Winner of the Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play of the Season, Anouilh's monumental work—introduced in this edition by the acclaimed writer and critic Andre Aciman—draws from historical events in the Norman conquest of England to paint a profound and enduring portrait of the saint and martyr.

    It is the 1860s; Japan is closed to foreigners and this has to be a clandestine operation. During his undercover negotiations with the local baron, Joncour's attention is arrested by the man's concubine, a girl who does not have Oriental eyes. Although the young Frenchman and the girl are unable to exchange so much as a word, love blossoms between them, conveyed by a number of recondite messages in the course of four visits the Frenchman pays to Japan. How their secret affair develops and how it unfolds is told in a narration as beautiful, smooth and seamless as a piece of the finest silk.

    Providing vital evidence of the views of the Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, Cicero also casts light on the intellectual life of first-century Rome. When these Greek beliefs are translated into the Roman context they result in a fascinating clash of ideologies.This new translation of a work whose importance is becoming increasingly recognized is complemented by an invaluable introduction to the main philosophical issues, as well as substantial and helpful annotation.

    His three plays, Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck, were greatly ahead of their time in their penetrating dramatic and psychological treatment. They served as an impetus for contemporary schools of drama as different as the Theatre of the Absurd of Ionesco and the Epic Theatre of Brecht. lso presented in this only complete volume of Buchner in English are his two powerful prose pieces, The Hessian Courier and his short story, Lenz.

    With Steffy, his sometime paramour, at his side, Herb decides to take another stab at fatherhood and hopefully this time, get it right.

    Jocelyn Pierston, celebrated sculptor, tries to create an image of his ideal woman - his imaginary Well-Beloved - in stone, just as he tries to find her in the flesh. Powerful symbolism marks this romantic fantasy that Hardy has grounded firmly in reality with a characteristically authentic rendering of location, the Isle of Slingers, or Portland as we know it. Overt exploration of the relationship between erotic fascination and creativity makes this novel a nineteenth-century landmark in the persistent debate about art, aesthetics and gender.A person who differed from the local wayfarers was climbing the steep road which leads through the sea-skirted townlet definable as the Street of Wells, and forms a pass into that Gibraltar of Wessex, the singular peninsula once an island, and still called such, that stretches out like the head of a bird into the English Channel. It is connected with the mainland by a long thin neck of pebbles 'cast up by rages of the se, ' and unparalleled in its kind in Europe.The pedestrian was what he looked like-a young man from London and the cities of the Continent. Nobody could see at present that his urbanism sat upon him only as a garment. He was just recollecting with something of self-reproach that a whole three years and eight months had flown since he paid his last visit to his father at this lonely rock of his birthplace, the intervening time having been spent amid many contrasting societies, peoples, manners, and scenes

    It tells the story of Homer Wells, an orphan who is raised and mentored by Wilbur Larch, the doctor at the orphanage. Dr. Larch teaches Homer eveything about medicine. Yet though his capacity for kindness is saintly, Larch is also an ether addict. He and Homer come into conflict, which is typical of many father-son relationships, but in this case, their conflict is intensified by their disagreements about abortion. The result is Homer leaves the only family he has ever known.Homer's new life provides more excitement than he could have imagined, especially when he falls in love for the first time. But, when forced to make decisions that will change the course of his future, Homer finally realizes that he can't escape his past. The Cider House Rules is ultimately about the choices we make and the rules that are meant to be broken.

    

    Gradually he learns the violent history of the house's owner, the fierce, saturnine Heathcliff and the thwarted love that has led him to exact terrible revenge on the two families that have sought to oppose him.Since its original publication in 1847, Emily Bronte's only novel, whether repelling, captivating or intriguing different generations of readers, has never relaxed its powerful grip on the public, and the figure of the haunted, brutal Heathcliff has become part of Britain's cultural mythology.This edition also includes over sixty of Emily Bronte's poems, an introduction, notes, text summary, selected criticism and a chronology of Emily Bronte's life and times.(back cover)

    . . eclectic. . . a feast' TelegraphThis landmark collection brings together forty writers that reflect over a hundred years of Italy's vibrant and diverse short story tradition, from the birth of the modern nation to the end of the twentieth century.Poets, journalists, visual artists, musicians, editors, critics, teachers, scientists, politicians, translators: the writers that inhabit these pages represent a dynamic cross section of Italian society, their powerful voices resonating through regional landscapes, private passions and dramatic political events.This wide-ranging selection curated by Jhumpa Lahiri includes well known authors such as Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante and Luigi Pirandello alongside many captivating new discoveries. More than a third of the stories featured in this volume have been translated into English for the first time, several of them by Lahiri herself.

    His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience - which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger', and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.

    S. Eliot's last play, drafted originally in 1955 but not completed until three years later. Lord Claverton, an eminent former cabinet minister and banker, is helped to confront his past by the love of his daughter, his Antigone.The dialogue in The Elder Statesman, the love scenes in particular, contain some of Eliot's most tender and expressive writing for the theatre. The play was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1958.

    Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title.

    She was one of the first European female playwrights. Her marriage, if it existed at all, lasted only a few years. She was known to be bisexual which played a major role in her writing. Behn used her position at court to become a spy. Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister was published in 1687. Originally published in 3 volumes, it was an epistolary work centering on the Mommouth Rebellion in 1685. James II was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a Catholic king. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was the illegitimate son of Charles II. James Scott tried to disgrace James II so he could inherit the throne

    It’s the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute.One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property. Within this story of passion and betrayal, Moravia calmly strips away the pride and arrogance hiding the corrupt heart of Italian Fascism.