Even if we were to discover the historical truth about the origin of the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, we still would not explain why its appeal to the imagination of artists and poets has been so extensive and the span of interpretations placed on the figure so divergent. The author of this book believes that the principle of reciprocity must be taken into account and this reflects the duality of the mind with its conscious and subconscious aspects. Can we align the Pied Piper with Ulysses and Gilgamesh on the basis of the mythology of the sun and its wandering surrogates as they journey through the night in quest of the anima, the eternal female?

The word "Trump" in the title serves as a nexus for ideas, associations and thoughts, some of a purely personal nature, thus giving rise to a medley of forms, essays, dialogues that hang together in some way.

This study explores the subject of the Pied Piper of Hamelin from varied angles. It focuses on the historical circumstances in which it arose and leads on to the question of its essential ingredients, its universal appeal to poets and writers. A large part of the book concerns Robert Browning's famous ditty that has popularized the story of the Pied Piper thoughout the English-speaking world and farther still. The nature and power of the Pied Piper were not recognized by the people of Hamelin until it was too late. Browning's poem, though popular, is not generally appreciated as one of the poet's great works. Like its subject, the poem conceals great power that awaits discovery.

From the National Book Award-longlisted author of Finding Florida, a sparkling, sweeping chronicle of the author’s life and discoveries in an ancient town in “Deep France,” from nearby prehistoric caves to medieval dynastic struggles to the colorful characters populating the area today When T. D. Allman purchased an 800-year-old house in the mountain village of Lauzerte in southwestern France, he aimed to find refuge from the world's tumults. Instead, he found that humanity’s most telling melodramas, from the paleolithic to the post-modern, were graven in its stones and visible from its windows. Indeed, the history of France can be viewed from the perspective of Lauzerte and its surrounding area—just as Allman, from one window, can see Lauzerte unfold before him in the Place des Cornières, where he watches performances of the opera Tosca and each Saturday buys produce from “Fred, the Foie Gras Guy;” while from the other side facing the Pyrenees he surveys the fated landscape that generated many events giving birth to the modern world. The dynastic struggles of Eleanor of Aquitaine, he finds, led to Lauzerte’s remarkably progressive charter issued in 1241, which even then enshrined human rights in its 51 articles. From Eleanor’s marriage to English king Henry II in 1154 dates the never-ending melodrama pitting English arrogance against French resistance; in 2016 Brexit demonstrated that this perpetual contretemps is another of the vaster conditions life in Lauzerte illuminates. Allman chronicles the many conflicts that have swirled in the region, from the Catholic Church’s genocidal campaign to wipe out “heresy” there; to France’s own 16th-century Wars of Religion, which saw hundreds massacred in the town square, some inside his house; to World War II, during which Lauzerte was part of Nazi-occupied Vichy. In prose as crystalline as his view to the Pyrenees on a clear day, Allman animates Lauzerte and its surrounding communities—Cahors, Moissac, Montauban—all ever in thrall to the magnetic impulse of Paris. Witness to so many dramas over the centuries, his house comes alive as a historical protagonist in its own right, from its wine-cellar cave to the roof where he wages futile battle with pigeons, to the life lessons it conveys. “The onward march of history, my House keeps demonstrating, never takes a rest,” he observes, pulling us vividly into his world.

Originally published: New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978.

This book lays out ways in which teachers and storytelling groups can foster the imaginative lives of children and their parents.

The Pillowman centers on a writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is being interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a series of child murders. The result is an urgent work of theatrical bravura and an unflinching examination of the very nature and purpose of art. -- Publisher's website.