G. K. Chesterton


Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874–June 14, 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction.

Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox."[1] He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."[2] He is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. Chesterton's own theological and political views were far too nuanced to fit comfortably under the "liberal" or "conservative" banner. And in his own words he cast aspersions on the labels saying, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."[3] He routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox Christian," and came to identify such a position with Roman Catholicism more and more, eventually converting to the Church of Rome.

He is not to be confused with his politically radical cousin, A. K. Chesterton.

Life

Chesterton at the time of his engagement, 1898Born in Campden Hill in Kensington in London, Chesterton was educated at St Paul's School. He attended the Slade School of Art in order to become an illustrator and also took literature classes at University College London but did not complete a degree at either. In 1896 Chesterton began working for the London publisher Redway, and T. Fisher Unwin, where he remained until 1902. During this period he also undertook his first journalistic work as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. In 1902 he was given a weekly opinion column in the Daily News, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in The Illustrated London News, for which he would continue to write for the next thirty years.

According to Chesterton, as a young man he became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards.[4] However, as he grew older, he became an increasingly orthodox Christian, culminating in his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1922.[5]

Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing around 21 stone (134 kg or 294 lb). His girth gave rise to a famous anecdote. During World War I a lady in London asked why he wasn't 'out at the Front'; he replied, 'If you go round to the side, you will see that I am.'[6] On another occasion he remarked to his friend George Bernard Shaw, 'To look at you, anyone would think there was a famine in England.' Shaw retorted, 'To look at you, anyone would think you caused it.'[citations needed]

He usually wore a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton often forgot where he was supposed to be going and would miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It is reported that on several occasions he sent a telegram to his wife from some distant (and incorrect) location, writing such things as "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" to which she would reply, "Home."[7]

Chesterton loved to debate, often engaging in friendly public disputes with such men as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow. According to his autobiography, he and Shaw played cowboys in a silent movie that was never released.

Chesterton died on 14 June 1936, at his home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. The homily at Chesterton's Requiem Mass in Westminster Cathedral, London, was delivered by Ronald Knox. He is buried in Beaconsfield in the Catholic Cemetery. Chesterton's estate was probated at 28,389 pounds sterling, approximately equivalent to USD 2.6 million in modern terms.


[edit] Writing
Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4000 essays, and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, the Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He was a convinced Christian long before he was received into the Catholic church, and Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York.

Much of his poetry is little known, though well reflecting his beliefs and opinions. The best written is probably Lepanto, with The Rolling English Road the most familiar, and The Secret People perhaps the most quoted ("we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet"). Another excellent poem is A Ballade of Suicide.

Of his nonfiction, Charles Dickens (1903) has received some of the broadest-based praise. According to Ian Ker (The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, 2003), "In Chesterton's eyes Dickens belongs to Merry, not Puritan, England" (see Merry England); Ker treats in Chapter 4 of that book Chesterton's thought as largely growing out of his true appreciation of Dickens, a somewhat shop-soiled property in the view of other literary opinions of the time.

Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. He employed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics. When The Times invited several eminent authors to write essays on the theme "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton's contribution took the form of a letter:

Dear Sirs,
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton[8]
Typically, Chesterton here combined wit with a serious point (human sinfulness) and self-deprecation.

Much of Chesterton's work remains in print, including collections of the Father Brown detective stories. Ignatius Press is currently in the process of publishing a Complete Works.


[edit] Views and contemporaries
The roots of Chesterton's approach have been taken to be in two earlier strands in English literature, Dickens being one. In the use of paradox, against complacent acceptance of things as they are, he is often categorised with Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, whom he knew well, as Victorian satirists and social commentators in a tradition coming also from Samuel Butler.

Chesterton's style and thinking were all his own, however, and his conclusions were often diametrically opposed to those of his predecessors and contemporaries. In his book Heretics, Chesterton has this to say of Oscar Wilde:

“ The same lesson [of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker] was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw.[9] ”

More briefly, and with a closer approximation of Wilde's own style, he writes in Orthodoxy concerning the necessity of making symbolic sacrifices for the gift of creation:

“ Oscar Wilde said that sunsets were not valued because we could not pay for sunsets. But Oscar Wilde was wrong; we can pay for sunsets. We can pay for them by not being Oscar Wilde. ”

Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw were famous friends and enjoyed their arguments and discussions. Although rarely in agreement, they both maintained good-will towards and respect for each other. However, in his writing, Chesterton expressed himself very plainly on where they differed and why. In Heretics he writes of Shaw:

“ After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby.[10] ”

Shaw represented the new school of thought, humanism, which was rising at the time. Chesterton's views, on the other hand, became increasingly more polarized towards the church. In Orthodoxy he writes:

“ The worship of will is the negation of will. . . If Mr. Bernard Shaw comes up to me and says, "Will something," that is tantamount to saying, "I do not mind what you will," and that is tantamount to saying, "I have no will in the matter." You cannot admire will in general, because the essence of will is that it is particular.[11] ”

This style of argumentation is what Chesterton refers to as using 'Uncommon Sense'—that is, that the thinkers and popular philosophers of the day, though very clever, were saying things that appeared, to him, to be nonsensical. This is illustrated again in Orthodoxy:

“ Thus when Mr. H. G. Wells says (as he did somewhere), "All chairs are quite different," he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them "all chairs."[12] ”

Or, again from Orthodoxy:

“ The wild worship of lawlessness and the materialist worship of law end in the same void. Nietzsche scales staggering mountains, but he turns up ultimately in Tibet. He sits down beside Tolstoy in the land of nothing and Nirvana. They are both helpless—one because he must not grasp anything, and the other because he must not let go of anything. The Tolstoyan’s will is frozen by a Buddhist instinct that all special actions are evil. But the Nietzscheite’s will is quite equally frozen by his view that all special actions are good; for if all special actions are good, none of them are special. They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the cross-roads.[13] ”
“ ‘All healthy men, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, know that there is a certain fury in sex that we cannot afford to inflame and that a certain mystery and awe must forever surround it if we are to remain sane.‘ ”

Incisive comments and observations occurred almost impulsively in Chesterton's writing. In the middle of his epic poem The Ballad of the White Horse he famously states:

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.[14]

[edit] The Chesterbelloc
See G. K.'s Weekly for a fuller treatment.
Chesterton is often associated with his close friend, the poet and essayist Hilaire Belloc. Shaw coined the name Chesterbelloc for their partnership, and this stuck. Though they were very different men, they shared many beliefs; Chesterton eventually joined Belloc in his natal Catholicism, and both voiced criticisms towards capitalism and socialism. They instead espoused a third way: distributism.

G. K.'s Weekly, which occupied much of Chesterton's energy in the last 15 years of his life, was the successor to Belloc's New Witness, taken over from Cecil Chesterton, Gilbert's brother who died in World War I.

Both Chesterton and Belloc have faced accusations of anti-Semitism during their lifetimes and subsequently.[15] Their criticisms of the "international Jewish banking families" are some of the most important reasons for these accusations. For example, G.K., Belloc, and G.K.'s brother Cecil were vehement critics of the Isaacs, who were involved in the Marconi scandal in the years before World War I.[16] George Orwell accused Chesterton of being guilty of "endless tirades against Jews, which he thrust into stories and essays upon the flimsiest pretexts."[17]

In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a "Jewish Problem" in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (not Jewish ethnicity/Semitism) separated itself from the nationalities of Europe.[18] He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists who saw him as an ally in their cause. In 1934, after the Nazi Party took power in Germany he wrote that:

“ In our early days Hilaire Belloc and myself were accused of being uncompromising Anti-Semites. Today, although I still think there is a Jewish problem, I am appalled by the Hitlerite atrocities. They have absolutely no reason or logic behind them. It is quite obviously the expedient of a man who has been driven to seeking a scapegoat, and has found with relief the most famous scapegoat in European history, the Jewish people.[19] ”

The Wiener Library (London's archive on anti-semitism and Holocaust history) has defended Chesterton against the charge of anti-Semitism: "he was not an enemy, and when the real testing time came along he showed what side he was on."[20]

Chesterton condemned the Nuremberg Laws, and he died in 1936, as the Hitlerite antisemitic measures were temporarily decreased due to the Berlin Olympics, long before lethal persecution by the Nazis would start.


