ELT & Literary Studies Books
Oxford University Press A Life
Book Synopsis`every heart imagines itself the first to thrill to a myriad sensations which once stirred the hearts of the earliest creatures and which will again stir the hearts of the last men and women to walk the earth'' What is a life? How shall a storyteller conceive a life? What if art means pattern and life has none? How, then, can any story be true to life? These are some of the questions which inform the first of Maupassant''s six novels, A Life (Une Vie) (1883) in which he sought to parody and expose the folly of romantic illusion. An unflinching presentation of a woman''s life of failure and disappointments, where fulfilment and happiness might have been expected, A Life recounts Jeanne de Lamare''s gradual lapse into a state of disillusion. With its intricate network of parallels and oppositions, A Life reflects the influence of Flaubert in its attention to form and its coherent structure. It also expresses Maupassant''s characteristic naturalistic vision in which the satire of bourgeoTrade ReviewIn general, he [Pearson] shows himself sensitive to the various registers that Maupassant employs, and manages to convey the wistful flavour of this story of a largely disappointing life. * Robin Buss, TLS *It is possible to smile at the consistently downbeat tone, while at the same time admiring this finely constructed, austerely written tale. * Robin Buss, TLS *
£8.54
Oxford University Press The Dawn of the Roman Empire
Book SynopsisBooks 31 to 40 of Livy's history chart Rome's emergence as an imperial nation and the Romans tempestuous involvement with Greece, Macedonia and the near East in the opening decades of the second century BC; they are our most important source for Graeco-Roman relations in that century. Livy's dramatic narrative includes the Roman campaigns in Spain and against the Gallic tribes of Northern Italy; the flight of Hannibal from Carthage and his death in the East; thedebate on the Oppian law; and the Bacchanalian Episode.Trade ReviewAltogether [Yardley and Heckel] have combined their efforts to produce an exemplary volume which, as the only modern unabridged English translation of Livy 31-40, will do much to promote a renewed interest in this decade of Livy among both students and scholars. * John Jacobs, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
£12.34
Oxford University Press Arabian Nights Entertainments
Book SynopsisNo other edition offers extensive textual apparatus such as explanatory notes, plot summaries, particularly vital as stories are complex and interwoven. The Sultan Schahriar''s misguided resolution to shelter himself from the possible infidelities on his wives leads to an outbreak of barbarity in his kingdoms and a reign of terror in his court, stopped only by the resourceful Scheherazade. The tales with which Scheherazade nightly postpones the muderous intent of the sultan have entered our language and our lives like no other collection of narratives before or since. Sinbad, Aladdin, Ali Baba: all make their spectacular entrance on to the stage of English literary history in the Arabian Nights Entertainments (1704-17). The stories contained in this `store house of ingenious fiction'' initiate a pattern of literary reference and influence which today remains as powerful and intense as it was throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This edition reproduces in its entirety the earliest English translation of the French orientalist Antoine Galland''s Mille et une Nuits. This remained for over a century the only English translation of the story cycle, influencing an incalculable number of writers, and no other edition offers the complete text supplemented by full textual apparatus. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
£13.29
Oxford University Press The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature
Book SynopsisThe third edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature is the complete and authoritative reference guide to the classical world and its literary heritage. It not only presents the reader with all the essential facts about the authors, tales, and characters from ancient myths and literature, but it also places these details in the wider contexts of the history and society of the Greek and Roman worlds. With an extensive web of cross-references and a useful chronological table and location maps (all of which have been brought fully up to date), this volume traces the development of literary forms and the classical allusions which have become embedded in our Western culture. Extensively revised and updated, the Companion includes more thematic entries - medicine, friendship, science, the concept of freedom, and sexuality. These topical entries provide an excellent starting point to the exploration of their subjects in classical literature. The Companion contains extensive biogrTrade ReviewReview from previous edition 'useful and enjoyable... a miniature encyclopedia of the Graeco-Roman world' * Listener *a standard reference book for the forseeable future * Contemporary Review *a volume for all seasons... indispensable * Times Educational Supplement *will be the vade mecum of schoolchildren and undergraduates for generations to come * Sunday Telegraph *A necessity for any seriously literary household. * History Today *Table of ContentsPREFACE; A-Z ENTRIES; CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE; MAPS
£15.74
Oxford University Press Aesops Fables
Book Synopsis''The story goes that a sow who had delivered a whole litter of piglets loudly accosted a lioness. How many children do you breed? asked the sow. I breed only one, said the lioness, but it is very well bred!''The fables of Aesop have become one of the most enduring traditions of European culture, ever since they were first written down nearly two millennia ago. Aesop was reputedly a tongue-tied slave who miraculously received the power of speech; from his legendary storytelling came the collections of prose and verse fables scattered throughout Greek and Roman literature. First published in English by Caxton in 1484, the fables and their morals continue to charm modern readers: who does not know the story of the tortoise and the hare, or the boy who cried wolf?This new translation is the first to represent all the main fable collections in ancient Latin and Greek, arranged according to the fables'' contents and themes. It includes 600 fables, many of which come from sources never before translated into English. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review'Laura Gibbs has recently brought out a splendid translation with a very helpful introduction of the bulk of the fables in the Oxford World's Classics.' * Gabriel Josipovici, TLS *Table of ContentsAesop, the Popular Favourite ; The Fables ; Aetiologies, Paradoxes, Insults and Jokes
£8.54
Oxford University Press Greek Lyric Poetry
Book SynopsisThe Greek lyric, elegiac, and iambic poets of the two centuries from 650 to 450 BC - Archilochus and Alcman, Sappho and Mimnermus, Anacreon, Simonides, and the rest - produced some of the finest poetry of antiquity, perfect in form, spontaneous in expression, reflecting all the joys and anxieties of their personal lives and of the societies in which they lived. This new poetic translation by a leading expert captures the nuances of meaning and the whole spirit of this poetry as never before. It is not merely a selection but covers all the surviving poems and intelligible fragments, apart from the works of Pindar and Bacchylides, and includes a number of pieces not previously translated. The Introduction gives a brief account of the poets, and explanatory Notes on the texts will be found at the end. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
£8.99
Oxford University Press The Decameron
Book SynopsisThe Decameron (c.1351) was written in the wake of the Black Death, a shattering epidemic which had shaken Florence''s confident entrepreneurial society to its core.In a country villa outside the city, ten young noble men and women who have escaped the plague decide to tell each other stories. Boccaccio''s skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in this virtuoso performance of one hundred tales, vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots which revel in a bewildering variety of human reactions. Themes are playfully restated from one story to another within an elegant and refined framework. One of Chaucer''s most fruitful sources for the Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio''s work artfully combines the essential ingredients of narrative: fate and desire, crises and quick-thinking.This new translation by Guido Waldman captures the exuberance and variety and tone of Boccaccio''s masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review'This new translation of The Decameron is especially valuable for the manner in which it accurately imitates the divergent tones and structures of Boccaccio's prose. Boccaccio's art is an exercise in brinkmanship which leads characters and readers alike into a turmoil of moral and social disorder only to retrieve them within his formal literary structure at the end. In common with the main text, this introduction will prove very useful both to the general reader and to the student unable to read in the Italian.' Christopher C. Stevens. Italian Studies, XLIX, 1994
£11.39
Oxford University Press English Literature A Very Short Introduction
Book SynopsisSweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain''s Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol Ann Duffy, and a series of striking examples of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader. The narrative embraces not only the major literary movements such as Romanticism and Modernism, together with the most influential authors including Chaucer, Donne, Johnson, Wordsworth, Austen, Dickens and Woolf, but also little-known stories such as the identity of the first English woman poet to be honoured with a collected edition of her works. Written with the flair and passion for which Jonathan Bate has become renowned, this book is the perfect Very Short Introduction for all readers and students of the incomparable literary heritage of these islands.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewWhile exploring towering works, Bate remins us that literature can also be terrific fun. * Christopher Hirst. The Independent *Table of Contents1. Once upon a time ; 2. What it is ; 3. When it began ; 4. The study of English ; 5. Periods and movements ; 6. Among the English Poets ; 7. Shakespeare and dramatic literature ; 8. Aspects of the English novel ; 9. The Englishness of English literature ; Further Reading
£9.49
Oxford University Press Phineas Redux
