Pride and Prejudice, Austen's most well-loved story, tells of Lizzy Bennet and her five sisters as they search for true love-a love Lizzy nearly loses because of pride. Fanny, of Mansfield Park, comes to live with her aunt and uncle in their elegant mansion. But she finds herself both out of place and in love with her handsome cousin Edmund. Can shy Fanny win him from the outgoing and charming Miss Crawford? Persuasion, Austen's last final novel, explores the consequences of giving in to the opinions of others, rather than following one's own heart. Delightfully illustrated with delicate line drawings.

    The good wit of bad manners, elegantly spiced with irony and deftly controlled malice, has made Saki stories small, perfect gems of the English language. Here for the first time, are the collected writings of Saki--including all of his short stories ("Reginald", "Reginald in Russia", "The Chronicles of Clovis", "Beasts and Super-Beasts" "The Toys of Peace", and "The Square Egg"), his three novels (THE UNBEARABLE BASSINGTON, WHEN WILLIAM CAME and THE WESTMINSTER ALICE), and three plays (THE DEATHTRAP, KARL-LUDWIG'S WINDOW and THE WATCHED POT. You are invited to meet once again Clovis, Reginald, the Unbearable Bassington, and the other memorable characters etched so superbly by the pen of H.H. Munro. "In all literature, he was the first to employ successfully a wildly outrageous premise in order to make a serious point. I love that. And today the best of his stories are still better than the best of just about every other writer around."--Roald Dahl. Introduction by Noel Coward.(less)

    His Doré Bible was a treasured possession in countless homes, and his best-received works continued to appear through the years in edition after edition. His illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy constitute one of his most highly regarded efforts and were Doré's personal favorites.The present volume reproduces with excellent clarity all 135 plates that Doré produced for The Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. From the depths of hell onto the mountain of purgatory and up to the empyrean realms of paradise, Doré's illustrations depict the passion and grandeur of Dante's masterpiece in such famous scenes as the embarkation of the souls for hell, Paolo and Francesca (four plates), the forest of suicides, Thaïs the harlot, Bertram de Born holding his severed head aloft, Ugolino (four plates), the emergence of Dante and Virgil from hell, the ascent up the mountain, the flight of the eagle, Arachne, the lustful sinners being purged in the seventh circle, the appearance of Beatrice, the planet Mercury, and the first splendors of paradise, Christ on the cross, the stairway of Saturn, the final vision of the Queen of Heaven, and many more.Each plate is accompanied by appropriate lines from the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation of Dante's work.

    H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face. Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the invigoratingly plain-spoken.This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval. It includes the full contents of his previous collected editions along with all the later volumes of his shorter poems. Together, these works display the astonishing range of Auden's voice and the breadth of his concerns, his deep knowledge of the traditions he inherited, and his ability to recast those traditions in modern times.

    In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life.

    These hefty collections of favorite authors feature their best work, reset from the original first editions that were approved by the authors themselves.

    Here is a set of the 4 novels which comprise The Raj Quartet, all of which are set in India between 1942 and 1947.1) The Jewel in the Crown2) The Day of the Scorpion3) The Towers of Silence4) A Division of the Spoils

    A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.

    In "Reminiscences," the first of five pieces, she focuses on the death of her mother, "the greatest disaster that could happen," and its effect on her father, the demanding Victorian patriarch. Three of the papers were composed to be read to the Memoir Club, a postwar regrouping of Bloomsbury, which exacted absolute candor of its members."A Sketch of the Past" is the longest and most significant of the pieces, giving an account of Virginia Woolf's early years in the family household at 22 Hyde Park Gate. A recently discovered manuscript belonging to this memoir has provided material that further illuminates her relationship to her father, Leslie Stephen, who played a crucial role in her development as an individual and as a writer.

    He's all Marine --- fighter pilot, king of the clouds, and absolute ruler of his family. Lillian is his wife -- beautiful, southern-bred, with a core of velvet steel. Without her cool head, her kids would be in real trouble. Ben is the oldest, a born athlete whose best never satisfies the big man. Ben's got to stand up, even fight back, against a father who doesn't give in -- not to his men, not to his wife, and certainly not to his son. Bull Meecham is undoubtedly Pat Conroy's most explosive character -- a man you should hate, but a man you will love.

    There are thirteen two-color wood engravings.Norman Maclean (1902-90), woodsman, scholar, teacher, and storyteller, grew up in the Western Rocky Mountains of Montana and worked for many years in logging camps and for the United States Forestry Service before beginning his academic career. He retired from the University of Chicago in 1973.

    In 1965, John McPhee published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are; a decade later, he had published eleven others. His fertility, his precision and grace as a stylist, his wit and uncanny brilliance in choosing subject matter, his crack storytelling skills have made him into one of our best writers: a journalist whom L.E. Sissman ranked with Liebling and Mencken, who Geoffrey Wolff said "is bringing his work to levels that have no measurable limit," who has been called "a master craftsman" so many times that it is pointless to number them.

    His writings comprise verse, prose poems, film scenarios, a historical novel, plays, essays on film, theater, art, and literature, and many letters. Susan Sontag's selection conveys the genius of this singular writer.

    The characters in these stories are caught in a world of political hypocrisy, which ultimately leads to death, their common fate. Although the stories Kis tells are based on historical events, the beauty and precision of his prose elevates these ostensibly true stories into works of literary art that transcend the politics of their time.

