ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisIn 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: ''Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man.''In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe''s poetry, novels and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyses some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion and tragedy. Dispelling the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete portrait of the scientific work and political activity which accompanied Goethe''s writings.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 ReviewRobertsone points the reader interested in rediscovery to the best starting points. * Catholic Herald *This Very Short Introduction does exactly what a VSI should do. It introduces the reader to its subject and explains why it is significant, and it's pitched at a non-academic audience in accessible language and with a coherent organisation of the content. Ritchie Robertson's Goethe, A Very Short Introduction made me want to drop what I'm currently reading and find out more about this great German writer ... I can't this VSI highly enough. * ANZ LitLovers *Table of Contents1. Love ; 2. Nature ; 3. Classical Art and World Literature ; 4. Politics ; 5. Tragedy ; 6. Religion ; Further Reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisSince The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are themselves works of finely-crafted literature. The magazine has spoken with most of the world's leading novelists, poets and playwrights, and the interviews themselves have come to be recognised as classic words of literature in their own right. The series as a whole is indispensable for all writers and readers.This new volume in the series builds on the success and acclaim of the first two editions. The interviews:Ralph Ellison (1955)Georges Simenon (1955)Isak Dineson (1956)Evelyn Waugh (1963)William Carlos Williams (1964)Harold Pinter (1966)John Cheever (1976)Joyce Carol Oates (1978)Jean Rhys (1979)Raymond Carver (1983)Chinua Achebe (1994)Ted Hughes (1995)Jan Morris (1997)Martin Amis (1998)Salman Rushdie (2005)Norman Mailer (2007)Trade ReviewIndispensable reading for anybody interested in how writers work and why writing continues to work. * * Daily Telegraph * *If you want to get acquainted with your favourite writer, you could go to a reading or a book-signing. But to really know them, you should read a Paris Review interview. * * The Times * *I have been fascinated by the Paris Review interviews for as long as I can remember. Taken together they form perhaps the finest available inquiry into the 'how' of literature, in many ways a more interesting question than 'why'. * * Salman Rushdie * *For writing nerds, this is nirvana. -- Colin Waters * * Sunday Herald * *Anyone with the slightest pretension a literary life needs to read this collection. * * The London Paper * *this second collection [The Paris Review Interviews vol. 2] of the magazine's interviews with writers is rich in delight. -- Steven Poole * * Guardian * *...much like its predecessor is a bull's-eye...this is a bible both for readers and writers, the insider gossip for those who are truly passionate about their prose [vol. 2]. -- Francesca Segal * * Observer * *I have read all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review. * * Ernest Hemingway * *The Paris Review is the finest literary magazine of the moment, a great contradiction of the prevailing gloom over the status of literature in contemporary life, and its arrival in these islands is an event that calls for loud hurrahs. * * John Banville * *The distinguished reputation of The Paris Review's long-standing series of interviews with writers is upheld in this volume. * * Daily Telegraph * *

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Book SynopsisFrom the birth of crime writing with Wilkie Collins and Dostoevsky, through Conan Doyle to the golden age of crime, with the rise of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, P. D. James brings a lifetime of reading and writing crime fiction to bear on this personal history of the genre. There are chapters on great American crime writers - the likes of Patricia Highsmith, Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. James also discusses many of her favourite famous detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Philip Marlowe. P.D. James, the bestselling author of Death Comes to Pemberley, Children of Men and The Murder Room, presents a brief history of detective fiction and explores the literary techniques behind history''s best crime writing.

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Book SynopsisSince the publication of Walter de la Mare''s first edition of his poems in 1920, Edward Thomas has gradually come to be recognised as one of the great English poets of the 20th century.Though sometimes classified with Owen, Rosenberg and Sassoon as a ''war poet'', he was rather a poet who died tragically in the war, and whose main subjects were the English countryside and its people, and the solitude of the observing self. The present edition offers the complete poems together with detailed editorial apparatus in what has become acknowledged as the standard edition by R. George Thomas. It also includes Thomas''s remarkable prose War Diary of 1917.Trade Review'One of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century.' P.J. Kavanagh

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Book Synopsis“A perfect volume to initiate majors into the discipline and delight of carefully examining presumptions, priorities, language, and structures of both primary and secondary texts.” —Stephen R. Honeygosky, University of Pittsburgh

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Book SynopsisThis epic masterpiece is a radical landmark in modern literature, reissued with a foreword by poet Ishion Hutchinson to mark Wilson Harris' centenary.'An exhilarating experience ...