[edit] List of major works
See List of books by G. K. Chesterton for all works.

Charles Dickens (1903)
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) text
Heretics (1905)
The Man Who Was Thursday (1907) text
Orthodoxy (1908)
The Ballad Of The White Horse (1911) poetry
Father Brown short stories (detective fiction)
The Everlasting Man (1925)

[edit] Influence
Chesterton's The Everlasting Man contributed to C. S. Lewis's conversion to Christianity. In a letter to Sheldon Vanauken (December 14, 1950)[21] Lewis calls the book "the best popular apologetic I know", and to Rhonda Bodle he wrote (December 31, 1947)[22] "the [very] best popular defence of the full Christian position I know is G. K. Chesterton The Everlasting Man." The book was also cited in a list of 10 books that "most shaped his vocational attitude and philosophy of life".[23]
Chesterton's biography of Charles Dickens was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens's work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars. Considered by T. S. Eliot, Peter Ackroyd, and others, to be the best book on Dickens ever written.[citations needed]
Chesterton's writings have been praised by such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Frederick Buechner, Evelyn Waugh, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Karel Čapek, David Dark, Paul Claudel, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Andrew Greeley, Sigrid Undset, Ronald Knox, Kingsley Amis, W. H. Auden, Anthony Burgess, E. F. Schumacher, Orson Welles, Dorothy Day and Franz Kafka.
Chesterton's Orthodoxy is considered a religious classic by many. Philip Yancey said that if he were "stranded on a desert island … and could choose only one book apart from the Bible, I may well select Chesterton's own spiritual autobiography, Orthodoxy."[24]
Chesterton's novel The Man Who Was Thursday inspired the Irish Republican military leader Michael Collins with the idea: 'if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out.'[25]
His physical appearance and apparently some of his mannerisms were a direct inspiration for the character of Dr. Gideon Fell, a well-known fictional detective created in the early 1930s by the Anglo-American mystery writer John Dickson Carr.
The author Neil Gaiman has stated that The Napoleon of Notting Hill was an important influence on his own book Neverwhere.[citations needed] Gaiman also based the character Gilbert, from the comic book The Sandman, on Chesterton, as well as featuring a quotation from "The Man who was October", a book Chesterton wrote "only in dreams", at the end of Season of Mists. Gaiman's novel Good Omens, co-authored with Terry Pratchett is dedicated "to the memory of G.K. Chesterton: A man who knew what was going on."
Ingmar Bergman considered Chesterton's little known play Magic to be one of his favourites and even staged a production in Swedish.[citations needed] Later he reworked Magic into his movie The Magician in 1958.
The Third Way (UK) campaigns for the widespread ownership of property are inspired by the economic system Chesterton espoused: Distributism.
The Innocence of Father Brown is cited by Guillermo Martinez as one of the inspirations for his thriller The Oxford Murders. Martinez explicitly quotes from Chesterton's story in Chapter 25 of The Oxford Murders.

[edit] See also
G. K.'s Weekly
List of books by G. K. Chesterton
Christian apologetics (field of study concerned with the defence of Christianity)

[edit] Literature and biographies on Chesterton
Cooney, A., "G.K. Chesterton, One Sword at Least", Third Way Publications, London, 1999. ISBN 0-9535077-1-8
Coren, M., "Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton'", Paragon House, New York, 1990.
ffinch, M., "G. K. Chesterton, 1986
Kenner, H., "Paradox in Chesterton", 1947.
Paine, R., "The Universe and Mr. Chesterton", Sherwood Sugden, 1999. ISBN 0893855111{
Pearce, J, "Wisdom and Innocence - A Life of G.K.Chesterton", Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1996. ISBN 0-340-67132-7
Ward, M., "Gilbert Keith Chesterton", Sheed & Ward, 1944.
Marshall McLuhan wrote an article on G.K. Chesterton, titled "G.K. Chesterton: A Practical Mystic" (Dalhousie Review 15 (4), 1936).
EWTN features a television series, G. K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, that focuses on Chesterton and his

Geoffrey Chaucer


Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – October 25, 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat courtier, and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.




Life

Chaucer as a pilgrim from the Ellesmere manuscript DBChaucer was born in 1343 in London, although the exact date and location of his birth are not known. His father and grandfather were both London vintners and before that, for several generations, the family were merchants in Ipswich. His name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning shoemaker. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve year old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure, upper middle-class, if not in the elite. John married Agnes Copton, who in 1349 inherited property including 24 shops in London from her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described as the "moneyer" at the Tower of London. He was also convicted of sexually harassing a boy of 13. He was put on trial but was released.

There are no details of Chaucer's early life and education but compared to his near contemporary poets, William Langland and The Pearl Poet, his life is well documented, with nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first time he is mentioned is in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Ulster, when his father's connections enabled him to become the noblewoman's page. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king collecting and inventorying scrap metal. In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward III invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims, becoming a prisoner of war. Edward contributed £16 as part of a ransom, and Chaucer was released. Chaucer was then known as the prisoner.

After this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (ca. 1396) became the third wife of Chaucer's friend and patron, John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are the numbers most widely agreed upon. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career, chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas' great-grandson (Geoffrey’s great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun; Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer.

Chaucer is presumed to have studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at about this time, although definite proof is lacking. It is recorded that he became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail any number of jobs. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two other literary stars of the era who were in attendance were Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this time Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honor of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369.

Chaucer travelled to Picardy the next year as part of the military expedition, and visited Genoa and Florence in 1373. It is on this Italian trip that it is speculated he came into contact with medieval Italian poetry, the forms and stories of which he would use later. One other trip he took in 1377 seems shrouded in mystery, with records of the time conflicting in details. Later documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.

In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy/secret dispatch to the Visconti and to Sir John Hawkwood, English Man-at Arms/Soldier for Hire, in Milan. It is on the person of John Hawkwood that Chaucer based his Knight's Character. The Knight, based on his description/dress and appearance, looks exactly like a soldier for hire/mercenary would have looked in the fourteenth century.


A 19th century depiction of Chaucer. For three near-contemporary portraits of Chaucer see here.A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St. George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward but the suggestion of poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378.

Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of Comptroller of the Customs for the port of London, which Chaucer began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that period. His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this time period. He was mentioned in law papers of 4 May 1380, involved in the raptus of Cecilia Chaumpaigne. What raptus means, rape or possibly kidnapping, is unclear, but the incident seems to have been resolved quickly and did not leave a stain on Chaucer's reputation. It is not known if Chaucer was in the city of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt (the Tower of London was stormed in 1381).

While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s (the Pilgrims' Way used by his fictional characters on their way to Canterbury Cathedral passes through Kent). He also became a Member of Parliament for Kent in 1386. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants despite the fact that Chaucer knew well some of the men executed over the affair.

