Classic fiction: literary and general

Book SynopsisOld New Land is a nineteenth century utopian blueprint for a modern state of Israel. This new edition of Herzl''s classic novel features photographs of old Vienna an d its Jewish population, and of nineteenth century Palestine '

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Book SynopsisCelebrated for her depictions of life among Louisiana’s Creole and Cajun peoples, Kate Chopin (1850–1904) is today seen as a major figure in southern literature. Her short stories and her last novel, The Awakening (1899), are widely read and studied. Unjustly neglected, however, is her first novel, At Fault, which Chopin published in 1890 at her own expense. This edition of At Fault—the first printing to appear since Chopin’s Complete Works was issued in 1969—now makes the book available to a wide audience.The novel centers on Therese Lafirme, a widow who owns and runs a plantation in post–Civil War Louisiana. She encounters David Hosmer, who buys timber rights to her property to secure raw materials for his newly constructed sawmill. When David remarries, a love triangle develops between David, Fanny (his alcoholic wife), and Therese, who tries to balance her strong moral sensibility against her growing love for David. In depicting these relationships, Chopin acutely dramatizes the conflict between growing industrialism and the agrarian traditions of the Old South—as well as the changes to the land and the society that inevitably resulted from that conflict.Editors Suzanne Disheroon Green and David J. Caudle provide meticulous annotations to the text of At Fault, facilitating the reader’s understanding of the complex and exotic culture and language of nineteenth-century Louisiana. Also included is a substantial body of supporting materials thatcontextualize the novel, ranging from a summary of critical responses to materials illuminating the economic, social, historical, and religious influences on Chopin’s texts. The Editors: Suzanne Disheroon Green is an assistant professor of English at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. She is the co-author, with David J. Caudle, of Kate Chopin: An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Works, and co-editor with Lisa Abney, of the forthcoming Songs of the New South: Writing Contemporary LouisianaDavid J. Caudle, who is completing his doctorate at the University of North Texas, has published essays and book chapters dealing with American literature and linguistic approaches to literature.

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Book SynopsisEvelyn Scott’s first novel, The Narrow House, depicts a family stricken by dysfunctional domesticity. Revolving around troubled members of the Farley family, Scott exposes notions of romantic love, longing, and the image of the Southern belle as damaging, unrealistic constructs, all against the backdrop of a seemingly normal middle-class existence that in previous decades had been idealized in Southern writing. Published to high praise when it appeared in 1921, The Narrow House vaulted Scott to literary celebrity in her day.In this new critical edition, Mary E. Papke contextualizes Scott’s first and possibly best writing effort with an astute introduction that discusses Scott and her contemporaries, the work’s importance to the genre of the novel, and the small but ongoing reclamation of Scott’s place in literary history. Completely updated and formatted for a modern readership, this critical edition of The Narrow House is sure to find its way into classrooms and onto bookshelves.

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Book SynopsisFans of The House of Seven Gables and Grimm Tales will love this “eerie and tense” thriller. (Screencraft)“666 Gable Way has everything. Witches, horror, thrills, supernatural entities, and even a touch of romance. ” —CB Writer, Amazon reviewerSomething evil hides within the House of Seven Gables...Phoebe Pyncheon hasn’t had an easy life. Alone and out of work, she does her best to make ends meet while she finishes her debut novel. But when even the monthly rent becomes too much for the struggling young writer to afford, she is forced to move into her Great Aunt Hester’s boarding house. Known as the House of Seven Gables, this Victorian mansion is a maze of decrepit halls, musty old furniture, and faded glamour.At first, Phoebe feels at home in the strange, quirky old house. But soon she senses a presence lurking in the shadows, just out of sight.She hears it breathing in the darkness, feels its cold touch on her skin at night.Then the police knock on her door with news of a dead body found nearby. And Phoebe discovers the terrifying truth...The House of Seven Gables is a temple to an ancient evil, a terrifying power unleashed by Hester and her coven of friends. This dark entity haunts the stones of the old mansion, plotting its revenge upon the living. But a secret power hides within Phoebe as well.And releasing it may be her only chance to survive the terror that awaits her...“There is nothing like a book full of evil witches, satanic rituals, and dark family histories!” —Chelsea Hannah, horror reviewer“[A] written version of an episode of ‘Twilight Zone,’” —Dennis T. Faleris, Amazon reviewer“OMG, loved this book. It sucks you in and you cannot put this book down. Hands down one of my absolute favorites!” —Ashley, Amazon reviewer

