Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 Books
HarperCollins Publishers Wuthering Heights
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
£5.62
Oxford University Press Frankenstein
Book SynopsisThe most celebrated horror story ever written. The dreadful tale of Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, who discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession he constructs and animates a creature from dead body parts - with catastrophic results.Trade Reviewprobably the most brilliantly comprehensive introduction to Frankenstein that I have ever read. Even if you've read the book ... ou have to buy this finely produced OUP annotated edition to enjoy Nick Grooms distillation of Frankenstein's ideas and challenges: especially so as this is the first raw 1818 edition." * Magonia Review *wonderful * Oliver Tearle, Interesting Literature *a quality edition ... it uses the original 1818 text and ... it tells us so much about the author and her history; it is both a novel and a very useful reference book. And what is more, it both looks and feels good - well worthy of a place on your shelves. * Peter Tyers, Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Mary Shelley Frankenstein Appendix A. Author's Introduction to the Standard Novels Edition (1831) Appendix B. The Third Edition (1831): Substantive Changes Appendix C. On Frankenstein by Percy Bysshe Shelley Explanatory Notes
£7.06
Oxford University Press The Karamazov Brothers
Book SynopsisDostoevsky''s last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880) is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons - the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha - are all at some level involved.Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoevsky''s exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of guilt, the disatrous consequences of rationalism. The novel is also richly comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the authors most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence, so that orthodoxy, and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred, right and wrong are no longer mutually exclusive. Rebecca West considered it the allegory for the world''s maturity, but with children to the fore. This new translation does full justice to Doestoevsky''s genius, particularly in the use of the spoken word, which ranges over every mode of human expression. 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
HarperCollins Publishers Heart of Darkness Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.'At the peak of European Imperialism, steamboat captain Charles Marlow travels deep into the African Congo on his way to relieve the elusive Mr Kurtz, an ivory trader renowned for his fearsome reputation. On his journey into the unknown Marlow takes a terrifying trip into his own subconscious, overwhelmed by his menacing, perilous and horrifying surroundings.The landscape and the people he meets force him to reflect on human nature and society, and in turn Conrad writes revealingly about the dangers of imperialism.
£5.62
Oxford University Press Pride and Prejudice
Book SynopsisWith the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity, as misconceptions and hasty judgements lead to heartache and scandal.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice Volume I Volume II Volume III Explanatory Notes
£5.99
Oxford University Press The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories
Book SynopsisArthur Machen is a significant figure in supernatural and horror literature, in the genre of 'weird fiction'. This collection brings together his best horror tales with a full contextual introduction and which helps to illuminate Machen's place in the literary and cultural milieu of 1890s Britain.Trade ReviewThis is a must-have collection of landmark tales of horror. * Publisher's Weekly *Table of ContentsIntroductionThe Lost Club (1890)The Great God Pan (1894)The Inmost Light (1894)The Three Impostors; or, the Transmutations (1895)The Shining Pyramid (1895)The Red Hand (1895)From Ornaments in Jade (1897, 1924)Psychology, or, Fragments of PaperThe Rose GardenThe CeremonyThe TuraniansThe White People (1899)The Bowmen (1914)Out of the Earth (1915)The Coming of the Terror (1917)The Islington Mystery (1927)N (1935)The Children of the Pool (1936)Ritual (1937)ReferencesFurther Reading
£8.99
Oxford University Press Hunger
Book Synopsis''It was at the time when I was wandering around hungry in Kristiania, that strange city no one leaves before it has set its mark on them...'' Hunger is the first-person story of a young man desperately trying to establish himself in the city as a writer, living in shabby lodgings where he can seldom afford to pay the rent, eating almost nothing, and engaging spasmodically and manically with landladies, eccentric elderly men, policemen, shopkeepers, pawnbrokers, and others on the way. He wanders around the streets, sits on benches trying to write, spends a night locked in a pitch-dark police cell, thinks, slides into remarkably inventive reveries, speculates on his mental health, his ethical comportment, his relation to the divinity, the topics he might write about. The traces of a consistent narrative logic are uncertain and blurred; the voice of the narrator keeps shifting between pragmatic appraisal of his situation, wild fantasies, manic outbursts, anger, and despair. This is a stoTable of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Translation Select Bibliography A Chronology of Knut Hamsun Hunger Explanatory Notes