Book Synopsis''It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything''After the death of his wife, the handsome politician Phineas Finn returns from Ireland to the parliamentary fray. In his absence the political and social world has subtly changed, parties and policies no longer fixed and advancement dependent upon scheming and alliances. His private life lays him open to the scandal-mongering press, and the wild accusations of an unhinged rival; but much more than his reputation is at stake when he is accused of murdering a political opponent.Trollope shows a remarkably prescient sense of the importance of intrigue, bribery, and sexual scandal, and the power of the press to make or break a political career. He is equally skilled in portraying the complex nature of Phineas''s romantic entanglements with three powerful women: the mysterious Madame Max, the devoted Laura Kennedy, and the irrepressible Lady Glencora (now Duchess of Omnium). The fourth of Trollope''s Palliser novels, Phineas Redux
£11.39
Penguin Books Ltd Modernism A Guide to European Literature 18901930
Book SynopsisAn exploration of the ideas, groupings and the social tensions that shaped the transformation of life caused by the changes of modernity in art, science, politics and philosophy
£15.29
Oxford University Press Writing with Scissors
Book SynopsisMen and women 150 years ago grappled with information overload by making scrapbooksthe ancestors of Google and blogging. From Abraham Lincoln to Susan B. Anthony, African American janitors to farmwomen, abolitionists to Confederates, people cut out and pasted down their reading. Writing with Scissors opens a new window into the feelings and thoughts of ordinary and extraordinary Americans. Like us, nineteenth-century readers spoke back to the media, and treasured what mattered to them. In this groundbreaking book, Ellen Gruber Garvey reveals a previously unexplored layer of American popular culture, where the proliferating cheap press touched the lives of activists and mourning parents, and all who yearned for a place in history. Scrapbook makers documented their feelings about momentous public events such as living through the Civil War, mediated through the newspapers. African Americans and women''s rights activists collected, concentrated, and critiqued accounts from a press that they did not control to create unwritten histories in books they wrote with scissors. Whether scrapbook makers pasted their clippings into blank books, sermon collections, or the pre-gummed scrapbook that Mark Twain invented, they claimed ownership of their reading. They created their own democratic archives. Writing with Scissors argues that people have long had a strong personal relationship to media. Like newspaper editors who enthusiastically scissorized and reprinted attractive items from other newspapers, scrapbook makers passed their reading along to family and community. This book explains how their scrapbooks underlie our present-day ways of thinking about information, news, and what we do with it.Trade ReviewEminently readable and endlessly fascinating. * Libby Bischof, University of Southern Maine *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Chapter 1: Reuse, Recycle, Recirculate: Scrapbooks Remake Value ; Chapter 2: Mark Twain's Scrapbook Innovations ; Chapter 3: Civil War Scrapbooks: Newspaper and Nation ; Chapter 4 Alternative Histories in African American Scrapbooks ; Chapter 5: Strategic Scrapbooks: Activist Women's Clipping and Self-Creation ; Chapter 6: Scrapbook as Archive, Scrapbooks in Archives ; Chapter 7: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth-Century Scrapbook ; Index
£38.69
Palgrave MacMillan UK Charles Lamb Coleridge and Wordsworth Reading Friendship in the 1790s
Book SynopsisThis book makes the case for a re-placing of Lamb as reader, writer and friend in the midst of the lively political and literary scene of the 1790s. Reading his little-known early works alongside others by the likes of Coleridge and Wordsworth, it allows a revealing insight into the creative dynamics of early Romanticism.Trade ReviewShortlisted for the CCUE Book Prize 2010 'Charles Lamb, Coleridge and Wordsworth contributes a serious revaluation of Lamb's reputation, and deals comprehensively and deftly with the important field of Romantic friendship and networks in their psychological and political aspects. Often using colourful anecdotes to illuminate more general analysis, Felicity James's book is a mature and elegant work which makes a genuine contribution to Romantic scholarship.' - R. S. White, Professor of English and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia 'Charles Lamb, Coleridge and Wordsworth is a great achievement. It is a paean to the profitable complexity of friendship in a time when talk among friends could potentially result in charges of sedition, or in the mass-production of verse with which we are still familiar.' - John Regan, University of Cambridge 'This outstanding book approaches 'reading friendship in the 1790s' by reading Charles Lamb alongside his friends and fellow-writers... James traces the intertwined friendships and examines their turning points and crises in a series of consistently superb close readings...admirable and inspiring...' - Alison Hickey, Review of English StudiesTable of ContentsList of Abbreviations Introduction: Placing Lamb PART I: IDEALISING FRIENDSHIP 'Frendotatoi meta frendous': Constructing Friendship in the 1790s Rewritings of Friendship, 1796-1797 PART II: DOUBTING FRIENDSHIP The 'Day of Horrors', 1796 'Cold, cold, cold': Loneliness and Reproach Blank Verse and Fears in Solitude PART III: RECONSTRUCTING FRIENDSHIP A Text of Friendship: Rosamund Gray Sympathy, Allusion and Experiment in John Woodvil The Urban Romantic: Lamb's Landscapes of Affection Index
£42.74
Penguin Publishing Group Mary and Maria Matilda
Book SynopsisThese three works of fiction - two by Mary Wollstonecraft, the radical author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and one by her daughter Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein - are powerfully emotive stories that combine passion with forceful feminist argument. In Mary Wollstonecraft''s Mary, the heroine flees her young husband in order to nurse her dearest friend, Ann, and finds genuine love, while Maria tells of a desperate young woman who seeks consolation in the arms of another man after the loss of her child. And Mary Shelley''s Matilda - suppressed for over a century - tells the story of a woman alienated from society by the incestuous passion of her father. Humane, compassionate and highly controversial, these stories demonstrate the strongly original genius of their authors.
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Aeneid
Book SynopsisTells the story of an epic voyage in which Aeneas crosses stormy seas, becomes entangled in a tragic love affair with Dido of Cathage, descends to the world of the dead - all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods - and finally reaches Italy, where he will fulfil his destiny: to found the Roman people.Trade ReviewAfter his best-selling Iliad and Odyssey, today's top-dog classical translator hits the triefecta with Virgil's epic about the founder of Rome * Newsweek *Fagles illuminates the poem's Homeric echoes while remaining faithful to Virgil's distinctive voice * The New Yorker *
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Year of Reading Dangerously How Fifty Great
Book SynopsisA working father whose life no longer feels like his own discovers the transforming powers of great (and downright terrible) literature in this laugh-out-loud memoir.Andy Miller had a job he quite liked, a family he loved and no time at all for reading. Or so he kept telling himself. But, no matter how busy or tired he was, something kept niggling at him. Books. Books he'd always wanted to read. Books he'd said he'd read, when he hadn't. Books that whispered the promise of escape from the 6.44 to London. And so, with the turn of a page, began a year of reading that was to transform Andy's life completely.This book is Andy's inspirational and very funny account of his expedition through literature: classic, cult and everything in-between. Crack the spine of your unread Middlemarch', discover what The Da Vinci Code' and Moby-Dick' have in common (everything, surprisingly) and knock yourself out with a new-found enthusiasm for Tolstoy, Douglas Adams and The Epic of Gilgamesh'. The Year ofTrade Review‘Like nothing else I have ever read – a combination of criticism and memoir that is astute, tender, funny and often wickedly ironic’ Peter Conrad, Observer ‘Very funny … this is “High Fidelity” for bookworms’ Christian House, Daily Telegraph ‘Brilliant. All these books should count themselves lucky to have been read by Andy Miller’ Stewart Lee ‘A readable, often funny account … This is much more than a succession of verdicts on famous books. It’s also an autobiography told through books … reminiscent both in style and perceptiveness of Nick Hornby. Miller’s theme is that books aren’t separate from life … Perhaps one book never changed anyone’s life; but 50 of them can.’ Brandon Robshaw, Independent ‘Hilarious and touching … If you don’t like to read, this book is probably not for you, but Dan Brown remains on sale’ Jenny Colgan, author of ‘Welcome to Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams’ ‘I loved this book … challenging, controversial and very funny’ David Nobbs, author of ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’ ‘Andy Miller is a very funny writer. And this hymn to reading is a delight. The chapter on Herman Melville and Dan Brown had me howling with pleasure. PS. It will also make you feel a bit well-read’ Matt Haig, author of ‘The Humans’ ‘Brilliant’ Lucy Mangan, author of ‘My Family and Other Disasters’ ‘Andy Miller was leading a normal life of quiet desperation when he discovered that he was no longer reading with any plan or pleasure. Usually books about books as therapy are resistible but “The Year of Reading Dangerously” is a sweet exception. Amiable, circumstantial, amusing, charming’ The Times ‘A witty self-help guide to managing one’s bookshelves’ TLS ‘Like Bill Bryson being locked in the British Library for his own good, “The Year of Reading Dangerously” is clever, inspiring and – shh! – laugh-out-loud funny’ Neil Perryman, author of ‘Adventures with the Wife in Space’ ‘By turns witty and profound’ Daily Telegraph
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd A History of My Times
Book SynopsisXenophon''s History recounts nearly fifty turbulent years of warfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story of the Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished his magisterial history, this is a fascinating chronicle of the conflicts that ultimately led to the decline of Greece, and the wars with both Thebes and the might of Persia. An Athenian by birth, Xenophon became a firm supporter of the Spartan cause, and fought against the Athenians in the battle of Coronea. Combining history and memoir, this is a brilliant account of the triumphs and failures of city-states, and a portrait of Greece at a time of crisis.Table of ContentsA History of My TimesIntroductionSelect BibliographyA Note on the NotesA History of My TimesBook OneBook TwoBook ThreeBook FourBook SixBook SevenAppendixMaps:1. The Aegean2. Asia Minor3. Northern Peloponnese and North West Greece4. Central Greece5. Area of the Isthmus and the Saronic Gulf6. Central and Southern Peloponnese7. ChalcidiceIndex
