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King Arthur: Tales from the Round Table


Andrew Lang - 1918
    The myths surrounding his reign have been recounted in endless tales. This collection includes thirteen of the best-loved legends of the man and his Knights of the Round Table.Bewitching stories, related by one of the world's great storytellers, tell of how the young Arthur pulled a sword from a stone to become king; his meeting with the Lady of the Lake and acquisition of the mighty sword Excalibur; gatherings at the Round table; the death of Merlin; how the mysterious sorceress Morgan Le Fay attempted to kill Arthur; the quest for the Holy Grail; the romance of Lancelot and Guenevere, Arthur's wife; the passing of King Arthur, and more.Magnificent engravings appear throughout the text, further enhancing this splendid introduction to Camelot and its enchanting lore.These stories have inspired numerous film adaptations, including the 2017 release King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Eric Bana, Djimon Hounsou, and Annabelle Wallis.

The Oxford Book of English Verse


Christopher Ricks - 1999
    The Oxford Book of English Verse, created in 1900 by Arthur Quiller-Couch and selected anew in 1972by Helen Gardner, has established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry: ample in span, liberal in the kinds of poetry presented. This completely fresh selection brings in new poems and poets from all ages, and extends the range by another half-century, to include many twentieth-centuryfigures not featured before--among them Philip Larkin and Samuel Beckett, Thom Gunn and Elaine Feinstein--right up to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Here, as before, are lyric (beginning with medieval song), satire, hymn, ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, but also kinds of poetry not previously admitted: the riches of dramatic verse by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster; great works of translation that are themselves true English poetry, such asChapman's Homer (bringing in its happy wake Keats's 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'), Dryden's Juvenal, and many others; well-loved nursery rhymes, limericks, even clerihews. English poetry from all parts of the British Isles is firmly represented--Henryson and MacDiarmid, for example, nowjoin Dunbar and Burns from Scotland; James Henry, Austin Clarke, and J. M. Synge now join Allingham and Yeats from Ireland; R. S. Thomas joins Dylan Thomas from Wales--and Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet, writing in America before its independence in the 1770s, are given a rightful and rewardingplace. Some of the greatest long poems are here in their entirety--Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey', Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', and Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'--alongside some of the shortest, haikus, squibs, and epigrams. Generous and wide-ranging, mixing familiar with fresh delights, this is an anthology to move and delight all who find themselves loving English verse.

Pike


Anthony McGowan - 2015
    When local gangsters get involved, the brothers find themselves in too deep and in danger. A powerful companion piece to the Carnegie long-listed Brock.

The Descent of Man


Charles Darwin - 1871
    This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by James Moore and Adrian Desmond.In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin refused to discuss human evolution, believing the subject too 'surrounded with prejudices'. He had been reworking his notes since the 1830s, but only with trepidation did he finally publish The Descent of Man in 1871. The book notoriously put apes in our family tree and made the races one family, diversified by 'sexual selection' - Darwin's provocative theory that female choice among competing males leads to diverging racial characteristics. Named by Sigmund Freud as 'one of the ten most significant books' ever written, Darwin's Descent of Man continues to shape the way we think about what it is that makes us uniquely human.In their introduction, James Moore and Adrian Desmond, acclaimed biographers of Charles Darwin, call for a radical re-assessment of the book, arguing that its core ideas on race were fired by Darwin's hatred of slavery. The text is the second and definitive edition and this volume also contains suggestions for further reading, a chronology and biographical sketches of prominent individuals mentioned.Charles Darwin (1809-82), a Victorian scientist and naturalist, has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. The advent of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 challenged and contradicted all contemporary biological and religious beliefs.If you enjoyed The Descent of Man, you might like Darwin's On the Origin of Species, also available in Penguin Classics.

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2b: The Victorian Age


David Damrosch - 1999
    Volume 2B: The Victorian Age of The Longman Anthology of British Literature is a comprehensive and thoughtfully arranged text that offers a rich selection of major British authors throughout the Victorian age.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo


Unknown
    Sir Gawain is a romance, a fairy-tale for adults, full of life and colour; but it is also much more than this, being at the same time a powerful moral tale which examines religious and social values.Pearl is apparently an elegy on the death of a child, a poem pervaded with a sense of great personal loss: but, like Gawain it is also a sophisticated and moving debate on much less tangible matters.Sir Orfeo is a slighter romance, belonging to an earlier and different tradition. It was a special favourite of Tolkien's. The three translations represent the complete rhyme and alliterative schemes of the originals.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. C: The Restoration & the Eighteenth Century


M.H. AbramsJahan Ramazani - 1999
    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.

