Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction

Book SynopsisGeorge Eliot’s beloved masterpiece in a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition with a foreword by Rebecca Mead, author of the bestselling memoir My Life in Middlemarch A triumph of realist fiction, George Eliot’s Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of sweeping change. The proposed Reform Bill, the new railroads, and scientific advances are threatening upheaval on every front. Against this backdrop, the quiet drama of ordinary lives is played out by the novel’s complexly portrayed characters—until the arrival of two outsiders further disrupts the town’s equilibrium. Every bit as powerful and perceptive in our time as it was in the Victorian era, Middlemarch displays George Eliot’s clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge. In this elegant Penguin Classics Deluxe EditiTrade Review“Middlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”—Virginia Woolf“The most profound, wise and absorbing of English novels . . . and, above all, truthful and forgiving about human behaviour.”—Hermione Lee"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative...I doubt if any Victorian novelist has as much to teach the modern novelists as George Eliot...No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully".—V. S. Pritchett"Middlemarch is probably the greatest English novel."—Julian Barnes"It is possible to argue that Middlemarch is the greatest English novel."—A. S. Byatt "Certainly the greatest [English] novel."—Martin Amis

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Book Synopsis''This delicious confection will work its magic on all'' Daily TelegraphThe discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed ''To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine'', offers a small medieval castle for rent, above a bay on the Italian Riviera. Four very different women - the dishevelled and downtrodden Mrs Wilkins, the sad, sweet-faced Mrs Arbuthnot, the formidable widow Mrs Fisher and the ravishing socialite Lady Caroline Dester - are drawn to the shores of the Mediterranean that April. As each, in turn, blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring and finds their spirits stirring, quite unexpected changes occur.The Enchanted April, published in 1922, is a witty and delightful depiction of what it is like to rediscover joy.''Brims with magic and laughter'' Amanda Craig, GuardianIncludes a new introduction by Salley Vickers, author of Miss Garnet''s Angel

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Book SynopsisOne of the greatest gothic love stories of all time, JANE EYRE tellsof a lowly, plain governess who falls in love with the dashingMr Rochester - who hides a terrible secret. An epic romance seton the Yorkshire moors, and a book that young girls will returnto again and again.

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Book Synopsis“The great plague novel.” —The New YorkerSet in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters—the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister Unnamed—in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion, The Betrothed's exploration of love, power, and faith presents a whirling panorama of seventeenth-century Italian life and is one of the greatest European historical novels.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin ClassiTrade ReviewA gift to humanity -- Giuseppe Verdi

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Book SynopsisIn the court of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is favoured above all the noblemen of England. It is rumoured that the Queen may chose him for her husband, but Leicester has secretly married the beautiful Amy Robsart. Fearing ruin if this were known, he keeps his lovely young wife a virtual prisoner in an old country house. Meanwhile Leicester''s manservant Varney has sinister designs on Amy, and enlists an alchemist to help him further his evil ambitions. Brilliantly recreating the splendour and pageantry of Elizabethan England, with Shakespeare, Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth herself among its characters, Kenilworth (1821) is a compelling depiction of intrigue, power struggles and superstition in a bygone age.

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Book SynopsisIn A Hero of Our Time, the first great Russian novel, a young officer, passionate and world-weary, is posted to the Caucasus and becomes involved in a series of adventures. A dazzlingly original work of fiction, the novel is newly translated together with Pushkin's travel narrative, A Journey to Arzrum, with introduction and notes.

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton''He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface''Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena''s vivacious cousin enters their household as a ''hired girl'', Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent. In one of American fiction''s finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio towards their tragic destinies.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.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.''we call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.''When his beloved owners are forced to sell him, Black Beauty leaves his life as a young, care-free colt behind him and embarks on a working life of misery. Cruelly treated by his new masters, Anna Sewell rails against animal mistreatment in this poignant tale of a horse whose spirit can not be broken.

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Book Synopsis''They didn''t seem to take much interest in my private parts which to tell the truth were nothing to write home about, I didn''t take much interest in them myself.''From the master of the absurd, these two stories of an unnamed vagrant contending with decay and death combine bleakness with the blackest of humour. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York''s underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

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Book Synopsis'Exquisite' – Daily MailShortlisted for the Walter Scott PrizeBased on true events, The Good People is Hannah Kent's engrossing novel about superstition and devoted love.Ireland, 1825. Nóra, bereft after the sudden death of her husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson Micheál, who cannot speak or walk. What happened to the healthy, happy grandson she met when her daughter was still alive?Mary arrives in the valley to help Nóra just as the whispers are spreading: stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and rumours that Micheál is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley.Nance has lived in the valley all of her life. She is a healer who knows how to use the plants and berries of the woodland; she understands the magic in the old ways. And she might be able to help Micheál . . .As these three women are Trade ReviewExceptional . . . The Good People is an even better novel than Burial Rites — a starkly realised tale of love, grief and misconceived beliefs * Sunday Times *Lyrical and unsettling . . . A literary novel with the pace and tension of a thriller . . . I am in awe of Kent's gifts as a storyteller. -- Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of The Girl on the TrainAn imaginative tour-de-force that recreates a way of perceiving the world with extraordinary vividness . . . With its exquisite prose, this harrowing, haunting narrative of love and suffering is sure to be a prize-winner * Daily Mail *Kent has a terrific feel for the language of her setting. The prose is richly textured with evocative vocabulary . . . A serious and compelling novel about how those in desperate circumstances cling to ritual as a bulwark against their own powerlessness -- Graeme Macrae Burnet * Guardian *Hannah Kent's second novel is a thorough study of the faiths and rituals of a rural community, as well as a poignant portrayal of grief * Financial Times *The Good People lies somewhere between Andrew Michael Hurley's gothic The Loney and Emma Donoghue's The Wonder . . . an absorbing and imaginative novel about superstition and the old ways * The Times *A thoroughly engrossing entrée into the macabre nature of a vanished society, its virtues and its follies and its lethal impulses . . . utterly unexpected -- Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize-author of Schindler's ArkBeautiful . . . the setting and the characters drew me in immediately and kept me completely absorbed -- Claire King, author of The Night RainbowAn immersive, startlingly lyrical portrait of a time when the borders between logic and superstition were dangerously porous . . . thrillingly alive * Metro *Remarkable . . . Kent displays an uncanny ability to immerse herself in an unfamiliar landscape and to give that landscape a life - a voice - that is utterly convincing . . . a haunting novel, shrewdly conceived and beautifully written * The Australian *A sensitively drawn tale of love, grief, and terrible loss * The Age *The Good People is a sensitively drawn tale of love, grief, and terrible loss, set in a tiny Irish village in the early 19th century . . . filled with descriptions of ritual and rhythm * Canberra Times *

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Book SynopsisToby Withers, a young man with epilepsy, leaves New Zealand after the death of his mother. While on board a ship to England, he meets Zoe, a middle-aged woman looking for a life of meaning and Pat, an Irishman who claims to have many friends but treats people with carelessness. Alike in their alienation, all three embark on a new life in London, piecing together an existence in the margins of the urban world. The Edge of the Alphabet, the third novel by Janet Frame, one of New Zealand's foremost writers of the twentieth century, is a piercing, startlingly strange work about identity, the post-colonial experience and the search for connection in a lonely world, published here on the centenary of her birth with a new foreword by Catherine Lacey.

