Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Books
HarperCollins Publishers The Peregrine 50th Anniversary Edition
Book SynopsisReissue of J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing, with an exclusive new afterword by Robert Macfarlane.J. A. Baker's extraordinary classic of British nature writing was first published in 1967. Greeted with acclaim, it went on to win the Duff Cooper Prize, the pre-eminent literary prize of the time. Luminaries such as Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez and Andrew Motion have cited it as one of the most important books in twentieth-century nature writing.Despite the association of peregrines with the wild, outer reaches of the British Isles, The Peregrine is set on the flat marshes of the Essex coast, where J. A. Baker spent long winters looking and writing about the visitors from the uplands peregrines that spend the winter hunting the huge flocks of pigeons and waders that share the desolate landscape with them.This new edition of the timeless classic, published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first publication, features an afterword by one of the book's greatesTrade Review‘A masterpiece of natural history writing. I would recommend to anybody who loves the English language, let alone birds of prey’ Monty Don, Financial Times ‘Passionately fierce but also wonderfully tender’ Andrew Motion ‘…an inspiring example to future writers, and a gift to lovers of nature.’ The Times Literary Supplement ‘… a literary masterpiece, one of the 20th century’s outstanding examples of nature writing.’ Independent ‘The Peregrine should be known as one of the finest works on nature ever written' BBC Wildlife ‘… some of the most marvellous prose of the twentieth century.’ Literary Review ‘A tour de force … what can I do except praise writing which involves all the senses? This book goes altogether outside the bird-book into literature.’ The Sunday Times ‘A rapt and remarkable book … his phrases have a magnesium-flare intensity.’ Observer ‘… what is certain is that The Peregrine is the most precise and poetic account of a bird – possibly of any non-human creature – ever written in English prose.’ Daily Telegraph ‘J. A. Baker's poetic prose has a hard intensity and an exquisite lyric grace that takes it far beyond the stereotypical stuff of larks ascending and questing voles. Cruelly beautiful and brutally exact, it sees the countryside anew to give us nature in the wild and in the raw.’ The Scotsman ‘Including original diaries from which The Peregrine was written and its companion volume, The Hill of Summer, this is a beautiful compendium of lyrical nature writing at its absolute best […]. For those with an interest in the Peregrine Falcon or classic natural history writing. ‘ Guardian
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Great Gatsby Collins Classics
Book SynopsisThe Great American Novel of love and betrayal in the Jazz Age.I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited they went there'.Considered one of the all-time great American works of fiction, Fitzgerald's glorious yet ultimately tragic social satire on the Jazz Age encapsulates the exuberance, energy and decadence of an era.After the war, the mysterious Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire pursues wealth, riches and the lady he lost to another man with stoic determination. He buys a mansion across from her house and throws lavish parties to try and entice her. When Gatsby finally does reunite with Daisy Buchanan, tragic events are set in motion.Told through the eyes of his detached and omnipresent neighbour and friend, Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's succinct and powerful prose hints at the destruction and tragedy that awaits.
£5.62
Penguin Books Ltd Goodbye to All That
Book Synopsis''There has been a lot of fighting hereabouts. The trenches have made themselves rather than been made, and run inconsequently in and out of the big thirty-foot high stacks of bricks; it is most confusing. The parapet of a trench which we don''t occupy is built up with ammunition boxes and corpses . . .''In one of the most honest and candid self-portraits ever committed to paper, Robert Graves tells the extraordinary story of his experiences as a young officer in the First World War. He describes life in the trenches in vivid, raw detail, how the dehumanizing horrors he witnessed left him shell-shocked. They were to haunt him for the rest of his life.Trade ReviewOne of the classic accounts of the Western Front * The Times *Wonderful -- Jeremy Paxman * Daily Mail *From the moment of its first appearance an established classic * Observer *One of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted * The Times Literary Supplement *
£11.99
HarperCollins Publishers A murder is announced
Book SynopsisCollins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners.Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins hasadapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These readers have beencarefully adapted using the Collins COBUILD grading scheme to ensure that the language is at thecorrect level for an intermediate learner. This book is Level 4 in the Collins ELT Readers series. Level4 is equivalent to CEF level B2 with a word count of 20,000 26,000 words.Each book includes: Full reading of the adapted version available for free online Helpful notes on characters Cultural and historical notes relevant to the plot A glossary of the more difficult wordsAn advertisement in the local newspaper announces that there is going to be a murder this evening at Little Paddocks but this is news even to the people who live at Little Paddocks! Interested villagers and friends appear that evening perhaps it's a game, they thinkThe lights go out, there is silence, and then a gun is firedIt seems this was no game. Someone really has been murdered!