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Book SynopsisFrom the Booker-shortlisted author of The Mars Room, a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture.In The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner gathers a selection of her writing from over the course of the last twenty years that addresses the most pressing political, artistic, and cultural issues of our times - and illuminates the themes and real-life terrain that underpin her fiction.In razor-sharp essays spanning literary journalism, memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about art and literature, Kushner takes us from Jeff Koons and Marguerite Duras to a Palestinian refugee camp, from her love of classic cars to her young life in the music scene of San Francisco. The closing, eponymous essay is her manifesto on nostalgia, doom, and writing.'I'm glad to taste something this sharp, this smart' Olivia Laing'Wild, wide-ranging and unsparingly intelligent throughout' Vogue'An exciting book... Kushner writes from the inside out and gives us the true story, the real deal' Kevin Barry, New Statesman, Books of the YearTrade ReviewThe Hard Crowd is wild, wide-ranging and unsparingly intelligent throughout. * Vogue *One of America's most exciting writers . . . A brilliant collection of art and literary criticism, reportage, and autobiography. * Daily Telegraph *She writes as well as any writer alive about the pleasure of a good motor doing what it was designed to do . . . Cool and wise, with real power and control . . . This book has a real gallery of souls . . . As strong a statement about artistic purpose and sensibility as I've read in a while. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times *She seems to work with a muse and a nail gun, so surprisingly yet forcefully do her sentences pin reality to the page. -- Kathryn Schulz * New York Magazine *I honestly don't know how she is able to know so much (about motorcycle racing, Italian radical politics) and convey all of it in such a completely entertaining and mesmerizing way. -- George Saunders

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Book Synopsis'Evocative . . . poignant . . . acute and funny' Observer'The Revival of the Great Lucia Berlin Continues Apace' New York TimesBest known for her short fiction, it was upon publication of A Manual for Cleaning Women in 2015 that Lucia Berlin’s status as a great American writer was widely celebrated. To populate her stories – the places, relationships, the sentiments – Berlin often drew on her own rich, itinerant life. Before Berlin died, she was working on a book of previously unpublished autobiographical sketches called Welcome Home. The work consisted of more than twenty chapters that started in 1936 in Alaska and ended (prematurely) in 1966 in southern Mexico. In our publication of Welcome Home, her son Jeff Berlin is filling in the gaps with photos and letters from her eventful, romantic, and tragic life.From Alaska to Argentina, Kentucky to Mexico, New York City to Chile, Berlin’s world was wide. And the writing here is, as we’ve come to expect, dazzling. She describes the places she lived and the people she knew with all the style and wit and heart and humour that readers fell in love with in her stories.Trade ReviewA beauty inside and out. -- Chris Power, author of MothersA jigsaw-puzzle portrait of a long-neglected literary legend, baring the autobiographical material that filtered so forcefully into her fiction. The mystery of her fiction is not, it turns out, in the source of its inspiration. It is in how Berlin transformed her life into art that is as vital as the thing itself. * Vogue *Welcome Home comes sadly in fragments only . . . But everything that elevates her short fiction to the peaks of greatness is evident too in the pages documenting her peripatetic early life and her many trials. Her sentences have a smokiness and sad glamour to them; she evokes the many places of her life so memorably, so bluesily. -- Kevin Barry * Irish Times *Welcome Home gives a sense of the joyousness of [Berlin’s] personality, which is as urgently expressed in all her writing as loneliness and desperation are. Her writing loves the world, lingers over details of touch and smell. * Atlantic *An essential companion to her fiction . . . for all the upheaval they depict, the vignettes in Welcome Home are never depressing. They have too many of the appealing and funny qualities of her stories for that, from eye-catching description . . . to a knack for the absurd. -- John Self * Irish Times *Tantalizing glimpses into the life of a recently-discovered writer . . . Berlin describes each home [where she lived] in exquisite, imagistic language . . . [Welcome Home is] an excellent start to understanding a writer and her work. * Kirkus reviews *[In Welcome Home,] Berlin’s self-reflective and candid voice comes roaring through. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *[Berlin] writes candidly about what she enjoyed and endured; when her narrative peters out in mid-sentence, she leaves her reader wanting more . . . When the words flowed, Berlin managed to perform small miracles with them. Whether describing lucky breaks or hard knocks, her prose is intense and intimate, at once disconcerting and entrancing. * Economist *The more extended memories offered in Welcome Home delight and illuminate . . . Her impressions of her childhood in particular have the vividness of cherished old magazines . . . Lifting the language throughout is an elegant shrug of fatalism, a conviction that we are born exactly what we are, and what we are going to be. -- Patricia Lockwood * London Review of Books *This never-before-published memoir and new collection are cause for jubilation. In part because they make it clear Berlin's gifts were vast, complex, and full of tonal warmths . . . Like Chekhov, Berlin was a beautiful framer of stories. * Boston Globe *Berlin’s nonfiction makes apparent her genius for taking personal, idiosyncratic scenes from her memory and crafting them into fiction that speaks to us all. We come to understand through Welcome Home that Berlin’s fiction has catalyzed her memories into pointed, surprising short stories. Berlin converts memory into fiction, using fiction to revisit and revise memory. * The Washington Post *A collection of autobiographical pieces that reflect Berlin's singularly peripatetic life . . . As is the case with her fiction, Berlin's pieces here are as faceted as the brightest diamond, but rather than blind you, they just encourage you to examine them even more closely, so you get lost in their depths. * NYLON *There’s a delicious pleasure in tracing the nonfictional origins of Berlin’s fictions. * Los Angeles Times *Finding all the connections to the stories in the memoir is fun. The letters, the earliest written at age 11 and most in the author's mid-to-late 20s, offer some of that same pleasure but more powerfully underline the fact that the voice that seems so off-the-cuff and natural in the stories is something she consciously created; the version of her persona and her life that got into the stories is clarified and curated. * Newsday *Berlin is also known as a visionary who anticipated the merging of autobiography and fiction that’s so common right now. You can see just how much she merged her life and her fiction in the unfinished memoir Welcome Home . . . She’s so mordant here, and so observational, and there are so many gorgeous details that must have been painstakingly sifted out of a lifetime of experiences. * Lit Hub *