£6.64
HarperCollins Publishers Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which gives direction to the character of Man.'Including Poe's most terrifying, grotesque and haunting short stories, Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the ultimate collection of the infamous author's macabre works.Considered to be one of the earliest American writers to encapsulate the genre of detective-fiction, the collection features some of his most popular tales.The Gold-Bug' is the only tale that was popular in his lifetime, whereas The Black Cat', The Pit and the Pendulum' and The Murders in the Rue Morgue' became more widely read after his death.Focussing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the living, and psychological explorations of darker human emotion that appear to anticipate Sig
£5.94
Oxford University Press The Kill
Book Synopsis''It was the time when the rush for spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches. The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months. The city had become an orgy of gold and women.''The Kill (La Curée) is the second volume in Zola''s great cycle of twenty novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, and the first to establish Paris - the capital of modernity - as the centre of Zola''s narrative world. Conceived as a representation of the uncontrollable ''appetites'' unleashed by the Second Empire (1852-70) and the transformation of the city by Baron Haussmann, the novel combines into a single, powerful vision the twin themes of lust for money and lust for pleasure. The all-pervading promiscuity of the new Paris is reflected in the dissolute and frenetic lives of an unscrupulous property speculator, Saccard, his neurotic wife Renée, and her dandified lover, Saccard''s son Maxime. 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 ReviewNelson's translation is preceded by a highly useful and scrupulously researched introduction [with] a depth of analysis rarely found in introduction of this kind... The translation itself is sensitive and elegant...the text reads as an engaging and thoughtful close rereading of the original which is especially effective in bringing Zola's fascination with descriptive detail to the attention of the anglophone reader without syntactically overburdening the prose. * Hannah Thompson, Modern Languages Review vol 102, part1 *Émile Zola's The Kill, in Brian Nelsons thrillingly good Oxford World's Classics translation, is one of the most sensuous, sexy books that I think Ive ever read. * Illuminations *
£7.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC An AZ of Jane Austen
Book SynopsisJane Austen''s richly textured worlds have enchanted readers for centuries and this neatly organised, playful book provides Austen enthusiasts and students alike with a unique insight into the much-loved writer''s way with words. Using a lively A-Z structure, Greaney provides fresh angles on familiar Austen themes (D is for dance; M is for matchmaking), casts light on under-examined corners of her imagination (R is for risk; S is for servant), and shows how current social and cultural concerns are re-shaping our understanding of her work (Q is for queer; W is for West Indies). Through this approach, we learn how attention to the tiniest linguistic detail in Austen''s work can yield rewarding new perspectives on the achievements of one of our most celebrated authors.Sharply focused on textual detail but broad in scope it broaches questions that, like Austen''s work, will intrigue, delight and inspire: Why are children so marginal in her storylinTrade ReviewThe 26 pint-sized essays comprising A Jane Austen A-Z are stuffed full of insights. Each is a masterpiece in miniature. Learned yet playful, Michael Greaney teaches readers new things about the forms and preoccupations of Austen’s fiction. * Deidre Lynch, Professor of Literature, Harvard University, USA *A unique guide to the life and career of a much-loved author. … It sheds new light on key images, ideas, objects, people and places in Jane Austen’s writings. … This neatly organised book provides Austen enthusiasts and students alike with a unique insight into the much-loved writer’s way with words. * Lancashire Life *Michael Greaney’s Jane Austen A to Z is a perfectly judicious and highly entertaining atlas of the great novelist’s life and writings. Each short chapter is an informative delight, from A for Accident to Z for Zig-Zag, in a book cleverly written both for those in want of an engaging first primer, as well as those who already know Austen down to a T. * Devoney Looser, Regents Professor of English and Global Sport Scholar, Arizona State University, USA *Table of ContentsTexts and abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction A is for Accident B is for Bath C is for Children D is for Dance E is for Eye F is for Friend G is for Gift H is for Horse I is for Ill J is for Jane K is for Kindness L is for Letter M is for Matchmaking N is for No O is for Obstacle P is for Poor Q is for Queer R is for Risk S is for Servant T is for Theatre U is for Unexpected V is for Visit W is for West Indies X is for Xis Y is for Young Z is for Zigzag Works cited
£13.29
Wordsworth Editions Ltd Jane Eyre Wordsworth Empress Collection
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£19.54
WW Norton & Co Pride and Prejudice
Book SynopsisThe Norton Critical Edition of Pride and Prejudice has been revised to reflect the most current scholarly approaches to Austen’s most widely read novel.
