Best of
Classics

1954

The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes


Adrian Conan Doyle - 1954
    The plots are all new, with painstaking attention to the mood, tone, and detail of the original stories. Here is a fascinating volume of mysteries for new Sherlock fans, as well as for those who have read all the classics and crave more!The Adventure of the Seven Clocks The Adventure of the Gold Hunter The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle The Adventure of the Black Baronet The Adventure of the Sealed Room The Adventure of the Foulkes Rath The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby The Adventure of the Dark Angles The Adventure of the Two Women The Adventure of the Depthford Horror The Adventure of the Red Widow

The Fellowship of the Ring


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

A Time to Love and a Time to Die


Erich Maria Remarque - 1954
    After two years at the Russian front, Ernst Graeber finally receives three weeks’ leave. But since leaves have been canceled before, he decides not to write his parents, fearing he would just raise their hopes. Then, when Graeber arrives home, he finds his house bombed to ruin and his parents nowhere in sight. Nobody knows if they are dead or alive. As his leave draws to a close, Graeber reaches out to Elisabeth, a childhood friend. Like him, she is imprisoned in a world she did not create. But in a time of war, love seems a world away. And sometimes, temporary comfort can lead to something unexpected and redeeming. “The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.”—The New York Times Book Review

100 Selected Poems


E.E. Cummings - 1954
    Cummings is without question one of the major poets of the 20th century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred of Cummings’s wittiest and most profound poems, harvested from thirty-five of the most radically creative years in contemporary American poetry. These poems exhibit all the extraordinary lyricism, playfulness, technical ingenuity, and compassion for which Cummings is famous. They demonstrate beautifully his extrapolations from traditional poetic structures and his departures from them, as well as the unique synthesis of lavish imagery and acute artistic precision that has won him the adulation and respect of critics and poetry lovers everywhere.

Prokleta avlija


Ivo Andrić - 1954
    Ćamil, a wealthy young man of Smyrna living in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, is fascinated by the story of Džem, ill-fated brother of the Sultan Bajazet, who ruled Turkey in the fifteenth century. Ćamil, in his isolation, comes to believe that he is Džem, and that he shares his evil destiny: he is born to be a victim of the State. Because of his stories about Džem’s ambitions to overthrow his brother, Ćamil is arrested under suspicion of plotting against the Sultan. He is taken to a prison in Istanbul, where he tells his story, to Petar, a monk.Out of these exotic materials, Andrić has constructed a book of great clarity, brevity and interest. No doubt it will be read by some as a political parable about the tyranny of the State, but also as a quite simply story about ill-fortune and human misunderstanding, fear and ignorance. Džem and Ćamil are doomed – and the certainty of their persecution is sometimes relieved, sometimes intensified by the stupidity and fright of the people who cross their ill-starred lives.Construction takes up most of the book’s space: the central story of Džem as related by Ćamil lasts only a chapter or two. For the rest of the time the reader strips layer off layer, as one narrator passes him on the next. There is an interesting passage that helps to explain this method, at the moment when Ćamil starts narrating Džem’s story in the first person. “I” is a word, we are told, which fixes the position of the speaker in such a way that the exercise of will is no longer possible, and the speaker strength is exceeded – strength, presumably, to break out of the identification that all his past actions and thoughts force upon him when he uses the word. “I” is both a confession and an imprisonment. The fact that the novel passes the reader on from one narrator to the next rather suggests that the author is taking constant evasive action, lest he betray himself or his reader into the kind of “personal confession” which seals the fate of Ćamil. What exactly this game of form flirting with meaning signifies, must be left to the individual reader.The movement is centripetal, towards Džem’s story, and then disperses. Details within the story are made to mimic this form. Thus when Peter receives the message telling him of his impending release:“Two younger prisoners...were chasing around using him as the centerpoint of ever narrowing circles. Annoyed, he tried to break away from these exuberant youths when one of them brushed against him and he felt a folded scrap of paper thrust into his hand. The youths continued their chase but now in widening circles...”The reader is led on just such a chase in the course of the novel. The effect of this is to make the plot seem more like a poetic image than an ordinary plot: capable, therefore, of as many meanings as are the images of an allusive poem. Yet the language is simple and direct, not at all “poetic”. The characters are remarkable alive, even in conversation. Karađoz, the governor of the goal, is a spidery authoritarian, who loves to torment the charges he loves. The prisoners “complained about the way one complains about one’s life and curses one’s destiny...it would have been hard for them to imagine life without him”.“The Devil’s Yard” is justified, as all symbolic and figurative novels must be, by the extent to which it touches the emotions. It is extremely moving. Fear, horror, despair, amusement at times – all these indicate that the threat of the meaning has been recognized.