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Book Synopsis''We have heard much of the rage of fanaticism in former days, but nothing to this''A wretched young man, ''an outcast in the world'', tells the story of his upbringing by a heretical Calvinist minister who leads him to believe that he is one of the elect, predestined for salvation and thus above the moral law. Falling under the spell of a mysterious stranger who bears an uncanny likeness to himself, he embarks on a career as a serial murderer. Robert Wringhim''s Memoirs are presented by an editor whose attempts to explain the story only succeed in intensifying its more baffling and bizarre aspects. Is Wringhim the victim of a psychotic delusion, or has he been tempted by the devil to wage war against God''s enemies? Hogg''s sardonic and terrifying novel, too perverse for nineteenth-century taste, is now recognized as one of the masterpieces of Romantic fiction.The first edition text of 1824 has been freshly considered for this new edition. A critical introduction explores the remarkabTrade Review[The] Oxford Worlds Classics edition provides concise background information enough to allow the reader to understand the references without feeling that s/hes reading a history book and a glossary and notes which explain any unfamiliar terms or allusions. The informative introduction, by Ian Duncan, Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, sets the book in its historical and literary context, and provides some biographical information on the author. * Leah Galbraith, FictionFan's Book Reviews *

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Book SynopsisDark, intense and utterly compelling, Black Dog' was an extraordinary first novel from a writer who has rapidly become the most promising crime author to emerge in the genre in years.Where Cooper stood was remote and isolated but the smell that lingered under the trees was of blood''The long hot Peak District summer came to an end when they found Laura Vernon''s body. But for local policeman Ben Cooper the work has just begun. His community is hiding a young girl''s killer and a past as dark as the Derbyshire night. It seems Laura was the keeper of secrets beyond her years and, in a case where no-one is innocent, everyone is a suspect.But Cooper''s local knowledge and instincts are about to face an even greater challenge. The ambitious DC Diane Fry has been called in from another division, a woman as ruthless as she is attractiveTrade Review‘Stephen Booth’s ‘Black Dog’sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let you go. A dark star may be born!’Reginald Hill ‘In this atmospheric debut, Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’Val McDermid ‘An exceedingly good first novel: wholly engrossing, it has well-drawn characters and a real sense of place’Evening Standard

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Book SynopsisFrom the critically acclaimed author Sally Bayley, The Green Lady is a poignant, brilliant exploration of the relationships between children and their teachers.In the style of her memoir Girl with Dove, this book explores a child's search for artistic education and a sense of self. Lyrical and playful, Sally Bayley's writing transports the reader into an eccentric world of teachers, guardians and guiding spirits of place.Moved by her female teachers, and guided by the artist J.M.W. Turner, Bayley's protagonist goes in search of her maternal ancestors, in particular her grandmother, Edna May Turner. Following the narratives of other women in history who have taken different routes to independence and artistic freedom including the educational suffragist Mary Neal, actress Margaret Rutherford, and poet Stevie Smith Bayley considers the paths to happiness and the limitations social convention imposes.Part novel, part memoir, The Green Lady continues the traditions of Virginia Woolf's OrTrade Review EARLY PRAISE FOR THE GREEN LADY: ‘Sally Bayley’s The Green Lady is a beguiling, experimental mixture of biography, fiction and family history…The prose is glancing and poetic, suffused with gentle melancholy, yet bursting with connections that anticipate, tease and delight… There is much here of art and literature as succour for the soul, and this charming, original and poignant book shines with intellectual and imaginative fire’ SPECTATOR ‘With each new book, Sally Bayley seems to invent a new literary genre. The Green Lady is another bulletin from her unique imagination – a marvel of formal originality and verbal ingenuity. There is no other writer remotely like her’ MATT ROWLAND HILL, author of Original Sins ‘In a beguiling blend of memoir and storytelling, the author of Girl with Dove and No Boys Play Here explores the relationship between children and their teachers, and the sustaining power of literature, especially for those growing up in poverty or dealing with neglect and abuse. In search of a better plot, Bayley’s protagonist seeks out her maternal ancestors, and other women in history who have paved a path to independence, happiness and artistic freedom in a space of one’s own. No one writes quite like Bayley—she’s a true, precious original’ CAROLINE SANDERSON, The Bookseller ‘A unique piece of writing which is enthralling and leaves one tasting the salt air of nostalgia. The reader delights in her word play, her deftness and playfulness, painterly and yet essentially three dimensional: a living canvas which is a feat of magic and alchemy’ Pratima Mitchell