On 12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman organizing most of the king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, continue building the wharf at the Tower of London, and build the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job but it paid well: two shillings a day, over three times his salary as a comptroller. In September 1390, records say that he was robbed, and possibly injured, while conducting the business, and it was shortly after, on 17 June 1391, that he stopped working in this capacity. Almost immediately, on 22 June, he began as deputy forester in the royal forest of North Petherton, Somerset. This was no sinecure, with maintenance an important part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit. It is believed that Chaucer stopped work on the Canterbury Tales sometime towards the end of this decade.

Soon after the overthrow of his patron Richard II in 1399, Chaucer vanished from the historical record. He is believed to have died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400 but there is no firm evidence for this date, as it comes from the engraving on his tomb, which was built more than one-hundred years after Chaucer's death. There is some speculation—most recently in Terry Jones' book Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery—that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV. However, as of yet there is no solid evidence to support this claim.

The new king (Henry IV) did renew the grants assigned to Chaucer by Richard, but in The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse, Chaucer hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer in the historical record is on 5 June 1400, when some monies owing to him were paid. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to the jobs he had performed and the new house he had leased nearby on 24 December 1399. In 1556 his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making Chaucer the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.


[edit] Works
Chaucer's first major work The Book of the Duchess was an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster (who died in 1369). It is possible that this work was commissioned by her husband John of Gaunt, as he granted Chaucer a £10 annuity on 13 June 1374. This would seem to place the writing of The Book of the Duchess between the years 1369 and 1374. Two other early works by Chaucer were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame. Chaucer wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time. Also it is believed that he started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. Chaucer is best known as the writer of The Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury; these tales would help to shape English literature.

The Canterbury Tales contrasts with other literature of the period in the naturalism of its narrative, the variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage. Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing, although some of the stories seem ill-fitting to their narrators, perhaps as a result of the incomplete state of the work. Chaucer drew on real life for his cast of pilgrims: the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark, and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Man of Law and the Student have been suggested. The many jobs Chaucer held in medieval society—page, soldier, messenger, valet, bureaucrat, foreman and administrator—probably exposed him to many of the types of people he depicted in the Tales. He was able to shape their speech and satirize their manners in what was to become popular literature among people of the same types.

Chaucer's works are sometimes grouped into, first a French period, then an Italian period and finally an English period, with Chaucer being influenced by those countries' literatures in turn. Certainly Troilus and Criseyde is a middle period work with its reliance on the forms of Italian poetry, little known in England at the time, but to which Chaucer was probably exposed during his frequent trips abroad on court business. In addition, its use of a classical antiquity|classical subject and its elaborate, courtly language sets it apart as one of his most complete and well-formed works. In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer draws heavily on his source, Bocaccio, and on the late Latin philosopher Boethius. However, it is The Canterbury Tales, wherein he focuses on English subjects, with bawdy jokes and respected figures often being undercut with humour, that has cemented his reputation.

Chaucer also translated such important works as Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). However, while many scholars maintain that Chaucer did indeed translate part of the text of The Romance of the Rose as Roman de la Rose, others claim that this has been effectively disproved. Many of his other works were very loose translations of, or simply based on, works from continental Europe. It is in this role that Chaucer receives some of his earliest critical praise. Eustache Deschamps wrote a ballade on the great translator and called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385 Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower, Chaucer's main poetic rival of the time, also lauded him. This reference was later edited out of Gower's Confessio Amantis and it has been suggested by some that this was because of ill feeling between them, but it is likely due simply to stylistic concerns.

One other significant work of Chaucer's is his Treatise on the Astrolabe, possibly for his own son, that describes the form and use of that instrument in detail. Although much of the text may have come from other sources, the treatise indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents. Another scientific work discovered in 1952, Equatorie of the Planetis, has similar language and handwriting compared to some considered to be Chaucer's and it continues many of the ideas from the Astrolabe. The attribution of this work to Chaucer is still uncertain...


[edit] Influence

[edit] Linguistic

Portrait of Chaucer from Thomas Hoccleve, who personally knew Chaucer, so it is probably an accurate depictionChaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed since around the twelfth century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre. Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentameter, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets, first seen in his Legend of Good Women, was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect, apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve's Tale.

The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardize the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy—of which Chaucer was a part—remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English. Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience, though it is thought by some that the modern Scottish accent is closely related to the sound of Middle English. The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final -e is sometimes to be vocalised, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. When it is vocalised, most scholars pronounce it as a schwa. Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source. Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of those from the first letter of the alphabet.


[edit] Literary
Chaucer's early popularity is attested by the many poets who imitated his works. John Lydgate was one of earliest imitators who wrote a continuation to the Tales. Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these admiring poets and the later romantic era poets' appreciation of Chaucer was coloured by their not knowing which of the works were genuine. 17th and 18th century writers, such as John Dryden, admired Chaucer for his stories, but not for his rhythym and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess.[1] It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon; largely as a result of Walter William Skeat's work. One hundred and fifty years after his death, The Canterbury Tales was selected by William Caxton to be one of the first books to be printed in England.


[edit] Chaucer's English
Although Chaucer's language is much closer to modern English than the text of Beowulf, it differs enough that most publications modernise (and sometimes bowdlerise) his idiom. Following is a sample from the prologue of the "Summoner's Tale" that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation:

Line Original Translation
This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle, This friar boasts that he knows hell,
And God it woot, that it is litel wonder; And God knows that it is little wonder;
Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder. Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
How that a frere ravyshed was to helle How a ravished friar went to hell
In spirit ones by a visioun; In spirit, once by a vision;
And as an angel ladde hym up and doun, And as an angel led him up and down,
To shewen hym the peynes that the were, To show him the pains that were there,
In al the place saugh he nat a frere; In the whole place he saw not one friar;
Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo. He saw enough of other folk in woe.
Unto this angel spak the frere tho: To the angel spoke the friar thus:
Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace "Now sir," said he, "Are friars in such good grace
That noon of hem shal come to this place? That none of them come to this place?"
Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun! "Yes," answered the angel, "many a million!"
And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun. And the angel led him down to Satan.
--And now hath sathanas,--seith he,--a tayl He said, "And Satan has a tail,
Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl. Broader than a large ship's sail.
Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he; Hold up your tail, Satan!" he ordered.
--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se "Show your arse, and let the friar see
Where is the nest of freres in this place!-- Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
And er that half a furlong wey of space, And before half a furlong of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve, Just as bees swarm from a hive,
Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve Out of the devil's arse there drove
Twenty thousand freres on a route, Twenty thousand friars on a route,
And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute, And they swarmed all over hell,
And comen agayn as faste as they may gon, And came again as fast as they had gone,
And in his ers they crepten everychon. And every one crept back into his arse.
He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille. He clapped his tail again and lay very still.[2]


[edit] Monuments and tributes
A building has been named in Chaucer's honour at the United Kingdom Civil Service School.


[edit] Historical reception and representation

[edit] Manuscripts
As early as 1400, Chaucer's courtly audience grew to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes, which included many Lollard sympathizers who would have been inclined to read Chaucer as one of their own, particularly in his satirical writings about priests and various religions. We would not have so many manuscripts of Chaucer's works today if this group of readers had not created a great demand for them.


[edit] Printed books
Later on, representations of Chaucer began to circle around two co-existing identities: 1) a courtier and a king's man, an international humanist familiar with the classics and continental greats; 2) a man of the people, a plain-style satirist and a critic of the church. All things to all people (barring some sensitive moralists), for a combination of mixed aesthetic and political reasons, Chaucer was held in high esteem by high and low audiences--certainly a boon for printers and booksellers. [http://www.uwm.edu/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg073.htm The sixteenth-century folio editions of Chaucer's Works were seminal events in the construction of this national literary forefather who could be read in support of both radical and conservative positions as well as different historical narratives: a popular, reformation from below and a court-controlled reformation from above.So it was then abandoned.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Chaucer was printed more than any other English author, and he was the first author to have his works collected in comprehensive single-volume editions in which a Chaucer canon began to cohere. Some scholars contend that that sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer's Works set the precedent for all other English authors in terms of presentation, prestige and success in print. These editions certainly established Chaucer's reputation, but they also began the complicated process of reconstructing and frequently inventing Chaucer's biography and the canonical list of works attributed to him.