£8.54
Vintage Publishing A Moveable Feast
Book SynopsisPublished posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. Since Hemingway's personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined and debated the changes made to the text before publication. Now this new special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published. Featuring a personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest's sole surviving son, and an introduction by the editor and grandson of the author, SeÃn Hemingway, this new edition also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son Jack and his first wife, Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of other luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Madox Ford, and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. Sure to excite critics and readers alike, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant moodTrade ReviewReading A Moveable Feast is a little like sitting down to a banquet with a host of bohemian luminaries * Observer *Here is Hemingway at his best. No one has ever written about Paris in the nineteen twenties as well as Hemingway * New York Times *The first thing to say about the 'restored' edition so ably and attractively produced by Patrick and Sean Hemingway is that it does live up to its billing . . . well worth having * The Atlantic *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Wild Mary The Life Of Mary Wesley
Book SynopsisMary Wesley published her first novel at seventy and went on to write a further nine bestsellers, including the legendary The Camomile Lawn, in a style best described as arsenic without the old lace. Many of her stories were inspired by her experiences during the Blitz, and by her marriages: the first to an aristocrat, a brief and conventional affair, and the second to a penniless writer she adored.A remarkable book about a remarkable woman, Patrick Marnham''s brilliantly researched and wonderfully impartial book disentangles truth from rumour, highlighting the links between Wesley''s real life and her fiction.Trade ReviewMuch of the fascination of Marnham's well-researched and admirably impartial book is that it reveals just how autobiographical Wesley's fiction was -- Miranda Seymour * Sunday Times *[A] fast-paced riveting biography -- Valerie Grove * The Times *A striking portrait not only of an amazing, if strange, woman but of an entire social class -- Rachel Cooke * Evening Standard *Unpicks the complicated web of deceits and half-truths that surrounded much of her life with wit, patience and skill, providing just the sort of compelling read that Wesley did in her novel * Independent *This biography is pure pleasure, a riveting, hilarious tragicomedy of manners... Marnham has disentangled truth from rumour, clarified the many connections between Wild Mary's rackety life and Mary Wesley's fiction, and produced a generous, unsentimental and intelligent portrait of a woman's life and times * Spectator *
£11.69
Cornerstone Georgette Heyer Biography
Book Synopsis_________________________The perfect accompaniment to the definitive new editions of Georgette Heyer''s celebrated novels that are currently being reissued.A remarkable biography of one of Britain''s best-loved and best-selling novelists, ''the queen of Regency romance''.Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international bestseller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today''s bestselling authors. Despite her enormous popularity she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was seventeen in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success and it has never been out of print. A phenomenon even in her own lifetime, to this day she is the undisputed queen of regency romance. During ten years of research into Georgette Heyer''s life and writing, Jennifer Kloester has had unlimited access toTrade ReviewAn engaging portrait of a novelist beloved of four generations. A must for those wishing to explore the life of the queen of Regency romance. * Daily Express, 4/5 stars *All lovers of the great Heyer, inventor of the Regency Romance, will love this superb biography of a very private woman. * Saga magazine *Jennifer Kloester’s book is an exhaustive and detailed biography which is quite as gripping as The Regency Buck or The Corinthian. Recognition at last. * Country Life *This should be read on creative-writing courses everywhere. * Sunday Times *A compelling study of a fascinating life. Jennifer Kloester has opened the door on one of the most private literary icons of the past century, one whose works made and continue to make a lasting impression on readers worldwide. Meticulously researched and supported, Kloester's study is both sympathetic and exact, and paints a finely detailed portrait of the woman behind the books. An engaging, intriguing, absorbing read - history is rarely this entertaining! -- Stephanie Laurens, #1 New York Times bestselling historical romance author
£11.69
Vintage Publishing Lee H Virginia Woolf
Book SynopsisHermione Lee sees Virginia Woolf afresh, in her historical setting and as a vital figure for our times. It is a writer's life, illustrating how the concerns of her work arise and develop, and a political life, which establishes Woolf as a radically sceptical, subversive, courageous feminist.Trade ReviewAn outstanding achievement...superb -- Selena Hastings * Sunday Telegraph *It is a lasting, and even a great, book. These are not terms one gets to use often, or should ever use lightly -- Michael Cunningham, author of The HoursLee's book is not only very good, but very necessary -- Penelope FitzgeraldOne of the most impressive biographies of the decade: moving, eloquent, powerful * Financial Times *
£16.14
Penguin Books Ltd Modernism A Guide to European Literature 18901930
Book SynopsisAn exploration of the ideas, groupings and the social tensions that shaped the transformation of life caused by the changes of modernity in art, science, politics and philosophy
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Speak Memory
Book Synopsis''Speak, memory'', said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography, which is itself a work of art.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Goodbye to All That
Book SynopsisAn autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves''s Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War''s haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics.In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing ''never to make England my home again''. This is his superb account of his life up until that ''bitter leave-taking'': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraitTrade ReviewA remarkable book ... Essential reading for the centenary of the first world war—GuardianOne of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted—The Times Literary SupplementWe see the dark heart of the book even more clearly, and hear it beating even more loudly, in this original edition than we do in the comparatively careful and considered terms of the later one—Andrew Motion
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem From
Book SynopsisAn essential anthology that puts contemporary geniuses Eileen Myles and Margaret Atwood in conversation with literary classics Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde about the liberating and unique combination of poetry and proseA Penguin Classic The prose poem has proven one of the most innovative and versatile poetic forms of recent years. In the century-and-a-half since Charles Baudelaire, Emma Lazarus, Oscar Wilde and Ivan Turgenev spread the notion of a new kind of poetry, this genre with an oxymoron for a name has attracted many of our most beloved writers. Yet, even now, this peculiarly rich and expansive form is still misunderstood and overlooked. Here, Jeremy Noel-Tod reconstructs the history of the prose poem for us by selecting the essential pieces of writing, covering a greater chronological sweep and international range than any previous anthology of its kind. Noel-Tod even calls it an alternative history of modern poetry. In The Penguin Book o