£14.64
Oxford University Press Jane Eyre
Book SynopsisCharlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has gripped readers since its 1847 publication. Thousands of readers since then have been drawn by the vigour of Jane's voice and the novel's forceful depiction of childhood injustice, of the restraints placed upon women, and the complexities of both faith and passion.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre Appendix A: Opinions of the Press (as printed at the end of the third edition) Appendix B: Charlotte Brontës Punctuation Explanatory Notes and Selected Variants
£7.61
Oxford University Press The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Book Synopsis''he looked up wistfully in my face, and gravely asked - Mamma, why are you so wicked?''The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall has a dark secret. But as the captivated Gilbert Markham will discover, it is not the story circulating among local gossips. Living under an assumed name, ''Helen Graham'' is the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence. Her diary entries reveal the shocking world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. Combining a sensational story of a man''s physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Brontë''s optimistic belief in universal redemption. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Brontë''s novel scandalized contemporary reade
£8.54
Oxford University Press The Picture of Dorian Gray
Book SynopsisDorian Gray gives his soul for eternal youth. While his portrait changes hideously, reflecting his crimes and corruption, he remains outwardly flawless. This new edition uses the 1891 expanded text and shows how Wilde transformed his many sources.Trade ReviewIt seemed to be an impossible task to outdo the former edition of 'Dorian Gray' in the World's Classics series, but Bristow has achieved his goal. The quality of the explanatory notes is, simply, superb, and the introduction is succint but informative,
£7.06
Hodder & Stoughton Letters to Alice
Book SynopsisAlice is an eighteen-year-old student and aspiring novelist with green spiky hair, a child of the modern age who recoils at the idea of reading Jane Austen. In a sequence of letters reminiscent of Jane Austen''s to her own neice, ''aunt'' Fay examines the rewards of such study. Not only is her correspondence a revealing tribute to a great writer - it is also an original and rewarding exploration of the craft of fiction itself.
£9.99
HarperCollins Publishers Wuthering Heights
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
£7.59
Oxford University Press The Idiot
Book Synopsis
£8.99
Oxford University Press A Gentle Creature and Other Stories
Book SynopsisIn the stories in this volume Dostoevsky explores both the figure of the dreamer divorced from reality and also his own ambiguous attitude to utopianism, themes central to many of his great novels. In White Nights the apparent idyll of the dreamer''s romantic fantasies disguises profound loneliness and estrangement from ''living life''. Despite his sentimental friendship with Nastenka, his final withdrawal into the world of the imagination anticipates the retreat into the ''underground'' of many of Dostoevsky''s later intellectual heroes. A Gentle Creature and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man show how such withdrawal from reality can end in spiritual desolation and moral indifference and how, in Dostoevsky''s view, the tragedy of the alienated individual can be resolved only by the rediscovery of a sense of compassion and responsibility towards fellow human beings. This new translation captures the power and lyricism of Dostoevsky''s writing, while the introduction examines the stories in relation to one another and to his novels. 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 ReviewThe new translations read smoothly, and Professor William Leatherbarrow's introductory essay is helpfully informative. * Sunday Telegraph *Table of ContentsWhite Nights ; A Gentle Creature ; The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
£6.99
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Writings on Art and Literature Penguin
Book SynopsisDiscusses works by great painters such as Delacroix and Ingres. This title features writings on Poe, Flaubert and Gautier.Table of ContentsThe Salon of 1845 (extracts); the Salon of 1846 (extracts); of virtuous plays and novels; the universal exhibition of 1855 - the fine arts (extracts); of the essence of laughter, and generally of the comic in the plastic arts; Edgar Allan Poe, his life and works; further notes on Edgar Poe; some French caricaturists; "Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert; Theophile Gautier; the Salon of 1859 (extracts); Richard Wagner and "Tannhauser" in Paris; the life and work of Eugene Delacroix; the painter and modern life.
