From Austen to Zola, from medieval to the modern day - all genres are catered for between the covers of these coveted classics.
Classics Books
Wordfire Press The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
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£16.19
Fantom Films Limited The George Eliot Collection: Adam Bede,
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£19.71
Canongate Books The Awakening
Book SynopsisOver one long, languid summer Edna Pontellier, fettered by marriage and motherhood, becomes acquainted with Robert Lebrun. As the days shorten and the temperature drops Edna succumbs to Robert's devotion. But as her desire grows so too does her discontentment - with the role society has forced her to play and with the bonds that hold her fast - and her world begins to unravel with devastating consequences . . .The Awakening is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of feminist literature alongside Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. First published in the United States in 1899, this radical novel sent shockwaves through American society and continues to speak to readers over a hundred years later. This tender, brilliant, and seductive novel is as beautifully written as it is politically engaging.Trade ReviewThe Awakening is not only one of the most important novels in the history of American women's writing, it is an acknowledged American masterpiece . . . Chopin offers a compelling portrait of female experience, one of the first of its kind -- SARAH CHURCHWELLI still marvel at Chopin's realism, her impatience with conventional trappings, her arresting honesty -- BARBARA KINGSOLVERChopin's deceptively slight novel is the kind of book revolutions are made of . . . Reissued with a forward by Barbara Kingsolver, this angry, eye-opening novel is well worth adding to your reading list * * Harper's Bazaar * *Even more powerful than I remembered -- MARGARET DRABBLEA Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin's -- WILLA CATHERChopin's slight, brittle and fierce novel became a classic and a cult, shocking readers with its candid and unsentimental portrait of marital infidelity . . . it remains delicately bitter and acidly angry * * Observer * *Incisive, brilliant and haunting -- MAGGIE O'FARRELLThis landmark feminist novel, first published in 1899, remains startlingly relevant -- JUDY BLUME, My Life in Books * * Elle * *Sometimes bold, fearless writing really does have to wait for 'someone in some future time' for readers yet to come. Sleeping Beauties, once awakened, will always serve a contemporary agenda. But Chopin's The Awakening is now justly regarded as an American classic and read with passion and delight * * Literary Review * *Plucky and masterly * * The Lady * *A quietly explosive study of female impotence, it is quite superb * * Independent on Sunday * *
£6.99
Pushkin Press A Different Sound: Stories by Mid-Century Women
Book SynopsisThese remarkable short stories from the 1940s and 50s depict women and men caught between the pull of personal desires and profound social change. From a remote peninsula in Cornwall to the drawing rooms of the British Raj, domestic arrangements are rewritten, social customs are revoked and new freedoms are embraced. Selected and introduced by writer and critic Lucy Scholes, this collection places works from renowned women writers alongside recently rediscovered voices. Suffused with tension and longing, they form a window onto a remarkable era of writing. Contains: 'The Cut Finger' by Frances Bellerby, 'Summer Night' by Elizabeth Bowen, 'The Birds' by Daphne du Maurier, 'The Land Girl' by Diana Gardner, 'Listen to the Magnolias' by Stella Gibbons, 'Shocking Weather, Isn't It?' by Inez Holden, 'The First Party' by Attia Hosain, 'Three Miles Up' by Elizabeth Jane Howard, 'The Skylight' by Penelope Mortimer, 'The Thames Spread Out' by Elizabeth Taylor and 'Scorched Earth Policy' by Sylvia Townsend WarnerTrade ReviewAs well as introducing some little-known writers, Lucy Scholes offers a way of seeing women's writing differently * Times Literary Supplement *
£15.29
Vintage Publishing Little Men
Book Synopsis‘We always allow one pillow-fight Saturday night’Did you ever wonder what happened to Jo March from Little Women? She grew up, of course, and followed her dream to become a writer. In addition, she opened a school, home to her two children and twelve other boys. There’s accident-prone Tommy, bookish Demi, and greedy Stuffy. Into this large, unusual family arrives Nat – a skinny, nervous orphan boy with no schooling, just a fearless talent for the violin. Amid all the scrapes and japes of twelve rambunctious boys, can little Nat find his place at Plumfield? Includes exclusive material: In the 'Backstory' you can find out what inspired the author and test your knowledge of Jo’s enormous family...Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.Trade ReviewLouisa May Alcott is the only author who remains both popular and literary today… Little Women was widely read, but its sequel Little Men even more so, perhaps because it was checked out by boys, too. * New York Times *Six generations of readers have found in the story of the March family universal truths about girls, families and growing up * Guardian *The best boys - in the literary sense - that we have ever come across * Spectator *
£8.54
Vintage Publishing Vera
Book SynopsisLucy Entwhistle and Everard Wemyss are both reeling from recent unhappiness when they meet and swiftly fall in love. Lucy is Wemyss’s ‘sweet girl’, and to Lucy, Everard is the whole world. The only blot on Lucy’s happiness is the shadowy figure of Wemyss’s first wife, Vera, who died in mysterious circumstances. But it is not until the happy couple return home and begin their life of wedded bliss that Lucy really begins to wonder: what did happen to Vera?Trade ReviewA sinister thriller * Independent *[Her books are] a revelation in their wit and... dry, unsentimental treatment of the relationship between men and women -- Barbara PymVon Arnim didn't have much patience with the male ego, and she didn't have much more for the women who bowed beneath it -- Mike Newell, director of 'The Enchanted April'
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Petals of Blood
