Classics Books

Book SynopsisNamed a Best Book of the Year by The Advocate and Tor.comA love story of two very real, unusual people, and a novel rich with wonders that shines a radically different light on society's marginal figures.Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive, but graceful, unique and with surprising depths. Perhaps that's why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector's magazine.Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped; and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.On his journey through the old towns of England he reads the fairytales of Ewa Chaplin—potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice—to remain alone with their painful pasts or break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.

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Book SynopsisRevisit one of the great adventure novels and classics of animal literature—now with a foreword by E.L. Doctorow One of the greatest American storytellers, Jack London enjoyed phenomenal popularity in his own time and remains widely read throughout the world. His work is characterized by thrilling action, an intuitive feeling for animal life, and a sense of justice that often manifests itself through violence. The Call of the Wild, perhaps the best novel ever written about animals, traces a dog’s sudden entry into the wild and his education in survival among the wolves. Library of America Paperback Classics feature authoritative texts drawn from the acclaimed Library of America series and introduced by today’s most distinguished scholars and writers. Each book features a detailed chronology of the author’s life and career, and essay on the choice of the text, and notes. The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Jack London: Novels and Stories, volume number 6 in The Library of America series. It is joined in the series by a companion volume, number 7, Jack London: Novels and Social Writings.

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Book Synopsis"The Red Badge of Courage is the definitive fiction of the conflict that stands as the central trauma in American history." -- Larzer Ziff Before his untimely death at the age of 28, Stephen Crane produced the most innovative writing of his generation. Begun when he was just 21, The Red Badge of Courage is the powerful story of a young Union soldier under fire for the first time. It remains our greatest novel of the Civil War, and a major contribution to the literature of war in English. With its publication, American fiction entered the modern age. For almost thirty years, The Library of America has presented America''s best and most significant writing in acclaimed hardcover editions. Now, a new series, Library of America Paperback Classics, offers attractive and affordable books that bring The Library of America''s authoritative texts within easy reach of every reader. Each book features an introductory essay by one of a leading writer, as well as a detailed chronology of the author''s life and career, an essay on the choice and history of the text, and notes. The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Stephen Crane: Prose and Poetry, volume number 18 in the Library of America series. That volume also includes Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, George''s Mother, The Third Violet, The Monster, war correspondence and journalism, and collected and uncollected poetry.

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Book Synopsis"The most powerful and enduring work of art ever written about American slavery." -Alfred Kazin When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, he greeted her as "the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war." He was exaggerating only slightly. First published in 1852, Uncle Tom''s Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year and brought home the evils of slavery more dramatically than any abolitionist tract possibly could. With its boldly drawn characters, violent reversals of fortune, and unabashed sentimentality, Stowe''s work remains one of the great polemical novels of American literature, a book with the emotional impact of a round of cannon fire. For almost thirty years, The Library of America has presented America''s best and most significant writing in acclaimed hardcover editions. Now, a new series, Library of America Paperback Classics, offers attractive and affordable books that bring The Library of America''s authoritative texts within easy reach of every reader. Each book features an introductory essay by one of a leading writer, as well as a detailed chronology of the author''s life and career, an essay on the choice and history of the text, and notes. The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Harriet Beecher Stowe: Three Novels, volume number 4 in The Library of America series. That volume also includes The Minister''s Wooing and Oldtown Folks.

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Book Synopsis"Mark Twain is the true father of all American literature." -Eugene O''Neill Mark Twain is perhaps the most widely read and enjoyed of all our national writers. Tom Sawyer, according to Twain, "is simply a hymn put into prose form to give it a worldly air," a book in which nostalgia is so strong that it dissolves the tensions and perplexities that assert themselves in the later works. It is filled with comic and melodramatic adventure, with horseplay and poetic evocations of scenery, and with characters who have become central to American mythology. For almost thirty years, The Library of America has presented America''s best and most significant writing in acclaimed hardcover editions. Now, a new series, Library of America Paperback Classics, offers attractive and affordable books that bring The Library of America''s authoritative texts within easy reach of every reader. Each book features an introductory essay by one of a leading writer, as well as a detailed chronology of the author''s life and career, an essay on the choice and history of the text, and notes. The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings, volume number 5 in the Library of America series. It is joined in the series by six companion volumes, gathering the collected works of Mark Twain.

