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Mythic Worlds, Modern Words: Joseph Campbell on the Art of James Joyce
Mythic Worlds, Modern Words provides a representation of Campbell’s published writing, lectures on Joyce, and exchanges with his audiences, from his obituary notice on Joyce in 1941 to lectures delivered a few years before Campbell’s death. Joyce scholar Edmund L. Epstein has arranged this material as running commentary on A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. With a new foreword by Phil Cousineau for this Collected Works edition, Mythic Worlds, Modern Words is both an introduction to the major work of Joyce and a representative portrait of Joseph Campbell as a critic of Joyce. It is also a major contribution to Joyce criticism, the fruit of a lifetime’s meditation on the great Irish writer’s writings.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
53 people are currently reading
859 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Campbell
431 books6,258 followersJoseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles.
Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.
Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.
Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.
Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 26, 2020
Insightful analysis of the myths employed by Joyce. I've read and loved Portrait and Ulysses. Maybe I'm finally old enough for the Wake ...
April 20, 2016
This book really enhanced my enjoyment of Ulysses. I was trying to read it on my own and was making a fair go of it until I got to Cyclops when I almost threw in the towel. The note in my journal is, "Okay. What the h--- was that?"
I picked up Mythic Worlds, Modern Words and Campbell very eloquently answered that and many other questions.
This isn't super-detailed, but it gives the overview of the myths and other classics used while writing the novel. Campbell's style is accessible and a joy to read (or perhaps that was just in comparison with Ulysses).
I only read the Ulysses portion of the book, but it's staying on my shelf for when I read Portrait and Finnegans Wake.
Check out my review of Ulysses for more about my take on Campbell's book.
I picked up Mythic Worlds, Modern Words and Campbell very eloquently answered that and many other questions.
This isn't super-detailed, but it gives the overview of the myths and other classics used while writing the novel. Campbell's style is accessible and a joy to read (or perhaps that was just in comparison with Ulysses).
I only read the Ulysses portion of the book, but it's staying on my shelf for when I read Portrait and Finnegans Wake.
Check out my review of Ulysses for more about my take on Campbell's book.
April 25, 2013
Started first time: March 11, 2004; Finished: March 26, 2004.
Very cool. A lot of this material I am familiar with and it is wonderful to have it all put together in one book. . .
Well done and very helpful in understanding what James Joyce's art was all about.
I'll be reading this one again, and again, and again, and again, and . . .
Joe would have been 100 today! --From A Reader's Journal, by d r melbie.
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Started April 7, 2013: Reading this again, for the second time. Finished: April 25, 2013.
Joe was the best at fleshing out Joyce! A must read for fans of both of these men.
Very cool. A lot of this material I am familiar with and it is wonderful to have it all put together in one book. . .
Well done and very helpful in understanding what James Joyce's art was all about.
I'll be reading this one again, and again, and again, and again, and . . .
Joe would have been 100 today! --From A Reader's Journal, by d r melbie.
----------
Started April 7, 2013: Reading this again, for the second time. Finished: April 25, 2013.
Joe was the best at fleshing out Joyce! A must read for fans of both of these men.
July 17, 2024
This book speaks to us about a forerunner of the modern English novel, who was not only the innovator of the Stream of Consciousness technique but used it to perfection in Ulysses and to some extent in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce…. He enhances the efficacy of the novel by using myths, imagery and motifs.
He was a master of English prose and experimented with words to produce the exact effect, which he wanted to create. He moves freely into the past and the present to give us a clear picture of the characters, their actions and their ways of thinking and doing things.
The author speaks about Joyce’s ‘Language’….
Joyce is the master of English prose. He does not have an undeviating style for the entire novel. The words fit in with the character of each individual. What a character speaks at a particular time shows the stage of his mental expansion at that time.
In the beginning when Stephen is a very small child, the author quotes the following words from his mind:
"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming the road met a nuncios little boy named baby tuckoo."
Compare this with the following description of Stephen's experience on the football field at Clongowes School:
"The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy Icather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng of players and his eyes were weak and watery."
This looks like the language of a boy who is seven or eight years old. Now see this description of a girl's beauty:
"Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face."
"She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes, her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither, and a faint flame trembled on her cheek."
This is the perfect language of a young man of seventeen or eighteen who is a worshipper of beauty and a priest of the imagination…..
Thus, Joyce uses just the correct words, which the character is likely to speak at his age and in the mood in which he is at that moment. He used puns frequently because he wanted to say several things at the same time. Sometimes he spent hours searching for just the right word that would express what he wanted to say.
This book speaks about Joyce’s trips to the past ….
In his novels, Joyce confines his surface action to a short period and works backwards by making the characters recollect their past. In Ulysses, the external action takes only twenty-four hours but by making the characters dip into the past he paints a complete picture of their lives and actions.
