Search results for ""Alma Books Ltd""

"This collection brings together four of Copi’s best-known works for stage: Eva Perón, The Homosexual, The Four Twins and Loretta Strong. Set on the borderline of reality and delirium, and featuring such charismatic icons as Eva Perón and Greta Garbo, they are imbued with Copi’s trademark racy wit and manic pace, intended at once to shock the bien-pensant and to open up radically new insights. The product of one of the most talked-about dramatists in the French language since Arrabal and the advent of the theatre of panic, Copi’s works continue to shock and challenge all they come into contact with."

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Musorgsky's last opera is set at the end of the seventeenth century, a turbulent period of Russian history. The title refers to the conspiracy of Prince Khovansky against the young Tsar Peter the Great, and the epic drama ends with the exile, murder and suicide of all the power groups of old Russia. When Musorgsky died in 1881, it was unfinished, and Rimsky-Korsakov completed it; Ravel and Stravinsky made another version for Diaghilev in 1911; in 1959 Shostakovich went back to the original and, in the process of reorchestrating it, he rediscovered a masterpiece. Caryl Emerson surveys the compositional and historical background and offers a provocative reading of Musorgsky's achievement. Gerard McBurney relates the non-European inspiration in the score to Musorgsky's conception of history, while Rosamund Bartlett describes the cultural impetus for his historical vision. A new translation enables us to appreciate the subtleties of this absorbing drama, which gives an apocalyptic vision of Russia.

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The legend of the Swan Knight who rescues a princess from the forces of pagan evil is one of the foundation myths of Christian Europe. Lohengrin's transformed Wagner into an international figure almost overnight, and it remained his most popular work throughout the nineteenth century. Thomas Grey proposes that this was because it offered a 'cautious taste' of his later works, while preserving some of the comfortably familiar traditions of French grand opera. John Deathridge asks why Wagner was so quick to deny its specifically Christian symbolism, and Janet Nelson argues that his vision of the Christian Middle Ages uncannily prefigured a modern historical approach. This new English translation is by Amanda Holden.

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In 1972 Elias Canetti said that 'with Wozzeck Buchner achieved the most complete revolution in the whole of literature'. The same can be said of Berg's opera, as revolutionary in the history of music - and opera in particular - in the twentieth century. Mark DeVoto and Theo Hirsrunner discuss why this complex score perfectly suits the chaotic nature of the play. In his famous essay about the opera (written in 1968, but given here for the first time in English) Theodor Adorno shows how what seems fragmentary in the text is actually complete, and how the music responds to the words; Kenneth Segar offers a new interpretation of the play in the light of the most recent Buchner research. Also for the first time, the complete edition of the play as Berg knew it is set out with a translation so that readers can see not only what he kept for his libretto, but also what he omitted. This unique source material is complemented by a series of critical reactions to the first London production in 1952 illustrating the controversy which has surrounded the opera since its 1925 Berlin premiere, and the extent to which our aesthetics have changed since then.

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Das Rheingold, the opening of Wagner's four-part Ring of Nibelung, stands out as more genteel and picturesque than the others. But it immediately establishes the huge scale of the overall work, and the extraordinary musical language that will be displayed throughout. It is a miracle of musical history that Wagner's 1850 conception could be brought to completion, in an organic whole, some twenty-five years later. Stewart Spencer discusses the way in which Wagner fuses genuine mythology with his own invention and John Deathridge places the opera in the context of The Ring and its century.

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“Things like this are written only for people who have good powers of endurance (so really for nobody!)”, wrote Wagner about Die Walküre. Yet, as Geoffrey Skelton points out, the opera has enjoyed a separate popularity and existence from the Ring Cycle. George Gillespie shows just how the string of mythical events was converted into a drama remarkable for its concentrated excitement and fine construction. Barry Millington introduces the web of motifs in the complex score. The English version, with Elizabeth Forbes’s translation of the verses that Wagner did not eventually set to music but retained as footnotes to his published version, is by acclaimed translator Andrew Porter. Contents: A Conflict of Power and Love, Geoffrey Skelton; Chronology of the Composition of ‘The Valkyrie’; An Introduction to the Music of ‘The Valkyrie’, Barry Millington; New Myths for Old, George Gillespie; Translating ‘The Ring’, Andrew Porter; Die Walküre: Poem by Richard Wagner; The Valkyrie: English translation by Andrew Porter