The Lord of the Rings Boxed Set


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    Tolkien's classic masterpiece, together with The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, an annotated guide to all three parts of the Book of the Century.Since it was first published in 1954, The Lord of the Rings has been a book people have treasured. Steeped in unrivalled magic and otherworldliness, its sweeping fantasy has touched the hearts of young and old alike. One hundred million copies of its many editions have been sold around the world, and occasional collectors' editions become prized and valuable items of publishing. Now, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first publication, the text has been fully restored with almost 400 corrections - with the full co-operation of Christopher Tolkien - making it the definitive version of the text, and as close as possible to the version that J.R.R. Tolkien wanted. In addition to now having the definitive version of the text, this paperback set also includes a companion volume, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, a unique annotated guide to the text, which will enhance the reader's enjoyment and understanding of the book of the 20th century.

The Ring Sets Out


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power; the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring -- the ring that rules them all -- which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as the Ring is entrusted to his care. He must leave his home and make a perilous journey across the realms of Middle-earth to the Crack of Doom, deep inside the territories of the Dark Lord. There he must destroy the Ring forever and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose. Discover the incredible epic journey of Frodo in a celebratory seven-volume boxed set of fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings.

The Mandarins


Simone de Beauvoir - 1954
    Drawing on those who surrounded her -- Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler -- and her passionate love affair with Nelson Algren, Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desire and her public life.The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.

The Ring Goes East


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    Bound in black covers with the distinctive Eye of Sauron design from the original jackets embossed in red and gold foil on each volume. Each book bears Tolkien's originally conceived title — The Ring Sets Out, The Ring Goes South, The Treason at Isengard, The Ring Goes East, The War of the Ring, The End of the Third Age — and has been specially typeset for this edition. With sales of over 50 million copies wordwide and acknowledged as the book of the century by book lovers all over the world, this commemorative edition is available for a strictly limited period and provides Tolkien lovers, fans, and collectors old and new with the perfect opportunity to own a piece of twentieth century literary history.Available as a boxed set only.

Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky


Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1954
    As in all Delphi Classics, the work is presented in a scholarly fashion, with all of the novels placed in chronological order, allowing readers to explore the author's gradual development in writing. The majority of texts are from Constance Garnett's celebrated translations, bringing the true spirit of Dostoyevsky's work to the English reader. Please note: we aim to provide the most comprehensive author collections available to Kindle readers. Sadly, it’s not always possible to guarantee an absolutely ‘complete’ works, due to copyright restrictions or the scarcity of minor works that have been translated into English. However, we do ensure our customers that every possible major text and a wealth of other material are included. We are dedicated to developing and enhancing our eBooks, which are available as free updates for customers who have already purchased them.CONTENTS:The NovelsPOOR FOLKTHE DOUBLENETOCHKA NEZVANOVAUNCLE’S DREAMTHE VILLAGE OF STEPANCHIKOVOTHE INSULTED AND HUMILIATEDTHE HOUSE OF THE DEADNOTES FROM UNDERGROUNDCRIME AND PUNISHMENTTHE GAMBLERTHE ETERNAL HUSBANDTHE IDIOTTHE POSSESSEDTHE RAW YOUTHTHE BROTHERS KARAMAZOVThe Short StoriesMR. PROHARTCHINTHE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDINGTHE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREETHE CROCODILEBOBOKA GENTLE SPIRITTHE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MANTHE PEASANT MAREYTHE LITTLE ORPHANA WEAK HEARTWHITE NIGHTSTHE MEEK GIRLPOLZUNKOVA LITTLE HEROTHE HONEST THIEFA NOVEL IN NINE LETTERSTHE LANDLADYAN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENTANOTHER MAN'S WIFETHE GRAND INQUISITORThe Non-FictionDOSTOYEVSKY’S JOURNALTHE COMPLETE LETTERSThe CriticismON RUSSIAN NOVELISTS BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPSRUSSIAN ROMANCE BY EARL OF EVELYN BARING CROMERA SURVEY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE BY ISABEL FLORENCE HAPGOODAN OUTLINE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE BY MAURICE BARING