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Gods Will Have Blood Les Dieux Ont Soif
Book SynopsisA Penguin ClassicIt is April 1793 and the final power struggle of the French Revolution is taking hold: the aristocrats are dead and the poor are fighting for bread in the streets. In a Paris swept by fear and hunger lives Gamelin, a revolutionary young artist appointed magistrate, and given the power of life and death over the citizens of France. But his intense idealism and unbridled single-mindedness drive him inexorably towards catastrophe. Published in 1912, The Gods Will Have Blood is a breathtaking story of the dangers of fanaticism, while its depiction of the violence and devastation of the Reign of Terror is strangely prophetic of the sweeping political changes in Russia and across Europe.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and diTrade ReviewBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Consolation of Philosophy Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisBoethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. The Consolation was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy. Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. The Consolation was extremely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas were influential on the thought of Chaucer and Dante.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the Table of ContentsThe Consolation of Philosophy " cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="0"PrefaceIntroductionI. IntroductoryII. Boethius' Life and WritingsIII. The Consolation of PhilosophyIV. The Christianity of BoethiusV. The TextThe Consolation of PhilosophyBook IBook IIBook IIIBook IVBook VBibliographyGlossary
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Iliad
Book SynopsisTells the story of darkest episode in "Trojan War". At its centre is Achilles, greatest warrior-champion of Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon. But when Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge - even though he knows this may ensure his own death.Trade Review“Fitzgerald has solved virtually every problem that has plagued translators of Homer. The narrative runs, the dialogue speaks, the military action is clear, and the repetitive epithets become useful text rather than exotic relics.” –Atlantic Monthly “Fitzgerald’s swift rhythms, bright images, and superb English make Homer live as never before…This is for every reader in our time and possibly for all time.”–Library Journal “[Fitzgerald’s Odyssey and Iliad] open up once more the unique greatness of Homer’s art at the level above the formula; yet at the same time they do not neglect the brilliant texture of Homeric verse at the level of the line and the phrase.” –The Yale Review“What an age can read in Homer, what its translators can manage to say in his presence, is one gauge of its morale, one index to its system of exultations and reticences. The supple, the iridescent, the ironic, these modes are among our strengths, and among Mr. Fitzgerald’s.” –National ReviewWith an Introduction by Gregory NagyTable of ContentsThe IliadForewordIntroductionIntroduction to the 1950 EditionNotes on this RevisionThe Main CharactersFurther ReadingMaps:1. A reconstruction of Homer's imagined battlefields2. The Troad3. Trojan places and contingents4. Homeric Greece5. Greek contingents at TroyPreliminariesThe Iliad1. Plague and Wrath2. A Dream, a Testing and the Catalogue of Ships3. A Duel and a Trojan View of the Greeks4. The Oath is Broken and Battle Joined5. Diomedes' Heroics6. Hector and Andromache7. Ajax Fights Hector8. Hector Triumphant9. The Embassy to Achilles10. Diomedes and Odysseus: The Night Attack11. Achilles Takes Notice12. Hector Storms the Wall13. The Battle at the Ships14. Zeus Outmanoeuvred15. The Greeks at Bay16. The Death of Patroclus17. The Struggle Over Patroclus18. Achilles' Decision19. The Feud Ends20. Achilles on the Rampage21. Achilles Fights the River22. The Death of Hector23. The Funeral and the Games24. Priam and AchillesAppendices1. A Brief Glossary2. Ommitted Fathers' NamesIndex
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Protagoras and Meno Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisPlato's finest dramatic work, an entertaining tale of goodness and knowledgeExploring the question of what exactly makes good people good, Protagoras and Meno are two of the most enjoyable and accessible of all of Plato's dialogues. Widely regarded as his finest dramatic work, the Protagoras, set during the golden age of Pericles, pits a youthful Socrates against the revered sophist Protagoras, whose brilliance and humanity make him one the most interesting and likeable of Socrates' philosophical opponents, and turns their encounter into a genuine and lively battle of minds. The Meno sees an older but ever ironic Socrates humbling a proud young aristocrat as they search for a clear understanding of what it is to be a good man, and setting out the startling idea that all human learning may be the recovery of knowledge already possessed by our immortal souls.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-spe
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Last Days of Socrates
Book SynopsisEuthyphro/Apology/Crito/Phaedo''Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death''The trial and condemnation of Socrates on charges of heresy and corrupting young minds is a defining moment in the history of classical Athens. In tracing these events through four dialogues, Plato also developed his own philosophy of a life guided by self-responsibility. Euthyphro finds Socrates outside the court-house, debating the nature of piety, while the Apology is his robust rebuttal of the charges against him. In the Crito, awaiting execution in prison, Socrates counters the arguments of friends urging him to escape. Finally, in the Phaedo, he is shown calmly confident in the face of death.Translated by HUGH TREDENNICK and HAROLD TARRANT with an Introduction and notes by HAROLD TARRANTTable of ContentsThe Last Days of SocratesChronologyPrefaceGeneral IntroductionFurther ReadingA Note on the TextsEuthyphroHolinessSocrates in ConfrontationApologyJustice and Duty (i)Socrates Speaks at his TrialCritoJustice and Duty (ii)Socrates in PrisonPhaedoWisdom and the SoulSocrates about to DiePostscript: The Theory of Ideas in the PhaedoNotesIndex
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Agricola and Germania Tacitus Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisThe Agricola is both a portrait of Julius Agricola—the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus' well-loved and respected father-in-law—and the first detailed account of Britain that has come down to us. It offers fascinating descriptions of the geography, climate and peoples of the country, and a succinct account of the early stages of the Roman occupation, nearly fatally undermined by Boudicca's revolt in AD 61 but consolidated by campaigns that took Agricola as far as Anglesey and northern Scotland. The warlike German tribes are the focus of Tacitus' attention in the Germania, which, like the Agricola, often compares the behaviour of barbarian peoples favourably with the decadence and corruption of Imperial Rome.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throu
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Last Days of Socrates
Book Synopsis''Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just'' Plato''s account of Socrates'' trial and death (399 BC) is a significant moment in Classical literature and the life of Classical Athens. In these four dialogues, Plato develops the Socratic belief in responsibility for one''s self and shows Socrates living and dying under his philosophy. In Euthyphro, Socrates debates goodness outside the courthouse; Apology sees him in court, rebutting all charges of impiety; in Crito, he refuses an entreaty to escape from prison; and in Phaedo, Socrates faces his impending death with calmness and skilful discussion of immortality.Christopher Rowe''s introduction to his powerful new translation examines the book''s themes of identity and confrontation, and explores how its content is less historical fact than a promotion of Plato''s Socratic philosophy.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Goodbye to All That
Book SynopsisAn autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves''s Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War''s haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics.In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing ''never to make England my home again''. This is his superb account of his life up until that ''bitter leave-taking'': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraitTrade ReviewA remarkable book ... Essential reading for the centenary of the first world war—GuardianOne of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted—The Times Literary SupplementWe see the dark heart of the book even more clearly, and hear it beating even more loudly, in this original edition than we do in the comparatively careful and considered terms of the later one—Andrew Motion
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Book of Taliesin Poems of Warfare and Praise
Book SynopsisThe great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in more than 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsA Penguin ClassicTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name. Robert Graves was fascinated by what he saw as his work's connection to a lost world of deeply buried folkloric memory. He is a shapeshifter; a seer; a chronicler of battles fought, by sword and with magic, between the ancient kingdoms of the British Isles; a bridge between old Welsh mythologies and the new Christian theology; a sixth-century Brythonic bard; and a legendary collective project spanning the centuries up to The Book of Taliesin's compilation in fourteenth-century North Wales. He is, above all, no single he.The figure of Taliesin is a mystery. But of the variety and quality of the poems written under his sign, of their power as exemplars of the force of ecstatic poetic imagination, and of the fascinating window they off
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Fall of Icarus
Book Synopsis''Drawn on by his eagerness for the open sky, he left his guide and soared upwards...''Ovid tells the tales of Theseus and the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, the Calydonian Boar-Hunt, and many other famous myths.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Ovid (c.43 BCE-17 CE). Ovid''s other works available in Penguin Classics are The Erotic Poems, Fasti, Heroides and Metamorphoses.