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“It was a treat so truly intellectual that every ear and every breast, susceptible of harmony and of impression, was gratified to a degree beyond our power to describe.” Thus reads one of the first London reviews of Così fan tutte. Its enigmatic mixture of a detached experiment in human foibles and a struggle of sincere emotions has often disturbed audiences. H.C. Robbins Landon observes, however, that Mozart’s heartfelt music proves he is openly on the side of the angels – the ladies – not the deceivers, however cynical Da Ponte’s words appear to be. Brian Trowell describes the sophisticated world in which the opera was conceived, while John Stone traces the origins of the libretto to Ancient Greece, medieval Italy and even to China. The text is certainly Da Ponte’s most original work, and is here presented in Revd M.E. Browne’s acclaimed translation, revised by John Cox. Contents: Mozart at the time of ‘Così fan tutte’, Brian Trowell; A Commentary on the Score, H.C. Robbins Landon; The Background to the Libretto, John Stone; A Performance History, Nicholas John; Così fan tutte: Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte; Così fan tutte: English translation by Marmaduke E. Browne, revised by John Cox

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Der Rosenkavalier has one of the longest and most exquisitely crafted texts of all opera. The depth and subtlety of the characterization can only be appreciated after a careful reading. Derrick Puffett notes that the sentimentality and parody of the subject perfectly matched Strauss’s genius. Michael Kennedy’s detailed musical commentary shows how the large orchestra is handled with exceptional skill. Peter Branscombe points out that Hofmannsthal set a new standard of libretto-writing and shows how the ideas in Der Rosenkavalier may be traced to his other works for the stage, in his prose and poetry. Contents: An Introduction to ‘Der Rosenkavalier’, Derrick Puffett; Comedy for Music, Michael Kennedy; Hugo von Hofinannsthal – Man of Letters, Peter Branscombe; Der Rosenkavalier: Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal; Der Rosenkavalier: English translation by Alfred Kalisch

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Among the features of this guide to La Cenerentola, Philip Gossett throws new light on the remarkable story of the opera’s composition, while Colin Graham, ENO producer, argues that it is the most sympathetic of all Rossini’s comic masterpieces, and Mark Elder, ENO Music Director, shows how Rossini’s musical style is exceptionally well suited to this enchanting story. Contents: Fairy tale and opera buffa: the genre of Rossini’s ‘La Cenerentola’, Philip Gossett; ‘La Cenerentola’ – a musical commentary, Arthur Jacobs; ‘Cinderella’ in performance: I: A conversation with Mark Elder, II: A conversation with Colin Graham; La cenerentola: Libretto by Giacomo Ferretti; Ciderella: English translation by Arthur Jacobs

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Aida is, for most of us, the quintessence of Ancient Egypt but it is certainly not just for archaeologists. Michael Rose points out that it is really about patriotism - an issue of burning importance to Verdi and his contemporaries. Music critic William Mann reflects that even a short look at the score reveals subtleties that repay careful listening. And Verdi's own letters show the germs of the opera grow from suggestion to creation.

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Shortly before his death at the age of twenty, the young literary sensation Raymond Radiguet compiled a volume of his poetry, composed between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Presented here, this prodigious oeuvre is notable as much for its homage to classical style as it is for its risqué and even licentious undertones: it is, by Radiguet's own admission, an interpretation of ""the birth of Venus"", a depiction of the awakening of the senses. Based on the authoritative 1925 text, this dual-language edition also contains Radiguet's foreword to the collection, providing an invaluable insight into the history and interpretation of the works.