The Dollmaker


Harriette Simpson Arnow - 1954
    Uprooted from her backwoods home, she and her family are thrust into the confusion and chaos of wartime Detroit. And in a pitiless world of unendurable poverty, Gertie will battle fiercely and relentlessly to protect those things she holds most dear -- her children, her heritage . . . and her triumphant ability to create beauty in the suffocating shadow of ugliness and despair.

The Spanish Ballad (Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo)


Lion Feuchtwanger - 1954
    The story focuses on the "Golden Age" of learning in medieval Spain, and also describes the affair of Alfonso VIII with the Jewish Raquel in Toledo.In Lion Feuchtwanger's prologue to the story, he mentions that the ballad was originally written by Alfonso X of Castile in regards of his Great-Grandfather (Alfonso VIII).

Mio, My Son


Astrid Lindgren - 1954
    There, his father the King, who has been searching for him for nine long years, tells him his true name is Mio, and lavishes upon him the loving attention he never received from his foster parents back in Stockholm. Mio learns of a prophecy that has been foretold for thousand of years. With his best friend Pompoo, and his horse with the golden mane, Miramis, he must travel into the darkness of Outer Land to battle the cruel Sir Kato.

Letters of John Keats


John Keats - 1954
    General and students of nineteenth-century English literature and history.

Twelve Angry Men


Reginald Rose - 1954
    legal system. The play centers on Juror Eight, who is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal prejudices or biases. Reginald Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture to form of them—and of America, at its best and worst.   After the critically acclaimed teleplay aired in 1954, this landmark American drama went on to become a cinematic masterpiece in 1957 starring Henry Fonda, for which Rose wrote the adaptation. More recently, Twelve Angry Men had a successful, and award-winning, run on Broadway.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

I Am Legend


Richard Matheson - 1954
    but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood.By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.How long can one man survive like this?

Selected Poetry


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1954
    This is to be the first verse translation of Goethe's poetry in penguin classics and replaces Luke's own 1964 prose translation which has been in print continously since then (life sales 43,000).

The Bad Seed


William March - 1954
    This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million–copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine–tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before.

Love of Seven Dolls


Paul Gallico - 1954
    It turns out to be the voice of a glove puppet, called Carrot Top. She then meets Reynard the fox, Gigi, Alifanfaron, Dr Duclos, Madame Muscat and Monsieur Nicholas. The story is about her relationship with the seven puppets and their grim puppetmaster, Capitaine Coq, and what happens when she joins their travelling show.This is another of Paul Gallico's brilliant short novels. You find yourself thinking, as Mouche does, of the puppets as individuals, and completely forgetting that they are only puppets.

I'm Not Stiller


Max Frisch - 1954
    To prove he is who he claims to be, he confesses to three unsolved murders and recalls in great detail an adventuresome life in America and Mexico among cowboys and peasants, in back alleys and docks. He is consumed by "the morbid impulse to convince," but no one believes him. This is a harrowing account part Kafka, part Camus of the power of self-deception and the freedom that ultimately lies in self-acceptance. Simultaneously haunting and humorous, I'm Not Stiller has come to be recognized as "one of the major post-war works of fiction" and a masterpiece of German literature.

Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker


Thornton Wilder - 1954
    Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1943.The Matchmaker—Wilder's brilliant 1954 farce about money and love starring that irrepressible busybody Dolly Gallagher Levi. This play inspired the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!.

Selected Poems and Letters


John Keats - 1954
    Each book includes a biographical and critical introduction, a commentary and notes on the poems.

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial: A Drama in Two Acts


Herman Wouk - 1954
    Caine is transferred, a new captain, strict disciplinarian Philip Francis Queeg, replaces him. But Queeg's actions go beyond strictness into psychopathology as he brings the ship and its crew to the brink of destruction. This necessitates a brutal shipboard court-martial that threatens by turns to clear or condemn him. In adapting his novel for the theater, Herman Wouk focused on the heart of the story: the trial and the man at its center. The result is a grimly effective picture of Queeg's disintegration from perfectionist to paranoid that acts as an indictment not only of an individual but of a society that produces such men.

Under Milk Wood


Dylan Thomas - 1954
    A moving and hilarious account of a spring day in a small Welsh coastal town, Under Milk Wood is "lyrical, impassioned and funny, an Our Town given universality" (The New Statesman and Nation).

The Unknown Soldier


Väinö Linna - 1954
    Gritty and realistic, it was partly intended to shatter the myth of the noble, obedient Finnish soldier, and in that it succeeded admirably.

Lady Windermere's Fan / A Woman of No Importance / An Ideal Husband / The Importance of Being Earnest / Salomé


Oscar Wilde - 1954
    Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1905. Excerpt: ... ACT I Scene--The octagon room at Sir Robert CHILTern's house in Grosvenor Square. [The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenthcentury French tapestry--representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher--fhat is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance 'to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other reception-rooms. Mrs. Marchmont and Lady Basildon, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner- has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.) Mrs. Marchmont. Going on to the Hartlocks' tonight, Margaret? Lady Basildon. I suppose so. Are you? Mrs. Marchmont. Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they? Lady Basildon. Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere. Mrs. Marchmont. I come here to be educated. Lady Basildon. Ah! I hate being educated! Mrs. Marchmont. So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn't it? But 1 dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in life. So I come here to try to find one. Lady Basildon [Looking round through her lorgnette]. I don't see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time. Hrs. MArchmont. How very trivial of him! Lady Basildon. Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about? Mrs. Mabchmont. Abo...

John Thomas and Lady Jane: The Second Version of Lady Chatterley's Lover


D.H. Lawrence - 1954
    It is in many ways quite different from the first and last: both in the personalities of Parkin, the gamekeeper (later called Mellors) and Connie Chatterley, and in the development of the love story.

The Rhetoric & The Poetics of Aristotle


Aristotle - 1954
    Corbett

Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments


Heraclitus - 1954
    Professor Kirk discusses fully the fragments which he finds genuine and treats in passing others that were generally accepted as genuine but here considered paraphrased or spurious. In securing his text, Professor Kirk has taken into account all the ancient testimonies, and in his critical work he attached particular importance to the context in which each fragment is set. To each he gives a selective apparatus, a literal translation and and an extended commentary in which problems of textual and philosophical criticism are discussed. Ancient accounts of Heraclitus were inadequate and misleading, and as Kirk wrote, understanding was often hindered by excessive dogmatism and a selective use of the fragments. Professor Kirk's method is critical and objective, and his 1954 work marks a significant advance in the study of Presocratic thought.

Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems


Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1954
    The marriage of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett has been well named "the most perfect example of wedded happiness in the history of literature - perfect in the inner life and perfect in its poetical expression."

