuminating.” (Daily Mail (London))

About the Author

Jonathan Bate is a biographer, critic, and broadcaster. His many books include The Genius of Shakespeare, described by Sir Peter Hall as "the best modern book on Shakespeare"; a biography of the poet John Clare, which won Britain's two oldest literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize; Soul of the Age, an intellectual life of Shakespeare, which was runner-up for the Biography Prize of PEN America; and The Song of the Earth, a pioneering book on poetry and the environment. He is also the author of a novel, The Cure for Love, and the hit one-man play for Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English literature at Oxford University. Married to the author Paula Byrne, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to higher education and was knighted in 2015 for his services to literary scholarship.

Hardcover: 672 pagesPublisher: Harper (October 13, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0062362437ISBN-13: 978-0062362438 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #17,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Poetry #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
I have waited for this book a long time! As a devotee of the poetry of both Plath and Hughes, and a biography addict, I was hoping for something that would move beyond the partisanship and bias that seems to hound so much work on either, particularly Hughes, and something that would be a writerly life, along the lines of Charlotte Bronte: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser — that is, something that did not skirt the problematic life but which did not sensationalize it, and linked any biographical information to the literary development. I was not disappointed.

Although the Hughes estate has accused Bate of violating his purview (a "literary" life), I think he has managed to produce just that. He has done so in the face of a huge obstacle, which is the blocking by the estate of his permission to quote anything but small fragments of Hughes’s writing.

Bate’s sophistication begins with the very title of this book: "An Unauthorized Life." Although the most immediate and literal meaning is that permission from the estate was revoked and therefore the biography is not authorized in that fashion, Bate also believes that Hughes sought in many ways to live outside the confines of what society "authorized" in terms of his behaviors and responses, preferring to be led by his inner compass and sense of his inner mythical life. Finally, Bate says that the unpublished archival materials, which are massive, are part of the unauthorized life, the life behind the scenes of the published, "authorized" poet and writer. This sophisticated use of language and of thinking about a life is apparent throughout the book and is one of its primary delights.
Download Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015 PDF

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Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015
Author: Jonathan Bate ID: 0062362437

Review

“An incisive, humane and deeply absorbing account of Hughes’s life and work.” (New York Times)

“An excellent biography: compulsively readable, elegantly assembled… and sensitive to the many aspects of Hughes’s grand and complicated character.” (Christopher Wiman, Wall Street Journal, front page review)

“An intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life…” (Washington Post)

“…Bate has provided new depth to Ted Hughes’ biography…” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Imaginative, comprehensive…worthy of becoming the standard life of Hughes. Illuminating, elegant, and excellent.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scrupulous and lucid… [Hughes] was a dedicated and brilliantly sharp-eyed recorder of material that might or might not one day get hammered into poetry, and even the tiny pieces that Bate gives us glitter.” (The Guardian)

“Illuminating.” (Daily Mail (London))

About the Author

Jonathan Bate is a biographer, critic, and broadcaster. His many books include The Genius of Shakespeare, described by Sir Peter Hall as "the best modern book on Shakespeare"; a biography of the poet John Clare, which won Britain's two oldest literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize; Soul of the Age, an intellectual life of Shakespeare, which was runner-up for the Biography Prize of PEN America; and The Song of the Earth, a pioneering book on poetry and the environment. He is also the author of a novel, The Cure for Love, and the hit one-man play for Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English literature at Oxford University. Married to the author Paula Byrne, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to higher education and was knighted in 2015 for his services to literary scholarship.

Hardcover: 672 pagesPublisher: Harper (October 13, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0062362437ISBN-13: 978-0062362438 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #17,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Poetry #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
I have waited for this book a long time! As a devotee of the poetry of both Plath and Hughes, and a biography addict, I was hoping for something that would move beyond the partisanship and bias that seems to hound so much work on either, particularly Hughes, and something that would be a writerly life, along the lines of Charlotte Bronte: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser — that is, something that did not skirt the problematic life but which did not sensationalize it, and linked any biographical information to the literary development. I was not disappointed.

