Classics Books

From Austen to Zola, from medieval to the modern day - all genres are catered for between the covers of these coveted classics.

3115 products


  • A Farewell To Arms

    Pan Macmillan A Farewell To Arms

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrederic Henry is an American Lieutenant serving in the ambulance corps of the Italian army during the First World War. While stationed in northern Italy, he falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Theirs is an intense, tender and passionate love affair overshadowed by the war. Ernest Hemingway spares nothing in his denunciation of the horrors of combat, yet vividly depicts the courage shown by so many. In writing A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway was inspired by his own wartime experience as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. First published in 1929, the novel made his name and remains one of his finest works. This stunning edition features an afterword by Ned Halley.Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

    15 in stock

    £9.89

  • Les Misérables

    Pan Macmillan Les Misérables

    4 in stock

    Book SynopsisLes Misérables is a magnificent, sweeping story of revolution, love and the will to survive set amidst the poverty stricken streets of nineteeth-century Paris.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has features an introduction by Paul Bailey.Escaped convict Jean Valjean turns his back on his criminal past to build his fortunes as an honest man. He takes in abandoned orphan Cosette and raises her as his own daughter. But Jean Valjean is unable to free himself from his previous life and is pursued to the end by ruthless policeman Javert. As Cosette grows up, young idealist Marius catches a glimpse of her and falls desperately in love. The fates of all the characters await them during the violent turmoil of the June Rebellion in 1832.This abridged version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece was published in 1915 with the aim to provide 'a unified story of the life and soul-struggles of Jean Valjean'.Trade ReviewLes Misérables is probably the best book ever written . . . it really is an incredible classic. -- Dominic West * Metro *Les Misérables is a game with destiny: it dramatises the gap between the imperfections of human judgments, and the perfect patterns of the infinite -- Adam Thirlwell * The Guardian *On the morning of April 4, 1862, part 1 of Les Misérables, called “Fantine,” was released simultaneously in Brussels, Paris, Saint Petersburg, London, Leipzig, and several other European cities. No book had ever had an international launch on this scale -- Nina Martyris * The Paris Review *

    4 in stock

    £11.39

  • Sense and Sensibility

    Pan Macmillan Sense and Sensibility

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisTwo sisters of opposing temperament but who share the pangs of tragic love provide the subjects for Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful hardbacks make perfect gifts for book lovers, or wonderful additions to your own collection. Gorgeously illustrated by the celebrated Hugh Thomson, this edition also includes an afterword by author and critic Henry Hitchings.Elinor, practical and conventional, the epitome of sense, desires a man who is promised to another woman. Marianne, emotional and sentimental, the epitome of sensibility, loses her heart to a scoundrel who jilts her. A powerful drama of family life and growing up, Sense and Sensibility is at once a subtle comedy of manners and a striking critique of early nineteenth-century society.Trade ReviewAusten's genius lies in her style and elegance of mind -- Amanda Craig * Independent *Austen's oeuvre is inviolable – it can never be unwritten -- Francesca Segal * The Guardian *

    1 in stock

    £10.44

  • Rock Crystal

    Pushkin Press Rock Crystal

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAdalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal is a Christmas story and a story about the heart of the ice, the crystal. The charm of this quasi-fairy tale is made even more poignant by the knowledge of the author's eventual suicide. This seemingly simple fable of two children lost in an icy landscape is eloquent in its innocence, but is implicit with an unremitting consciousness of the fragility of life and the inevitability of death. This is a wintry story of village life in the high mountains, but also a parable of belief and faith. The Rock Crystal of the title are shards of ice of the glacier that dominates the landscape that Adalbert Stifter describes. Translated from the German by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore, Adalbert Stifter's Rock Crystal is published by Pushkin Press. 'A tale of almost unendurable suspense' — New York Review of Books Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868) was an Austrian writer, painter and poet closely associated with the Biedermeier movement in European art. Following his studies at the University of Vienna, he was highly regarded as a tutor among aristocratic families. The success of his first story The Condor in 1840 inaugurated a steady writing career, culminating in Der Nachsommer, praised by Nietzsche as one of the two great novels of 19th century Germany. He was especially notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing, and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, influencing writers such as Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann and W.G. Sebald.Trade ReviewA tale of almost unendurable suspense * The New York Review of Books *

    1 in stock

    £9.50

  • Zanoni

    Aziloth Books Zanoni

    15 in stock

    15 in stock

    £13.12

  • A Room with a View

    Penguin Putnam Inc A Room with a View

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisWit and intelligence are the hallmarks of this probing portrait of the English character. And in this story of extreme contrasts—in values, social class, and cultural perspectives—an unconventional romantic relationship leads to conventional happiness in a delightful social comedy. While touring Italy with her overbearing cousin, well-bred Lucy Honeychurch falls in love with the handsome but entirely unsuitable George Emerson, only to become engaged to the haughty Cecil Vyse. But Lucy is lured away from the conventions of upper-middle-class Edwardian society by her yearnings for the clerk she left behind. A Room with a View satirizes the English notion of respectability—and remains Forster’s most beloved novel and a twentieth-century classic.