Book Synopsis 'A compelling novel about the tragedy of corrupting power, set in post-independence Kenya... Ngugi writes with passion about every form, shape and colour which power can take' Sunday Times After decades of British rule Kenya has declared its independence, but drought and poor harvests still govern the village of Ilmorog. Undeterred, Munira, Karega, Wanja and Abdulla each move to Ilmorog in search of a more provincial life, only to find themselves suspects in a crime that signals a dark turning of the times. A classic of modern African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's damning satire of politics and corruption in Kenya would prove the catalyst for his imprisonment by the Kenyan government.Trade ReviewA compelling novel about the tragedy of corrupting power, set in post-independence Kenya. . . Ngugi writes with passion about every form, shape and colour which power can take * Sunday Times *A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair… a bombshell * The Weekly Review, Kenya *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The New York Stories
Book Synopsis‘Superb... These thirty-two stories inhabit the Technicolor vernaculars of taxi drivers, barbers, paper pushers and society matrons... O'Hara was American fiction's greatest eavesdropper, recording the everyday speech and tone of all strata of mid-century society’ Wall Street JournalJohn O'Hara remains the great chronicler of American society, and nowhere are his powers more evident than in his portraits of New York's so-called Golden Age. Unsparingly observed, brilliantly cutting and always on the tragic edge of epiphany, the stories collected here are among O’Hara’s finest work, and show why he still stands as the most-published short story writer in the history of the New Yorker.Trade ReviewYou can binge on O’Hara’s collections in the way some people binge on Mad Men, and for some of the same reasons -- Lorin Stein * Paris Review *Among the greatest short story writers in English, or in any other language -- Brendan Gill * Here at The New Yorker *O'Hara practices the classic form of the modern short story developed by Joyce and perfected by Hemingway... His coverage is worthy of a Balzac -- E. L. DoctorowO'Hara occupies a unique position in our contemporary literature.... He is the only American writer to whom America presents itself as a social scene in the way it once presented itself to Henry James, or France to Proust -- Lionell Trilling * The New York Times *Superb... The 32 stories inhabit the Technicolor vernaculars of taxi drivers, barbers, paper pushers and society matrons... O'Hara was American fiction's greatest eavesdropper, recording the everyday speech and tone of all strata of midcentury society * Wall Street Journal *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Difficult Loves and Other Stories
Book SynopsisA spectacular display of this key European writer's early workThis dazzling collection of stories follows the individual adventures of a varied cast of characters and masterfully illustrates Calvino's unique perspective and narrative gifts. As well as the thirteen tales from his Difficult Loves collection this volume also includes 'Smog', 'A Plunge into Real Estate' and 'The Argentine Ant'.'The quirkiness and grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work, the occasional incandescence of vision, and a certain loveable nuttiness make this collection well worth reading' Margaret Atwood'If this is not a masterpiece of twentieth-century prose writing, I cannot think of anything better' Gore Vidal on 'The Argentine Ant'Trade ReviewA beautifully translated collection of early stories by the highly regarded Italian writer. The earliest were written in 1945 when Calvino was twenty-two and the latest date from the 1950s when he was in his early thirties. The quirkiness and the grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work, the incandescence of vision, make this collection well worth reading, and for more than archaeological reasons * New York Times Book Review *The greatest Italian writer of the twentieth century * Guardian *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Independence: Vintage Minis
Book Synopsis‘To myself alone could I look’Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe are heroines who depend upon no one but themselves. In the face of hardship, from small sacrifices to great heartache, they cling resolutely to their principles of self-reliance. Lucy's energy and enterprise take her to Belgium and a career in teaching, whilst Jane’s honest, intelligent mind draws declarations of love. Both are the unforgettable creations of the deeply independent and brilliant Charlotte Brontë.Selected from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Villette. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Sisters by Louisa May AlcottFreedom by Margaret AtwoodMarriage by Jane AustenLiberty by Virginia WoolfTrade ReviewThey look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book * Stylist *Literature for the Twitter generation * Big Issue *
£7.99
Vintage Publishing Murder: Vintage Minis
Book Synopsis‘Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days’Sherlock Holmes: the quintessential British hero and the world's most popular detective. Through his powers of deduction, and with the help of his faithful companion Dr Watson, Holmes takes on all manner of devious criminals and dangerous villains – and wins. But the cases involving murder are the most dastardly of them all… Selected from The Complete Sherlock HolmesVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Power by William Shakespeare Independence by Charlotte BronteLondon by Charles DickensTrade ReviewThey look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book * Stylist *Literature for the Twitter generation * Big Issue *
£6.83
Vintage Publishing The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen: Selected
Book Synopsis'Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them' VogueSELECTED AND WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY TESSA HADLEYA girl shares her secret den. A couple stroll through a ruined city. A man walks into a ladies' hat shop. A teacher dreams of killing her pupil.Spanning the 1920s to the post-war years, this new selection brings Elizabeth Bowen's finest short stories together for the first time. Elegant and subtle, they showcase Bowen's ability to evoke ineffable emotions - grief, nostalgia, self-consciousness, dread - and combine remarkable psychological insight with vivid settings, from the countryside of Bowen's native Ireland to the streets of her London home after the Blitz.Encompassing characters from many walks of life and a vast array of moods, these are intricate journeys of domesticity and discovery, of the homely and uncanny, of the mind and body.Trade ReviewBowen's stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and mystery of the human soul * Anne Tyler *Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them * Vogue *Like Woolf, like Spark, her language is clear but her effects complex, creating shimmering reflections of reality, her world recognisable but just out of reach * Guardian *[Bowen's] fiction's uniqueness lies in its versatile, modern understanding of place as 'inner landscape'... [an] astute selection of the short stories... [Brown] write[s] fiction with the texture of history * London Review of Books *