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Book SynopsisNearly thirty years in the making, The Library of America's eleven-volume edition of the complete fiction of Henry James now culminates with this authoritative volume collecting his final three finished works. Considered by James to be his most finely constructed novel, The Ambassadors (1903) recounts the attempts of a conscientious American to convince the son of a friend to return home from Paris-and in doing so plays the charm of the Old World against the provincialism of the New. In The Golden Bowl (1904), an American woman marries an Italian prince while her father unknowingly marries the prince's former mistress; James underscores both the fragility and strength of human ties and further develops what he once called the "complex fate, being an American." Originally written for the stage but never produced, James reworked The Outcry (1911) into a highly successful comic novel of social manners that also deals with the ethics of art collecting. Included as an appendix is "The Married Son," the chapter James contributed to The Whole Family (1908), a multi-author novel conceived by William Dean Howells and portraying a dysfunctional family whose struggles mirror the frustrated collaborative efforts of the book's twelve contributors.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisFirst published anonymously in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex- Colored Man has electrified readers ever since with its stark portrayal of the color line in America and its daring modernist style. Now The Library of America presents an annotated centennial edition, introduced by National Book Award Winner Charles R. Johnson (Middle Passage).

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Book SynopsisOriginally published from 1932 to 1943, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books are classics of children’s literature, beloved by millions. But readers who last enjoyed them as children may be astonished at the quiet poetry of Wilder’s prose and the force and poignancy of her portrait of the lives of American pioneers. Now The Library of America and editor Caroline Fraser present a new two-volume edition that affirms Wilder’s place in the American canon, reintroducing these enduring works to readers young and old. Here, for the first time in two collectible hardcover volumes, are all eight Little House novels—brilliant narratives of the early life of Laura Ingalls and her family as they grow up with the country in the woods, on the plains, and finally in the small towns of the advancing American frontier—plus the posthumous novella The First Four Years, which recounts the early years of the author’s marriage to Almanzo Wilder. This second volume includes By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years, plus two rare autobiographical pieces that reveal real life events not included in the novels and address the inevitable question: what happened next?A companion volume gathers Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie,and On the Banks of Plum Creek.Each volume features a newly-researched chronology of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life and career, and helpful notes. The volumes are also available in a deluxe collector’s boxed set, The Little House Books: The Library of America Collection.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisLibrary of America presents a definitive collection of classic Westerns by America''s master modern crime writer One of the great storytellers of our time, Elmore Leonard perfected his craft writing Westerns, a genre he loved. These tales--some adapted into such outstanding films as Hombre, Valdez Is Coming, and 3:10 to Yuma--are unexcelled for their wiry tautness, sharp characterizations, and jolts of unexpected humor. For sheer stripped-down narrative tension Leonard never did anything better, and the fresh twists he finds in resolving the genre''s classic confrontations reveal a master at work. Whether describing a Civil War veteran coming back to find his homestead stolen (Last Stand at Saber River), a man raised by Apaches treated with contempt by the white settlers who will ultimately depend on him for their survival (Hombre), a local constable, tricked into killing an innocent man, fighting back against the powerful man who duped him (Valdez Is Coming), or two convicts in a desert prison--one African American and the other half-Apache--plotting a near-impossible escape (Forty Lashes Less One), Leonard''s westerns are tough, suspenseful, convincing, and beautifully spare in style.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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Book SynopsisThe American Revolution comes to vivid life in two dramatic tales of espionage, intrigue, and romance from the author of The Last of Mohicans.