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Pauline García Viardot, the daughter of the famous singer and composer Manuel García and younger sister of the celebrated Malibran, was a singer of genius and a woman of outstanding intellect. The first biography of Viardot not only recreates the drama of the prima donna’s own life, but perfectly captures the scintillating brilliance of nineteenth-century artistic life: the colourful and diverse personalities of the Musset brothers, Chopin, George Sand, Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Gounod and Saint-Saëns move in and out of Viardot’s life. In 1843 Madame Viardot met the young Ivan Turgenev. From their first meeting until his death in 1883, he remained passionately devoted to her, following her around Europe and spending long periods of time as a member of her household. This authoritative study, which makes use of much hitherto unknown source material, has the fascination of a great Russian novel.

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In late 1927, at the age of twenty-four, George Orwell relocated to a tiny flat on London's Portobello Road, and from there embarked on a series of exploratory tramping expeditions to the city's East End, then a place of great squalor and deprivation. Later he moved to Paris's bohemian Latin Quarter, where, in early 1929, during a bout of serious illness, he was the victim of a robbery that left him in a state of near destitution, forcing him to work punishing hours in a series of menial jobs, including as a restaurant dishwasher. These real-life experiences laid the foundations for what would be the young writer's first full-length work.Populated by a troupe of colourful characters, replete with penetrating observations and cast in the limpid prose that would become Orwell's hallmark, Down and Out in Paris and London published by Victor Gollancz in 1933 provides both an invaluable historical snapshot and an insight into the perennial social evils of inequality, poverty an

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In January 1936, the thirty-two-year-old George Orwell left his home in London and travelled to the industrial north of England with the intention of experiencing first-hand the conditions in which the working-class poor were compelled to live their lives. During his two-month expedition he visited Manchester, Wigan and Liverpool in the north-west, then Sheffield, Leeds and Barnsley in Yorkshire, recording his impressions as he went in a diary that would later form the basis of one of the most significant works of literary reportage ever written.Part sociological survey, part polemic about the potential benefits of socialism as well as the failures and idiosyncrasies of many of its middle-class exponents The Road to Wigan Pier represents a unique record of a country riven by class inequality and plagued by unemployment, inadequate housing, unsafe working conditions and other social ills, and provides an invaluable insight into the evolution of Orwell's political consciousness.

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Turgenev's first major publication, Memoirs of a Hunter is a series of tales based largely on the author's own experiences while hunting on his mother's estate of Spasskoye, where he became aware of the iniquities of the system of serfdom and the privations and indignities suffered by the Russian peasantry. Told from the perspective of a dispassionate, observing narrator, the stories in this volume are concerned with the relationship between landowner and labourer, presenting a vivid and moving portrait of life in the era before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 a watershed whose advent some believe was hastened by Turgenev's sympathetic depiction of the ordinary folk of rural Russia.Originally published individually in the St Petersburg journal Sovremennik before appearing as a single volume in 1852, and presented here in a masterful new translation by Michael Pursglove, this landmark collection of stories established the literary reputation of the author, who considered it his m

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In 1807, Charles Lamb and his sister Mary wrote a collection of stories retelling twenty of Shakespeare’s plays for children. While making sure that the pieces were accessible for a younger audience, they took care to stay faithful to the language and vocabulary of the Bard as much as possible. Ranging from the high drama of Romeo and Juliet to the delightful fancy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the humour of As You Like it, this collection of vivid adaptations – here presented in a lavish new edition – has been a much loved children’s classic for more than two hundred years, offering budding readers an accessible route to Shakespeare’s works.

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A Hollywood hack who has fallen on hard times since the end of the Silent Era, Pat Hobby spends his time hanging out in the studio lot attempting to devise schemes - such as pressing his secretary for blackmail material against a studio executive - to get more work and earn on-screen credits. Oblivious to his own shortcomings and filled with feelings of self-importance, he embarks on a course towards ever-increasing humiliation, suffering setbacks on both the professional and romantic fronts. A vivid account of Hollywood and its politics and hierarchies, these stories - which draw from Fitzgerald's own travails as a screenwriter - were first printed in Esquire, although they were written with a view to being published as a cohesive volume.

