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Why Not Catch-21?:

The Stories Behind the Titles
Front Cover
26 Reviews
frances lincoln ltd, Oct 1, 2008 - Literary Criticism - 238 pages
Based on the author's long-running column in London's Sunday Telegraph, this diverting book offers literary history in bite sizes, presenting surprising details on each of 50 classic work's genesis and composition. Emphasizing books that are literally inexplicable without this background knowledge, the book covers iconic works from Thomas Moore's Utopia to Joyce's Ulysses. Along the way readers learn what Wordsworth's Prelude was a prelude to, the identity of the original Jeeves, why A Clockwork Orange wasn't A Robotic Banana, and much more.
  

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Review: Why Not Catch-21?: The Stories Behind the Titles

User Review  - Sesana - Goodreads

It seems that the essays here were originally published as installments in Dexter's column about books. It shows, mostly in just how short and to the point the essays are. This is the sort of book ... Read full review

Review: Why Not Catch-21?: The Stories Behind the Titles

User Review  - Marjo - Goodreads

I really liked the essays, but I wished that the works were not arranged chronologically, or that some more modern works had been included. The last entry of the book is Oleanna, a play by Mamet with ... Read full review

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Contents

Foreword
7
The Republic
9
Utopia
14
Gargantua and Pantagruel
18
Astrophil and Stella
22
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
30
Hamlet
32
The Duchess of Malfi
37
The Playboy of the Western World
120
Married Love
124
My Man Jeeves
129
Ulysses
133
The Waste Land
137
The Ego and the Id
143
The Great Gatsby
147
WinniethePooh
150

The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
41
Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper
45
The Rape of the Lock
49
Shamela
53
Fanny Hill
57
The Swiss Family Robinson
61
Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus
65
Poems by Currer Ellis and Acton Bell
69
Sonnets from the Portuguese
73
The Lady of the Camellias
77
The Prelude
82
MobyDick
87
The Ring and the Book
90
Around the World in Eighty Days
93
A Study in Scarlet
97
The Kreutzer Sonata
102
The Picture of Dorian Gray
107
The Seagull
112
Ubu Roi
116
The Sun Also Rises
154
The Escaped Cock
158
Miss Lonelyhearts
163
The Postman Always Rings Twice
166
No Thanks
170
Nineteen EightyFour
174
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
178
Waiting for Godot
183
Lolita
186
Catch22
191
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
195
A Clockwork Orange
200
The Homecoming
204
The SCUM Manifesto
208
The Decay of the Angel
212
Oleanna
216
Sources and Further Reading
221
Index
229
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About the author (2008)

Gary Dexter is the writer of a long-running column for the Sunday Telegraph.

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