Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Hailed as “a Tolstoy with jokes” by one critic, George Bernard Shaw was the most significant British playwright since the seventeenth century. Pygmalion persists as his best-loved play, one made into both a classic film—which won Shaw an Academy Award for best screenplay—and the perennially popular musical My Fair Lady.Pygmalion follows the adventures of phonetics professor Henry Higgins as he attempts to transform cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a refined lady. The scene in which Eliza appears in high society with the correct accent but no notion of polite conversation is considered one of the funniest in English drama. Like most of Shaw’s work, Pygmalion wins over audiences with wit, a taut morality, and an innate understanding of human relationships.This volume also includes Major Barbara, which attacks both capitalism and charitable organizations, The Doctor’s Dilemma, a keen-eyed examination of medical morals and malpractice, and Heartbreak House, which exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for the bloodshed of World War I.John A. Bertolini is Ellis Professor of the Liberal Arts at Middlebury College, where he teaches dramatic literature, Shakespeare, and film. He has written The Playwrighting Self of Bernard Shaw and articles on Hitchcock, and British and American dramatists. Bertolini also wrote the introduction and notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Shaw’s Man and Superman and Three Other Plays.

    The plot concerns a wealthy, lecherous old man who feigns a mortal illness in order to solicit bribes from greedy acquaintances who hope to inherit his fortune. Many complexities of plot and connivance ensue, but in the end, the guilty parties are exposed and punished. Explanatory footnotes.

    About, EdmondKing of the MountainsAinsworth, HarrisonTower of LondonAndersen, HansImprovisatoreApuleiusThe Golden AssArabian NightsAucassin and NicoletteAuerbach, BertholdOn the HeightAusten, JaneSense and SensibilityPride and PrejudiceNorthanger AbbeyMansfield ParkEmmaPersuasionBalzac, Honoré de Eugénie GrandetOld GoriotMagic SkinQuest of the AbsoluteBeckford, WilliamHistory of the Caliph VathekBehn, AphraOroonokoBergerac, Cyrano deVoyage to the MoonBjornson, BjornstjerneArneIn God's WayBlack, WilliamDaughter of HethBlackmore, R.D.Lorna DooneBoccaccioDecameron

    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.

    Unlike other translations of the Bar do thos grol, the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead , Robert Thurman's takes literally the entire gamut of metaphysical assumptions. The Bar do thos grol, or as Thurman translates, The Great Book of Natural Liberation through Understanding in the Between, is but one of many mortuary texts of Nyingma sect of Tibetan Buddhism and is commonly recited to or by a person facing imminent death. Thurman reproduces it for this purpose, explaining in some depth the Tibetan conception of post-mortem existence. Over as many as 12 days, the deceased person is given explanations of what he or she sees and experiences and is guided through innumerable visions of the realms beyond to reach eventual liberation, or, failing that, a safe rebirth. Like a backpacker's guide to a foreign land, Thurman's version is clear, detailed, and sympathetic to the inexperienced voyager, including background and supplementary information, even illustrations (sorry, no maps). Don't wait until the journey has begun, every page should be read and memorised well ahead of time. --Brian Bruya

    Taking examples from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, The Poetics introduces into literary criticism such central concepts as mimesis (‘imitation’), hamartia (‘error’), and katharsis (‘purification’). Aristotle explains how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals, centring on characters of heroic stature, idealized yet true to life. One of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history, the Poetics has informed serious thinking about drama ever since.Malcolm Heath’s lucid English translation makes the Poetics fully accessible to the modern reader. It is accompanied by an extended introduction, which discusses the key concepts in detail and includes suggestions for further reading.

    In his letters the author of The Prophet,The Broken Wings, The Voice of the Master & other 20th-century classics bared his soul completely, & their strange magic inspired in his correspondents a like self-revelation. The letters in this book span 1904 to 1930, & truly constitute a self-portrait of the poet in the time of his greatest productivity. These are Gibran's Boston & New York years, with an interlude in Paris, during which he studied under the sculptor Auguste Rodin. There are touching letters here to his sister Miriana & other members of his family; there are thoughtful letters to such influential men as Ameen Guraieb, rhe editor who introduced the Arabic-American public; & above all, there are impassioned letters to May Ziadeh, the Lebanese writer with whom Gibran had formed an extraordinary "literary & love relationship" entirely through correspondence.

    

    During the journey of discovery that was his life, he composed and sang words and music that have become a national heritage. His songs, however, are but part of his legacy. Behind him Woody Guthrie left a remarkable autobiography that vividly brings to life both his vibrant personality and a vision of America we cannot afford to let die.