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Book Synopsis'One of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of the century.' William Morris, in the Preface. The Nature of Gothic started life as a chapter in Ruskin's masterwork, The Stones of Venice. Ruskin came to lament the 'Frankenstein monsters' of Victorian buildings with added Gothic which 'The Stones' inspired; but despite his misgivings the original moral purpose of his writing had not fallen on stony ground. The Nature of Gothic, the last chapter of the second volume, had marked his progression from art critic to social critic; in it he found the true seam of his thought, and it was quickly recognised for the revolutionary writing it was. As Morris himself put it, The Nature of Gothic 'pointed out a new road on which the world should travel'; and in its indictment of meaningless modern labour and its celebration of medieval architecture it could be called the foundation stone of Morris's aesthetic and purpose in life. 40 years after he first read it, Morris chose Ruskin's text for one of the first books to be published at his Kelmscott Press, using his own Golden type. It is one of the summits of his career, and one of the most beautiful books ever published. Few books can so completely sum up an era. The Kelmscott Nature of Gothic encapsulates the meeting of two remarkable minds and embodies their influence in word, image and design. But more than that, Ruskin's words are increasingly relevant for our times. In this facsimile edition, the first ever made of this rare book, the reader can fully appreciate their importance and their legacy, as understood by one of the most potent visual imaginations to have worked in Britain. In this enlarged edition, essays by leading scholars, Robert Hewison (who was one of Ruskin's successors as Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University), Tony Pinkney (Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University) and Robert Brownell (lecturer, stained glass maker and author of Marriage of Inconvenience) explain the importance of this book for Ruskin, for Morris and for us today.

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Book SynopsisAcknowledged as a masterpiece of materialist criticism, this book delves into the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination. Surveying two hundred years of history and English literature – from George Eliot to George Orwell – Williams provides insights into the social and economic forces that have shaped British culture and society. Provocative and revolutionary in its day, this work overturned conventional thinking about the development of a common British mentality.Trade ReviewHe was the foremost political thinker of his generation in Britain who in his most formidable books, Culture And Society, The Long Revolution and The Country And The Town, redrew the map of our cultural history, and elsewhere made heroic interventions in the main political debates of his time * Guardian *For those who read English in the '60s, it was common to revere Williams as both a rock of integrity and a pathfinder for new ways of seeing culture, communication, class and democracy * Independent *Brave, intelligent, and disciplined...a most impressive work -- C. P. SnowPenetrating, lucid, objective, and also honestly engaged...the best reasoned plea that I have read for a common culture -- Angus WilsonBrilliantly intelligent...a good critic and also an original thinker -- Stuart Hampshire

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Book SynopsisChildren′s literature is a powerful resource that can inspire a young reader’s lifetime love of reading, but how can you ensure that your literacy teaching uses this rich creative world to its fullest? This book gives pre-service primary teachers an in-depth guide to each major type of children′s book, examining the form, structure and approach of each. From fairy tales and non-fiction to picture books and digital texts, learn what qualities underpin outstanding children′s literature and how you can use this to inspire rewarding learning experiences in your classroom. Key features: Each chapter is full of key book recommendations to help you select excellent age-appropriate texts for your learners An international focus across English-language publishing, covering key books from Australian, US and UK authors A special focus on Australian indigenous children′s literature Busting popular myths about children′s literature to give you a deeper understanding of the form Evaluation criteria for every genre, helping you to recognise the qualities of high quality books This is essential reading for anyone training to teach in primary schools and qualified teachers looking to improve their professional knowledge. Matthew Zbaracki is State Head of Victoria in the National School of Education at ACU, Melbourne.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Children’s Literature Chapter 2: Beginning Books Chapter 3: Picture Books Chapter 4: Transitional Novels Chapter 5: Poetry Chapter 6: Non-fiction Chapter 7: Fantasy Chapter 8: Realistic Fiction Chapter 9: Historical Fiction Chapter 10: Indigenous Literature Chapter 11: Digital Texts Chapter 12: Humour Chapter 13: Future Leanings

