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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Fifty Famous Stories Retold," James Baldwin presents a masterful collection of classic tales, infused with his signature lyrical style and insightful commentary. Each story is distilled into a captivating narrative that emphasizes moral lessons and the universal human experience. Baldwin's writing is notable for its accessibility, reflecting his commitment to engage readers from various backgrounds while contextualizing each tale within broader cultural and historical frameworks. From fables to folklore, these retellings reveal Baldwin'Äôs skill in transforming traditional stories into timeless narratives resonating with contemporary relevance. James Baldwin, an acclaimed novelist, essayist, and social critic, was deeply influenced by the themes of identity, race, and human connection throughout his oeuvre. Growing up in Harlem and witnessing the complexities of American society, Baldwin's unique perspective as a writer led him to explore the transformative power of storytelling. His love for literature sprouts from both personal and societal struggles, making his retellings not merely adaptations, but vital interpretations of these age-old narratives. "Fifty Famous Stories Retold" is an essential read for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of storytelling's impact on society. This collection will captivate young readers and provide poignant insights for adults, making it a perfect addition to both personal and academic libraries.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Table of Contents
Introduction
Fifty Famous Stories Retold brings together James Baldwin’s concise prose versions of well-known episodes from history and legend. Conceived as an inviting doorway to the world’s storehouse of memorable incidents and exemplary characters, the collection favors clarity and brevity over exhaustive chronicle, presenting each scene as a self-contained point of entry. Baldwin’s purpose is not to supply a comprehensive history, nor a scholarly apparatus, but to give readers a dependable first meeting with figures and moments that have shaped cultural memory. The cumulative effect is a compact anthology that equips the imagination, encourages reflection, and prepares the ground for deeper reading.
The volume consists of short prose narratives—retellings, anecdotes, legendary episodes, and brief biographical sketches. Some selections are arranged in linked parts, as in the two-part account of an abbot’s questions or the multi-part tale of a London orphan’s rise, allowing a slightly longer arc while preserving the book’s vignette form. The pieces draw on chronicles, classical lore, folk tradition, and earlier literary sources, but they are presented uniformly as lucid prose for general readers. There are no novels, plays, poems, letters, or diaries here; instead, the emphasis falls on compact narratives that can be read aloud, discussed, and remembered.
The range is deliberately broad in place and time. Early English and Scottish episodes stand beside Continental European legends and scenes from exploration and statecraft. Classical antiquity contributes Roman and Greek exempla, while Near Eastern and South Asian parables appear in adapted form. The collection also includes figures tied to American beginnings and to later British cultural life. Readers will encounter kings, soldiers, citizens, sages, explorers, artists, and children, each situated in a decisive moment that reveals character and choice. By interleaving nations and centuries, the book suggests a shared human inheritance without collapsing the distinct flavor of each source tradition.
Baldwin’s stylistic hallmarks are economy, cadence, and exactness. Sentences are measured, vocabulary is accessible without being thin, and descriptions foreground essential action over ornament. Each narrative is shaped to a single telling image or turn, yielding stories that are easy to recall and to retell. The tone is steady and humane: firm about right and wrong, yet alert to irony and humility, especially where power meets its limits. Occasional subdivisions provide suspense and pause without resorting to sensationalism. The result is prose that supports attentive listening in a classroom or family setting and invites the solitary reader to linger.
Unifying themes recur across the varied subjects. Courage under pressure, loyalty to friends and city, the dignity of work, the claims of mercy, the testing of truth, and the wise use of authority are explored through concrete choices rather than abstract argument. Some tales show rulers confronted by the sea, the law, or their own tempers; others highlight the resourcefulness of common folk, apprentices, or children. Classical stories illuminate civic virtue and friendship; medieval and early modern episodes consider honor, duty, and reputation; later pieces reflect exploration, artistic calling, and scientific curiosity. Together, they map the moral contours of public and private life.