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"She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steeled his heart against her." In love with the beautiful heiress Laura Fairlie, the impoverished art teacher Walter Hartright finds his romantic desires thwarted by her previous engagement to Sir Percival Glyde. But all is not as it seems with Sir Percival, as becomes clear when he arrives with his eccentric friend Count Fosco. The mystery and intrigue are further deepened by the ghostly appearances of a woman in white, apparently harbouring a secret that concerns Sir Percival’s past. A tale of love, madness, deceit and redemption, boasting sublime Gothic settings and pulse-quickening suspense, The Woman in White was the first best-selling Victorian sensation novel, sparking off a huge trend in the fiction of the time with its compulsive, fascinating narrative.

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An orphan child full of mischief, Jack lives with his crotchety widow aunt in eighteenth-century England. His naughtiness knows no limits, and when one day he goes a step too far, Aunt Constance decides that she’s had enough: from now on, his bachelor uncle can take care of him. Uncle Edmund is in no way prepared for a boy with boundless energy and an impish streak – and anyway, he’s off to the Himalayas to search for rare plants! But Aunt Constance is absolutely determined, and Jack’s uncle has no choice – he will have to take the boy with him. What follows is a terrific adventure that will see Jack and his uncle – the most unlikely of all expedition teams – sail to India, cross the jungle and reach their mountainous destination, before returning to London to present their findings to the Royal Society. Along the way, Jack will finally come to terms with the great loss that has blighted his childhood years and discover, quite unexpectedly, that he and his late father have much in common.

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In the summer of 1844, taking a break from novel-writing, the thirty-two-year-old Charles Dickens embarked on a journey to Italy with his wife, his five children and his young sister-in-law. Struck by the scenery and the rapid diorama of monuments and novelties around him, the celebrated author of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol captured his experiences and impressions in vivid detail. The result is a travelogue like no other, written by one of the finest writers of all time. Abounding in colour and humour, and interspersed with unforgettable set pieces, such as an eyewitness account of the beheading of a robber in Rome and a hilarious description of a tour guide’s ruinous tumble down the slope of Mount Vesuvius, Pictures from Italy is further proof of Charles Dickens’s genius and versatility.

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The judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin has spent his life in the pursuit of wealth and status, devoting himself obsessively to work and often neglecting his family in the process. When, after a small accident, he fails to make the expected recovery, it gradually becomes clear that he is soon to die. Ivan Ilyich then starts to question the futility and barrenness of his previous existence, realizing to his horror, as he grapples with the meaning of life and death, that he is totally alone.Included in this volume is another celebrated novella by Tolstoy, The Devil, which addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience, providing at the same time a further exploration of human fear and obsession.

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A romantic tale of an old man reminiscing about his youth and unfulfilled love, ‘Immensee’ is considered by many to be Theodor Storm’s most accomplished work, evoking a reality which is veiled and haunted by dreams and illusion. This volume, which also contains ‘Viola Tricolor’, the delightful story of a woman coming to terms with her stepdaughter, and ‘Curator Carsten’, a sombre account of a young man falling into a life of debauchery, provides a vivid introduction to one of the finest storytellers of German Romanticism.

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The Beatles' hair changed the world. As their increasingly wild, untamed manes grew, to the horror of parents everywhere, they set off a cultural revolution as the most tangible symbol of the Sixties' psychedelic dream of peace, love and playful rebellion. In the midst of this epochal change was Leslie Cavendish, hairdresser to the Beatles and some of the greatest stars of the music and entertainment industry. But just how did a fifteen-year-old Jewish school dropout from an undistinguished North London suburb, with no particular artistic talent or show­business connections, end up literally at the cutting edge of Sixties' fashion in just four years? His story – honest, always entertaining and inspiring – parallels the meteoric rise of the Beatles themselves, and is no less astounding.