£11.69
Oxford University Press Ulysses
Book Synopsis''- What is your nation if I may ask, says the citizen.- Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.''Ulysses, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, has had a profound influence on modern fiction. In a series of episodes covering the course of a single day, 16 June 1904, the novel traces the movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus through the streets of Dublin. Each episode has its own literary style, and the epic journey of Odysseus is only one of many correspondencies that add layers of meaning to the text.Today critical interest centres on the authority of the text, and this edition, complete with an invaluable introduction, notes, and appendices, republishes without interference, the original 1922 text. Jeri Johnson''s commentary guides the reader through this highly allusive novel in an edition acclaimed by scholars and general readers alike. This updated edition includes new explanatory notes, a revised introduction, and expanded bibliography.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 ContentsMap: Dublin c. 1904 Abbreviations Introduction Composition and Publication History Select Bibliography A Chronology of James Joyce ULYSSES Appendix A: The Gilbert and Linati Schemata Appendix B: Ulysses: Serialization and Editions Appendix C: Errata Explanatory Notes
£9.49
Oxford University Press Charles Williams
Book SynopsisThis is the first full biography of Charles Williams (1886-1945), an extraordinary and controversial figure who was a central member of the Inklingsthe group of Oxford writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Charles Williamsnovelist, poet, theologian, magician and guruwas the strangest, most multi-talented, and most controversial member of the group. He was a pioneering fantasy writer, who still has a cult following. C.S. Lewis thought his poems on King Arthur and the Holy Grail were among the best poetry of the twentieth century for ''the soaring and gorgeous novelty of their technique, and their profound wisdom''. But Williams was full of contradictions. An influential theologian, Williams was also deeply involved in the occult, experimenting extensively with magic, practising erotically-tinged rituals, and acquiring a following of devoted disciples. Membership of the Inklings, whom he joined at the outbreak of the Second World War, was only the final phase in a remarkabTrade ReviewIn Charles Williams: The Third Inkling, Grevel Lindop has written a page-turner. He proves himself a master of the biographical narrative. He knows how to end chapters and sections of chapters with cliffhangers. He liberally employs the ironic slant, and he has an eye for visuals. Lindop's preface, a model of balanced prose, sets the volume's tone. * Philip Irving Mitchell, Religion and the Arts *exemplary, and very thought-provoking * Philip Hensher, Books of the Year 2015, The Spectator *This solid and scholarly biography explores the byways of literary history with much verve and energy ... Lindop has provided a fascinating account * Philip Hensher, Spectator *Lindop has added significantly to our knowledge of the Third Man in the Inklings and deftly filled in some major blank areas in our standard map of literary modernism. * Kevin Jackson, Literary Review *excellent biography * London Review of Books *[a] fine, thoroughly researched book. * Tablet *thorough biography * Journey *fascinating reading ... meticulous study ... This biography puts Williams back in the picture * Andy Ffrench, Oxford Times *a fascinating, and even astonishing biography * Theology *Grevel Lindop's biography of Charles Williams is, in almost every way, all that one would want in such a study: comprehensive, judicious, sympathetic, but also properly surprised by its subject, for good and ill. * Rowan Williams, Journal of Inkling Studies *His prose style has benefitted from long years of listening to the musicality of language: his sentences are clear and competent, his narrative skill evident, his storytelling ability considerable. It is this last quality, in combination with his meticulous scholarship, that makes The Third Inkling masterful. * Sørina Higgins, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's exhaustive research and clarity of presentation make this an indispensable volume for anyone who wishes to understand Williams and come to terms with his writing and influence. No future study of Williams will be adequate without drawing on this study; Lindop deserves much praise for bringing to completion such a massive endeavour. * Holly Ordway, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's narrative, packed with incident and parcelled into satisfying arcs, is exemplary * Oxford Today *Grevel Lindop has written a ground-breaking life, at once scholarly and readable, which reveals Williams in all his fascination ... Lindop has done a real service in showing not only why his writing had such an appeal for Tolkein, Lewis, and Eliot, but how it can still jolt us into deeper reflection today. * The Rt Revd Lord Harries, Church Times *the definitive biography ... .a brilliant introduction to a brilliant, yet very troubled and troubling, man * Evangelical Times *an authoritative, and extremely readable, biography. * Sydney Morning Herald *The Third Inkling is a very readable book which wears its meticulous research lightly - and that's no mean feat. It raises some important and troubling questions. * A Writer's Life *well-written biography * Notre Dame magazine *wonderful biography * Network Review *As a work of biographical scholarship, then, The Third Inkling leaves nothing to be desired. * The Oddest Inkling *a thorough, profound, and sympathetic study * A.N Wilson, First Things *an excellent biography, taking its place as the premier resource on Williams * The Notion Club Papers *Table of ContentsPrologue Chapter One: From Holloway to Silvania Chapter Two: 'The Most Talkative Young Man' Chapter Three: The Silver Stair Chapter Four: 'Marriages are Made in Heaven' Chapter Five: The Initiate Chapter Six: 'The Satanist' Chapter Seven: 'Why the Devil Does Anyone Ever Get Married?' Chapter Eight: Romantic Theology Chapter Nine: Phyllis Chapter Ten: 'I Can't Do Without You - I Can't' Chapter Eleven: Substitution Chapter Twelve: Novels and the Poetic Mind Chapter Thirteen: 'They Saved My Life by Three Hours' Chapter Fourteen: 'I'm Becoming a Myth to Myself' Chapter Fifteen: 'The Staff Work of the Omnipotence' Chapter Sixteen: The Order of the Co-Inherence Chapter Seventeen: 'A Kind of Parody of London' Chapter Eighteen: 'Bitter Is the Brew of Exchange' Chapter Nineteen: A Pioneer for the Young Poets Chapter Twenty: 'It Is Not Yet Too Late' Chapter Twenty-One: 'Into the Province of Death' Epilogue
£13.49
Oxford University Press Specimen Days
Book SynopsisThough well-known to many Whitman scholars, Specimen Days is an underrated 'late' prose work which chronicles the life of one of the world's best loved and most influential poets.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of Walt Whitman SPECIMEN DAYS Appendix A: "Preface. To the Reader in the British Islands" Appendix B: "Additional Note. Written 1887 for the English Edition" Explanatory Notes Glossary of Persons Mentioned
£8.54
Oxford University Press The Swann Way
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
£9.49
Oxford University Press The Collected Peter Pan
Book SynopsisA collection of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories--from his first appearance in The Little White Bird to the final version of the Peter Pan play we know today.Table of ContentsThe Little White Bird Anon: A Play Peter and Wendy Scenario for a Proposed Film of Peter Pan Peter Pan Appendix 1: On the Acting of a Fairy Play Appendix 2: When Wendy Grew Up: An Afterthought Appendix 3: The Blot on Peter Pan Appendix 4: Captain Hook at Eton Notes
£7.59
Oxford University Press To the Lighthouse