The Greek Particles


John Dewar Denniston - 1954
    Dover's own material. In presenting the first (1934) edition, Denniston set himself to cut down the etymological discussion which characterised his German predecessors in the field. He was concerned to illustrate how particles work and how they nuance Greek language within the corpus of surviving work.

A Little House Of Your Own


Beatrice Schenk de Regniers - 1954
    Describes, in text and illustrations, such special places as a cardboard box, a blanket cave, and other "houses" where one can retire for peace and privacy.

The Ivory Trail


T.V. Bulpin - 1954
    

Doctor At Dien Bien Phu


Paul Grauwin - 1954
    The memoir was originally published in French as "J'Étais Médecin à Dien-Bien-Phu" and was translated by James Oliver in 1955. The siege of the French garrison lasted fifty-seven days, from 5:30PM on March 13 to 5:30PM on May 7, 1954. The memoir survived, but Dr. Grauwin. On May 8, the day after the French garrison surrendered, the Viet Minh counted 11,721 prisoners, of whom 4,436 were wounded. This was the greatest number the Viet Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war. The prisoners were divided into groups. Able bodied soldiers were force-marched over 250 miles to prison camps to the north and east, intermingled with Viet Minh soldiers to discourage French bombing retaliatory runs. Hundreds died of disease on the way. The wounded were given basic first aid until the Red Cross arrived, who were only able to remove 858 POWS. Those wounded who were not evacuated by the Red Cross were sent into prison camps, among them Paul Grauwin.Remaining French POW survivors of the battle at Dien Bien Phu, were starved, beaten, and abused, most dying. Of 10,863 survivors held as prisoners, only 3,290 were officially repatriated to France four months later. The author's fate is unknown.

All Summer in a Day


Ray Bradbury - 1954
    She remembers the sun shining on Earth, something it rarely does on Venus. "All Summer in a Day" takes place on the one day when Venus's rain will stop, and the sun will shine for a couple of hours only.

High Water


Richard Pike Bissell - 1954
    

William Wordsworth's The prelude : with a selection from the shorter poems, the sonnets, The recluse, and The excursion and three essays on the art of poetry


William Wordsworth - 1954
    Edited with an Introduction by Carlos Baker

The Yale Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Macbeth


William Shakespeare - 1954
    

Books Before Five


Dorothy Neal White - 1954
    Observations of a children's librarian who kept a day-to-day record of the stories she read to her first child between the ages of two and five years.

De Descriptione Temporum Inaugural Lecture from The Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University


C.S. Lewis - 1954
    

The Journals Of Arnold Bennett


Arnold Bennett - 1954
    Men who knew him, however, found him essentially modest, simple and of exceptional integrity. From 1896 (when he finished his first novel, A Man From the North, at the age of twenty-nine) to the end of his life in 1931 (when Baker Street was 'strawed' to hush the traffic) he kept a diary. Here he recorded what he had done, or seen, or been told, whether in England, France, America or elsewhere, whether at home, in hotels, abroad liners or yachts. His journals are of interest not only for his impressions of well-known writers and political figures, but also for their record of an author's life, of books planned, words written, pounds earned.

Byron: A Selection From His Poems (The Penguin Poets, #D26)


A.S.B. Glover - 1954
    

Distribution And Abundance Of Animals


H.G. Andrewartha - 1954
    Asks the fundamental question: How does the environment influence the animal's chance to survive and multiply? The book is the search for the answer.

King John's Treasure


R.C. Sherriff - 1954
    About young schoolboy who, duing his school holidays, goes on hunt for King John's treasure.

Love Is Forever


Margaret E. Bell - 1954
    This causes their one discord. To prove she is right, Florence pits herself against the wilderness and almost loses.

The Professor, Tales from Angria, Emma: A fragment


Charlotte Brontë - 1954
    A collection of Charlotte Bronte's lesser works and juvenillia, with poetry by all three Bronte sisters and biographical notes from the editor, as well as notes by Charlotte on her sisters.

Talks on the Path of Occultism: At the Feet of the Master


Charles W. Leadbeater - 1954