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Book SynopsisThe Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century.Trade ReviewThis is a great updated English translation to acquire. * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *How do we fare when we read Brian Nelson's translation? Are we getting a version of Proust that is discernibly great...? Well, yes. * Peter Craven, The Quadrant *Table of ContentsGeneral Editor's Preface to the Series Translator's Note Introduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Marcel Proust The Swann Way Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisA Son at the Front offers a vivid portrait of American expatriate life in Paris during World War I. Wharton's only full-length novel dealing with the war, it portrays the relationship between an American expatriate artist father and his soldier son.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Edith Wharton Maps A Son at the Front Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world. Long regarded by philosophers as an elusive and mysterious capacity of the human mind, imagination has been the subject of extraordinary ambivalence, described as both dangerous and divine, as merely peripheral to rationality and as essential to all thinking. Drawing on philosophy, aesthetics, literary and cognitive theory as well as the human sciences, this book engages the dramatic conceptual history of imagination together Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1: What is imagination? 2: Imagination in human evolution 3: From divine madness to cognitive power 4: The productive and aesthetic imagination 5: The augmentation of reality 6: Creativity from invention to wonder References and further reading

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Book Synopsis1000-PIECE PUZZLE featuring the women of Greek mythology as you've never seen them before. Finished puzzle measures 680 x 485mmSPOT FAMOUS FIGURES AND MYTHICAL MOMENTS, as you build the puzzle – can you find Pandora and her jar, or Medusa with snakes for hair?INCLUDES A FOLD-OUT POSTER featuring the stories of the real women of Greek myth from best-selling author and classicist Natalie HaynesSTURDY & ATTRACTIVE BOX perfect for gifting and storage! Completed puzzle is 680x485mm (26.75x19 in.) when complete Think you know the women of Greek Mythology? Put the pieces together and you will start to think again!  In this beautifully illustrated 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, rediscover the lives and stories of the women of Greek myth, portrayed by author, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes with illustrator Natalie Foss. A large fold-out poster of the artwork accompanies

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Book SynopsisArt for art''s sake is a vile catchword, but I confess it appeals to me''Gentleman by day and thief by night, A. J. Raffles lives a double life. Taking ''Art for art''s sake'' as his motto, Raffles supports his debonair lifestyle by performing lucrative, artistic, and ingenious burglaries of the wealthy elite of Victorian London. Dedicated to his brother-in-law Arthur Conan Doyle, Hornung''s first collection of Raffles stories, The Amateur Cracksman (1899), can be seen as an inverted spin-off of the former''s celebrated detective stories. But it is Raffles'' outlaw status that has drawn generations of readers to these swift-paced tales of a charismatic and cool-headed thief and his less worldly partner, Bunny. Hornung had Oscar Wilde in mind as much as Sherlock Holmes when he created Raffles, and the account of their double life offers one of the turn of the century''s most touching accounts of a same-sex couple. Frequently adapted for stage and screen, Hornung''s original stories have never lost their power to captivate readers. Admired by writers like George Orwell, Graham Greene, and Anthony Powell, Hornung''s crisp prose evokes a late Victorian London of clubland bachelors, hansom cabs, champagne suppers, Australian heiresses, and South African diamond moguls. 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.

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Book Synopsis"The Happy Prince and Other Stories" by Oscar Wilde contains six timeless tales exploring themes of love, friendship, selfishness, good versus evil, and courage. Written in powerful yet simple language, the stories evoke deep emotions and include classics like "The Happy Prince," "The Selfish Giant," and "The Nightingale and the Rose."