Book Synopsis''I am making up To the Lighthouse - the sea is to be heard all through it'' Inspired by the lost bliss of her childhood summers in Cornwall, Virginia Woolf produced one of the masterworks of English literature in To the Lighthouse. It concerns the Ramsay family and their summer guests on the Isle of Skye before and after the First World War. As children play and adults paint, talk, muse and explore, relationships shift and mutate. A captivating fusion of elegy, autobiography, socio-political critique and visionary thrust, it is the most accomplished of all Woolf''s novels. On completing it, she thought she had exorcised the ghosts of her imposing parents, but she had also brought form to a book every bit as vivid and intense as the work of Lily Briscoe, the indomitable artist at the centre of the novel. 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 commitm
£8.20
Oxford University Press The Playboy of the Western World and Other Plays
Book SynopsisJ M Synge was one of the key dramatists in the flourishing world of Irish literature at the turn of the century. This volume offers all of Synge''s plays, which range from racy comedy to stark tragedy, all sharing a memorable lyricism. The introduction sets Synge''s work in the context of the Irish literary movement, with special attention to his role as one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre and his work alongside W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. Includes: Riders to the Sea; The Shadow of the Glen; The Tinker''s Wedding; The Well of the Saints; The Play of the Western World; Deirdre of the Sorrows 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 ContentsRiders to the Sea ; The Shadow of the Glen ; The Tinker's Wedding ; The Well of the Saints ; The Playboy of the Western World ; Deirdre of the Sorrows
£7.59
Oxford University Press Ethan Frome
Book Synopsis`It was not so much his great height that marked him ... it was the careless powerful look that he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.'' Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel''s powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most celebrated book. In its unyielding and shocking pessimism, its bleak demonstration of tragic waste, it is a masterpiece of psychological and emotional realism. In her introduction the distinguished critic Elaine Showalter discusses the background to the novel''s composition and the reasons for its enduring success. 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 Reviewwith each volume having an introduction by an acknowledged expert, and exhaustive notes, the World's Classics are surely the most desirable series and, all-round, the best value for money * Oxford Times *This love story has an emotional intensity made all the more poignant by the inarticulate reticence of Wharton's characters - a ménage à trois consisting of Frome, his querulous wife and her young girl cousin. With quiet assurance, Wharton conveys passion, malaise and tragedy with memorable impact. * Sophia Sackville-West, Evening Standard (London) *Ethan Frome is one of Edith Wharton's most famous novels and rightly so. It is exquisitely written by an author with remarkable observation and imagination. Ethan Frome is a novel which extinguishes hope and blows away happiness but it is so powerful as an analysis of waste that it is nothing short of a masterpiece. * Madeleine Burton, Herts Advertiser *
£6.99
Oxford University Press Nostromo
Book Synopsis''I have heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his fidelity...incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores of Sulaco.''One of the greatest political novels in any language, Nostromo enacts the establishment of modern capitalism in a remote South American province locked between the Andes and the Pacific. In the harbourtown of Sulaco, a vivid cast of characters is caught up in a civil war to decide whether its fabulously wealthy silver mine, funded by American money but owned by a third-generation English immigrant, can be preserved from the hands of venal politicians. Greed and corruption seep into the lives of everyone, and Nostromo, the principled Capataz, is tested to the limit.Conrad''s evocation of the great Latin-American landscapes, the ferocity of its politics, and individuals swept up in imperial ambitions has never been bettered. This edition offers new insights into Conrad''s masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years O
£9.49
Oxford University Press Crime Fiction
Book SynopsisCrime fiction has been one of the most popular genres since the 19th century, but has roots in works as varied as Sophocles, Herodotus, and Shakespeare. In this Very Short Introduction Richard Bradford explores the history of the genre, by considering the various definitions of ''crime fiction'' and looking at how it has developed over time. Discussing the popularity of crime fiction worldwide and its various styles; the role that gender plays within the genre; spy fiction, and legal dramas and thrillers; he explores how the crime novel was shaped by the work of British and American authors in the 18th and 19th centuries. Highlighting the works of notorious authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler -- to name but a few -- he considers the role of the crime novel in modern popular culture and asks whether we can, and whether we should, consider crime fiction serious ''literature''. 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 Reviewthe "fine dining" of literature * Ruth Ginarlis, Newbooks Magazine *This is a fine introduction to a genre that embraces humanity in its flaws and glories, and it should find its way onto the bookshelves of anyone who likes crime fiction, or fiction in general. * Ben Macnair, Nudge.com *... this tidy little read-in-an-evening item will explain and enhance your affection for murder, open your eyes to new authors and have you reaching for the bookshelves for another fix, assured that you're right in the read afterall. * Sunday Sport, Jon Wise *Table of Contents1. Origins ; 2. The two ages: Golden and Hard Boiled ; 3. Transitions ; 4. International crime fiction ; 5. Gender ; 6. Cousins of crime: spy ficiton, the thriller, and legal drama ; 7. Epilogue: Can crime fiction be taken seriously? ; Further reading ; Index
£9.49
Oxford University Press The Varieties of Religious Experience
Book Synopsis''By their fruits ye shall know them, not by their roots.''The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) is William James''s classic survey of religious belief in its most personal, and often its most heterodox, aspects. Asking questions such as how we define evil to ourselves, the difference between a healthy and a divided mind, the value of saintly behaviour, and what animates and characterizes the mental landscape of sudden conversion, James''s masterpiece stands at a unique moment in the relationship between belief and culture. Faith in institutional religion and dogmatic theology was fading away, and the search for an authentic religion rooted in personality and subjectivity was a project conducted as an urgent necessity. With psychological insight, philosophical rigour, and a determination not to jump to the conclusion that in tracing religion''s mental causes we necessarily diminish its truth or value, in the Varieties James wrote a truly foundational text for modern belief.Matthew Bradley''s wide-ranging new edition examines the ideas that continue to fuel modern debates on atheism and faith. 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 ReviewOne of the seminal works of philosophy and theology. * Catholic Herald *
£11.39
The University of Chicago Press Desiring Arabs
