Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne's satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne's prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death's Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time."

    It was his third novel and it is certainly well-written and very readable. It is, too, an enjoyable romp, all about a stranded theatrical group the Dinky Doos rescued by Miss Trant and coverted into the Good Companions, and involving their adventures with such characters as Jess Oakroyd, the middle-aged joiner from Bruddersford, who breaks free from his miserable domestic existence, Susie Dean and Inigo Jollifant. It is the sort of long, colourful novel which was one of Priestley's hallmarks, and it is clear that Priestley enjoyed himself writing it. He regarded the job as not so much a task, more a kind of holiday.One of the ironies of the success of The Good Companions is that when he discussed his idea for the book with his publishers they told him that such a book would not appeal to the current reading public. However, the germ of the story was embedded deep into his mind and heart, and writing the novel became something of an obsession. He had made up his mind to write a novel that he himself could enjoy even if nobody else did...and, in the event, a great many others also loved it! (The novel arrived at a time when the country was in depression, and someone commented that The Good Companions "soared out of the gloom like a fairy tale to lift thousands of minds into a world of literary enchantment."David Hughes in "J.B. Priestley:An Informal Study of His Work", wrote: "The Good Companions is a simple book, plainly constructed and straightforwardly told. Like so much of Priestley's work, its action begins on a note of rebellion, while its impulse is the search for romance without losing sight of reality; indeed, staring into the very heart of reality for the magic. Jess Oakroyd is pitched into loneliness by the drab quarrrelling of his family. Miss Trant, suddenly relieved in early middle age of a burden that might have lasted her lifetime, turns against the trivial monotony of her genteel days in a Cotswold village. Inigo Jollifant, surrounded in the prep school where he teaches by petty rulings, is refused permission to play the piano by the headmaster's wife, gets drunk and escapes into the night. Three separate rebellions against the frustrations of life put three characters on the road for what is probably the longest picaresque novel in English since Pickwick."Priestley started to write The Good Companions in January 1928, and he delivered the manuscript to Heinemann in March 1929.At least two films have been made of The Good Companions, and it has been turned into a play on several occasions.

    The essay is a polemical piece that attempts to go beyond Arnold Bennett’s thesis that character is the essence of novel writing, and his too easy conclusion as to why the young writers have failed to create credible characters. Woolf chooses the year 1910 as the year in which a discernible shift in human relations takes place. This point is important to her because to understand what “real” character is, one has to understand the large context—the British society. In this light, she chooses Mrs. Brown as a metaphor for human nature. Her analysis highlights the shortcomings of previous generations of writers; in particular the Edwardians and the Georgians, concluding that they also failed to create lasting characters. In this regard, history seems to be on Virginia Woolf’s side: while everyone remembers Mrs. Dalloway, no one remembers a single character created by either the Edwardians or the Georgians. What readers remember instead are the physical settings they created with old tools. To facilitate the flow of ideas, this version of the essay includes section headings and bold typography. The essay is presented, otherwise, as it was first published.

    Lawrence. Since then it has won the admiration of writers from Henry Miller to Iris Murdoch. Wolf Solent remains wholly unrivaled in its deft and risky balance of mysticism and social comedy, ecstatic contemplation of nature and unblinking observation of human folly and desire.Forsaking London for Ramsgard, a village in Dorsetshire, Wolf Solent discovers a world of pagan splendor and medieval insularity, riddled by ancient scandals and resentments. And there this poetic young man meets two women—the sensuous beauty Gerda and the ethereal gamine Christie—who will become the sharers of his body and soul. Audacious, extravagant, and gloriously strange, Wolf Solent is a twentieth-century masterpiece.

    The hero is George Winterbourne. Leaving the Edwardian gloom of his embattled parents behind him, George escapes to Soho, which buzzes, on the eve of war, with talk of politics, pacifism and free love. He paints, he marries, he takes a mistress: the perfect hero of his time, whose destiny -- like all those of that lost generation -- is the bloody nightmare of the trenches.

    Toad of Toad Hall A Play from Kenneth Grahame's Book "The Wind in the Willows"

    The story was inspired by a visit Woolf made to Ethel Sands in Normandy. She noted in her diary for 20 September 1927: How many little stories come into my head! For instance, Ethel Sands not looking at her letters. What this implies. One might write a book of short significant separate scenes. She did not open her letters.