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Book SynopsisIf you love Bridgerton, you''ll love Georgette Heyer! ''The greatest writer who ever lived'' Antonia Fraser''Brims with elegance, wit and historical accuracy'' Daily Mail''Heyer''s books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen''s'' Joanne Harris_____________When she steps inside the wrong carriage in a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale little knows that she is about to embark on a thrilling and dangerous adventure.Overnight the would-be governess becomes the mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family''s name.By midnight she is a bride; by dawn a widow._____________Readers love The Reluctant Widow ...***** ''I love Georgette Heyer - fun plots, fun characters,good dialogue. This is one of my favourites.''***** ''[The Reluctant Widow] made such an impression on me that I still Trade ReviewTriumphantly good... Georgette Heyer is unbeatable -- India Knight * Sunday Telegraph *My favourite historical novelist * Margaret Drabble *A writer of great wit and style ... I've read her books to ragged shreds -- Kate Fenton * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisJohn Meade Falkner was born in Wiltshire in 1858. He worked as a teacher at Derby school, and climbed through the ranks of a large Newcastle arms manufacturer to become its director in 1901, after working for the company founder as his family's tutor for many years. After retiring in 1926, Falkner became honorary librarian to the dean and chapter of Durham Cathedral. He wrote three novels including Moonfleet (1898), as well as publishing a volume of poetry (Poems, 1933) and a pocket history of Oxfordshire. J. Meade Falkner died on July 22, 1932.Trade ReviewJohn Meade Falkner's tale of smuggling, a cursed diamond, revenge, ghosts, a secret code, wrongful imprisonment and great sacrifice. It calls for comparison with The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes. A novel of claustrophobic darkness, storm-wracked seas and wild romantic landscapes, it sweeps the reader irresistibly along, like the deadly undertow at Moonfleet Beach * Washington Post *A ripping yarn...a wonderful story of smuggling and skulduggery * Independent *This one of the great adventure stories for young people, perhaps even more enjoyable than Treasure Island * Observer *It's a Victorian adventure story about the 18th century; about an orphan boy who becomes involved with smugglers and with one particular mentor figure - the grim old Elzevir Block. It is beautifully written and astonishingly vivid: you live alongside the boy trapped in a tomb, escaping along a cliff track, let down a deep well by a villain to find a lost diamond, fleeing to the Hague, being duped, arrested, put in a prison camp for years, transported to Java, shipwrecked at last on his own home beach -- Libby PurvesA tale of smuggling and diamonds and winter storms, all set around a fictional village on the edge of Chesil Beach. In Faulkner's book, as in Ian McEwan's, the beach takes on a character of its own and the final scene, with its fearsome storm and its smugglers and crashing timbers, is as much about the beach as the characters. * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisThe path to adulthood is littered with broken relationships.In the suburbs of 1920s Chicago two boys form an unlikely friendship. Spud Latham is slow at school but quick to fight and a natural athlete - Lymie Peters, thin, pigeon-chested and terrible at games, is devoted to him. As they graduate from school to college, tensions start to surface. It is Lymie who first meets Sally Forbes, but it is Spud she falls in love with. This signals the end of their friendship and the rift is almost more than Lymie can bear.Trade ReviewSo fresh is Maxwell's wisdom on adolescent insecurities, hesitancies and blind worship that it is hard to imagine that his words are more than half a century old * Sunday Times *A true, beautiful and profoundly poignant novel. It is so good it almost seems miraculous * New York Times *A novel of major quality, the fruit of real engagement with other people and the course of their lives * Independent on Sunday *Few novels have charted the end of boyhood and the coming of adult wisdom as subtly and humanely as Maxwell in this profound, atmospheric work which is as moving as it is shrewd and often funny * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisRuth Hilton is an orphaned young seamstress who catches the eye of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter, only to cruelly desert her soon after. Nearly dead with grief and shame, Ruth is offered the chance of a new life among people who give her love and respect, even though they are at first unaware of her secret - an illegitimate child. When Henry enters her life again, however, Ruth must make the impossible choice between social acceptance and personal pride. In writing Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell daringly confronted prevailing views about sin and illegitimacy with her compassionate and honest portrait of a ''fallen woman''.Table of ContentsRuthIntroductionFurther ReadingA Note on the TextRuthNotesChronology