As a whole, the collection remains significant for the way it cultivates cultural literacy while modeling clear narrative craft. Because each piece isolates a pivotal moment, readers gain a framework of names, places, and situations that later studies can expand with context and debate. The brevity supports memorization and recitation; the variety encourages comparison across cultures and eras. Baldwin’s retellings do not settle every historical question, nor do they substitute for primary sources, but they do furnish a sturdy scaffold for beginning readers and a refreshing précis for mature ones who wish to revisit foundational stories.
Approached sequentially or in small clusters, these narratives reward slow reading and conversation. Noting dates and geography, tracing motifs that echo from one culture to another, and distinguishing legend from documented history will enrich the experience without burdening it. The multi-part entries invite brief serialization, while the single-page anecdotes offer quick occasions for reflection. Readers may choose to pair a story with maps, portraits, or further readings from chronicles and verse that inspired it. Above all, the collection invites delight in plain, well-made storytelling, confident that a few vivid incidents can kindle curiosity that outlasts the final page.
Historical Context
James Baldwin (1841–1925) published Fifty Famous Stories Retold in New York with the American Book Company in 1896, after decades as a Midwestern educator and textbook editor. His career unfolded alongside the American common school movement and the standardization of curricula between roughly 1870 and 1910. In the wake of the 1892 Committee of Ten report, history and literature gained new prominence in graded classrooms, and short narrative selections suited recitation, memory work, and copy exercises. Baldwin’s collection, spanning antiquity to the 19th century, offered civic exempla to a diverse student body in rapidly growing cities such as Chicago and New York, aiming to bind moral instruction to historical imagination.
Baldwin’s sources were those most accessible to late-19th-century teachers and students: chronicles, classical historians, ballads, and Romantic-era retellings. Roman and Greek tales draw on Livy, Plutarch, Xenophon, Cicero, and Diogenes Laertius; medieval episodes echo the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Henry of Huntingdon, and Orderic Vitalis; chivalric and border traditions reach readers through ballads codified by Francis James Child (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882–1898). The rhetorical tone and “great man” framing reflect Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome (1842) and Sir Walter Scott’s historic romances. Such intertextual scaffolding anchored Baldwin’s brief narratives in an already familiar, transatlantic canon.
The classical materials in the volume align with a 19th-century school culture that prized Latin, Greek, and civic exemplarism. Stories rooted in the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE) and Greece’s classical age turn on public virtue and self-command. The heroism at Thermopylae in 480 BCE, the Roman tales of duty and discipline drawn from Livy, and moral portraits from Plutarch’s Lives were staples of American secondary curricula. Through figures associated with Socrates, Alexander, and republican Rome, Baldwin organized antiquity as a repository of concise ethical scenes. These choices mirrored the era’s belief that ancient history furnished timeless lessons for modern citizens.
Medieval and early modern British narratives in the collection track a lineage from Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) through Cnut (d. 1035), the Norman Conquest of 1066, the White Ship disaster of 1120, and the constraints on royal power associated with 1215. Popular tradition and balladry shape depictions of outlaws, border warfare, and civic office, while chronicles and later Romantic historiography frame episodes from Scotland’s 14th century, including the memory of 1314. Such material resonated in American classrooms shaped by Anglo-Saxonist ideals, where constitutionalism, restraint of monarchy, and the folklore of commoners and nobles were presented as foundations of English-speaking political culture.
Continental European episodes track the emergence of national myths and modern statecraft. Swiss independence lore set in the 14th century, the battlefield death of Arnold Winkelried at Sempach in 1386, and Italian communal legends such as the bell of Atri locate civic virtue in local institutions. Habsburg-era vignettes reach into the reign of Maximilian I (1459–1519). Neoclassicism and Romanticism surface in references to Antonio Canova (1757–1822) and in poetic treatments like Robert Southey’s early-19th-century ballad on the Inchcape Rock. Napoleonic memory centers on the 1800 passage of the Great St. Bernard. These items link art, myth, and state power in a distinctly 18th–19th-century European register.