William Caxton's two folio editions of The Canterbury Tales were published in 1478 and 1483 (an online edition of Caxton's Canterbury Tales is maintained by De Montfort University) . Richard Pynson, the King's Printer for about twenty years, was the first to collect and sell something that resembled an edition of the collected works of Chaucer, introducing in the process five previously printed texts that are not Chaucer's. (The collection is actually three separately printed texts, or collections of texts, bound together as one volume.) There is a likely connection between Pynson's product and William Thynne's a mere six years later. Thynne had a successful career from the 1520s until his death in 1546, when he was one of the masters of the royal household. His editions of Chaucers Works in 1532 and 1542 were the first major contributions to the existence of a widely recognized Chaucerian canon. Thynne represents his edition as a book sponsored by and supportive of the king who is praised in the preface by Sir Brian Tuke. Thynne's canon brought the number of apocryphal works associated with Chaucer to a total of 28, even if that was not his intention. As with Pynson, once included in the Works, pseudepigraphic texts stayed within it, regardless of their first editor's intentions.

Probably the most significant aspect of the growing apocrypha is that, beginning with Thynne's editions, it began to include medieval texts that made Chaucer appear as a proto-Protestant Lollard, primarily the Testament of Love and The Plowman's Tale. As "Chaucerian" works that were not considered apocryphal until the late nineteenth century, these medieval texts enjoyed a new life, with English Protestants carrying on the earlier Lollard project of appropriating existing texts and authors who seemed sympathetic--or malleable enough to be construed as sympathetic--to their cause. The official Chaucer of the early printed volumes of his Works was construed as a proto-Protestant as the same was done, concurrently, with William Langland and Piers Plowman. The famous Plowman's Tale did not enter Thynne's Works until the second, 1542 edition. Its entry was surely facilitated by Thynne's inclusion of Thomas Usk's Testament of Love in the first edition. The Testament of Love imitates, borrows from, and thus resembles Usk's contemporary, Chaucer. (Testament of Love also appears to borrow from Piers Plowman.) Since the Testament of Love mentions its author's part in a failed plot (book 1, chapter 6), his imprisonment, and (perhaps) a recantation of (possibly Lollard) heresy, all this was associated with Chaucer. (Usk himself was executed as a traitor in 1388.) Interestingly, John Foxe took this recantation of heresy as a defense of the true faith, calling Chaucer a "right Wiclevian" and (erroneously) identifying him as a schoolmate and close friend of John Wycliffe at Merton College, Oxford. (Thomas Speght is careful to highlight these facts in his editions and his "Life of Chaucer.") No other sources for the Testament of Love exist--there is only Thynne's construction of whatever manuscript sources he had.

John Stow (1525-1605) was an antiquarian and also a chronicler. His edition of Chaucer's Works in 1561 brought the apocrypha to more than 50 titles. More were added in the seventeenth century, and they remained as late as 1810, well after Thomas Tyrwhitt pared the canon down in his 1775 edition. The compilation and printing of Chaucer's works was, from its beginning, a political enterprise, since it was intended to establish an English national identity and history that grounded and authorized the Tudor monarchy and church. What was added to Chaucer often helped represent him favourably to Protestant England.

In his 1598 edition of the Works, Speght (probably taking cues from Foxe) made good use of Usk's account of his political intrigue and imprisonment in the Testament of Love to assemble a largely fictional "Life of Our Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer." Speght's "Life" presents readers with an erstwhile radical in troubled times much like their own, a proto-Protestant who eventually came around the king's views on religion. Speght states that "In the second year of Richard the second, the King tooke Geffrey Chaucer and his lands into his protection. The occasion wherof no doubt was some daunger and trouble whereinto he was fallen by favouring some rash attempt of the common people." Under the discussion of Chaucer's friends, namely John of Gaunt, Speght further explains:

Yet it seemeth that [Chaucer] was in some trouble in the daies of King Richard the second, as it may appeare in the Testament of Loue: where hee doth greatly complaine of his owne rashnesse in following the multitude, and of their hatred of him for bewraying their purpose. And in that complaint which he maketh to his empty purse, I do find a written copy, which I had of Iohn Stow (whose library hath helped many writers) wherein ten times more is adjoined, then is in print. Where he maketh great lamentation for his wrongfull imprisonment, wishing death to end his daies: which in my iudgement doth greatly accord with that in the Testament of Love. Moreover we find it thus in Record.
Later, in "The Argument" to the Testament of Love, Speght adds:

Chaucer did compile this booke as a comfort to himselfe after great griefs conceiued for some rash attempts of the commons, with whome he had ioyned, and thereby was in feare to loose the fauour of his best friends.
Speght is also the source of the famous tale of Chaucer being fined for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, as well as a fictitious coat of arms and family tree. Ironically--and perhaps consciously so--an introductory, apologetic letter in Speght's edition from Francis Beaumont defends the unseemly, "low," and bawdy bits in Chaucer from an elite, classicist position. Francis Thynne noted some of these inconsistencies in his Animadversions, insisting that Chaucer was not a commoner, and he objected to the friar-beating story. Yet Thynne himself underscores Chaucer's support for popular religious reform, associating Chaucer's views with his father William Thynne's attempts to include The Plowman's Tale and The Pilgrim's Tale in the 1532 and 1542 Works.

The myth of the Protestant Chaucer continues to have a lasting impact on a large body of Chaucerian scholarship. Though it is extremely rare for a modern to scholar to suggest Chaucer supported a religious movement that didn't exist until more than a century after his death, the predominance of this thinking for so many centuries left it for granted that Chaucer was at least extremely hostile toward Catholicism. This assumption forms a large part of many critical approaches to Chaucer's works, including neo-Marxism.

Alongside Chaucer's Works, the most impressive literary monument of the period is John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.... As with the Chaucer editions, it was critically significant to English Protestant identity and included Chaucer in its project. Foxe's Chaucer both derived from and contributed to the printed editions of Chaucer's Works, particularly the pseudepigrapha. Jack Upland was first printed in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, and then it appeared in Speght's edition of Chaucer's Works. Speght's "Life of Chaucer" echoes Foxe's own account, which is itself dependent upon the earlier editions that added the Testament of Love and The Plowman's Tale to their pages. Like Speght's Chaucer, Foxe's Chaucer was also a shrewd (or lucky) political survivor. In his 1563 edition, Foxe "thought it not out of season . . . to couple . . . some mention of Geoffrey Chaucer" with a discussion of John Colet, a possible source for John Skelton's character Colin Clout.

Probably referring to the 1542 Act for the Advancement of True Religion, Foxe says he "marvel[s] to consider . . . how the bishops, condemning and abolishing all manner of English books and treatises which might bring the people to any light of knowledge, did yet authorise the works of Chaucer to remain still and to be occupied; who, no doubt, saw into religion as much almost as even we do now, and uttereth in his works no less, and seemeth to be a right Wicklevian, or else there never was any. And that, all his works almost, if they be thoroughly advised, will testify (albeit done in mirth, and covertly); and especially the latter end of his third book of the Testament of Love . . . . Wherein, except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the full : although in the same book (as in all others he useth to do), under shadows covertly, as under a visor, he suborneth truth in such sort, as both privily she may profit the godly-minded, and yet not be espied of the crafty adversary. And therefore the bishops, belike, taking his works but for jests and toys, in condemning other books, yet permitted his books to be read."

