Set in Louis XIII's reign, it is the moving and exciting drama of one of the finest swordsmen in France, gallant soldier, brilliant wit, tragic poet-lover with the face of a clown. Rostand's extraordinary lyric powers gave birth to a universal hero--Cyrano De Bergerac--and ensured his own reputation as author of one of the best-loved plays in the literature of the stage.This translation, by the American poet Brian Hooker, is nearly as famous as the original play itself, and is generally considered to be one of the finest English verse translations ever written.

    Lol Stein's comfortable married life is disrupted when she returns to her hometown and recalls how she was abandoned by a former fiance.

    While such speculation is murky, it is clear that de Maupassant—hailed alongside Chekhov as father of the short story—was at the peak of his powers in this innovative precursor of first-person psychological fiction. Indeed, he worked for years on The Horla’s themes and form, first drafting it as “Letter from a Madman,” then telling it from a doctor’s point of view, before finally releasing the terrified protagonist to speak for himself in its devastating final version. In a brilliant new translation, all three versions appear here as a single volume for the first time.The Art of The Novella SeriesToo short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

    It tells the story of a great cattle-raid, the invasion of Ulster by the armies of Medb and Ailill, queen and king of Connacht, and their allies, seeking to carry off the great Brown Bull of Cúailnge. The hero of the tale is Cúchulainn, the Hound of Ulster, who resists the invaders single-handed, while Ulster's warriors lie sick.Thomas Kinsella's presents a complete and living version of the story. His translation is based on the partial texts in two medieval manuscripts, with elements from other version, and adds a group of related stories which prepare for the action of the Táin. Illustrated with brush drawings by Louis le Brocquy, this edition provides a combination of medieval epic and modern art.

    It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

    When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. THE CONSOLATION was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy. Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. THE CONSOLATION was extremely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas were influential on the thought of Chaucer and Dante.

    In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus's encounters with the demonic, the irreverence of Barabas in THE JEW OF MALTA, and the humiliation of Edward II in his fall from power and influence, Marlowe explores the shifting balance between power and helplessness, the sacred and its desecration.

    Unjustly neglected today, Tasso's epic poem 'Jerusalem Delivered'(first published in 1581) is set in the 11th century and tells the story of the First Crusade and the siege which gave Christian armies control over Jerusalem and the Holy Lands for a time.As in other epic poems, 'Jerusalem Delivered' deftly mixes history and myth. Tasso's heroes - Godfrey, leader of the Christian armies; Rinaldo, bravest of the Christian warriors; and Tancred, the Italian prince who falls in love with the pagan warrioress Clorinda, whom he eventually (andsimultaneously) converts and kills - must face not only the Saracens and their allies, but also a host of fearsome and manipulative devils, demons, and sorcerers. This is a sweeping and often thrilling tale of war, faith, love, and sex that easily rivals its classical predecessors. Writing at a time when Christianity was bitterly divided, Tasso was naturally concerned with the nature of leadership and loyalty, with the importance of sacrifice, with the evils of corruption, and with the existence of truth, themes that continue to resonate today. No wonder that for three centuries, 'Jerusalem Delivered' was considered the great modern epic. Indeed, Spenser borrowed scenes and episodes from this poem in writing the 'Faerie Queen', and Milton was greatly influenced by Tasso when writing his own Christian epic, 'Paradise Lost'.English-language readers who are familiar with Tasso's grand romance have until now known it only through a verse translation by English poet Edward Fairfax published in 1600. In order to fit Tasso's stanzas into the then popular Spenserian verse form, Fairfax had to alter the original poem considerably. Now, 400 years later, Anthony Esolen presents a new translation that transforms 'Jerusalem Delivered' into an English-language masterpiece. The first major verse translation into English since Fairfax's, Esolen's version is both more true to its original source and more fluid than that of hisElizabethan predecessor. Esolen has translated 'Jerusalem Delivered' with the care of poet, capturing the delight of Tasso's descriptions, the different voices of its cast of characters, the shadingsbetween glory and tragedy, and does them all in an English as powerful as Tasso's Italian. Esolen's will immediately be acclaimed as the definitive translation of this powerful work of faith and war. Like theFagles 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey', the Pinsky 'Inferno', and Seamus Heaney's imaginative new rendering of 'Beowulf', Anthony Esolen's bold, fast-moving, and faithful translation of Tasso'sCrusade-era adventure will introduce a new generation of readers to a masterpiece of world literature.

    Poet, novelist, critic, artist, actor, film-maker, Cocteau was also one of the greatest dramatists Europe has produced, with over a dozen plays which are frequently revived, not only ion France, but in translation in many other countries.For this collection, fine translations of four full-length plays, one short play, and the "Speaker's Text" for the Cocteau-Stravinsky opera Oedipus Rex have been selected. The longer plays (The Infernal Machine, Orpheus, Bacchus, Knights of the Round Table) are re-creations of classic myth and legend—poetic and highly original interpretations of certain timeless themes which have inspired great drama through the ages. The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party is, by contrast, merely a "curtain-raiser," but remarkable as un jeu d'esprit, revealing the wit and psychological penetration for which Cocteau is famous.The Translations:The Infernal Machine by Albert BermelOrpheus by John K. SavacoolThe Eiffel Tower Wedding Party by Dudley FittsThe Knights of the Round table by W.H. AudenBacchus by Mary C. HoeckThe Speaker's Text of Oedipus Rex by E.E. Cummings

    publication of Simon Watson Taylor's authoritative translation, completed after consultations with the author. Unconventional in form--Aragon consciously avoided recognizable narration or character development--Paris Peasant is, in the author's words, -a mythology of the modern.- The book uses the city of Paris as a stage, or framework, and Aragon interweaves his text with images of related ephemera: cafe menus, maps, inscriptions on monuments and newspaper clippings. A detailed description of a Parisian arcade (nineteenth-century precursor to the mini-mall) and another of the Buttes-Chaumont park, are among the great set pieces within Aragon's swirling prose of philosophy, dream and satire. Andre Breton wrote of this work: -no one could have been a more astute detector of the unwonted in all its forms; no one else could have been carried away by such intoxicating reveries about a sort of secret life of the city. . . .-

    Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French by William Stone. A precursor of the symbolists and the surreallists, Gerard de Nerval has fascinated many major literary figures, including Proust and Breton, Eliot and Apollinaire, Michaux and Leiris. The great sonnet cycle, in its marvellous combination of spell, quest and dream, continues to fascinate writers, readers and that special category of writerly readers, translators. Menard's translator is the gifted young poet William Stone, who explains his work in a strongly worded essay: "like a partly submerged crocodile, with one amber eye half open, the foreign line sits, waiting for the anxious translator to make a move."

    A romantic tragedy about the relationship between Mark Antony and the Queen of Egypt, including notes and critical commentary.

    Stein's strong influence on 20th-century literature is evident in this 1915 work of highly original prose rendered in thought-provoking experimental techniques.

    It is based on the best available texts and presents Descartes' central metaphysical writings in clear, readable modern English.

    Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes, and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences. The original handbook of decadence, Against Nature exploded like a grenade (in the words of Huysmans) and has enjoyed a cult readership from its publication to the present day.