    10 in stock

    £6.60

  • The Return of Sherlock Holmes

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Return of Sherlock Holmes

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction by John S. Whitley, University of Sussex. After Sherlock Holmes' apparently fatal encounter with the sinister Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, the great detective reappears, to the delight of the faithful Dr Watson in The Adventures of the Empty House. The stories are illustrated by Sidney Paget, the finest of illustrators, from which our images of Sherlock Holmes and his world derive. This is the second of three volumes of The Complete Sherlock Holmes newly typeset from the original copies of The Strand Magazine The three books present all the Holmes stories in order of first publication.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • The Wind in the Willows

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Wind in the Willows

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisFar from fading with time, Kenneth Grahame's classic tale of fantasy has attracted a growing audience in each generation. Rat, Mole, Badger and the preposterous Mr Toad (with his ‘Poop-poop-poop’ road-hogging new motor-car), have brought delight to many through the years with their odd adventures on and by the river, and at the imposing residence of Toad Hall. Grahame's book was later dramatised by A. A. Milne, and became a perennial Christmas favourite, as Toad of Toad Hall. It continues to enchant and, above all perhaps, inspire great affection.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson, University of Kent at Canterbury. Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures, accidentally witnessing a murder, establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused, as well as being hunted by Injun Joe, the true murderer, eventually escaping and finding the treasure that Joe had buried. Huckleberry Finn recounts the further adventures of Huck, who runs away from a drunken and brutal father, and meets up with the escaped slave Jim. They float down the Mississippi on a raft, participating in the lives of the characters they meet, witnessing corruption, moral decay and intellectual impoverishment. Sharing so much in background and character, these two stories, the best of Twain, indisputably belong together in one volume. Though originally written as adventure stories for young people, the vivid writing provides a profound commentary on provincial American life in the mid-nineteenth century and the institution of slavery.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde And Other Stories

    Everyman Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde And Other Stories

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisPublished as a ''shilling shocker'', Robert Louis Stevenson''s dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll''s strange association with the ''damnable young man'' Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde''s true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity''s basest capacity for evil.

    2 in stock

    £12.34

  • Collected Shorter Fiction Boxed Set (2 Volumes)

    Everyman Collected Shorter Fiction Boxed Set (2 Volumes)

    4 in stock

    Book SynopsisWritten over a period of more than half a century, Tolstoy’s enchanting short stories and novellas reflect every aspect of his developing art and outlook. Volume 1 of the Everyman Collected Shorter Fiction is dominated by the characteristic experiences of his early life as soldier, land-owner, husband and father, the life which shaped Anna Karenina and War and Peace. It also includes several short fables which point to his later preoccupation with the religious life. Volume 2 reveals how these spiritual intimations flowered into a series of extraordinary late masterpieces which equal anything in the earlier novels for intensity and power. Readers of The Death of Ivan Ilych, The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, Master and Man and Hadji Murad will recognize the brilliant younger novelist, now transfigured by his passionate quest for salvation and forgiveness.

    4 in stock

    £44.00

  • Adam Bede

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd Adam Bede

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury 'Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your immediate feelings...' Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in 'the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis'. But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost. The movement of the narration between social realism and reflection on its own processes, the exploration of motives, and the constant authorial presence all bespeak an art that strives to connect the fictional with the actual.

    15 in stock

    £5.35

  • The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Stuart Hutchinson, University of Kent at Canterbury. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz is an ominous fable about the pursuit of great wealth. Readers will be transported to a fabulous fantasy land of such opulence that its very existence has to remain a jealously guarded secret. Fatal consequences lie in store for 'bona fide' guests and uninvited visitors alike, while the sybaritic luxury of the place is evoked in an effortless prose style which is quintessentially F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also featured in this volume are The Cut-Glass Bowl, May Day, The Rich Boy, Crazy Sunday, An Alcoholic Case, The Lees of Happiness, The Lost Decade and Babylon Revisited.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • The Trumpet-Major

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Trumpet-Major

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Charles P.C. Pettit. Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, The Trumpet Major is set in Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy skilfully immerses us in the life of the day, making us feel the impact of historical events on the immemorial local way of life - the glamour of the coming of George III and his soldiery, fears of the press-gang and invasion, and the effect of distant but momentous events like the Battle of Trafalgar. He interweaves a compelling, bitter-sweet romantic love story of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of the heroine Anne Garland, played out against the loves of a lively gallery of other characters. While there are elements of sadness and even tragedy, The Trumpet-Major shows Hardy's skills of story-telling, characterisation and description in a novel of vitality, comedy and warmth.