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside...Taken from the Greek, meaning ''ten-day event'', Boccaccio''s Decameron sees his characters amuse themselves by each telling a story a day, for the ten days of their confinement - a hundred stories of love and adventure, life and death, and surprising twists of fate. Less preoccupied with abstract concepts of morality or religion than earthly values, the tales range from the bawdy Peronella, hiding her lover in a tub, to Ser Cepperallo, who, despite his unholy effrontery, becomes a Saint. The result is a towering monument of European literature and a masterpiece of imaginative narrative that has inspired writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare . Translated with an introduction by G.H. McWilliam''McWilliam''s finest work, his translation of Boccaccio''s Decameron remains one of the most successful and lauded books in the series''The TimesTrade Review“McWilliam’s finest work, [his] translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron remains one of the most successful and lauded books in the series.” —The Times (London)“The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), made a great impression on me. . . . Ten youths—seven women and three men—take turns telling stories for 10 days. At around the age of 16, I found it reassuring that Boccaccio, in conceiving his narrators, had made most of them women. Here was a great writer, the father of the modern story, presenting seven great female narrators. There was something to hope for. . . . The seven female narrators of the Decameron should never again need to rely on the great Giovanni Boccaccio to express themselves. . . . The female story, told with increasing skill, increasingly widespread and unapologetic, is what must now assume power.” —Elena Ferrante, The New York TimesTable of ContentsThe DecameronPreface to the Second EditionTranslator's IntroductionSelect BibliographyTHE DECAMERONPrologueFirst Day(Introduction)1. Ser Cepperello deceives a holy friar with a false confession, then he dies; and although in life he was a most wicked man, in death he is reputed to be a Saint, and is called Saint Ciappelletto.2. A Jew called Abraham, his curiosity being aroused by Jehannot de Chevigny, goes to the court of Rome; and when he sees the depravity of the clergy, he returns to Paris and becomes a Christian.3. Melchizedek the Jew, with a story about three rings, avoids a most dangerous trap laid for him by Saladin.4. A monk, having committed a sin deserving of very severe punishment, escapes the consequences by politely reproaching his abbot with the very same fault.5. The Marchionness of Montferrat, with the aid of a chicken banquet and a few well-chosen words, restrains the extravagant passion of the King of France.6. With a clever remark, an honest man exposes the wicked hypocrisy of the religious.7. Bergamino, with the help of a story about Primas and the Abbot of Cluny, tellingly chides Can Grande della Scala for a sudden fit of parsimony.8. With a few prettily spoken words, Guiglielmo Borsiere punctures the avarice of Ermino de' Grimaldi.9. The King of Cyprus is transformed, on receiving a sharp rebuke from a lady of Gascony, from a weakling into a man of courage.10. Master Alberto of Bologna neatly turns the tables on a lady who was intent upon making him blush for being in love with her.(Conclusion)Second Day(Introduction)1. Martellino, having pretended to be paralysed, gives the impression that he has been cured by being placed on the body of Saint Arrigo. When his deception is discovered, he is beaten, arrested, and very nearly hanged: but in the end he saves his skin.2. Rinaldo d'Asti is robbed, turns up at Castel Guiglielmo, and is provided with hospitality by a widow. Then, having recovered his belongings, he returns home safe and sound.3. Three young men squander their fortunes, reducing themselves to penury. A nephew of theirs, left penniless, is on his way home when he falls in with an abbot, whom he discovers to be the daughter of the King of England. She later marries him and makes good all the losses suffered by his uncles, restoring them to positions of honour.4. Landolfo Rufolo is ruined and turns to piracy; he is captured by the Genoese and shipwrecked, but survives by clinging to a chest, full of very precious jewels; finally, having been succoured by a woman on Corfu, he returns home rich.5. Andreuccio of Perugia comes to buy horses in Naples, where in the course of a single night he is overtaken by three serious misfortunes, all of which he survives, and he returns home with a ruby.6. Madonna Beritola, having lost her two sons, is found on an island with two roebucks and taken to Lunigiana, where one of her sons, having entered the service of her lord and master, makes love to the daughter of the house and is thrown into prison. After the Sicilian rebellion against King Charles, the son is recognized by his mother, he marries his master's daughter, he is reunited with his brother, and they are all restored to positions of great honour.7. The Sultan of Babylon sends his daughter off to marry the King of Algarve. Owing to a series of mishaps, she passes through the hands of nine men in various places within the space of four years. Finally, having been restored to her father as a virgin, she sets off, as before, to become the King of Algarve's wife.8. The Count of Antwerp, being falsely accused, goes into exile and leaves his two children in different parts of England. Unknown to them, he returns from Ireland to find them comfortably placed. Then he serves as a groom in the army of the King of France, and having established his innocence, is restored to his former rank.9. Bernabo of Genoa is tricked by Ambrogiuolo, loses his money, and orders his innocent wife to be killed. She escapes, however, and, disguising herself as a man, enters the service of the Sultan. Having traced the swindler, she lures her husband to Alexandria, where Ambrogiuolo is punished and she abandons her disguise, after which she and Bernabo return to Genoa, laden with riches.10. Paganino of Monaco steals the wife of Messer Ricciardo di Chinzica, who, on learning where she is, goes and makes friends with Paganino. He asks Paganino to restore her to him, and Paganino agrees on condition that he obtains her consent. She refuses to go back with Messer Ricciardo, and after his death becomes Paganino's wife.(Conclusion)Third Day(Introduction)1. Masetto of Lamporrechio pretends to be dumb, and becomes a gardener at a convent, where all the nuns combine forces to take him off to bed with them.2. A groom makes love to King Agilulf's wife. Agilulf finds out, keeps quiet about it, tracks down the culprit, and shears his hair. The shorn man shears all the others, thus avoiding an unpleasant fate.3. Under the pretext of going to confession and being very pure-minded, a lady who is enamoured of a young man induces a solemn friar to pave the way unwittingly for the total fulfilment of her desires.4. Dom Felice teaches Friar Puccio how to attain blessedness by carrying out a certain penance, and whilst Friar Puccio is following his instructions, Dom Felice has a high old time with the penitent's wife.5. Zima presents a palfrey to Messer Francesco Vergellesi, who responds by granting him permission to converse with his wife. She is unable to speak, but Zima answers her on her behalf, and in due course his reply comes true.6. Ricciardo Minutolo loves the wife of Filippello Sighinolfo, and on hearing of her jealous disposition he tricks her into believing that Filippello has arranged to meet his own wife on the following day at a bagnio and persuades her to go there and see for herself. Later she learns that she has been with Ricciardo, when all the time she thought she was with her husband.7. Tedaldo, exasperated with his mistress, goes away from Florence. Returning after a long absence disguised as a pilgrim, he talks to the lady, induces her to acknowledge her error, and liberates her husband, who has been convicted of murdering Tedalod and is about to be executed. He then effects a reconciliation between the husband and his own brothers; and thereafter he discreetly enjoys the company of his mistress.8. Ferondo, having consumed a special powder, is buried for dead. The Abbot who is cavorting with his wife removes hiim from his tomb, imprisons him, and makes him believe he is in Purgatory. He is later resurrected, and raises as his own a child begotten on his wife by the Abbot.9. Gilette of Narbonne, having cured the King of France of a fistula, asks him for the hand of Bertrand of Roussillon in marriage. Bertrand marries her against his will, then goes off in high dudgeon to Florence, where he pays court to a young woman whom Gilette impersonates, sleeping with him and presenting him with two children. In this way, he finally comes to love her and acknowledge her as his wife.10. Alibech becomes a recluse, and after being taught by the monk, Rustico, to put the devil back in Hell, she is eventually taken away to become the wife of Neerbal.