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The four writers featured in this volume represent different aspects of the modernist response to Shakespeare. James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Samuel Beckett were all exceptionally learned and their art takes a delight in difficulty. But the scurrility, irreverence and playfulness they found in Shakespeare are essential features of what they themselves were to do with him. They were particularly drawn to Shakespeare’s outcasts, and to the experiences of marginality, estrangement, indigence and craziness. In return they have helped to shape the ways in which we now read Shakespeare himself.

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'Shakespeare invented the human as we continue to know it' Harold BloomSet in a city torn apart by feuds and gang warfare, Shakespeare's immortal drama tells the story of star-crossed lovers, rival dynasties and bloody revenge. Romeo and Juliet is a hymn to youth and the thrill of forbidden love, charged with sexual passion and violence, but also a warning of death: a dazzling combination of bawdy comedy and high tragedy. Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley WellsEdited by T. J. B. Spencer Introduction by Adrian Poole

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'an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence' Young Daisy Miller perplexes, amuses, and charms her stiff but susceptible fellow-American, Frederick Winterbourne. Is she innocent or corrupt? Has he lived too long in Europe to judge her properly? Amid the romantic scenery of Lake Geneva and Rome, their lively, precarious relationship develops to a climax in the Colosseum at midnight. The tale gave James his first popular success, yet some compatriots detected treachery in its portrayal of young American womanhood. James responded with 'An International Episode', which exposes a couple of English gentlemen to the charm and wit of American sisters in Newport, RI and then in London. Independently read, these short masterpieces probe the manners and morals of a newly emergent transatlantic world. Together they shed light on each other, demonstrating the range of James's own manners, from sharp satire and buoyant comedy to complex, perhaps even tragic, pathos. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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'She will do as I have bidden her.' Catherine Sloper is heiress to a fortune and the social eminence associated with Washington Square. She attracts the attention of a good-looking but penniless young man, Morris Townsend. His suit is encouraged by Catherine's romantically-minded aunt, Mrs Penniman, but her father, a clever physician, is convinced that his motives are merely mercenary. He will not consent to the marriage, regardless of the cost to his daughter. Out of this classic confrontation Henry James fashioned one of his most deftly searching shorter fictions. First published in 1880 but set some forty years earlier in a pre-Civil War New York, the novel reflects ironically on the restricted world in which its heroine is marooned, seating herself at its close 'for life, as it were'. In his introduction Adrian Poole reflects on the book's gestation and influences, the significance of place, and the insight with which the four prinicipal players are drawn. The edition includes an account of the real-life tale that sparked James's imaginative genius. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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'This, of the history plays, is The Tragedy ... the most lyrical Shakespeare ever wrote' Simon SchamaThe old king Henry IV, sick and weary, must send out his forces - including the unruly Falstaff - to meet another rebellion that threatens to bring the country to the brink of civil war. But as the conflict grows, he must also confront a more personal problem - how to make his troublesome son Prince Hal accept his duty as heir and leave his carousing companions behind. Pitting youth against old age, son against father, carefree hope against the realities of ruling, this is an elegiac drama of pathos and regret.Used and Recommended by the National TheatreGeneral Editor Stanley WellsEdited by Peter Davison Introduction by Adrian Poole