    15 in stock

    £5.35

  • Tristram Shandy

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd Tristram Shandy

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a huge literary paradox, for it is both a novel and an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour and generous sentiments, it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. As an anti-novel, it is a deliberately tantalising and exuberantly egoistic work, ostentatiously digressive, involving the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. This mercurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism and postmodernism. Vibrant and bizarre, Tristram Shandy provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne 'the most liberated spirit of all time'.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • The Woodlanders

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Woodlanders

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews. Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and cannot marry her intended, Giles Winterborne. Her alternative choice proves disastrous, and in a moving tale that has vibrant characters, many humorous moments and genuine pathos coupled with tragic irony, Hardy eschews a happy ending. With characteristic derision, he exposes the cruel indifference of the archaic legal system off his day, and shows the tragic consequences of untimely adherence to futile social and religious proprieties

    15 in stock

    £5.35

  • The Mayor of Casterbridge

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Mayor of Casterbridge

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury. None of the great Victorian novels is more vivid and readable than The Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in the heart of Hardy's Wessex, the 'partly real, partly dream country' he founded on his native Dorset, it charts the rise and self-induced downfall of a single 'man of character'. The fast-moving and ingeniously contrived narrative is Shakespearian in its tragic force, and features some of the author's most striking episodes and brilliant passages of description.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • Kim

    Wordsworth Editions Ltd Kim

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWith a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Kim is Rudyard Kipling’s finest work. Now controversial, this novel is a memorably vivid evocation of the life and landscapes of India in the late nineteenth century. Kim himself is a resourceful lad who befriends a lama, an ageing priest; and both embark on a combined quest. Whereas Kim has an insatiable interest in the varied activities around him, the lama seeks redemption from the ‘Wheel of Life’. Kim becomes involved in the ‘Great Game’:, undertaking espionage for the British rulers. This engrossing and moving novel, with its diversity of memorable characters, offers many insights into political, religious and social tensions.

    15 in stock

    £5.62

  • Miss Buncle's Book

    Persephone Books Ltd Miss Buncle's Book

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £15.20

  • Paris Peasant

    Exact Change,U.S. Paris Peasant

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisParis Peasant (1926) is one of the central works of Surrealism. Unconventional in form and fiercely modern, Aragon uses the city of Paris as a framework interlacing text with the city's ephemera: cafe menus, maps, monument inscriptions, newspaper cuttings and the lives of its citizens. No one could have been a more astute detector of the unwanted in all its forms; no one else could have been carried away by such intoxicating reveries about a sort of secret life of the city...' Andre Breton'

    1 in stock

    £13.29

  • 1984 Nineteen Eighty Four

    Penguin Putnam Inc 1984 Nineteen Eighty Four

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisWritten 75 years ago, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...This 75th Anniversary Edition includes:• A New Introduction by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Take My Hand, winner of the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Fiction • A New Afterword by Sandra Newman, author of Julia: A Retelling of George Orwell’s 1984“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think

    3 in stock

    £14.45

  • They Came Like Swallows

    Vintage Publishing They Came Like Swallows

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisDiscover William Maxwell’s classic, heart-breaking portrait of an ordinary American family struck by the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic'A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic… Will melt many a reader to tears’ TIMEElizabeth Morison is an ordinary woman. Yet, to eight-year-old Bunny, his mother is the centre of his universe. To Robert, her elder son, she is someone he must protect against the dangers of the outside world. And to her husband, James, she is the foundation on which his family rests and life without her is unimaginable. As the dark winter of 1918 dawns and the shadow of Spanish flu starts to disturb day-to-day life, a moving portrait of Elizabeth takes shape, set against the lives and fate of the Morison family. ‘As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you're gripping the pages… There isn't a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow’ Nicholas Lezard, GuardianTrade ReviewIllness, regret, recovery, loss: it's our times in another key. We watch as ordinary lives take an extraordinary turn — the flu felling some and sparing others, and laying bare their emotional lives as it goes -- Gish JenMaxwell does something all great novelists do: he conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity -- Anthony Quinn * Observer *As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you're gripping the pages… There isn't a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic… Will melt many a reader to tears * TIME *As the voices of Austen, Turgenev and Tolstoy have survived, so will Maxwell's * The Times *