    These four novels display the versatility and emotional directness that have made Steinbeck one of America’s most enduringly popular writers.The Moon Is Down (1942), set in an unnamed Scandinavian country under German occupation, dramatizes the transformation of ordinary life under totalitarian rule and the underground struggle against the Nazi invaders. Told largely in dialogue, the book was conceived simultaneously as a novel and a play, and was successfully produced on Broadway. Although some American critics found its treatment of the German characters too sympathetic, The Moon Is Down was widely read in occupied areas of Europe, where it was regarded as an inspiring contribution to the resistance.In Cannery Row (1945) Steinbeck paid tribute to his closest friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, in the central character of Doc, proprietor of the Western Biological Laboratory and spiritual and financial mainstay of a cast of philosophical drifters and hangers-on. The comic and bawdy evocation of Monterey’s sardine-canning district—"a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream"—has made this one of the most popular of all of Steinbeck’s novels.Steinbeck’s long involvement with Mexican culture is distilled in The Pearl (1947). Expanding on an anecdote he heard in Baja California about a local boy who had found a pearl of unusual size, Steinbeck turned it into a parable of the corrupting influence of sudden wealth. The Pearl appears here with the original illustrations by José Clemente Orozco.Ambitious in scale and original in structure, East of Eden (1952) recounts the violent and emotionally turbulent history of a Salinas Valley family through several generations. Drawing on Biblical parallels, encompassing a period stretching from the Civil War to World War I, and incorporating, as counterpoint to the central story, some of the actual history of Steinbeck’s mother’s family, East of Eden is an epic that explores the writer’s deepest and most anguished concerns within a landscape that for him had mythic resonance. (East of Eden was a recent selection of Oprah’s Book Club.)

    Two become Nazis, one joins the Partisans, and one is sent to a concentration camp.Set in Yugoslavia prior to and during World War II, this tale of devastation traces the lives of four friends born in the same small town. They went to school together, took dancing lessons, stole kisses, were taught German by an old maid who kept a diary. But when war comes, half-Jewish Vera is sent to a concentration camp while her German cousin becomes a Nazi; Serbian boyfriend Milinko joins the Partisans; and another classmate, also a Serb, becomes fascinated by the magic of killing. Tisma's portrayal of their situation is certainly poignant, but he belabors the obvious in overly melodramatic fashion.

    Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo is the story of three "colored girls," three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina: Sassafrass, the oldest, a poet and a weaver like her mother, gone north to college, living with other artists in Los Angeles and trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories and dreams; Cypress, the dancer, who leaves home to find new ways of moving and easing the contractions of her soul; Indigo, the youngest, still a child of Charleston—"too much of the south in her"—who lives in poetry, can talk to her dolls, and has a great gift of seeing the obvious magic of the world.

    As editor of The Milton Quarterly for 30 years, Roy Flannagan is uniquely qualified to survey Milton's work. Pedagogy includes a comprehensive index designed to help students from undergraduate to graduate levels conceive paper topics; factual introductions; extensive annotations with references; margin definitions; and a chronology.

    Trying to escape his misery, he begins a story about a sombrero that falls out of the sky and lands in a small town. Unable to concentrate he throws the pages in the bin, and that's when it starts to take on a life of its own.

    In the process of compacting, he has acquired an education so unwitting he can't quite tell which of his thoughts are his own and which come from his books. He has rescued many from jaws of hydraulic press and now his house is filled to the rooftops. Destroyer of the written word, he is also its perpetrator.But when a new automatic press makes his job redundant there's only one thing he can do - go down with his ship.This is an eccentric romp celebrating the indestructability- against censorship, political opression etc - of the written word.

    We observe the sisters over four decades, watching them grow into two very different women. Sarah is stable and stalwart, settling into an unhappy marriage. Emily is precocious and independent, struggling with one unsatisfactory love affair after another. Richard Yates's classic novel is about how both women struggle to overcome their tarnished family's past, and how both finally reach for some semblance of renewal.

    Three plays by one of the titans of twentieth century drama, demonstrating the immense power of his understanding of human nature and its frailties.

    One critic, writing upon the publication of the final volume, casually tagged the series as the ultimate work on Dostoevsky "in any language, and quite possibly forever."Frank himself had not originally intended to undertake such a massive work. The endeavor began in the early 1960s as an exploration of Dostoevsky's fiction, but it later became apparent to Frank that a deeper appreciation of the fiction would require a more ambitious engagement with the writer's life, directly caught up as Dostoevsky was with the cultural and political movements of mid- and late-nineteenth-century Russia. Already in his forties, Frank undertook to learn Russian and embarked on what would become a five-volume work comprising more than 2,500 pages. The result is an intellectual history of nineteenth-century Russia, with Dostoevsky's mind as a refracting prism.The volumes have won numerous prizes, among them the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Christian Gauss Award of Phi Beta Kappa, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association.

    In this one-volume collection of his fiction, drama, poetry, and critical writings, we get an unsurpassed look at his work. Included, among others, are:- The complete plays Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape, Cascando, Eh Joe, Not I, and That Time- Selections from his novels Murphy, Watt, Mercier and Camier, Molloy, and The Unnamable- The shorter works “Dante and the Lobster,” “The Expelled,” Imagination Dead Imagine, and Lessness- A selection of Beckett’s poetry and critical writingsWith an indispensable introduction by editor and Beckett intimate Richard Seaver, and featuring a useful select bibliography, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is indeed an invaluable introduction to a writer who has changed the face of modern literature.

    The second volume in the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, this volume contains the classics Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion.