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Book SynopsisBorn in 1926 in France, Foucault is one of those rare philosophers who has become a cult figure. Over the course of his life he dabbled in drugs, politics, and the Paris SM scene, all whilst striving to understand the deep concepts of identity, knowledge, and power. From aesthetics to the penal system; from madness and civilisation to avant-garde literature, Foucault was happy to reject old models of thinking and replace them with versions that are still widely debated today. A major influence on Queer Theory and gender studies (he was openly gay and died of an AIDS-related illness in 1984), he also wrote on architecture, history, law, medicine, literature, politics, and of course philosophy. In this Very Short Introduction Gary Gutting presents a wide-ranging but non-systematic exploration of some highlights of Foucault''s life and thought. Beginning with a brief biography to set the social and political stage, he then tackles Foucault''s thoughts on literature, in particular the avant-garde scene; his philosophical and historical work; his treatment of knowledge and power in modern society; and his thoughts on sexuality. This new edition includes feminist criticisms of Foucault''s apparently sexist treatment of the Jouy case, as well as a new chapter offering a unified overview of the Collège de France lectures, now a major focus of interest in Foucault. 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.Table of Contents1: Lives and works 2: Literature 3: Politics 4: Archaeology 5: Genealogy 6: The masked philosopher 7: Madness 8: Crime and punishment 9: Modern sex 10: Ancient sex 11: Foucault after Foucault Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisThis enthralling tour de force of literary criticism, unprecedented in Shakespeare studies for its scope and daring, is nothing less than an attempt to show the Complete Works dramatic and poetic as a single, tightly integrated, evolving organism. Hughes supports his thesis with erudition and a painstakingly close analysis of language, plots and characters. A multitude of dazzling insights, such as only one great poet can offer into the work of another, is generated in the process, and our entire understanding of Shakespeare, his art and imagination, is radically transformed. [This] huge study of Shakespeare, more than ten years in the making, is an unprecedented act of critical witness.' London Review of Books

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Book Synopsis''I took it: - and in an hour, oh! Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me!''Thomas De Quincey''s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) launched a fascination with drug use and abuse that has continued from his day to ours. In the Confessions De Quincey invents recreational drug taking, but he also details both the lurid nightmares that beset him in the depths of his addiction as well as his humiliatingly futile attempts to renounce the drug. Suspiria de Profundis centres on the deep afflictions of De Quincey''s childhood, and examines the powerful and often paradoxical relationship between drugs and human creativity. In ''The English Mail-Coach'', the tragedies of De Quincey''s past are played out with horrifying repetitiveness against a backdrop of Britain as a Protestant and an imperial power.This edition presents De Quincey''s finest essays in impassioned autobiography, together with three appendices that are highlighted by a wealth of manuscript material related to the three main texts. 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.Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Note on the Text ; Select Bibliography ; A Chronology of Thomas De Quincey ; Confessions of an English Opium-Eater ; Suspiria de Profundis ; The English Mail-Coach ; Appendix A. Manuscript and Other Material relating to Confessions of an English Opium-Eater ; Appendix B. Manuscript Material relating to Suspiria de Profundis ; Appendix C: Manuscript and Other Material relating to 'The English Mail-Coach' ; Explanatory Notes

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.Money''s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.'Isabel Archer is a beautiful, intelligent and independent young woman. Brought from America to England by her wealthy Aunt who seeks to further her education and find her niece a husband, Isabel is determined to shape her own future one that does not necessarily entail becoming a wife. Isabel inherits a fortune when her rich uncle dies and feels even more inclined to turn down two eligible suitors on the basis that she is a woman of her own means. However, a trip to Italy heralds her downfall when she meets the charming Gilbert Osmond, a worthless, yet ambitious and scheming dilettante.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Originally published in 19031904, The Return of Sherlock Holmes is the thirteen-story collection of one of the greatest-ever fictional detectives. Three years after the supposed death of Sherlock Holmes and his archenemy Professor Moriarty in the torrent of Reichenbach Falls, Holmes makes a disguised reappearance to Baker Street and his good friend Dr Watson.Featuring one of Holmes' greatest adversaries, Charles Augustus Milverton, as well as trademark astute logic, forensic science, murder, crytograms and magic, this collection retains all the hallmark brilliance of Arthur Conan Doyle's best work.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.'A London lawyer is drawn into a series of strange occurrences concerning his old friend Henry Jekyll and the despicable stranger Edward Hyde, a man who seems to epitomise the very meaning of evil. What is Hyde's mysterious hold over Jekyll, and what is the reason behind Jekyll's increasingly odd behaviour? The investigations will lead into the dark heart of Victorian London, and of human nature itself, as the shocking truth about Hyde's true identity is finally revealed.Published in 1886 to critical acclaim, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a thrilling exploration of the interplay of good and evil and the terrifying duality that lies within us all. These themes held a constant fascination for Stevenson and are further explored in his short

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Book SynopsisA lively picture of multiple operators scrambling to steal a march on the competition . . . Lavishly detailed'FINANCIAL TIMESThis is Shakespearean scholarship at its best, brilliantly researched yet compulsively readable. It''s a book for our times, enduringly fascinating and appealing to both enthusiasts and the general reader. Highly recommended!' ALISON WEIRFINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMERA BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023?A BBC RADIO 4 FRONT ROW NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023AN AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023The year 2023 marks the 400th anniversary of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the First Folio. It is difficult to imagine a world without The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays that were only preserved thanks to the astounding labour of love that went into creating the first collection.Shakespeare's Book: The Intertwined Live

