The Best of Robert Service [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert Service (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1989

Robert Service, famous for his ballads of life in the Gold Rush years of the Yukon, among them The Shooting of Dangerous Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", painted pictures of artists, grisettes and models from the merry, tragic life of bohemian Paris of the early 1900s, inspired by the shadows of World War I as it fell across the city. Throughout these poems are expressions of the poet's own homespun philosophy. His verses offered gaiety, humour, mostalgia and pathos while his comments on women, life and death, ambition, success and failure, were all aimed to evoke quick response in the readers heart."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert William Service (January 16, 1874-September 11, 1958) was a poet born into a Scottish family while they were living in Preston, England.He moved to Canada at the age of 21 when he gave up his job working in a Glasgow bank and traveled to Vancouver Island with his Buffalo Bill outfit and dreams of becoming a cowboy. Hired by the Canadian Bank of Commerce, he was posted to the bank's branch in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Inspired by the vast beauty of the Yukon wilderness, Service started writing his poetry about the things he saw.Service became known for his work about the West, and the Yukon gold miners. Such works as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" made him famous around the world. After having collected enough poems for a book, Service offered a publisher $100 of his own money to publish the work, but the publisher was so sure that the works would be popular (he had already taken 1700 offers for sale off the galley proofs), he returned Service's money and offered him a contract.Soon after The Songs of a Sourdough came out in 1907, Service became rich. He became known as the "Canadian Kipling". Within two years he was able to quit his job at the bank, and to travel-to Paris, the French Riviera, to Hollywood, and beyond. From 1912 to 1913 he was a correspondent for the Toronto Star during the Balkan Wars. During World War I he was a driver for the American Field Service and a war correspondent for the Canadian government.Robert W. Service married a woman from Paris and they purchased a summer home in the Brittany Region of France. At the outbreak of World War II he was in Poland and fled the country, going back to North America and on to Hollywood, California where he remained until the war's end, at which time he returned to his home in Brittany, France.Service wrote two volumes of autobiography-Ploughman of the Moon and Harper of Heaven.He died in Lancieux, Côtes-d'Armor, in Brittany and is buried there in the local cemetery.Robert W. Service has been honored with schools named for him in Anchorage, Alaska, in Dawson City in the Yukon and in Toronto, Ontario. He was also honored on a Canadian postage stamp in 1976.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade (January 27, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399550089
• ISBN-13: 978-0399550089
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #191,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Poetry, July 10, 2000

By 

Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of Robert Service (Mass Market Paperback)

Robert Service was the common man's poet. Even if you don't normally read poetry, you will find some that are enjoyable. He is best known for his poems about the Yukon such as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" ("A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malemute saloon..."), but the collection contains much more. It covers the poet's Yukon period, but also World War I and Bohemian Paris. Robert Service's poems ranged from dark humor such as "The Cremation of Sam McGee," to sad and sentimental poems such as "Muguet." Some of his poems addressed particular topics such as taxes ("Resentment"), dieting ("The Battle of the Bulge"), etc. His collected poems are recommended for any age group. I first became acquainted with his poetry when I was a child and someone read one to me.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant volume and a must-have for poetry fans!, July 6, 2001

By 

Michael R. Schneider (Garden Grove, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best Of Robert Service: Illustrated Edition (Hardcover)

I seriously doubt that anybody out there who has passed at least the eighth grade has not heard, at least once in his or her life, "The Cremation of Sam McGee." That poem enough warrants the purchase of a Robert W. Service book, as any home library should not be without that classic poem of North American culture.

This book, however, has a lot more to offer than solely the "most memorized poem" of the English language.

Though it does not state it in the information about this volume, this book contains the complete poems of "The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako." Either of these volumes (in hardback) alone will cost about thirteen dollars (at least at your local bookstore), but this hardbound edition offers much more.

The Kinsey photographs which help fill these pages give us all a more brilliant picture of life in the Yukon gold rush era, and help paint a canvas along with the verses of Robert Service in a cooperative rarely seen in the medium of poetry. Whereas most "gift" or "coffee table" editions of literature, the pictures rarely enhance and often detract from the visual imagery of the poetry. This volume is quite the opposite.

At the price, this is one of the best bargains you will find on Amazon.com. The artistry of the binding and design of the pages would warrant that this book retail at twice the price it does.

I recommend anybody with any interest purchase this book.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't miss reading his poems about WWI, July 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best Of Robert Service: Illustrated Edition (Hardcover)

Often people read Robert Service and only read his stories about Alaska and the Yukon. For moving poetry about WWI and the loss of his brother, read all the way to the end, very moving.