(Conclusion)Fourth Day(Introduction)1. Tancredi, Prince of Salerno, kills his daughter's lover and sends her his heart in a golden chalice; she besprinkles the heart with a poisonous liquid, which she then drinks, and so dies.2. Friar Alberto, having given a lady to understand that the Angel Gabriel is in love with her, assumes the Angel's form and goes regularly to bed with her, until, in terror of her kinsfolk, he leaps out of the window and takes shelter in the house of a pauper; the latter disguises him as a savage and takes him on the following day to the city square, where he is recognized and seized by his fellow friars, and placed under permanent lock and key.3. Three young men fall in love with three sisters and elope with them to Crete. The eldest sister kills her lover in a fit of jealousy; the second, by giving herself to the Duke of Crete, saves her sister's life but is in turn killed by her own lover, who flees with the eldest sister. The murder is imputed to the third lover and the third sister, who are arrested and forced to make a confession. Fearing execution, they bribe their gaolers and flee, impoverished, to Rhodes, where they die in penury.4. Gerbino, violating a pledge given by his grandfather King William, attacks a ship belonging to the King of Tunis with the object of abducting the latter's daughter. She is killed by those aboard the ship, he kills them, and afterwards he is beheaded.5. Lisabetta's brothers murder her lover. He appears to her in a dream and shows her where he is buried. She secretly disinters the head and places it in a pot of basil, over which she weeps for a long time every day. In the end her brothers take it away from her, and shortly thereafter she dies of grief.6. Andreuola loves Gabriotto. She tells him of a dream she has had, and he tells her of another. He dies suddenly in her arms, and whilst she and a maidservant of hers are carrying him back to his own house, they are arrested by the officers of the watch. She explains how matters stand, and the chief magistrate attempts to ravish her, but she wards him off. Her father is informed, her innocence is established, and he secures her release. Being determined not to go on living in the world, she enters a nunnery.7. Simona loves Pasquino; they are together in a garden; Pasquino rubs a sage-leaf against his teeth, and dies. Simona is arrested, and, with the intention of showing the judge how Pasquino met his death, she rubs one of the same leaves against her own teeth, and dies in identical fashion.8. Girolamo loves Salvestra; he is prevailed upon by his mother to go to Paris, and on his return he finds Salvestra married. Having secretly entered her house, he lies down and dies at her side; his body is taken to a church, where Salvestra lies down beside him, and she too dies.9. Guillaume de Roussilon causes his wife to eat the heart of her lover, Guillaume de Cabestanh, whom he has secretly murdered. When she finds out, she kills herself by leaping from a lofty casement to the ground below, and is subsequently buried with the man she loved.10. The wife of a physician, mistakenly assuming her lover, who has taken an opiate, to be dead, deposits him in a trunk, which is carried off to their house by two money-lenders with the man still inside it. On coming to his senses, he is seized as a thief, but the lady's maidservant tells the judge that it was she who put him in the trunk, thereby saving him from the gallows, whilst the usurers are sentenced to pay a fine for making off with the trunk.(Conclusion)Fifth Day(Introduction)1. Cimon acquires wisdom through falling in love with Iphigenia, whom he later abducts on the high seas. After being imprisoned at Rhodes, he is released by Lysimachus, with whom he abducts both Iphigenia and Cassandra whilst they are celebrating their nuptials. They then flee with their ladies to Crete, whence after marrying them they are summoned back with their wives to their respective homes.2. Gostanza, in love with Martuccio Gomito, hears that he has died, and in her despair she puts to sea alone in a small boat, which is carried by the wind to Susa; she finds him, alive and well, in Tunis, and makes herself known to him, whereupon Martuccio, who stands high in the King's esteem on account of certain advice he had offered him, marries her and brings her back with a rich fortune to Lipari.3. Pietro Boccamazza flees with Agnolella; they encounter some brigands; the girl takes refuge in a forest, and is conducted to a castle; Pietro is captured by the brigands, but escapes from their clutches, and after one or two further adventures, he reaches the castle where Agnolella is, marries her, and returns with her to Rome.4. Ricciardo Manardi is discovered by Messer Lizio da Valbona with his daughter, whom he marries, and remains on good terms with her father.5. Before he dies, Guidotto da Cremona consigns to Giacomino da Pavia a young girl, who later on, in Faenza, is wooed by Giannole di Severino and Minghino di Mingole; these two come to blows, but when the girl is identified as Giannole's sister, she is given in marriage to Minghino.6. Gianni of Procida is found with the girl he loves, who had been handed over to King Frederick. He and the girl are tied to a stake, and are about to be burnt when he is recognized by Ruggieri de Loria. He is then set free, and afterwards they are married.7. Teodoro falls in love with Violante, the daughter of his master, Messer Amerigo. He gets her with child, and is sentenced to die on the gallows. But whilst he is being whipped along the road to his execution, he is recognized by his father and set at liberty, after which he and Violante become husband and wife.8. In his love for a young lady of the Traversari family, Nastagio degli Onesti squanders his wealth without being loved in return. He is entreated by his friends to leave the city, and goes away to Classe, where he sees a girl being hunted down and killed by a horseman, and devoured by a brace of hounds. He then invites his kinsfolk and the lady he loves to a banquet, where this same girl is torn to pieces before the eyes of his beloved, who, fearing a similar fate, accepts Nastagio as her husband.9. In courting a lady who does not return his love, Federigo degli Alberighi spends the whole of his substance, being left with nothing but a falcon, which, since his larder is bare, he offers to his lady to eat when she calls to see him at his house. On discovering the truth of the matter, she has a change of heart, accepts him as her husband, and makes a rich man of him.10. Pietro di Vinciolo goes out to sup with Ercolano, and his wife lets a young man in to keep her company. Pietro returns, and she conceals the youth beneath a chicken coop. Pietro tells her that a young man has been discovered in Ercolano's house, having been concealed there by Ercolano's wife, whose conduct she severely censures. As ill luck would have it, an ass steps on the fingers of the fellow hiding beneath the coop, causing him to yell with pain. Pietro rushes to the spot and sees him, thus discovering his wife's deception. But in the end, by reason of his own depravity, he arrives at an understanding with her.(Conclusion)Sixth Day(Introduction)1. A knight offers to take Madonna Oretta riding through the realm of narrative, but makes such a poor job of it that she begs him to put her down.2. By means of a single phrase, Cisti the Baker shows Messer Geri Spina that he is being unreasonable.3. With a quick retort, Monna Nonna de'Pulci puts a stop to the unseemly banter of the Bishop of Florence.4. Currado Gianfigliazzi's cook, Chichibio, converts his master's anger into laughter with a quick word in the nick of time, and saves himself from the unpleasant fate with which Currado had threatened him.5. Messer Forese da Rabatta and Master Giotto, the painter, returning from Mugello, poke fun at one another's disreputable appearance.6. Michele Scalza proves to certain young men that the Baronci are the most noble family in the whole wide world, and wins a supper.7. Madonna Filippa is discovered by her husband with a lover and called before the magistrate, but by a prompt and ingenious answer she secures her acquittal and causes the statue to be amended.8. Fresco urges his niece not to look at herself in the glass, if, as she has claimed, she cannot bear the sight of horrid people.9. With a barbed saying, Guido Cavalacanti politely delivers an insult to certain Florentine gentlemen who had taken him by surprise.10. Friar Cipolla promises a crowd of country folk that he will show them a feather of the Angel Gabriel, and on finding that some bits of coal have been put in its place, he proclaims that these were left over from the roasting of Saint Lawrence.(Conclusion)Seventh Day(Introduction)1. Gianni Lotteringhi hears a tapping at his door in the night; he awakens his wife, and she leads him to believe it is a werewolf, whereupon they go and exorcize it with a prayer, and the knocking stops.2. Peronella hides her lover in a tub when her husband returns home unexpectedly. Her husband has sold the tub, but she tells him that she herself has already sold it to a man who is inspecting it from the inside to see if it is sound. Leaping forth from the tub, the man getst he husband to scrape it out and carry it back to his house for him.3. Friar Rinaldo goes to bed with his godchild's mother; her husband finds them together in the bedroom, and they give him to understand that the Friar was charming away the child's worms.4. Tofano locks his wife out of the house one night, and his wife, having pleaded with him in vain to let her in, pretends to throw herself down a well, into which she hurls an enormous stone. Tofano emerges from the house and rushes to the well, whereupon she steals inside, bolts the door on her husband, and rains abuse upon him at the top of her voice.5. A jealous husband disguises himself as a priest and confesses his wife, by whom he is given to understand that she loves a priest who comes to her every night. And whilst the husband is secretly keeping watch for him at the front door, the wife admits her lover by way of the roof and passes the time in his arms.6. Whilst she is entertaining Leonetto, Madonna Isabella is visited by Messer Lambertuccio, who has fallen in love with her. Her husband returning unexpectedly, she sends Messer Lambertuccio running forth from the house with a dagger in his hand, and Leonetto is taken home a little later on by her husband.7. Lodovico discloses to Madonna Beatrice how deeply he loves her, whereupon she persuades her husband, Egano, to impersonate her in a garden, and goes to bed with Lodovico, who in due course gets up, goes into the garden, and gives Egano a hiding.8. A husband grows suspicious of his wife, and discovers that her lover comes to her at night, forewarning her of his arrival by means of a string attached to her toe. Whilst the husband is giving chase to the lover, his wife gets out of bed and puts another woman in her place, who receives a beating from the husband and has her tresses cut off. The husband then goes to fetch his wife's brothers, who, on discovering that his story is untrue, subject him to a torrent of abuse.9. Lydia, wife of Nicostratos, falls in love with Pyrrhus, who sets her three tasks as a proof of her sincerity. She performs all three, in addition to which she makes love to Pyrrhus in her husband's presence, causing Nicostratos to believe that his eyes have been deceiving him.10. Two Sienese fall in love with a woman of whose child one of them is the godfather. This man dies, returns to his companion from the afterworld in fulfilment of a promise he had given him, and describes what people do there.