Stephen's daydreams take us frequently into his past and his future. While Stephen is in the school, he starts thinking of returning home during the holidays. This thought produces a reverie in Stephen and the description gives us the impression that he is already at home:
"All the people: Welcome home, Stephen! Noises of welcome. His mother kissed him. Was that right? His father was a marshal now! higher than a magistrate. Welcome home, Stephen!"
The reverie is broken by noises in the dormitory and the shouts of the prefect who was telling the students to look sharp. Then we realize that Stephen was in the school and was only daydreaming.
Thus by making frequent trips from the present to the past and the future, he gives a complete picture of his hero's thoughts and actions.
The book speaks about Joyce’s use of Motifs ….
Joyce brought unity into his works by introducing `motifs'. A `motif is a word, idea or image which is introduced in the beginning in the novel and is then repeated again and again. This is a coalescing factor in the book.
In A Portrait, there are several motifs, which keep recurring through- out the novel. On the very first page, we are introduced to the motifs of Light and Fire and their opposites--darkness and punishment.
Darkness also stands for blindness. Dante tells him when he is only an infant that if he thinks of marrying the eagles will pluck out his eyes. Throughout his life, he remains worried about his weak vision. In the school he breaks his glasses and so cannot do any work in the class and so is punished by Father Dolan.
Throughout his life, he was afraid of darkness. Light and Fire stand for knowledge and insight.
Joyce associates hands with misery. A bully called Nasty Roche had big hands. Stephen's hands became blue with cold and his parents' hands bade him good-bye. The Prefect's hands were cold and damp.
He was afraid of the hands of Mr. Casey and Eileen. The Prefect of Studies beats him cruelly "across the hands". One of the reasons why he refuses the offer of priesthood is the Director's hands. The punishment motif begins on the first page. Then Father Dolan gives him unjust punishment. Then Father Armall describes in all their horrible details the punishments which await sinners in hell. Thus the recurrent motifs unify the entire book and add significance to various isolated incidents.
The book dives deep into Joyce’s use of myths, imagery and symbols …
Myths, imagery and symbolism play an essential part in the novels of Joyce. For instance, the myth of Daedalus plays an important part in A Portrait.
Just as Daedalus flew away from his imprisonment, in the same way Stephen wants to escape from the bondage of family, nation and church and work in freedom as an artist. The symbols he uses frequently are the rose and birds.
Rose is associated with the beauty of women as well as with the beauty of art. The green rose suggests Ireland. The white rose suggests Catholic purity. The rose is at once the inspiration of Stephen's art and his ideal of beauty.
The book focuses on Joyce as an outsider..
Joyce has given expression in his novels to the feeling of most modern artists that they do not really belong to modern society. They are in the category of outsiders and so the rules of society do not apply to them.
Stephen says, "The artist like the God of creation remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."
Joyce's idea was that an artist must not have any attachments but should have unfettered freedom to pursue his own chosen vocation.
Your love for Joyce’s works would increase manifold after a patient reading of this book. The narrative gets tad technical, but once you can get over the basic hindrances, it is smooth sailing…
Most recommended.
He was a master of English prose and experimented with words to produce the exact effect, which he wanted to create. He moves freely into the past and the present to give us a clear picture of the characters, their actions and their ways of thinking and doing things.
The author speaks about Joyce’s ‘Language’….
Joyce is the master of English prose. He does not have an undeviating style for the entire novel. The words fit in with the character of each individual. What a character speaks at a particular time shows the stage of his mental expansion at that time.
In the beginning when Stephen is a very small child, the author quotes the following words from his mind:
"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming the road met a nuncios little boy named baby tuckoo."
Compare this with the following description of Stephen's experience on the football field at Clongowes School:
"The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy Icather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng of players and his eyes were weak and watery."
This looks like the language of a boy who is seven or eight years old. Now see this description of a girl's beauty:
"Her bosom was as a bird's, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark plumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face."
"She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes, her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither, and a faint flame trembled on her cheek."
This is the perfect language of a young man of seventeen or eighteen who is a worshipper of beauty and a priest of the imagination…..
Thus, Joyce uses just the correct words, which the character is likely to speak at his age and in the mood in which he is at that moment. He used puns frequently because he wanted to say several things at the same time. Sometimes he spent hours searching for just the right word that would express what he wanted to say.
This book speaks about Joyce’s trips to the past ….
In his novels, Joyce confines his surface action to a short period and works backwards by making the characters recollect their past. In Ulysses, the external action takes only twenty-four hours but by making the characters dip into the past he paints a complete picture of their lives and actions.
Stephen's daydreams take us frequently into his past and his future. While Stephen is in the school, he starts thinking of returning home during the holidays. This thought produces a reverie in Stephen and the description gives us the impression that he is already at home:
"All the people: Welcome home, Stephen! Noises of welcome. His mother kissed him. Was that right? His father was a marshal now! higher than a magistrate. Welcome home, Stephen!"