£13.49
Bonnier Books Ltd Jane Austens Bookshelf
£11.69
Icon Books Jane Austen the Secret Radical
Book Synopsis''A sublime piece of literary detective work that shows us once and for all how to be precisely the sort of reader that Austen deserves.'' Caroline Criado-Perez, GuardianAlmost everything we think we know about Jane Austen is wrong. Her novels don''t confine themselves to grand houses and they were not written just for readers'' enjoyment. She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive. We just don''t read her properly - we haven''t been reading her properly for 200 years.Jane Austen, The Secret Radical puts that right. In her first, brilliantly original book, Austen expert Helena Kelly introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used what was regarded as the lightest of literary genres, the novel, to grapple with the weightiest of subjects - feminism, slavery, abuse, the treatment of the poor, the power of the Church, even evolution - at a time, and in a place, when to write about such things directly was seen as a
£10.44
Oxford University Press Great Expectations
Book SynopsisGreat Expectations includes some of Dickens's most memorable characters - Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Estella - encountered by young Pip as he grows into adulthood. This edition features a wide-ranging introduction, Dickens's working notes, the original ...
£7.06
HarperCollins Publishers Sense and Sensibility Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.''Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward''s manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat.''Spirited and impulsive, Marianne Dashwood is the complete opposite to her controlled and sensible sister, Elinor. When it comes to matters of the heart, Marianne is passionate and romantic and soon falls for the charming, but unreliable Mr Willoughby. Elinor, in contrast, copes stoically with the news that her love, Edward Ferrars is promised to another.It is through their shared experiences of love that both sisters come to learn that the key to a successful match comes from finding the perfect mixture of rationality and feeling.
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers Wuthering Heights
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?'Heathcliff, an orphan, wild and unkempt, is taken in by Mr Earnshaw and raised as his son at Wuthering Heights on the bleak Yorkshire moors. He is drawn to Earnshaw's daughter Catherine, and as the pair grow up together they become bound by an intense and passionate love. But when Catherine's father dies, Heathcliff is condemned to servitude, and social disparity drives a wedge between them that will eventually become their downfall.Poetic, grand in scope, and with complex ideas of morality, social codes, violence and illness, Wuthering Heights is one of the most unique and emotive Gothic novels, and is consideredEmily Brontë's masterpiece.
£8.54
Oxford University Press Emma Oxford Worlds Classics
Book SynopsisEmma is considered by many to be Austen's finest and most representative novel. The story of Emma Woodhouse's matchmaking, and her awakening to the true feelings of others as well as herself, is told with consummate wit and humour.Table of ContentsIntroduction Select Bibliography A Chronology of Jane Austen EMMA Explanatory Notes
£6.64
Oxford University Press A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books
Book Synopsis''What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?''Ebenezer Scrooge is a bad-tempered skinflint who hates Christmas and all it stands for, but a ghostly visitor foretells three apparitions who will thaw Scrooge''s frozen heart. A Christmas Carol has gripped the public imagination since it was first published in 1843, and it is now as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe or plum pudding. This edition reprints the story alongside Dickens''s four other Christmas Books: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. All five stories show Dickens at his unpredictable best, jumbling together comedy and melodrama, genial romance and urgent social satire, in pursuit of his aim ''to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land''. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordTable of ContentsA Christmas Carol ; The Chimes ; The Cricket on the Hearth ; The Battle of Life ; The Haunted Man
£7.59
Oxford University Press Northanger Abbey
Book Synopsis''No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.''Northanger Abbey is a comedy about reading and misreading-of books and the world-and about different kinds of peril, both imagined and real. In it, Austen''s youngest heroine, Catherine Morland, must navigate financial disadvantage, social constraint, and sometimes quite ruthless manipulation. The absurdities of fashion and conspicuous consumption, voguish ostentation and social competition are seen first in shark-infested Bath, (the premier health resort and marriage market of the day) and then in a more tranquil pocket of rural Gloucestershire that turns out to be a hotbed of materialism and greed. Jane Austen combines making fun of the excesses of the Gothic novel with larger moral issues: the folly of letting literature get in the way of life, and the inexcusability (especially for women) of not thinking for oneself.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.