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Book SynopsisExam board: AQA A, AQA B, OCRLevel & Subject: AS and A Level LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2025This edition of The Great Gatsby provides depth and context for A Level students, with the complete novel in an easy to read format, and a detailed introduction and bespoke glossary written by an experienced A Level teacher with academic expertise in the area. Affordable high quality complete text of The Great Gatsby, ideal for AS and A Level Literature Perfectly pitched introductions provide the depth and demand required by AS and A Level Explore the contemporary context, F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing, the novel's critical reception and subsequent interpretations for a deeper reading of the text Expand your further reading with a list of key articles and critical and theoretical texts Improve your understanding of the novel with unfamiliar concepts and culturally-specific terms defined in the glossaryTrade Review“The new Collins Classroom Classic editions are perfect for schools – clear text, bright covers, a good size for pockets and bags, and a great price that makes buying new class or cohort sets very attractive in these budget-conscious times.” de Stafford School

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Book SynopsisExam board: AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas, WJECLevel & Subject: A Level English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2025This edition of Hamlet is perfect for A-level students, with the complete play in an accessible format, on-page notes, introduction setting the context, timeline, character and theme indexes.Affordable high quality complete play for HamletDemystify vocabulary with notes on the page and concise commentarySet the scene with perfectly pitched introductions that introduce key contexts, concerns and stylistic features, and examine different performances and interpretationsRecall plot summaries at the beginning of each sceneSupport A Level revision and essay writing with theme and character indexesHelp with social, historical and literary context with the bespoke timeline of Shakespeare's life and timesTrade Review“The new Collins Classroom Classic editions are perfect for schools – clear text, bright covers, a good size for pockets and bags, and a great price that makes buying new class or cohort sets very attractive in these budget-conscious times.” de Stafford School

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Book Synopsis**SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020**From renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic, Michiko Kakutani, comes an inspiring and gorgeously illustrated selection of the life-changing books that none of us should missWhy do we love books so much?'For legendary literary critic Michiko Kakutani, books have always been an escape and a sanctuary, the characters of some novels feeling so real to her childhood self that she worried they might leap out of the pages at night if she left the book cover open. In Ex Libris, she offers a personal selection of over 100 works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, with passionate essays on why each has had a profound effect on her life.From Homer's The Odyssey to The Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, Ex Libris covers a rich and vast range of classics, old and new, that will help build a well-rounded reader and citizen of the world. With gor

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Book SynopsisA dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald.Highly engaging Go now, read this book' THE TIMESFor awhile after you quit Keats,' Fitzgerald once wrote, All other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.'John Keats died two hundred years ago, in February 1821. F. Scott Fitzgerald defined a decade that began one hundred years ago, the Jazz Age.In this biography, prizewinning author Jonathan Bate recreates these two shining, tragic lives in parallel. Not only was Fitzgerald profoundly influenced by Keats, titling Tender is the Night and other works from the poet's lines, but the two lived with echoing fates: both died young, loved to drink, were plagued by tuberculosis, were haunted by their first love, and wrote into a new decade of release, experimentation and decadence.Luminous and vital, this biography goes through the looking glass to meet afresh two of the greatest and best-known Romantic writers in their twinned centuries.Trade Review‘Keats is unmissably present throughout Fitzgerald’s work … [Bate] borrows a classic form to pay tribute to the broadest, extratemporal similarities between Keats and … Fitzgerald’Sunday Times ‘Keats was Fitzgerald’s guiding star … An energetic and highly engaging game of literary ping-pong across the ages. Life, writing and inspiration are served and returned in a rapid rally of ideas … What an immensely charismatic pair they are … Powerful … Go now, read this book’Laura Freeman, The Times ‘A daring, dizzying attempt to connect Keats and F Scott Fitzgerald has plenty to take pleasure in … Bate, whose recent biography of Wordsworth I admired, is at his best when he zeroes in on the work: his feeling for it, by being so exacting, is infectious, especially in the case of Keats … But in the end, the principal achievement of this pairing is to remind us of the way that literature connects us’Rachel Cooke, Observer ‘Admirable … lively and well researched … Bate’s book is certainly an excellent introduction to each writer … satisfying, engaging and accessible … well designed to make us return tothe work of both Keats and his ‘Keatzian’ devotee’New Statesman ‘Bate tells the tales of these accursed creatures frightfully well’Daily Mail ‘With a fine-tuned ear for poetic language, a master-biographer’s eye for the revealing detail, and an astonishing mental filing system that recognizes countless meaningful matches among the works and lives of these two great, doomed writers, Jonathan Bate has written a wonderfully illuminating and moving book’Robert Watson, Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA

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Book SynopsisExam board: Edexcel, OCR, Cambridge Assessment International EducationLevel & Subject: AS and A Level English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2024This edition of Dracula Bram Stoker provides depth and context for A Level students, with the complete novel in an easy to read format, and a detailed introduction and bespoke glossary written by an experienced A Level teacher with academic expertise in the area. Affordable high quality complete text of Bram Stoker's Dracula Perfectly pitched introductions provide the depth and demand required by AS and A Level English Explore the contemporary context, Bram Stoker's writing, the novel's critical reception and subsequent interpretations for a deeper reading of the text Expand your further reading with a list of key articles and critical and theoretical texts Improve your understanding of the novel with unfamiliar concepts and culturally-specific terms defined in the glossaryTrade Review“The new Collins Classroom Classic editions are perfect for schools – clear text, bright covers, a good size for pockets and bags, and a great price that makes buying new class or cohort sets very attractive in these budget-conscious times.” de Stafford School

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

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Book SynopsisDeals with Oscar's astonishing erotic odyssey through Victorian London's sexual underworld. Oscar Wilde emerges as a man driven personally and creatively by his powerful desires for sex with men, in this book, the author argues that Oscar's Wilde's life and work can only be fully understood and appreciated in terms of his sexuality.Trade ReviewIntriguing and entertaining...McKenna makes an impassioned case for re-gaying Wilde * The Times *A groundbreaking new biography of our greatest queer martyr * Observer *It cannot be recommended too highly. Extraordinary, intensely passionate and quite beautiful * Manchester Evening News *This is by far and away the best biography of Oscar Wilde to date * John McRae, Professor of Literature *A bold book * The Guardian *

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Book SynopsisREVISED AND UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL ON 1Q84As a young man, Haruki Murakami played records and mixed drinks at his Tokyo Jazz club, Peter Cat, then wrote at the kitchen table until the sun came up. He loves music of all kinds - jazz, classical, folk, rock - and has more than six thousand records at home. And when he writes, his words have a music all their own, much of it learned from jazz. Jay Rubin, a self-confessed fan, has written a book for other fans who want to know more about this reclusive writer. He reveals the autobiographical elements in Murakami''s fiction, and explains how he developed a distinctive new style in Japanese writing. In tracing Murakami''s career, he uses interviews he conducted with the author between 1993 and 2001, and draws on insights and observations gathered from over ten years of collaborating with Murakami on translations of his works.Trade ReviewJay Rubin's engaging critical study of Haruki Murakami examines the complex intersection of the Japanese novelist's life...Rubin is a confident guide to this surreal world * Daily Telegraph *This genial guide to 'cool' Japanese author Haruki Murakami mimics the playfulness of his fictions...His intuitive 'critique' gets close to the spirit of his subject * Observer *a lively and eccentric new critical study * New York Times *A magical mystery tour through Murakami's spontaneous, improvised fictional world-Packed with bits of trivia about the author * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisIf you love Georgette Heyer, ''the queen of Regency romance'', this is a must-read: the definitive guide to the sparkling world of Georgette Heyer''s celebrated novels, which are currently being reissued.A bestselling novelist since 1921, Georgette Heyer is known across the world for her historical romances set in Regency England. Millions of readers love the outrageous lifestyle, fashion and capricious escapades of the elegant bon ton, and no one has captured that world better than Georgette Heyer, with universally beloved novels such as Regency Buck, The Grand Sophy and Friday''s Child. Georgette Heyer''s Regency World is the ultimate, definitive guide to Georgette Heyer''s wonderful and enchanting realm: her heroines, her villains and dashing heroes, the shops, clubs and towns they frequented, the parties and seasons they celebrated, how they ate, drank, dressed, socialized, shopped and drove. An utterly delTrade ReviewAn invaluable guide for all Heyer fans, old and new * Good Book Guide *Detailed, informative ... impressively researched. A Heyer lover writing for Heyer fans * Times Literary Supplement *This fascinating book is a must for Heyer devotees * Image Magazine *An invaluable guide to the world of the bon ton. No lover of Georgette Heyer's novels should be without it -- Katie FfordeA definitive guide to the people, places and society of her novels * Bookseller *

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Book SynopsisPatrimony is a true story about the relationship between a father and a son.Philip Roth watches as his eight-six-year-old father, famous for his vigour, his charm and his skill as a raconteur - lovingly called 'the Bard of Newark' - battles with the brain tumour that will kill him.Trade ReviewNobody writes about the American family with more tenderness and honesty * New Statesman *A simple, moving, generous work * Independent on Sunday *The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - with words. But the Lord giveth back, miraculously, in the form of this book and this family history * Guardian *A true story, told with all the powerful authority and cunning narrative order of a major writer * Sunday Times *His best work since The Counterlife * Observer *

