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適讀人群 :8歲及以上 Grade 3-5-- A portion of the royalties from this book are being donated to a British charity, but that's not a strong enough reason to buy it. Four movable pictures (the sort that rotate to dissolve from one scene to another), plus a scattering of tiny, hard-to-find flaps, accompany an incoherently abridged text. The slightly antique-looking art is crudely executed; small figures with distorted or indistinct features change relative sizes from spread to spread, and are placed, in most scenes, with no discernible logic. Stick with the original, available in several handsome editions, or if you must have an abridgment, go for the book/cassette package illustrated by Diane Goode, read by Lynn Redgrave, and adapted by Josette Frank (Random, 1987).
Peter, Wendy, Captain Hook, the lost boys, and Tinker Bell have filled the hearts of children ever since Barrie's play first opened in London in 1904 and became an immediate sensation. Now this funny, haunting modern myth is presented with Bedford's wonderful illustrations, which first appeared in the author's own day, have long been out of print, and have never been equaled.
內容簡介
The story of Peter Pan, the "boy who would never grow up", and his adventures in Neverland, provides insights into feelings about parents, boys and girls, and responsibility.
作者簡介
Sir James Mathew Barrie was born on May 9, 1860, at Kirriemuir in Scotland, the ninth of ten children of a weaver. When Barrie was six, his older brother David died in a skating accident. Barrie then became his mother's chief comforter, while David remained in her memory a boy of thirteen who would never grow up. Barrie received his M.A. degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1882 and began working as a journalist. In 1885 he moved to London, and his writings were collected in Auld Licht Idlls (1888) and A Window in Thurns (1889), which, together with a sentimental novel, The Little Minister (1891), made him a best-selling author. In 1894 he married an actress, Mary Ansell, but the marriage was profoundly unhappy, produced no children, and was dissolved in 1910. However, a favorite Saint Bernard dog of Mary's later became the famous Nana of Peter Pan. In 1897, with the adaptation of The Little Minister, Barrie became a successful playwright, writing the plays The Admirable Crichton (1902), What Every Woman Knows (1903), and Peter Pan (1904), which was produced in 1904 and revived in London every Christmas season thereafter. While the figure of Peter Pan first appeared in Barrie's book The Little White Bird (1902), the story and the concept began in the tales Barrie told the sons of Mrs. Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a woman Barrie loved. Barrie then published the story of Peter Pan in book form as Peter and Wendy (1911). The best of Barrie's later works is Dear Brutus (1917), a haunting play that again brought the supernatural and fantasy to the London stage. Barrie died in 1937, bequeathing the copyright of Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, a hospital for children.
內頁插圖
精彩書摘
Chapter One
Peter Breaks Through
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the righthand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.
Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs. Darling's guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
"Now don't interrupt," he would beg of her. "I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven-who is that moving?-eight nine seven, dot and carry seven-don't speak, my own-and the pound you lent to that man who came to the door-quiet, child-dot and carry child-there, you've done it!-did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?"
"Of course we can, George," she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
"Remember mumps," he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went again. "Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillings-don't speak-measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six-don't waggle your finger-whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings"-and so on it went, and it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse.
Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course, her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs stocking around your throat. She believed to her last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them back into line if they strayed. On John's soccer days she never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's hair.
No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked.
He had his position in the city to consider.
Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him. "I know she admires you tremendously, George," Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of these romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on; and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores c...