(Conclusion)Eighth Day(Introduction)1. Gulfardo borrows from Guasparruolo a sum of money equivalent to the amount he has agreed to pay the latter's wife in return for letting him sleep with her. He gives her the money, but later tells Guasparruolo, in her presence, that he has handed it back to his wife, and she has to admit it.2. The priest of Varlungo goes to bed with Monna Belcolore, leaving her his cloak by way of payment; then, having borrowed a mortar from her, he sends it back and asks her to return the cloak which he had left with her as a pledge. The good woman hands it over, and gives him a piece of her mind.3. Calandrino, Bruno and Buffalmacco set off in search of the heliotrope along the banks of the Mugnone. Thinking he has found it, Calandrino staggers home carrying an enormous load of stones, and his wife gives him a piece of her mind, causing him to lose his temper and beat her up. Then finally, he tells his companions what they have known all along.4. The Provost of Fiesole falls in love with a widow, but his love is not reciprocated. He goes to bed with her maid, thinking it to be the widow, and the lady's brothers cause him to be found there by his bishop.5. Three young men pull down the breeches of a judge from the Marches whilst he is administering the law on the Florentine bench.6. Bruno and Buffalmacco steal a pig from Calandrino. Pretending to help him find it again, they persuade him to submit to a test using ginger sweets and Vernaccia wine. They give him two sweets, one after the other, consisting of dog ginger seasoned with aloes, so that it appears that he has stolen the pig himself. And finally they extract money from him, by threatening to tell his wife about it.7. A scholar falls in love with a widow, who, being in love with someone else, causes him to spend a winter's night waiting for her in the snow. But on a later occasion, as a result of following his advice, she is forced to spend a whole day, in mid July, at the top of a tower, where, being completely naked, she is exposed to the flies and the gadflies and the rays of the sun.8. A story concerning two close friends, of whom the first goes to bed with the wife of the second. The second man finds out, and compels his wife to lock the first man in a chest, on which he makes love to his friend's wife whilst he is trapped inside.9. Being eager to "go the course" with a company of revellers, Master Simone, a physician, is prevailed upon by Bruno and Buffalmacco to proceed by night to a certain spot, where he is thrown by Buffalmacco into a ditch and left to wallow in its filth.10. A Sicilian lady cleverly relieves a merchant of the goods he has brought to Palermo. He later returns there pretending to have brought a much more valuable cargo, and after having borrowed a sum of money from the lady, leaves her with nothing but a quantity of water and tow.(Conclusion)Ninth Day(Introduction)1. Madonna Francesca is wooed by a certain Rinuccio and a certain Alessandro, but is not herself in love with either. She therefore induces the one to enter a tomb and pose as a corpse, and the other to go in and fetch him out, and since neither succeeds in completing his allotted task, she discreetly rids herself of both.2. An abbess rises hurriedly from her bed in the dark when it is reported to her that one of her nuns is abed with a lover. But being with a priest at the time, the Abbess claps his breeches on her head, mistaking them for her veil. On pointing this out to the Abbess, the accused nun is set at liberty, and thenceforth she is able to forgather with her lover at her leisure.3. Egged on by Bruno and Buffalmacco and Nello, Master Simone persuades Calandrino that he is pregnant. Calandrino then supplies the three men with capons and money for obtaining a certain medicine, and recovers from his pregnancy without giving birth.4. Cecco Fortarrigo gambles away everything he possesses at Buonconvento, together with the money of Cecco Angiulieri. He then pursues Cecco Angiulieri in his shirt claiming that he has been robbed, causes him to be seized by peasants, dons his clothes, mounts his palfrey, and rides away leaving Angiulieri standing there in his shirt.5. Calandrino falls in love with a young woman, and Bruno provides him with a magic scroll, with which he no sooner touches her than she goes off with him. But on being discovered with the girl by his wife, he finds himself in very serious trouble.6. Two young men lodge overnight at a cottage, where one of them goes and sleeps with their host's daughter, whilst his wife inadvertently sleeps with the other. The one who was with the daughter clambers into bed beside her father, mistaking him for his companion, and tells him all about it. A great furore then ensues, and the wife, realizing her mistake, gets into her daughter's bed, whence with a timely explanation she restores the peace.7. Talano d'Imolese dreams that his wife is savaged all about the throat and the face by a wolf, and tells her to ttake care; but she ignores his warning, and the dream comes true.8. Biondello plays a trick on Ciacco in regard of a breakfast, whereupon Ciacco discreetly avenges himself, causing Biondello to receive a terrible hiding.9. Two young men ask Solomon's advice, the first as to how he may win people's love, the second as to how he should punish his obstinate wife. Solomon replies by telling the former to love, and the latter to go to Goosebridge.10. Father Gianni is prevailed upon by Neighbour Pietro to cast a spell in order to turn his wife into a mare; but when he comes to fasten on the tail, Neighbour Pietro, by saying that he didn't want a tail, completely ruins the spell.(Conclusion)Tenth Day(Introduction)1. A worthy knight enters the service of the King of Spain, by whom he feels that he is ill-requited; so the King gives him irrefutable proof that the fault lies, not with himself, but with the knight's own cruel fortune, in the end rewarding him most handsomely.2. Ghino di Tacco captures the Abbot of Cluny, cures him of a stomach ailment, and then releases him. The Abbot returns to the court of Rome, where he reconciles Ghino with Pope Boniface and creates him a Knight Hospitaller.3. Mithridanes is filled with envy over Nathan's reputation for courtesy, and sets out to murder him. He comes across Nathan by accident but fails to recognize him, and after learning from Nathan's own lips the best way to carry out his intentions, he finds Nathan in a copse, as arranged. When he realizes who it is, he is filled with shame, and thenceforth becomes Nathan's friend.4. Messer Gentile de'Carisendi comes from Modena and takes from the tomb the lady he loves, who has been buried for dead. She revives and gives birth to a male child, and later Messer Gentile restores her and the child to Niccoluccio Caccianimico, the lady's husband.5. Madonna Dianora asks Messer Ansaldo for a beautiful May garden in the month of January, and Messer Ansaldo fulfils her request after hiring the services of a magician. Her husband then gives her permission to submit to Messer Ansaldo's pleasure, but on hearing of the husband's liberality Messer Ansalod releases her from her promise, whilst the magician excuses Messer Ansaldo from the payment of any fee.6. King Charles the Old, victorious in battle, falls in love with a young girl; but later he repents of his foolish fancy, and bestows both her and her sister honourably in marriage.7. On hearing that a young woman called Lisa has fallen ill on account of her fervent love for him, King Peter goes to comfort her, and later on he marries her to a young nobleman; and having kissed her on the brow, he thenceforth always styles himself her knight.8. Sophronia, thinking she has married Gisippus, has really married Titus Quintus Fulvius, with whom she goes off to Rome, where Gisippus turns up in abject poverty. Believing that Titus has snubbed him, he confesses to a murder so that he will be put to death. But Titus recognizes him, and claims that he himself has done the murder, in order to secure Gisippus' release. On perceiving this, the real murderer gives himself up, whereupon all three are released by Octavianus. Titus then bestows his sister upon Gisippus in marriage, and shares with him all he possesses.9. Messer Torello offers hospitality to Saladin, who is disguised as a merchant. A Crusade is launched, and before setting off Messer Torello instructs his wife that, failing his return, she may remarry by a certain date. He is taken prisoner, but his skill in training hawks brings him to the notice of the Sultan, who recognizes him, reminds him of their previous encounter, and entertains him most lavishly. And when Messer Torello falls ill, he is conveyed by magic in the space of a single night to Pavia, where his wife's second marriage is about to be solemnized. But he is recognized by his wife at the wedding-feast, whence he returns with her to his house.10. The Marquis of Saluzzo, obliged by the entreaties of his subjects to take a wife, follows his personal whims and marries the daughter of a peasant. She bears him two children, and he gives her the impression that he has put them to death. Later on, pretending that she has incurred his displeasure and that he has remarried, he arranges for his own daughter to return home and passes her off as his bride, having meanwhile turned his wife out of doors in no more than the shift she is wearing. But on finding that she endures it all with patience, he cherishes her all the more deeply, brings her back to his house, shows her their children, who have now grown up, and honours her as the Marchioness, causing others to honour her likewise.(Conclusion)Author's EpilogueNotesMapsIndexes