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Now bankrupt after some failed gambles, Aristide Saccard, the former kingpin of the Paris Stock Exchange, desperately wants to get back to the top of the financial pile. When his powerful brother, the government minister Eugène Rougon, refuses to help him, he forms a partnership with the engineer Hamelin and founds the Banque Universelle, which speculates on public works in the Middle East. But as his greed and desire to outplay his rivals gets the better of him, the dashing and ruthless Saccard perilously begins to inflate the value of his enterprise using rumour, intrigue, financial manipulation and all the other tricks in the book. Inspired by real events and meticulously researched by Zola, Money is, in the wake of recent financial scandals, an all-too-topical exploration of the dynamics of greed, the excesses of capitalism and its dangerous relationship with politics and the press.

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After spending several years in a sanatorium recovering from an illness that caused him to lose his memory and ability to reason, Prince Myshkin arrives in St Petersburg and is at once confronted with the stark realities of life in the Russian capital – from greed, murder and nihilism to passion, vanity and love. Mocked for his childlike naivety yet valued for his openness and understanding, Prince Myshkin finds himself entangled with two women in a position he cannot bring himself to resolve. Dostoevsky, who wrote that in the character of Prince Myshkin he hoped to portray a “wholly virtuous man”, shows the workings of the human mind and our relationships with others in all their complex and contradictory nature. Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters, from the beautiful, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna to the dangerously obsessed Rogozhin and the radical student Ippolit, The Idiot is one of Dostoevsky’s most personal and intense works of fiction.

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“Verdi’s War and Peace“, writes Peter Conrad of this epic opera composed in 1862. It encompasses the extremes of a religious and secular existence – the worlds of the lovers pursued by an uncompromising fate and of the people in the scenes at the inn and on the battlefield. Despite its beautiful score, this opera has often seemed perplexing: Richard Bernas shows us how the music is devised as a convincing entity, and Bruce A. Brown traces the tortuous but fascinating history of its revisions. Here translated into English by Andrew Porter, La forza del destino deserves a serious reassessment. Contents: War and Peace, Peter Conrad; The Music of ‘The Force of Destiny’, Richard Bernas; The Revision of ‘The Force of Destiny’; ‘That Damned Ending’, Bruce A. Brown; La forza del destino: Libretto by Francesco Piave (1862) with additions by Antonio Ghislanzoni (1869); The Force of Destiny: English translation by Andrew Porter

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In this guide, Julian Budden reviews the difficulties that faced the management that had commissioned La Traviata and how, in some previously unpublished letters, Verdi fought their views on casting the leading lady. Denis Arnold contributes a musical commentary. April FitzLyon discusses the social background of the 'lady of the camellias' in fact, fiction and on the stage, and Nicholas John compares the libretto with the play to show how skilfully it was adapted for the operatic stage.

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Twenty-eight-year-old Dorothy Hare leads a life of drudgery and self-abnegation in the house of her father, the rector of Knype Hill, helping him stave off his creditors and making costumes for fund-raising events. When, after being invited to dinner by Mr Warburton, a local atheist and libertine, she is glimpsed in his arms by the village gossip, Mrs Semprill, Dorothy suffers a breakdown and, struck by amnesia, embarks on journey that will see her join a group of vagrants, pick hops in the fields of Kent, stay in a hotel for “working girls” and sleep rough on the streets of London. Perhaps the most experimental among his writings, A Clergyman’s Daughter, first published in 1935, is Orwell’s second work of fiction – and one that, in its depiction of a protagonist who rebels against and is ultimately vanquished by the society that oppresses her, is a clear prefiguration of later novels such as Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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First encountered in Lawrence’s novel The Rainbow, sisters Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are now grown-up women living in the English Midlands at the time of the First World War. Each becomes involved in a love affair: Ursula with the misanthropic intellectual Rupert Birkin, and Gudrun with Gerald Crich, a successful industrialist. The contrast between the two relationships – the former happy and fulfilling, the latter tempestuous and violent – facilitates an examination of both the regenerative and destructive aspects of human passion, while the novel’s Alpine climax is revelatory of the intensity of close male friendship. Heavily revised by the author in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the controversy surrounding the publication of The Rainbow, which had been suppressed on grounds of obscenity, Women in Love appeared first in the US in 1920, with a British edition following the next year. Straddling the boundary between nineteenth-century realism and modernism, it was regarded by Lawrence as his most accomplished work, and is considered by many to be the author’s masterpiece.

