Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction
Penguin Books Ltd Mansfield Park
Book SynopsisPart of Penguin''s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Taken from the poverty of her parents'' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle''s absence in Antigua, the Crawford''s arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen''s first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.Trade Review[Coralie Bickford-Smith's] recent work for Penguin Classics is...nothing short of glorious -- Anna Cole
£16.14
Vintage Publishing Northanger Abbey Vintage Classics Austen Series
Book SynopsisJane Austen takes a satirical swipe at the gothic novel in this classic book bursting with sly subversive wit.'Jane Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated' Martin AmisCatherine Morland is a young girl with a very active imagination.Trade ReviewJane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire -- J.K. RowlingSomebody reading over my shoulder refuses to believe that I found Northanger Abbey funnier than Catch 22, but I did. So there -- Jenny ColganThe most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal -- Virginia WoolfJane Austen's lightest and most playful novel * Independent *Jane Austen shocks me. Beside her, Joyce seems innocent as grass -- W.H. Auden
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Robinson Crusoe
Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe''I walk''d about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance ... reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown''d, and that there should not be one soul sav''d but my self ... ''Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the power and originality of Defoe''s famous book. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being. First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe has been praised by such writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson as one of the greatest novels in the English language.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
£7.99
Penguin Books Ltd Heart of Darkness
Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad''The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder - the man knows, and can look on without a wink''Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurtz. Worshipped and feared by invaders as well as natives, Kurtz has become a godlike figure, his presence pervading the jungle like a thick, obscuring mist. As his boat labours further upstream, closer and closer to Kurtz''s extraordinary and terrible domain, so Marlow finds his faith in himself and civilization crumbling. Conrad''s Heart of Darkness has been considered the most important indictment of the evils of imperialism written to date.Th
£7.99
Penguin Books Ltd Brideshead Revisited
Book SynopsisA beautiful clothbound edition of Evelyn Waugh''s classic novel of duty and desire set against the backdrop of the faded glory of the English aristocracy in the run-up to the Second World War.The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh''s novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder''s infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian Flyte at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognise his spiritual and social distance from them.''Lush and evocative ... Expresses at once the profundity of change and the indomitable endurance of the human spirit''The TimesTrade Review“Waugh’s most deeply felt novel . . . Brideshead Revisited tells an absorbing story in imaginative terms . . . Mr. Waugh is very definitely an artist, with something like a genius for precision and clarity not surpassed by any novelist writing in English in his time.” –New York Times “A many-faceted book . . . Beautifully [written] by one of the most exhilarating stylists of our time.” –Newsweek “First and last an enchanting story . . . Brideshead Revisited has a magic that is rare in current literature. It is a world in itself, and the reader lives in it and is loath to leave it when the last page is turned.” –Saturday Review “Evelyn Waugh’s most successful novel . . . A memorable work of art.” –from the Introduction by Frank Kermode
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd My Antonia
Book SynopsisThe final novel in the Great Plains trilogy, this is a celebration of the American midwest with Cather''s strongest heroine at its heartJim and Ántonia meets as children in the wide open plains of Nebraska at the end of the nineteenth century. Jim leaves for college and a career in the east, while Ántonia stays at home, dedicating herself to her farm and family. As the years roll by, Jim will come to view Ántonia as the embodiment of the prairie itself - tough, spirited and enduring, despite the hardness and loneliness of pioneer life. Willa Cather''s beautiful novel is a celebration of the Nebraskan prairie she loved she much, and a powerful depiction of a pivotal era in the making of America.Trade ReviewOne of the warmest, most quietly rousing books that I know; a clear-eyed salute to the resilience of the human spirit and the innate hardiness of the immigrants who came across the ocean to start afresh in the golden west -- Guardian * Xan Brooks *No romantic novel ever written in America, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as My Ántonia -- H. L. MenckenCather was the first great American novelist to make the West - the real West, not the stuff of pulp fiction - her theme. She makes you see, smell, and feel the prairie * Slate *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Outsider
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewProbably no European writer of his time left so deep a mark on the imagination -- Conor Cruise O'Brien
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd About Love
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Nataljas Stories
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
British Library Publishing Cornish Horrors
Book SynopsisOffering a bounty of lost or forgotten strange and Gothic tales set in Cornwall, Cornish Horrors explores the rich folklore and traditions of the region in a journey through mines, local mythology, shipwrecks, seascapes, and the coming of the railway and tourism.