    They evoke E.B. White's life in New York and in Maine at every stage of his life. They are full of memorable characters: White's family, the New Yorker staff and contributors, literary types and show business people, farmers from Maine and sophisticates from New York–Katherine S. White, Harold Ross, James Thurber, Alexander Woolcott, Groucho Marx, John Updike, and many, many more.Each decade has its own look and taste and feel. Places, too–from Belgrade (Maine) to Turtle Bay (NYC) to the S.S. Buford, Alaska–bound in 1923–are brought to life in White's descriptions. There is no other book of letters to compare with this; it is a book to treasure and savor at one's leisure.As White wrote in this book, "A man who publishes his letters becomes nudist–nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin....a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time."

    "No number of adjectives in the thesaurus can do full justice to the dazzlingly bizarre nature of Crews' creations".--"Washington Post Book World".

    Joe Allston is a cantankerous, retired literary agent who is, in his own words, "just killing time until time gets around to killing me". His parents and his only son are long dead, leaving him with neither ancestors nor descendants, tradition nor ties. His job, trafficking the talent of others, has not been his choice. He has passed through life as a spectator, before retreating to the woods of California in the 1970s with only his wife, Ruth, by his side. When an unexpected postcard from a long-lost friend arrives, Allston returns to the journals of a trip he has taken years before, a journey to his mother's birthplace where he once sought a link with his past. Uncovering this history floods Allston with memories, both grotesque and poignant, and finally vindicates him of his past and lays bare that Joe Allston has never been quite spectator enough.

    In the still darkness of their cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable. Each has always been alone, and always - especially now - in danger of betrayal. But in cell 7 each surrenders to the other something of himself that he has never surrendered before.

    Forced to choose between two lovers - one a tantalizing young student, the other his childhood friend, he must also decide whether or not to stay on the farm or seek employment in the outside world.

    

    Showalter is one of the few scholars who can make her readers rush to their bookshelves to refute her point, or simply to experience again Jane Eyre, The Mill on the Floss, or the bitterly illuminating stories of Katherine Mansfield. Her chief innovation is to place the works of famous women writers beside those of the minor or forgotten, building a continuity of influence and inspiration as well as a more complete picture of the social conditions in which women's books have been produced. She has added a new introduction recounting, with justifiable pleasure, how daring and controversial her study seemed when it first appeared in 1977 (and how many enemies it made her). In an afterword, she touches on more recent developments in the women's novel in Britain, including the influence of the dazzling Angela Carter. --Regina Marler

    He knows what he wants to do with his life. But then he meets Natalie and he realizes he doesn't know anything much at all. A slender, realistic story of a young man's coming of age, Very Far Away from Anywhere Else is one of the most inspiring novels Ursula K. Le Guin has ever published.

    Most of the novella, told in the third person, relates incidents from the life of Vadim Alexandrovich Glebov. These portions alternate with short chapters told by an unidentified narrator who once knew Glebov.

    This is one of 50 fascinating, disturbing, moving or funny short books published in an appealing new format to celebrate the 50th anniversary of 'Penguin Modern Classics'.

    In The Tale of Genji Mr. Amano brings his considerable talent to retelling one of the most famous of Japanese myths: written by Murasaki Shikibu shortly after 1000 AD and considered by most scholars to be the first novel ever written, The Tale of Genji is the story of the romantic adventures of Genji, the amazingly handsome prince and his many romantic conquests. Told through stunning paintings, Mr. Amano brings this classic story to life for a new generation.As one of the most respected stories of all time, The Tale of Genji holds a worldwide place of honor among lovers of myth and legend.Will appeal to the legions of Vampire Hunter D fans worldwide, as well as fans of his work on Sandman (written by New York Times-bestselling author Neil Gaiman) and Wolverine (with award-winning author Greg Rucka).

    For these readers, Malcolm M. Willcock provides a line-by-line commentary that explains the many factual details, mythological allusions, and Homeric conventions that a student or general reader could not be expected to bring to an initial encounter with the Iliad.  The notes, which always relate to particular lines in the text, have as their prime aim the simple, factual explanation of things the inexperienced reader would be unlikely to have at his or her command (What is a hecatomb? Who is Atreus' son?). Second, they enhance an appreciation of the Iliad by illuminating epic style, Homer's methods of composition, the structure of the work, and the characterization of the major heroes. The "Homeric Question," concerning the origin and authorship of the Iliad, is also discussed. Professor Willcock's commentary is based on Richmond Lattimore's translation—regarded by many as the outstanding translation of the present generation—but it may be used profitably with other versions as well. This clearly written commentary, which includes an excellent select bibliography, will make one of the touchstones of Western literature accessible to a wider audience.—from the back cover

    It is an incisive examination of the problems of independence and freedom in post-colonial Africa states, where few believe they have a stake in the future. In the words of one of the characters: "It was better while we waited. Now we have nothing to look forward to. We have killed our past and are busy killing our future." Francis Imbuga is a playwright and actor. He is the recipient of the Kenya National Academy of Sciences Distinguished Professional Award in Play Writing.

    Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their misunderstandings, pain...and ultimate healing. (back cover)

    Details of a sunset --Bad day --Orache --Return of Chorb --Passenger --Letter that never reached Russia --Guide to Berlin --Doorbell --Thunderstorm --Reunion --Slice of life --Christmas --Busy man.

    An examination of Le Guin's career, from her obscure beginnings in the science fiction magazines to her rapid rise to the top in the 1970's.

    Letters to saints, authors, and illustrious historical figures, written for a monthly periodical when the future Pope was Cardinal Archbishop of Venice.

    Keeping this joke in mind, Amrita Pritam penned her autobiography and entitled it 'Raseedi Ticket', or The Revenue Stamp.