The reverie is broken by noises in the dormitory and the shouts of the prefect who was telling the students to look sharp. Then we realize that Stephen was in the school and was only daydreaming.
Thus by making frequent trips from the present to the past and the future, he gives a complete picture of his hero's thoughts and actions.
The book speaks about Joyce’s use of Motifs ….
Joyce brought unity into his works by introducing `motifs'. A `motif is a word, idea or image which is introduced in the beginning in the novel and is then repeated again and again. This is a coalescing factor in the book.
In A Portrait, there are several motifs, which keep recurring through- out the novel. On the very first page, we are introduced to the motifs of Light and Fire and their opposites--darkness and punishment.
Darkness also stands for blindness. Dante tells him when he is only an infant that if he thinks of marrying the eagles will pluck out his eyes. Throughout his life, he remains worried about his weak vision. In the school he breaks his glasses and so cannot do any work in the class and so is punished by Father Dolan.
Throughout his life, he was afraid of darkness. Light and Fire stand for knowledge and insight.
Joyce associates hands with misery. A bully called Nasty Roche had big hands. Stephen's hands became blue with cold and his parents' hands bade him good-bye. The Prefect's hands were cold and damp.
He was afraid of the hands of Mr. Casey and Eileen. The Prefect of Studies beats him cruelly "across the hands". One of the reasons why he refuses the offer of priesthood is the Director's hands. The punishment motif begins on the first page. Then Father Dolan gives him unjust punishment. Then Father Armall describes in all their horrible details the punishments which await sinners in hell. Thus the recurrent motifs unify the entire book and add significance to various isolated incidents.
The book dives deep into Joyce’s use of myths, imagery and symbols …
Myths, imagery and symbolism play an essential part in the novels of Joyce. For instance, the myth of Daedalus plays an important part in A Portrait.
Just as Daedalus flew away from his imprisonment, in the same way Stephen wants to escape from the bondage of family, nation and church and work in freedom as an artist. The symbols he uses frequently are the rose and birds.
Rose is associated with the beauty of women as well as with the beauty of art. The green rose suggests Ireland. The white rose suggests Catholic purity. The rose is at once the inspiration of Stephen's art and his ideal of beauty.
The book focuses on Joyce as an outsider..
Joyce has given expression in his novels to the feeling of most modern artists that they do not really belong to modern society. They are in the category of outsiders and so the rules of society do not apply to them.
Stephen says, "The artist like the God of creation remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."
Joyce's idea was that an artist must not have any attachments but should have unfettered freedom to pursue his own chosen vocation.
Your love for Joyce’s works would increase manifold after a patient reading of this book. The narrative gets tad technical, but once you can get over the basic hindrances, it is smooth sailing…
Most recommended.
September 14, 2014
I had no idea until fairly recently about Joseph Campbell's love of Joyce so this book is/was a revelation to me. Now Campbell has a treasure trove of great works so if Joyce isn't your thing you could consider passing this up, but I wouldn't because you'd be missing out on selected beautiful passages of prose as well as fantastic analysis into Joyce's works. This also helps make it a bit more accessible and infinitely more enjoyable if you do decide to tackle Ulysses or Finnegans Wake some day.
Read
February 27, 2017Read the full review at http://mindfunda.com/james-joyce/
When you read this book you will understand so much more of society and your place in it. It is an excelent overview of human psychology in mythology and contemporary art. The one thing I regret is that it is all build around the male psyche.
When you read this book you will understand so much more of society and your place in it. It is an excelent overview of human psychology in mythology and contemporary art. The one thing I regret is that it is all build around the male psyche.
Read
March 2, 2013I can't possibly rate this book as it was written for people far more enthralled with Joyce than I myself am. At times I found the book incredibly insightful, and at other times it was off in mystical mumbo-jumbo land (which from what I know of Joyce doesn't mean it's wrong).
May 26, 2017
Campbell's guide to Joyce helps to discover the hidden meanings in what seems only oddly intrincate. It enhances the wonderful experience of living Joyce's mythic Dublin.
February 15, 2015
Ok I skipped the section on Finnegan's Wake because No but this is THE BEST EVER
April 12, 2018
I really enjoy Joseph Campbell's work. I have enjoyed some of James Joyce's work. I read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and portions of Ulysses years ago, as well as Dante's Inferno and Homer's Odyssey. This book went into excruciating detail in comparing Joyce's novels to these more historic and "mythological" works. It was also my first introduction to Finnegans Wake, and more or less convinced me not to read it, or if I did read it, only to do so under the condition of being either omniscient or totally blitzed.