£9.49
Prakash Books Emma
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£13.49
Faber & Faber ExWife Faber Editions
Book Synopsis
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Turn of the Screw Henry James Collins
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.The place, with its grey sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theatre after the performance-all strewn with crumpled playbills.'Revered as one of the greatest ghost stories ever told, James's The Turn of the Screw is an eerie Victorian masterpiece.When an inexperienced governess goes to work at Bly, a country house in Essex to look after a young boy Miles and his sister Flora, all manner of strange events begin to occur. The governess spots a ghostly man and woman around the grounds and is told by the housekeeper that the valet and previous governess haunt the house. It soon becomes clear that the children are inexplicably connected to these ghosts in some way and the young governess struggles to protect the children, although from exactly what, she is not sure.Exploring the psychological and sexual fears of an era, this ambiguous, suspenseful and anxiety-inspi
£5.62
Vintage Publishing History of Violence
Book Synopsis** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **The radical, urgent new novel from the author of The End of Eddy - a personal and powerful story of violence.I met Reda on Christmas Eve 2012, at around four in the morning. He approached me in the street, and finally I invited him up to my apartment. He told me the story of his childhood and how his father had come to France, having fled Algeria. We spent the rest of the night together, talking, laughing. At around 6 o'clock, he pulled out a gun and said he was going to kill me. He insulted me, strangled and raped me. The next day, the medical and legal proceedings began.History of Violence retraces the story of that night, and looks at immigration, class, racism, desire and the effects of trauma in an attempt to understand a history of violence, its origins, its reasons and its causes. 'It stays with you' Times'A heartbreaking novel' John BoyneTrade ReviewLouis’s greatest strength as a writer is that he feels things so passionately, sometimes to the point of obsession, but that he also has a philosophical turn of mind that explores, rather than neutralises, his feelings. -- Edmund White * Guardian *[B]oth brave and ambitious in its determination never to let its reader, or its author, escape lightly the damaging realities it describes. -- Tim Adams * Observer *[A] harrowing piece of autofiction… History of Violence is a slim but densely layered novel that begins with raw urgency. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * The Times *[A] heartbreaking novel… I find myself captivated by Édouard Louis's books and his raw honesty. -- John Boyne * Irish Times *An intense and uncomfortably thrilling book, which uses the harrowing events of that Christmas Eve as a basis for a wider exploration of class, race and individualism... a novel that is unflinching in its examination of class and discrimination. -- Tash Aw * Times Literary Supplement *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Agnes Grey Penguin Classics
Book Synopsis‘The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery … my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’s enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë’s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society.This edition also includes Charlotte Brontë’s memoir of her sisters, theBiographical Notice of Ellis and Acton BellTrade Review“The one story in English literature in which style, characters and subject are in perfect keeping.” —George Moore
£9.25
Penguin Books Ltd The Complete Novels of Jane Austen
Book Synopsis
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers Third Girl
Book SynopsisA perplexed girl thinks she might have killed someoneThree single girls shared the same London flat. The first worked as a secretary; the second was an artist; the third who came to Poirot for help, disappeared convinced she was a murderer.Now there were rumours of revolvers, flick-knives and blood stains. But, without hard evidence, it would take all Poirot's tenacity to establish whether the third girl was guilty innocent or insaneTrade Review‘Mesmerising ingenuity’ Financial Times