£9.49
Legend Press Ltd The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Legend
Book SynopsisAll modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It''s the best book we''ve had. - Ernest HemingwayA nineteenth-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer''s aunt who mistakes him for Tom.In this unforgettable adventure for all ages, Twaindelves into issues such as racism, friendship, war, religion, and freedom with an uncanny combination of lightheartedness and gravitas.This was the first major American novel to be written in the vernacular, a dark and funny satire that exposes the bigotry and hypocrisy of provincial America during Mark Twain''s lifetime. A rite of passage for ever young reader, this book continues to delight readers around the world and remainsas fresh and as funny as ever.The Legend Classics series:Around the World in Eighty DaysThe Adventures of Huckleberry FinnThe Importance of Being EarnestAlice''s Adventures in WonderlandThe MetamorphosisThe Railway ChildrenThe Hound of the BaskervillesFrankensteinWuthering HeightsThree Men in a BoatThe Time MachineLittle WomenAnne of Green GablesThe Jungle BookThe Yellow Wallpaper and Other StoriesDraculaA Study in ScarletLeaves of GrassThe Secret GardenThe War of the WorldsA Christmas CarolStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeHeart of DarknessThe Scarlet LetterThis Side of ParadiseOliver TwistThe Picture of Dorian GrayTreasure IslandThe Turn of the ScrewThe Adventures of Tom SawyerEmmaThe TrialA Selection of Short Stories by Edgar Allan PoeGrimm Fairy TalesThe AwakeningMrs DallowayGulliver's TravelsThe Castle of OtrantoSilas MarnerHard Times
£8.54
Cornerstone Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves: (Jeeves & Wooster)
Book Synopsis‘P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection’ Julian Fellowes‘Jeeves, of course, is a gentleman’s gentleman, not a butler, but if the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them.’Bertie’s friend ‘Stinker Pinker’ needs his help. But helping his friend means venturing back into the dreaded Totleigh Towers and facing Sir Watkyn Bassett, his ghastly daughter Madeline and would-be dictator Roderick Spode once more. Despite having sworn never to set foot in there again, Bertie, true to form, answers the call of friendship.But even the best laid plans can go awry and, as usual, the only one who can set this frightful adventure straight is Jeeves.‘A comic master’ David Walliams
£9.49
Flame Tree Publishing Sense and Sensibility
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. Love and betrayal are the key themes of the comic satire Sense and Sensibility, a much loved, and much filmed evocation of romantic anxiety. Mrs Dashwood and her daughters live on the edge of poverty, desperate to marry well, for love at best, for sustenance at least, balancing the need for common sense against the desires and pressures of frantic emotion. Marianne falls for the wreckless Willoughby, Elinor falls in love with the shy Edward, but after the death of Mr Dashwood the family's fate seems cast from their control. In the end Colonel Brandon successfully courts Marianne, and Edward meekly asks for the hand of Elinor, heralding the happy-ever-after for both couples.
£9.49
Flame Tree Publishing Persuasion
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. The young Anne Russell regrets the break in her engagement with Captain Frederick Wentworth. She had hoped to be married, but her father and sister did not approve the match. In financial straits Anne's family move to more modest circumstances in Bath. When Anne and Wentworth meet again, it takes them some while to reconcile, but eventually they are reunited. In the course of the book Jane Austen explores social attitudes to marriage, romantic and family love, the power of social misunderstanding and the apparent role of fate in the desperate despair of unrequited love.
£8.54
Legend Press Ltd The Picture of Dorian Gray (Legend Classics)
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£8.54
Pushkin Press In Love
Book SynopsisAn exquisite depiction of a doomed love affair, set in noirish 1950s New York In a hotel bar, a disenchanted writer tells a beautiful stranger the story of his latest doomed love affair. Sipping cocktails, the man reveals how he became transfixed by a lonely divorcée living in a cluttered apartment across the city. When they first met, he had been aloof, uncommitted. But this changed irrevocably when a millionaire waltzed into his lover's life, offering her a thousand dollars to spend the night. With betrayal lurking in the shadows and proclamations of feeling arriving too late, In Love is an exquisite examination of heartbreak set in 1950s New York.Trade Review'A little masterpiece' - Elizabeth Bowen'Moving and convincing ... a lyrical, intelligent book' - Guardian'My favorite of the Hayes novels... I have read and reread this small book as though it were a poem rather than a fiction: not a description of experience but the thing itself' - Vivian Gornick'A small masterpiece ... Compelling and flawless ... A gem' - Frederic Raphael'Hayes has done for bruised men what Jean Rhys does for bruised women, and they both write heartbreakingly beautiful sentences' - Paul Bailey
£9.49
Scorpius Books Dracula (Annotated)
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£14.24
Canongate Books Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Shorter
Book SynopsisEver since its first appearance in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has proven itself to be a tale of undiminished power for readers all over the world. But the story of the respectable Dr Jekyll, even in a London setting, has links that stretch back to the narrow wynds of Edinburgh and the bleak moors and shores of the North.This collection reveals the Scottish origins of Stevenson's great masterpiece of psychological fiction and his stories of possession, doubleness and terror, and uncovers his fascination with the uncanny which brought the creator of Mr Hyde screamingly awake one winter's night over one hundred years ago.
