Best of
Classics

1958

Exodus


Leon Uris - 1958
    Leon Uris magnificently portrays the birth of a new nation in the midst of enemies--the beginning of an earthshaking struggle for power. Here is the tale that swept the world with its fury: the story of an American nurse, an Israeli freedom fighter caught up in a glorious, heartbreaking, triumphant era.

Animal Farm / 1984


George Orwell - 1958
    Winston Smith joins a secret revolutionary organisation called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Animal Farm is Orwell’s classic satire of the Russian Revolution - an account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones’s Manor Farm into Animal Farm - a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. But are they? AUTHOR: George Orwell (1903-1950) was born in India and served with the Imperial Police in Burma before joining the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell was the author of six novels as well as numerous essays and nonfiction works.

Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable


Samuel Beckett - 1958
    In the latter part of this curious masterwork, a certain Jacques Moran is deputized by anonymous authorities to search for the aforementioned Molloy. In the trilogy's second novel, Malone, who might or might not be Molloy himself, addresses us with his ruminations while in the act of dying. The third novel consists of the fragmented monologue - delivered, like the monologues of the previous novels, in a mournful rhetoric that possesses the utmost splendor and beauty - of what might or might not an armless and legless creature living in an urn outside an eating house. Taken together, these three novels represent the high-water mark of the literary movement we call Modernism. Within their linguistic terrain, where stories are taken up, broken off, and taken up again, where voices rise and crumble and are resurrected, we can discern the essential lineaments of our modern condition, and encounter an awesome vision, tragic yet always compelling and always mysteriously invigorating, of consciousness trapped and struggling inside the boundaries of nature.

A Bear Called Paddington


Michael Bond - 1958
    and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington, a most endearing bear from Darkest Peru on a railway platform in London. A sign hanging around his neck said, "Please look after this bear. Thank you" So that is just what they did.From the very first night when he attempted his first bath and ended up nearly flooding the house, Paddington was seldom far from imminent disaster. Jonathan and Judy were delighted with this havoc and even Mr. and Mrs. Brown had to admit that life seemed to be more filled with adventure when there was a bear in the house.

The World of Christopher Robin: The Complete When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six


A.A. Milne - 1958
    It is a world in which Christopher Robin and Alice watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and where James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree takes great care of his Mother, though he is only three. In this timeless wonderland, the Little Black Hen is much too busy to lay eggs for anyone (except Christopher Robin), and the three little foxes play in the forest, keeping their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes. The King plaintively asks for butter for the Royal slice of bread. And at the end of an active day, a little boy kneels at the foot of his bed: Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers. Here in one irresistible volume you will find When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, the two collections of verses which A. A. Milne wrote for his only son-verses that are cherished by everyone who has had the good fortune to become acquainted with them. To add to the excitement, Ernest Shepard, whose beloved black-and-white drawings in the original books have delighted millions of children, contributed endpapers and eight full-page illustrations, all in full color. Of course, Pooh, that remarkable bear, refuses to stay out of these pages, even though he has two books of his own. But his appearance here should cause no surprise. After all, he belongs. For as Christopher Robin is fond of saying, Wherever I am, there's always Pooh, There's always Pooh and Me.

Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited


Aldous Huxley - 1958
    Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.The non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including the threats to humanity, such as over-population, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.

The Golden Book of Fairy Tales


Adrienne SegurComtesse de Ségur - 1958
    Includes The Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, Puss in Boots, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Beauty and the Beast.

Old Yeller


Fred Gipson - 1958
    But he sure was clever, and a smart dog could be a big help on the wild Texas frontier, especially with Papa away on a long cattle drive up to Abilene.Strong and courageous, Old Yeller proved that he could protect Travis's family from any sort of danger. But can Travis do the same for Old Yeller?

The Agony and the Ecstasy


Irving Stone - 1958
    A masterpiece in its own right, this novel offers a compelling portrait of Michelangelo’s dangerous, impassioned loves, and the God-driven fury from which he wrested the greatest art the world has ever known.