It is significant, too, that Foxe's discussion of Chaucer leads into his history of "The Reformation of the Church of Christ in the Time of Martin Luther" when "Printing, being opened, incontinently ministered unto the church the instruments and tools of learning and knowledge; which were good books and authors, which before lay hid and unknown. The science of printing being found, immediately followed the grace of God; which stirred up good wits aptly to conceive the light of knowledge and judgment: by which light darkness began to be espied, and ignorance to be detected; truth from error, religion from superstition, to be discerned."

Foxe downplays Chaucer's bawdy and amorous writing, insisting that it all testifies to his piety. Material that is troubling is deemed metaphoric, while the more forthright satire (which Foxe prefers) is taken literally.


[edit] List of works
The following major works are in rough chronological order but scholars still debate the dating of most of Chaucer's output and works made up from a collection of stories may have been compiled over a long period.


[edit] Major works
Translation of Roman de la Rose, possibly extant as The Romance of the Rose
The Book of the Duchess
The House of Fame
Anelida and Arcite
Parlement of Foules
Translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy as Boece
Troilus and Criseyde
The Legend of Good Women
The Canterbury Tales
Treatise on the Astrolabe

[edit] Short poems
An ABC
Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn
The Complaint unto Pity
The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse
The Complaint of Mars
The Complaint of Venus
A Complaint to His Lady
The Former Age
Fortune
Gentilesse
Lak of Stedfastnesse
Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan
Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton
Proverbs
To Rosemounde
Truth
Womanly Noblesse

[edit] Poems dubiously ascribed to Chaucer
Against Women Unconstant
A Balade of Complaint
Complaynt D'Amours
Merciles Beaute
The Visioner's Tale
The Equatorie of the Planets - A rough translation of a Latin work derived from an Arab work of the same title. It is a description of the construction and use of what is called an 'equatorium planetarum', and was used in calculating planetary orbits and positions (at the time it was believed the sun orbited the Earth). The similar Treatise on the Astrolabe, not usually doubted as Chaucer's work, plus Chaucer's name as a gloss to the manuscript are the main pieces of evidence for the ascription to Chaucer. However, the evidence Chaucer wrote such a work is questionable, and as such is not included in The Riverside Chaucer. If Chaucer did not compose this work, it was probably written by a contemporary.

[edit] Works mentioned by Chaucer, presumed lost
Of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde, possible translation of Innocent III's De miseria conditionis humanae
Origenes upon the Maudeleyne
The book of the Leoun - The Book of the Leon is mentioned in Chaucer's retraction at the end of The Canterbury Tales. It is likely he wrote such a work; one suggestion is that the work was such a bad piece of writing it was lost, but if so, Chaucer would not have included it in the middle of his retraction. Indeed, he would not have included it at all. A likely source dictates it was probably a 'redaction of Guillaume de Machaut's 'Dit dou lyon,' a story about courtly love, a subject which Chaucer scholars agree he frequently wrote about (Le Romaunt de Rose).

[edit] Pseudepigraphies and works plagiarizing Chaucer
The Pilgrim's Tale -- Written in the sixteenth-century with many Chaucerian allusions
The Plowman's Tale AKA The Complaint of the Ploughman -- A Lollard satire later appropriated as a Protestant text
Pierce the Ploughman's Crede -- A Lollard satire later appropriated by Protestants
The Ploughman's Tale -- Its body is largely a version of Thomas Hoccleve's "Item de Beata Virgine"
"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" -- Richard Roos' translation of a poem of the same name by Alain Chartier
The Testament of Love -- Actually by Thomas Usk
Jack Upland -- A Lollard satire
God Spede the Plow -- Borrows parts of Chaucer's Monk's Tale

[edit] Chaucer in popular culture
In the movie A Knight's Tale, Paul Bettany plays Chaucer, as a gambling addicted writer who becomes the herald for the title character's knight in Medieval jousting tournaments.
In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman story Men of Good Fortune (collected in The Doll's House), Chaucer appears briefly in a tavern in fourteenth-century England. He is listening to a companion dismiss The Canterbury Tales as "filthy tales in rhyme about pilgrims".
Comedian Bill Bailey does a 'three men go into a pub' joke in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer called "Chaucer Pubbe Gagge".

[edit] References
^ "From The Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern". The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 2132-33. pg. 2132
^ Original e-text available online at the University of Virginia website[1], trans. Wikipedia.

[edit] Sources
The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press (1987) ISBN 0192821091
Chaucer: Life-Records, Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olsen. (1966)

[edit] See also
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Geoffrey ChaucerWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Geoffrey ChaucerWikimedia Commons has media related to:
Geoffrey ChaucerLiterature
Middle English
Middle English literature
Medieval literature
Chaucer College, a graduate school of the University of Kent, England; North Petherton.
Asteroid 2984 Chaucer, named after the poet
The movie A Knight's Tale took its name from The Knight's Tale, one of The Canterbury Tales, and a fictionalised Chaucer himself appears as a character in it (played by Paul Bettany), as do characters loosely based on the Pardoner and the Summoner.
John V. Fleming, an eminent Princeton Chaucerian

ANGELA CARTER

Biography
Born Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager, she battled anorexia. She at first worked as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father who was also a journalist. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature.

Carter’s writings show the influence of her mother. This influence can be seen in her novel Wise Children, which is notable for its many Shakespearean references. Carter was also interested in reappropriating writings by male authors, such as the Marquis de Sade (see The Sadeian Woman) and Charles Baudelaire (see her short story 'Black Venus'), amongst other literary forefathers. But she was also fascinated by the matriarchal, oral, storytelling tradition, rewriting several fairy tales for her short story collection The Bloody Chamber, including "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard," and two reworkings of "Beauty and the Beast."

She married twice, the first time in 1960 to a man named Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and travel to Japan, living in Tokyo for two years, where, she claims, she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised" (Nothing Sacred (1982)). She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).

She then explored the United States, Asia and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977, Carter married again, to her second husband, Mark Pearce.

As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She also wrote for radio, adapting a number of her short stories for the medium, and two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in the adaptation of both films, her screenplays for which are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radioplay scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures), and other works. These neglected works, as well as her her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).

Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.

Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 after developing cancer. Below is an extract from her obituary published in The Observer:

"She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and revelled in the diverse."


[edit] Works as author

[edit] Novels
Shadow Dance (1966) aka Honeybuzzard
The Magic Toyshop (1967)
Several Perceptions (1968)
Heroes and Villains (1969)
Love (1971)
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) aka The War of Dreams
The Passion of New Eve (1977)
Nights at the Circus (1984)
Wise Children (1991)

[edit] Short fiction
Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974) aka Fireworks: Nine Stories in Various Disguises and Fireworks
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979)
Black Venus (1985) aka Saints and Strangers
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993)
Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories (1995)
A Tigers Bride

[edit] Poetry
Five Quiet Shouters (1966)
Unicorn (1966)

[edit] Dramatic works
Come Unto These Golden Sands: Four Radio Plays (1985)
The Curious Room: Plays, Film Scripts and an Opera (1996) (includes Carter's screenplays for adaptations of The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop; also includes the contents of Come Unto These Golden Sands: Four Radio Plays)
The Holy Family Album (1991)

[edit] Children's books
The Donkey Prince (1970) illustrated by Eros Keith
Miss Z, the Dark Young Lady (1970) illustrated by Eros Keith
Comic and Curious Cats (1979) illustrated by Martin Leman
The Music People (1980) with Leslie Carter
Moonshadow (1982) illustrated by Justin Todd
Sea-Cat and Dragon King (2000) illustrated by Eva Tatcheva