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Young college graduate Carol Kennicott moves from a big city to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, the small town from which her new husband hails. Imbued with ideals of urban improvement, she dreams of redesigning her adopted village, but her efforts are thwarted by the narrow-mindedness, pettiness and conventionality of the locals, who conspire against her and deride all her endeavours. An enormous commercial and critical success on its first publication in 1920, Main Street – regarded by many as Sinclair Lewis’s best novel – delivers a scathing satire on the American dream, and is invaluable as a document of pre-Prohibition Middle America.

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One of the pillars of nineteenth-century Russian prose fiction alongside towering figures such as Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev started his writing career as a poet, gaining much critical acclaim and renown in that field. The title piece of this collection, Parasha, which brought the young author to the attention of the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky and established his reputation, is a humorous narrative poem in the vein of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin or Lermontov’s Sashka, telling the story of a young woman’s marriage to her dull, unromantic neighbour and the couple’s humdrum and more or less happy life ever after. Also contained in this volume are four other narrative poems by Turgenev – Andrei, A Conversation, The Landowner and The Village Priest – all showing the author’s early interest in ordinary stories of Russian life and all displaying the wit and stylistic versatility that we have come to associate with his more famous prose works.

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The story of a naughty wooden puppet who has a penchant for lying and dreams of becoming a real boy, The Adventures of Pinocchio has entered our collective imagination and fascinated generations of young and adult readers since its first publication in 1883. Part fable, part coming-of-age novel, part cautionary tale, Pinocchio’s rollicking exploits through an unforgiving and often incomprehensible world – populated by unforgettable characters such as the Talking Cricket, Candlewick, Mangiafuoco and the Fairy with Turquoise Hair – have had a profound impact on our culture and attained universal significance as a mirror of the human condition. Here presented in a brand-new and lively translation by Stephen Parkin and illustrated beautifully by Peter Bailey, this edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio brings extra sparkle to one of the greatest and most celebrated works of children’s literature.

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Universally acclaimed as the master of the short-story form, Anton Chekhov begun his literary career as the author of brief tales and vignettes of Russian life when he was still a young medical student. Later rejected by the writer in the same self-effacing way in which he repudiated some of his most celebrated works, the stories in this collection are not only a testament to the early promise of his genius, but deserve to be appreciated for their lapidary vividness and their intrinsic stylistic quality. Mostly dealing with the lives of downtrodden "little" men and low-ranking civil servants as they steer their actions through the corruption and malpractice of Russian public officials, this volume - here presented in Stephen Pimenoff's lively new translation - bristles with wit and humour, and is tinged by that understated note of melancholy and lyricism that is a trademark of Chekhov's writing.

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After travelling to Spain at the end of 1936 with the intention of working as a correspondent for a British socialist newspaper, thirty-three-year-old George Orwell decided to join the Republican efforts to overturn Franco’s Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. Having enrolled in the POUM militias, the young writer was soon forced to experience first-hand the hardships and dangers of trench warfare, before becoming involved in the Barcelona May Day street fighting and nearly being killed by a bullet on his return to the front line. Orwell’s initial idealistic dreams of a victorious fight against fascism were gradually tainted by doubt and disillusionment as the divisions and infighting within the Republican coalition became apparent. Part war memoir, part tract, part exposé, Homage to Catalonia is a pivotal work in Orwell’s œuvre, and a key to understanding his political ideas and commitment to the socialist cause. Rejected by Orwell’s long-standing publisher, Gollancz, on political grounds, it is here presented in its original version, as published by Secker & Warburg in 1938.