£5.99
Oxford University Press Zofloya
Book SynopsisThis is the first edition for nearly 200 years of an unduly neglected work, originally published in 1806, by an intriguing and unconventional woman writer. A Gothic tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in fifteenth-century Venice, the novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of the central character, Victoria's, intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron andShelley, it contradicts idealized stereotypes in women's writing and challenges the received idea of the Gothic genre's representation of passive, victimized women.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Note on the Text; Select Bibliography; A Chronology of Charlotte Dacre; Engraving of Charlotte Dacre as Rosa Matilda; ZOFLOYA, OR THE MOOR; Appendix; A Note on Names; Explanatory Notes
£8.54
HarperCollins Publishers The Awakening
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics.
£999.99
Oxford University Press Mathilda
Book Synopsis''I am in a strange state of mind. I am alonequite alonein the worldthe blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happyjoyous''The eponymous heroine of Mathilda narrates a tale of incestuous love from her deathbed. Her father''s suicide by drowning, and her relationship with a gifted young poet, both contribute to her emotional withdrawal and lonely demise. This edition of Shelley''s second novel, transcribed and introduced by Deanna Koretsky, explores the work both as a complex portrayal of taboo desires and as an intergenerational story of reckoning with the horrors of racism and patriarchy. Mathilda is often read as biographical, but this edition also highlights the issues of justice, gender, and rights. Illuminating Shelley''s evolving views on activism and social reform, sexual fluidity, and the racial implications of her feminist politics, Koretsky uncovers Shelley''s deep skepticism about the capacity of English society to
£7.59
Oxford University Press The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
Book Synopsis
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Oxford University Press North and South
Book SynopsisThrough the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the conflict between Margaret's ready sympathy with the workers and her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. This new revised and expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate.
£7.61
Oxford University Press Sybil
Book SynopsisSybil, or The Two Nations is one of the finest novels to depict the social problems of class-ridden Victorian England. The book''s publication in 1845 created a sensation, for its immediacy and readability brought the plight of the working classes sharply to the attention of the reading public. The ''two nations'' of the alternative title are the rich and poor, so disparate in their opportunities and living conditions, and so hostile to each other. that they seem almost to belong to different countries. The gulf between them is given a poignant focus by the central romantic plot concerning the love of Charles Egremont, a member of the landlord class, for Sybil, the poor daughter of a militant Chartist leader.Trade Reviewperfect timing for this new edition ... with a brilliant introduction that throws fresh light on Disraeli's views, explains the novel's culutural roots and defends its place as an accomplished work of fiction in its own right * The Lady *Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography Chronology SYBIL Explanatory Notes
£11.39
Oxford University Press Persuasion
Book Synopsis''She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older - the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.''Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to a naval captain with neither fortune, ancestry, nor prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances. Persuasion celebrates romantic constancy in an era of turbulent change. Written as the Napoleonic Wars were ending, the novel examines how a woman can at once remain faithful to her past and still move forward into the future. 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''
£5.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC John Ruskin An Illustrated Life of John Ruskin
Book SynopsisJohn Ruskin was one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. His study of art and architecture in Britain and Europe led him to consider of the conditions of the people who lived in his world, and his interests embraced social and political economy. His ideas propounded in books like Unto This Last had a profound effect: William Morris, Bernard Shaw and many other early socialists practised his teachings. It also shows where the effects of his teaching can be seen today, in green belts, town planning, smokeless zones, the Rent Restrictions Act and the National Trust.