Book SynopsisSexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. This title reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. It assembles a compendium of Arabic writing to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization.Trade Review"A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic.... I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work." - Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report "In Desiring Arabs, Edward Said's disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor's thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing.... Massad brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present." - Financial Times"
£19.00
Penguin Books Ltd Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to
Book SynopsisA landmark anthology that will introduce many extraordinary, unknown Russian writers to an English-language readership for the first time Fleeing Russia amid the chaos of the Russian Revolution and subsequent Civil War, many writers went on to settle in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere and forged new lives in exile. Much of their subsequent work, published in Russian language magazines and books, is entirely unknown in the West and has only been recently discovered in Russia itself. As well as including stories by the most famous émigré writers, Vladimir Nabokov and Ivan Bunin, this collection introduces many lesser known voices: Yuri Felzen, known as the Russian Proust, Nadezhda Teffi, the hugely popular and funny story writer, and Georgy Ivanov, whose work of poetic prose The Atom Explodes is a brilliant, haunting response to the upheaval and trauma of emigration. Exploring themes of displacement, nostalgia, loss and new beginninTrade ReviewA brilliant, poignant anthology -- Alexis Levitin * Los Angeles Review of Books *A rich anthology ... Editor and lead translator Bryan Karetnyk has done a marvellous job ... The translations maintain a high standard of literary quality and precision. Admirably equipped with biographical and explanatory notes, this anthology presents to the Anglophone reader, for the first time, a unified representation of the authors and disparate, yet interlinked cultural contexts of first-wave Russian emigration -- Judges, Read Russia Prize 2018Compelling ... Karetnyk's anthology transports the reader into the motley lives and imaginations of Russian émigrés in Paris, Berlin and beyond. Highly recommended reading for anyone fascinated by prerevolutionary Russian culture as preserved among the ranks of the two million-odd Whites that formed the first wave of emigration from Bolshevik Russia. -- Anna Gunin * The Riveter *Ably translated ... Bryan Karetnyk has produced that most welcome artefact in this age of the floating text: an 'enhanced' paperback whose fictive stories are fully equipped with their histories. Writers' biographies, historical chronology, a list of Russian émigré venues, and well-researched footnotes serve to anchor each narrative in its own peripatetic time and space -- Caryl Emerson * Times Literary Supplement *A powerful reminder of the trauma of civil war and hardships of displacement ... The stories evoke a lost world with attendant nostalgia, sorrow, fear and anger ... Rarely has the term 'unjustly neglected' rung more true * Country Life *Brilliantly translated by Bryan Karetnyk ... A truly wonderful selection * Los Angeles Review of Books Radio Hour *
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Penguin Modern Classics Book
Book SynopsisThe essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the worldFor six decades the Penguin Modern Classics series has been an era-defining, ever-evolving series of books, encompassing works by modernist pioneers, avant-garde iconoclasts, radical visionaries and timeless storytellers.This reader''s companion showcases every title published in the series so far, with more than 1,800 books and 600 authors, from Achebe and Adonis to Zamyatin and Zweig.It is the essential guide to twentieth-century literature around the world, and the companion volume to The Penguin Classics Book.Bursting with lively descriptions, surprising reading lists, key literary movements and over two thousand cover images, The Penguin Modern Classics Book is an invitation to dive in and explore the greatest literature of the last hundred years.Trade ReviewA heavyweight - but never burdensome - history of the publishing house... A must for quiz-hounds -- Alex Diggins * Telegraph *As close to pornography as you can get as a bibliophile. From one angle it is a testament to book design over nigh on a century. On another, it is a work of publishing history -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *
£27.00
Penguin Books Ltd Jane Austen
Book SynopsisA title that involves us so deeply that Austen's final illness and death come almost as a personal tragedy to the reader. It presents Austen as remarkably clever; sensitive, but sentimental; tough, yet observant; guarded; and a woman with the devil of a genius in her.Trade ReviewAs near perfect a Life of Austen as we are likely to get: intelligent, feeling, suggestive -- Carmen Callil * Daily Telegraph *A book that radiates intelligence, wit and insight -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *A perfect biography: detailed, witty, warm -- Dirk Bogarde * Sunday Telegraph *Claire Tomalin is the finest and most disinterested of biographers, because in her pages she has given Jane Austen her liberty -- Hilary Mantel * New York Review of Books *
£11.69
WW Norton & Co Anne of Green Gables
Book SynopsisSince its publication in 1908, Anne of Green Gables has been an enduring bestseller and arguably Canada's most famous novel.
£13.29
Faber & Faber Harold Pinter Faber Critical Guide
Book SynopsisDo you want to know why Harold Pinter is a figure of such influence and importance in the theatre? Are you studying his plays and looking for help with interpretation? Or do you teach Pinter and need a reliable guide to the plays? The Faber Critical Guide to Harold Pinter gives this and much more, including an introduction to the distinctive features of the playwright''s work, a detailed analysis of each of the classic plays and comments on performance.
£11.69
Vintage Deceived With Kindness
Book SynopsisAngelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her Aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessa''s husband Clive. Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes, David Garnett (whom she later married), and many others. But Deceived with Kindness is also a record of a young girl''s particular struggle to achieve independence from that extraordinary and intense milieu as a mature and independent woman. With an honesty that is by degrees agonising and uplifting, the author creates a vibrant, poignant picture of her mother, Vanessa Bell, of her own emergent individuality, and of the Bloomsbury era.Trade ReviewPassionate, lucid, risky, rash, hard to put down and impossible to forget -- Hilary Spurling * Observer *Beautifully written and admirably honest... Refreshing and surprising -- Fiona MacCarthy * The Times *
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Silence of the Sea Le Silence de la Mer
Book SynopsisThis first bilingual edition of France''s most enduring wartime novel introduces Vercors''s famous tale to a generation without personal experience of World War II who may not be able to read it in its original language. Now available in paperback, readers are assisted with a historical and literary introduction, explanatory notes, a glossary of French terms and a select bibliography.Trade ReviewNot only a distinguished piece of fiction but also a brilliant piece of reporting on French resistance.' Life'Saying something new about such a work was the central challenge faced by Brown and Stokes. To my surprise, they have succeeded in meeting this challenge. * French Review *
£14.24
University of Toronto Press The Typewriter Century