Atlantic-world and American materials underscore colonial ventures and national character formation. Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s fatal 1583 voyage, Sir Walter Raleigh’s late-16th-century schemes, Jamestown’s 1607 founding, and the 1614 marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe connect English expansion to early Virginia. Later patriotic anecdotes gather around George Washington (1732–1799), notably popularized by Mason Locke “Parson” Weems after 1800, illustrating the elasticity of historical memory. Biographical sketches of Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) and other figures sustain a transatlantic literary heritage. Nineteenth-century heroism also appears in the 1838 rescue by Grace Darling off Northumberland, bringing modern media and moral sentiment to bear on exemplary conduct.
Selections drawn from Arabic and South Asian traditions reflect both the reach of 19th-century print culture and its Orientalist frames. The Barmecide Feast comes through the Thousand and One Nights; parables like the Blind Men and the Elephant entered American classrooms via John Godfrey Saxe’s 1869 poem, itself derived from older Indian sources. Anecdotal court tales and moral fables attributed in European retellings to rulers such as Genghis Khan (d. 1227) circulated widely in juvenile readers. Baldwin’s inclusion of such material aligned with contemporary efforts to present a “universal” moral vocabulary, even as those efforts filtered non-Western cultures through English translation and didactic simplification.
Baldwin’s style reflects pedagogical practice as much as scholarship: short sentences for oral recitation, clear plots for dictation, and compact morals for copybooks and examinations. The International Copyright Act of 1891 and the American Book Company’s 1890 consolidation fostered economical school anthologies built largely from public-domain materials. Baldwin’s companion volumes, such as Old Greek Stories (1895) and Fifty Famous People (1897), extended the same method. Chautauqua circles, normal schools, and the lyceum sustained demand for accessible narrative history. The collection’s blend of fact and legend—Washington’s cherry tree and William Tell among them—typifies a period that valued character formation while tolerating embellished sources.
Synopsis (Selection)
Concerning These Stories
A brief preface stating the book’s aim to retell well-known historical anecdotes and legends in clear, simple language for young readers, preserving their moral and cultural value.
King Alfred and the Cakes
While in hiding, King Alfred neglects to watch a peasant woman’s cakes and is scolded, a lesson in humility for a great ruler.
King Alfred and the Beggar
In hardship and disguise, Alfred shares his last food with a beggar, exemplifying generosity and quiet faith.
King Canute on the Seashore
To rebuke flattery, King Canute orders the tide to halt and shows that even kings cannot command nature.
The Sons of William the Conqueror
A sketch of William I’s sons—Robert, William Rufus, and Henry—whose rivalries and inheritances shape the destinies of England and Normandy.
The White Ship
A royal heir’s voyage ends in a tragic shipwreck, plunging the realm into uncertainty and sorrow.
King John and the Abbot (I. The Three Questions; II. The Three Answers)
King John poses three impossible riddles to an abbot, but a quick-witted shepherd devises clever answers that avert the abbot’s doom.
A Story of Robin Hood
The legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest defies unjust authority, aids the poor, and proves his unmatched skill in archery.
Bruce and the Spider
A discouraged Robert the Bruce draws resolve from a spider’s persistence, renewing his fight for Scotland’s freedom.
The Black Douglas
The fearsome Scottish leader Sir James Douglas turns his dark reputation into a weapon, while showing restraint and honor amid conflict.
Tales of Gotham (Three Men of Gotham; Other Wise Men of Gotham)
Comic folk tales of the ‘wise men’ of Gotham whose well-meant schemes reveal rustic folly and common sense turned upside down.
The Miller of the Dee
A cheerful miller sings of contentment and independence, preferring simple happiness to wealth or courtly favor.
Sir Philip Sidney
Wounded on the battlefield, Sidney yields his water to a dying soldier, embodying chivalry and selflessness.
