Each story contains the common elements of the gothic tale--a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet taken together, they reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world. Bringing together the work of such writers as Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jorge Luis Borges, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.

    They offer the shortest path to the age's dreams, desires, and wishes. Authors central to the nineteenth-century canon such as Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Ford Madox Ford, and Rudyard Kipling wrote fairy tales, and authors primarily famous for their work in the genre include George MacDonald, Juliana Ewing, Mary De Morgan, and Andrew Lang. This anthology brings together fourteen of the best stories, by these and other outstanding practitioners, to show the vibrancy and variety of the form and its ability to reflect our deepest concerns.The stories in this selection range from pure whimsy and romance to witty satire and darker, uncanny mystery. Paradox proves central to a form offered equally to children and adults. Fairyland is a dynamic and beguiling place, one that permits the most striking explorations of gender, suffering, love, family, and the travails of identity. Michael Newton's introduction and notes explore the literary marketplace in which these tales appeared, as well as the role they played in contemporary debates on scepticism and belief. The book also includes a selection of original illustrations by some of the masters of the field such as Richard Doyle, Arthur Hughes, and Walter Crane.

    Poems of the Night is a moving collection of the great literary visionary's poetic meditations on nighttime, darkness, and the crepuscular world of visions and dreams, themes that speak implicitly to the blindness that overtook Borges late in life-and yet the poems here are drawn from the full span of Borges's career. Featuring such poems as "History of the Night" and "In Praise of Darkness" and more than fifty others in luminous translations by an array of distinguished translators-among them W.S. Merwin, Christopher Maurer, Alan Trueblood, and Alastair Reid-this volume brings to light many poems that have never appeared in English, presenting them en face with their Spanish originals. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    A touchstone of mediaeval literature, this small volume contains three stories from the Canterbury Tales, translated into Modern English by Nevill Coghill: 'The Wife of Bath', 'The Miller' and 'The Reeve'.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Boccaccio's Decameron is available in Penguin Classics in both a complete and selected edition.

    Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell's entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means.

    The Complete Works Of Guy de Maupassant (1917)

    Selected by Gwyn Jones--the eminent Celtic scholar--for their excellence and variety, these nine Icelandic sagas include Hen-Thorir, The Vapnfjord Men, Thorstein Staff-Struck, Hrafnkel the Priest of Frey, Thidrandi whom the Goddesses Slew, Authun and the Bear, Gunnlaug Wormtongue, King Hrolf and his Champions, and the title piece.

    There was a strangeness in the room, And Something white and wavy Was standing near me in the gloom -- I took it for the carpet-broom Left by that careless slavey. But presently the Thing began To shiver and to sneeze: On which I said "Come, come, my man! That's a most inconsiderate plan. Less noise there, if you please!" "I've caught a cold," the Thing replies, "Out there upon the landing." I turned to look in some surprise, And there, before my very eyes, A little Ghost was standing!

    No other version has so vividly expressed the horror, cruelty, beauty, and outrageous imaginative flight of Dante's original vision.

    M. Montgomery about love and sacrifice in a little log house. See Christmas through the eyes of a child in a New England colonial village with Harriet Beecher Stowe. Remember the reason Christ came to earth in the poetry of Anne Brontë. Share with your family the delightful letter Mark Twain wrote as Santa Claus to his three-year-old daughter.  This beautiful treasury takes us back to the firesides, simple gifts, and warm family moments of Christmases past as we cherish the timeless truths and joys of the season. A Vintage Christmas includes stories from Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Ralph Henry Barbour, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, L. M. Montgomery, and William Dean Howells, as well as poems from Eliza Cook, Christina Rossetti, William Makepeace Thackeray, Joyce Kilmer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Perfect as a stocking stuffer or as a host or hostess giftHardcover, giftable size for readersMakes a lovely keepsake companion to A Classic Christmas: A Collection of Timeless Stories and PoemsIncludes hopeful and encouraging Christmas stories

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Ronald Oakley --Justice Denied in Massachusetts / Edna St. Vincent Millay --Very Proper Gander / James Thurber --Piece of String / Guy de Maupassant.

    

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Next to nothing is known about Homer's life. His works available in Penguin Classics are The Homeric Hymns, The Iliad and The Odyssey.