Best of
Classics

1942

Saturnin


Zdeněk Jirotka - 1942
    Over sixty years later, English-speaking readers can become acquainted with Jirotka's novel, whose main hero is the legendary faithful servant Saturnin, fighting with aunt Katerina and her son Milouš. The book is accompanied by original colour illustrations by the Czech painter Adolf Born.

Mere Christianity


C.S. Lewis - 1942
    Lewis's forceful and accessible doctrine of Christian belief. First heard as informal radio broadcasts and then published as three separate books - The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality - Mere Christianity brings together what Lewis saw as the fundamental truths of the religion. Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations, C.S. Lewis finds a common ground on which all those who have Christian faith can stand together, proving that "at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks the same voice."

Chess Story


Stefan Zweig - 1942
    It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig's story.This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work's unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Complete Novels: Red Harvest / The Dain Curse / The Maltese Falcon / The Glass Key / The Thin Man


Dashiell Hammett - 1942
    The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op, in a raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town. In The Dain Curse (1929) the Op returns in a more melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success, a tightly constructed quest story shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931) is a further exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous. His last novel was The Thin Man (1934), a ruefully comic tale paying homage to the traditional mystery form and featuring Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies.

The Screwtape Letters: Also Includes "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"


C.S. Lewis - 1942
    "My symbol for hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or a thoroughly nasty business office." The edition also includes a new Screwtape piece, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast," and should find a new generation of readers for the wittiest piece of writing the 20th century has yet produced to stimulate the ordinary man to godliness.

The Screwtape Letters


C.S. Lewis - 1942
    Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.

The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays


Albert Camus - 1942
    Influenced by works such as Don Juan, and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not living in an absurd universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Camus posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

The Robe


Lloyd C. Douglas - 1942
    He then sets forth on a quest to find the truth about the Nazarene's robe-a quest that reaches to the very roots and heart of Christianity and is set against the vividly limned background of ancient Rome. Here is a timeless story of adventure, faith, and romance, a tale of spiritual longing and ultimate redemption.

Pied Piper


Nevil Shute - 1942
    John Howard, a 70-year-old Englishman vacationing in France, cuts shorts his tour and heads for home. He agrees to take two children with him.But war closes in. Trains fail, roads clog with refugees. And if things were not difficult enough, other children join in Howard's little band. At last they reach the coast and find not deliverance but desperation. The old Englishman's greatest test lies ahead of him.

Poems


Charles Baudelaire - 1942
    Deeply though darkly spiritual, titanic in the changes he wrought, Baudelaire looms over all the work, great and small, created in his wake.

The Myth of Sisyphus


Albert Camus - 1942
    They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.

The Works of Henry David Thoreau


Henry David Thoreau - 1942
    Works include:On the Duty of Civil DisobedienceA Plea for Captain John BrownWaldenWalkingA Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversWild Apples

The Wasteland & Four Quartets


T.S. Eliot - 1942
    Eliot. The Waste Land, first published in 1922, is one of Eliot's most influential works and has long been on the syllabus for A-Level English Literature. Four Quartets consists of four long poems, first published between 1935 and 1942. They are linked by common themes, and are individually Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Gidding. Schofield’s consummate renditions of these important works received huge acclaim when they were originally broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

T.S. Eliot Reads: The Wasteland, Four Quartets and Other Poems


T.S. Eliot - 1942
    Alfred PrufrockPortrait of a LadyPreludesMr. Eliot's Sunday Morning ServiceMurder in the Cathederal: Part II, Opening ChorusThe Family Reunion: Part II, A Chorus

Cross Creek


Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - 1942
    For the millions of readers raised on The Yearling, here is the story of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's experiences in the remote Florida hamlet of Cross Creek, where she lived for thirteen years. From the daily labors of managing a seventy-two-acre orange grove to bouts with runaway pigs and a succession of unruly farmhands, Rawlings describes her life at the Creek with humor and spirit. Her tireless determination to overcome the challenges of her adopted home in the Florida backcountry, her deep-rooted love of the earth, and her genius for character and description result in a most delightful and heartwarming memoir.

Mythology


Edith Hamilton - 1942
    We meet the Greek gods on Olympus and Norse gods in Valhalla. We follow the drama of the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus. We hear the tales of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Cupid and Psyche, and mighty King Midas. We discover the origins of the names of the constellations. And we recognize reference points for countless works of art, literature, and cultural inquiry--from Freud's Oedipus complex to Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas to Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. Praised throughout the world for its authority and lucidity, Mythology is Edith Hamilton's masterpiece--the standard by which all other books on mythology are measured.

