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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.

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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.

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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)

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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

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Book SynopsisA collector’s edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, with letters, poems and a biography of their creator, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Featuring over 100 black and white illustrations by Arthur Rackham, Sir John Tenniel, Henry Holiday and Arthur B. Frost.

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Book Synopsis New York Times Best Seller! 1500 5-Star Reviews! From the author that brought you NEW YORK TIMES best sellersThe Harbinger, The Mystery of the Shemitah, and The Paradigm with over 3 MILLION copies sold Enter a life-changing journey? to uncover the MYSTERIES OF GOD, the SECRETS OF THE AGES, and the HIDDEN KEYS to open the doors of a life of joy, blessing, and the fulfillment of YOUR DESTINY. As you open up The Book of Mysteries, you will be transported on a journey through a desert to encounter a man known only as ?the teacher,? who will take you on an odyssey to mountaintops, caverns, encampments of tent dwellers, and oil-lit chambers of scrolls, ancient books, and mysterious vessels. Each day a new mystery will be revealed, including: The Mystery of the Eighth Day, The Maccabean Blueprint, The Chiasma, The Seven Mysteries of the Age, and much more? even the mystery of your life! Partake in the voyage and unlock the treasure chest to uncover the mysteries of the ages. And with 365 mysteries, one for each day of the journey?and of the year, The Book of Mysteries is also a daily devotional unlike any other?with things never before revealed, the most important keys of spiritual truth, end-time revelation, and the secrets of overcoming?It can even change your life!

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a prince to take care his foundations be good, otherwise his fabric will be sure to fail.'Considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli's The Prince is an intense study on the nature of power and the course it should take when ruling a country and expresses the author's strong and unyielding ideals and beliefs on using force rather than law to achieve your aims.Responsible for the widely-used phrase Machiavellian', with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text to this day.

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Book SynopsisOne of BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.Virginia Woolf’s wildly imaginative, comic novel was inspired by the life of her lover, Vita Sackville West. 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 features original illustrations and with an introduction by the academic and novelist, Professor Susan Sellers.Orlando is a young Elizabethan nobleman whose wealth and status afford him an extravagant lifestyle. Appointed ambassador in Constantinople, he wakes one morning to find he is a woman. Unperturbed by such a dramatic transformation, and losing none of his flamboyance and ambition, the newly female Orlando charges through life and English history so that by the end of this extraordinary biography she is a modern, 1920s woman.

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Book SynopsisWhen the orphaned William refuses his uncles’ proposal to become a clergyman and angrily leaves his job in the counting-house of his brother’s mill, he decides to accept a position as an English teacher at a boys’ school in Brussels. When his career leads him to take up an additional post at a girls’ school nearby, William becomes emotionally involved with the manipulative headmistress of the establishment, Mademoiselle Reuter. The tensions rise until one of his pupils and fellow teachers – for whom he has tender feelings – is suddenly dismissed and is nowhere to be found. Based on Charlotte Brontë’s own autobiographical experience in Brussels as a teacher and only published posthumously, The Professor was Charlotte Brontë’s first attempt at full-length fiction and bears all the hallmarks of her future work, with touches of genius and an unparalleled sharpness of style.Trade ReviewAt the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Bronte ... It is the red and fitful glow of the heart's fire which illuminates her page. -- Virginia Woolf

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Book SynopsisDuring a stifling St Petersburg summer, the rich landowner Velchaninov is haunted by the figure of a man he keeps glimpsing in the street. When he receives a surprise visit from him late at night, he realizes he is an old friend, Trusotsky, whose late wife, Natalya, was his secret lover. As the two men renew their acquaintance, Velchaninov becomes aware that Trusotsky’s child is, in fact, his own daughter. From then on, the destinies of the two old friends become intertwined as they engage – at turns repelled and attracted by each other – in a dangerous game of cat and mouse that will lead to a final dramatic confrontation. Compelling, gripping, darkly humorous, The Eternal Husband – composed by the author at the peak of his writing powers, between The Idiot and Devils, and described by Dostoevsky’s biographer Joseph Frank as “a small masterpiece” – shows Dostoevsky at his best as a ruthless dissector of the quirks and foibles of the human character.Trade ReviewNo novelist ever wrestled with materialism more fiercely and intelligently than Dostoevsky. -- Jonathan Franzen

