Penguin, from its very earliest days, had dabbled in what were regarded as classics. A batch of ten books published in 1935 had included Samuel Butler's Erewhon. Chekhov and de Maupassant translations also featured in the early lists. And in 1938 a series of ten Illustrated Classics had been published, starting with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and finishing with Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
When asked during the 1960s which of his many publishing achievements he was most proud of, Allen Lane had no hesitation in nominating the Penguin Classics. Through half a century the series has grown and developed beyond its original conception, without changing beyond recognition, or compromising the ideals of the early translators and editors.
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Egyptian Book of the Dead The Book of the Dead is a unique collection of funerary texts from a wide variety of sources, dating from the fifteenth to the fourth century BC. Consisting of spells, prayers and incantations, each section contains the words of power to overcome obstacles in the afterlife. The papyruses were often left in sarcophagi for the dead to use as passports on their journey from burial, and were full of advice about the ferrymen, gods and kings they would meet on the way. Offering valuable insights into ancient Egypt, The Book of the Dead has long inspired fascination with the occult and the afterlife. John Romer's introduction examines the historical outline of the work, as well as the literary influence of the text on modern culture. This edition of E. A. Wallis Budge's translation includes a full text with accompanying illustrations, ans also contains suggested further reading. Translated by E. A. Wallis Budge
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The Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita is an early epic poem that recounts the conversation between Arjuna the warrior and his charioteer Krishna, the manifestation of God. In the moments before a great battle, the dialogue sets out the important lessons Arjuna must learn to change the outcome of the war he is to fight, and culminates in Krishna revealing to the warrior his true cosmic form, counselling him to search for the universal perfection of life. Ranging from instructions on yoga postures to dense moral discussion, the Gita is one of the most important Hindu texts, as well as serving as a practical guide to living well. Laurie patton's accessible and elegant new translation reflects The Bhagavad Gita's status as both an aesthetic and a social document, and her introduction examines the structure of the poem and the various commentaries on it through the ages. This edition also includes suggested further reading and a glossary of terms.
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The Life of Samuel Johnson In Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, one of the towering figures of English literature is revealed with unparalleled immediacy and originality, in a biography to which we owe our entire knowledge of the man himself. Through a series of wonderfully detailed anecdotes, Johnson emerges as a sociable figure with a huge appetite for life, crossing swords with other great eighteenth-century luminaries, from Garrick and Goldsmith to Burney and Burke - and even his long-suffering friend and disciple James Boswell. Yet Johnson had a vulnerable side, and anxieties and obsessions haunted his private hours. Boswell's sensitivity and insight into every facet of his subject's character ultimately make this biography as moving as it is entertaining.
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Discourses and Selected Writings In this personal, practical guide to the ethics of Stoicism and moral self-improvement, Epictetus tackles questions of freedom and imprisonment, illness and fear, family, friendship and love, and leaves an intriguing document of daily life in the classical world. In the intorduction that accompanies this lively new translation, Robert Dobbin discusses Epitetus' life, his palce in the Stoic tradition, his influence on world philosophies and his relevance in the modern day. This edition also includes a bibliography, notes and a glossary of names.
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Timaeus and Critias
The Timaeus-Critias is a Platonic treatise in two parts. A response to an account of an ideal state told by Socrates, it begins with Timaeus' theoretical exposition of the cosmos and his story describing the creation of the universe, from its very beginning to the coming into being of man. Timaeus introduces the idea of a creator God and expounds the structure and composition of the physical world. The Critias, the second part of Plato's work, comprises an account of the rise and fall of Atlantis, an ancient, mighty and prosperous empire ruled by the descendents of Poseidon, which ultimately sank into the sea. A key Platonic text, the Timaeus-Critias formed a central basis to Western thought and influenced subsequent philosophical doctrine.
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Two Lives of Charlemagne One of Literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit.
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The Jewel of Seven Stars A mysterious attack on Margaret Trelawney's father brings young lawyer Malcolm Ross into the Egyptologist's bizarre home, and the couple soon find they are battling ancient forces greater than they previously could have imagined. The Egyptian queen Tera has been awoken, and is coming to take what she believes to be hers - whatever the cost to the Trelawney family.