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Book SynopsisLibrary of America launches its long-awaited Hemingway edition with a landmark collection of writings from his breakthrough years, in newly edited, authoritative texts.With a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway travelled to Paris in 1921. There, he ame into contact with Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, and other expatriate writers and artists integral to his rapid development as a writer. This volume brings together work from the extraordinary period of 1918 to 1926, in which Hemingway's famous prose style became fully formed. It includes his work for the Toronto Star and Hearst's International News Service, the indelible stories of In Our Time (1925), The Torrents of Spring (1925), and his masterpiece, The Sun Also Rises (1926).Edited by Hemingway scholar Robert W. Trogdon, this volume features newly edited, corrected texts of In Our Time, The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises, fixing errors and restoring Hemingway’s original punctuation. It presents the 1924 edition of in our time issued by Three Mountains Press as a modernist masterpiece in its own right, apart from the subsequent versions published by Boni & Liveright and Scribners. It includes the story “Up in Michigan,” one of only a few stories dating from the period before 1923 that was not lost in Hemingway’s suitcase in the Gare de Lyon and that was originally intended as the opening story of In Our Time, and the hard-to-find, previously uncollected story “A Divine Gesture.” Also here are a selection of Hemingway’s letters from the period, which cast light on his breakthrough years and at the extraordinary international modernist moment of which he was a crucial part.

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Book SynopsisFour classic novels of psychologically-driven horror from the author of The Haunting of Hill House include her 1948 debut tale of the secrets lurking beneath suburbia to the 1958 story of a mourning family convinced the world is ending .

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Book SynopsisIn 1852, young Walt Whitman – a down-on-his-luck housebuilder in Brooklyn – was hard at work writing two books. One would become one of the most famous volumes of poetry in American history, a free-verse revelation beloved the world over, Leaves of Grass. The other, a novel, would be published under a pseudonym and serialized in a newspaper. A short, rollicking story of orphanhood, avarice, and adventure in New York City, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle appeared to little fanfare. Then it disappeared. No one laid eyes on it until 2016, when literary scholar Zachary Turpin, University of Houston, followed a paper trail deep into the Library of Congress, where the sole surviving copy of Jack Engle has lain waiting for generations. Now, after more than 160 years, the University of Iowa Press is honored to reprint this lost work, restoring a missing piece of American literature by one of the world's greatest authors, written as he verged on immortality.

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Book SynopsisSelections from one of the great classics of literature--now part of the Shambhala Pocket Library.In July 1845, Henry David Thoreau built a small cottage in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and began to write Walden, a chronicle of his communion with nature. Since its first publication in 1854, the work has become a classic, beloved for its message of living simply and in harmony with nature. This abridged edition of Walden features exquisite wood engravings by Michael McCurdy and a foreword by noted author and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams, who reflects upon Thoreau’s message that as we explore our world and ourselves, we draw closer to the truth of our connectedness.This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series.The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.

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Book SynopsisTowards the end of the war as the Germans are in their final retreat in November 1918, a British raiding party stumbles across a strange and eerie scene in a ruined chateau, under fire. Following the strains of a familiar tune, and understandably perplexed as to who would be playing the piano in the midst of shellfire, they discover a German officer lying dead at the keys, next to a beautiful woman in full evening dress, also deceased. But the officer is the spitting image of G B Bretherton, a British officer missing in action…. So follows a tale of mystery and identity, first published in 1930, which is not only an authentic account of conditions at the Front, but also a remarkable thriller, with a highly unusual plot, which won Bretherton comparisons to John Buchan and the best of the espionage writers. John Squire, the influential editor of the London Mercury said ‘of the English war-books, undoubtedly the best is Bretherton.’ The Morning Post thought it ‘one of the best of the English war novels. I do not expect anything much better.’ The Sunday Times pinpointed its dual attraction: it was both ‘a mystery as exciting as a good detective story and an extraordinarily vivid account of trench-warfare’.