The Once and Future King


T.H. White - 1958
    Here all five volumes that make up the story are published in one volume, as White himself always wished. Exquisite comedy offsets the tragedy of Arthur′s personal doom as White brings to life the major British epic of all time with brilliance, grandeur, warmth and charm.

The Love Poems


John Donne - 1958
    S. Eliot and F. R. Leavis have found in Donne's poetry qualities profoundly responsive to the modern age. While Donne is famous for his religious poetry, his love poems are among the most beautiful ever written, and this collection brings them together for the first time.Donne was a man who knew all the many faces of love-- physical passion, jealousy, rapture, grief and parting-- and possessed the genius to distill his experiences into poetry. The potency of his writing has lost none of its effect; Donne's love poetry taps the reservoir of feelings and emotions common to all human beings.Before Donne was ordained as a priest in 1615, he wrote sonnets (such as "The Dream" and "The Ecstasy"), elegies (such as "To His Mistress Going to Bed" and "Love's Progress"), and wedding songs ("St. Valentine's Day" and "Epithalamion"), all of which glitter with an eroticism that truly marries body and soul.Charles Fowkes, author of a critically acclaimed biography of Rembrandt and several anthologies of short stories, has gathered those poems in which Donne is most passionate and most lyrical. The result is this lovely volume- the perfect gift for every beloved, a book of poems to press flowers in and to keep by the heart.

The Collected Stories


Colette - 1958
    of the one hundred stories gathered here, thirty-one appear for the first time in English and another twenty-nine have been newly translated for this volume.

Tom's Midnight Garden


Philippa Pearce - 1958
    What a boring summer it's going to be. But then, lying in bed one night, he hears the old grandfather clock in the hall strike the very strange hour of 13 o'clock. What can it mean? As Tom creeps downstairs and opens the door, he finds out...a magical garden, a new playmate, and the adventure of a lifetime. Una Stubbs stars as Aunt Gwen in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation.© and (P)1999 BBC Audiobooks LTD2 h 16 min

The Prince and the Pauper


Kathleen Olmstead - 1958
    The other, a king s son, coddled and given all he could want. What happens when the two boys change clothes and places, and each one learns how the other half lives? Mark Twain s satirical and suspenseful novel about the thin line that separates prince and pauper is a perennial favorite."

The Greengage Summer


Rumer Godden - 1958
    And the Marne river flowing silent and slow beyond them all ...They would merge together in a gold-green summer of discovery, until the fruit rotted on the trees and cold seeped into their bones ...

The Bald Soprano and Other Plays


Eugène Ionesco - 1958
    He went on to become an internationally renowned master of modern drama, famous for the comic proportions and bizarre effects that allow his work to be simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound. As Ionesco has said, "Theater is not literature. . . . It is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means."

To Room Nineteen


Doris Lessing - 1958
    For more than four decades, Doris Lessing’s work has observed the passion and confusion of human relations, holding a mirror up to our selves in her unflinching dissection of the everyday.From the magnificent ‘To Room Nineteen’, a study of a dry, controlled middle-class marriage ‘grounded in intelligence’, to the shocking ‘A Woman on the Roof’, where a workman becomes obsessed with a pretty sunbather, this superb collection of stories written over four decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s, bears stunning witness to Doris Lessing’s perspective on the human condition.

Anatomy of a Murder


Robert Traver - 1958
    Martin's in 1958, Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder immediately became the number-one bestseller in America, and was subsequently turned into the successful and now classic Otto Preminger film. It is not only the most popular courtroom drama in American fiction, but one of the most popular novels of our time.A gripping tale of deceit, murder, and a sensational trial, Anatomy of a Murder is unmatched in the authenticity of its settings, events, and characters. This new edition should delight both loyal fans of the past and an entire new generation of readers.