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In the Burmese provincial town of Kyauktada, the world-weary John Flory - a thirty-something English teak dealer - leads a life of quiet disillusionment, hardly mixing with the natives or the expat community, and deriving some comfort only from his conversations with an Indian friend, Doctor Veraswami, and the attentions of his local mistress. His prospects seem to improve when he meets the orphaned niece of a timber merchant, Elizabeth Lackersteen, who appears to reciprocate his feelings of love - but the arrival on the scene of another suitor, the boorish police officer Verrall, and the scheming of a disgruntled local magistrate threaten to shatter Flory's dreams and put him on a path to tragedy. Based on the author's own experiences in Burma as a young officer in the Indian Imperial Police, Burmese Days - here presented in the version published in Britain in 1944, which follows the text of its first American edition - is George Orwell's debut novel, invaluable both as a faithful description of life in Burma during the twilight of the British Raj and as an expose of the failings of colonial rule.

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Under the feckless husbandry of Mr Jones, the Manor Farm has fallen into disrepair. Pushed into hardship, the animals decide to stage a revolt, and, led by two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, they overthrow Mr Jones and drive him away from the farm. In the subsequent struggle for power, it is Napoleon who emerges as a victor: he renames the place “Animal Farm”, gets rid of his enemies and, by the way he behaves – expecting to be glorifi ed above the others and turning the screw on his fellow beasts in order to keep them subjugated – begins to resemble more and more the former rulers of the farm, the hated humans. Written during the Second World War and published in 1945, this allegorical novel is a carefully constructed critique of the Russian Revolution and a sharp satire on the abuse of power. It remains unsurpassed both as a document of its time and as a testament to the versatility and creative genius of George Orwell.

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Ravaged by years of war and civil conflict, Britain has changed its name to Airstrip One and become part of Oceania – one of the three totalitarian blocks dominating the world – ruled by a mysterious leader called Big Brother who keeps the population in thrall through strict surveillance and brutal police repression. In a society where the individual is suppressed and turned into an “unperson” for not conforming, and where not only personal thought, but also historical record and language itself are constantly being manipulated by the ruling regime, Ministry of Truth worker Winston Smith tries to make sense of the rebellious thoughts and passions that are stirring inside him, and finds himself impotent against the inexorable machine that surrounds him and threatens to crush him at any time. Arguably the greatest dystopian novel of all time and the most influential post-war work of fiction – which enriched the English language with words such as “Newspeak”, “doublethink” and “thoughtcrime” – Nineteen Eighty-Four is a riveting read and a groundbreaking exploration of mass surveillance, censorship and mind control, which has a deep resonance with the world we live in.

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Inspired by real events and centring on the figure of Pelageya Vlasova – the mother of the title – and her son Pavel, Gorky’s masterpiece describes the brutal life of ordinary Russian factory workers in the years leading to the 1905 Revolution and explores the rise of the proletariat, the role of women in society and the lower classes’ struggle for self-affirmation. A book of the utmost importance, in the words of Lenin, and a landmark in Russian literature, The Mother – here presented in a brilliant new version by Hugh Aplin, the first English translation in almost a century – will enchant modern readers both for its historical significance and its intrinsic value as a work of art.

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A rediscovered gem from Italian children literature, written by the author of Pinocchio, translated and expanded by Alessandro Gallenzi and illustrated by Axel Scheffler (the illustrator of the Gruffalo). Collodi wrote this story immediately after Pinocchio, and the little monkey's adventures present clear similarities, both in terms of themes and characters, with his more celebrated masterpiece. Pipi isn't like his four brothers or the other young monkeys living in the forest of Hullabaloo: he has bright-pink fur, a mischievous character and a rebellious streak that lands him into all sorts of scrapes. In this story, an expanded version of Collodi's original tale, we see him lose his tail to an ancient crocodile, end up as a valet to a young master, fall into the hands of flying bandits and become emperor of a tribe of apes. Collodi wrote this story immediately after Pinocchio, and the little monkey's adventures present clear similarities, both in terms of themes and characters, with his more celebrated masterpiece. This rediscovered gem of Italian literature, beautifully illustrated by Axel Scheffler and preserving all of Collodi's trademark wit and linguistic crispness, will delight and enthral a new generation of children.