    Toward the end of her life she became the lover of French writer Georges Bataille. Her writings and her real life story were remarkable in their violence and intensity, and her relationships with Bataille and Michel Leiris clearly influenced their works.This complete collection of writings published for the first time in English includes “Story of a Little Girl,” about the Catholic priest who sexually molested her sister; “The Sacred,” a collection of poems and fragments on mysticism and eroticism; notes on her association with contr-attaque and acéphale, and her involvement with the Spanish civil war and the early years of the Soviet Union; a compendium of correspondence with her beloved sister-in-law and tortured love letters to Bataille; and an essay by Bataille about Laure’s death of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-five.

    His prurient interest, oddly motivated, leaves few people unaffected - and the consequences cannot be ignored. Timothy, an "aimless, sadistic" 15-year-old boy, wanders about the seaside town of Dynmouth "trying to connect himself with other people."

    He Is Darcy Dancer, youthful squire of Andromeda Park, the great gray stone mansion inhabited by Crooks, the cross-eyed butler, and the sexy, aristocratic Miss Von B.

    No one bettered her in capturing the sometimes complicated mating dance that led to true love, and her compelling, intelligent heroines are unequalled in all literature--and have also translated wonderfully to film and television. At the same time, her piercing humor exposed the follies of the age and ripped apart characters vain, foolish, greedy, arrogant, and callous. Here are three of her best novels, all in one volume and beautifully illustrated with period images: Sense and Sensibility, a richly textured masterpiece about two sisters with wildly differing temperaments; Emma, with its endearing but deeply flawed protagonist; and the deliciously lighthearted Northanger Abbey. If you've read these before, re-experience the wonder anew; if not, prepare to be captivated with every page!

    

    This is the story of a love-smitten Charles; his friend Sam, the Phi Beta Kappa and former coat salesman; and Charles' mother, who spends a lot of time in the bathtub feeling depressed.

    

    By the end of the period covered, Eliot's The Waste Land, Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers, Stevens's Harmonium, and Pound's Draft of XVI Cantos had been published, and the first post-Eliot generation of poets was beginning to emerge.More than a hundred poets are treated in this volume, and many more are noticed in passing. David Perkins discusses each poet and type of poetry with keen critical appreciation. He traces opposed and evolving assumptions about poetry, and considers the effects on poetry of its changing audiences, of premises and procedures in literary criticism, of the publishing outlets poets could hope to use, and the interrelations of poetry with developments in the other arts--the novel, painting, film, music--as well as in social, political, and intellectual life. The poetry of the United States and that of the British Isles are seen in interplay rather than separately.This book is an important contribution to the understanding of modern literature. At the same time, it throws new light on the cultural history of both America and Britain in the twentieth century.

    Valery's own ambition at twenty, as at forty, was to avoid this error, to safeguard his secrets, to choose anonymity.

    But both the nation and Ben are running out of energy. As blackouts roll through the West, Ben struggles with the onset of multiple sclerosis, and the growing realization that his lifetime quest to buy a name for himself has ultimately failed.

    Whereas the previous edition sometimes offered only a single poem by a given poet, the Second Edition presents at least three poems by each poet, with the few exceptions being poets with significantly long poems. The editors have also expanded the author headnotes to set forth one or two critical points that invite students into the poems.Other noteworthy changes include the addition of 38 new poets representing a diversity of traditions, from canonical poets like Lewis Carroll to contemporary ones like Rita Dove, and more careful attention paid to ethnic poetry and poetry by women.

    There is the perspective of both the child and the old man looking back at his life as a child. Although there is a lot of tangible detail and recognisable characters the book has a mythic quality. The events in a small community in the windswept Atlantic ocean being recorded by the writer in his room, his tower at the edge of the world, have a larger than life feel. Torshavn and his childhood are used to tell the history of the world and of creation.William Heinesen describes The Tower at the Edge of the World as a poetic mosaic novel about earliest childhood.

    The present volume contains all of the short fictions some of them no longer than a page written and published by Beckett between 1950 and the early 1970s. Most were written in French, and they mostly belong within three loose sequences: Texts for Nothing, Fizzles and Residua. The edition also includes two remarkable independent narratives: From an Abandoned Work and As The Story Was Told. All of these texts, whose unsleeping subject is themselves, demonstrate that the short story is one of the recurrent modes of Becketts imagination, and occasions some of his greatest works....he would like it to be my fault that words fail him, of course words fail him. He tells his story every five minuts, saying it is not his, there's cleverness for you. He would like it to be my fault that he has no story, of course he has no story, that's no reason for trying to foist one on me...

    

    Ondaatje's prose is at times startlingly lyrical, and as he chases Bolden through documents and scenes, the novel partakes of the very best sort of modern detective novel--one where the enigma is never resolved, but allowed to manifest in its fullness. Though more 'experimental' in form than either The English Patient or In the Skin of a Lion, it is a fitting addition to the renowned Ondaatje oeuvre.