[edit] Non-fiction
The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography (1978)
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings (1982)
Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1992)
Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writing (1997)

[edit] Works as editor
Wayward Girls and Wicked Women: An Anthology of Subversive Stories (1986)
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1990) aka The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book
The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1992) aka Strange Things Still Sometimes Happen: Fairy Tales From Around the World (1993)
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales (2005) (collects the two Virago Books above)

[edit] Works as translator
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (1977)
Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales (1982) (Perrault stories and two Madame Leprince de Beaumont stories)

[edit] Works on Angela Carter
Milne, Andrew (2006), The Bloody Chamber d'Angela Carter, Paris: Le Manuscrit Université
Milne, Andrew (2007), Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Reader's Guide, Paris: Le Manuscrit Université




[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Angela CarterThe Angela Carter Site
IMDb
The Scriptorium: Angela Carter, by Jeff VanderMeer
A Very Good Wizard, a Very Dear Friend, a remembrance by Salman Rushdie
Review Of Carter's Collected Short Stories

RAHUL DRAVID


Personal life
Though often mistaken to be a Kannadiga, Rahul is actually a Maharashtrian Brahmin. The Dravid lineage can be traced back to the period of early British rule when Maharashtrians migrated to what are now Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.He speaks Marathi as his mother-tongue.He has a brother named Vijay. Dravid's father worked for Kissan, a company known for jams and preserves and thus he earned the nickname Jammy from his teammates at St. Joseph's, Bangalore. Rahul Dravid has a degree in commerce from St Joseph's College of Commerce.

On May 4, 2003, Rahul married Dr. Vijeta Pendharkar, a surgeon from Nagpur and on October 11, 2005, their son, Samit, was born. Dravid's family is residing in Bangalore in Karnataka state.


Early years
Having started to play cricket at the age of 12, Dravid played at the state level at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 level. Rahul first came to prominence whilst attending a summer coaching camp at the Chinnaswamy Stadium where his talents were spotted by former cricketer Keki Tarapore who was coaching at the clinic. He went on to score a century on debut for his school team. Along with the batting, he was keeping wickets. However, he later stopped keeping wickets on advice from former Test players Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny, Brijesh Patel and Tarapore.

He was selected to make his Ranji Trophy debut in February 1991 against Maharashtra in Pune (while still attending college at St. Joseph's College of Commerce in Bangalore), alongside future Indian teammates Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath, scoring 82 in a drawn match after batting in the No. 7 position. His first full season was in 1991-92, when he scored two centuries to finish with 380 runs at an average of 63.3 , and was selected for South Zone in the Duleep Trophy , for whom he has been subsequently chosen annually.


International career
Dravid had a disappointing start to his career making his debut in one-dayers against Sri Lankan cricket team in the Singer Cup in Singapore immediately after World Cup in March 1996, replacing Vinod Kambli. Subsequently he was dropped from the team until he was picked again for the tour of England when Sanjay Manjrekar was injured.

With Manjrekar sidelined, he then made his debut in the Second Test against England along with Sourav Ganguly, scoring 95 . He held his position on Manjrekar's return for the Third Test, scoring 84 . After moderate home series against Australia and South Africa, Dravid broke through on the 1996-97 tour of South Africa. He batted at No. 3 in the third Test in Johannesburg, scoring his maiden century with 148 and 81, the top score in each innings to claim his first man of the match award . He also finally made his first half-century against Pakistan in the Sahara Cup in 1996, scoring 90 in his 10th ODI .

In the 18 months ending in mid-1998, he played in an away series against the West Indies, home and away series against Sri Lanka and a home series against Australia, he scored consistently, with 964 runs at an average of 56.7. He scored eleven half-centuries but was unable to convert them to triple figures. He scored his second century in late 1998 against Zimbabwe in a one-off Test match, top-scoring in both innings with 148 and 44, but was unable to prevent an Indian defeat. He then became the third Indian batsman after Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar to score centuries in both innings of a match during the 1999 New Year's Test match against New Zealand with 190 and 103* to force a draw, batting for a total of 653 minutes. He had a moderate subcontinental season in early 1999, scoring 269 runs at 38.42 with one century before scoring 239 at 39.8 including a century against New Zealand in late 1999. This was followed by a poor away series against Australia and another poor home series against South Africa, accumulating just 187 runs at an average of 18.7. He then scored 200*, his first double century, against Zimbabwe in Delhi which along with 70* in the second innings helped India to victory. It was the first time he had passed 50 in 12 months and he followed this with a 162 in the following Test, giving him 432 runs in the two match series at an average of 432.


Dravid in World Cup
Dravid had a very successful 1999 Cricket World Cup scoring over 450 runs and he was the highest run getter in the VII world cup. He was vice captain during 2003 World cup where India reached finals, serving his team in the dual capacity of batsman and wicket keeper to accomodate additional batsman, a move that payed huge dividends for India. Dravid was captain during 2007 cricket world cup in West Indies. He and the Indian cricket team had a dismal 2007 Cricket World Cup Campaign. Dravid had scores of 14 (Bangladesh), 7* (Bermuda) and 60 (Sri Lanka).

In the later part of 2007, Dravid had a poor run scoring only 73 runs in 9 mathces at an average of 9.13. He was rested for the last ODI against Australia and subsequently dropped from the team for the matches against Pakistan. This is the second time he has been dropped from the team.


Style
With a strong technique, he has been the backbone for the Indian cricket team. Beginning with the reputation of being a defensive batsman who should be confined to Test cricket, he was dropped from ODIs as he was slow in making runs. Of late, however, Rahul Dravid has defied early perceptions to become the mainstay of the Indian batting line-up in ODIs as well as in Tests. His nickname of 'The Wall' in Reebok advertisements has now become a tribute to his consistency. Dravid has scored 23 centuries in Test cricket at an average of 58.75, including 5 double centuries. In one-dayers though he has an average of 40.05, and a strike rate of 70.70. He is one of the few Indians who average more at away matches than at home, averaging over 10 more runs a match abroad than on Indian pitches. As of 9 August, 2006, Dravid's average in overseas Tests stood at 65.28 as against his overall Test average of 58.75, and his average for away ODI stands at 42.03 as against overall ODI average of 40.05. In matches that India has won, Dravid averages 78.72 in Tests and 53.40 in ODIs.

Dravid's sole Test wicket was that of Ridley Jacobs in the fourth Test against the West Indies during the 2001-2002 series. While he has no pretensions to being a bowler, Dravid often kept wicket for India in ODIs. He has since delegated the wicket-keeping gloves, first to Parthiv Patel and more recently to Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Dravid is now purely a batsman, one who has averaged 63.51 in matches played since 1 January, 2000.

Dravid was involved in two of the largest partnerships in ODIs: a 318-run partnership with Sourav Ganguly, the first pair to combine for a 300-run partnership, and then a 331-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, which is the present world record. He also holds the record for the greatest number of innings since debut before being dismissed for a duck. His highest scores in ODIs and Tests are 153 and 270 respectively. Uniquely, each of his five double centuries in Tests was a higher score than his previous double century (200*, 217, 222, 233, 270).

Also, Dravid is the current world record holder for the highest percentage(%) contribution of runs scored in matches won under a single captain, where the captain has won more than 20 Tests. [24] In the 21 Test matches India won under Sourav Ganguly's leadership, Dravid played his part in every single one of those wins, scoring at a record average of 102.84 and piling up an astonishing 2571 runs, with nine hundreds - three of them double-centuries - and ten fifties in 32 innings. He contributed nearly 23% of the total runs scored by India those 21 matches, which is almost one run out of every four runs the team scored.