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Marple Twelve New Stories
Book SynopsisA brand new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Crime's legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by twelve remarkable bestselling and acclaimed authors.This collection of twelve original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation.Each author reimagines Agatha Christie's Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery. Naomi Alderman Leigh Bardugo Alyssa Cole Lucy Foley Elly Griffiths Natalie Haynes Jean Kwok Val McDermid Karen M. McManus Dreda Say Mitchell Kate Mosse Ruth WareMiss Marple was first introduced to readers in a story Christie wrote for The Royal Magazine in 1927 and made her first appearance in a full-length novel in 1930's The Murder at the Vicarage.It has been 45 years since Agatha Christie's last Marple novel, Sleeping Murder, was published posthumously in 1976, and this collection of ingenious new stories by twelve Christie devotees will be a timely reminder why Jane Marple remains the most famous fictional female detective of all time.Trade Review'Each author captures Christie — and Marple — perfectly, while also displaying just a bit of her own unique touch’ – The Washington Post ‘Without a doubt, the greatest mystery writer of all time’ – Ragnar Jonasson ‘A hundred years after her first novel, and we are all still standing in her shadow’ – Andrew Taylor ‘Agatha Christie is the gateway drug to crime fiction both for readers and for writers’ – Val McDermid ‘She gives us an insight into human nature that few, if any, have surpassed’ – Susan Lewis ‘Dame Agatha has sold more books than all besides Shakespeare and the Bible’ – David Baldacci ‘All crime fiction writers around the globe owe Agatha Christie a massive debt’ – Peter James ‘Reading a perfectly plotted Agatha Christie is like crunching into a perfect apple: that pure, crisp, absolute satisfaction.’ – Tana French
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd HopFrog
Book SynopsisEdgar Allen Poe's short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.Taking you from a Japanese tea ceremony to the mean streets of New York, from ancient battlefields to haunted graveyards and all the way into outer space, Penguin Archive brings together an eclectic range of some of the greatest, most transporting stories, ideas and poetry from ninety years of publishing.
£5.99
Union Square & Co. Grimms Fairy Tales
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£17.10
Amazon Publishing The Night Guests
£8.54
Pushkin Press Consider the Consequences
£9.49
Union Square & Co. Essential Poems
Book Synopsis
£17.10
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The Secret Garden
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA gorgeous, gold-foiled, debossed hardcover and filled with MinaLima’s distinctive artwork plus interactive elements. — MuggleNet Thus has the design team MinaLima transformed one of Frances Hodson Burnett’s great classics from a traditional story illustrated in a traditional style…to a dazzling tour de force in which no opportunity for adornment goes untaken.” — Wall Street Journal
£21.25
Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Phantom of the Opera Collectors Edition
Book Synopsis the shadow turned round; and I saw a terrible death's-head, which darted a look at me from a pair of scorching eyes. I felt as if I were face to face with Satan'Erik, the Phantom of the Paris Opera House, is one of the great icons of horror literature. This tormented and disfigured creature has made his home in the labyrinthine cellars of this opulent building where he can indulge in his great passion for music, which is a substitute for the love and emotion denied him because of his ghastly appearance. It is in the Opera House that he encounters Christine Daaé whom he trains in secret to become a great singer. Erik's passionate obsession with a beautiful woman beyond his reach is doomed and leads to the dramatic tragic finale. Gaston Leroux's novel is a marvellous blend of detective story, romance and spine-tingling terror which has fascinated readers ever since the work was first published.