    2 in stock

    £9.49

  • The Story Of King Arthur And His Knights

    Penguin Putnam Inc The Story Of King Arthur And His Knights

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £6.95

  • Heart Of Darkness And The Secret Sharer

    Penguin Putnam Inc Heart Of Darkness And The Secret Sharer

    10 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    10 in stock

    £6.39

  • The Tremor of Forgery A Virago Modern Classic

    Little, Brown Book Group The Tremor of Forgery A Virago Modern Classic

    2 in stock

    Book SynopsisBY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN INTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA''Highsmith is a giant of the genre. The original, the best, the gloriously twisted Queen of Suspense'' MARK BILLINGHAM''She kind of takes you by the hand and walks you toward the cliff. I like that sensation'' GILLIAN FLYNN ''One of Highsmith''s finest novels'' NEW YORK TIMES A gripping novel that explores the shifting sands of moral values - is murder still murder when committed in a lawless place?Howard Ingham, an American writer, is in Tunisia working on a screenplay, and feeling stranded. No one has written to him since he arrived - neither the film director who he is supposed to be meeting in Tunis, nor his lover in New York. The erratic mail eventually brings news of the director''s suicide. For reasons obscure even to himself, Ingham decides to stay and work on a Trade ReviewThe no.1 Greatest Crime Writer * The Times *Highsmith was every bit as deviant and quirky as her mischievous heroes, and didn't seem to mind if everyone knew it -- J. G. Ballard * Daily Telegraph *She kind of takes you by the hand and walks you toward the cliff. I like that sensation -- Gillian FlynnNo one has created psychological suspense more densely and deliciously satisfying * Vogue *One of Highsmith's finest novels * New York Times *Her best novel * New Yorker *Highsmith is the poet of apprehension rather than fear . . . Highsmith's finest novel to my mind is The Tremor of Forgery, and if I were asked what it is about I would reply, "apprehension"' -- Graham GreeneI love [Highsmith] so much . . . what a revelation her writing is -- Gillian Flynn * Wall Street Journal *One of her best books . . . She creates a lot of dread and a lot of apprehension very casually -- Jonathan Lethem * Chicago Tribune *

    2 in stock

    £9.49

  • Lord of the Flies Centenary Edition

    Penguin Putnam Inc Lord of the Flies Centenary Edition

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe classic novel by William GoldingWith a new Introduction by Stephen KingTo me Lord of the Flies has always represented what novels are for, what makes them indispensable. -Stephen KingGolding's classic, startling, and perennially bestselling portrait of human nature remains as provocative today as when it was first published. This beautiful new edition features French flaps and rough fronts, making it a must-have for fans of this seminal work.William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature.Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic. 