Rear Window


Cornell Woolrich - 1942
    His name represents steamy, suspenseful fiction, chilling encounters on the dark and sultry landscape of urban America in the 1930s and 1940s. Here, in this special collection, are his classic thrilers, including 'Rear Window', the story of Hal Jeffries who, trapped in his apartment because of a broken leg, takes to watching his neighbours through his rear window, and becomes certain that one of those neighbours is a murderer. Also included are such haunting, heart-stopping tales as those involving a man who finds his wife buried alive; a girl trapped with a deranged murderer who likes to knife his victims while dancing; and a woman seizing her chance to escape a sadistic husband, only to find her dream go terrifyingly wrong.Rear window --I won't take a minute --Speak to me of death --The dancing detective --The light in the window --The corpse next door --You'll never see me again --The screaming laugh --Dead on her feet --Waltz --The book that squealed --Death escapes the eye --For the rest of her life

The Stranger


Albert Camus - 1942
    Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in English in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.

Little Golden Treasury: Scuffy the Tugboat, The Poky Little Puppy, Tawny Scrawny Lion, The Saggy Baggy Elephant


Gertrude Crampton - 1942
    Read by Susan GregoryA poky little puppy loves to dig holes under the fence despite what his family says. But the poky little puppy digs one hole too many and ends up missing dessertScuffy the Tugboat, by Gertrude Crampton. Read by Skip HinnantMeant for “bigger things,” Scuffy the Tugboat sets off on a daring adventure to explore the world but realizes that home is where he’d rather be, sailing in his bathtub. Tawny Scrawny Lion, by Kathryn Jackson. Read by Skip HinnantOnce there was a tawny scrawny lion that was always hungry, until he met 10 little rabbits who taught him how to eat carrot stew–instead of them! The Saggy Baggy Elephant, by K. and B. Jackson. Read by Susan GregoryAfter a parrot makes fun of Sooki’s big ears, long nose, and wrinkled skin, the “saggy baggy” elephant isn’t too sure of himself–until he meets some beautiful creatures that look and dance just like him.

The Lake of the Dead


André Bjerke - 1942
    Ever since, it is said, anyone who stays at the cabin is possessed by Gruvik's spirit and driven to drown themselves in the lake. What's more, Gruvik's restless ghost has been seen by many of the local people, prowling the woods by moonlight.Bjørn Werner, a young writer from Oslo, ignored the old superstitions and rented Dead Man's Cabin as a quiet spot to finish his book. Now he has disappeared, and the evidence suggests he threw himself in the lake in a fit of madness. The police write it off as a suicide, but his friends are not so sure. Kai Bugge, Bjørn's psychiatrist, believes in the suicide explanation, while private detective Harald Gran thinks it's a case of murder, and Gabriel Mørk, an expert in the occult, is certain that darker and otherworldly forces are at play. They travel to unravel the mystery of their friend's terrible fate, but not all of them will return alive from their stay at the Lake of the Dead ...André Bjerke's The Lake of the Dead (1942) was voted the all-time best Norwegian crime novel, and its atmospheric 1958 film adaptation is regarded as one of Norway's best films. This new translation is the first-ever American publication of Bjerke's classic, which features an unusual mixture of murder mystery and supernatural horror that will keep readers guessing until the thrilling conclusion.

The Uninvited


Dorothy Macardle - 1942
    They are drawn to the suspiciously inexpensive Cliff End, feared amongst locals as a place of disturbance and ill omen. Gradually, the Fitzgeralds learn of the mysterious deaths of Mary Meredith and another strange young woman. Together, they must unravel the mystery of Cliff End's uncanny past - and keep the troubled young Stella, who was raised in the house as a baby, from returning to the nursery where something waits to tuck her in at night... The second in Tramp's Recovered Voices series, this strange, bone-chilling story was first published in 1942, and was adapted for the screen as one of Hollywood's most successful ghost stories, The Uninvited, in 1944.

The Persian War (Translations from Greek & Roman Authors)


Herodotus - 1942
    The translated extracts include Herodotus' descriptions of the preparations for war and of the great land- and sea-battles which took place. Linking commentaries explain Greek and Persian strategies and battle manoeuvres. Background information on the ships and on the soldiers fighting in the war is also given.

Scale System : Scale Exercises in All Major and Minor Keys for Daily Study


Carl Flesch - 1942
    An instructional book for violin considered by many to be the violinists bible!