    "Schizophrenia is not a disease," Szasz insists, only a name that fake doctors (psychiatrists) give to misbehavers who annoy their families & misfits who can't "endure life with decency & dignity." This anti-Freudian no lesion-no illness formula is familiar, but genetic approaches to the subject--& all the recent, impressive statistics--are also rejected. Even R.D. Laing & the "anti-psychiatrists" (who've stolen much of Szasz' thunder) draw ridicule--for their idealization of insanity & for attempts to treat, however benignly, "so-called" schizophrenics. The undeniable problems with the schizophrenia diagnosis--vagueness, lack of etiology, institutional abuse--receive repeated emphasis, along with nightmarish reports of (primarily Soviet) political persecution masquerading as psychiatry. Disturbing stuff, but Szasz drowns the valid controversies in hyperbole ("the greatest scientific scandal of our scientific age") & tests our patience with labored analogies: therapy as slavery or arranged marriage, schizophrenia as the psychiatric faith's Eucharist. As always, the Szasz attack is relentlessly abstract (no case histories or current asylum data) & short on compassion, yet imbued with an odd eloquence that perhaps only tunnel-vision can achieve.--Kirkus

    The translators of this volume have endeavored not only to convey the spirit of the original Romanian, but to find an English equivalent for its sound. The English verse, printed facing the Romanian, conveys the distilled, metaphorical nature of a poetry that expresses a strong sense of ancestral continuity and apocalyptic visions of the world.Originally published in 1976.

    edition. British publication by Hart-Davis, McGibbon Ltd ('76).-- A companion to The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings culls more scathing selections from "Cruiskeen Lawn", Flann O'Brien's column in the Irish Times written under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen.-- This volume covers the years 1947-1957 and finds O'Brien's alter ego clashing with the law on numerous charges, including larceny, using bad language, and marrying without the consent of his parents. It also includes several bizarre obituaries, witty criticisms of George Bernard Shaw, Sean O' Faolain, and other literary figures, the return of the preposterous "Brother", and the first article ever ascribed to Myles (published in 1940).

    Professor Branestawm is the craziest genius you'll ever meet and he's back with this bumper collection of hilarious adventures, zany inventions and mind-boggling experiments. So open up for a wacky collection of stories, riddles, puzzles, tricks and tips . . .You'll never get the better of Professor Branestawn but now you can at least get the best!

    

    In The Good God of Manhattan, for example Jan, a man from the Old World encounters Jennifer, a woman from the new world in Manhattan, where they fall prey to the perils of love and share the fate of lovers throughout time and place. The Cicadas is the tale of the marooned where the isolation of the island as an escape from the real world is symbolised in the Cicada's song. Though the setting is never stated explicitly in A Deal with Dreams, we assume it is Vienna, the City of Dreams. Here, dreams are for sale in a shady deal offered in the dim light of a pawnshop on a city street. In the end, we learn that the price of dreams is high.

    An anthology of poems by American poets from Taylor and Bradstreet to Plath, Ginsberg, and Ashbery, reflecting the traditions and achievements of three centuries.

    It was a period when the African-American came of age, with the clearest expression of this transformation visible inthe remarkable outpouring of literature, art, and music. In these years the New Negro was born, as seen in the shift of black leadership from Booker T. Washington to that of W.E.B. Du Bois, from Tuskegee to New York, and for some, even to the African nationalism of Marcus Garvey.In Voices from the Harlem Renaissance, Nathan Irvin Huggins provides more than 120 selections from the political writings and arts of the period, each depicting the meaning of blackness and the nature of African-American art and its relation to social statement. Through these pieces, Hugginsestablishes the context in which the art of Harlem Renaissance occurred. We read the call to action by pre-Renaissance black spokesmen, such as A. Philip Randolph and W.E.B. DuBois who--through magazines such as The Messenger (the only radical Negro magazine), and the NAACP's Crisis--called for aradical transformation of the American economic and social order so as to make a fair world for black men and women. We hear the more flamboyant rhetoric of Marcus Garvey, who rejected the idea of social equality for a completely separate African social order. And we meet Alain Locke, whose workserved to redefine the New Negro in cultural terms, and stands as the cornerstone of the Harlem Renaissance.Huggins goes on to offer autobiographical writings, poetry, and stories of such men and women as Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard, Helen Johnson, and Claude McKay--writings that depict the impact of Harlem and New York City on those who lived there, as well as the youthfulness and exuberance of theperiod. The complex question of identity, a very important part of the thought and expression of the Harlem Renaissance, is addressed in work's such as Jean Toomer's Bona and Paul and Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat. And Huggins goes on to attend to the voices of alienation, anger, and rage that appearedin a great deal of the writing to come out of the Harlem Renaissance by poets such as George S. Schuyler and Gwendolyn Bennett. Also included are over twenty illustrations by such artists as Aaron Douglas whose designs illuminated many of the works we associate with the Harlem Renaissance: themagazines Fire and Harlem; Alain Locke's The New Negro; and James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones.The vitality of the Harlem Renaissance served as a generative force for all New York--and the nation. Offering all those interested in the evolution of African-American consciousness and art a link to this glorious time, Voices from the Harlem Renaissance illuminates the African-American strugglefor self-realization.

    Along with Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, she dominated American popular literature in the 1920s and 1930s.These unabridged selections of more than thirty short stories and poems is essential for any Parker fan and an excellent way for new readers to make the acquaintance of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors, whose memorable lines include: She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B, This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force, and Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. Parker's ability to lay bare the follies, myths, and hypocrisies of her characters in such a wickedly funny-sometimes sad-manner is unmatched, and her attention to language, quirks, and the other little details of life make her stories come vividly to life.

    The mystery that surrounds her characters - Anne Marie Stretter, the Vice-Consul, the beggar woman of Savannahket, Lol V. Stein - is not dispelled, but as they appear and reappear in book, script, and film, we began to understand their strange seduction.With 'India Song' (her shooting script and working notes are included in this book), Marguerite Duras broke new ground. Critical essays and appreciations by renowned French thinkers explore the ways this and her other works have generated new possibilities in writing and image-making at a critical juncture in Western representation.