£10.32
Penguin Books Ltd Cannery Row
Book SynopsisOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels that Shaped the World''''Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.''Meet the gamblers, whores, drunks, bums and artists of Cannery Row in Monterey, California, during the Great Depression. They want to throw a party for their friend Doc, so Mack and the boys set about, in their own inimitable way, recruiting everyone in the neighbourhood to the cause. But along the way they can''t help but get involved in a little mischief and misadventure. It wouldn''t be Cannery Row if it was otherwise, now would it?This edition features a stunning new cover by renowned artist Bijou Karman.''One of the most thoroughly enjoyable and delicious books you''ll ever have the fortune to read'' Chicago Sun Times''Uninhibited, bawdy, compassionate, inquisitive, deeply intelligent'' Daily Telegraph''There is no more impressive writer on either side of the Atlantic'' Time and TideTrade ReviewOne of the most thoroughly enjoyable and delicious books you'll ever have the fortune to read * Chicago Sun Times *Uninhibited, bawdy, compassionate, inquisitive, deeply intelligent * Daily Telegraph *There is no more impressive writer on either side of the Atlantic * Time and Tide *Steinbeck is to be judged by the highest standards * New York Herald Tribune *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Jane Austen The Complete Works 7Book Boxed Set
Book SynopsisSense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice Mansfield Park Emma Northanger Abbey Persuasion Love and FreindshipFew novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she paints vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriage - marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not mere romances; ironic, comic and wise, they are masterly studies of the society Jane Austen observed. The seven books in this box set contain some of the most brilliant, dazzling prose in the English language.
£90.00
HarperCollins Publishers Hickory Dickory Dock
Book SynopsisThere's more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostelAn outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot's interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items including a stethoscope, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring found in a bowl of soup he congratulated the warden, Mrs Hubbard, on a unique and beautiful problem'.The list made absolutely no sense at all. But, reasoned Poirot, if this was merely a petty thief at work, why was everyone at the hostel so frightened?Trade Review‘Poirot’s return to the happy hunting grounds of detective fiction is something of an event… The thumbnail sketches of the characters are as good as ever and in spite of the over-elaborate nature of the puzzle there is plenty of entertainment.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘The Christie fan of longest standing, who thinks he knows every one of her tricks, will still be surprised by some of the twists here.’ New York Times
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Hercule Poirots Christmas
Book SynopsisAgatha Christie's seasonal mystery thriller in a sumptuous Christmas hardback Special Edition.'There is, at Christmas, a spirit of goodwill. People who do not feel amiable are putting great pressure on themselves to appear amiable! If you dam the stream of natural behaviour, mon ami, sooner or later the dam bursts and a cataclysm occurs!'It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old manTrade Review‘You yearned for a “good violent murder with lots of blood”. So this is your special story – written for you.’Agatha Christie 'There is irresistible simplicity and buoyancy of a Christmas treat about it all'Times Literary Supplement
£13.49
Penguin Random House Children's UK Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Book Synopsis
£7.99
Arcturus Publishing Hans Christian Andersens Fairy Tales
Book SynopsisHans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a prolific Danish writer who is best known for his fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 100 different languages. His birthday, 2 April, is celebrated as International Children's Book Day each year and one of Copenhagen's most celebrated monuments, the statue of the Little Mermaid in the harbour, commemorates one of his best-known tales.
£8.54
Legends of the North Publishing Marmion
Book Synopsis
£25.30
HarperCollins Publishers Great Expectations
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.''Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There''s no better rule.''Living with his sister and her husband, Pip is an orphan without any expectations. It is only when he begins to visit a rich old woman, Miss Havisham and her adopted niece that he begins to hope for something better. When it is revealed that Pip has inherited a large sum of money from a mysterious benefactor on the condition that he moves to London to become a gentleman, Pip''s adventure really begins. Epic, illuminating and memorable, Dickens mysterious tale of Pip''s quest to find the truth about himself is one of his most enduring and popular novels to date.
£5.62
Union Square & Co. Dracula
Book SynopsisThe best-known vampire novel of all time, now in a collector's edition and featuring an introduction and appendices by renowned fantasy editor Marvin Kaye.