    In other words, the normal critic will at once dismiss them as too frivolous and dislike them as too serious. The rather one-sided truce of good taste, touching all religious matters, which prevailed until a short time ago, has now given place to a rather one-sided war. But the truce can still be invoked, as such terrorism of taste generally is invoked, against the minority. We all know the dear old Conservative colonel who swears himself red in the face that he is not going to talk politics, but that damning to hell all those bloody blasted Socialists is not politics. We all have a kindly feeling for the dear old lady, living at Bath or Cheltenham, who would not dream of talking uncharitably about anybody, but who does certainly think the Dissenters are too dreadful or that Irish servants are really impossible. It is in the spirit of these two very admirable persons that the controversy is now conducted in the Press on behalf of a Progressive Faith and a Broad and Brotherly Religion. So long as the writer employs vast and universal gestures of fellowship and hospitality to all those who are ready to abandon their religious beliefs, he is allowed to be as rude as he likes to all those who venture to retain them. The Dean of St. Paul's permits himself genially to call the Catholic Church a treacherous and bloody corporation; Mr. H. G. Wells is allowed to compare the Blessed Trinity to an undignified dance; the Bishop of Birmingham to compare the Blessed Sacrament to a barbarous blood-feast. It is felt that phrases like these cannot ruffle that human peace and harmony which all such humanitarians desire; there is nothing in THESE expressions that could possibly interfere with brotherhood and the sympathy that is the bond of society. We may be sure of this, for we have the word of the writers themselves that their whole aim is to generate an atmosphere of liberality and love. If, therefore, any unlucky interruption mars the harmony of the occasion, if it is really impossible for these fraternal festivities to pass off without some silly disturbance, or somebody making a scene, it is obvious that the blame must lie with a few irritable and irritating individuals, who cannot accept these descriptions of the Trinity and the Sacrament and the Church as soothing their feelings or satisfying their ideas.

    In this "hilarious burlesque of detective fiction" (New York Times), Tommy and Tuppence Beresford adopt the methods and manners of every major literary detective from Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes to piece together an increasingly complex series of delightfylly different-and deadly-misdeeds.Contains 5 of the original 15 stories: The Case of the Missing Lady / Blindman's Buff / The Man in the Mist / The Crackler / The Sunningdale Mystery

    is a collection of school stories based on Kipling's own experiences at the United Services College. Kipling himself appears as the central character called Beetle and through him shows how school is a pattern-maker for the experiences of life. The Complete Stalky & Co., first published 30 years later, includes five stories not published in the original edition.

    It is the 1880's, the last years of the opulent Kingdom of Burma, ripe for annexation by the empires of Europe. Fanny becomes the favorite of the Burmese Queen, and is swept into the magnificent court life of the Royal Palace. Now a lacquer lady in a scented world, Fanny falls in love and the destiny of the Kingdom is altered forever...

    Seen through the eyes of the trade unionist Joan Craig, this novel records the events of the General Strike of 1926 and its aftermath - the fervour of the committee meetings at which the strike call is heard, the mobilization of support during that week and the struggle of the mining communities.

    Her train was drawing her into Paddington Station, and how she wished that she were dead...Orphaned teenager Nathalie Frost is on her way to London to stay with her mother's sister, Aunt Ruth, and Ruth's famous husband, the celebrated popular novelist Hans Frost. She arrives on the evening of Hans Frost's 70th birthday celebration, and Aunt Ruth bundles Nathalie off to her bedroom to get her out of the way. Hans himself is something of a side character in the household, for despite their critical acclaim, his books don't bring in that much income, and his wife's wealth provides the luxury he has enjoyed since their marriage.Hans and Nathalie meet that night and are immediately taken with each other, much to Ruth's jealous dismay. The entry of Nathalie into his world is the catalyst which Hans has needed to wake him from his slump; his next move shocks the literary and social world. Nathalie meanwhile is learning about love from a Russian emigre; her life as well is changed beyond recognition by her close relationship with her uncle and the influence they have on each others' lives.