{"product_id":"three-ladies-beside-the-seaisbn-9781590173541","title":"Three Ladies Beside the Sea","description":"Wickedly funny and delightfully sad, Three Ladies Beside the Sea is a tale of love found, love lost, and love never-ending. Edward Gorey’s off-kilter Edwardian maidens are the perfect accompaniment to Rhoda Levine’s lilting rhymes.The place is remote:Three houses beside the sea.The Characters are Few:Laughing Edith of Ecstasy,Edith so happy and gay.Smiling Catherine of Compromise,She smiles her life away.And then there is Alice of Hazard,A dangerous life leads she.The question in the plot is quite simple:Why is Alice up in a tree?The answer can be discovered:Edith and Catherine do.\u003cp\u003e\"A rhymed story of charming eccentricity, Rhoda Levine's \u003ci\u003eThree Ladies Beside the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e has a fable-like quality. Three friends — Edith of Ecstasy, Catherine of Compromise and Alice of Hazard — live in harmony, doing their chores, drinking tea and playing chamber music. (Once you've seen Edward Gorey's pictures of their elongated figures and their odd, tower-shaped cottages, it's impossible to imagine them otherwise.) Alice has a disturbing habit of climbing a tree — in all weather! — and gazing intently out at the sky. It's a compulsion, she explains when her friends confront her about it...Ah, then why does she do it? There's the question, to which Levine and Gorey's answer seems to be: One has to accept all kinds of mysteries in friends.\" --\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ms. Levine's wry imagination and Mr. Gorey's powerfully epicene drawings (figure  that one out) constitute a whole new country for a child to visit or for a lucky  grandfather to act as tour guide. ...This is, of course, a must for the many Edward  Gorey fans of all ages, and a chance to discover the fine poetry of Rhoda Levine.  I read this one to my five year old grand-daughter because it is just long enough  to be engaging and just short enough to be wiggle proof, and just wise enough to  set a young imagination free as a bird.\" –Sherman Yellen, \u003ci\u003eThe Huffington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThree  Ladies by the Sea \u003c\/i\u003econsists of more nonsense about the formal activities of the three  ladies of nobility with the exception of Alice who insists upon in a tree where she  seeks a bird she saw long ago.” —Charlotte Jackson, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRhoda Levine\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of seven children’s books (two of which were illustrated  by Edward Gorey) and is an accomplished director and choreographer. In addition to  working for major opera houses in the United States and Europe, she has choreographed  shows on and off Broadway, and in London’s West End. Among the world premieres she  has directed are \u003ci\u003eDer Kaiser von Atlantis\u003c\/i\u003e, by Viktor Ullmann, and \u003ci\u003eThe Life and Times  of Malcolm X \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eWakonda’s Dream,\u003c\/i\u003e both by Anthony Davis. In Cape Town she directed  the South African premiere of \u003ci\u003ePorgy and Bess\u003c\/i\u003e in 1996, and she premiered the New York  City Opera productions of Janacek’s \u003ci\u003eFrom the House of the Dead, Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten\u003c\/i\u003e, and Adamo’s \u003ci\u003eLittle Wome\u003c\/i\u003en.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLevine has taught acting and improvisation at  the Yale School of Drama, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Northwestern University,  and is currently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College  of Music. She lives in New York, where she is the artistic director of the city’s  only improvisational opera company, Play It by Ear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdward  Gorey\u003c\/b\u003e (1925–2000) was born in Chicago. He studied briefly at the Art  Institute of Chicago, spent three years in the army testing poison gas,  and attended Harvard College, where he majored in French literature and  roomed with the poet Frank O’Hara. In 1953 Gorey published \u003ci\u003eThe Unstrung Harp\u003c\/i\u003e, the first of his many extraordinary books, which include \u003ci\u003eThe Curious Sofa\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Haunted Tea-Cosy\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Epiplectic Bicycle\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  addition to illustrating his own books, Edward Gorey provided drawings  to countless books for both children and adults. Of these, New York  Review Books has published \u003ci\u003eThe Haunted Looking Glass\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of Gothic tales that he selected and illustrated; \u003ci\u003eThe War of the Worlds\u003c\/i\u003e by H. G. Wells; \u003ci\u003eMen and Gods\u003c\/i\u003e, a retelling of ancient Greek myths by Rex Warner; in collaboration with Rhoda Levine, \u003ci\u003eThree Ladies Beside the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHe Was There from the Day We Moved In\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eThe Unrest-Cure and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of tales by Saki.","brand":"NYR Children's Collection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304391037157,"sku":"NP9781590173541","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590173541.jpg?v=1730757180","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/three-ladies-beside-the-seaisbn-9781590173541","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}