The Darling Buds of May


H.E. Bates - 1958
    Charlton from a undernourished and timid tax clerk to ‘Charlie’, a fully-converted member of the Larkin way of life: an easygoing celebration of nature, food, drink, and family. In the process, the reader is introduced to the Brigadier, Miss Pilchester, and Angela Snow. Setting the style for the series, the book ends with a grand celebration, and the announcement of the wedding of Charlie and Mariette. The novel was filmed with the title ‘The Mating Game’, and between 1991 and 1993, Yorkshire Television produced a highly-successful television series called ‘The Darling Buds of May’. This first book in the Larkin series was very successful, appearing first in the United States and then in Britain, where it sold 40,000 in the first two months. Many critics felt that Bates deserved better than to be remembered mostly for the Larkin novels, but they were very profitable. The immensely popular Larkin series of comic novels consisted of ‘The Darling Buds of May’, ‘A Breath of French Air’ (1959), ‘When the Green Woods Laugh’ (1960), ‘Oh! To Be in England’ (1963), and ‘A Little of What You Fancy’ (1970). Bates, speaking of how he was inspired to create the Larkins, recalled the real junkyard that he often passed near his home in Kent; and he remembered seeing a family -- a father, mother and many children, sucking at ice-creams and eating crisps in a "ramshackle lorry that had been recently painted a violent electric blue". He tried writing a brief tale based on the family, but soon decided that he couldn’t waste such a rich gallery of characters to a short story." Pop is a wonderful character who hates pomp, pretension and humbug; loves his family, but doesn’t hesitate to break a few rules... and his and the Larkins' secret is “that they live as many of us would like to live if only we had the guts and nerve to flout the conventions." See also the Pop Larkin Chronicles, which contains all five Larkin books.

The Ugly American


William J. Lederer - 1958
    The book introduces readers to an unlikely hero in the titular “ugly American”—and to the ignorant politicians and arrogant ambassadors who ignore his empathetic and commonsense advice. In linked stories and vignettes set in the fictional nation of Sarkhan, William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick draw an incisive portrait of American foreign policy gone dangerously wrong—and how it might be fixed.Eerily relevant sixty years after its initial publication, The Ugly American reminds us that “today, as the battle for hearts and minds has shifted to the Middle East, we still can’t speak Sarkhanese” (New York Times).

Nabokov's Dozen: A Collection of Thirteen Stories‏ (Anchor Literary Library)


Vladimir Nabokov - 1958
    (Nine of them also previously appeared in Nine Stories.)All were later reprinted within The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. Spring in Fialta --Forgotten poet --First love --Signs and symbols --Assistant producer --Aurelian --Cloud, castle, lake --Conversation piece, 1945 --"That in Aleppo once" --Time and ebb --Scenes from the life of a double monster --Mademoiselle O. --Lance.

Tragedies, vol. 1: Volume 1


William Shakespeare - 1958
    Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear are each so singular an achievement that any rereading of them reinforces the awe and almost idolatrous worship that this most uncanny of the world’s great writers invariably inspires. In these four plays, Shakespeare engages the problem that is central to tragedy and crucial to any human community—the problem of violence and revenge—on an unprecedented scale. No other literary texts have been more instrumental in deepening our knowledge of ourselves as individuals and as a civilization. This authoritative edition of the plays is supplemented with footnotes, bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, and a substantial introduction in which Tony Tanner discusses each play individually while setting each in context.(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam


Abolqasem Ferdowsi - 1958
    Completed in the eleventh century A.D. by the poet Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi, the Shahname describes in more than 80,000 lines of verse the pre-Islamic history of Persia from mythological times down to the invasion of the armies of Islam in the mid-seventh century A.D.From this long saga, Jerome Clinton has translated into English blank verse the most famous episode, the story of Rostam and Sohrab. It is a stark and classic tragedy set against the exotic backdrop of a mythological Persia where feasting, hunting, and warring are accomplished on the most magnificent scale. Matching the English translation line by line on the facing pages is the Persian text of the poem, based on the earliest complete manuscript of the Shahname, which is preserved in the British Museum.This lyrical translation of the tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam captures the narrative power and driving rhythm of the Shahname as no other English translation has. His rendering into modern blank verse is both faithful to the original and pleasing to the ear of the contemporary reader.