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A Christmas Carol & Other Christmas Writings After reading Christmas Carol, the notoriously reclusive Thomas Carlyle was "seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality" and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit, and about the season as a time for celebration, charity, and memory.
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Doveglion: Collected Poems
The centennial edition of major Filipino writer Jose Garcia Villa's collected poetry. Known as the 'Pope of Greenwich Village,' Jose Garcia Villa had a special status as the only Asian poet among a group of modern literary giants in 1940s New York that included W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and a young Gore Vidal. But beyond his exotic ethnicity, Villa was a global poet who was admired for 'the reverence, the raptness, the depth of concentration in [his] bravely deep poems' (Marianne Moore). Doveglion (Villa's pen name-for dove, eagle, and lion) contains Villa's collected poetry, including rare and previously unpublished material.
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Kusamakura A stunning new translation-the first in more than forty years-of a major novel by the father of modern Japanese fiction. Natsume Soseki's Kusamakura follows its nameless young artist-narrator on a meandering walking tour of the mountains. At the inn at a hot spring resort, he has a series of mysterious encounters with Nami, the lovely young daughter of the establishment. Nami, or 'beauty,' is the centre of this elegant novel, the still point around which the artist moves and the enigmatic subject of Soseki's word painting. In the author's words, Kusamakura is 'a haiku-style novel, that lives through beauty.' Written at a time when Japan was opening its doors to the rest of the world, Kusamakura turns inward, to the pristine mountain idyll and the taciturn lyricism of its courtship scenes, enshrining the essence of old Japan in a work of enchanting literary nostalgia.
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Ladies of the Corridor One of Literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit.
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Yevtushenko: Selected Poems This volume contains a selection of early works by Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko (b. 1933), who blazed a trail for a generation of Soviet poets with a confident poetic voice that moves effortlessly between social and personal themes. 'Zima Junction' vividly describes his idyllic childhood in Siberia and his impressions of home after a long absence in Moscow. Private moments are captured in 'Waking', on the joys of discovering the unexpected in a lover, and 'Birthday', on a mothers concern for her son, while 'Encounter' depicts an unexpected meeting with Hemingway in Copenhagen.
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Islam and the Crusades Islam and the Crusades contains the autobiographical works of Usama ibn Munqidh, a twelfth-century Arab aristocrat. Full of detail, wit and melancholy, Usama's narrative anecdotes illustrate the inscrutability of God's will in life, as well as providing a memorable record of Islam's long encounter with the Crusaders, known to Usama only as the Franks.
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God's Trombones In God's Trombones inspirational sermons of African American preachers are reimagined as poetry, reverberating with the musicality and splendid eloquence of the spirituals.
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The Portable Charles W Chesnutt An icon of nineteenth-century American fiction, Charles W. Chesnutt - an incisive storyteller of the aftermath of slavery in the South - is widely credited with almost single-handedly inaugurating the African American short story tradition and was the first African American novelist to achieve national critical acclaim.
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Selected Poems 'Softly in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the groundbreaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets. This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some of his most famous poems, such as 'Piano', a nostalgic reflection on lost youth and love for his mother; 'Snake', exploring human fear of the natural world; the short cutting comment on sexual politics of 'Can't Be Borne'; and the quiet philosophical resignation of 'Basta!' Using revised poems, but in the order in which they appeared in their original collection, this selection offers a fresh perspective that reveals an innovative poet who gave voice to his most intense emotions.
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Granite Island: Portrait of Corsica 'Get away from here before you're completely bewitched and enslaved...' Dorothy Carrington was told, while sitting in a fisherman's cafe at the magically quiet midday hour. But enslaved she was. Granite Island, much more than a travel book, grew out of years spent in Corsica and is an incomparably vivid and delightful portrait. For the first time Corsica is brought to light as a vital element in Europe: a highly individualistic island culture whose people have nurtured their love of freedom and political justice, as well as their pride, hospitality and poetry.