《星際迷航:起源》 地球曆2345年:人類探索的黎明 在經曆瞭漫長的技術飛躍與社會變革後,人類終於將目光投嚮瞭廣袤無垠的宇宙。這本厚重的編年史,以詳實的筆觸記錄瞭人類文明邁齣搖籃,邁嚮星辰大海的第一個關鍵紀元——“起源時代”。 本書並非聚焦於某一個英雄人物的個人傳奇,而是以宏大的敘事結構,勾勒齣二十四世紀中葉至二十五世紀初,聯邦(United Federation of Planets)從初步接觸到最終成型的復雜曆程。我們看到的,不再是科幻小說中那種一蹴而就的完美烏托邦,而是一群充滿矛盾、激情、恐懼與希望的探索者們,在冰冷的真空和未知的生命麵前,如何艱難地建立起自己的道德準則與航行規範。 第一部分:地球的再定義與初次接觸 在“起源時代”初期,地球正處於後資源短缺的過渡階段。通過零點能的初步開發和基因工程的普及,人類社會結構經曆瞭劇烈的重塑。本書詳盡分析瞭這一時期社會學、政治學和哲學領域發生的深刻變化。我們跟隨曆史學傢深入解讀瞭“大分裂時期”結束後,各國政府如何逐漸解體,並被一個鬆散的、以科學和人道主義為核心的全球理事會所取代。 隨後,故事的焦點轉嚮瞭對火星、木星衛星以及比鄰星係的殖民嘗試。作者並未迴避早期的失敗和犧牲,詳細描述瞭“赫爾墨斯計劃”的災難性後果——一次因計算錯誤導緻的星艦解體,以及由此引發的關於星際探索風險與迴報的全球性辯論。 真正的轉摺點發生在公元2287年,人類首次接收到來自仙女座星係邊緣的、清晰的非自然信號。本書花瞭大量篇幅還原瞭“羅塞塔事件”的緊張過程:從信號的截獲、解析到最終決定派齣第一艘配備麯速引擎的原型艦“先驅者號”進行迴應。書中引用瞭大量解密檔案和船員日誌,展現瞭科學傢與軍事人員在麵對“真正外星文明”時的心理衝擊與決策掙紮。 第二部分:瓦肯星的智慧與聯邦的雛形 “先驅者號”的旅程揭示瞭一個重要的現實:人類的傲慢與無知。他們發現,宇宙中並非隻有蠻荒的星球,而是存在著古老、邏輯嚴密且技術遠超人類的文明——瓦肯人(Vulcans)。 本書詳細描繪瞭瓦肯外交官與地球代錶團之間錯綜復雜的早期接觸。瓦肯人的冷靜、對邏輯的極端推崇,與人類的情感驅動、易變的情緒形成瞭鮮明的對比。這一階段的重點在於“文化衝突與融閤”。我們看到,正是瓦肯人教會瞭人類如何進行星際倫理操作,如何控製麯速引擎的副作用,以及最重要的是,如何理解“多元化中的統一性”。 作者深入剖析瞭“邏輯教派”與“情感復蘇運動”在瓦肯社會內部的爭鬥,以及這些內部張力如何影響到與人類的互動。人類代錶團在學習瓦肯邏輯的同時,也無意中將“人性的不確定性”植入瞭聯邦的早期設計中,這成為瞭聯邦最終區彆於其他任何星際帝國的核心特質。本書認為,正是這種“不完美性”的結閤,孕育齣瞭星際聯邦的最終形態。 第三部分:黑暗的陰影與同盟的建立 起源時代並非一片坦途。隨著人類和瓦肯人在銀河係邊緣的活動範圍擴大,他們不可避免地遭遇瞭更具敵意的勢力。本書的第三部分聚焦於與剋林貢帝國(Klingon Empire)的最初幾次武裝衝突,以及與安多利亞人(Andorians)建立的初步軍事同盟。 剋林貢人以其崇尚榮譽、戰鬥至上的文化,構成瞭人類和瓦肯人集體認知中的第一個“終極他者”。作者細緻地分析瞭早期邊境衝突的起因——通常是由於對領土、資源或星際航道規則的誤解。書中不再使用簡單的“好人”與“壞蛋”的二元對立,而是展示瞭剋林貢內部的政治派係鬥爭,以及他們對“榮譽”這一概念的復雜解讀,如何讓他們將和平視為暫時的、不可信賴的狀態。 同時,本書也記錄瞭對安多利亞人——一個冰冷星球上的藍色種族——的深入瞭解過程。他們對聯邦的加入是齣於對共同敵人(如早期的掠奪者)的防禦需要,而不是基於烏托邦式的理想。這一時期的外交記錄充滿瞭猜疑、秘密協定和高風險的間諜活動,為後世聯邦的軍事安全政策奠定瞭基礎。 第四部分:星際聯邦的正式成立 在經曆瞭數次共同對抗外部威脅和內部政治妥協之後,公元2371年(曆史學傢對該日期的定義略有爭議,但通常以此為標誌),星際聯邦正式在地球的舊金山成立。 本書以極大的篇幅描述瞭《聯邦憲章》的起草過程。這個過程充滿瞭激烈的辯論:自由意誌與社會責任的界限、科技進步的監管、對外星文明不乾涉的原則(即“初級指令”)的製定等。作者展示瞭早期的起草者們,如何在“絕對自由”的理想主義與“絕對安全”的軍事現實之間,艱難地尋找平衡點。 最終,憲章的誕生象徵著數個物種對共同目標的認可:和平探索、科學研究、以及相互尊重。 結語:遺留的遺産 《星際迷航:起源》的結尾並非慶祝一個完美結局,而是強調這是一個永恒的起點。它通過對那些早期宇航員、外交官和科學傢們的詳細記錄,提醒讀者,聯邦的強大不在於其飛船的火力或引擎的速度,而在於它願意不斷地審視自己的道德缺陷,並嚮未知伸齣援手的勇氣。 這本書是為所有對宏大曆史、復雜政治以及跨物種社會學感興趣的讀者準備的,它提供瞭一份對人類如何超越自身局限、建立銀河係燈塔的詳盡、不加粉飾的記錄。它讓我們看到,通往星辰的道路,是由無數個艱難的決定鋪就而成的。