Srimad Bhagavad-Gita. With text, Word-for-Word Translation, English rendering, Comments and Index


Swarupananda - 1942
    

Embers


Sándor Márai - 1942
    In a secluded woodland castle an old General prepares to receive a rare visitor, a man who was once his closest friend but who he has not seen in forty-one years. Over the ensuing hours host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions. They will exhume the memory of their friendship and that of the General’s beautiful, long-dead wife. And they will return to the time the three of them last sat together following a hunt in the nearby forest--a hunt in which no game was taken but during which something was lost forever. Embers is a classic of modern European literature, a work whose poignant evocation of the past also seems like a prophetic glimpse into the moral abyss of the present

The Violent Land


Jorge Amado - 1942
    In this short novel, the aristocratic Badaros family is pitted against the middle-class planter Colonel Horacio Silveira in a struggle to obtain a crucial piece of land for the growing of cacao. Amado's true subject—and one he frequently comes back to—is the effect of the Bahia region's vast cacao plantations on the local citizens and the communities in which they live.

Laura


Vera Caspary - 1942
    No man could resist her charms—not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Laura's death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power. Soon he realizes he's been seduced by a dead woman—or has he? Laura won lasting renown as an Academy Award-nominated 1944 film, the greatest noir romance of all time. Vera Caspary's equally haunting novel is remarkable for its stylish, hardboiled writing, its electrifying plot twists, and its darkly complex characters—including a woman who stands as the ultimate femme fatale.

The Lieutenant's Lady


Bess Streeter Aldrich - 1942
    In the wake of the Civil War, land seekers were pouring into the West and displacing the Indian tribes. Although Omaha was beginning to put on social airs, Nebraska was still a raw territory.Not one to take shelter and spend her days sewing and serving tea, Linnie traveled up the Missouri to deliver a "Dear John" message to her cousin's fiancé, a handsome lieutenant--and in a wink became the wife of this stranger. They came to love and trust each other, and their survival on the frontier required nothing less, and a good deal more, from them than that. Their harrowing story is based on the diary of an actual army wife who recorded the daily weather-internal and external.The Lieutenant's Lady, which appeared on best-seller lists in 1942, is part of a series of stories and novels by Bess Streeter Aldrich to be reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press.

Never No More


Maura Laverty - 1942
    Here, she experiences the happiest years of her life as she watches the seasons come and go until, one November day, she stands poised for independence - and Spain.

Poems and the Spring of Joy


Mary Webb - 1942
    An enchanting collection of poems and some very special prose pieces.

6 Plays by Rodgers and Hammerstein


Oscar Hammerstein II - 1942
    OklahomaCarouselAllegroSouth PacificThe king and IMe and Juliet

Return to the River


Roderick L. Haig-Brown - 1942
    Return to the River tells the life story of one of the great Chinook Salmon, observed with the trained eye of a naturalist and recorded with a novelist's narrative skill.

Five Great Dialogues


Plato - 1942
    Five of the great dialogues of this influential philosopher, translated by Oxford professor B. Jowett. Includes the Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, and Republic.

The Golden Hind: An Anthology of Elizabethan Prose and Poetry


Hallett Smith - 1942
    The experience of many users of the book has made it apparent that such a division is unnatural and awkward at both ends of the period, so in the present revised edition there are additions at the beginning and at the end. Some important examples of the work of John Skelton, Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot and William Tyndale give the reader an opportunity to understand the currents of feeling and thought in the early Tudor period which indicated that a renaissance and a reformation were taking place. At the end of the century, two great figures, Ben Jonson and John Donne, are now included to represent the tendencies of the future and to illustrate high achievement outside the prevailing Elizabethan tradition. Certain additions to the works of Spenser, Hoby, Ralegh, Nashe and Drayton are also included." [Taken from "Preface to the Revised Edition", xvii]

In the Heart of the Country


H.E. Bates - 1942
    It describes the spring of 1941, the coldest for a hundred years, and June days as grey as January; a reassuring mid-summer of foxgloves and fishing trips; an autumn of kingfishers and trees heavy with fruit; and the rural isolation of a harsh winter with bushes still laden with berries in December. Bates also recalls the darker moments, on hearing reports from Dunkirk and the August Sunday when a black bomber hurtled to the ground.This book, with its depth of thoughtful charm and nostalgia, by the author of The Darling Buds of May, will delight all lovers of the country.