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1947, In Due Season broke new ground with its fictional representation of women and of Indigenous people. Set during the dustbowl 1930s, this tersely narrated prize-winning novel follows Lina Ashley, a determined solo female homesteader who takes her family from drought-ridden southern Alberta to a new life in the Peace River region. Here her daughter Poppy grows up in a community characterized by harmonious interactions between the local Métis and newly arrived European settlers. Still, there is tension between mother and daughter when Poppy becomes involved with a Métis lover. This novel expands the patriarchal canon of Canadian prairie fiction by depicting the agency of a successful female settler and, as noted by Dorothy Livesay, was ""one of the first, if not the first Canadian novel wherein the plight of the Native Indian and the Métis is honestly and painfully recorded."" The afterword by Carole Gerson and Janice Dowson provides substantial information about author Christine van der Mark and situates her under-acknowledged book within the contexts of Canadian social, literary, and publishing history.

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Book SynopsisThis new volume in Genji studies comprises a collection of six individual essays by leading international scholars addressing the Tale of Genji Scrolls and the Tale of Genji texts in the context of new critical theory relating to cultural studies, narrative painting, narratology, comparative literature and a global view of medieval romance. Uniquely, it also links new critical theory with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary interests. Increasingly, scholarly research views ‘reading’ The Tale of Genji Scrolls as an inseparable part of ‘reading’ the Tale of Genji itself. Hence this book, which is subdivided into three sections: Reading the Genji Scrolls; Reading the Genji Texts; Reading the Genji Romance. The contributors are Yukio Lippit (Harvard), Sano Midori (Gakushuin), Richard Okada (Princeton), Murakami Fuminobu (Hong Kong), Jeremy Tambling (Manchester) and Richard Stanley-Baker (formerly Hong Kong)Table of ContentsPreface; A Note to the Reader; Introduction; PART I: Reading the Genji Scrolls; 1 Scripting the Moribund: The Genji Scrolls' Aesthetics of Decomposition; 2 The Narration of Tales, The Narration of Paintings; PART II: Reading the Genji Texts; 3 Displacements of Conquest, or Exile: The Tale of Genji, and Post-Cold War Learning; 4 Person, Honorifics and Tense in the Tale of Genji; PART III: Reading the Genji Romance; 5 'Kiritsubo': Genji, Spacing and Naming; 6 Genji and the Gardens of Medieval Romance; Appendix: A Chapter List of The Tale of Genji, with Lists of Attributed Teams; Bibliography of Japanese Sources; Index

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Book SynopsisTrap (1966) won the Miles Franklin Literary Award when it was published. Its comic and satiric elements and use of several narrative voices provide revealing interpretations of cross-cultural relations, bureaucracy and politics in Australia.Peter Mathers was born in England in 1931 and came to Australia with his family as a child. From 1964 and 1967 he worked in Britain and Europe as a researcher. His first writing appeared in the early 1960s, with his novels being published in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Book SynopsisAustralia's convict past is never far away in Tasmania, where elegant stone bridges, the Georgian warehouses of Salamanca Place and the eerie ruins of Port Arthur are testimony to the back-breaking work and the hard lives endured by those sentenced to transportation. Quintus Servinton is another reminder of those cruel days. Subtitled "a tale, founded on incidents of real occurrence," the book is a loosely autobiographical story of a wayward fifth son, like Savery. Quintus Servinton (1830) is credited as being the first Australian novel, which, despite its dubious literary merit, gives it unique status. Henry Savery was born in 1791 in Somerset. He arrived in Hobart in 1825, having been sentenced to transportation for forgery. He might be completely unknown today had he not had a penchant for writing. Savery was released from servitude in 1832, having already published his major work. At Port Arthur, guides tell the story that he then sent for his wife, but she had an affair with a magistrate on the boat out, and returned to England, having been rejected by her husband. Savery was entrusted with banking work and tempted to re-offend. He appeared before the magistrate who had seduced his wife and was sent to the notorious penal settlement, Port Arthur, where he died in 1842.

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