£9.50
Everyman Lucky Per
Book SynopsisSocial realism and fairy tale combine in Lucky Per, a bildungsroman about the ambitious son of a clergyman who rejects his faith and flees a restricted life in rural Jutland for Denmark's capital city. Per is a gifted young man who firmly believes that 'you had to hunt down luck as if it were a wild creature, a crooked-fanged beast ... and capture and bind it'. He falls in with Copenhagen's Jewish community, and falls for Jakobe Salomon, a wealthy heiress, who is not only the strongest character in the book but among the great Jewish heroines of European literature. Per becomes obsessed with a grand engineering scheme that he believes will both reshape Denmark's landscape and correct its minor position in the world. Eventually personal and his career ambitions alike come to grief. At the heart of Lucky Per lies the question of the relationship of 'luck' to 'happiness' (the Danish word in the title can have both meanings), a relationship which Per comes to view differently by the end of his life.Trade ReviewWhat startled its contemporaries about this strange novel was the sense of something new, one of those as yet unnamed and perhaps unnameable psychic discoveries for which the novelists of the period - from Dostoevsky to James – desperately searched... This turns out to have been the novel's project... to modify our sense of what luck or happiness means. -- Fredric Jameson, * London Review of Books *A full-blooded storyteller, a critic of life and society of the highest European order... Reasserts the grand style of narrative in a world short of breath. -- Thomas Mann
£11.69
Everyman Love in a Cold Climate & The Pursuit of Love
Book SynopsisNancy Mitford modelled the characters in her best-known novels on her own unconventional (and at the time of writing, notorious) family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin, Fanny ('the Bolter's girl'), on one of her frequent visits to their country estate: Uncle Matthew the blustering patriarch, owner of that bloodied entrenching tool above the fireplace, who hunts his children with bloodhounds; vague Aunt Sadie, and six children recklessly eager to grow up. The Pursuit of Love is the story of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward of the Radlett daughters, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist (whom she follows to the Spanish Civil War), and finally a very wicked and irresistibly charming French duke. Love in a Cold Climate, again related by Fanny, focuses on Polly Hampton, long groomed for the perfect marriage by her fearsome mother, Lady Montdore, but secretly determined to pursue her own course.
£14.39
Everyman The White Guard
Book SynopsisKiev - Kyiv - is in chaos. Russia has withdrawn from World War I but the Germans have set up a puppet government in Ukraine. Civil war rages: the Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia, but the anti-revolutionary White Guard who have fled to Ukraine, are rallying to resist. In the meantime, Ukrainian nationalists are camped outside the capital, and a Red army is on its way to bring everyone to heel. While all this is going on, the Turbin family try to eke out their existence in Kyiv and discuss what they should do. They are exactly the sort of family - monarchist intelligentsia - for whom the future looks particularly menacing.Bulgakov's brilliant and evocative prose brings the city and the moment unforgettably to life and sheds some fascinating light on the complex interwoven histories of Ukraine and Russia.Trade ReviewIt's a visceral book and very visual. It's got little details that just take you there immediately. I don't know what it would be like for someone who doesn't know the history but to me, it feels like you're watching something happen before your eyes. -- Orlando Figes * Fivebooks.com *Bulgakov's love for Kiev at this time of the Russian civil war is reflected in two ways. There's a boyish love, a proud schoolboy fascination with its workings and its lights and its cosiness under the snow, and a sorrowful adult's love, looking down with a mixture of acceptance and bitterness at a great city being racked by fratricidal upheaval -- James Meek * Guardian *[Bulgakov] began as a journalist, and this served him well with The White Guard, whose prose is taut, concise, but lyrical too -- Doris Lessing
£13.50
Little, Brown Book Group The Well Of Loneliness
Book SynopsisTHE MOST FAMOUS LESBIAN NOVEL FOR DECADES - AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'The bible of lesbianism' THE TIMES 'A beacon for sexual self-discovery' HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, BBC CULTURE 'One of the first and most influential contributions of gay and lesbian literature' NEW STATESMANA powerful novel of love between women, The Well of Loneliness brought about the most famous legal trial for obscenity in the history of British law. Banned on publication in 1928, it then went on to become a classic bestseller.'What do I care for the world's opinion? What do I care for anything but you!'Stephen Gordon (named by a father desperate for a son) is not like other girls: she hunts, she fences, she reads books, wears trousers and longs to cut her hair. She is an ideal child of aristocratic parents who grows up to be a war hero, a bestselling writer and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. In the stifling grandeur of Morton Hall, the locals begin to draw away from her, aware of some indefinable thing that sets her apart. And when Stephen Gordon reaches maturity, she falls passionately in love with another woman. As her ambitions drive and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions.Introduced by Diana Souhami, author of the acclaimed biography The Trials of Radclyffe Hall. Trade ReviewThe bible of lesbianism * The Times *The outpouring of support Hall received from members of the public around the world, who wrote to thank her for creating, in her heroine Stephen Gordon, a character with whom they could identify -- Alison Flood * Guardian *Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness still holds a place as a beacon for sexual self-discovery -- Hephzibah Anderson * BBC Culture *A pioneering lesbian novel * Daily Telegraph *Beautifully written and constructed, with delightful prose. It is the standard-bearer; the lesbian The Grapes of Wrath -- Lee LynchThe archetypal lesbian novel * Times Literary Supplement *One of the first and most influential contributions of gay and lesbian literature * New Statesman *Passionately felt and courageous * Spectator *