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Book Synopsis‘Already loose sand had drifted over the stamped-down square which momentarily had distinguished the subaltern’s grave: no there was no sign, no mark, no indication whatsoever. There had been, here, eleven men. Now ten rode away’ In the Mesopotamian desert during World War I, the leader of a British patrol is shot and killed, by an unseen enemy. The officer is the only one who knows their orders and has not told anyone else where they are located. From then on the sergeant has to try to lead the men through a hostile desert landscape which is full of invisible Arab snipers. One by one they are picked off, and the group of diverse characters from different backgrounds has to try to come together in order to survive. The decision making process proves far from easy as tensions and prejudices from their former lives come to the fore. This thrilling tale of suspense goes right to the last page and was a best seller in the 1920s. The novel was filmed twice, by Walter Summers (as Lost Patrol in 1929) and by John Ford (as The Lost Patrol in 1934).Trade ReviewThe basis for films by Walter Summer and John Ford, this bestselling novel is a suspenseful tale of the Great War for readers of Robert Graves or Ford Madox Ford—or anyone who enjoys an action-packed war story. Author Philip MacDonald, who served in Mesopotamia with the British cavalry, went on to become one of the most popular writers of thrillers and detective fiction. * Books Monthly *It works perfectly well as a suspense-driven thriller, but it also tells us something as a historical document. Written in 1927 by Philip MacDonald, one of the most popular authors of inter-war potboilers, it has the whiff of authenticity about it, and with good reason. MacDonald served in Britain’s largely calamitous Mesopotamian campaign during WW1 and Patrol (with its story of a directionless, doomed mission) seems to be his angry response to that military misadventure. * History of War Magazine *

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Book SynopsisIn what renowned translator Arthur Goldhammer called “a piano reduction of an orchestral score,” the first volume of Stéphane Heuet’s adaptation of In Search of Lost Time electrified the graphic community like no other—re-presenting the novel for anyone who has always dreamed of reading Proust but was put off by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. Whereas the first volume described the narrator’s childhood in the pastoral town of Combray, the second volume portrays the narrator’s foray into adolescence, set in the opulent seaside resort of Balbec. Preserving Proust’s original dissection of the spontaneity of youth, translator Laura Marris captures the narrator’s infatuation with his playmates—his memories of their intoxicating afternoons together unfolding as if in a dream. Featuring some of Proust’s most memorable characters—from mysterious Charlus to beguiling young Albertine—this second volume becomes a necessary companion piece for any lover of modern literature.

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Book SynopsisFaulkner’s debut novel, Soldiers’ Pay (1926), is among the most memorable works to emerge from the First World War. Through the story of a wounded veteran’s homecoming, it examines the impact of soldiers’ return from war on the people—particularly the women—who were left behind.