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`You you a nun; you with your beauty defaced and your nature wasted you behind locks and bars! Never, never, if I can prevent it!' A wealthy American man of business descends on Europe in search of a wife to make his fortune complete. In Paris Christopher Newman is introduced to Claire de Cintré, daughter of the ancient House of Bellegarde, and to Valentin, her charming young brother. His bid for Claire's hand receives an icy welcome from the heads of the family, an elder brother and their formidable mother, the old Marquise. Can they stomach his manners for the sake of his dollars? Out of this classic collision between the old world and the new, James weaves a fable of thwarted desire that shifts between comedy, tragedy, romance and melodrama a fable which in the later version printed here takes on some of the subtleties associated with this greatest novels. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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What Maisie Knew (1897) represents one of James's finest reflections on the rites of passage from wonder to knowledge, and the question of their finality. The child of violently divorced parents, Maisie Farange opens her eyes on a distinctly modern world. Mothers and fathers keep changing their partners and names, while she herself becomes the pretext for all sorts of adult sexual intrigue. In this classic tale of the death of childhood, there is a savage comedy that owes much to Dickens. But for his portrayal of the child's capacity for intelligent `wonder', James summons all the subtlety he devotes elsewhere to his most celebrated adult protagonists. Neglected and exploited by everyone around her, Maisie inspires James to dwell with extraordinary acuteness on the things that may pass between adult and child. In addition to a new introduction, this edition of the novel offers particularly detailed notes, bibliography, and a list of variant readings. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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The greatest expression of his talent for witty, observant explorations of what it means to 'live well', Henry James's The Ambassadors is edited with an introduction and notes by Adrian Poole in Penguin Classics.Concerned that her son Chad may have become involved with a woman of dubious reputation, the formidable Mrs Newsome sends her 'ambassador' Strether from Massachusetts to Paris to extricate him. Strether's mission, however, is gradually undermined as he falls under the spell of the city and finds Chad refined rather than corrupted by its influence and that of his charming companion, Madame de Vionnet, and her daughter, Jeanne. As the summer wears on, Mrs Newsome concludes that she must send another envoy to confront the errant Chad - and a Strether whose view of the world has changed profoundly. One of the greatest of James's late works, The Ambassadors is a subtle and witty exploration of different responses to a European environment.This edition of The Ambassadors includes a chronology, further reading, glossary, notes and an introduction discussing the novel in the context of James's other works on Americans in Europe, and the novel's portrayal of Paris.Henry James (1843-1916) son of a prominent theologian, and brother to the philosopher William James, was one of the most celebrated novelists of the fin-de-siècle. In addition to many short stories, plays, books of criticism, biography and autobiography, and much travel writing, he wrote some twenty novels. His novella 'Daisy Miller' (1878) established him as a literary figure on both sides of the Atlantic, and his other novels in Penguin Classics include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Awkward Age (1899), The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904)If you enjoyed The Ambassadors, you might like Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, also available in Penguin Classics.

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Set at the time of the Jacobite uprising, The Master of Ballantrae tells of a family divided. James Durie, Master of Ballantrae, abandons his ancestral home to support the Scottish rebellion - leaving his younger brother Henry, who is faithful to the English crown, to inherit the title of Lord Durrisdeer. But he is to return years later, embittered by battles and a savage life of piracy on the high seas, to demand his inheritance. Turning the people against the Lord, he begins a savage feud with his brother that will lead the pair from the Scottish Highlands to the American Wilderness. Satanic and seductive, the Master was regarded by Stevenson as 'all I know of the devil'; his darkly manipulative schemes dominate this subtle and compelling tragedy.This edition takes as its text the Edinburgh Edition of the novel, the last approved by the author. The introduction considers the novel's inspiration and its place as one of Stevenson's greatest studies in cruelty.

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One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''The great poet of the city. He was created by London' Peter AckroydOur Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees: young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social-climbing Veneerings; and the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg. Dickens's last completed novel is richly symbolic in its vision of death and renewal in a city dominated by the fetid Thames, and of the corrupting power of money.Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Adrian Poole

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Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself. Britten is the most literary British composer of the twentieth century. His relationship to the many and varied texts that he set was deeply committed and sensitive. As a result, both his responses to poetry and his collaborationswith his librettists tell us a great deal about his music, and often, about the man himself. This book takes a unique approach to Britten, drawing together well-known Britten experts alongside English, music, modern language andhistory scholars who bring their own perspective to bear on Britten's work. Chapters examine all aspects of Britten's text setting, from his engagement with a wide variety of poetry to his relationship with his librettists. By approaching Britten's operas and songs through their literature, this book offers fresh insights into his vocal works. KATE KENNEDY is the Weinrebe Research Fellow in Life-writing at Wolfson College, Oxford, where she is an associate of both Music and English Faculties. She is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC and specialises in interdisciplinary biography and has published widely on twentieth century music and literature. Contributors:JOANNA BULLIVANT, PHILIP ROSS BULLOCK, NICHOLAS CLARK, MERVYN COOKE, DAVID FULLER, JOHN FULLER, PETER HAPPÉ, J. P. E. HARPER-SCOTT, JOHN HOPKINS, KATE KENNEDY, ADRIAN POOLE, HANNA ROCHLITZ, PHILIP RUPPRECHT, REBEKAH SCOTT, VICKISTROEHER, JUSTIN VICKERS, LUCY WALKER, BRIAN YOUNG

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