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1921, this volume collects some of the most comical stories Kipling published throughout his writing career. These tales derive their humour from absurd situations – a drunken Irish soldier waking up to find himself worshipped as a god in the Indian holy city of Benares, a monkey let loose in an English village – and from lampooning the attitudes and discourses of the time. While presenting many aspects which will be familiar to Kipling readers – rollicking adventures, exotic locales and an interest in the animal world – these Humorous Tales explore the more light-hearted and amusing side to the great master’s work.Trade Review[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement … as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with. -- Douglas KerrTable of ContentsContains: The Legend of Mirth, The Taking of Lungtungpen, Moti Guj Mutineer, The Rout of the White Hussars, The First Sailor, Judson and the Empire, Namgay Doola, My Sunday at Home, Pig, Alnaschar and the Oxen, The Bull That Thought, A Flight of Fact, Private Learoyd's Story, The Finances of the Gods, Prologue to the Master Cook's Tale, His Gift, The Press, The Village That Voted the Earth Was Flat, The Puzzler (Poem), The Puzzler (Tale), The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney, Gallio's Song, Little Foxes, My Lord the Elephant, Brugglesmith, The Sending of Dana Da, The Fabulists, The Vortex, The Song of Seven Cities, The Necessitarian.

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Book SynopsisA Marriage Below Zero is the first novel in English to explicitly explore the subject of male homosexuality. Written by a British émigré to America, the New York theater critic Alfred J. Cohen, under the pseudonym of “Alan Dale,” this first-person narrative is told by a young Englishwoman, Elsie Bouverie, who gradually discovers that her new husband, Arthur Ravener, is romantically involved with another man. Denounced on publication (“a saturnalia in which the most monstrous forms of human vice exhibit themselves shamelessly” wrote one reviewer), the novel was published during the public exposure of a London homosexual brothel frequented by upper-class men and telegraph boys. A Marriage Below Zero reflected late-nineteenth-century fears and anxieties about homosexuality, women’s position in marriage, and the threat that seemingly new, illicit forms of desire posed to marriageable women and to the Victorian family.This Broadview edition includes excerpts from the era’s pro-homosexual tracts, scientific and legal documents, contemporary feminist commentary on the new “dandyism,” and newspaper accounts of late-Victorian same-sex scandals. Highlights of the volume include excerpts from Charles Dickens’s 1836 account of his visit to Newgate Prison, where he witnessed the last two men in Britain executed for sodomy, George Bernard Shaw’s 1889 unpublished letter attacking the social purity movement’s legislation against homosexual men, and a never-before reprinted 1898 article from Reynolds Magazine, “Sex Mania,” that warned of an increasing number of homosexual men choosing to enter marriages as a cover for an illicit life.Trade Review“A Marriage Below Zero is an invaluable edition of the first novel about homosexuality in English, edited by Richard Kaye, who rediscovered the 1889 text. Kaye’s erudite and entertaining introduction puts it in the context of the late-Victorian sensation novel, a doubly-closeted writer, and the social history of male same-sex relationships, plus a scandalous divorce trial. A fascinating selection of legal, literary, and psychological materials rounds off this splendid seminar in one volume.” — Elaine Showalter, Professor Emerita, Princeton University“The Broadview Edition is excellent … For anyone with an interest in Victorian gender studies, this is the go-to edition.” — Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsIntroductionSame-Sex Scandal in Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Brief ChronologyAlfred J. Cohen: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextA Marriage Below ZeroAppendix A: Contemporary Reviews From The New York World (26 February 1889) From The New York World (22 March 1889) From The New York World (25 March 1889) From The New York Daily Graphic (5 April 1889) From Sacramento Daily Record-Union (20 April 1889) From Belford’s Magazine (June 1889) From Countess Annie De Montaigu, “Hot and Sticky,” Los Angeles Times (11 August 1889) From “Professional Reform,” The San Francisco News Dealer (September 1890) From The Los Angeles Herald (21 February 1891) From The Cincinnati Enquirer (5 March 1891) From the Los Angeles Times (3 December 1891) Appendix B: Two Nineteenth-Century Historical and Literary Instances of Same-Sex Coupledom Charles Dickens, “A Visit to Newgate” (1836) From Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877) Appendix C: Modes of Homosexual Exploration and Advocacy in Nineteenth-Century Britain From Walter Pater, “Conclusion,” Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) From John Addington Symonds, “Male Love,” A Problem in Greek Ethics and Other Writings (1883) From Sir Richard Burton, “Pederasty,” in the “Terminal Essay” to The Book of a Thousand Nights and One Night (1885) George Bernard Shaw, Letter on “The Cleveland Street Scandals,” Truth Magazine (26 November 1889) From John Addington Symonds, The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds (1892) From Charles Kains Jackson, “The New Chivalry,” The Artist and Journal of Home Culture (2 April 1894) From Edward Carpenter, Homogenic Love, and Its Place in a Free Society (1894) Alan Dale (Alfred J. Cohen), “A Word from the Author,” An Eerie He and She (1889) Appendix D: Late-Victorian Legal and Medical Models and the New Social Panic From Section 11 of the 1885 Criminal Amendment Bill From Richard Krafft-Ebing, “Case 237,” Psychopathia Sexualis: A Medico-Forensic Study (1886) “Sex-Mania,” Reynolds’s Newspaper (21 April 1895) From Olive Schreiner, “The Woman Question,” Cosmopolitan Magazine (1889) Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisA man and woman fall in love in a seaside town. The only trouble is, they're both married to other people. A schoolmaster is scandalized by his sweetheart riding a bicycle.A woman falls in love with a series of men, each of whom leave her in different ways. Chekhov's stories capture Russian provincial life in the late nineteenth century while Garnett's translations make these classic works feel as vivid as if they were written yesterday. This exclusive selection by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm is unmissable for the enthusiast and a brilliant introduction for anyone interested in one of the nineteenth century's greatest writers.