£999.99
Oxford University Press Germinal
Book SynopsisZola''s masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola''s death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted ''Germinal! Germinal!''.The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike protesting against pay-cuts - a strike which becomes a losing battle against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations, Lantier retains his belief in the ultimate germination of a new society, leading to a better world. Germinal is a dramatic novel of working life and everyday relationships, but it is also a complex novel of ideas, given fresh vigour and power in this new translation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made availableTrade Review'masterpiece' Oxford Times'A good translator uses the language of his day; the original text remains fixed, but translations must move with the times. Collier's, though differing from, and not always improving on, Tancock's, is likely to have the same startling effect on the reader coming fresh to it today as his prdecessor's had forty years ago.' F.W.J. Hemmings, French Studies, Vol. 48, Part 4
£8.99
Oxford University Press The Belly of Paris
Book Synopsis''Respectable people... What bastards!''Unjustly deported to Devil''s Island following Louis-Napoleon''s coup-d''état in December 1851, Florent Quenu escapes and returns to Paris. He finds the city changed beyond recognition. The old Marché des Innocents has been knocked down as part of Haussmann''s grand programme of urban reconstruction to make way for Les Halles, the spectacular new food markets. Disgusted by a bourgeois society whose devotion to food is inseparable from its devotion to the Government, Florent attempts an insurrection. Les Halles, apocalyptic and destructive, play an active role in Zola''s picture of a world in which food and the injustice of society are inextricably linked.The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris) is the third volume in Zola''s famous cycle of twenty novels, Les Rougon-Macquart. It introduces the painter Claude Lantier and in its satirical representation of the bourgeoisie and capitalism complements Zola''s other great novels of social conflict and urban poverty. 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 ReviewThe translation by Brian Nelson for the Oxford World's Classics edition is excellent, and I really like the cover image which is a detail from The Square in Front of Les Halles by Victor-Gabriel Gilbert. * ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, Lisa Hill *
£9.49
Cornerstone Romantic Outlaws
Book Synopsis***AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4***NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER'A gripping account of the heartbreaks and triumphs of two of history's most formidable female intellectuals, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.Trade Review[A] unique double biography... An excellent and poignant book whose heroines breathe in its pages. -- David Aaronovitch * The Times *A mother and daughter who changed not only the way we think, but the way we are… extraordinary women, a dozen decades ahead of their time… Romantic Outlaws enables readers to compare the different ways in which these two remarkable women confronted their tragically different destinies… [A] thoughtful, intelligent, deeply-felt book’ -- Miranda Seymour * Sunday Times *A gripping account of the heartbreaks and triumphs of two of history's most formidable female intellectuals, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Gordon has reunited mother and daughter through biography, beautifully weaving their narratives for the first time. -- Amanda Foreman * author of A World on Fire *Full of enriching paradox… Charlotte Gordon has managed to produce that rare thing, a work of genuinely popular history... It works beautifully. -- Melissa Benn * New Statesman *Wollstonecraft and Shelley were extraordinary women who led sensational lives. They were Romantic revolutionaries… retelling their story cannot fail to captivate and provoke. * Spectator *Unique... Marvellous, passionate stuff. -- David Aaronovitch * Books of the Year, Times *An exceptional achievement -- Michael Morpugo * Daily Telegraph *Read and be seriously inspired. * Stylist *An innovative dual biography that foregrounds the writing of two women who disregarded the moral codes of their eras and shaped their own destinies. Gordon’s parallel mapping of their lives reveals fascinating similarities in the ways writing sustained, and sometimes saved, them both. * Financial Times *Mother and daughter shadow and reveal each other. The retelling emphasises the extent to which Shelley’s life was shaped by her mother’s legacy but here is underlined in thought-provoking ways... In Gordon’s narrative, [Wollstonecraft and Shelley] appear at their best and bravest. * Observer *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Nicholas Nickleby Penguin Classics
Book Synopsis'The novel has everything: an absorbing melodrama, with a supporting cast of heroes, villains and eccentrics, set in a London where vast wealth and desperate poverty live cheek-by-jowl' Jasper Rees, The TimesWhen Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys, the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas, the pretentious Mantalinis and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummels and their daughter, the 'infant phenomenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but