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An Organizer's Tale: Speeches The first major collection of writings by civil rights leader Cesar Chavez One of the most important civil rights leaders in American history, Cesar Chavez was a firm believer in the principles of non-violence, and he effectively employed peaceful tactics to further his cause. Through his efforts, he helped achieve dignity, fair wages, benefits, and humane working conditions for hundreds of thousands of farm workers. This extensive collection of Chavez's speeches and writings chronicles his progression and development as a leader, and includes previously unpublished material. From speeches to spread the word of the Delano Grape Strike to testimony before the House of Representatives about the hazards of pesticides, Chavez communicated in clear, direct language and motivated people everywhere with an unflagging commitment to his ideals.
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Selected Poems The poems selected in this volume display the extraordinary talent of Christina Rossetti, showing her to be one of the nineteenth century's most important English poets. Here, ordinary and magical worlds collide as humans speak to God, poets speak to their muses and hope battles against despair. Devotional poems such as 'St. Peter' and 'Out of the Deep' describe Rossetti's profound religious faith, while in 'A Christmas Carol' and 'At Last' she offers herself to God. Works such as 'Hope in Grief' show optimism in the face of loss, and 'Marina,' 'Heart's Chill Between,' 'L.E.L.' and 'Twice' are among many meditations on the bittersweet nature of love. This volume also includes the bewitching fantasy 'Goblin Market,' in which the mundane act of shopping becomes rife with fairy-tale enchantment and menace. In her introduction, Dinah Roe discusses Rossetti's complexity and imaginative powers; her life, literary career and religious beliefs; and the changing critical perceptions of her works. This edition includes further reading, a chronology and notes.
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Adam Bede Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire's son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris. A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.
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The Saga of the People of Laxardal: Bolli Bollason's Tale Gudrun is headstrong, proud and the most beautiful woman in Iceland. The tragic story of how she comes to betray and destroy the only man she has ever truly loved lies at the heart of this forceful family saga, which traces the passions and blood feuds of three generations of strong women, wise leaders and hot-headed warriors. Written around 1245 but telling of earlier centuries, when magic rites and sorcery clashed with spread of Christianity throughout a rapidly changing Viking world, this tale of revenge slayings and sacrifice, desire and regret, is one of the best loved works of Icelandic literature. The story of Bolli Bollason, Gudrun's adored son, and his fortune-seeking travels, also appears in this edition.
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The Vinland Sagas The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red's Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Written down in the early thirteenth century, they recount the Icelandic settlement of Greenland by Eirik the Red, the chance discovery by seafaring adventurers of a mysterious new land, and Eirik's son Leif the Lucky's perilous voyages to explore it. Wrecked by storms, stricken by disease and plagued by navigational mishaps, some survived the North Atlantic to pass down this compelling tale of the first Europeans to talk with, trade with, and war with the Native Americans.
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Electra & Other Plays Sophocles' innovative plays transformed Greek myths into dramas featuring complex human characters, through which he explored profound moral issues. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother's lover. Aeschylus and Euripides also dramatised this story, but the objectivity and humanity of Sophocles' version provides a new perspective. Depicting the fall of a great hero, Ajax examines the enigma of power and weakness combined in one being, while the Women of Trachis portrays the tragic love and error of Heracles' deserted wife Deianeira, and Philoctetes deals with the conflict between physical force and moral strength.
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The Ancient Regime & The French Revolution With this book, Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned a multivolume philosophic study of the origins of modern France that would examine the implications of French history on the nature and development of democratic society. Tocqueville worried that although the revolutionary legacy was still alive and well, liberty was no longer its primary objective. He believed, indeed, that it had been a casualty of how the French Revolution emerged. He feared that just as the first Republic had fallen to Napoleon and the second had succumbed to his nephew Napoleon III, all future revolutions might experience the same fate. Here he ruminates about the shortcomings of the French Revolution.
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Israel Potter: His Fifty Years Of Exile The authoritative edition of Melville's only historical novel Based on the life of an actual soldier who claimed to have fought at Bunker Hill, Israel Potter is unique among Herman Melville's books: a novel in the guise of a biography. In telling the story of Israel Potter's fall from Revolutionary War hero to peddler on the streets of London, where he obtained a livelihood by crying "Old Chairs to Mend," Melville alternated between invented scenes and historical episodes, granting cameos to such famous men of the era as Benjamin Franklin (Potter may have been his secret courier) and John Paul Jones, and providing a portrait of the American Revolution as the rollicking adventure and violent series of events that it really was. This edition of Israel Potter, which reproduces the definitive text, includes selections from Potter's autobiography, Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter, the basis for Melville's novel.