    The ways in which the African world perceives itself as a cultural entity, and the differences between its essential unity of experience and literary form and the sense of division pervading Western literature, are just some of the issues addressed. The centrality of ritual gives drama a prominent place in Soyinka's discussion, but he deals in equally illuminating ways with contemporary poetry and fiction. Above all, the fascinating insights in this book serve to highlight the importance of African criticism in addition to the literary and cultural achievements which are the subject of its penetrating analysis.

    

    Anthony Kerr is a successful playwright, a fusion of G.B. Shaw & H.P. Lovecraft. He presents entertaining philosophical arguments to the public, but only by disguising his belief that humans are little better than insects in the face of vast, cosmic forces. While Kerr is finishing the 1st act of a new play. A parcel arrives containing a family heirloom predating the Crusades: a glass snake containing a withered pip supposedly from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. A visiting friend, Jim Lytham, accidentally breaks the ornament. Kerr pockets the seed. Lytham's announces his engagement to Haidee Croyland. At the ensuing party, Kerr announces he too is to wed: Grace, Lytham's sister. Haidee unenthusiastically receives the news, either thru jealousy or because she's unsure of her feelings. She surreptitiously demands Kerr meet her by an old ruined tower the next day or she'll end her engagement to Lytham. The meeting causes complications. On a morning walk, Lytham & Grace happen upon Haidee & Kerr. When they refuse to explain their rendezvous' purpose, Lytham & Grace start doubting their respective engagements. Complications escalate. Haidee can't decide whether her feelings are for Kerr & whether she ought attend to them. They're caught at other meetings. Lytham stops speaking to Kerr. There's talk of cancelling the weddings. Meanwhile, Kerr has given the seed to Lytham's other sister, Virginia. She plants it. A tiny, withered tree grows remarkably quickly, producing two small, violet fruits. Affairs between Haidee, Kerr, Lytham & Grace come to crisis. Haidee, who has an impulsive personality reminiscent of Krag's, snatches one, eats it & leaves. Kerr gets a letter from her afterwards, asking him to eat the remaining fruit & relate his sensations. He does, entering a state of profound insight. He realises his soul is written nakedly on his face (cf. Adam's realisation after eating the fruit) & that he can read others' true natures on their faces. His fiancé Grace appears banal & prosaic to him. Haidee alone has meaning for him. He goes to her. She seems angelic to him, but doesn't reciprocate his feelings. Altho having felt similarly towards him upon eating the fruit 30 hours prior, now, not only have the convictions behind those earlier insights departed, but she's also lost all sense of beauty in the world. Lytham turns up as Kerr kneels before Haidee & breaks off his engagement. Haidee persuades Kerr to leave. He does & cools down. Not only does he lose the conviction Haidee is divine, he also loses all interest in his art. He tries reconciling with Grace but fails. Walking later he comes upon Haidee at a place where two trees form a cross—a place he recognises from a landscape painting he bought prior to the novel's beginning, & which impressed him then as expressing a part of his destiny. At 1st, the couple are dejected, seemingly resigned to the loss of their feelings for one another. Then Haidee says that, altho they might never recapture the intense feelings given by eating the violet apples, they might at least work towards it & "then it will be ours, not a free gift this time, but ours."

    Stationed in the trenches of Champagne, this man of letters who had been at the forefront of the surrealist movement was transformed overnight into an artilleryman. The fascinating correspondence bears witness to the typical yet deeply idiosyncratic experience of Apollinaire at an especially crucial moment of his existence as man and artist. Apollinaire shares with Madeleine his thoughts on art and literature from Racine to Tolstoy, and at the same time he uniquely documents the daily life of a soldier at the front during the Great War. As well, the letters reveal intimate and little-known aspects of Apollinaire’s personality—from his childhood and tastes to his grandest aesthetic ideas.Writing about the letters in his biography of Apollinaire, Francis Steegmuller noted, “Nowhere, is there a more ‘living picture’ of a poet in a war . . . or, outside of Stendhal, a more vivid picture of war itself.” Letters to Madeleine is a moving portrait of a poet facing one of humanity’s starkest realities, and it will be of interest to not only fans of Apollinaire but those interested in personal accounts of World War I as well.

    A selection of tales from 'Novelle fatte a macchina'.

    Sharp and concise, it is, without doubt, the most important work on literary criticism that has emerged out of the tradition of Marxist philosophy and social theory since the nineteenth century.

    The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format."CliffsNotes on Lord of the Flies" takes you on an exploration of William Golding's novel to the dark side of humanity, the savagery that underlies even the most civilized human beings. Follow Golding's group of young boys from hope to disaster and watch as they attempt to survive their uncivilized, unsupervised, and isolated environment.You can rely on "CliffsNotes on Lord of the Flies" for character analyses, insightful essays, and chapter-by-chapter commentaries to ensure your safe passage through the rich symbolism of this novel. Other features that help you study includeA brief synopsis of the novelA character map to help you see relationships among the charactersA glossary that helps you get the most out of your readingAn interactive quiz to test your knowledgeEssay topics and review questionsClassic literature or modern modern-day treasure -- you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

    When his latest case leads him to the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Celia Norris, this is Davies's chance to prove his mettle.

     Fuchs wrote, "I devoted myself simply to the tenement: the life in the hallways, the commotion at the dumbwaiters, the assortment of characters in the building, their strivings and preoccupations, their troubles." These novels are as alive today as the day they were first printed, as exuberant. There are few novelists in America today who possess Fuchs's talent, his energy, his sense of life.

    Born in 1921 to a Jewish mother, she survived World War II in Vienna, while her twin sister Helga escaped with one of the last Kindertransporte to England in 1938. Many of their relatives were deported and murdered. Those losses make themselves felt throughout Aichinger’s writing, which since her first and only novel, The Greater Hope, in 1948, has highlighted displacement, estrangement, and a sharp skepticism toward language. By 1976, when she published Bad Words in German, her writing had become powerfully poetic, dense, and experimental. This volume presents the whole of the original Bad Words in English for the first time, along with a selection of Aichinger’s other short stories of the period; together, they demonstrate her courageous effort to create and deploy a language unmarred by misleading certainties, preconceived rules, or implicit ideologies.

    A bewitching and atmospheric collection of short stories celebrating life and love: the world ripens as a baby stirs in its mother's womb; a soldier captured at Bannockburn sees the daughter of his jailor bathing and falls in love; two ghosts become reconciled with death; an 18th century tale of piracy and treachery.

    

    Harpo Marx once described him as something that got loose from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. And Irma Selz, who sketched him, said he gave the impression of a great stuffed owl. But it was not just his formidable appearance that made Aleck a distinctive figure. For Woollcoot was a true American original.One fo the most charismatic personalities of his or any other time, Alexander Woollcott helped set the literary and theatrical standards of the nation from the 1920's through the early 1940's. A man of arsenic wit and impeccable taste, he served as a drama critic for The New York Times, founded the Algonquin Round Table, became radio's first superstar as the Town Crier, and was immortalized as Sheridan Whiteside in the now classic comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.

    

    For the first time in publishing history, Delphi Classics presents Cooper’s complete FICTIONAL works, with numerous illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Cooper's life and works* Concise introductions to the novels and other texts* ALL 32 novels, with individual contents tables* Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts* Excellent formatting of the texts* Famous works such as THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS are illustrated with their original artwork* Special contents table for THE LEATHERSTOCKING TALES series of novels* Includes Cooper’s last novel THE WAYS OF THE HOUR, first time in digital print* The complete short stories, with rare tales appearing for the first time* Includes Cooper's play and a generous selection of non-fiction* Special criticism section, with essays evaluating Cooper’s contribution to literature* Features two biographies - discover Cooper's literary life* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genresPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titlesCONTENTS:The Leatherstocking TalesThe NovelsPRECAUTIONTHE SPYTHE PIONEERSTHE PILOTLIONEL LINCOLNTHE LAST OF THE MOHICANSTHE PRAIRIETHE RED ROVERTHE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISHTHE WATER-WITCHTHE BRAVOTHE HEIDENMAUERTHE HEADSMAN: THE ABBAYE DES VIGNERONSTHE MONIKINSHOMEWARD BOUNDHOME AS FOUNDTHE PATHFINDERMERCEDES OF CASTILETHE DEERSLAYERTHE TWO ADMIRALSTHE WING-AND-WINGWYANDOTTÉAFLOAT AND ASHOREMILES WALLINGFORDSATANSTOETHE CHAINBEARERTHE REDSKINSTHE CRATERJACK TIERTHE OAK OPENINGSTHE SEA LIONSTHE WAYS OF THE HOURThe Shorter FictionTALES FOR FIFTEEN: OR IMAGINATION AND HEARTNO STEAMBOATSAN EXECUTION AT SEAAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEFTHE LAKE GUNThe PlayUPSIDE DOWN: OR PHILOSOPHY IN PETTICOATSSelected Non-FictionA RESIDENCE IN FRANCERECOLLECTIONS OF EUROPETHE CHRONICLES OF COOPERSTOWNNED MYERSNEW YORKThe CriticismDISCOURSE ON THE LIFE, GENIUS, AND WRITINGS OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER by W. C. BryantFENIMORE COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENCES by Mark TwainBOOKS NECESSARY FOR A LIBERAL EDUCATION by Wilkie CollinsTALES OF THE SEA, 1898 by Joseph ConradVARIOUS REVIEWS by Carl Van DorenThe BiographiesJAMES FENIMORE COOPER by Thomas R. LounsburyJAMES FENIMORE COOPER by Mary E. PhillipsPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

    

    s/t: An entertainment in conversation and verse

    Composed of short tales, whose stirring and arousing sequences spark laughter and reflection, they question our beliefs on the inflexibility of genres and conventions by use of verbal play, parody and interpretations of Cuba's popular slang. Cabrera Infante dismantles language to unthinkable extremes to make us transgress the barriers of our own imagination.

    The aphorism was "a sub-genre [Kraus] considered the height of linguistic integrity. . . . With the help of notes and introductions by Zohn, the subtlety and archness of Kraus' linguistic gifts shine through."—Peter Filkins, Bloomsbury Review"Kraus is a superb aphorist."—D. J. Enright, New York Review of Books

    

    Boyd Smith and Wanda Gag to Maurice Sendak and Margot Zemach.