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Book SynopsisIntimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name. Orwell leads us through a landscape of unemployment, poverty and hunger, where Dorothy''s faith is challenged by a social reality that changes her life.

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Book SynopsisBorn in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1865, Rudyard Kipling was taken to England in 1871 and lived for five years with a foster-family in Southsea before going to the United Services College in Devon. He returned to India in 1882 to work as a reporter, and the many poems, sketches and stories he wrote during his time there brought him great literary acclaim. Kipling married Caroline Balestier and moved temporarily to Vermont where he wrote the two Jungle Books. They and their three children travelled extensively, particularly in South Africa, and Kipling became a fierce proponent of the Boer War. Identifying from the outset with the rulers and officials of the British Empire, Kipling nonetheless refused a knighthood, British Poet Laureateship and Order of Merit. He won the Nobel Prize in 1907, six years after publication of Kim, his masterpiece. After the death of his son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915 he became involved in the War Graves Commission. Kipling died in 1936, a

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Book SynopsisIn this thrilling adventure tale by the 'Father of Science Fiction', three men embark on an epic journey under the sea with the mysterious Captain Nemo aboard his submarine the Nautilus.Trade ReviewWe are all, in one way or another, the children of Jules Verne -- Ray Bradbury

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Book Synopsis''Every step the Scarlet Pimpernel takes on French soil is fraught with danger''The French Terror is raging, and few are safe from the threat of the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney, a foppish Englishman, decides to rescue imprisoned aristocrats before they can be executed. Showing great daring and aided by a band of brave comrades, he disguises himself as the formidable Scarlet Pimpernel. But will his beautiful French wife Marguerite unwittingly prove his downfall? Baroness Orczy''s swashbuckling 1905 novel set the standard for all future tales of masked avengers and was later adapted into a famous stage play and several film versions.The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers'' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

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Book Synopsis90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksHow light and alive she was! Like a bird caught in a net . . . Marian Forrester enchants everyone around her: her husband, an elderly railroad pioneer; the small town of Sweet Water; and Niel Herbert, her unwavering confidant. Yet, her irresistible charm and dazzling wit conceal a dangerous vulnerability and her greatest secret. A significant inspiration for The Great Gatsby, this exquisite novella is a poignant elegy for a bygone era, fading into history.

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Book Synopsis''I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn''t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.''Los Angeles Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wheelchair-bound General Sternwood to discover who is blackmailing him. A broken, weary old man, Sternwood just wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. However, with Sternwood''s two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA''s seedy backstreets, Marlowe''s got his work cut out. And that''s before he stumbles over the first corpse.The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler''s first novel featuring laconic PI Philip Marlowe.''One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain'' Sunday Times''Chandler grips the mind from the first sentence'' Daily Telegraph ''One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain'' Sunday TimesTrade ReviewChandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious -- Robert B. Parker * The New York Times Book Review *Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since -- Paul AusterRaymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude -- Erle Stanley Gardner[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision -- Joyce Carol Oates * New York Review of Books *Raymond Chandler is a master * New York Times *Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye * Los Angeles Times *Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . A great artist * The Boston Book Review *Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisRobert Fabbri read Drama and Theatre at London University and worked in film and TV for twenty-five years. He has a life-long passion for ancient history, which inspired him to write the bestselling Vespasian series and the Alexander's Legacy series. He lives in London and Berlin.Trade ReviewRobert Fabbri has a winner on his hands. * The BookPlank *A stonking read. * Classic FM *Fabbri's Vespasian novels have been creating quite a stir. * The History Girls *

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Book SynopsisAn introduction that places the underground man in the historical context of nineteenth-century modernity's movement toward secularism, examines his psychological dynamics, and identifies the developments in Russian intellectual life that the work parodies and criticises.Trade ReviewA timely re-issue of the Notes with an Introduction that is a lively and informative invitation to engage with Dostoevsky's text.--Raymond Boisvert, Department of Philosophy, Siena College

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Book SynopsisLewis Carroll's novels have entertained readers young and old for more than a century. Their magical worlds, amusing characters, clever dialogue and playfully logical illogic epitomise the whit and whimsy of Carroll's writing. Both stories feature the coloured classic illustrations of John Tenniel.

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Book SynopsisEight years ago, Anne Elliot followed the advice of Lady Russell, her only true friend, and broke off her engagement to the dashing young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. When Anne and the newly wealthy Captain Wentworth cross paths years later, it is clear that he has neither forgottennor forgiventheir past. Can true love survive heartbreak? Who should we listen to in matters of the heart?Filled with Jane Austen's trademark wit and social commentary, Persuasion is a delightful romance and a surprisingly subversive exploration of our need to persuade, and be persuaded by, others.

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Book SynopsisAn 8-book collection ofMaurice Leblanc's gentleman-thief Arsène Lupin, the perfect gift for fans of mystery fiction and classic literature.

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Book SynopsisWilde's works are suffused with his aestheticism, brilliant craftsmanship, legendary wit and, ultimately, his tragic muse. He wrote tender fairy stories for children employing all his grace, artistry and wit, of which the best-known is The Happy Prince. Counterpoints to this were his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which shocked and outraged many readers of his day, and his stories for adults which exhibited his fascination with the relations between serene art and decadent life. Wilde took London by storm with his plays, particularly his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest.His essays in particular De Profundis and his Ballad of Reading Gaol, both written after his release from prison, strikingly break the bounds of his usual expressive range. His other essays and poems are all included in this comprehensive collection of the works of one of the most exciting writers of the late nineteenth century.Our Library Collection hardback series has been completely redesigned, for launch in November 2024. The books are now finished in black, soft-touch linen, cloth bound with metallic gold and matt coloured foil blocking. They come complete with co-ordinated head and tail bands, a silk ribbon marker and coloured spray edges. The pages are sewn, and the end papers are in two colours featuring an exclusive design by Holly Dunn.