£25.50
Penguin Books Ltd The Gambler and Other Stories
Book SynopsisThe Gambler and Other Stories is Fyodor Dostoyevsky''s collection of one novella and six short stories reflecting his own life - indeed, ''The Gambler'', a story of a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian General, was written under a strict deadline so he could pay off his roulette debts. This volume includes ''Bobok'', the tale of a frustrated writer visiting a cemetery and enjoying the gossip of the dead; ''The Dream of a Ridiculous Man'', the story of one man''s plan to commit suicide and the troubling dream that follows, as well as ''A Christmas Party and a Wedding'', ''A Nasty Story'' and ''The Meek One''.
£10.44
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Best of Kafka Collectors Edition
Book SynopsisLike George Orwell, Franz Kafka has given his name to a world of nightmare, but in Kafka's world, it is never completely clear just what the nightmare is. The Trial, where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and if there is any help to be had, it will come from unexpected sources, is a chilling, blackly amusing tale that maintains, to the very end, a relentless atmosphere of disorientation. Superficially about bureaucracy, it is in the last resort a description of the absurdity of normal' human nature.Still more enigmatic is The Castle. Is it an allegory of a quasi-feudal system giving way to a new freedom for the subject? The search by a central European Jew for acceptance into a dominant culture? A spiritual quest for grace or salvation? An individual's struggle between his sense of independence and his need for approval? Is it all of these things? And K? Is he opportunist, victim, or an outsider battling against elusive authority?Finally, in his fables, Kafka deals in dark and quirkily humorous terms with the insoluble dilemmas of a world which offers no reassurance, and no reliable guidance to resolving our existential and emotional uncertainties and anxieties.
£10.32
HarperCollins Publishers Burmese Days The Internationally Best Selling
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.We walk about under a load of memories which we long to share and somehow never can.John Flory, a white timber merchant in 1920s Burma, has unorthodox views. To him, the Burmese culture and people should be appreciated as things of beauty and worth. To the other white members of the European club of which he is member, these views are dangerous, undermining the foundation of British colonial rule.Flory is drawn into a deadly rivalry when he befriends Veraswami, an Indian doctor, who is under the scrutiny of a corrupt magistrate. Flory defies the convention of imperial bigotry in Burma by offering to help his new friend, but the consequences to him, and Elizabeth Lackersteen, the woman he loves, will be explosive.Based on his experiences as a policeman in Burma, Burmese Days was Orwell's first novel, and sparked controversy for its scathing portrayal of colonial society.
£5.62
Vintage Publishing The White Guard
Book SynopsisDiscover Mikhail Bugakov''s classic literary love letter to the city of Kyiv.Drawing closely on Bulgakov''s personal experiences of the horrors of civil war as a young doctor, The White Guard takes place in Kyiv, 1918, a time of turmoil and suffocating uncertainty as the Bolsheviks, Socialists and Germans fight for control of the city. It tells the story of the Turbins, a once-wealthy Russian family, as they are forced to come to terms with revolution and a new regime.Bulgakov''s first novel, The White Guard is one of the greatest works of twentieth century Russian literature. As epic a chronicle of life and death in the Russian Empire as War and Peace.''The tumultuous atmosphere of the Ukrainian revolution and civil war is brilliantly evoked'' Daily TelegraphTrade ReviewA powerful reverie...the city is so vivid to the eye that it is the real hero of the book. * New Statesman *One of those few emancipated Soviet writers who firmly believe-and still believe-that to create is to choose * Saturday Review *Worth reading in any language * Library Journal *The White Guard captures the tumult, madness and confusion of revolution * Independent *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The House of Mirth
Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton''It was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions''A searing, shocking tale of women as consumer items in a man''s world, The House of Mirth sees Lily Bart, beautiful and charming, living among the wealthy families of New York but reluctant to finally commit herself to a husband. In her search for freedom and the happiness she feels she deserves, Lily is ultimately ruined by scandal. Edith Wharton''s shattering novel created controversy on its publication in 1905 with its scathing portrayal of the world''s wealthy and the prison that marriage can become.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
£9.25
Penguin Books Ltd Dead Souls
Book SynopsisNikolai Gogol''s ''epic poem in prose'', Dead Souls is a damning indictment of a corrupt society, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Robert A. Maguire in Penguin Classics.Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of ''N'', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these ''dead souls'' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. Dead Souls (1842), Russia''s first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.In his introduction, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol''s liTrade ReviewGogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange. (Vladimir Nabokov)"