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Book SynopsisA towering figure in the pantheon of twentieth-century literature, Thomas Mann has often been perceived as a dry and forbidding writer—“the starched collar,” as Bertolt Brecht once called him. But in fact, his fiction is lively, humane, sometimes hilarious. In these fresh renderings of his best short work, award-winning translator Damion Searls casts new light on this underappreciated aspect of Mann’s genius. The headliner of this volume, “Chaotic World and Childhood Sorrow” (in its first new translation since 1936)—a subtle masterpiece that reveals the profound emotional significance of everyday life—is Mann’s tender but sharp-eyed portrait of the “Bigs” and “Littles” of the bourgeois Cornelius family as they adjust to straitened circumstances in hyperinflationary Weimar Germany. Here, too, is a free-standing excerpt from Mann’s first novel, Buddenbrooks—a sensation when it was first published. “Death in Venice” (also included in this volume) is Mann’s most famous story, but less well known is that he intended it to be a diptych with another, comic story—included here as “Confessions of a Con Artist, by Felix Krull.” “Louisey”—a tale of sexual humiliation that gives a first glimpse of Mann’s lifelong ambivalence about the power of art—rounds out this revelatory, transformative collection.Trade Review"Searls infuses the prose of Nobel laureate Mann (1875–1955) with momentum and energy in this excellent collection. English-language readers will find the humor and digressive appeal of Mann’s prose enhanced... A well-chosen excerpt from the novel Confessions of a Con Artist, by Felix Krull exhibits a connection between the title character, a peripatetic young man, and Mann’s other protagonists: “What a royal gift the imagination is, and what pleasure it affords us!” Felix narrates. Throughout, the characters are linked by their unspeakable desires, and their inner worlds are just as significant as, and often more so than, their actions. Scholars as well as those new to Mann will find much to appreciate in Searls’s stimulating approach." -- Publishers Weekly"Searls' superb translations of Mann’s most essential short works emphasize moments of despair and levity, breathing fresh humanity into the stories of the famously solemn German literary giant . . . Searls is meticulous in his attention to German-language nuance but intuitive in channeling the tensions and rhythms of his source material. His introduction reveals a deep fascination with Mann’s complexities, and an anxiety that Mann might soon be dismissed as a twentieth-century relic with little relevance to today’s readers. His work here goes a long way toward preventing that from happening." -- Brendan Driscoll - Booklist"In his witty, insightful, and charming introduction, Searls makes some useful observations about why Mann’s personal life is worth addressing . . . It’s a useful reminder of the subversive power of cultural hybridity — a writer whose Germanness was central to his public identity in fact contained multitudes." -- Matt Hanson - Arts Fuse"[A] trip into timeless themes of youthful innocence; the perpetual struggle between discipline and desire; and more. Readers turn to Mann not for lickety-split action but to take a literary amble through poetic sentences; those in the market for old-school leisure won't be disappointed." -- Michael Magras - Shelf Awareness"I have long loved Thomas Mann's subtlety, erudition, and elegant mind, but it wasn't until reading these newly translated stories that I picked up the range of the author's irony and humor. The art of translation seems to me the most delicate and precise of literary arts, and Damion Searls stands at the very apex of translators into English." -- Lauren Groff, author of Matrix"Damion Searls has produced the perfect Mann translation; the author’s erudition and aesthetic sensibility are mutually enhanced instead of one being sacrificed for the other. Mann has never been more readable in English, and the English reader never more aware of the shining beauty of the source." -- Anton Hur, translator"Although Mann’s stories are more than a century old, Damion Searls’s new translations capture the writer’s sly humor and warmth, making these short masterpieces feel wholly modern. Readers who know Mann will see him anew; for those who haven’t read him yet, this collection is a superb introduction to one of the greats." -- Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind"Searls’s selections of this funny, ironic, exceptionally readable 20th-century writer’s work are as inspired as his engaging and lucid translations: here we have the slow-burning torment and humiliation of 'Louisey,' the charming irony of 'Confessions of a Con Artist, By Felix Krull,' the startling emotional acuity of 'A Day in the Life of Hanno Buddenbrook,' and the great rediscovery, 'Chaotic World and Childhood Sorrow,' which condenses a novel’s worth of empathy, family conflict, and fine-grained observation into a riveting story less than forty pages long. Towering above all is 'Death in Venice'—the extraordinary pandemic tale, refreshed and haunting in its best-ever translation. I’ve spent years waiting for the Mannaissance—the publication of New Selected Stories will, at last, bring it into being." -- Mark Krotov, coeditor, n+1"In this vigorous new version . . . Searls takes pains to bring Mann’s decades-old prose to life without anachronism or false breeziness . . . A well-chosen, confidently translated gathering of stories that casts new light on its author." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

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Book SynopsisThe last novel from the acclaimed author of The Artificial Silk Girl, this 1950 classic paints a delightfully shrewd portrait of postwar German society.   Upon his release from a prisoner-of-war camp, Ferdinand Timpe returns somewhat uneasily to civilian life in Cologne. Having survived against the odds, he is now faced with a very different sort of dilemma: How to get rid of his fiancée? Although he certainly doesn’t love the mild-mannered Luise, Ferdinand is too considerate to break off the engagement himself, so he sets about finding her a suitable replacement husband—no easy task given Luise’s high standards and those of her father, formerly a proud middle-ranking Nazi official.Featuring a lively cast of characters—from Ferdinand’s unscrupulous landlady with her black-market schemes to his beguiling cousin Johanna and the many loves of her life—Ferdinand captures a distinct moment in Germany’s history, when its people were coming to terms with World War II and searching for a way forward. In Irmgard Keun’s effervescent prose, the story feels remarkably modern.