£5.63
Penguin Books Ltd The Booksellers Tale
Book SynopsisA SPECTATOR AND EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020''A joy. Each chapter instantly became my favourite'' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas''Wonderful'' Lucy Mangan''The right book has a neverendingness, and so does the right bookshop.''This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own. Part cultural history, part literary love letter and part reluctant memoir, this is the tale of one bookseller and many, many books.''If ferreting through bookshops is your idea of heaven, you''ll get the same pleasure from this treasure trove of a book'' Jake Kerridge, Sunday ExpressTrade ReviewThe Bookseller's Tale is a joy. I read the first chapters in a single binge-read, and each chapter instantly became my favourite ... Individually, the paragraphs are threads of the very best trivia: collectively, they become a cultural history of the book. Memoir-flecked, magpie-minded, relentlessly engaging ... I loved this gnarly old bookshop in nifty book form. -- David Mitchell, author of CLOUD ATLAS * Twitter *Martin Latham, who has sold [books] for more than 30 years, has done the tradition proud. His exploration of the history of books, and why we love them so much, is packed with touching stories and fascinating facts ... Underpinning the whole narrative is that simple pleasure, the love of a good book. -- Mark Mason * Daily Mail *Latham thinks bookshops should have an "Aladdin's cave feeling" and the same is true of this book, which combinesanecdotes about his career (guest author Spike Milligan was a liability) with a cultural history of reading, printing, bookselling, libraries and anything bookish you care to think of (there's even a digression on the 5,500 different species of booklice). If ferreting through bookshops is your idea of heaven, you'll get the same pleasure from this treasure trove of a book. -- Jake Kerridge * Sunday Express *I loved this book, and I don't think I've read a book which is more crammed full of fantastic stories, interesting ideas, great quotes, great insights. It's not just on every page, it's in every paragraph. -- Simon Mayo, Scala RadioGarrulous, wide-ranging and humane ... The Bookseller's Tale has the teetering, ramshackle feeling of a reliably eclectic bookstore. -- Denis Duncan * Times Literary Supplement *Roaming across topics from legendary libraries to humble book pedlars, as well as historically overlooked literary forms like chapbooks and comfort reads, its appeal is vivid enough that even the electronic edition seems to exude the tantalising aroma of a used bookstore. -- Hephzibah Anderson * The Observer *A history and celebration of all things bookish ... This is a book that celebrates stories, scribbling in margins and the collecting, cherishing and even kissing of books - something done with surprising frequency, apparently ... ... Those who enjoy browsing in paper-scented bookshops, run by eccentric old storytellers with yarns to spare, will come away with something unexpected, reassuring and possibly worth a kiss. -- Katy Guest * The Guardian *For sheer enthusiasm, it will be hard to beat Martin Latham, bookseller at Waterstones Canterbury for three decades. His The Bookseller's Tale is a collection of tales about famous writers and bibliophiles, but above all a love letter to pages between covers. -- Paul Laity and Justine Jordan * The Guardian *A celebration of reading and readers and all things bookish. Entertaining, erudite, eccentric - The Bookseller's Tale is a delight. -- Alison Light, author of COMMON PEOPLE: THE HISTORY OF AN ENGLISH FAMILYAside from being a history of books, this is a love letter, larded with charming anecdotes. There's AS Byatt buying a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel and admitting she can't be seen doing it in London, and another customer having a heart attack in his shop and saying it would be "a great place to go". * Evening Standard *A shared love of books creates a fellowship that transcends race, culture, gender, age and class. This book, written with wit, elegance and understanding, by one who knows what he is talking about, celebrates the abiding pleasure, nourishment and comradeship that books provide. -- Salley Vickers, author of THE LIBRARIANDelightful ... a love letter to publishing. -- Jack Blackburn * The Times *God, this book is wonderful. -- Lucy ManganMartin Latham is a man of many parts ... This is jam packed full of interesting facts, amusing anecdotes, and witty quotes. It is to be devoured or dipped into, depending on one's taste and time and rewards both types of readers. A treat for book lovers. -- David Roche * BookBrunch *
£10.44
Oxford University Press Émile Zola
Book SynopsisÉmile Zola was the leader of the literary movement known as ''naturalism'' and is one of the great figures of the novel. In his monumental Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93), he explored the social and cultural landscape of the late nineteenth century in ways that scandalized bourgeois society. Zola opened the novel up to a new realm of subjects, including the realities of working-class life, class relations, and questions of gender and sexuality, and his writing embodied a new freedom of expression, with his bold, outspoken voice often inviting controversy. In this Very Short Introduction, Brian Nelson examines Zola''s major themes and narrative art. He illuminates the social and political contexts of Zola''s work, and provides readings of five individual novels (The Belly of Paris, L''Assommoir, The Ladies'' Paradise, Germinal, and Earth). Zola''s naturalist theories, which attempted to align literature with science, helped to generate the stereotypical notion that his fiction was somehow nonfictional. Nelson, however, reveals how the most distinctive elements of Zola''s writing go far beyond his theoretical naturalism, giving his novels their unique force. Throughout, he sets Zola''s work in context, considering his relations with contemporary painters, his role in the Dreyfus Affair, and his eventual murder. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewIts highlights are the short yet lucid English translations from Zola's French and vivid plot summaries. * Sucheta Kapoor, Techno India University, West Bengal , Nineteenth-Century French Studies *As an introduction to Zola's life and work, Nelson's little book cannot be faulted: it is grounded in a specialist's mastery of the field; it is completed by a reliable chronology; and its invitation to read further is supported by a bibliography listing major editions in French as well as critical studies in English which range from the accessible to the scholarly. * Robert Lethbridge, Journal of European Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of illustrations Introduction 1 Zola and the art of fiction 2 Before the Rougon-Macquart 3 The fat and the thin: The Belly of Paris 4 'A work of truth': L'Assommoir 5 The man-eater: Nana 6 The dream machine: The Ladies' Paradise 7 Down the mine: Germinal 8 The Great Mother: Earth 9 After the Rougon-Macquart A chronology of Zola's life and works References Further reading
£9.49
Harvard University Press Feeling Backward
Book SynopsisLove weighs the costs of the contemporary move to the mainstream in lesbian and gay culture. While widening tolerance for same-sex marriage and gay-themed media brings clear benefits, assimilation entails losses hard to identify or mourn, since many aspects of historical gay culture are so closely associated with the pain and shame of the closet.Trade ReviewIn supple readings of difficult, sometimes disturbing, yet always fascinating texts and contexts, Heather Love demonstrates that if we are to seriously engage with the queer past we must welcome the shame, fear, loneliness, obstinacy, and indeed backwardness that we encounter there. For all that, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History, with its beautiful prose, stunning theoretical sophistication, careful attention to detail, as well as a hard-headed respect for the artists and critics whom it treats, is a stunningly hopeful book. Throughout Love links her critiques of celebratory queer criticism with a passionate concern for the opening up of progressive forms of intellectual and political life. -- Robert F. Reid-Pharr, author of Once You Go Black: Choice, Desire and the Black American IntellectualHeather Love is the Marcel Proust of contemporary theory. Disappointed love and tormented desire find a compassionate commentator in Love, who turns to queer history's tragic, lonely, and despairing figures, not to sublimate or to save them, but to recognize and to respect them. A wise, worldly, and winning book. -- Diana Fuss, Professor of English, Princeton UniversityNow that, in the latest twist of tolerance, gays are required to flaunt their well-adjustedness, Feeling Backward may feel backward indeed as it contemplates the pain, anger, isolation, and sheer crankiness, prominent in literary figures of our queer past. But it is harder than ever to pause for thought—and not simply revulsion or compassion—over these prickly and unwholesome feelings, which lead an increasingly closeted existence in