Campbell's book incorporates or mentions many other works by authors other than Joyce, Dante, and Homer, including Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Goethe, Thornton Wilder (specifically his play The Skin of Our Teeth), Samuel Beckett, Wordsworth, and ancient Hindu texts that speak of Vishnu's dream. The incorporation of all these varied authors and texts isn't surprising, seeing as Campbell's work focuses on comparative mythologies, and how stories, thought, and art are intertwined. Campbell also briefly discusses the bridge (or lack thereof) between psychology and art/mythology, that while psychology views art as "symptomatic," early mythologies are "concerned not with improving the world, but with putting you in harmony with it." (pg. 279)
Overall, this book is a very dense but enlightening read if you already have a general working knowledge of Joyce's novels. Despite many passages of Joyce's work being included in this text, I'd suggest this book be read by someone already familiar with Portrait, Ulysses, and Wake, especially if you didn't particularly like them.
Campbell's book incorporates or mentions many other works by authors other than Joyce, Dante, and Homer, including Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Goethe, Thornton Wilder (specifically his play The Skin of Our Teeth), Samuel Beckett, Wordsworth, and ancient Hindu texts that speak of Vishnu's dream. The incorporation of all these varied authors and texts isn't surprising, seeing as Campbell's work focuses on comparative mythologies, and how stories, thought, and art are intertwined. Campbell also briefly discusses the bridge (or lack thereof) between psychology and art/mythology, that while psychology views art as "symptomatic," early mythologies are "concerned not with improving the world, but with putting you in harmony with it." (pg. 279)
Overall, this book is a very dense but enlightening read if you already have a general working knowledge of Joyce's novels. Despite many passages of Joyce's work being included in this text, I'd suggest this book be read by someone already familiar with Portrait, Ulysses, and Wake, especially if you didn't particularly like them.
March 5, 2024
This book was just fantastic. I didn't expect to like the Finnegans Wake section as I thought some of his interpretations in the Skeleton Key missed the mark. Boy was I wrong. This book covered so much ground and the comparisons of Joyce's three major works Portrait, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake was enjoyable, engaging, and insightful. More space was dedicated to Ulysses but I wouldn't remove a thing - I'd just extend the FW coverage - it skimmed it a little too much. It seems Campbell or the editors were more enamored with Uylsses so there was more and more in depth content. I'll be revisiting this book.
October 10, 2019
I didn't realize that Joseph Campbell was so involved with James Joyce reading aids until recently. This book I was assigned to help with a lecture for Bloomsday 2019 before the local Joseph Campbell Mythological Roundtable. The quandary was that so few people know much about Ulysses or Joyce that I had to try and create an introduction while using a book that went deep into his writings. I managed, according to audience to do that, and perhaps interest them in reading a book that most don't finish. We'll see what happened when I tackle Finnegans Wake next year for same event.
October 11, 2019
An indispensable guide to James Joyce's three novels. Joseph Campbell, whose abilities as an interpreter of myth and symbolism is unmatched, takes his readers through the thorniest and least accessible aspects of Joyce's novel, providing both a template and guide for the reading of them, as well as a platform from which a reader can dive into the deeper waters of imagery and meaning. I read this book as a warm-up for a re-reading of Ulysses, and I've walked away from it more than ready to take on Finnegan's Wake next.
April 2, 2023
3 / 4 : Read!
NON-FICTION
[Drawing from a wide well of Oriental and Occidental myth, Joyce is right up Campbell's alley.]
A most excellent distillation of a believed unapproachable artist. I had no idea Campbell was such an authority on Joyce, that man does not sleep.
Falls off in comprehensiveness as we go thru Finnegan's Wake, but that's to be expected, and there's no corresponding drop in perspicacity.
I read a collection compiled by Edmund J. Epstein.
NON-FICTION
[Drawing from a wide well of Oriental and Occidental myth, Joyce is right up Campbell's alley.]
A most excellent distillation of a believed unapproachable artist. I had no idea Campbell was such an authority on Joyce, that man does not sleep.
Falls off in comprehensiveness as we go thru Finnegan's Wake, but that's to be expected, and there's no corresponding drop in perspicacity.
I read a collection compiled by Edmund J. Epstein.
February 27, 2021
I relied on this book as commentary for both Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. My only issue was that I had this open as I read, so the large volume of quoted passages felt a little redundant. But the summations were straight forward and easy to understand.
August 25, 2023
An expansion of professor Campbell's taped conferences on Joyce called "Wings of Art".
This book deals in details of the three novels of Joyce. A must for any fan of James Joyce.
This book deals in details of the three novels of Joyce. A must for any fan of James Joyce.
December 12, 2024
Re-read this as I wasn't sure I had read it before... yep, had but still a good explanation of how James Joyce's mind worked.
September 5, 2025
Helpful stuff. Will circle back some day for Wake (in a couple decades)
August 10, 2024
A re-read. The version on audio tape called The Wings of Art is even better.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews