Embodying a ritual to be performed for the dead, with detailed instructions for the behavior of the disembodied spirit in the Land of the Gods, it served as the most important repository of religious authority for some three thousand years. Chapters were carved on the pyramids of the ancient 5th Dynasty, texts were written in papyrus, and selections were painted on mummy cases well into the Christian Era. In a certain sense it stood behind all Egyptian civilization.In the year 1888 Dr. E. Wallis Budge, then purchasing agent for the British Museum, followed rumors he heard of a spectacular archaeological find in Upper Egypt, and found in an 18th Dynasty tomb near Luxor "the largest roll of papyrus I had ever seen, tied with a thick band of papyrus, and in a perfect state of preservation." It was a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, written around 1500 B.C. for Ani, Royal Scribe of Thebes, Overseer of the Granaries of the Lords of Abydos, and Scribe of the Offerings of the Lords of Thebes.The Papyrus of Ani, a full version of the Theban recension, is presented here by Dr. Budge, who later became perhaps the world's most renowned Egyptologist. Reproduced in full are a clear copy of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and interlinear transliteration of their sounds (as reconstructed), a word-for-word translation, and separately a complete smooth translation. All this is preceded by an introduction of more than 150 pages. As a result of this multiple apparatus the reader has a unique opportunity to savor all aspects of the Book of the Dead, or as it is otherwise known, the Book of the Great Awakening.

    The five weird and wonderful tales collected here each unlock the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart.Selected from Haruki’s Murakami’s short story collections The Elephant Vanishes, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman and Men Without Women.

    Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

    Originally published in 1861, it quickly established itself as the most popular selection of English poems. Today it stands as a testament to the richness of our finest native poetic writing from Spenser, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth, to Tennyson, Yeats, Eliot, and Betjeman. This edition includes a sixth book, prepared by John Press, which covers the post-war years, showing that the lyrical tradition remains strong. Over ninety poets are included, from Dylan Thomas, George Mackay Brown, Ted Hughes, and Philip Larkin to Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Garrett and Simon Armitage.

    In it, he found both a structure and a persona that gave his vision a new power and coherence. A. Alvarez wrote in the Observer, 'Each fresh encounter with despair becomes the occasion for a separate, almost funny, story in which natural forces and creatures, mythic figures, even parts of the body, act out their special roles, each endowed with its own irrepressible life. With Crow, Hughes joins the select band of survivor-poets whose work is adequate to the destructive reality we inhabit.'

    Yeats laid the foundations for an Irish literary revival, drawing inspiration from his country's folklore, the occult, and Celtic philosophy. A writer of both poems and plays, he helped found Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre. The poems here provide an example of his life's work and artistry, beginning with verses such as "The Stolen Child" from his debut collection "Crossways "(written when he was 24) through "Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?" from "On the Boiler," published a year prior to his death.

    She was Rose Buckland, Lee's cousin by marriage.From the Paperback edition.

    Here, Tempest shows how the old myths still live on in our everyday acts of violence, bravery, sacrifice and love – and that our lives make tales no less dramatic and powerful than those of the old gods.

    He received his early education at home, tutored by Reverend Evan Edwards of Warnham. In 1802, he entered the Syon House Academy of Brentford. He was routinely bullied while he was there, both because of his "girlish" appearance and his family's aristocratic ties. Shelley's unconventional life and uncompromising idealism, combined with his strong skeptical voice, made him a notorious and much denigrated figure during his life. Distracted by political events, he visited Ireland in order to engage in radical pamphleteering where he wrote the Address to the Irish People. His activities earned him the unfavourable attention of the British government. His first publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810). He is most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind (1819) and To a Skylark (1820). His major works were long visionary poems including Alastor (1815), The Revolt of Islam (1817) and Adonais (1821).

    A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history. Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment — of powerful men seeking to become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child — but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation; her Beowulf is one for the twenty-first century.

    News From Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find himself in the year 2102 and discovers a society that has changed beyond recognition into a pastoral paradise, in which all people live in blissful equality and contentment. A socialist masterpiece, News From Nowhere is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialisation. This volume also contains a wide selection of Morris's writings, lectures, journalism and letters, which expand upon the key themes of News From Nowhere.

    Eighty years old, Ebenezer has lived his whole life on the Channel Island of Guernsey, a stony speck of a place caught between the coasts of England and France yet a world apart from either. Ebenezer himself is fiercely independent, but as he reaches the end of his life he is determined to tell his own story and the stories of those he has known. He writes of family secrets and feuds, unforgettable friendships and friendships betrayed, love glimpsed and lost. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a beautifully detailed chronicle of a life, but it is equally an oblique reckoning with the traumas of the twentieth century, as Ebenezer recalls both the men lost to the Great War and the German Occupation of Guernsey during World War II, and looks with despair at the encroachments of commerce and tourism on his beloved island.G. B. Edwards labored in obscurity all his life and completed The Book of Ebenezer Le Page shortly before his death. Published posthumously, the book is a triumph of the storyteller’s art that conjures up the extraordinary voice of a living man.

    Her international celebrity husband Steve has died leaving her unprepared and vulnerable. At first she is completely submerged in her own loss until, shocked into feeling by the unexpected revelations and private sufferings of others, she is drawn agonizingly into new life - not into perfect happiness but into the sunlight of new hope. Penelope Lively's moving and beautifully observed novel illuminates two terrifying taboos of the twentieth-century - death and grief. 'A triumph' Spectator