ourselves. Heather Love is in astonishing possession of the negative capability required by her undertaking, and her analytic finesse proves well-matched to her ethical delicacy. This book—together with the constellation of work it gathers around itself—belongs to what may deservedly be called a new wave in queer studies. -- D.A. Miller, University of California, BerkeleyLike Lot's wife, I like to look over my shoulder too much at salty scenes from the shameful past-- though I've yet to turn into a pillar of the community. The delightfully named Heather Love makes all that hankering after pre-gay sex on Hampstead Heath seem slightly romantic and illuminates why and how the queer past is not always about waiting for Stonewall and disco to happen. -- Mark Simpson, Editor of Anti-GayWhat does it mean to "feel backward"? By turning to, rather than away from, the texts of shame, injury, loss and failure that populate a queer past, Heather Love manages to shift queer studies away from the straight and narrow and back onto the slippery slope of stigma and dismay. Love refuses the triumphalist accounts of gay and lesbian progress and she insists on the spoiling of identity and on the political importance of "bad feelings." This is a rigorous book, a brave book, a wildly original and unrelenting book. It will be a central text in the backward future of queer studies. -- Judith Halberstam, author of In a Queer Time and PlaceIt seems to me this discontinuous book is a little bit like the stations of the cross. I mean if you like to stop, and most of us do. And sometimes the street was filled with us. All thinking about someone else. They are the past inside our present. He just put one in a cab. I like Feeling Backward... a lot. -- Eileen Myles, poetIn this interesting study of modernist literature and the challenges of history, the author encourages readers to consider how early-20th-century moments once labeled embarrassing, troubling, and evil continue to have an affect. Drawing from the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, the Marxist philosophy of Raymond Williams, and other schools of thought, Love rereads the works of Radclyffe Hall, Walter Pater, Willa Cather, and Sylvia Townsend Warner--often considered to turn away from an image of a brighter future for queer readers--in order to consider the "backward feelings" of shame, depression, and regret and describe how these texts have fallen into critical disrepute among queer theorists and scholars...This book is for those interested in the politics and history of emotion and sensibility. -- J. Pruitt * Choice *Feeling Backward is a brilliant work...Love looks fearlessly at literature from the past in which circumstances related to gender tend to produce victims rather than heroines. She establishes that our literature has been affected by homophobia and demands that we consider the implications of this fact. Love contends that we need to look at history and social politics less like Lot's wife, who's destroyed by looking back, and more like Odysseus, who listens to the past but isn't destroyed by it. The past haunts us whether we acknowledge it or not; we may be "looking forward," as we like to assure ourselves, even as we're "feeling backward." -- Martha Miller * Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide *Feeling Backward is a brilliant book that attempts the "impossible" and succeeds. Using Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick as theoretical touchstones, and incorporating Raymond Williams's "structures of feeling," Heather Love "feels backward" to reimagine and connect with aspects of a queer past that had been rendered invisible. In doing so--in risking (as she puts it) the fate of Lot's wife in turning back to revisit a painful past--she embraces the ruins, the "fugitive dead," the loneliness and failures and all the "negative affect" that need to be reclaimed as part of that history...Love moves bravely backwards to that murky time, the "queer life before Stonewall," and then crosses the modernist line backwards to feel what has been lost. In doing so she has made a profoundly imaginative and powerful contribution to queer history. -- Rick Taylor * Feminist Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Emotional Rescue 2. Permanent Exile: Walter Pater's Queer Modernism 3. The End of Friendship: Willa Cather's Sad Kindred 4. Unwanted Being: Stephen Gordon's Spoiled Identity 5. Impossible Objects: Sylvia Townsend Warner and the Longing for Revolution Epilogue: The Politics of Refusal Notes Index
£23.36
Princeton University Press The Plum in the Golden Vase or Chin Ping Mei
Book SynopsisProvides an annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town, who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines.Trade Review"[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."--Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review Praise for Volume 1: "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre--from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."--Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books Praise for Volume 1: "Racy, colloquial, and robustly scatalogical, [this translation] could only have been done now, when our literary language has finally shed its Victorian values. David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing ... earlier versions."--Paul St. John Mackintosh, Literary Review Praise for Volume 1: "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."--Robert Chatain, Chicago Tribune Review of BooksTable of ContentsLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii CAST OF CHARACTERS xv CHAPTER 21 Wu Yueh-niang Sweeps Snow in Order to Brew Tea; Ying Po-chueh Runs Errands on Behalf of Flowers 3 CHAPTER 22 Hsi-men Ch'ing Secretly Seduces Lai-wang's Wife; Ch'un-mei Self-righteously Denounces Li Ming 30 CHAPTER 23 Yu-hsiao Acts as Lookout by Yueh-niang's Chamber; Chin-lien Eavesdrops outside Hidden Spring Grotto 43 CHAPTER 24 Ching-chi Flirts with a Beauty on the Lantern Festival; Hui-hsiang Angrily Hurls Abuse at Lai-wang's Wife 62 CHAPTER 25 Hsueh-o Secretly Divulges the Love Affair; Lai-wang Drunkenly Vilifies Hsi-men Ch'ing 80 CHAPTER 26 Lai-wang Is Sent under Penal Escort to Hsu-chou; Sung Hui-lien Is Shamed into Committing Suicide 100 CHAPTER 27 Li P'ing-erh Communicates a Secret in the Kingfisher Pavilion; P'an Chin-lien Engages in a Drunken Orgy under the Grape Arbor 127 CHAPTER 28 Ch'en Ching-chi Teases Chin-lien a out a Shoe; Hsi-men Ch'ing Angrily Beats Little Iron Rod 150 CHAPTER 29 Immortal Wu Physiognomizes the Exalted and the Humble; P'an Chin-lien Enjoys a Midday Battle in the Bathtub 166 CHAPTER 30 Lai-pao Escorts the Shipment of Birthday Gifts; Hsi-men Ch'ing Begets a Son and Gains an Office 194 CHAPTER 31 Ch'in-t'ung Conceals a Flagon after Spying on Yu-hsiao; Hsi-men Ch'ing Holds a Feast and Drinks Celebratory Wine 214 CHAPTER 32 Li Kuei-chieh Adopts a Mother and Is Accepted as a Daughter; Ying Po-chueh Cracks Jokes and Dances Attendance on Success 242 CHAPTER 33 Ch'en Ching-chi Loses His Keys and Is Distrained to Sing; Han Tao-kuo Liberates His Wife to Compete for Admiration 261 CHAPTER 34 Shu-t'ung Relies upon His Favor to Broker Affairs; P'ing-an Harbors Resentment and Wags His Tongue 282 CHAPTER 35 Harboring Resentment Hsi-men Ch'ing Punishes P'ing-an; Playing a Female Role Shu-t'ung Entertains Hangers-on 309 CHAPTER 36 Chai Ch'ien Sends a Letter Asking for a Young Girl; Hsi-men Ch'ing Patronizes Principal Graduate Ts'ai 345 CHAPTER 37 Old Mother Feng Urges the Marriage of Han Ai-chieh; Hsi-men Ch'ing Espouses Wang Liu-erh as a Mistress 360 CHAPTER 38 Hsi-men Ch'ing Su jects Trickster Han to the Third Degree; P'an Chin-lien on a Snowy Evening Toys with Her P'i-p'a 382 CHAPTER 39 Hsi-men Ch'ing Holds Chiao Rites at the Temple of the Jade Emperor; Wu Yueh-niang Listens to Buddhist Nuns Reciting Their Sacred Texts 404 CHAPTER 40 Holding Her Boy in Her Arms Li P'ing-erh Curries Favor; Dressing Up as a Maidservant Chin-lien Courts Affection 438 APPENDIX Translations of Supplementary Material 453 NOTES 473 BIBLIOGRAPHY 577 INDEX 605
£35.70
WW Norton & Co The Canterbury Tales Seventeen Tales and the
Book Synopsis
£12.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Psychiatric Writings from Alienation and