Book SynopsisThis book captures the intensity of the relationship between writers and their typewriters from the 1880s, when the machine was first commercialized, to the 1980s, when word-processing superseded it. Drawing on examples from the United States, Britain, Europe, and Australia, The Typewriter Century focuses on celebrity writers, including Henry James, Jack Kerouac, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, and Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote prolifically and mechanically, developing routines in which typing, handwriting, and dictation were each allotted important functions. The typewriter de-personalized the text; the office typewriter bureaucratized it. At the same time, some authors found a new and disturbing distance between themselves and their compositions while others believed the typewriter facilitated spontaneous and automatic typing. The Typewriter Century provides a cultural history of the typewriter, outlining the ways in which it can be considered an agent of Trade Review"Well written and really entertaining, with numerous interesting individual findings, Martyn Lyons' book provides a useful introduction to a complex field of research." -- Kim Christian Priemal, University of Oslo * H-Soz-Kult *"This is a useful study of the complex impacts of the typewriter on the practices of different writers in the twentieth century. It contextualizes existing research approaches to this set of questions effectively and offers original insights into the history of the typewriter as a technology and its interactions with the social position of writers and the market for published literary works." -- Morag Shiach, Queen Mary University of London * Journal of British Studies *"With so many technological changes in our lives, the typewriter has become a clear symbol of the transformation from manual to digital technology. In The Typewriter Century, Martyn Lyons plays homage to this once cherished tool of authors, tracing its history from an eighteenth-century ‘writing machine’ to the post-digital age. Along the way, he recounts how famous authors felt about their typewriters, and how changes in the typewriter also changed the writing process itself, not always for the better." -- Gretchen Webster * Publishing Research Quarterly *"The Typewriter Century is clearly the result of extensive research but that does not inhibit the prose, which is very engaging. This book will interest scholars concerned with the means of production, and it will also appeal to general readers who are curious about the history of technology and writing." -- Alice Grundy, Australian National University * SHARP News *“This book will be of interest to historians of typewriters and office work and a wider audience curious about the writing practices of some of the most legendary authors since the 1880s.” -- James Inglis * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Typewriter as an Agent of Change? 2. The Birth of the Typosphere 3. Modernity and the Typewriter Girl 4. The Modernist Typewriter 5. The Distancing Effect: The Hand, the Eye, the Voice 6. The Romantic Typewriter 7. Manuscript and Typescript 8. Georges Simenon: The Man in the Glass Cage 9. Erle Stanley Gardner: The Fiction Factory 10. Domesticating the Typewriter 11. The End of the Typewriter Century and Post-Digital Nostalgia Bibliography Index
£21.59
Unbound Eileen: The Making of George Orwell
Book SynopsisThis is the never-before-told story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen, a woman who shaped, supported, and even saved the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.In 1934, Eileen O'Shaughnessy's futuristic poem, 'End of the Century, 1984', was published. The next year, she would meet George Orwell, then known as Eric Blair, at a party. 'Now that is the kind of girl I would like to marry!' he remarked that night. Years later, Orwell would name his greatest work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in homage to the memory of Eileen, the woman who shaped his life and his art in ways that have never been acknowledged by history, until now.From the time they spent in a tiny village tending goats and chickens, through the Spanish Civil War, to the couple's narrow escape from the destruction of their London flat during a German bombing raid, and their adoption of a baby boy, Eileen is the first account of the Blairs' nine-year marriage. It is also a vivid picture of bohemianism, political engagement, and sexual freedom in the 1930s and '40s.Through impressive depth of research, illustrated throughout with photos and images from the time, this captivating and inspiring biography offers a completely new perspective on Orwell himself, and most importantly tells the life story of an exceptional woman who has been unjustly overlooked.Trade Review 'A revelation . . . Outstanding' Sunday Times 'Sylvia Topp has brilliantly recaptured the flavour and texture of the Orwells' marriage' Daily Mail 'Meticulously researched . . . Moving and important' New Statesman 'Highly detailed' Observer 'Well-researched and expertly told, this first-ever biography of Eileen is a treat' Daily Mail Books of the Year
£9.49
Little, Brown Book Group Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention
Book SynopsisSince its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail its relation to the extravagant, scandalous, and chaotic world in which the author lived.With wit and insight, Sarah Churchwell traces the genesis of a masterpiece, mapping where fiction comes from, and how it takes shape in the mind of a genius. Careless People tells the extraordinary tale of how F. Scott Fitzgerald created a classic and in the process discovered modern America.Trade Review[Sarah Churchwell] tells the story crisply and intelligently, judiciously deploying Fitzgerald's eminently quotable literary remains, and also Zelda's, which are often even better, in a sprightly, enjoyable and slightly strange book: part "biography" of the novel, part sketch of the roaring 1920s, part brief account of the second half of Fitzgerald's life. Churchwell is perceptive and well-informed * Guardian *A perfect book to read alongside The Great Gatsby. Excellent -- William Leith * Evening Standard *This book has as much spirit as gin fizz cocktails * Lady *A treasury of new material. Churchwell adds considerably to our understanding of the early 1920s, and how life for Fitzgerald played into the development of his art . . . Engaging deeply with the facts on the ground, the richly chaotic matrix that was Fitzgerald's life, Sarah Churchwell's Careless People takes us back there -- Jay Parini * Literary Review *A suggestive, almost musical evocation of the spirit of the time -- Thomas Powers * London Review of Books *The wonder of Careless People . . . is that it rewinds the years and allows the reader to appreciate again just how well Fitzgerald reflected his times - Book of the Week -- Nicholas Blincoe * Sunday Telegraph *Investigates subject after subject with subtle intelligence . . . you find yourself caught up in the excitement of her search - Book of the Week -- John Carey * Sunday Times *A literary spree, bursting with recherché detail, high spirits and the desperate frisson of the jazz age -- Robert McCrum * Observer *
£11.69
Vintage Publishing Hope Against Hope