Rahul Dravid's career performance graph.He was named one of the Wisden cricketers of the year 2000.

In 2004, Dravid was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. On 7 September, 2004, he was awarded the inaugural Player of the year award and the Test player of the year by the International Cricket Council, ICC (associated image below). Dravid's batting average of 95.46 in the past year has made him the only Indian to be in the Test team of the year. On 18th March, 2006, Dravid played his 100th Test against England in Mumbai.

In 2005, a biography of Rahul Dravid written by Devendra Prabhudesai was published, 'The Nice Guy Who Finished First'.

In the 2005 ICC Awards he was the only Indian to be named to the World one-day XI.

In 2006, it was announced that he would remain captain of the Indian team up to the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

After the England Series however, he stepped down as captain of India due to personal reasons. M S Dhoni took over as ODI captain.

In 2007, he was dropped from the Indian ODI Squad following poor series against england and Australia. Dravid went back to play for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy, scoring 218 against Mumbai.


Personal Records

Tests
Dravid has been involved in the most century partnerships in Test history - 65 (May 2007)
Dravid has the second highest Test batting average among those who have scored over 9,000 Test runs (May 2007)
Scored nearly 23% of the total runs put up by India (with a batting average of 102.84) in the 21 Test matches won under Ganguly's captaincy. This is the highest percentage contribution by any batsman in Test cricket history in matches won under a single captain where the captain has won more than 20 Tests.
Longest streak of consecutive Tests since debut (96)
Only player to score a century against every Test playing nation away from home (until the ICC decides to add more nations to the list of Test playing nations his record can only be equalled, not broken).
Involved in highest partnership made away from home for any wicket for India with vice captain Virender Sehwag of 410 runs vs Pakistan at Lahore in 2006 (the highest partnership between a captain and the vice captain).
He is the fastest to reach 9000 runs in Test cricket. In all he took 176 innings to do this, bettering the previous record set by Brian Lara by 1 innings.
Dravid is one among the only three batsmen to hit Test centuries in four consecutive innings. The other two are Jack Fingleton and Alan Melville. Dravid achieved this by hitting scores of 115, 148, 217 and 100* in three successive matches against England and one against the West Indies. Only Everton Weekes, with centuries in five consecutive innings, has achieved a longer sequence of consecutive Test hundreds.
With scores of 50 or more in 7 consecutive Tests Dravid bettered the previous Indian record of 50+ scores in 6 consecutive Tests for a single batsman. This record was shared by Vijay Hazare, Chandu Borde, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sadagoppan Ramesh. As of October 2006 this streak is unbroken.
He is currently joint 4th along with Brian Lara among batsmen who have scored most away runs in Tests (5288 as of August 9th 2006). Only Sachin Tendulkar, Allan Border and Vivian Richards have scored more away Test runs.
9th batsman to score twin hundreds in a Test twice, and only the 2nd Indian to do so, after Sunil Gavakar.
1st Indian to score 5 double hundreds, each bigger than the previous (200* vs Zimbabwe, 217 vs England, 222 vs New Zealand, 233 vs Australia, 270 vs Pakistan).

One Dayers
Partnership Records

The only batsman to have been involved in two ODI partnerships exceeding 300 runs.
First batsman to be involved in a 300 run partnership in a Cricket World Cup along with Sourav Ganguly in the 1999 World Cup match against Sri Lanka at Taunton.
Involved in all three highest 4th wicket partnerships against South Africa, two with Yuvraj Singh.
Involved in the highest partnership in the history of ODI cricket with a 331 run partnership along with Sachin Tendulkar vs New Zealand at Hyderabad in 1999-2000.
World Cup Records

He was the leading run scorer in the 1999 World Cup with 461 runs.
Highest score by a wicketkeeper in a World Cup.
Captaincy Records

He is tied with Sachin Tendulkar in fourth place for having captained India in the most victorious matches
Has the highest ODI batting average as captain of 45.58 (as of 4/7/06), among all captains who have captained more than 10 ODIs.
Other Records

Has the record of not being dismissed on duck for 120 consecutive ODI matches
3rd Highest number of fifties, after Sachin Tendulkar (84) and Inzamam Ul Haq (83)

Captaincy
Achievements
Rahul Dravid led India to a historic Test series win, against the West Indies in their home soil in 2006. Since 1971, India had never won a Test series in the West Indies. This is also their first prominent series win outside the Indian subcontinent (barring the win against Zimbabwe in 2005) since 1986.
Under Dravid's captaincy the Indian team tied the previous record of most consecutive One-Day International wins for an Indian team thus equalling the record run that the Indian team had achieved under Sourav Ganguly in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa (8).
During his captaincy the Indian team broke the 14 match West Indies record for most consecutive won matches in One-Day Internationals while chasing a total. For this 17 match run, Dravid was the captain for 15 matches and Sourav Ganguly was the captain for the other two. This streak was broken on 5/20/06, when India lost to the West Indies by one run, at Sabina Park, Jamaica.
Rahul Dravid is the first captain to lead India to a Test match victory against South Africa on South African soil
He became only the third captain from India to win a Test series in England. This feat was achieved after 21 years. The other two captains being Kapil Dev (1986) and Ajit Wadekar (1971).

Criticism
One of Dravid's most debated decisions was taken in March 2004, when he was standing in as captain for an injured Sourav Ganguly. The Indian first innings was declared at a point when Sachin Tendulkar was at 194 with 16 overs remaining on Day 2.
Rahul Dravid has had a mixed record when leading India in Tests. India lost the Karachi Test in 2006, giving Pakistan the series 1-0. In March 2006, India lost the Mumbai Test, giving England its first Test victory in India since 1985, enabling Flintoff's men to draw the series 1-1. While the loss in Karachi could be put down to several Indian batsmen playing badly, the defeat in Mumbai was arguably the result of Dravid's decision to bowl first on a flat dry pitch which later deteriorated and ended with an Indian collapse in the run chase. [29]
After India failed to qualify for the Finals of the DLF Cup, Indian skipper Rahul Dravid was criticised by former all-rounder Ravi Shastri who said that he was not assertive enough and let Greg Chappell make too many decisions[30]. When asked for a response, Dravid said that Shastri, while a 'fair critic', was 'not privy' to the internal decision-making process of the team.

Teams

International
India (current)
ACC Asian XI
ICC World XI

Indian first-class
Karnataka (current)