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Book SynopsisRaised in the idyllic setting of Dorlcote Mill, the wild and wilful Maggie Tulliver adores her elder brother Tom and is forever trying to gain the approbation of her parents. Yet, as she grows older and the family struggle under the weight of severe pecuniary difficulties, she becomes increasingly caught between the divergent expectations of the four men in her life: a doting father, an obdurate and vengeful brother, a good-looking and frivolous suitor and an earnest old playmate who happens to be the son of her father and brother’s sworn enemy. Tragic and affecting, and drawing heavily on George Eliot’s own rural upbringing and relationship with her brother, The Mill on the Floss is one of literature’s finest evocations of childhood and adolescence, and introduces, in Maggie Tulliver, one of the most beloved heroines in the English canon.Trade ReviewNo writer ever lived who had anything like her power of manifold, but disinterested and impartially observant sympathy. If Sophocles or Cervantes had lived in the light of our culture… George Eliot might have had a rival. -- Lord Acton

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Book SynopsisTrue Story, Lucian’s best-known and most entertaining work, is a parody of the tall stories of fantastic journeys narrated by famous poets and historians. With his trademark wit and humour, Lucian informs his readers that he means to tell nothing but lies and impossibilities, and warns them not to believe a word he says. The result is a comical masterpiece that influenced Western literature throughout the centuries, and works such as Gulliver’s Travels and The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Lucius, or the Ass, a satirical novel charting the adventures of a young man who has been transformed into a donkey, is usually attributed to Lucian and is thought to be a source of Apuleius’s Golden Ass.

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Book SynopsisA carriage transporting ten passengers fleeing from Rouen is stopped at a village inn by Prussian soldiers, who decide to detain them until one of their party, the prostitute Boule de Suif, consents to sleep with their officer. When Boule de Suif refuses to do so on account of her principles and patriotic sentiments, the solidarity initially manifested by her fellow travellers becomes increasingly tested as the deadlock continues, and the strained relationship between her and her “respectable” counterparts gradually worsens. A scathing satire of bourgeois prejudice and hypocrisy and a compelling snapshot of France during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, ‘Boule de Suif’ – here presented with five other major stories by the author of Bel Ami – was declared a masterpiece by Flaubert and is widely considered to be Maupassant’s finest short story.Trade ReviewAn exceedingly sharp satire of flexible French morals among different classes during the nineteenth-century German occupation. * The Guardian *Table of ContentsContains:Boule de Suif, The Confession, First Snow, Rose, The Dowry, Bed 29