Book SynopsisFrantz Fanon's psychiatric career was crucial to his thinking as an anti-colonialist writer and activist. Much of his iconic work was shaped by his experiences working in hospitals in France, Algeria and Tunisia. The writing collected here was written from 1951 to 1960 in tandem with his political work and reveals much about how Fanon's thought developed, showing that, for him, psychiatry was part of a much wider socio-political struggle. His political, revolutionary and literary lives should not then be separated from the psychiatric practice and writings that shaped his thinking about oppression, alienation and the search for freedom.Table of ContentsPlates Illustrations Frantz Fanon: Works Cited General Introduction, by Jean Khalfa and Robert J.C. Young Fanon: A Revolutionary Psychiatrist, by Jean Khalfa 1. Mental alterations, character modifications, psychic disorders and intellectual deficit in spinocerebellar heredodegeneration: A case of Friedreich’s ataxia with delusions of possession 2. Letter to Maurice Despinoy 3. Trait d’Union 4. On some cases treated with the Bini method 5. Indications of electroconvulsive therapy within institutional therapies 6. On an attempt to rehabilitate a patient suffering from morpheic epilepsy and serious character disorders 7. Note on sleep therapy techniques using conditioning and electroencephalographic monitoring 8. Our Journal 9. Letter to Maurice Despinoy 10. Social therapy in a ward of Muslim men: Methodological difficulties 11. Daily life in the douars 12. Introduction to sexuality disorders among North Africans 385 13. Currents aspects of mental care in Algeria 14. Ethnopsychiatric considerations 15. Conducts of confession in North Africa (1) 16. Conducts of confession in North Africa (2) 17. Letter to Maurice Despinoy 18. Maghrebi Muslims and their attitude to madness 19. TAT in Muslim women: Sociology of perception and imagination 20. Letter to the Resident Minister 21. The phenomenon of agitation in the psychiatric milieu:General considerations, psychopathological meaning 22. Biological study of the action of lithium citrate on bouts of mania 23. On a case of torsion spasm 24. First tests using injectable meprobamate for hypochondriac states 25. Day hospitalization in psychiatry: Value and limits 26. Day hospitalization in psychiatry: Value and limits. Part two: – doctrinal considerations 27. The meeting between society and psychiatry Frantz Fanon’s Library and Life Franz Fanon’s Library Key dates of Fanon’s chronology Index
£17.09
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Fantasy Fiction
Book SynopsisThe first fantasy-writing textbook to combine a historical genre overview with an anthology and comprehensive craft guide, this book explores the blue prints of one of the most popular forms of genre fiction. The first section will acquaint readers with the vast canon of existing fantasy fiction and outline the many sub-genres encompassed within it before examining the important relationship between fantasy and creative writing, the academy and publishing. A craft guide follows which equips students with the key concepts of storytelling as they are impacted by writing through a fantastical lens. These include: - Character and dialogue - Point of view - Plot and structure - Worldbuilding settings, ideologies and cultures - Style and revision The third section guides students through the spectrum of styles as they are classified in fantasy fiction from Epic and high fantasy, through Lovecraftian and Weird fiction, to magical realism and hybrid faTrade ReviewA thorough take on the Fantasy genre by someone who clearly loves the genre, and a welcome addition to an academic field that deserves more scholarship. * Nicole Peeler, Director of the Writing Popular Fiction Program, Seton Hill University, USA *Jennifer Pullen’s Fantasy Fiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology is the book students and teachers of not only Fantasy fiction but also fiction writ large have been waiting for. Capacious, generous, and wise, it deftly embraces history, inhabits our current cultural moment, and enables the future. An instant classic. * Stephanie Vanderslice, Professor of Creative Writing and Co-Director Arkansas Writers MFA Workshop, University of Central Arkansas, USA *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Section 1: An Introduction to Fantasy Writing Introduction Chapter 1: Fantasy and Its Evolution Chapter 2: Fantasy Genres (a mostly comprehensive review) Chapter 3: Fantasy Fiction, Publishing, and Creative Writing in the Academy Section 2: The Craft of Fantasy Writing Chapter 4: Character and Dialogue Chapter 5: Point of View Chapter 6: Structure and Plot Chapter 7: Worldbuilding Part 1 Chapter 8: Worldbuilding Part 2 Chapter 9: Worldbuilding Part 3 Chapter 10: Style and Revision Discussion Questions and Writing Activities Section 3: Genres and Styles of Fantasy Writing Chapter 11: Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, and Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Chapter 12: Historical Fantasy Chapter 13: Weird Fiction, Lovecraftian Fantasy, Gothic Fantasy, and Cosmic Horror Chapter 14: Contemporary and Urban Fantasy Chapter 15: Fabulism and Magical Realism Chapter 16: Mythic, Fairy Tale, Folkloric, and Fairy Fantasy Chapter 17: Hybrid Fantasy Conclusion Anthology Cooney—Martyr’s Gem Donaldson—The Albatrosses Goss—England Under the White Witch Jones—The Night Bazaar for Women Becoming Reptiles Le Guin—The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Liu—Good Hunting Miéville—The Condition of New Death Murray—La Llorona Roanhorse—Harvest Samatar—Meet Me in Iram Singh—A Handful of Rice Ulmer—Red Valentine— From the Catalogue of the Pavilion of the Marvelous, Scheduled for Premiere at the Great Exhibition (Before the Fire) Notes and References
£24.69
HarperCollins Publishers The Grandmothers
Book SynopsisFour novellas by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, that once again show her to be unequalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition.The title story, The Grandmothers', is an astonishing tour de force, a shockingly intimate portrait of an unconventional extended family and the lengths to which they will go to find happiness and love. Written with a keen cinematic eye, the story is a ruthless dissection of the veneer of middle-class morality and convention.Victoria and the Staveneys', takes us through 20 years of the life of a young underprivileged black girl in London. A chance meeting introduces her to the Staveneys a liberal white middle-class family and, seduced, she falls pregnant by one of the sons. As her daughter grows up, Victoria feels her parental control diminishing as the attractions of the Staveneys' world exert themselves. An honest and often uncomfortable look at race relations in London over the past few decades, Lessing reaffTrade Review'Lessing's prose is as vigorous in these stories as it has ever been. She has an extraordinary feel not only for landscape but also for the human creature within it.' The Times 'In these four tales Lessing shows her adaptability, and her capacity to unify the most far-flung territories of human experience. Like all great writers, she brings a multitudinous sensibility to bear on individual people, on single rooms, on particular moments – and she makes them live.' Daily Telegraph ‘Doris Lessing has changed the way we think about the world.’ Blake Morrison ‘Thank goodness for Doris Lessing. While the rest of us flounder about noisily in the muddy waters of life, she never fails to expose with startling clarity the essential folly of our dreams and good intentions.’ Kate Chisholm, Evening Standard ‘She’s up there in the pantheon with Balzac and George Eliot. We’re lucky she’s still writing.’ Lisa Appignanesi, Independent ‘She has an extraordinary feeling for the peculiar vulnerabilities of the young and the elderly. And her portraits of human relationships are of quite staggering beauty.’ Ruth Scurr, The Times
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Far From the Madding Crowd Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Here is one of Thomas Hardy's most popular novels, soon to be released as a major motion picture in May 2015.I shall do one thing in this life one thing certain that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die'Independent and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene owns the hearts of three men. Striving to win her love in different ways, their relationships with Bathsheba complicate her life in bucolic Wessex and cast shadows over their own. With the morals and expectations of rural society weighing heavily upon her, Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love and betrayal, and discovers how random acts of chance and tragedy can dramatically alter life's course.The first of Hardy's novels to become a major literary success, Far from the Madding Crowd explores what it means to live and to love.
£5.62
Penguin Books Ltd The Misanthrope and Other Plays
Book SynopsisMolière (1622-73) combined all the traditional elements of comedy—wit, slapstick, spectacle and satire—with a deep understanding of character to create richly sophisticated dramas which have always delighted audiences. Most are built around dangerously deluded and obsessive heroes such as The Would-Be Gentleman and The Misanthrope who threaten to blight the lives of those around them. Such Foolish Affected Ladies and Those Learned Ladies (both newly translated for this edition) expose the extravagant, fashionable fads and snobbery of the Parisian smart set, while the story of the falsely devout Tartuffe and his devoted disciple Orgon attracted huge controversy for its attack on religious hypocrisy. Finally, The Doctor Despite Himself forms a hilarious chapter in Molière's long-standing vendetta against the medical profession. Like Shakespeare, Molière was a true man of the theatre whose comedies blend sharp insight into human nature with Table of Contents"Such Foolish Affected Ladies"; "Tartuffe"; "The Misanthrope"; "The Doctor Despite Himself"; "The Would-Be Gentleman"; "Those Learned Ladies".