English county
Kent
Scotland

Timeline
1973 - Born 11 January 1973, in Indore
1984 - Attended a summer coaching camp at KSCA's Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore, where his talents were spotted by former cricketer turned coach Keki Tarapore (There was another Keki Tarapore [Mumbai, deceased] with whom people confuse this gentleman who also passed on.)
Scores his first century in an unofficial match for his school team St. Joseph's against St. Anthony's.
Scores a double hundred for the Karnataka schools team which he smashed against Kerala.
Selected for the under-15 Karnataka team.
Stops keeping wickets on advice from Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny, Brijesh Patel and coach Keki Tarapore.
1985 - Gets recognised in Bangalore as a prodigy after becoming the first ever to score a century in the Cottonian Shield inter school tournament (Juniors) for St. Josephs High School against Baldwin Boys' High School, in the final.
1991 - Ranji debut against Maharashtra.
1996 - Double century in Ranji finals, vs. Tamil Nadu.
1996 - Test debut at Lords, England after Sanjay Manjrekar was injured and Navjot Singh Sidhu flew back home after a fracas with captain Azharuddin. Makes 95.
1997 - Maiden Test hundred (148), vs. South Africa, third Test, Johannesburg.
1997 - First one day hundred (107), vs. Pakistan, Independence Cup, Chennai.
1998 - Dropped from One Day squad for the ODI tournament in Bangladesh.
1999 - Hundred in both innings (190,103) against New Zealand in Hamilton.
1999 - Makes 461 runs, including three 50s and two 100s in World Cup.
1999 - Signs up with Kent for the 2000 English county season.
2001 - Scores 180, while V. V. S. Laxman makes 281, in a fifth-wicket stand of 376 as India defeat Australia at Eden Gardens, ending 16 Test-winning streak by Australia.
2004 - Career best 270 against Pakistan, at Rawalpindi.
2005 - Succeeds Sourav Ganguly as Test and ODI captain.
2005 - The Nice Guy Who Finished First by Devendra Prabhudesai, released by coach Greg Chappell.
2006 - Scores first century as captain, at Lahore, vs. Pakistan.
2006 - Leads India to snatch their first ever test victory on South African Soil.
2007 - Leads India in the 2007 Cricket World Cup, held in West Indies.
2007 - After India's tour of England, resigns from Indian captaincy.
2007 - Dropped from the Indian ODI Squad after poor series against England and Australia.

Career highlights

Tests
Test Debut: vs England, Lord's, 1996


Dravid's best Test batting score of 270 was made against Pakistan, Rawalpindi, 2003-2004
His best Test bowling figures of 1 for 18 came against West Indies, St. John's, 2001-2002
He is only the third Indian to score over 8,000 Test runs, following Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar.
Rahul Dravid is the fastest batsman in the history of Test cricket to make 9,000 runs. The Indian captain brought up the landmark in his 176th innings playing against West Indies in 2006 and broke the earlier record of Brian Lara

One-Day Internationals
ODI Debut: vs Sri Lanka, Singapore, 1995-1996


Dravid's best ODI batting score of 153 was made against New Zealand, Hyderabad, 1999-2000
His best ODI bowling figures of 2 for 43 came against South Africa, Kochi, 1999-2000
6th player and 3rd Indian to score 10,000 runs. He broke the barrier by scoring 66 against Sri Lanka and levelling the series 1-1.

Achievements

Awards
1999: Ceat Cricketer of the 1999 World Cup
2000: Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2000[32]
2004: Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy Winner (Awarded for ICC Player of the Year)[33]
2004: Padma Shri[34]
2004: ICC Test Player of The Year[33]
2006: Captain of the ICC's Test Team[35]

Test Cricket Awards
Test Match - Man of the Series Awards:

# Series Season Series Performance
1 India in England Test Series 2002 602 (4 Matches, 6 Innings, 3x100, 1x50); 10 Catches
2 Border-Gavaskar Trophy (India in Australia Test Series) 2003/04 619 Runs (4 Matches, 8 Innings, 1x100, 3x50); 4 Catches
3 India in West Indies Test Series 2006 496 Runs (4 Matches, 7 Innings, 1x100, 4x50); 8 Catches

Test Matches - Man of the Match Awards:

S No Opponent Venue Season Match Performance
1 South Africa Wanderers, Johannesburg 1996/97 1st Innings: 148 (21x4); 1 Catch
2nd Innings: 81 (11x4); 1 Catch
2 West Indies Bourda, Georgetown 1996/97 1st Innings: 92 (8x4, 1x6)
3 England Headingley, Leeds 2002/03 1st Innings: 148 (23x4)
2nd Innings: 3 Catches
4 England The Oval, London 2002/03 1st Innings: 217 (28x4); 3 Catches
5 New Zealand Motera, Ahmedabad 2003/04 1st Innings: 222 (28x4, 1x6); 2 Catches
2nd Innings: 73 (6x4); 1 Catch
6 Australia Adelaide Oval, Adelaide 2003/04 1st Innings: 233 (23x4, 1x6); 1 Catch
2nd Innings: 72* (7x4); 2 Catches
7 Pakistan Rawalpindi 2003/04 1st Innings: 270 (34x4, 1x6)
2nd Innings: 1 Catch
8 Pakistan Eden Gardens, Kolkata 2004/05 1st Innings: 110 (15x4, 1x6); 1 Catch
2nd Innings: 135 (15x4)
9 West Indies Sabina Park, Kingston 2006 1st Innings: 81 (10x4)
2nd Innings: 68 (12x4); 1 Catch


ODI Matches
Rahul Dravid has never won a Man of the Series award in ODI Cricket
ODI Matches - Man of the Match Awards:

S No Opponent Venue Season Match Performance
1 Pakistan Toronto 1996 46 (93b, 3x4)
2 South Africa Kingsmead, Durban 1996/97 84 (94b, 5x4, 1x6); 1 Catch
3 New Zealand Taupo 1998/99 123* (123b, 10x4, 1x6)
4 New Zealand Eden Park, Auckland 1998/99 51 (71b, 5x4, 1x6)
5 West Indies Toronto 1999 77 (87b, 6x4, 2x6); 4 Catches
6 Zimbabwe Bulawayo 2001 72* (64b, 7x4, 1x6)
7 Sri Lanka Edgbaston, Birmingham 2002 64 (95b, 5x4, 1x6); 1 Catch
8 UAE Dambulla 2004 104 (93b, 8x4); 1 Catch, 1 Stumping
9 West Indies Dambulla 2005 52* (65b, 7x4), 1 Catch
10 Sri Lanka Vidharba CA Ground, Nagpur 2005/06 85 (63b, 8x4, 1x6); 1 Catch
11 South Africa Mumbai 2005/06 78* (106b, 10x4)
12 Pakistan Abu Dhabi 2005/06 92 (116b, 10x4); 1 Catch
13 West Indies Sabina Park, Kingston 2006 105 (102b, 10x4, 2x6); 1 Catch
14 England Edgbaston 2007 92* (63b, 7x4)


Controversies

Ball-Tampering Incident
In January 2004 Dravid was found guilty of ball tampering during an ODI with Zimbabwe. Match referee Clive Lloyd adjudged the application of an energy sweet to the ball as a deliberate offence although Dravid himself denied this was his intent. Lloyd emphasised that television footage conclusively showed the star Indian batsman intentionally applying a lozenge to the ball during the Zimbabwean innings on Tuesday night at the Gabba, which was in breach of clause 2.10 of the ICC's Code of Conduct.

Indian coach John Wright came out in defence of Dravid, stating that "It was an innocent mistake". Dravid did not comment on the incident due to ICC regulations, but former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly also stated that Dravid's act was "just an accident". Ricky Ponting had his own take on the incident, asserting "I don't think you'll see us doing anything like that,"


Business Interests
Rahul Dravid has 2 biographies written on his career:

Rahul Dravid - A Biography written by Vedam Jaishankar (ISBN 817476481X). Publisher: UBSPD Publications. Date: January 2004[38]
The Nice Guy Who Finished First written by Devendra Prabhudesai. Publisher: Rupa Publications. Date: November 2005[39]

Endorsments
Reebok: 1996 - present[40]
Pepsi: 1997 present[41]
Kissan: Unknown[42]
Castrol: 2001 - present[43]
Hutch: 2003
Karnataka Tourism: 2004[44]
Max Life: 2005 - present[45]
Bank of Baroda: 2005 - present[46]
Citizen: 2006 - present[47]
Skyline Construction: 2006 - present[48]
Sansui: 2007 - present[49]
Gillette 2007 - now

Social Commitments:

Children's Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA)
UNICEF Supporter and AIDS Awareness Campaign

sachin tendulkar biography

For GK quiz related to this personality visit this quiz site
To share this blog with your friends please use above share buttons !