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Book SynopsisAn old man arrives at the offices of the lawyer Derville, claiming to be Colonel Chabert, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars who was left for dead on the battlefield, but in fact managed to survive under a pile of corpses before spending years as a recovering amnesiac. Having returned to Paris and discovered that his wife has married an aristocrat who has liquidated all his assets, Chabert enlists the help of Derville to recover both his name and his fortune. Part of Balzac’s La Comédie humaine cycle, Colonel Chabert is a poignant tale about the pursuit of justice, as well as a portrait of France’s transition from the Napoleonic Empire to the Restoration. Inspired by actual events, the novella has captured the imagination of generations of readers and has been adapted for the stage and screen numerous times.Trade ReviewReading Balzac is not a reassuring experience. It challenges our humanism, if we have any, but it ultimately does not destroy it. -- A.N. Wilson

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Book SynopsisIn an examination of his laudanum addiction and the dreams and visions the drug engendered, Thomas De Quincey lays bare the celestial pleasures and infernal lows of an existence dependent on “subtle and mighty opium”. At once moving and rhapsodic, and suffused with a poetic and lyrical beauty, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater hauntingly evokes frightful scenes and phantasmagorical night-time wanderings, while reality, dream and memory blur and intertwine in a nebulous and protean haze. Published anonymously in The London Magazine, the Confessions were an immediate success, and soon speculation was rife as to the identity of the mysterious Opium-Eater. The work, which introduced the literary world to De Quincey’s unique “impassioned prose”, is now widely deemed to be De Quincey’s masterpiece.Trade ReviewMy heart trembled through from end to end… What a poet that man is! How he vivifies words, and deepens them, and gives them profound significance! -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“For the past decade, Penguin has been producing handsome hardcover versions of their classics (…) both elegant and quirky in shocks of bright color” –The New York Times

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSpectacular, skilled and moving... It is supremely and alarmingly relevant to our life today -- Fay WeldonIntensely readable and touching * Sunday Telegraph *I loved this book, by turns funny and tragic ... It's worth the cover price alone for the moonlit cricket match on the village green one night before the world is due to end. Magical -- Jeff Noon * Spectator, Books of the Year *

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Book SynopsisLittle treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. After a dramatic shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is a castaway on a tropical island for 28 years. Defoe's classic tale features a series of events involving mutineers and prisoners, while Crusoe wrestles with his own solitude. Probably the first true novel in the English language.

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Book SynopsisThis book about an 1880s radical feminist utopia includes an extensive introduction that provides critical apparatus to appropriately place Mizora and author Mary Bradley Lane in the cultural and historical context of the 19th century.

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Book SynopsisThe Vinland Viking Saga: Book 3Anja has just settled into a new life on the silver shores of Vinland with her beloved, Bjorn.But then a local warrior bursts onto the scene seeking revenge, swearing to spill Viking blood.And so Bjorn must risk everything to save the woman he loves before she steps into the darkness and sets their world ablaze.The Oath of Bjorn is an epic historical novel of gripping adventure and love everlasting perfect for fans of Vikings and Outlander.Praise for The Voyage of Freydis:Anyone who loves Vikings and historical fiction definitely should pick up this book' Emily, NetGalley reviewerVery lyrically written, I felt as if I was reading a song' Tiffany, NetGalley reviewerAs a lover of mythology and historical fiction I knew immediately I was going to like this book and I'm pleased to say I not only liked it but I LOVED it!' Libby, NetGalley reviewerTamara Goranson's writing really shines here. I felt the cold, heard the wind, flinched with the blows that takesTrade Review‘Anyone who loves Vikings and historical fiction definitely should pick up this book’ Emily, NetGalley reviewer ‘Very lyrically written, I felt as if I was reading a song’ Tiffany, NetGalley reviewer ‘As a lover of mythology and historical fiction I knew immediately I was going to like this book – and I’m pleased to say I not only liked it but I LOVED it!’ Libby, NetGalley reviewer ‘Tamara Goranson’s writing really shines here. I felt the cold, heard the wind, flinched with the blows – that takes a lot of skill’ Dawn, NetGalley reviewer ‘Took me on a rollercoaster of emotions’ Charlotte, NetGalley reviewer