The Ungrateful Soldier
A man repays life-saving kindness with betrayal, a brief tale underscoring the shame and cost of ingratitude.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
The bold navigator claims new lands for England and faces the perils of the Atlantic with stoic faith, uttering a famous final reassurance.
Sir Walter Raleigh
A courtier-explorer rises in Queen Elizabeth’s favor, pursues colonizing ventures, and meets shifting fortunes under changing monarchs.
Pocahontas
The Powhatan maiden’s compassion bridges native and English worlds in Virginia, fostering a fragile peace through courage and kinship.
George Washington and His Hatchet
The apocryphal ‘cherry tree’ anecdote presents a young Washington who confesses the truth, making honesty his hallmark.
Grace Darling
A lighthouse keeper’s daughter braves a storm to rescue shipwrecked sailors, becoming a national heroine.
The Story of William Tell
Forced by a tyrant to shoot an apple from his son’s head, Tell’s skill and resolve ignite the Swiss struggle for liberty.
Arnold Winkelried
In a decisive moment, a Swiss patriot sacrifices himself to break the enemy’s line, rallying his countrymen to victory.
The Bell of Atri
A town’s bell of justice is rung by a neglected old horse, exposing its master’s cruelty and upholding the law for all.
How Napoleon Crossed the Alps
Napoleon leads his army over the Great St. Bernard Pass with daring and speed, surprising his foes and reshaping the campaign.
The Story of Cincinnatus
Called from his plow to save Rome, Cincinnatus accepts power briefly, wins safety, and returns to humble labor.
The Story of Regulus
A captured Roman general counsels his city against rash peace and keeps his word, choosing honor over life.
Cornelia’s Jewels
The noble Roman matron points to her sons as her finest treasures, valuing virtue and family above riches.
Androclus and the Lion
A slave’s kindness to a suffering lion is repaid when the beast recognizes and spares him in the arena.
Horatius at the Bridge
Facing invasion, Horatius and his comrades hold a bridge against overwhelming forces to save Rome.
Julius Cæsar
A concise life of Caesar traces his rise in Rome, military genius, and the upheavals that follow his bid for supreme power.
The Sword of Damocles
A flattering courtier learns the anxiety of kingship when a sword hangs above him by a single hair at a banquet.
Damon and Pythias
Two friends prove absolute trust under a tyrant’s test, turning severity into admiration.
A Laconic Answer
The Spartans reply to a threat with a single word, showing cool courage and economy of speech.
The Ungrateful Guest
A host’s generosity is slighted by a boorish guest, whose rudeness brings a swift and fitting rebuke.
Alexander and Bucephalus
Young Alexander tames a seemingly unmanageable horse by understanding its fear, revealing his destiny for command.
Diogenes the Wise Man
The Cynic philosopher spurns luxury and defies authority with wit, declaring that true freedom is needing little.
The Brave Three Hundred
At Thermopylae, Leonidas and his Spartans make a last stand against vast Persian forces, defining steadfast valor.
Socrates and His House
Socrates answers a critic of his small home by praising simplicity and the space a good life needs most.
The King and His Hawk
A king kills his loyal hawk in anger when it spills precious water, only to learn the bird was saving him from danger.
Doctor Goldsmith
A gentle, improvident Oliver Goldsmith shows kindness and humor amid hardship, foreshadowing the warmth of his writings.
The Kingdoms
A brief parable contrasts ruling many lands with ruling oneself, concluding that self-mastery is the highest kingdom.
The Barmecide Feast
A hungry man humors a nobleman’s imaginary banquet, and his patience is rewarded with real hospitality.
The Endless Tale
A storyteller spins a looping yarn that can scarcely end, a playful caution against greed and tiresome trifles.
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Several blind men each touch a different part of an elephant and argue, illustrating how partial truths can mislead.
Maximilian and the Goose Boy
A frank goose-herder startles Emperor Maximilian with bold counsel, proving that wisdom may speak from humble lips.
The Inchcape Rock
A pirate removes a bell that warns of a deadly reef, and later pays dearly for his act when the sea turns against him.