Book Synopsis'Suddently, at about one o'clock in the morning, there was a sharp, unbearably explicit knock on the door. 'They've come for Osip', I said'.In 1933 the poet Osip Mandelstam- friend to Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova- wrote a spirited satire denouncing Josef Stalin. It proved to be a sixteen-line death sentence. For his one act of defiance he was arrested by the Cheka, the secret police, interrogated, exiled and eventually re-arrested. He died en route to one of Stalin's labour camps. His wife, Nadezhda (1899-1980) was with him on both occasions when he was arrested, and she loyally accompanied him into exile in the Urals, where he wrote his last great poems. Although his mind had been unbalanced by his ordeal in prison, his spirit remained unbroken. Eager to solve 'the Mandelstam problem', the Soviet authorities invited the couple to stay in a rest home near Moscow. Nadezhda saw it as an opportunity for her husband to mend his shattered life, but it was a trap and he was arrested for the last time.'My case will never be closed', Osip once said, and it is mostly through the courageous efforts of Nadezhda that his memory has been preserved. Hope against Hope, her first volume of memoirs, is a vivid and disturbing account of her last four years with her husband, the efforts she made to secure his release, to rescue his manuscripts from oblivion, and later, tragically, to discover the truth about his mysterious death. It is also a harrowing, first-hand account of how Stalin and his henchmen persecuted Russia's literary intelligentsia in the 1930s and beyond.Nadezhda Mandelstam spent most of the Second World War in Tashkent, living with her friend Akhmatova. Only in 1964 was she at last granted permission to return to Moscow. Here she began Hope against Hope, and later Hope Abandoned, the two memoirs of her life.Trade ReviewNo other work conveys as well the atmosphere of the 1930s terror, nor how Russian people survived it by listening to their great poets -- Orlando Figes * The Week *A superb memoir... A reminder that it is only a genuine work of art which is capable of communicating a reality so appalling as the Stalinist terror * Philip Toynbee *Not only a vivid account of persecution during Stalin's terror, it is also one of the few convincing descriptions of how a genius writes poetry -- A. AlvarezA Day of Judgement on earth for her age and its literature -- Joseph BrodskySurely the most luminous account we have- or are likely to get- of life in the Soviet Union during the purges of the 1930's * New York Review of Books *
£15.29
CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD The Connell Short Guide To Samuel Beckett's
Book Synopsis
£5.99
HarperCollins Publishers Slowly Down the Ganges
Book SynopsisSlowly Down the Ganges' is seen as a vintage Newby masterpiece, alongside A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' and Love and War in the Apennines'. Told with Newby''s self-deprecating humour and wry attention to detail, this is a classic of the genre and a window into an enchanting piece of history.On his forty-forth birthday, Eric Newby sets out on an incredible journey: to travel the 1,200-mile length of India''s holy river. In a misguided attempt to keep him out of trouble, Wanda, his life-long travel companion and wife, is to be his fellow boatwoman. Their plan is to begin in the great plain of Hardwar and finish in the Bay of Bengal, but the journey almost immediately becomes markedly slower and more treacherous than either had imagined - running aground sixty-three times in the first six days.Travelling in a variety of unstable boats, as well as by rail, bus and bullock cart, and resting at sandbanks and remote villages, the Newbys encounter engaging characters and glorious mishaps, inTrade Review'All the dusty enchantment and the recurrent dottiness of India - its exasperating charm - are in these pages' Eric Linklater 'Any book by Eric Newby is an event' Len Deighton 'Impossible to describe adequately the flavour of this delicious story … vintage Newby delicately salted with “The Wind in the Willows” and “Three Men in a Boat”' Guardian 'No journey into an unmapped interior to carry the word or find a lost explorer was more obstinately seen through to its end than this do-it-yourself pleasure trip … Mr Newby has fine descriptive gifts and a deft touch in casual portraiture' Times Literary Supplement 'One of the finest and certainly the funniest of British travel writers' Sunday Times
£11.69
HarperCollins Publishers Dubliners
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.'Revealing the truths and realities about Irish society in the early 20th century, Joyce's Dubliners challenged the prevailing image of Dublin at the time. A group portrait made up of 15 short stories about the inhabitants of Joyce's native city, he offers a subtle critique of his own town, imbuing the text with an underlying tone of tragedy. Through his various characters he displays the complicated relationships, hardships and mundane details of everyday life and the desire for escape a yearning that so closely mirrored his own experiences.
£5.68
HarperCollins Publishers Tender is the Night
Book SynopsisFrom Collins Classics and the author of The Great Gatsby' a marriage unravels in this autobiographical tale.Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.'Set on the French Riviera in the 1920s, American Dick Diver and his wife Nicole are the epitome of chic, living a glamorous lifestyle and entertaining friends at their villa. Young film star Rosemary Hoyt arrives in France and becomes entranced by the couple. It is not long before she is attracted to the enigmatic Dick, but he and his wife hold dark secrets and as their marriage becomes more fractured, Fitzgerald laments the failure of idealism and the carefully constructed trappings of high society in the Roaring Twenties.
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers A Little Princess
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.Whatever comes,' she said, cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.'A Little Princess' tells the story of Sara Crewe, beloved daughter of the revered Captain Crewe. Sent to board at Miss Minchin''s Select Seminary for Young Ladies, Sara is devastated when her adored father dies. Suddenly penniless, Sara is banished to an attic room where she is starved, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this exceptionally intelligent girl uses the only resources available to her, imagination and friendship, to overcome her situation and change her fortunes is at the centre of this enduring classic.First published in 1905, A Little Princess' is a heart-warming tale of hope, hardship and love set against a backdrop of Victorian England, and is one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.Trade Review‘Bright, beautiful and enchanting … ‘New York Times ‘A Little Princess exquisitely re-creates the ephemeral world of childhood, an enchanted kingdom where everything, even make-believe, seems possible …’ Washington Post
£5.05
HarperCollins Publishers Peter Pan
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Second to the right and then straight on till morning!'Desperate to hear bedtime stories, Peter Pan waits outside the nursery window of Wendy, John and Michael Darling. When Peter asks Wendy to fly with him to Neverland, the Darling children are whisked away to a world of adventure of daring fairies, wondrous mermaids and The Lost Boys.But there is danger in Neverland too: the villainous Captain Hook is out for revenge and will stop at nothing to take it.Poignant and unforgettable, J. M. Barrie's classic tale is one of the greatest works of children's literature of the last century. Its imaginative scope, tender humour and vivid characters will enchant adults and children alike.Published in association with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity.Trade Review‘Intensely moving as well as enchanting in its evocation of childhood, the heartlessness of youth and parental grief as children grow older’ Daily Telegraph
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers Mrs Dalloway
Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.Clarissa Dalloway is a woman of high-society vivacious, hospitable and sociable on the surface, yet underneath troubled and dissatisfied with her life in post-war Britain. This disillusionment is an emotion that bubbles under the surface of all of Woolf's characters in Mrs Dalloway.Centred around one day in June where Clarissa is preparing for and holding a party, her interior monologue mingles with those of the other central characters in a stream of consciousness, entwining, yet never actually overriding the pervading sense of isolation that haunts each person.One of Virginia Woolf's most accomplished novels, Mrs Dalloway is widely regarded as one of the most revolutionary works of the 20th century in its style and the themes that it tackles. The sense that Clarissa has married the wrong person, her past love for another female friend and the death of an intended party guest all serve to amplify this stultifying existence.