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Book Synopsis'It is not that Ulysses excludes us; it is, rather, that it includes us in ways that no other work prepares us for. The question is not 'what is a novel?', but what can a novel be? Ulysses is the answer'Patrick McGuinness from his preface to Ulysses: The Restored TextInitially rejected by several printers in Dublin and London for containing 'obscene' content, Ulysses was first published in book form in a limited-edition printing of 1000 copies by Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1922. A subsequent printing was impounded by US customs and for a period the novel was famed for its notoriety rather than its literary achievement.Like its author, Ulysses exists in a complicated push-pull relationship with its language - English - and its setting - Ireland. Joyce returns to the themes that had preoccupied him in previous works, including nationalism and empire, religion, identity and sex in a novel which gloriously brings Dublin on June 16th 1904 to the page.This edition of Ulysses: The Restored Text includes the revisions that Joyce made to the novel during his lifetime.

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Book Synopsis''Compelling, remorseless, brilliant'' John Gray When a tramp is recovered from the Seine, after being badly beaten, Maigret must delve into the man''s personal circumstances to figure out just who wanted to kill him.This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Dosser and Maigret and the Bum. ''One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'' Guardian ''A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness'' IndependentTrade ReviewPraise for Georges Simenon:“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian “These Maigret books are as timeless as Paris itself.” —The Washington Post “Maigret ranks with Holmes and Poirot in the pantheon of fictional detective immortals.” —People “I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov.” —William Faulkner “The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature.” —André Gide “A supreme writer . . . Unforgettable vividness.” —The Independent (London) “Superb . . . The most addictive of writers . . . A unique teller of tales.” —The Observer (London) “Compelling, remorseless, brilliant.” —John Gray “A truly wonderful writer . . . Marvelously readable—lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates.” —Muriel Spark “A novelist who entered his fictional world as if he were a part of it.”lle —Peter Ackroyd “Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century.” —John Banville"Gem-hard soul-probes . . . not just the world's bestselling detective series, but an imperishable literary legend . . . he exposes secrets and crimes not by forensic wizardry, but by the melded powers of therapist, philosopher and confessor" ― Times (London)"Strangely comforting . . . so many lovely bistros from the Paris of mid-20th C. The corpses are incidental, it's the food that counts." ― Margaret Atwood"One of the greatest writers of the 20th century . . . no other writer can set up a scene as sharply and with such economy as Simenon does . . . the conjuring of a world, a place, a time, a set of characters - above all, an atmosphere." ― Financial Times"Gripping . . . richly rewarding . . . You'll quickly find yourself obsessing about his life as you tackle each mystery in turn."-- Stig Abell ― The Sunday Times (London)

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Book SynopsisFrank Aldersley becomes engaged to Clara Burnham on the eve of his departure on a journey to discover the Northwest Passage. Unbeknownst to him, Richard Wardour, his spurned rival, joins the crew of another ship belonging to the same expedition. When the ships get trapped in the ice and the men are randomly drawn into the same search party, Richard finds himself torn between his desire for revenge and the need for solidarity in the face of adversity. Based on an actual doomed mission to the Arctic captained by Sir John Franklin, and initially written for the stage in collaboration with Dickens – who also acted in the play – The Frozen Deep is an action-packed tale of vengeance and sacrifice.Trade ReviewYou can’t help feeling that Wilkie Collins was more in tune with modernity than his friend Charles Dickens. * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe much-loved tales from 'The Thousand and One Nights' first appeared in English translation in the early nineteenth century. The popularity of these ancient and beguiling tales set against the backdrop of Baghdad, a city of wealth and peace, stoked the widespread enthusiasm for and scholarly interest in eastern arts and culture, which had been a dominant fashion in Europe for almost a century. Four of the most well-known tales, translated by Laurence Housman, are reproduced in this collector’s edition: 'Sindbad the Sailor', 'Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp', 'The Story of the Three Calenders' and 'The Sleeper Awakened'. Each is illustrated with exquisite watercolours by the renowned artist Edmund Dulac. The sumptuous illustrations reproduced here capture the beauty and timeless quality of these alluring stories, made at the zenith of early twentieth-century book illustration.Trade ReviewSelected in 'The Times' Christmas round up ... 'In this gorgeous collection with pictures by Edmund Dulac, you can read the four best-known tales. Marina Warner's introduction puts it all in context.’ - The Times In 'The Spectator' Christmas round up ... 'Exquisite illustrations … Keep it for yourself.' - The Spectator -- Alex O'Connell * The Times *

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