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Book Synopsis‘You are ambitious, Eustacia–no not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose’Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath.  Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets her heart on marrying him, believing that through him she can leave rural life and find fulfilment elsewhere. But she is to be disappointed, for Clym has dreams of his own, and they have little in common with Eustacia’s. Their unhappy marriage causes havoc in the lives of those close to them, in particular Damon Wildeve, Eustacia’s former lover, Clym’s mother and his cousin Thomasin. The Return of the Native illustrates the tragic potential of romantic illusion and how its protagonists fail to recognize their opportunities to control their own destinies.Penny Boumelha’s introducTrade Review"This is the quality Hardy shares with the great writers...this setting behind the small action the terrific action of unfathomed nature."--D. H. Lawrence

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Book SynopsisWhen Elfrise Swanston meets Stephen Smith she is attracted to his handsome face, gentle bearing and the sense of mystery which surrounds him. Although distressed to find that the mystery consists only in the humbleness of his origins, she remains true to their youthful vows. But societal pressures, and the advent of the superior Henry Knight, eventually displace her affections. Knight, however, proves to be an uncompromising moralist who, obsessed with fears about Elfride''s sexual past, destroys her happiness.Writing of the struggle between classes and sexes, Hardy drew heavily on his own relationships, and in the introduction, Pamela Dalziel discovers fascinating parallels between Hardy''s life and his art.

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Book SynopsisHis last work, regarded by many as the greatest work of contemporary scholarship, Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome recount with depth and insight the history of the Roman Empire during the first century A.D. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant. Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus up to the death of Nero in AD 68. With clarity and vivid intensity he describes the reign of terror under the corrupt Tiberius, the great fire of Rome during the time of Nero, and the wars, poisonings, scandals, conspiracies and murders that were part of imperial life. Despite his claim that the Annals were written objectively, Tacitus' account is sharply critical of the emperors' excesses and fearful for the future of Imperial Rome, while also filled with a longing for its past glories. Michael Grant's translation vividly captures the emotional patriotism of TacituTable of ContentsThe Annals of Imperial RomeTranslator's Introduction1. The Life and Works of Tacitus2. What Tacitus Inherited3. Tacitus on Empire and Emporers4. Tacitus and the World5. The Style of Tacitus: Translator's NoteImperial RomePart One: Tiberius1. From Augustus to Tiberius (Bk, I. 1-15)2. Mutiny on the Frontiers (I. 16-49)3. War with the Germans (I. 49-II. 26)4. The First Treason (II. 27-52)5. The Death of Germanicus (II. 52-III. 19)6. Tiberius and the Senate (III. 19-76)7. Partner of My Labours (IV, V)8. The Reign of Terror (VI)Part Two: Claudius and Nero9. The Fall of Messalina (XI)10. The Mother of Nero (XII)11. The Fall of Agrippina (XIII, I-XIV. 13)12. Nero and his Helpers (XIV. 14-65)13. Eastern Settlement (XV. 1-32)14. The Burning of Rome (XV. 32-47)15. The Plot (XV. 48-74)16. Innocent Victims (XVI)List of Roman EmporersLists of Some Eastern MonarchsKey to Technical TermsKey to Place-NamesGenealogical TablesFurther Readingindex of Personal Names

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Book SynopsisA far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN''S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time''Alarmingly good'' Metro''Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent'' Independent''Supremely good. Smith writes with such infectious zeal and engaging accessibility that it makes you want to turn up at her house and demand tutoring'' Dazed''Brilliant'' Vogue

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Book SynopsisA fascinating insight into the vibrant culture of Modernism, and the rich artistic world of Paris''s Left Bank, Gertrude Stein''s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas includes an introduction by Thomas Fensch in Penguin Modern Classics.For Gertrude Stein and her wife Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and ''it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning''. Picasso was there with ''his high whinnying Spanish giggle'', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - ''The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me''. A light-hearted entertainment, this is in fact Gertrude Stein''s own autobiography and a roll-call of all the extraordinary painters and writers she met between 1903 and 1932. Audacious, sardonic and characteristically self-confident, this is a definitive account by American in Paris.Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a writer of experimental prose, is on

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Book Synopsis''Literature is not innocent,'' stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely. These literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Brontë''s Wuthering Heights, Baudelaire''s Les Fleurs du Mal and the writings of Sade, Kafka and Sartre, explore subjects such as violence, eroticism, childhood, myth and transgression, in a work of rich allusion and powerful argument.Trade ReviewBataille is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century -- Michel FoucaultBataille intellectualizes the erotic, as he eroticizes the intellect ... reading him can be a disturbing kind of game * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisAn undisputed modernist classic, "Ulysses'" ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishing wide-ranging allusions confirms its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. This title states that "Ulysses" is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies.Trade ReviewEverybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the twentieth century -- Anthony Burgess

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