The Norton Anthology of Poetry


Margaret Ferguson - 1970
    The anthology offers more poetry by women (40 new poets), with special attention to early women poets. The book also includes a greater diversity of American poetry, with double the number of poems by African American, Hispanic, native American and Asian American poets. There are 26 new poets representing the Commonwealth literature tradition: now included are more than 37 poets from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Caribbean, South Africa and India.

Virginia Woolf


Hermione Lee - 1996
    Subscribing to Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact.  Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicide are brought into balance with the immensity of her literary achievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity and wit,  and her sanity and strength. It is not often that biography offers the satisfactions of great fiction--but this is clearly what Hermione Lee has achieved. Accessible, intelligent, and deeply pleasurable to read, her Virginia Woolf will undoubtedly take its place as the standard biography for years to come.

A General History of the Pyrates


Daniel Defoe - 1724
    Many scholars have suggested that the author could have been either Daniel Defoe or publisher Nathaniel Mist (or somebody working for him). Other researchers have suggested Ronald Quattroche as the true author of the General History. Colin Woodard states in his book The Republic of Pirates: Recently, Arne Bialuschewski of the University of Kiel in Germany has identified a far more likely candidate: Nathaniel Mist, a former sailor, journalist, and publisher of the Weekly Journal. The book's first publisher of record, Charles Rivington, had printed many books for Mist, who lived just a few yards from his office. More importantly, the General History was registered at Her Majesty's Stationery Office in Mist's name. As a former seaman who had sailed the West Indies, Mist, of all London's writer-publishers, was uniquely qualified to have penned the book...Mist was also a committed Jacobite...which could explain the General History's not entirely unsympathetic account of the maritime outlaws.

Asylum Piece


Anna Kavan - 1940
    The sense of paranoia, of persecution by a foe or force that is never given a name, evokes The Trial by Kafka, a writer with whom Kavan is often compared, although her deeply personal, restrained, and almost foreign  —accented style has no true model. The same characters who recur throughout—the protagonist's unhelpful "adviser," the friend and lover who abandons her at the clinic, and an assortment of deluded companions—are sketched without a trace of the rage, self-pity, or sentiment that have marked more recent accounts of mental instability.

The Beatles: An Illustrated Record


Roy Carr - 1975
    Compiled and written by 'New Musical Express' editors Roy Carr and Tony Tyler, with over 200 illustrations, a complete diary, selected quotes and all possible recording details.

The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill


Max Morris - 2017
    “It does not seem to be much use being anything else.”Have you ever wanted to deliver the ultimate Churchillian wisecrack? Give sound advice to a peer on how to deal with life’s problems? Or contribute to a heated discussion on international politics? The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill is the perfect pocket book to carry around in your arsenal as you laugh at Churchill’s devious brand of smarts and learn from his political and humanist outlook on life during the turmoil of the Second World War. Discover what he had to say about domestic politics, war and peace, power, struggles and strife, education, philosophy, and some of the biggest names of his time, including himself.Beautifully designed and curated, this entertaining collection compiles the wisest and wittiest Churchill quotations that speak of the politician’s enduring legacy in contemporary pop culture. Full of savvy and wisdoms, The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill is sure to delight devoted fans of history and casual readers alike.

Kolhyatyache por


Kishor Shantabai Kale - 2005
    Growing up in an environment where such transactions were made daily, witnessing the wretchedness of such a life at close quarters, and its repercussions on him gave Kishore the will and the determination to free himself through education and an amazing strength to transcend circumstances that at times seemed overwhelmingly black.In this book, Kishore Kale unfolds a sad and shocking story of his early years and youth with a rare simplicity and directness. Far from rancour, it instead affirms and inspires the reader to never lose hopea precept that propels Kale as today he goes about tending to prostitutes and AIDS victims doing his utmost to help those who rescued him from going under.

The Alchemist


Ben Jonson - 1612
    He is best known for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist and his lyric poems as well. A good friend of William Shakespeare.His works had influenced many poets and writers such Jacobean and Caroline.