A guide to manners for the new millennium uses epigraphs from Homer, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Chief Flying Hawk, among others, to introduce a new perspective on modern manners.

16 illustrated Grace and Courtesy lessons for use in a Montessori environment

This book is the short slap to the back of the head most people need nowadays. In a world that's more likely to flip the bird than hold the door, it's their reminder of proper behavior. You'll receive a (re-)schooling in manners with lessons split up by situation, then tackled by topic. Each note corrects conduct that's become all too common, like . . . Bad Behavior: Popping a piece of gum into your mouth midconversation, and stressing your point by snapping it. Courteous Fix: If you're going to have a piece of gum while talking to someone, be sure to offer your companion a piece--and keep your mouth closed as you chew. You want your breath to be fresh. Not your attitude. It's a reminder that it wasn't always out of place to be polite.

What counted as good and bad manners in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Anna Bryson explores what is often entertaining evidence for Tudor and Stuart ideas of bodily decency and decorum, table manners and polite conversation, and also shows the crucial importance of the values of "courtesy" and "civility" in an aristocratic society.

"The Crisis of Courtesy" explores the metamorphosis of British courtesy-literature from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It shows how the preoccupation with conduct provided the subject-matter of such diverse literary forms as poetry, the essay and the novel.