£10.44
Little, Brown Book Group Summer Half: A Virago Modern Classic
Book SynopsisTo his parents' dismay, Colin Keith - out of the noble but misplaced sense of duty peculiar to high-minded young university graduates - chooses to quit his training for the Bar and take a teaching job at Southbridge School. Little does Colin imagine that he will count among his pupils the demon in human form known as Tony Morland; or that the master's ravishing, feather-brained daughter Rose will, with her flights of fancy and many admirers, spread chaos throughout school and village. Humorous, high-spirited and cleverly observed, Summer Half is a comic delight.Trade ReviewAngela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself -- Alexander McCall SmithWhat sings out is the ebullience and charm of her characters, deliciously sparkling dialogue, a romping plot, her wit and gentle satire, and the escapist satisfaction of neatly tied-up happy endings * bookoxygen.com *Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself -- Alexander McCall Smith
£9.49
Alma Books Ltd This Side of Paradise: Deluxe Annotated Edition
Book SynopsisThis Side of Paradise charts the life of Amory Blaine, an ambitious young man loosely based on Fitzgerald himself, as he moves from his well-heeled Midwest home to study at Princeton and then starts frequenting the circles of high society as an aspiring writer. Experiencing failure and frustration in love and in his career, Blaine finds his youthful enthusiasm gradually giving way to disillusionment, cynicism and a life of dissolution. A critical account of its own era, introducing many themes which would be developed in later works, Fitzgerald’s first novel was an instant critical and commercial success, propelling him into the limelight as a literary celebrity.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd A Journey Around My Room and A Nocturnal
Book SynopsisFinding himself locked in his room for six weeks, a young officer journeys around his room in his imagination, using the various objects it contains as inspiration for a delightful parody of contemporary travel-writing and an exercise in Sternean picaresque, and humorously demonstrating what one can explore without having set off to exotic locations. Accompanied in this volume by its equally superb sequel, ‘Nocturnal Expedition around my Room’, in which a similar voyage is made at night several years later, ‘A Journey around My Room’ is a masterly and innovative piece of writing, which was immensely popular in its time and would later influence Victor Hugo and Marcel Proust, among others.Trade ReviewIt was Blaise Pascal who said that all the troubles of humanity came about because of the difficulty men had in simply being happy to sit alone in their rooms; here is the result of such an enforced confinement. And it is wonderful. (…) This edition also includes the 1825 sequel, A Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room, which is just as good, as funny and deceptively profound as its predecessor; and he even makes it to the window-ledge this time. Andrew Brown's translation is excellent too. -- Nicholas Lezard * The Guardian *De Maistre… found the utmost strangeness in himself and the things he had taken for granted. * The Times *
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd The Metamorphosis and Other Stories: Newly
Book SynopsisWhen the young salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into a monstrous insect, his shock and incomprehension are coupled with the panic of being late for work and having to reveal his appearance to family and colleagues. Although over the following weeks he gradually becomes used to this new existence confined within the bounds of the apartment, and his parents and sister adapt to living with a grotesque bug, Gregor notices that their attitudes towards him are changing and he feels increasingly alienated. One of the masterpieces of twentieth-century world literature, ‘The Metamorphosis’ is accompanied in this volume by a selection of other classic tales and sketches by Kafka – such as ‘The Judgement’, ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘A Country Doctor’ – all presented in a lively and meticulous new translation by Christopher Moncrieff.Trade ReviewThe only artist I felt could be my brother was Kafka. -- David LynchTable of ContentsContains: Children on a Country Road, Exposing a Confidence Trickster, An Impromptu Walk Resolutions, A Trip to the Mountains, The Plight of a Bachelor, The Shopkeeper, Gazing Distractedly out of the Window, Walking Home, Men Running Past, The Passenger, Dresses, Mutual Rejection, For the Consideration of Gentleman Jockeys, A Window onto the Street, Oh to Be a Red Indian Trees, An Unhappy Being, The Sentence, The Metamorphosis, The Penal Colony, The New Barrister, A Country Doctor, Up in the Gods, An Old Manuscript, The Door of Justice, Jackals and Arabs, A Visit to the Mine, The Next Village, A Message from the Emperor, The Concerns of a Father, Eleven Sons, Fratricide, A Dream, A Report for and Academy, First Sorrow, The Little Woman, The Hunger Artist, Josephine the Singer or the Mousefolk, The Great Wall of China, The Bridge, The Truth about Sancho Panza, The City Coat of Arms, Poseidon, The Silence of the Sirens.