    In his work he brought to life the personalities of a diverse range of characters, and introduced a new immediacy, colloquial energy and psychological complexity to the poetry of his day. This selection brings together verse ranging from early dramatic monologues such as the chilling 'My Last Duchess' and the ribald 'Fra Lippo Lippi', which show his gift for inhabiting the mind of another, to the popular children's poem 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and many lesser known works. All display his innovative techniques of diction, rhythm and symbol, which transformed Victorian poetry and influenced major poets of the twentieth century such as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost.

    Here are classics such as Madeline and Curious George; contemporary bestsellers such as Guess How Much I Love You and The Stinky Cheese Man; Caldecott Medal winners such as Make Way for Ducklings and Where the Wild Things Are; and family favorites such as Goodnight Moon, The Sneetches, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Alexander & The Terrible, No Good Very Bad Day, soon to be a motion picture. The selections range from concept books and wordless books to picture books and short read-aloud stories, and represent the complete array of childhood themes and reading needs: ABCs, number and color books, stories about going to bed and going to school; tales about growing up, siblings, parents, and grandparents; animal stories, fantasies; fables; magical stories; stories about everyday life--and more. This beautiful edition includes a recommended list of books published in the time since this anthology's original compilation, including Caldecott Honors Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and Olivia, with descriptive annotations intended to guide parents to these new books and new voices of the 21st century. Also included are an introduction from editor Janet Schulman, capsule biographies of the 62 writers and artists represented in the collection, color-coded running heads indicating age levels, and indexes. As a gift, a keepsake, and a companion in a child's first steps toward a lifelong love of reading, The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury belongs in every family's bookcase.

    From all across the continent come tales of creation and love, of heroes and war, of animals, tricksters, and the end of the world. Alfonso Ortiz, an eminent anthropologist, and Richard Erdoes, an artist and master storyteller, Indian voices in the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century to make this the most comprehensive and authentic volume of American Indian myths available anywhere.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    His theme is a noble one, worthy of the great purpose and imaginative scope of its author: 'Back in the mists of time on that little Anglo-Saxon island there was kindled the flame of freedom and equality for the individual. This idea grew and was spread over the earth by the English-speaking peoples, and has now brought democracy to the whole free world, and become the shining hope of the future of mankind.'He tells of the struggles and setbacks of the great men and the little men who carried the banner forward and the selfish men who dragged it back. But there is no mistaking the drive of the swelling tide.This is naturally a British history, but it is also very much an American, Canadian, New Zealand, Australian, Indian, South African history, the greatest story of our centuries told by the master storyteller of our time."(inside front flap)"This book does not seek to rival the works of professional historians. It aims rather to present a personal view on the processes whereby English-speaking peoples throughout the world have achieved their distinctive position and character. I write about the things in our past that appear significant to me and I do so as one not without some experience of historical and violent events in our own time. I use the term 'English-speaking peoples' because there is no other that applies both to the inhabitants of the British Isles and to those independent nations who derive their beginnings, their speech, and many of their institutions from England, and who now preserve, nourish, and develop them in their own ways."(Winston S. Churchill, from preface to v. 1)

    There may be nothing in the poem that can quite touch the first two books of Paradise Lost for magnificence; but there are several things that may fairly be set beside almost anything in the last ten. The splendid "stand at bay" of the discovered tempter -- "'Tis true I am that spirit unfortunate" -- in the first book; his rebuke of Belial in the second, and the picture of the magic banquet (it must be remembered that, though it is customary to extol Milton's asceticism, the story of his remark to his third wife, and the Lawrence and Skinner sonnets, go the other way); above all, the panoramas from the mountaintop in the third and fourth; the terrors of the night of storm; the crisis on the pinnacle of the temple -- are quite of the best Milton, which is equivalent to saying that they are of the best of one kind of poetry.-- The Cambridge History of English and American Literature

    Anyone who appreciates the dramatic action of Shakespeare's history plays but is confused by much of the historical detail will welcome this guide to the Richards, Edwards, Henrys, Warwicks and Norfolks who ruled and fought across Shakespeare's page and stage. Not only theater-goers and students, but today's film-goers who want to enrich their understanding of film adaptations of plays such as Richard III and Henry V will find this revised edition of Shakespeare's English Kings to be an essential companion.Saccio's engaging narrative weaves together three threads: medieval English history according to the Tudor chroniclers who provided Shakespeare with his material, that history as understood by modern scholars, and the action of the plays themselves. Including a new preface, a revised further reading list, genealogical charts, an appendix of names and titles, and an index, the second edition of Shakespeare's English Kings offers excellent background reading for all of the ten history plays.