    10 in stock

    £14.40

  • The Fellowship of the Ring Volume 1 Being the

    William Morrow & Company The Fellowship of the Ring Volume 1 Being the

    5 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    5 in stock

    £24.00

  • Mathilda

    Broadview Press Ltd Mathilda

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisMary Shelley’s Mathilda, the story of one woman’s existential struggle after learning of her father’s desire for her, has been identified as Shelley’s most important work after Frankenstein. The two texts share many characteristics, besides authorship and contemporaneity: both concern parental abandonment; both contribute to the Gothic form through themes of incest, insanity, suicidality, monstrosity, and isolation; and both are epistolary. However, Mathilda was not published until 1959, 140 years after Shelley wrote it—in part because Shelley’s father, William Godwin, suppressed it. This new edition encourages a critical reconsideration of a novella that has been critically stereotyped as biographical and explores its importance to the Romantic debate about suicide.Historical appendices trace the connections between Mathilda and other works by Shelley and by her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, while also providing biographical documents, contemporary works on the theme of incest, and documents on suicide in the Romantic era.For Michelle Faubert’s transcription of Mathilda for the Shelley-Godwin Archive, click here.Trade Review“The Broadview Press edition of Mathilda fills a gap in Romantic studies. The long-suppressed work (Godwin refused to return the manuscript) wasn’t published until 1959, and its immediate critical reception was almost entirely biographical. Michelle Faubert’s astute introduction to this new edition offers a scrupulous account of the work’s critical reception and opens new possibilities for understanding what she calls a ‘purgatorial text.’ The judicious appendices, a hallmark of Broadview Editions, situate Shelley’s novella in the contexts of its immediate intertexts, of its central place in contemporaneous suicide debates, and, crucially, of representations of incest and the Gothic. A paperback edition makes a hitherto neglected text widely available. The sophisticated editorial care evident throughout ensures that this will also serve as the standard scholarly edition.” — Alan Vardy, Hunter College, City University of New York“Michelle Faubert’s beautifully edited version of Mathilda is the first widely available edition to come from a transcription of Shelley’s original 1819 fair copy. Faubert’s lucid and elegant introduction situates Mathilda in the context of Shelley’s earlier Frankenstein (1818) and later novella The Mourner (1830) and discusses its troubled publication history and recent critical reception. Faubert provides a wide range of well-chosen supplementary material to complement both novice and returning readers’ appreciation for and study of Mathilda. This edition should become the standard classroom text of Shelley’s important, engaging, and notorious second novel.” — Katherine Montwieler, University of North Carolina Wilmington“The editor writes with a clear sense of hope that the text may find new readers thanks to this publication. I share her optimism … Overall a superb edition that I hope will indeed breathe new life into the oft-forgotten Mathilda and her haunting tale.” — Anna Mercer, Romantic Circles“This new edition is a welcome addition, and Michelle Faubert offers an affordable volume for use by students, scholars, and general readers, which is accompanied by careful editing and explanatory notes, an authoritative introduction, and accompanying excerpts from contemporary texts. Faubert believes that the work should be better known, and this edition will do much to make it available to readers.” — Lisa Vargo, European Romantic Review“Faubert makes a convincing case in her edition for the need for new eyes to be brought to the text, as her annotations and notes regarding editing nuances and specifics attest. Because of the careful transcription her work has brought to the manuscript as well as the judicious footnotes readers expect from a Broadview edition, Faubert invites readers to reconsider the text and contexts of the novel even as readers are invited to read anew—Faubert’s notes position the edition for both the ‘popular, as well as scholarly, audience’. … Faubert’s careful edition makes a convincing argument for shining light back on this novella again.” — Lucy Morrison, Women’s WritingTable of Contents Awknowledgements Introduction Mary Shelley: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Text Mathilda Appendix A: The Romantic-era Suicide Debate From William Godwin’s An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793) From David Hume’s Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul (1793) From William Rowley’s A Treatise on Female, Nervous, Hysterical … Diseases (1788) From John Francis’ “Sermon III. On Self-Murder” (1749) From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) From Lord Byron’s Manfred (1817) William Wordsworth’s “The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman” (1798) Appendix B: Family Resemblances Full-detail transcription from Mary Shelley’s manuscript of “Mathilda” (1819) From Mary Shelley’s “The Fields of Fancy” (1819) From Mary Shelley’s “The Mourner” (1830) From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) From Mary Wollstonecraft’s Mary, A Fiction (1788) From Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (1798) From Mary Wollstonecraft’s “Cave of Fancy” (composed 1787; published 1798) Appendix C: Incest, the Gothic, Literary Forebears From Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Cenci (1819) From Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Laon and Cythna (1818) From Vittorio Alfieri’s Myrrha (1815) From Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1796) From Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) Appendix D: Biographical Context: Shelley’s Letters and Journals Letter from Godwin to P. B. Shelley on Fanny Imlay’s suicide (1816) From Harriet Shelley’s suicide letter (1816) Letter by Mary Shelley on William Shelley’s final illness (1819) William Godwin’s letter to Mary Shelley on her son’s death (1819)

    1 in stock

    £18.00

  • The Scarlet Pimpernel

    Oxford University Press The Scarlet Pimpernel

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisIs he in heaven?-Is he in hell?That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?Sir Percy Blakeney lives a double life in the England of 1792: at home he is an idle fop and a leader of fashion, but in abroad he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, a master of disguise who saves aristocrats from the guillotine. When the revolutionary French state seeks to unmask him, Percy''s estranged, independent wife, Marguerite, unwittingly sets their agent on her husband''s track. Percy''s escapades, and Marguerite''s daring journey to France to save him from the guillotine, keep the reader turning the pages of Baroness Orczy''s well-paced romantic adventure. Written in just five weeks in 1903, Baroness Emma Orczy''s bestseller has been the basis of multiple adaptations. Rooted in the upheaval of Orczy''s Hungarian childhood, and in the anxious nationalism of turn-of-the-century Britain, the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel provided a blueprint not only for subsequent historical swashbucklers, but for superheroes from Zorro to Superman. The edition places the book The Scarlet Pimpernel within the context of the elite and popular literature of the turn of the century. Orczy''s novel is close in kin to such contemporary political thrillers as Joseph Conrad''s The Secret Agent (1907); tales that channelled contemporary concerns about refugees and enemies within.Trade ReviewNicholas Daly's fine new edition traces the afterlife of the novel in the context of changing public interests, reflecting as it does the shifting definitions of national identity, of social class and of gender. * Dinah Birch, Times Literary Supplement *[The] introduction is excellent... The Scarlet Pimpernel itself is worth a few hours of anyone's attention. * Hayley Anderton, Desperate Reader *