£7.44
Alma Books Ltd The Scarlet Letter
Book SynopsisHaving been found guilty of adultery, Hester Prynne is forced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter A as a punishment for her sin. While her vengeful husband embarks on a quest to discover the identity of her lover, she is left to face the consequences of her infidelity and find a place for herself and her illegitimate child in the hostile environment of seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. Nathaniel Hawthorne's tense narrative astonished readers with its unparalleled psychological depth when it first appeared, and the novel now stands as one of America's literary landmarks.Trade ReviewOne of the greatest allegories in all literature. -- D.H. Lawrence The books of Hawthorne... should be sold by the hundred thousand, and read by the million; and admired by everyone who is capable of admiration. -- Herman Melville We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth. -- Edgar Allan Poe The finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country. -- Henry James
£7.44
Alma Books Ltd Diaries of Adam and Eve: Annotated Edition
Book SynopsisMark Twain's gloriously funny Diary of Adam and Eve, which John Updike described as a paradigm of the relations between sexes, is presented here with a number of other Twain pieces on our two oldest ancestors, showing the writer's interest in this most famous episode of the Bible. By giving a voice to Adam and Eve, and by hitting all the notes on the literary scale - from the intimate to the comical, from the journalistic to the idyllic - Twain displays the brilliance and wit for which he is rightly considered one of the greatest satirists of all time.Trade ReviewThe father of American literature. -- William Faulkner
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd Hard Times: Annotated Edition (Alma Classics
Book SynopsisIn Hard Times, Dickens illustrates the condition of England through the fictional city of Coketown. Among its inhabitants are Thomas Gradgrind, the utilitarian headmaster who attempts to impose his rigid worldview on his family circle, and the uncaring businessman Mr Bounderby. Their materialist philosophies, as opposed to the world of fancy or imagination, are tested throughout the novel, which also explores workers’ conditions, trade unions and the spurious use of statistics. Perhaps the most polemical of his novels – in which hard-biting satire, moving drama and exuberant comedy find a very succinct and powerful expression – Hard Times is the ideal introduction to the world of Dickens.Trade ReviewHe belongs to that brilliant school of English novelists whose finely sketched and eloquent portrayal of the world have revealed more political and social truths than all the professional politicians, journalists and moralists put together. -- Karl Marx
£6.99
Alma Books Ltd The Same Old Story: New Translation
Book SynopsisFilled with dreams of pursuing a career as a poet, the young Alexander Aduev moves from the country to St Petersburg, where he takes up lodgings next to his uncle Pyotr, a shrewd and world-weary businessman. As his ideals are challenged by disappointment in the fields of love, friendship and poetical ambition, Alexander must decide whether to return to the homely values he has left behind or adapt to the ruthless rules and morals of city life. Told in the author's trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story - Goncharov's first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years - is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.Trade ReviewGoncharov is ten heads above me in talent. -- Anton Chekhov That Stephen Pearl has been able to recreate such an authentic representation of the text that...evokes the epoch it was written in its diction and rhythm as well as being extremely "readable" for contemporary readers pronounces this translation to be an admirable accomplishment. * Bookish Ramblings * An entertaining and thought-provoking read. * Shiny New Books * This book made Goncharov famous in Russia. And from half a continent and three lifetimes away he can still make new readers laugh and gasp with recognition over timeless human foibles. The -- Nicholas Lezard * The Guardian * Reading The Same Old Story conveys the pleasure of an overheard conversation -- A.N. Wilson * The Times Literary Supplement *
£8.54
Alma Books Ltd Image on the Heart and Other Stories
Book SynopsisWhen Tudy's first husband tragically dies, she takes up the offer of Tom, a family friend, to pay for her to go to study in France. After she and her benefactor become close, she agrees to marry him in Provence later that year. But as the wedding approaches, Tom discovers that his fiancee has become involved with Riccard, a dashing French pilot and his near-double. A tale of broken trust and infidelity based on Zelda Fitzgerald's own dalliance with a French pilot, `Image on the Heart' is here presented with other lesser-known stories written by Fitzgerald in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which develop many of the themes found in his novels and his more famous works of short fiction.Trade ReviewHe was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation. * The New York Times *Table of ContentsContains: Zone of Accident, Fate in Her Hands, Image on the Heart, Too Cute for Words, Inside the House, Three Acts of Music, An Author's Mother, Trouble, The Guest in Room Nineteen, In the Holidays, The End of Hate, On an Ocean Wave, The Woman from Twenty-One, Discard (Director's Special)
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd Flush: Annotated Edition with photographs (Alma
Book Synopsis"Written after Woolf had finished her emotionally draining work on The Waves, Flush purports to be an autobiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s eponymous cocker spaniel, charting the dog’s early days in the countryside, his adoption by the famous poet, his subsequent life in London and his travels with his owners to Italy. While the resulting narrative is light-hearted and playful on the surface, Woolf ingeniously uses the faux-naif impressions of her animal narrator to voice her social criticism on topics such as the class system and the relationship between man and woman. Much like its predecessor Orlando, Flush is a genre-defying blend of biography and fantasy, and an accessible yet stylistically innovative jeu d’esprit."