Although the Hughes estate has accused Bate of violating his purview (a "literary" life), I think he has managed to produce just that. He has done so in the face of a huge obstacle, which is the blocking by the estate of his permission to quote anything but small fragments of Hughes’s writing.

Bate’s sophistication begins with the very title of this book: "An Unauthorized Life." Although the most immediate and literal meaning is that permission from the estate was revoked and therefore the biography is not authorized in that fashion, Bate also believes that Hughes sought in many ways to live outside the confines of what society "authorized" in terms of his behaviors and responses, preferring to be led by his inner compass and sense of his inner mythical life. Finally, Bate says that the unpublished archival materials, which are massive, are part of the unauthorized life, the life behind the scenes of the published, "authorized" poet and writer. This sophisticated use of language and of thinking about a life is apparent throughout the book and is one of its primary delights.
Download Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015 PDF

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Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life Hardcover – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015
Author: Jonathan Bate ID: 0062362437

Review

“An incisive, humane and deeply absorbing account of Hughes’s life and work.” (New York Times)

“An excellent biography: compulsively readable, elegantly assembled… and sensitive to the many aspects of Hughes’s grand and complicated character.” (Christopher Wiman, Wall Street Journal, front page review)

“An intelligent, even donnish work of criticism that connects the poems to the life…” (Washington Post)

“…Bate has provided new depth to Ted Hughes’ biography…” (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

“Imaginative, comprehensive…worthy of becoming the standard life of Hughes. Illuminating, elegant, and excellent.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“Scrupulous and lucid… [Hughes] was a dedicated and brilliantly sharp-eyed recorder of material that might or might not one day get hammered into poetry, and even the tiny pieces that Bate gives us glitter.” (The Guardian)

“Illuminating.” (Daily Mail (London))

About the Author

Jonathan Bate is a biographer, critic, and broadcaster. His many books include The Genius of Shakespeare, described by Sir Peter Hall as "the best modern book on Shakespeare"; a biography of the poet John Clare, which won Britain's two oldest literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize; Soul of the Age, an intellectual life of Shakespeare, which was runner-up for the Biography Prize of PEN America; and The Song of the Earth, a pioneering book on poetry and the environment. He is also the author of a novel, The Cure for Love, and the hit one-man play for Simon Callow, Being Shakespeare. A fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English literature at Oxford University. Married to the author Paula Byrne, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to higher education and was knighted in 2015 for his services to literary scholarship.

Hardcover: 672 pagesPublisher: Harper (October 13, 2015)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0062362437ISBN-13: 978-0062362438 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #17,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Genres & Styles > Poetry #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods
I have waited for this book a long time! As a devotee of the poetry of both Plath and Hughes, and a biography addict, I was hoping for something that would move beyond the partisanship and bias that seems to hound so much work on either, particularly Hughes, and something that would be a writerly life, along the lines of Charlotte Bronte: A Writer’s Life by Rebecca Fraser — that is, something that did not skirt the problematic life but which did not sensationalize it, and linked any biographical information to the literary development. I was not disappointed.

Although the Hughes estate has accused Bate of violating his purview (a "literary" life), I think he has managed to produce just that. He has done so in the face of a huge obstacle, which is the blocking by the estate of his permission to quote anything but small fragments of Hughes’s writing.

Bate’s sophistication begins with the very title of this book: "An Unauthorized Life." Although the most immediate and literal meaning is that permission from the estate was revoked and therefore the biography is not authorized in that fashion, Bate also believes that Hughes sought in many ways to live outside the confines of what society "authorized" in terms of his behaviors and responses, preferring to be led by his inner compass and sense of his inner mythical life. Finally, Bate says that the unpublished archival materials, which are massive, are part of the unauthorized life, the life behind the scenes of the published, "authorized" poet and writer. This sophisticated use of language and of thinking about a life is apparent throughout the book and is one of its primary delights.
Download Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life – Deckle Edge, October 13, 2015 PDF

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