The Servant of Two Masters


Carlo Goldoni - 1745
    This new adaptation by Dorothy Louise captures the remarkable pace of the story in fresh dialogue that is attuned to contemporary American audiences.

Weir of Hermiston


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1896
    The old "riding Rutherfords of Hermiston," of whom she was the last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill husbands to their wives though not their properties.

Selected Poems


Emily Dickinson - 1890
    Includes "There's a certain slant of light," "Because I could not stop for death," "It was not death for I stood up."

The Way Things Are


Lucretius
    [captures] the relentless urgency of Lucretius' didacticism, his passionate conviction and proselytizing fervour.' --The Classical Review

Accidental Death of an Anarchist


Dario Fo - 1970
    It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on political corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window.This version of the play was premiered in London in 2003.Commentary and notes by Joseph Farrell.Content: Dario Fo Plot Commentary Further reading Accidental death of an anarchist NotesQuestions for further study.

The Duel


Giacomo Casanova - 1789
    Translated for the first time into English, this autobiographical novel describes Casanova’s extraordinary battle with a Polish count, while on the run from the Venetian authorities. Having escaped from Venice’s infamous Piombi Prison, Casanova was forced into exile. Far from destitute, however, his reputation gained him entry into European society’s highest echelons. Yet there, he soon found himself obliged to engage in a duel over a ballerina—a lady in whom neither he nor his Polish rival had the slightest interest. Recounting the deadly encounter and the surprising events it precipitated with sardonic wit, Casanova creates a work of thrilling adventure and inimitable literary style. Giacomo Casanova was an adventurer, a spy, a poet, and a novelist. His literary reputation rests on his remarkable History of My Life, which vividly records not only his exploits and adventures but the manners and morals of the day.

Poems and Prose


Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1953
    On entering the Society of Jesus at the age of 24, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless by the wish of my superiors.' The poems, letters, and journal entries selected for this edition were written in the following twenty years of his life and published posthumously in 1918.His verse is wrought from the creative tensions and paradoxes of a poet-priest who wanted to evoke the spiritual essence of nature sensuously, and to communicate this revelation in natural language and speech-rhythms while using condensed, innovative diction and all the skills of poetic artifice. Intense, vital, and individual, his writing is the 'terrible crystal' through which the soul--the inscape, the nature of things--may be illuminated.

The Romance of the Rose


Guillaume de Lorris
    In the hands of Jean de Meun, who continued de Lorris's work, it assumed vast proportions and embraced almost every aspect of medieval life from predestination and optics, to the Franciscan controversy and the right way to deal with premature hair-loss.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage


Lord Byron - 1812
    Since the title character is a "childe", it means he was a noble who forgoes his destiny back home for the exciting unknown. It's also eerily similar to Lord Byron's own life story, of a man who traveled across Europe to take part in other nations' wars.

Quiet Chaos


Sandro Veronesi - 2005
    “Over there!” he cries to his brother, Carlo, sunning beside him. “Over there!”So begins the adventure that will tear a hole in Pietro’s life. For while he and his brother struggle to save two drowning swimmers, a tragedy is unfolding down the road at his summer cottage. Instead of coming home to a hero’s welcome, Pietro is greeted by the flashing lights of an ambulance, the wide-eyed stare of his young daughter, Claudia, and the terrible news that his fiancée, Lara, is dead.Life must go on. Or does it? Pietro, a true iconoclast, has to find his own way. When he drops Claudia off for the first day of school, he decides to wait outside for her all day, and then every day. To protect her. To protect himself. To wait for the heavy fist of grief to strike. But as the days and weeks go by, the small parking lot in front of the school becomes his refuge from the world as well as the place where family and colleagues come to relieve their own suffering—among them, the woman he rescued from the waves. And Pietro plunges deeper into the depths of his life before seeing the simple truth before his eyes.Sandro Veronesi makes art of every detail, creating a mosaic of humor, hope,profound insight, and emotional resonance. Quiet Chaos is an unprecedented portrayal of a life set adrift by death.

Indian Nocturne


Antonio Tabucchi - 1984
    Roux, the narrator, is in pursuit of a mysterious friend named Xavier. His search, which develops into a quest, takes him from town to town across the subcontinent.

Selected Poems


Sylvia Plath - 1981
    This classic selection of her work, made by her former husband Ted Hughes, provides the perfect introduction to this most influential of poets. The poems are taken from Sylvia Plath's four collections Ariel, The Colossus, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees, and include many of her most celebrated works, such as 'Daddy', 'Lady Lazarus' and 'Wuthering Heights'.

The City of Dreadful Night


James Thomson - 1874
    A gothic epic. Decadence and horror in late 19th Century urban life from the 'poet of doom'.

The Ring of the Nibelung


Richard Wagner - 1853
    His own libretto to the operas, translated by Andrew Porter, is an intricate system of metric patterns, imaginative metaphors and alliteration,combining to produce the music in text.'Andrew Porter's utterly natural, often poetic, faithfully rendered English text should be a revelation...The immediacy of instant comprehension gives the entire drama an added dimension.'--The New York Times

The Poems of François Villon


François Villon
    This bilingual edition of the 15th-century poet's work incorporates recent scholarship.