£10.39
Penguin Books Ltd The Iliad
Book SynopsisA story that centres on the critical events in four days of the tenth and final year of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. It describes how the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilleus sets in motion a tragic sequence of events, which leads to Achilleus' killing of Hektor and determines the ultimate fate of Troy.Trade ReviewMuch the best modern prose translation of the Iliad -- Robin Lane Fox * Financial Times *This new prose translation of the Iliad is outstandingly good . . . to read it is to be gripped by it * Classical Review *Superbly direct and eloquent . . . by its sensitivity, fluency, and flexibility, it will win a permanent place on the shelves of Homer-lovers -- Martin Fagg * Times Educational Supplement *Martin Hammond's new version is the best and most accurate there has ever been, as smooth as cream but as clear as water . . . Hammond's Iliad deserves to become a standard book -- Peter Levi * Independent *Surely the best Iliad in quite a few decades * Greece & Rome Journal *Here is a fine Iliad for our times, to be read with great pleasure -- Philip Howard * The Times *Table of ContentsThe background to "The Iliad"; the theme of "The Iliad"; a critical summary of "The Iliad"; a note on names. "The Iliad": book 1 - the anger of Achilleus; book 2 - the catalogue of ships; book 3 - Paris, Helen, Aphrodite; book 4 - the breaking of the truce; book 5 - Diomedes triumphant; book 6 - Hektor in Troy; book 7 - duel of Hektor and Aias; book 8 - Trojan success; book 9 - the embassy to Achilleus; book 10 - night operations; book 11 - Achaian retreat; book 12 - the assault on the wall; book 13 - the Achains rally; book 14 - the seduction of Zeus; book 15 - fighting at the ships; book 16 - the death of Patroklos; book 17 - the battle over Patroklos; book 18 - Thetis, Achilleus, and new armour; book 19 - Achilleus and Agamemnon reconciled; book 20 - the return of Achilleus; book 21 - the battle of the Gods; book 22 - the death of Hektor; book 23 - funeral games for Patroklos; book 24 - Achilleus and Priam.
£9.49
Headline Publishing Group The Jane Austen Treasury Her Life Her Times Her
Book SynopsisFeatures a collection of facts and insights into the life and times of the great novelist and the attitudes and customs that shaped both her and her work. This title looks at the facts of author's life and times, as well as stories about her novels, including: the marriage proposal that Austen accepted, only to change her mind, and more.
£9.49
Yale University Press Critical Revolutionaries
Book SynopsisTerry Eagleton looks back across sixty years to an extraordinary critical milieu that transformed the study of literature
£10.99
Random House Publishing Group Main Street
Book Synopsis
£5.90
Faber & Faber Plays 1 The Birthday Party The Room The Dumb
Book SynopsisThis volume contains Harold Pinter''s first six plays, including The Birthday Party.The Birthday PartyStanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by two strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.''Mr Pinter''s terrifying blend of pathos and hatred fuses unforgettably into the stuff of art.'' Sunday TimesThe Room and The Dumb WaiterIn these two early one-act plays, Harold Pinter reveals himself as already in full control of his unique ability to make dramatic poetry of the banalities of everyday speech and the precision with which it defines character.''Harold Pinter is the most original writer to have emerged from the new wave of dramatists who gave fresh life to the British theatre in the fifties and early sixties.'' The TimesThe HothouseThe Hothouse was first produced in 1980, though Harold Pinter wrote the play
£17.09
Faber & Faber Time to Be in Earnest A Fragment of Autobiography
Book SynopsisP. D. James''s extraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old age.In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th and 78th birthdays, and looks back on her earlier life.With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, and then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords.Along the way, this diary and personal memoir deals with
£10.44
Faber & Faber W B Yeats 80th Anniversary Collection
Book SynopsisW. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was not only Ireland''s greatest poet but one of the most influential voices in world literature in the twentieth century. His extraordinary work, in the words of this volume''s editor Seamus Heaney, encourages us ''to be more resolutely and abundantly alive, whatever the conditions.''Other volumes in this series: Auden, Betjemen, Eliot, Hughes and Plath
£12.34
Faber & Faber Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot
Book SynopsisT.S. Eliot - editor, poet, critic and publisher - was the greatest poet of his generation. The winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, virtually every English language poet since owes him a debt of gratitude. Voted as Britain''s favourite poet in a 2009 BBC poll, Eliot selected and designed this collection himself in 1954 as an introduction to his work for new readers.Containing ''The Waste Land'' and ''The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'', Selected Poems is the perfect way to begin with one of the defining figures of the twentieth century. This edition also features an introductory essay by Seamus Heaney.
£10.44
Harvard University, Asia Center Poetry and Painting in Song China The Subtle Art
Book SynopsisDuring the Song dynasty (960–1278), some of China’s elite found an elegant and subtle means of dissent: landscape painting. By examining literary archetypes, painting titles, contemporary inscriptions, and the historical context, Murck shows that certain paintings expressed strong political opinions—some transparent, others deliberately concealed.Trade ReviewIn late eleventh-century China, a group of disaffected government officials, their careers in disarray and their lives sometimes at risk, found ways to express political dissent and personal grievances through the use of literary allusions. Expressing dissatisfaction could be dangerous, so these allusions had to be oblique...Circulating among like-minded people, these coded expressions of protest and discontent were relatively secure from outsiders' scrutiny. They are even more difficult to access today—or have been, I should say. This impressively researched, deeply ruminated book opens the door to their meaning. -- Susan E. Nelson * College Art Association Reviews *Focusing on one of the best-known themes in Chinese (and later, Japanese) ink-painting, from one of the pivotal moments in the formation of the painting-poetry relationship, this book delves into a classic example of polities turning to the arts for expression. And because the politicians of this dangerous time coded their painted-poetry with such subtle indirectness, Dr. Murck's inquiry unfolds like a good mystery undertaken by a master sleuth. Every reader, whether Asian scholar or arm-chair detective, will come away with a far deeper appreciation of the painting-poetry-politics triad in Chinese history. -- Jerome Silbergeld, University of Washington and Princeton UniversityFreda Murck's richly detailed book teaches us how to crack the code by which important Song scholar-artists expressed their anguished laments and political protests through seemingly innocuous landscape paintings. Explaining how secret messages were encoded in poetic allusions and translated into visual imagery, she uncovers a new and important dimension of Song literati painting. Through a series of ease studies, she shows how painting gained new expressive possibilities by adopting the functions, metaphors, and conventions of poetry. -- Julia Murray, University of Wisconsin-MadisonMore than any other study, this brilliantly researched hook carries the reader into the intellectual environment of scholars, painters, and poets who created new forms of visual and verbal expression during the Song dynasty. -- Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Columbia University
£26.96
Harvard University Press The Novel
Book SynopsisThe 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Encompassing a range of genres, it is geographically and culturally boundless and influenced by great novelists working in other languages. Michael Schmidt, choosing as his travel companions not critics or theorists but other novelists, does full justice to its complexity.Trade ReviewGiven the fluidity with which [Schmidt] ranges across the canon (as well as quite a bit beyond it), one is tempted to say that he carries English literature inside his head as if it were a single poem, except that there are sections in The Novel on the major Continental influences, too—the French, the Russians, Cervantes, Kafka—so it isn’t only English. If anyone’s up for the job, it would seem to be him… Take a breath, clear the week, turn off the WiFi, and throw yourself in… The book, at its heart, is a long conversation about craft. The terms of discourse aren’t the classroom shibboleths of plot, character, and theme, but language, form, and address. Here is where we feel the force of Schmidt’s experience as an editor and a publisher as well as a novelist… Like no other art, not poetry or music on the one hand, not photography or movies on the other, [a novel] joins the self to the world, puts the self in the world, does the deep dive of interiority and surveils the social scope… [Novels] are also exceptionally good at representing subjectivity, at making us feel what it’s like to inhabit a character’s mind. Film and television, for all their glories as narrative and visual media, have still not gotten very far in that respect, nor is it easy to see how they might… Schmidt reminds us what’s at stake, for novels and their intercourse with selves. The Novel isn’t just a marvelous account of what the form can do; it is also a record, in the figure who appears in its pages, of what it can do to us. The book is a biography in that sense, too. Its protagonist is Schmidt himself, a single reader singularly reading. -- William Deresiewicz * The Atlantic *[Schmidt] reads so intelligently and writes so pungently… Schmidt’s achievement: a herculean literary labor, carried off with swashbuckling style and critical aggression. -- John Sutherland * New York Times Book Review *If you want your books a bit quieter and more extensive chronologically, then do try poet Michael Schmidt’s 700-year history of the novel, The Novel: A Biography, which covers the rise and relevance of the novel and its community of booklovers in a delightful tale, not at all twice-told, that reminds us of exactly why we read. -- Brenda Wineapple * Wall Street Journal *A wonderful, opinionated and encyclopedic book that threatens to drive you to a lifetime of rereading books you thought you knew and discovering books you know you don’t. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *The Novel: A Biography is a marvel of sustained attention, responsiveness, tolerance and intelligence… It is Schmidt’s triumph that one reads on and on without being bored or annoyed by his keen generosity. Any young person hot for literature would be wise to take this fat, though never obese, volume as an all-in-one course in how and what to read. Then, rather than spend three years picking up the opinions of current academics, the apprentice novelist can learn a foreign language or two, listen, look and then go on his or her travels, wheeling this book as vade mecum. -- Frederic Raphael * Literary Review *In recent years, while the bookish among us were bracing ourselves for the bookless future, stowing our chapbooks and dog-eared novellas in secret underground bunkers, the poet and scholar Michael Schmidt was writing a profile of the novel. The feat itself is uplifting. Bulky without being dense or opaque, The Novel: A Biography belongs on the shelf near Ian Watt’s lucid The Rise of the Novel and Jane Smiley’s livelier user manual, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. Taking as his guide The March of Literature, Ford Madox Ford’s classic tour through the pleasures of serious reading, Schmidt steers clear of the canon wars and their farcical reenactments. He doesn’t settle the question of whether Middlemarch makes us better people. He isn’t worried about ‘trigger warnings.’ And he doesn’t care that a Stanford professor is actively not reading books. Instead, with humor and keen insight, he gives us the story of the novel as told by practitioners of the form. The book is meant for ordinary readers, whose interest is not the death of theory or the rise of program fiction, but what Schmidt calls, in a memorable line, ‘our hunger for experience transformed.’ -- Drew Calvert * Los Angeles Review of Books *The Novel is one of the most important works of both literary history and criticism to be published in the last decade… The reason Schmidt’s book is so effective and important has to do with its approach, its scope, and its artistry, which all come together to produce a book of such varied usefulness, such compact wisdom, that it’ll take a lot more than a few reviews to fully understand its brilliant contribution to literary study… Here, collected in one place, we have the largest repository of the greatest novelists’ opinions and views on other novelists. It would take the rest of us going through countless letters and essays and interviews with all these writers to achieve such a feat. Schmidt has done us all a great, great favor… Maybe the most complete history of the novel in English ever produced… [A] multitudinous achievement… Schmidt [is] an uncannily astute critic… Schmidt’s masterpiece… Schmidt’s writing is a triumph of critical acumen and aesthetic elegance… [The Novel] is a monumental achievement, in its historical importance and its stylistic beauty… It is, itself, a work of art, just as vital and remarkable as the many works it chronicles. -- Jonathan Russell Clark * The Millions *Rare in contemporary literary criticism is the scholar who betrays a love for literature… How refreshing, then, to encounter in Michael Schmidt’s The Novel: A Biography not a theory of the novel, but a life. And what a life it is… Schmidt arranges his examination both chronologically and thematically, taking into account the influences and developments that have shaped the novel for hundreds of years. The Novel is at once encyclopedia, history, and ‘biography.’ …[Schmidt’s] lyrical prose weaves together literary analysis, biography, and cultural criticism… Another delightful aspect of The Novel consists of the surprising and insightful connections Schmidt finds among writers… The Novel is more revelatory (and interesting) than a merely chronological account would be. -- Karen Swallow Prior * Books & Culture *[Schmidt] is a wonderful and penetrating critic, lucid and insightful about a dizzying range of novelists. -- Nick Romeo * Daily Beast *Show[s] how much is to be gained by the application of unfettered intelligence to the study of literature… Schmidt seems to have read every novel ever published in English… This is as sensitive an appreciation of Fielding’s style (all those essayistic addresses to the reader that introduce each of the eighteen books of Tom Jones) as any I’ve ever read. And what Schmidt does for Fielding he does equally well for Ford Madox Ford, Mary Shelley, and (by my count) about 347 others… [Schmidt’s] sensibilities are wholly to be trusted. -- Stephen Akewy * Open Letters Monthly *I was left breathless at Michael Schmidt’s erudition and voracious appetite for reading. -- Alexander Lucie-Smith * The Tablet *[Schmidt] has written what claims to be a ‘biography’ of the novel. It isn’t. It’s something much more peculiar and interesting… Illuminating and fascinating. And because the book makes no pretense to objectivity, the prose is engaging and witty… [A] marvelous book… If there is a future for encyclopedic books ‘after’ the internet, this is a model of how it should be done. -- Robert Eaglestone * Times Higher Education *The title and the length of Michael Schmidt’s book promise something more than an annotated chronology. This is not a rise of, nor an aspects of, nor even a theory of, the novel, but a nuanced account of the development of an innovative form… Schmidt’s preferences are strong and warm. He admires a range of authors from Thomas Love Peacock and Walter Scott to Anthony Burgess and Peter Carey… The Novel: A Biography incidentally provides the material for one to make a personal re-reading list. -- Lindsay Duguid * Times Literary Supplement *[Schmidt] prove[s] his wide-ranging reading tastes, his ability to weave a colorful literary tapestry and his conviction that the novel is irrepressible. * Kirkus Reviews *If focusing on the events surrounding one novel isn’t enough, or is too much, Michael Schmidt offers an eclectic variety in The Novel: A Biography. At 1,160 pages, this hefty volume features 350 novelists from Canada, Australia, Africa, Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the Caribbean and covers 700 years of storytelling. But Schmidt does something different: while the book is arranged chronologically, the chapters are theme-based (e.g., ‘The Human Comedy,’ ‘Teller and Tale,’ ‘Sex and Sensibility’) and follow no specific outline, blending author biographies, interviews, reviews, and criticism into fluid narratives… This is a compelling edition for writers and other readers alike; a portrayal that is aligned with Edwin Muir’s belief that the ‘only thing which can tell us about the novel is the novel.’ -- Annalisa Pesek * Library Journal *I toast a certainty—the long and fruitful life of poet, critic, and scholar Michael Schmidt’s book, The Novel: A Biography. Readers for generations will listen through Schmidt’s ear to thrilling conversations, novelist to novelist, and walk guided by Schmidt through these 1200 pages of his joyful and wise understanding. -- Stanley MossMichael Schmidt is one of literature’s most ambitious champions, riding out against the naysayers, the indifferent, and the purse holders, determined to enlarge readers’ vision and rouse us all to pay attention. Were it not for his rich and adventurous catalogue of publications at Carcanet Press, and the efforts of a few other brave spirits at other small presses (such as Bloodaxe Books) the landscape of poetry in the U.K. would be depopulated, if not desolate. He has now turned his prodigious energies to telling the story of the novel’s transformation through time: a Bildungsroman of the genre from a persevering and unappeasable lover. -- Marina Warner
£28.86
Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies The Singer of Tales
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1960, The Singer of Tales remains the fundamental study of the distinctive techniques and aesthetics of oral epic poetry—from South Slavic epic songs to the Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, and beyond. This edition offers a corrected text and is supplemented by an open-access website with audio recordings.
£18.86
Harvard University Press Apollonius of Tyana Volume II
Book SynopsisIn his Life of Apollonius Philostratus (second to third century AD) chronicles the miracles of first-century AD teacher, religious reformer, and perceived rival to Jesus of Nazareth, Apollonius of Tyana.Trade ReviewJones has produced a superlative edition. Loebs are hard to get right. A good Loeb should (if we are honest) be easily usable as a clandestine crib for the (lazy, hurried, or linguistically challenged) reader who wants to translate the Greek with an eye on the English; at the same time, it should meet exacting standards of scholarship. Jones's is accessible and erudite. His discussion of how he has established his text is fuller and clearer than most, and allows the non-specialist to take some pleasure in the detective work involved in the process; in tracing, for example, Richard Bentley's marginalia preserved in his copy of a previous edition. The text is judicious and the translation stylishly capture's the sophist's rhetorical range. It is based on, but betters, Christopher Jones's abridged translation for Penguin Classics, published in 1970. It is a good read in its own right: no mean feat. Excellent introductory material and maps help chart Apollonius's imaginary journey. He may no longer be worshipped (except in the wackier corners of cyberspace), but nonetheless we can rightly say: Apollonius Lives! -- Helen Morales * Times Literary Supplement *
£23.70