    Howard - creator of some of the greatest worlds of heroic fantasy and nightmare horror ever conceived by the mind of manH.P. Lovecraft described Howard as a master of description of vast megalithic cities of the elder world, around whose dark towers and labyrinthine nether vaults lingers an aura of pre-human fear and necromancy which no other writer could duplicate.In the three volumes of Skull-Face Omnibus published by Panther Books you will find a nerve-tautening gallery of tales of superhuman savagery and supernatural evil, Journey back into long-lost eons of time and across frontiers of the occult with one of the greatest masters of the century, Robert E. Howard.A classic collection of tales from the Golden Age of fantasy and horrorCover illustration: Chris Achilleos

    This book, originally published in 1976, was the first to look at the contribution of the painters of the group, Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) and Duncan Grant (1885-1978), not only within the context of Bloomsbury but also from the wider perspective of modern British art. In a vivid narrative, Richard Shone weaves together the artists' private lives and professional careers during the first decades of this century. He illuminates their friendships within Bloomsbury, notably with the critic and painter Roger Fry, with Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes and Lady Ottoline Morrell, and in the world of painting with figures such as Picasso, Derain and Sickert. Chapters are devoted to the artists' early careers, to the advent of the Omega Workshops, the artists' discovery of Charleston (their home in Sussex) and their work as decorative designers between the two World Wars.Bloomsbury Portraits, which received wide acclaim on first publication, has long been out of print. This edition has been revised throughout, and incorporates new information and over 80 colour illustrations. Much of the vividness of the book and its authentic evocation of the Bloomsbury artists' lives and times comes from Shone's first-hand experience of Charleston and his friendship with Duncan Grant in the last years of the painter's life.

    In 1789 Nikolai Karamzin (1765-1826), a leading historian and author of sentimental fiction, embarked on an unprecedented intellectual Grand Tour. His itinerary, which took him from St Petersburg through Germany to Revolutionary France and finally to England, served as the basis for this semi-fictional narrative. The narrator visits among others Kant, Herder and Wieland, makes pilgrimage to the resting places of Voltaire and Rousseau, and observes both the revolutionary Assembl�e and the English Parliament at first hand. The resulting work is one in which fiction, philosophy, literary and art criticism, historical and biographical writing coalesce, producing nothing less than a wholesale anthropology and evaluation of the Enlightenment from the unfamiliar perspective of a Russian intellectual writing after the outbreak of the French Revolution. This is the first ever complete translation of Karamzin's work into English. The introduction and concluding study explore the intersection of Russian and European intellectual and literary movements, and illuminate questions about travel literature; history of the book and the growth of readership; the self as a philosophical subject; the growth of perceptions of the public sphere; the pre-Romantic fascination with funerary monuments and theories of sociability. This book is aimed at both Russian specialists and Enlightenment scholars who do not read Russian.

    Irish novelist, playwright, poet and critic, Moore's famous three-volume semi autobiographical work, Hail and Farewell, is a highly entertaining account of his experiences in Ireland. The three volumes are named: Ave, Salve and Vale.

    published ... to commemorate the 33rd World Science Fiction Convention held in Melbourne, August 1975' Contents: 7 • Foreword: The Bad News and the Good • (1976) • essay by Isaac Asimov11 • Idiot Stick • (1958) • shortstory by Damon Knight24 • Nine Lives • (1969) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin47 • The Commuter • (1953) • shortstory by Philip K. Dick59 • The Oath • (1960) • novelette by James Blish77 • Takeover Bid • (1965) • novelette by John Baxter94 • Comes Now the Power • (1966) • shortstory by Roger Zelazny100 • Litterbug • (1969) • novelette by Tony Morphett117 • Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1961) • novelette by Cordwainer Smith138 • A Song Before Sunset • (1976) • shortstory by David Grigg149 • Sundance • (1969) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg163 • The Oh in Jose • (1966) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss (variant of The O in José) [as by Brian Aldiss ]172 • The Man Who Came Early • (1956) • novelette by Poul Anderson194 • Call Him Lord • (1966) • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson213 • The Garden of Time • (1962) • shortstory by J. G. BallardSUBJECTS

    New Directions is excited to reissue the Gardner classics, beginning with October Light, a complex relationship rendered in a down-to-earth narrative.October Light is one of John Gardner's masterworks. The penniless widow of a once-wealthy dentist, Sally Abbot now lives in the Vermont farmhouse of her older brother, 72-year-old James Page. Polar opposites in nearly every way, their clash of values turns a bitter corner when the exacting and resolute James takes a shotgun to his sister's color television set. After he locks Sally up in her room with the trashy "blockbuster" novel that has consumed her (and only apples to eat), the novel-within-the-novel becomes an echo chamber providing glimpses into the history of the family that spawned these bizarre, sad, and stubborn people. Gardner uses the turbulent siblings as a stepping-off point from which he expands upon the lives of their extended families, and the rural community that surrounds them. He also engages larger issues of how liberals and conservatives define themselves, and considers those moments when life transcends all their arguments.

    The essays in Spiritus Mundi--the title comes from one of Yeat's best known poems, "The Second Coming," and refers to the book that was supposedly the source of Yeat's apocalyptic vision of a "great beast, slouching toward Bethlehem"--are arranges in three groups of four essays each. The first four are about the "contexts of literature," the second are about the "mythological universe," and the last are studies of four of the great visionary or myth-making poets who have been enduring sources of interest for Frye: Milton, Blake, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens.The volume is full of agreeable surprises: a delightful piece on charms and riddles is followed by an illuminating essay on Shakespearean romance. Like most of the other essays in the book, these two are compressed and elegant expositions of ideas that in the hands of a lesser writer would have required a book. In another selection Frye rescues Spengler from neglect and argues for the inclusion of The Decline of the West among the major imaginative books produced by the Western world. Elsewhere he advances the case for placing Copernicus in a pantheon composed primarily of literary figures. OF particular interest are several essays in which Frye comments personally and reflectively on the influence he has had on the study of literature and the reactions elicited by his work. In "The Renaissance of Books" he dissents from the opinion of the McLuhanites that the written word is showing signs of obsolescence and argues that books are "the technological instrument that makes democracy possible."As the dozen essays collected here amply attest, Northrop Frye continues to be the most perceptive and most persuasive exponent of the power of mythological imagination--or as he himself calls it, "the mythological habit of mind"--written in English.