£5.62
HarperCollins Publishers The Great Gatsby
Book SynopsisThe Great American Novel of love and betrayal in the Jazz Age is now a major film.I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. Peoplewere not invited they went there.'Jay Gatsby's opulent Long Island mansion throngs with the bright young things of the Roaring Twenties. But Gatsby himself, young, handsome and mysteriously rich, never appearsto his guests. He stands apart from the crowd, yearning for something just out of reach Daisy Buchanan, lost years before to another man. One fateful summer, when the pair finally reunite, their actions set in motion a series of events that will unravel their lives, bringing tragedy to all who surround them.Widely considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, The Great Gatsby is a tale of excess and obsession, and a work of classictwentieth-century American literature.
£7.59
HarperCollins Publishers Animal Farm GCSE 91 set text student edition
Book SynopsisExam board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR; CXCLevel & Subject: GCSE 9-1 English Literature; CSEC English BFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: 2024This edition of Animal Farm is perfect for GCSE-level students, with the complete novel, engaging introduction written by a teacher and a handy glossary at the back of the book.Fantastic value for Animal Farm George Orwell bookEasy to read font in an accessible formatA new introduction provides contextBespoke glossary explains key terms
£4.43
HarperCollins Publishers Peter Pan HarperCollins Childrens Classics
Book SynopsisThis beautiful HarperCollins Children's Classics edition of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan is the perfect addition to any bookshelf.One night, the mythical Peter Pan appears in the nursery of Wendy, John and Michael Darling and an extraordinary adventure begins.With a sprinkle of Tinker Bell's fairy dust, Peter teaches the three children to fly and whisks them away to Neverland. There they embark on daring adventures with mermaids, fairies, lost boys and the vengeful pirate Captain Hook.Since his creation, J. M. Barrie's boy who wouldn't grow up has become a cultural icon, and this witty, imaginative story full of mischief, magic and bravery is one of the best-loved children's classics of all time.Complete your library with HarperCollins Children's Classics.
£9.93
Columbia University Press Powers of Horror
Book SynopsisJulia Kristeva offers an extensive and profound consideration of the nature of abjection. Drawing on Freud and Lacan, she analyzes the nature of attitudes toward repulsive subjects and examines the function of these topics in the writings of Celine, Proust, Joyce, and other authors.Trade ReviewDazzling. * SubStance *Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror, which theorizes the notion of the ‘abject’ in a series of blisteringly insightful analyses, is as relevant, as necessary, and as courageous today as it seemed in 1984. -- Peter Connor, Barnard CollegeCritics who seek an alternative to sexist and, in general, imperialist practices in psychoanalytic writing will want to read [this book]. * Discourse *Table of ContentsI. Approaching Abjection2. Something to Be Scared Of3. From Filth to Defilement4. Semiotics of Biblical Abomination5.... Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi6. Céline: Neither Actor nor Martyr7. Suffering and Horror8. Those Females Who Can Wreck the Infinite9. "Ours to Jew or Die"10. In the Beginning and Without End...11. Powers of Horror
£18.00
Pan Macmillan Love in a Dark Time
Book SynopsisColm Tóibín was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of several novels, including Brooklyn, the 2009 Costa Novel of the Year, The Master, which was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and winner of the LA Times Book Prize and the IMPAC Book Award, and The Blackwater Lightship, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize and the 2001 IMPAC Award. His non-fiction includes Bad Blood, Homage to Barcelona, The Sign of the Cross and Love in a Dark Time. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. He lives in Dublin.Trade ReviewTóibín treats his subject with confidence and authority, both of which attributes are only strengthened by his moderation of tone and the depth of his compassion. He writes with rare tenderness of figures as disparate as Elizabeth Bishop and Francis Bacon, Thomas Mann and Roger Casement, Thom Gunn and Pedro Almodóvar. -- John Banville * Irish Times *Such readings are crucial, for it is only when homosexuality is removed from the margins and placed at the very heart of the cultural canon that the world predicted by Tóibín in which “being gay will no longer involve difficulty and discrimination” will come to pass. -- Michael Arditti * The Times *Tóibín writes with high-voltage restraint; his sentences are masterfully devoid of trickery . . . He is tuned in to the silent language of families, the messages that are unspoken and slip past the rest of the world, landing deep into the hearts of those who understand. -- Robert Sullivan * Vogue *
£11.63
W. W. Norton & Company What the Living Do Poems
Book Synopsis"A deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel."—Liz Rosenberg Boston GlobeTrade Review"The love in this book is tangible and redemptive." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune"Her verse is almost unornamented though she manages some great gift of will and expression to convey the sharpest feeling in long, graceful lines that seem to breathe on the page.... Despite the fathomless pain inherent in these poems, Howe never succumbs to sentimentality or self-pity; her tone is passionate yet detached, her vocabulary and imagery evocative, appropriate, and devastating." -- Memphis Commercial Appeal"Howe is a truth-teller of the first order. Fearless in presenting unfiltered experiences, she interweaves her simple, economical language into long, subordinated sentences, loose, enjambed couplets that spill compellingly down the page with near-invisible artistry." -- Providence Sunday Journal"Marie Howe's poetry is luminous, intense, eloquent, rooted in abundant inner life." -- Stanley Kunitz"Marie Howe has reinvented the elegy as a poem for the living, a poem of instruction, how we're educated by grief. Scrupulously attentive, rigorously self-questioning, What the Living Do is an achievement of remarkable power." -- Mark Doty"The tentative transformation of agonizing, slow-motion loss into redemption is Howe's signal achievement in this wrenching second collection, which uncovers new potential for the personal poem." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
£12.34