£6.99
Alma Books Ltd The Pickwick Papers: Annotated Edition (Alma
Book SynopsisA rich and varied array of stories and vignettes, The Pickwick Papers is based around the investigations of the Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club, consisting of its founder Mr Samuel Pickwick and Messrs Tracy Tupman, Augustus Snodgrass and Nathaniel Winkle, who travel around the country and then report back to the club concerning their extraordinary adventures and experiences. Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers was an immediate success and caught the public imagination in a manner that few debuts have ever matched. Replete with colourful characters, fantastical anecdotes and a farcical plot, it catapulted its twenty-four-year-old author to literary stardom, and is widely considered to be one of the great comic masterpieces of nineteenth-century literature.Trade ReviewDickens sees human beings with the most intense vividness ... Consequently his greatest success is The Pickwick Papers -- George Orwell
£7.59
Alma Books Ltd The Years
Book SynopsisIt is 1880: after visiting his mistress in the London suburbs, Colonel Pargiter returns home to his children and his dying wife. In a series of snapshots we meet all the Pargiter siblings: twenty-year-old Eleanor, whose concern is to help the poor; her younger sisters Milly, Delia and Rose; her brothers Morris, Martin and Edward, who is at Oxford and in love with his cousin Kitty. As the years unfold, the various threads of relation, history and personal experience are woven into the tapestries of the characters’ lives, forming a larger canvas that covers not only the story of a family, but that of two entire generations. The most ambitious of Woolf ’s novels, and the last one to be published during her lifetime, The Years is a work suff used with a haunting, melancholy sense of time and history, and a stylistic tour de force.Trade Review"Inspired throughout - a brilliant fantasia of all Time's problems, age and youth, change and permanence, truth and illusion" Times Literary Supplement
£9.24
Alma Books Ltd Babbitt
Book SynopsisIn the Midwestern city of Zenith, the middle-aged estate agent George F. Babbitt appears to have achieved the American dream to its fullest: he is successful at work, comfortably off, exceedingly well fed, has a wife and children, a motor car and a neat house with a neat yard, and is a proud member of all the right clubs - in short, he lacks nothing to be happy. Or does he? As we follow his humdrum daily routine and startling events begin to unfold around him, we discover that all is not well in Babbitt's world: his moral foundations are shaking, and he can't help harbouring rebellious dreams of escape and romance. A trenchant satire on consumeristic society and an indictment of the fatuous ideals of middle America in the Roaring Twenties, Babbitt - the crowning achievement of Sinclair Lewis, winner of the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature - questions the attractions of materialistic fulfilment, at the same time laying bare the hollowness of social respectability and blind conformism.
£7.59
Wordsworth Editions Ltd The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
Book Synopsis'My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know'. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes first introduced Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective to the readers of The Strand Magazine. The runaway success of this series prompted a second set of stories, The Memoirs. In these twenty three tales, collected here in one volume, you have some of the best detective yarns ever penned. In his consulting room at 221B Baker Street, the master sleuth receives a stream of clients all presenting him with baffling and bizarre mysteries to unravel. There is, for example, the man who is frightened for his life because of the arrival of an envelope containing five orange pips; there is the terrified woman who is aware that her life is in danger and cannot explain the strange whistling sounds she hears in the night; and there is the riddle of the missing butler and the theft of an ancient treasure. In the last story, there is the climatic battle between Holmes and his arch enemy, 'the Napoleon of Crime' Professor Moriarty. Holmes, with trusty Watson by his side, is equal to these and the other challenges in this splendid collection.
£6.23
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Life's Little Ironies
Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury. The proverbial phrase 'life's little ironies' was coined by Hardy for his third volume of short stories. These tales and sketches possess all the power of his novels: the wealth of description, the realistic portrayal of the quaint lore of Wessex, the 'Chaucerian' humour and characterisation, the shrewd and critical psychology, the poignant estimate of human nature and the brooding sense of wonder at the essential mystery of life. The tales which make up Life's Little Ironies tenderly re-create a rapidly vanishing rural world and scrutinise the repressions of fin-de-siecle bourgeois life. They share the many concerns of Hardy's last great novels, such as the failure of modern marriage and the insidious effects of social ambition on the family and community life. Ranging widely in length and complexity, they are unified by Hardy's quintessential irony, which embraces both the farcical and the tragic aspects of human existence.
£6.23
Everyman Lord Jim
Book SynopsisLord Jim explores the dilemmas of conscience, of moral isolation, of loyalty and betrayal confronting a sensitive individual whose romantic quest for an honourable ideal are tested to the limit. In this novel, Conrad draws on his background as Polish emigré, as well as his first-hand experience as a seaman, to experiment radically with the presentation of human frailty and doubt in the modern world
£10.44
Granta Books The Essential Tales Of Chekhov
Book SynopsisIn this extraordinary collection of twenty tales, Richard Ford, a master short-story writer in his own right, has selected his personal favourites from among more than two hundred of Chekhov's tales and novellas. Included are the familiar masterpieces 'The Kiss', 'The Darling' and 'The Lady with the Dog' as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales such as 'A Blunder', 'Hush!' and 'Champagne'. These stories, written between 1886 and 1899, are drawn from Chekhov's most prolific years as a short-story writer. Introduced by Richard Ford's perceptive observations on 'Why We Like Chekhov', The Essential Tales of Chekhov is an indespensable anthology.