    1 in stock

    £9.49

  • Espasa-Calpe SA Mujeres

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £14.65

  • Alianza Editorial Mitos y Literatura Maya

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £12.96

  • Ensayo sobre la ceguera / Blindness

    Debolsillo Ensayo sobre la ceguera / Blindness

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £13.25

  • Todos los nombres / All the Names

    Debolsillo Todos los nombres / All the Names

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £13.95

  • Todo se desmorona / Things Fall Apart

    Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial Todo se desmorona / Things Fall Apart

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £9.62

  • Terrifying Transformations: An Anthology of Victorian Werewolf Fiction, 1838-1896

    15 in stock

    £18.63

  • Three Novels

    Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press Three Novels

    5 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    5 in stock

    £14.04

  • Oetinger Verlag Ich will auch in die Schule gehen

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £15.26

  • Der Rauber Hotzenplotz

    Thienemanns (K.) Verlag Der Rauber Hotzenplotz

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £8.36

  • Against Nature

    Dedalus Ltd Against Nature

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £8.99

  • Swamp Angel

    McClelland & Stewart Inc. Swamp Angel

    10 in stock

    Book SynopsisWalking out on a demoralizing second marriage, Maggie Lloyd leaves Vancouver to work at a fishing lodge in the interior of British Columbia. But the serenity of Maggie’s new surroundings is soon disturbed by the irrational jealousy of the lodge-keeper’s wife. Restoring her own broken spirit, Maggie must also become a healer to others. In this, she is supported by her eccentric friend, Nell Severance, whose pearl-handled revolver - the Swamp Angel - becomes Maggie’s ambiguous talisman and the novel’s symbolic core.Ethel Wilson’s best-loved novel, Swamp Angel first appeared in 1954. It remains an astute and powerful study of one woman’s integrity and of the redemptive power of compassion.

    10 in stock

    £14.36

  • Le Comte de Monte Cristo 1

    Librairie generale francaise Le Comte de Monte Cristo 1

    7 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    7 in stock

    £10.40

  • Le Comte de Monte-Cristo 1

    Editions Flammarion Le Comte de Monte-Cristo 1

    15 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    15 in stock

    £11.88

  • Librairie generale francaise Eugenie Grandet

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £6.85

  • Le pere Goriot

    Librairie generale francaise Le pere Goriot

    3 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    3 in stock

    £7.22

  • After-Supper Ghost Stories: Annotated Edition

    Alma Books Ltd After-Supper Ghost Stories: Annotated Edition

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisAs they relax after dinner on Christmas Eve, the members of a family and their guests turn to telling ghost stories. These ghoulish accounts range from the melancholy to the macabre, and get increasingly bizarre as the ghosts leap out of the tales and make an appearance in the family’s home. Fact and fiction, the real and unreal collide, until the reader is not sure who is haunting whom. A masterful work of comic horror, Jerome K. Jerome’s After-Supper Ghost Stories is a witty look at why Christmas Eve is so perfect for ghost stories and why ghosts love the Yuletide season.Table of ContentsContains: After-Supper Ghost Stories, Evergreens, Clocks, Tea Kettles, A Pathetic Story, The New Utopia.