Mathematicall Praeface to the Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara


John Dee - 1942
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Professor Krylov's Navy


Alexey N. Krylov - 1942
    Additional material: Introduction by Andrey Kapitsa and recollections of his daughter about her father Alexey Krylov, his step-brother Victor Henri, and her husband, Nobel Prize winner Pyotr Kapitza.

Hymns to the Church


Gertrud von le Fort - 1942
    Translation of Hymnen an Die Kirche by the Baroness Gertrud von Le Fort (11 October 1876 – 1 November 1971),a noted German writer of novels, poems and essays.This moving collection of poems is addressed to the Catholic Church that Gertrude embraced in 1926 at the age of 50.

Pack Up Your Troubles: A Collection of Verse from Between the Bookends


Ted Malone - 1942
    

Hamlet: The Prince Or The Poem?


C.S. Lewis - 1942
    

The Complete Greek Tragedies, Volume I: Aeschylus


David Grene - 1942
    

Sadi's Scroll of Wisdom


Saadi - 1942
    He is not only famous in Persian-speaking countries, but he has also been quoted in western sources. He is recognized for the quality of his writings, and the depth of his social and moral thoughts.His best known works are Bustan ("The Orchard") completed in 1257 and Gulistan ("The Rose Garden") in 1258. Bustan is entirely in verse and consists of stories illustrating the standard virtues recommended to Muslims (justice, liberality, modesty, contentment) and reflections on the behavior of dervishes and their ecstatic practices. Gulistan is mainly in prose and contains stories and personal anecdotes. The text is a variety of short poems, advice, and humorous reflections. Saadi demonstrates a profound awareness of the absurdity of human existence.Saadi is also remembered as a panegyrist and lyricist, the author of a number of odes portraying human experience, and also of particular odes such as the lament on the fall of Baghdad after the Mongol invasion in 1258. His lyrics are found in Ghazaliyat ("Lyrics") and his odes in Qasa'id ("Odes"). He is also known for a number of works in Arabic.Alexander Pushkin, one of Russia's most celebrated poets, quotes Saadi in his masterpiece Eugene Onegin: As Saadi sang in earlier ages,"some are far distant, some are dead".Saadi distinguished between the spiritual and the practical or mundane aspects of life. In his Bustan, spiritual Saadi uses the mundane world as a spring board to propel himself beyond the earthly realms. The images in Bustan are delicate in nature and soothing. In the Gulistan, on the other hand, mundane Saadi lowers the spiritual to touch the heart of his fellow wayfarers. Here the images are graphic and, thanks to Saadi's dexterity, remain concrete in the reader's mind. Realistically, there is a ring of truth in the division. The Sheikh preaching in the Khanqah experiences a totally different world than the merchant passing through a town. Saadi embodies both the Sufi Sheikh and the traveling merchant. As he himself puts it, two almond kernels in the same shell. Saadi's prose style described as "simple but impossible to imitate". The clouds, the wind, the moon, and the sun, For your comfort, and at your behest, run; They toil continuously for your satisfaction, Should not you halt, monitor your action?Saadi is well known for his aphorisms, the most famous of which, Bani Adam, calls for breaking all barriers: The poem is translated by M. Aryanpoor as: Human beings are members of a whole, In creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, Other members uneasy will remain. If you've no sympathy for human pain, The name of human you cannot retain! by H. Vahid Dastjerdi as: Adam's sons are body limbs, to say; For they're created of the same clay. Should one organ be troubled by pain, Others would suffer severe strain. Thou, careless of people's suffering, Deserve not the name, "human being". the last translation by Dr. Iraj Bashiri: Of One Essence is the Human Race, Thusly has Creation put the Base. One Limb impacted is sufficient, For all Others to feel the Mace. The Unconcern'd with Others' Plight, Are but Brutes with Human Face.U.S. President Barack Obama quoted Saadi's Gulistan in a videotaped Nowruz (New Year's) greeting to the Iranian people in March 2009: "There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: 'The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence."

A Man about the House


Francis Brett Young - 1942
    Two spinster sisters, dominant 'Miss Agnes' and compliant 'Miss Ellen' are left ‘The Cedars’ without means by their father a retired army colonel. In this cold and inhospitable house, the sisters need to live frugally. By fortune, an uncle leaves them an Italian villa, ‘Castello Inglese’, with a comfortable living in a sunnier scene, where Agnes and Ellen take up residence and suppressed emotions blossom into passion. But how is the “man about the house” involved and what other dark secrets are lurking at the “Castello Inglese”? Francis Brett Young qualified as a doctor and medical matters often feature in his novels – nor are they missing from this story. The book is compelling reading with unexpected revelations.