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Book SynopsisRepressed desires, irresistible obsessions, and perception-twisting games. When lady’s maid Marian Osley and footman Valentine Hobbs assume their positions at the cliff-top estate of Valor Rise, they already share a history. Raised together as paupers in a London workhouse, they escaped through games of imaginary crimes and sublime punishment. Now they’ve been unexpectedly reunited—in subservience to the brooding Wythe Bornholdt and his frail wife, Diana. A master and mistress with their own dark secrets. In private, Marian and Valentine return to their playful and addictive games—now tinged with BDSM. But when lecherous Wythe sees something he desires in Marian, he turns the pair’s diversions violently against them. The line between servitude and bondage is drawn, and the dynamics of dominance and submission will shift in this sensually charged novel of Gothic suspense.Trade Review“Don’t stop ‘till you get enough…which you won’t.” —P. J. Vernon, award-nominated author of Bath Haus “McGuckin pens the kind of book that draws all attention and then ambushes with deadly secrets. Delicious, seductive, dangerous, On Good Authority keeps us bound tight to the page. Wouldn't have it any other way.” —Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth “On Good Authority is a tantalizing tale of upstairs-downstairs, manor house intrigue that crackles with desire and dread. Readers will be hard-pressed to put it down once they're caught in its grip.” —Kelly J. Ford, author of Cottonmouths and Real Bad Things

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From debut author Jen Wheeler comes a spellbinding tale about the dangers a nineteenth-century woman encounters as she flees a tragic past to the menacing Farallon Islands. Thirty miles off the coast of San Francisco lie the Farallon Islands, known to sailors as the Devil’s Teeth. Despite their fearsome reputation, their remote nature appeals to young Lucy Riley, who in 1859 seeks a new start as a teacher to the lighthouse keepers’ children. But Lucy brings treacherous secrets with her, including a name that isn’t hers and a past she can’t escape. On the island, she meets Will Sisson, a mysterious man who seems to recognize her name—but not her face. Wary of Will at first, Lucy slowly starts to trust him. As Lucy embeds herself in the island’s community, she discovers numerous dangers: deadly cliffs, shark-infested waters, and disorienting fogs. A dark presence of another sort, too, disguises an encroaching threat. In this forbidding place, Lucy must find the courage to confront the perils of her past and the ever-present dangers of the world around her for the new life she’s sought to finally begin.

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Book SynopsisBaron Munchausen’s hold on the European imagination dates back to the late eighteenth century when he first pulled himself (and his horse) out of a swamp by his own upturned pigtail. Inspired by the extravagant yarns of a straight-faced former cavalry officer, Hieronymus von Münchhausen, the best-selling legend quickly eclipsed the real-life baron who helped the Russians fight the Turks. Galloping across continents and centuries, the mythical Munchausen’s Travels went through hundreds of editions of increasing length and luxuriance. Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the Russian modernist master of the unsettling and the uncanny, also took certain liberties with the mythical baron. In this phantasmagoric roman à clef set in 1920s Berlin, London, and Moscow, Munchausen dauntlessly upholds his old motto “Truth in lies,” while remaining a fierce champion of his own imagination. At the same time, the two-hundred-year-old baron and self-taught philosopher has agreed to return to Russia, Lenin’s Russia, undercover. This reluctant secret agent has come out of retirement to engage with the real world.

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Book SynopsisDefoe’s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone—a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Trade Review"With its informative introduction and annotations by Novak, Rothman, and Schonhorn, this new edition is a welcome attempt to restore The Farther Adventures’ status as an essential part of the Crusoe story. Continuing its hero’s exploration of global religious and cultural differences, Farther Adventures takes Crusoe from Europe to the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Russia. The urgent questions Defoe explores will fascinate anyone interested in early eighteenth-century ideas about the nature of humanity and English understandings of the wider world. An exemplary instance of literary and bibliographical scholarship, the Stoke-Newington edition of The Farther Adventures is also a great adventure story with the power to enthrall readers." -- Nicholas Seager * coeditor of The Afterlives of Eighteenth-Century Fiction *Table of ContentsContributors List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Note on the TextThe Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Notifications of Books Printed and Sold Textual Notes Bibliographic Descriptions Variants Selected Bibliography About the Editors Index

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