£8.99
HarperCollins Publishers Hard Times Collins Classics
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage.'Set in fictitious Coketown, England during the Industrial Revolution of the 1850s, Dickens wished to expose the enormous gulf between the rich and poor through his writing. In Hard Times, the social and moral purpose of his work is at its most evident. Openly ironic and satirical in its tone, Dickens suggests a mechanization of society, where the wealthy are ruthless and uncharitable towards those less fortunate than themselves.Siblings Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are raised by their father, a harsh and pragmatic educator and his influence means that they go on to lead lives that are lacking in all areas. Louisa marries the arrogant and greedy Josiah Bounderby, ending in an unhappy pairing and the unfee
£5.62
Oxford University Press The Man in the Iron Mask
Book Synopsis
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Dream Story
Book SynopsisIntroducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.Like his Austrian contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and writer Arthur Schnitzlerwas a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human consciousness. His novella Dream Story tells the tale of a young married man who, after a discussion with his wife about their fantasises, experiences an eery reverie through Vienna''s underbelly.Trade ReviewThe amoral voice of fin-de-siècle Vienna—New Yorker
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Russian Thinkers
Book SynopsisFew, if any, English-language critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that Russia''s outstanding writers and philosophers had on its culture. In addition to Tolstoy''s philosophy of history, which he addresses in his most famous essay, ''The Hedgehog and the Fox,'' Berlin considers the social and political circumstances that produced such men as Herzen, Bakunin, Turgenev, Belinsky, and others of the Russian intelligentsia, who made up, as Berlin describes, ''the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world.''Trade ReviewThe enduring vitality of Berlin's characterisation of Russian thought is demonstrated by the publication [...] of a new edition of Russian Thinkers, painstakingly revised and augmented by Henry Hardy ... a series of sparkling and sympathetic essays * Times Literary Supplement *
£10.44
Oxford University Press Anna Karenina
Book SynopsisMany believe Anna Karenina to be the greatest novel ever written. The impossible and destructive triangle of Anna, her husband Karenin, and her lover Vronsky, is set against the marriage of Levin and Kitty, illuminating the most important questions which beset humanity. This edition uses Louise and Aylmer Maude's classic translation - still unsurpassed - and is printed here with a new introduction and detailed annotation.
£8.99
Vintage Publishing The Bronte Myth
Book SynopsisA fascinating and wonderfully readable deconstruction of the countless myths that have grown up around the Brontës.Since 1857, hardly a year has gone by without some sort of Bronte ''biography'' appearing. These range from pious accounts in Victorian conduct books to Freudian pyschobiographies, from plays, films and ballets to tourist brochures and images on tea-towels, from sensation-seeking penny-a-liners to meticulous works of sober scholarship. Each generation has rewritten the Brontes to reflect changing attitudes - towards the role of the woman writer, towards sexuality, towards the very concept of personality. The Bronte Myth gives vigorous new life to our understanding of the novelists and their culture and Lucasta Miller reveals as much about the impossible art of biography as she does about the Brontes themselves.WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM THE AUTHORTrade ReviewA brilliant and riveting examination of the Bronte phenomenon * Daily Mail *Written with wit and relish, and packed with irresistible detail * The Times *Literary history is seldom related with such a pleasant combination of brio and erudition * Sunday Times *Crisply written and witty - Lucasta Miller sends the reader straight back to the wonderful novels that inspired such hommages * Independent on Sunday *A sharp-witted study in literary reputation - Miller supplies a deft and immaculately detailed tracing of the many 'constructions' of Charlotte Bronte * Observer *
£11.69
Oxford University Press Shirley
Book Synopsis''You expected bread, and you have got a stone; break your teeth on it, and don''t shriek...you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.''Shirley is Charlotte Brontë''s only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Brontë''s deep yearning for an earlier time. ABOUT
£8.54
Oxford University Press MobyDick
Book SynopsisThis edition of Herman Melville's monumental novel includes a new introduction that is attentive both to the rich literary history of Moby-Dick, and to the book's sharp relevance to issues of environmentalism, disability, power, race, and sexuality today.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the text Selected Bibliography Herman Melvolle Chronology MOBY-DICK; OR, THE WHALE Appendix: Melville's Letters to Nathaniel Hawthorne Explanatory Notes
£7.99