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Brothers Karamazov
Book SynopsisFyodor Dostoyevsky''s powerful meditation on faith, meaning and morality, The Brothers Karamazov is translated with an introduction and notes by David McDuff in Penguin Classics. When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family''s rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murderer, Dostoyevsky''s dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone''s faith in humanity is tested. This powerful translation of The Brothers Karamazov features and introduction highlighting Dostoyevsky''s recurrent themes of guilt and salvation, with a new chronology and further reading. ?There is no writer who better demonstrates the contradictions and fluctuations of the creative mind than Dostoyevsky, and nowhere more astonishingly than in The Brothers Karamazov.??Joyce Carol Oates?Dostoyevsky was the only psychologist from whom I had anything to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life.??Friedrich Nietzsche?The most magnificent novel ever written.??Sigmund FreudTrade ReviewThere is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life ... it's The Brothers Karamazov -- Kurt VonnegutThe most significant novel every written -- Sigmund FreudThe grandest, richest and strangest of Dostoevsky's four "big" novels -- Richard T. Kelly * Telegraph *
£20.40
Penguin Books Ltd The Trial
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Random House Advent
£11.69
Random House The Woman in White
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£17.09
HarperCollins Publishers The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.Now he found out a new thing namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.'An idyllic snapshot of a boy's childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author's work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s.Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety.A coming of age' tale, it is through Tom's adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aw
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers The Inklings
Book SynopsisCritically acclaimed, award-winning biography of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and the brilliant group of writers to come out of Oxford during the Second World War.C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their friends were a regular feature of the Oxford scenery in the years during and after the Second World War. They drank beer on Tuesdays at the Bird and Baby', and on Thursday nights they met in Lewis' Magdalen College rooms to read aloud from the books they were writing; jokingly they called themselves The Inklings'.C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien first introduced The Screwtape Letters and The Lord of the Rings to an audience in this company and Charles Williams, poet and writer of supernatural thrillers, was another prominent member of the group.Humphrey Carpenter, who wrote the acclaimed biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, draws upon unpublished letters and diaries, to which he was given special access, in this engrossing story.Trade Review‘A constantly enjoyable volume’ John Carey, Sunday Times ‘A triumph of skill and tact… not one dull or slack sentence’ Kingsley Amis, New Statesman ‘It must be technically very difficult to write a biography of more than one person at a time: it is still more difficult to capture the atmosphere of a group… Mr Carpenter has managed both things admirably’ Mary Warnock, Sunday Telegraph
£10.44
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Peter Pan Heritage Collection
Book SynopsisThe magical Peter Pan comes to the night nursery of the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. He teaches them to fly, then takes them through the sky to Never-Never Land, where they find wolves, Mermaids and Pirates. The leader of the pirates is the sinister Captain Hook. His hand was bitten off by a crocodile, who, as Captain Hook explains liked me arm so much that he has followed me ever since, licking his lips for the rest of me'. After lots of adventures, the story reaches its exciting climax as Peter, Wendy and the children do battle with Captain Hook and his band.
£19.23
HarperCollins Publishers Tender is the Night
Book SynopsisFrom Collins Classics and the author of The Great Gatsby' a marriage unravels in this autobiographical tale.Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.'Set on the French Riviera in the 1920s, American Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are the epitome of chic, living a glamorous lifestyle and entertaining friends at their villa. Young film star Rosemary Hoyt arrives in France and becomes entranced by the couple. It is not long before she is attracted to the enigmatic Dick, but he and his wife hold dark secrets and as their marriage becomes more fractured, Fitzgerald laments the failure of idealism and the carefully constructed trappings of high society in the Roaring Twenties.
£5.62