The Leopard


Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - 1958
    Set against the political upheavals of Italy in the 1860s, it focuses on Don Fabrizio, a Sicilian prince of immense sensual appetites, wealth, and great personal magnetism. Around this powerful figure swirls a glittering array of characters: a Bourbon king, liberals and pseudo liberals, peasants and millionaires.

Tambourines to Glory


Langston Hughes - 1958
    Tambourines to Glory introduces you to an unlikely team behind a church whose rock was the curb at 126th and Lenox.Essie Belle Johnson and Laura Reed live in adjoining tenement flats, adrift on public relief. Essie wants to somehow earn enough money to reunite with her daughter and provide her with a nice home; Laura loves young men, mink coats, and fine Scotch. On a day of inspiration, the friends decide to use a thrift-store tambourine and a layaway Bible to start a church.Their sidewalk services are a hit: Laura’s a natural street performer who loves the limelight, while Essie is a charismatic singer with a quiet spirituality. Before long they move to a thousand-seat theatre called the Tambourine Temple. The two women are joined in their ministering by Birdie Lee, the little-old-lady trap drummer who can work the congregation to a feverish pitch, and Deacon Crow-For-Day, an impassioned confessor.But then Laura falls for Buddy, a scam artist who suggests selling to the faithful lucky numbers from Scripture and bottles of tap water as “Holy Water from the Jordan.” Even with a Cadillac and piles of money from Laura, Buddy won’t stay faithful, igniting a crime of passion and betrayal.Harlem Moon Classics is proud to reintroduce readers of all generations to this sparkling gem from the canon of Langston Hughes.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond


Elizabeth George Speare - 1958
    In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

Selected Short Stories


P.G. Wodehouse - 1958
    Wodehouse was at work on his 97th novel. This unique writer of social comedy, with his outlandish humor and sharp caricatures of English types, was born in 1881 in Guildford, England. In novels and short stories, he created such memorable characters as Psmith and Jeeves, the archetypical Edwardian drone and his butler.The universality of his appeal is demonstrated in these six stories: "Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend," "Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit," "Ukridge's Accident Syndicate," "Mulliner's Buck U Uppo," "Anselm Gets His Chance" and "The Clicking of Cuthbert" (a golfer's delight).

The Diary of Iris Vaughan


Iris Vaughan - 1958
    It is unintentionally hilarious and retains all the spelling errors of the original. Iris's father was a magistrate stationed in various small towns in the Eastern Cape, and the diary gives the reader an enchanting view of small-town life in the Cape Colony through the eyes of a perceptive young girl who tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God, in a way that often lands her in trubbel. The context of this diry, diery, diray book is particular, but its innocence, humour and child-centred truth is universal. It is an unforgettable read, demonstrating that truth is not only stranger, but often more amusing, than fiction.

Homer and the Heroic Tradition


Cedric H. Whitman - 1958
    What follows in the succeeding chapters is an attempt to formulate such a synoptic view, to bring together—for the first time, I believe—the results of modern specialized disciplines relating to Homeric studies and the kind of criticism which, twenty years ago, was called “New,” but which no, in modified forms, has become simply this era’s characteristic way of approaching such problems as imagery, action, and the poetic consciousness. —Cedric H. Whitman, from the Preface

Latin Literature: An Anthology


Michael Grant - 1958
    The selections cover comedy and epic, history and philosophy, in prose and in verse.

Tacitus (2 Volumes)


Ronald Syme - 1958
    Syme not only analyzes in detail Tacitus's writings, their development and style, but also his political career, using his progress through government to illustrate the process that brought new men from thewestern provinces to success and primacy at Rome.

Mary-Mary


Joan G. Robinson - 1958
    First released in 1957, this is a lovingly restored edition complete with original illustrations. This special edition includes the first book of the series (MARY-MARY), as well as its sequel, MORE MARY-MARY. Featuring beloved forgotten favourite stories such as MARY-MARY GOES VISITING, MARY-MARY'S HANDBAG, MARY-MARY GOES AWAY and MARY-MARY IS A SURPRISE, this anthology follows the misadventures of Mary-Mary (so nicknamed due to her contrary nature!), a little girl who knows rather a lot more than her four older brothers and sisters give her credit for, thank you very much. These are funny and heartwarming tales sure to make a perfect Christmas stocking filler for readers young and old.

