Without Feathers

infobox Book |
name = Without Feathers
title_orig =
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image_caption = Cover of 1996 Ballantine paperback
author = Woody Allen
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language = English
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publisher = Random House
pub_date = 12 May 1975
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media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages = 210 pp (hardcover edition) & 224 pp (paperback edition)
isbn = ISBN 978-0394497433 (hardcover edition)
Woody Allen's "Without Feathers" (1975, ISBN 0-394-49743-0) is one of his best-known literary pieces. The book spent 4 months on the New York Times Bestseller List. The book is a collection of short stories and also features two one act plays, "Death" and "God".

Explanation of the novel's title

The name is essentially a play on Emily Dickinson's words "Hope is the thing with feathers", reflecting Woody Allen's neurotic sense of hopelessness. The Dickinson poem is mentioned in one of the stories in the collection. [In 'Selections from the Allen Notebooks,' 9.]

Contents

# Selections from The Allen Notebooks
# Examining Psychic Phenomena
# A Guide to Some of the Lesser Ballets
# The Scrolls
# Lovborg's Women Considered
# The Whore of Mensa
# The Early Essays
# A Brief Yet Helpful Guide to Civil Disobedience
# Match Wits With Inspector Ford
# The Irish Genius
# Fabulous Tales and Mythical Beasts
# But Soft. Real Soft.
# If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists
# No Kaddish for Weinstein
# Fine Times: An Oral Memoir
# Slang Origins

Notes and references