£10.44
Canongate Books The Jane Austen Collection
Book SynopsisPride and Prejudice - An elegant tableau revolving around the five Bennett daughters, including clever, strong-spirited Elizabeth. Austen's masterpiece is a study of love, loss and snobbery.Sense and Sensibility - The engaging story of sisters Elinor and Marianne, whose lives are turned upside down when they are left almost penniless following the death of their father. Two men with whom the sisters form attachments present more unforeseen challenges along the way.Emma - Emma is an exquisitely crafted social portrait of late Eighteenth-century society, widely considered to be Austen's most literarily accomplished work. Emma Woodhouse, self-appointed meddling matchmaker, stands to lose out on love herself if she isn't careful.Persuasion - In part autobiographical, Persuasion has a quieter sense of humour, and takes a more serious tone, than some of Austen's other novels. Anne Elliot is revisited by her ex-fiancée, coinciding with a downturn in her family's fortunes, and has some choices to make.Northanger Abbey - Young and susceptible, Catherine Morland expects dark secrets and many dangers to be lurking in the hidden recesses of Northanger Abbey. In fact, the real obstacles lying in her path are more mundane but just as serious as her imagined horrors.The collection also includes 2 Bonus CDs including The Watsons, an early Austen short story, and a collection of letters. Titles read by highly-acclaimed British actresses including Anna Massey, Harriet Walter and Joanna Lumley.
£31.50
Little Toller Books The Military Orchid
Book SynopsisJocelyn Brooke's love affair with wild flowers and home-made fireworks began when he was growing up in Kent and exploring the countryside of the the Elham Valley. But there was one particular flower, especially rare and beautiful which became an obsession. Over three decades and through two world wars, in the deserts of Libya and the woodlands of Italy, in the chalk downs of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, he searched continually for his most beloved and elusive Orchis militaris, the military orchid.Against the backdrop of his quintessentially English upbringing and his army career, with ts wonderful cast of snobbish neighbours, eccentric public school teachers and bullish staff sergeants, Jocelyn Brooke blends memoir, botany and satire to recall his lifelong quest. The Military Orchid is a comic masterpiece and became widely revered: Kingsley Amis decribed Brooke as "brilliant and exciting", John Betjeman called him "as subtle as the devil", and to Anthony Powell he was "one of the most interesting and talented" writers to emerge after the Second World War.Trade ReviewA memoir from career military man Brooke, who after his grueling service in WWII, decides to rejoin, unsatisfied with civilian life... Thoughtful and recommended. -- Midwest Book Review "Midwest Book Review"
£9.50
Firestone Books Around the World in 80 Days: Dyslexia-Friendly
Book Synopsis
£11.99
BOTH Press A Scandal In Bohemia
Book Synopsis
£8.99
Chiltern Publishing Hard Times
Book SynopsisChiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World?s finest literature. Your favorite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make these titles feel extra special and will look striking on any shelf.Hard Times was published in 1854 and is set in Northern England in Coketown, a polluted and suffering place with smoke-filled factories and soulless workers who have been downtrodden by the cruel and heartless Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby. The novel was published to mixed criticism, with many feeling at the time that it was too distressing. However, many modern critics have praised the book, calling it a gripping and revealing exploration of Victorian society.
£17.00
Lanternfish Press The Afterlife of Frankenstein: A Century of Mad
Book SynopsisIn this anthology, scholar of the fantastic David Sandner explores the first hundred years of Frankenstein’s influence. Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is one of the most iconic figures in English literature, popularized through decades of writing, film, and comedy. But even before the invention of film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein profoundly impacted scores of writers, gathering force for the genre that would ultimately become what we know as science fiction. This collection of short stories and excerpts from work published between 1818 to 1918 demonstrates what a pioneering myth Frankenstein has always been—from the very day when lightning first struck and it opened its eyes on the world. “Fear of age and death often creeps coldly into my heart; and the more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life. Such an enigma is man—born to perish—when he wars, as I do, against the established laws of his nature.” -Mary Shelley, The Mortal Immortal
£17.09
Karma The House of the Seven Gables
Book SynopsisAlex Katz illustrates Hawthorne’s classic gothic tale of Puritan New England While enrolled in an illustration course at Cooper Union in 1948, Alex Katz (born 1927) created nine ink drawings to accompany Nathaniel Hawthorne’s gothic romance, The House of the Seven Gables. Published a century earlier, in 1851, Hawthorne’s classic novel is a solemn study of greed, guilt and atonement under the Puritan moral code of 19th-century New England, inspired by the curse pronounced on Hawthorne's own family by a condemned woman during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) was one of the most influential American writers of the 19th century, known for his darkly romantic stories and novels such as The Scarlet Letter. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and belonged to a prominent circle of New England–based writers and philosophers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott. Alex Katz (born 1927) is a New York–based artist known for his large-scale Pop-inspired canvases of two-dimensional figures set against monochrome backgrounds. For over seven decades, his work has been the subject of hundreds of solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
£22.50