Safety Can Be Fun


Munro Leaf - 1958
    All around you, you can find different kinds of Nit-Wits, ones who bounce on beds, climb all over the place, stand on car seats, touch hot stoves, or follow dumb dares, and many others.

Letters to Quintus and Brutus; Letter fragments; Letter to Octavian; Invectives; Handbook of electrioneering


Marcus Tullius Cicero - 1958
    Vividly informative too is Cicero's correspondence with Brutus dating from the spring of 43 BCE, which conveys the drama of the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar. These are now made available in a new Loeb Classical Library edition.Shackleton Bailey also provides in this volume a new text and translation of two invective speeches purportedly delivered in the Senate; these are probably anonymous ancient schoolbook exercises but have long been linked with the works of Sallust and Cicero. The Letter to Octavian, ostensibly by Cicero but probably dating from the third or fourth century CE, is included as well. Here too is the "Handbook of Electioneering," a guide said to be written by Quintus to his brother, an interesting treatise on Roman elections.

The Greek Dialects


Carl Darling Buck - 1958
    Its virtues were comparativeclarity and conciseness on a subject too often treated, for example bycontemporary work in German, with prolixity and obscurity. It becamethe standard scholarly introduction and reference work on questions ofdialect; and though much valuable additional work has been done on thesubject since its appearance, it largely retains its original virtuesand still provides a valuable starting point of reference.The Advanced Language Series reissues important books on Greek andLatin Language (and associated areas) which have been unavailable forsome time or have not previously appeared in readily affordablepaperback format. They are intended for the reference shelves of allscholars and students of classical languages.

Altgeld's America


Ray Ginger - 1958
    By the 1880's the "Lincoln morality" of earlier years had given way to the morality of success; compassion was forgotten in desire for wealth. In Chicago, blatant, vigorous, booming, restless, this was particularly true. Labor conditions were appalling, sweatshops were almost universal, child labor was a sickening sore & men injured at their jobs were thrown into the street. Against this background the Haymarket bomb, hurled during a strike at the McCormick plant, exploded with a violence that shook all America & brought to the fore such men as Altgeld, Darrow & Judge Gary who tried the alleged rioters, denying them constitutional rights, hanging some of them & sentencing others to life imprisonment, verdicts questioned by many. Altgeld, a fighter noted for his reforms who had already set his mark on Chicago's social history, was in 1892 elected Governor of Illinois & pardoned the rioters, an act which brought him defeat at the hands of Gary. He died, still fighting for reform, in 1902. Excellently documented, tautly written & highly readable, this book is an invaluable contribution to the literature of America's social & political development & philosophy. It's a must for college & public libraries & for students of social history.--Kirkus

The Viking Book of Poetry of the English-Speaking World Volume 2


Richard Aldington - 1958
    

Babette's Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny


Isak Dinesen - 1958
    In "The Immortal Story," a miserly old tea-trader living in Canton wishes for power and finds redemption as he turns an oft-told sailors' tale into reality for a young man and woman. And in the magnificent novella Ehrengard, Dinesen tells of the powerful yet restrained rapport between a noble Wagnerian beauty and a rakish artist. Hauntingly evoked and sensuously realized, the five stories read and novella collected here have the hold of "fairy stories read in childhood . . . of dreams . . . and of our life as dreams" (The New York Times).

The Emperor's New Clothes (Classics Illustrated Junior, No 517)


Hans Christian Anderson - 1958
    

A Beaver's Story


Emil E. Liers - 1958
    

Beaux


Evan Commager - 1958
    Of course, such a task is not enough to occupy the entire time of two such energetic young girls. They accidentally manage to help a falsely convicted man escape from a chain gang, perform valiant services on the home front during World War I, and emerge, to their great surprise, as Attractive Girls.The talented N. M. Bodecker's gentle caricatures add further love and laughter to the story.