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Book SynopsisNumber one bestselling author Conn Iggulden takes on the story of the mighty Kublai Khan. An epic tale of a great and heroic mind; his action-packed rule; and how in conquering one-fifth of the world's inhabited land, he changed the course of history forever.A scholar who conquered an empire larger than those of Alexander or Caesar.A warrior who would rule a fifth of the world with strength and wisdom.A man who betrayed a brother to protect a nation.From a young scholar to one of history's most powerful warriors, Conqueror tells the story of Kublai Khan an extraordinary man who should be remembered alongside Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte as one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever known.Kublai dreams of an empire stretching from sea to sea. But to see it built, this scholar must first learn the art of war. He must take his nation's warriors to the ends of the known world. And when he is weary, when he is wounded, he must face his own brothers in a Trade ReviewThe CONQUEROR series: ‘Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction’ Daily Mirror ‘Iggulden…tells an absolutely cracking story…the pace is nail-biting and the set dressing magnificent’ The Times ‘Iggulden weaves an entertaining tale of this world of men, swords, bows and the call of war and the plains’ Daily Express ‘I felt as if a blockbuster movie was unfolding before me…read the book before Hollywood takes it over’ Daily Express

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Book SynopsisInland is a work which gathers in emotional power as it moves across the grasslands of its narrator’s imagination – from Szolnok County on the great plains of Hungary where a man writes in the library of his manor house, to the Institute of Prairie Studies in Tripp County, South Dakota, where the editor of the journal Hinterland receives his writing, to the narrator’s own native district in Melbourne County, between Moonee Ponds and the Merri, where he recalls the constant displacements of his childhood. ‘No thing in the world is one thing,’ he declares; ‘some places are many more than one place.’ These overlapping worlds are bound by recurring motifs – fish pond, fig-tree, child-woman, the colours white, red and green – and by deep feelings of intimacy and betrayal, which are brought to full expression as the book moves to its close.Trade Review‘The most ambitious, sustained, and powerful piece of writing Murnane has to date brought off. The underlying narrative is of the twelve-year-old boy and the girl from Bendigo Street, their friendship and their parting, and of the man’s later attempts, Orpheus-like, to summon her back, or if not her, then her shade, from the realm of the dead and the forgotten. Woven into this narrative are a number of motifs whose common element is resurrection: the violated serf girl who returns as an angel of defiance; the lovers in Wuthering Heights united beyond the grave; the great recuperative vision experienced by Marcel in Time Regained; and verses from the Gospel of Matthew that foretell the second coming of Christ.’ JM Coetzee, New York Review of Books'Murnane’s unique body of work certainly merits the world’s most prestigious literary prize, boasting an ability to convey the workings of human consciousness that is unlike anything else I’ve read. His deep, strange, mesmerising books – a dozen novels, numerous short stories and essays – seem less like discrete entities than one enormous work in which the author meditates over and over on various talismanic images and subjects.’ Jack Kerridge, The Daily Telegraph‘The sort of writing Murnane gives us – focused, precise – probably depends upon a life free from disruption: free to think and take time and put one word after another with as much care as possible … It doesn’t have what most novels do – plot, characters in the traditional sense, even a clear setting at times – and yet to read it with an eye on what’s not there is to overlook what is. It plunges deep into the way our minds work, the connections between memories and images that make up what we call our selves. Indeed, reading Murnane’s fiction, stripped of the usual elements, actually makes other novels seem thin by comparison.’ John Self, Irish Times

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.I pay very little regardto what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.'Humble and lowly, a young Fanny Price goes to live with her wealthy Aunt and Uncle at their grand house, Mansfield Park. Growing up with her privileged and spoilt cousins, the Bertrams, she lives in the shadows of their glamorous lives, but manages to find an ally in her cousin, Edmund.When Henry and Mary Crawford come to visit, the house is thrown into disarray as romance flourishes between the young people, leading Fanny to finally confront the extent of her true feelings for Edmund.

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Book SynopsisThe Lifted Veil (1859) is now one of the most widely read and critically discussed of Eliot's works.

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Book SynopsisA tender portrait of self-discovery and female awakening which explores the reality of domestic servants in the 1930s. The latest title in the British Library Women Writers series that has grown to 25 titles and two anthologies. First published in 1934, The Spring Begins is a rediscovered masterpiece, building three unique female voices into refle

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Book SynopsisPre-order BOLEYN TRAITOR now Philippa Gregory's landmark return to the Tudor court, coming Autumn 2025 A dramatic novel of passion, politics and betrayal from the author of The Other Boleyn Girl.They can fear me, and they can hate me. They can even deny me. But they cannot kill me.1568. The Virgin Queen Elizabeth I has ruled England for ten years, but refuses to name a successor, despite the rival claims that threaten her kingdom.Bess of Hardwick, the new Countess of Shrewsbury, has secured her future with her fourth marriage to George Talbot. Ambitious and shrewd, Bess anticipates royal favour when she and the Earl are asked to give sanctuary to the fugitive Mary Queen of Scots.But the Scottish queen rails against house arrest in a desolate castle and plots to regain her throne. The castle becomes the epicentre of intrigue against Elizabeth, the Earl blinded by admiration for the other queen. Even Bess's own loyalty is thrown into question. If Elizabeth''s spymaster William Cecil links the Talbots to the growing conspiracy to free Mary, they will all face the TowerTrade ReviewPraise for Philippa Gregory: ‘Written from instinct, not out of calculation, and it shows.’Peter Ackroyd, The Times ‘For sheer pace and percussive drama it will take a lot of beating.’ Sunday Times ‘Gregory is great at conjuring a Tudor film-set of gorgeous gowns and golden-lattered dining. She invokes some swoonsome images…while the politics are personal enough to remain pertinent.’ Daily Telegraph ‘The contemporary mistress of historical crime fiction is Philippa Gregory. Her novels are filled with strong, determined women who take their fate into their own hands…Gregory brings to life the sights, smells and textures of 16th-century England.’ Kate Mosse, Financial Times

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Book SynopsisAuster''s tale of obsession from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: ''a literary voice for the ages'' (Guardian)The Book of Illusions, written with breath-taking urgency and precision, plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, and the violent and the tender dissolve into one another.One man''s obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. After losing his wife and young sons in a plane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in grief. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a lost film by silent comedian Hector Mann, and remembers how to laugh . . .Mann was a comic genius, in trademark white suit and fluttering black moustache. But one morning in 1929 he walked out of his house and was never heard from again. Zimmer''s ob

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