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After his university studies and a short stint in the army and the civil service, thirty-something Boris Pavlovich Raisky enjoys the life of an artist, frequenting St Petersburg’s elegant circles, dabbing at his paintings, playing a little music and entertaining thoughts of writing a novel. But for a man like him, who has achieved nothing so far and by his own admission is “not born to work”, the bustle of the capital proves too much, so he decides to visit his country estate of Malinovka. There he hopes to rediscover the joys of a simpler and more authentic life – but when he becomes emotionally involved with his beautiful cousin Vera and meets the dangerous freethinker Mark Volokhov, the scene is set for a chain of events that will lead to disappointment, confrontation and, ultimately, tragedy. Conceived twenty years before its initial publication in 1869, and regarded by its author as his best work, Malinovka Heights (previously translated in English as The Precipice) is Goncharov’s crowning achievement as a novelist and a triumph of psychological insight. Here presented for the first time in unabridged form in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, Goncharov’s final novel deserves to be reassessed as one of the most important classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature.

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From his childhood on the wild, windswept shores of Cornwall and his college days at Cambridge to his life as a lawyer in London and a fateful journey to the Mediterranean, Jacob Flanders’s story is told by the women in his life, whether through his mother’s correspondence, the conversations of a friend or the thoughts and remembrances of those who love him. An extraordinary departure from traditional forms of the novel, Jacob’s Room is both an elegiac and experimental tale told in pieces and fragments, and one of Virginia Woolf ’s most poignant stories. “Jacob, of whom people speak, of whom they think… is never shown. And yet that denial of presence on the part of the author makes of him one of the most living presences in world literature.” – MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

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Blake occupies a very special place in the pantheon of English Romanticism: just as innovative and brilliant as a painter and draughtsman as in the field of poetry, he created works that are often difficult to categorize and that, while harking back to a classical and biblical past, also look forward to the future - with authors such as T.S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and the Beat poets among his many modern admirers. This volume includes an essential selection of Blake's poetry, from the lesser-known Poetical Sketches to his celebrated Songs of Innocence and of Experience and the "prophetic works" inspired by the French Revolution, covering over two decades of poetical activity and displaying the author's originality and independence of mind at their sparkling best.

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When Sara Crewe is brought from India to attend Miss Minchin’s boarding school for girls in London, she arrives looking rather like a princess, with trunks full of the finest clothes. Yet, despite having her own pony and carriage, private room and personal maid, Sara is never a snob to her fellow pupils. Instead, she is kind, thoughtful and generous, and soon she is friends with all the girls there. But when the terrible news of her father’s death and failed financial investments arrives, Sara is suddenly left a penniless orphan. She is allowed to stay at the school, but as a servant, and the cruel Miss Minchin starves and ill-treats her. Faced with day after day of endless, exhausting work, Sara relies on her friendships and her imagination to get her through the misery of her circumstances. However, when Mr Carrisford and his assistant Ram Dass arrive from India and move in next door to the school, and warm blankets and delicious food mysteriously begin to appear in Sara’s little room in the attic, it looks like her life is about to change for ever…

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When the young nobleman Des Grieux lays eyes on the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut, he immediately falls in love with her, and they elope to Paris, incurring the wrath of his family and forfeiting his inheritance. However, he struggles to satisfy her taste for luxury, frittering away the little he has left, and his domestic bliss finally disintegrates when he finds out that Manon has betrayed him for a rich lover. Although causing scandal on its initial publication in 1731 and subsequently being banned, Manon Lescaut proved very popular with eighteenth-century readers, and remains one of literature’s finest and most evocative depictions of obsessive love.

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After doubts are raised concerning the trustworthiness of Magua, Cora and Alice Munro’s Native American guide, the warrior slips away into the wilderness, and the vulnerable sisters turn to the scout Hawk-eye and the Mohicans Chingachgook and Uncas to lead them to Fort William Henry, where their father is in command. Yet Magua is sure to return with his fellow Huron warriors, and with the bloody conflict of the French and Indian War raging all around them, the Munros will have to trust their new guides if they are ever to reach the fort. Widely regarded as the first great American novel, The Last of the Mohicans, with its epic landscapes, stoic frontiersmen and noble Native Americans, created much of the mythology and romance that has wreathed the American frontier adventure ever since. This edition contains notes and extra material.

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