    3 in stock

    £7.59

  • A Gothic Soul

    Twisted Spoon Press A Gothic Soul

    5 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    5 in stock

    £12.82

  • Iola Leroy: or, Shadows Uplifted

    Broadview Press Ltd Iola Leroy: or, Shadows Uplifted

    3 in stock

    Book SynopsisFrances Harper’s fourth novel follows the life of the beautiful, light-skinned Iola Leroy to tell the story of black families in slavery, during the Civil War, and after Emancipation. Iola Leroy adopts and adapts three genres that commanded significant audiences in the nineteenth century: the sentimental romance, the slave narrative, and plantation fiction. Written by the foremost black woman activist of the nineteenth century, the novel sheds light on the movements for abolition, public education, and voting rights through a compelling narrative. This edition engages the latest research on Harper’s life and work and offers ways to teach these major moments in United States history by centering the experiences of African Americans. The appendices provide primary documents that help readers do what they are seldom encouraged to do: consider the experiences and perspectives of people who are not white. The Introduction traces Harper’s biography and the changing critical perspectives on the novel. Trade Review“Edited by one of the finest scholars of American literature, this Broadview edition of the much beloved, popular nineteenth-century classic Iola Leroy commands new attention and demonstrates fresh relevance. Koritha Mitchell elegantly argues for the merits of this early novel as an African American community text, based on its aesthetic qualities, the political currents that shaped it, and the material realities of its production, circulation, and readership. Appendices of thoughtfully curated secondary sources that privilege the firsthand testimonies of early African Americans about emancipatory, intellectual, social, and cultural matters, and that feature more creative and critical selections by Harper, bring distinction to this teachable, accessible edition. If one wishes to understand how the aftermath of enslavement has influenced and continues to shape the African American literary tradition and national conversations among and about African Americans, the Broadview edition of Iola Leroy is a necessary place to begin.” — Barbara McCaskill, University of Georgia“Koritha Mitchell gives us the definitive edition of Iola Leroy, a novel that reflects the mature insight and creative prowess of teacher, activist, and writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Readers are guided through this compelling saga of post–Civil War race, gender, class, and politics by Mitchell’s patient, expert hand. Her original interpretations are enriched by careful attention to the important debates that have always surrounded Harper’s work. Return to this edition again and again to discover the many meanings embedded in Iola Leroy and in Harper’s gifted prose.” — Martha S. Jones, Johns Hopkins University“Koritha Mitchell’s Broadview Press edition is a triumph and a gift to the field. Her critical work in this volume ensures that generations of readers will recognize the novel as a touchstone in their literary educations and imaginations.… Like all the best critical and cultural editions, it serves as a model for the kind of scholarship we want to write and help our students to write. The contextual materials that bookend Mitchell’s introduction and the novel itself serve not only as citations for her critical throughlines but also as an invitation to readers to be more aware of how they read texts through one another. Mitchell has produced an unparalleled resource that positions Iola Leroy as a definitive text, and her editorial provocation urges us to keep reading, rereading, and reconsidering this novel.” —Mollie Barnes, Legacy“Koritha Mitchell’s new cultural edition of Harper’s fourth novel, Iola Leroy; Or, Shadows of Uplift (first published in 1892), provides a compelling new entry in this tradition and an indispensable resource for those who assign Harper regularly or who have hesitated to teach Iola out of concern for the syllabus space required to get students up to speed on its historical and cultural contexts. Mitchell’s introduction on its own is worth the price of admission, as it synthesizes the latest work in Harper studies and situates Iola within it. … In addition to her biographical and bibliographic work, Mitchell offers a fresh take on Iola’s form and politics. Iola, Mitchell posits, ‘exemplifies the dynamism and complexity of … “community conversation” … the broad, dynamic discussions among African Americans about the countless issues affecting community members’ life chances and well-being’ (30). Throughout, Mitchell foregrounds Harper’s abiding faith in black communities and incisive critiques of white supremacy.…“Mitchell’s critical apparatus speaks to previous scholars’ monumental efforts to make Harper studies a robust field. It speaks also to an ethics of citation that should be emulated. This cultural edition offers the nineteenth century in a box, robust enough to anchor a course in which Iola represents either the ‘early’ or ‘late’ text. Mitchell’s attention to the intersections of form, literary history, and politics make it an ideal edition for graduate seminars, exam lists, and research, as well.” — Derrick R. Spires, African American ReviewTable of Contents Appendix A: Slavery, Civil War & Emancipation, Reconstruction & Its Demise 1. Fugitive Slave Act (1850) 2. United States Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, The Dred Scott Decision (1857) 3. First Confiscation Act (1861) 4. Second Confiscation Act (1862) 5. The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) 6. The Freedmen's Bureau Act (1865) 7. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) 8. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) 9. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) 10. The Compromise of 1877 11. United States Supreme Court Justice Billings Brown, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Appendix B: Not White? Then, You Can't Be Equal 1. 1. Abraham Lincoln, Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes (1862) 2. 2. Frances Harper, ""Mrs. Frances E. Watkins Harper on the War and the President's 3. Colonization Scheme"" (1862) 4. 3. Michigan Supreme Court Justice James Campbell, The People v. Dean (1866) Appendix C: Black Families in Slavery and Freedom 1. From Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass… (1845) 2. Dictated Letter, from enslaved husband to wife when separated by owner 3. Dictated Letter, from enslaved husband to wife when separated by owner 4. Dictated letter, from enslaved wife to husband when separated by owner 5. ""Arrest of Fugitive Slaves,"" Cincinnati Gazette (29 January 1856) 6. Frances Harper, ""The Slave Mother: A Tale of Ohio"" (1857) 7. Testimony about enslaved men and women who escaped slavery to join the Union 8. effort and often planned to return to help family members escape (1863) 9. Letter from a black soldier to his children (1864) 10. Letter from a black soldier to the owner of one of his daughters (1864) 11. Notices in hopes of finding lost loved ones after Emancipation a. From Colored Tennessean (Nashville) (24 March 1866) b. From Christian Recorder (24 March 1866) c. From Christian Recorder (28 January 1871) d. From Southwestern Christian Advocate (17 July 1879) e. From Christian Recorder (5 October 1882) f. From Christian Recorder (3 January 1884) g. From Loyal Georgian (Augusta, Ga.) (13 October 1886) h. From Christian Recorder (6 January 1893) Appendix D: Education in Slavery and Freedom 1. A law making the education of enslaved people illegal 2. Account about an enslaved woman who ran a midnight school 3. Account of teaching/learning in secret during slavery 4. An account of finding the spark for learning while enslaved 5. Accounts of the consequences of learning to read and write 6. Account of black soldiers wanting education 7. Account of recently emancipated people's eagerness to learn 8. Testimony on KKK preventing school attendance after Emancipation Appendix E: Preventing Freedom Even After Emancipation 1. Laws constraining black girls and boys via apprenticeship and African Americans of every age via vagrancy statutes (1865) 2. Testimony about KKK raping black women whose husbands/fathers voted (1871) 3. From Henry W. Grady, ""The Race Problem in the South"" (1889) 4. From Ida B. Wells, The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States (1895) Appendix F: Black Women's Activism 1. Frances Harper, ""We Are All Bound Up Together"" (1866) 2. Frances Harper, ""Aunt Chloe's Politics"" (1872) 3. Frances Harper, ""Colored Women of America"" (1878) 4. Frances Harper, ""The Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Colored Woman"" (1888) 5. Frances Harper, ""Enlightened Motherhood: An Address … Before the Brooklyn Literary Society"" (15 November 1892) 6. Fannie Barrier Williams, ""The Intellectual Progress of The Colored Women of the United States Since The Emancipation Proclamation"" (1893) Appendix G: Being Black and a Woman: Aesthetics and Reception 1. William J. Watkins, ""The Reformer"" (1854) 2. Grace Greenwood, Impressions of Harper as a speaker (1866) 3. From Anna Julia Cooper, ""The Status of Woman in America"" (1892) 4. ""Publications Reviewed,"" Christian Recorder (12 January 1893) 5. ""Review 1,"" The Independent (5 January 1893) 6. Richmond Planet (21 January1893) 7. ""Recent Fiction,"" The Nation (23 February 1893) 8. From ""Our Book List,"" The A.M.E. Church Review (April 1893) 9. ""Book Review,"" Friends' Review; a Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal (22 June 1893) 10. Review of Reviews (January 1895) 11. ""Recent Fiction,"" The Independent (29 October 1896) 12. Edward Elmore Brock, ""Brock's Literary Leaves,"" Freeman (Indianapolis) (14 August 1897) 13. [W.E.B. Du Bois], ""Writers,"" Crisis (April 1911)

    3 in stock

    £18.00

  • The House of the Dead

    Alma Books Ltd The House of the Dead

    7 in stock

    Book SynopsisThe House of the Dead recounts the story of Alexander Goryanchikov, a gentleman who is sent to a prison colony in Siberia for killing his wife. Largely ignored at first by his fellow inmates due to his noble blood, he gradually settles in and becomes an avid observer of the new world around him – watching his fellow prisoners being brutally and cruelly punished by the guards, listening to their past stories of blood and murder, assimilating the institution’s social codes and learning that even convicts are capable of acts of pure generosity. Based on Dostoevsky’s own autobiographical experiences of penal servitude in Siberia, this genre-defying novel is not only an unflinching exposé of the conditions faced by prisoners during the Tsarist period, but also a call to see the human side in criminals and rediscover the values of forgiveness and compassion. Based on Dostoevsky's own autobiographical experiences during a four-year internment in a prison colony in Siberia, this genre-defying novel is not only an unflinching expose of the conditions of Russian prisoners during the Tsarist period, but also a call to see the human side in criminals and rediscover the values of forgiveness and brotherly love.Trade Review[An example] of the highest art in literature, flowing from love of God and man. -- Leo Tolstoy

    7 in stock

    £8.54

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