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Catiline's War & The Jugurthine War The earliest Roman historian with complete works to his name, Sallust (86-c. 35 BC) was a senator of the Roman Republic and younger contemporary of Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar. His Catiline's War tells of the conspiracy in 63 BD led by L. Sergius Catilina, who plotted to assassinate numerous senators and take control of the government, but was thwarted by Cicero. Sallust's vivid account of Roman public life shows a Republic in decline, prey to moral corruption and internal strife. In The Jugurthine War he describes Rome's fight n Africa against the king of the Numidians from 111 to 105 BC, and provides a damning picture of the Roman aristocracy. Also included in this volume are the major surviving extracts from Sallust's now fragmentary Histories, depicting Rome after the death in 78 BC of the dictator Sulla.
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The Selected Poems of Cavafy Cavafy is one of the most singular and poignant voices of twentieth-century European poetry, conjuring a magical world through lyrical evocations of remembered passions, imagined monologues and dramatic retellings of his native Alexandria's ancient past. Figures from antiquity speak with telling interruptions from the author in such poems as You did not understand, while precise moments of history are seen with a sense of foreboding, as in Ides of March and Nero's Deadline. And in poems that draw on his own life and surroundings, Cavafy recalls illicit trysts or glimpses of beautiful young men in One Night and The Café Entrance, and creates exquisite miniatures of everyday life in Of the Shop.
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Wings of the Dove Emerging from the grit and stigma of poverty to a life of fairytale privilege under the wing of her aunt, the beautiful and financially ambitious Kate Croy is already romantically involved with promising journalist Merton Densher when they become acquainted with Milly Theale, a New York socialite of immense wealth. Learning of Milly's mortal illness and passionate attraction to Densher, Kate sets the scene for a romantic betrayal intended to secure her lasting financial security. As the dying Milly retreats within the carnival splendour of a Venetian palazzo, becoming the frail hub of a predatory circle of fortune-seekers, James unfolds a resonant, brooding tale of doomed passion, betrayal, human resilience and remorse.
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The Ambassadors When Chadwick Newsome, a young American favoured with fortune and independence, becomes entangled in a liaison dangereux with a Parisian temptress, his overbearing mother deploys her future husband, the elderly, amiable Strether, as an ambassador to engineer his safe return. But seduced by the ambient charms of Paris and the bewitching comtesse de Vionnet, Strether soon deserts to Chadwick's side, initiating a sparkling tale of mistaken intentions, comic accident and false allegiances which culminates in the deployment of another, less fallible ambassador - the cold, glittering, ruthless Sarah Pocock.
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The Europeans Eugenia, an American expatriate brought up in Europe, arrives in rural New England with her charming brother Felix, hoping to find a wealthy second husband after the collapse of her marriage to a German prince. Their exotic, sophisticated airs cause quite a stir with their affluent, God-fearing American cousins, the Wentworths - and provoke the disapproval of their uncle, suspicions of foreign influences. To Gertrude Wentworth, struggling against her sombre puritan upbringing, the arrival of the handsome Felix is especially enchanting. One of Henry James’s most optimistic novels, The Europeans is a subtle and gentle ironic examination of manners and morals, deftly portraying the impact of experience upon innocence.
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Demons Pyotr and Stavrogin are the leaders of a Russian revolutionary cell. Their aim is to overthrow the Tsar, destroy society and seize power for themselves. Together they train terrorists who are willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals - even if the mission means suicide. But when it seems the group is about to be discovered, will their recruits be willing to kill one of their own circle in order to cover their tracks? Partly based on the real-life case of a student murdered by his fellow revolutionaries, Dostoyevsky's sprawling novel is a powerful and prophetic, yet lively and often comic depiction of nineteenth-century Russia, and a savage indictment of the madness and self-destruction of those who use violence to serve their beliefs.
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The Kreutzer Sonata & Other Stories: Family Happiness; the Kreutzer Sonaata; the Devil; Father Sergius "Each phase of life has its own love" In these four stories, Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) depicts desire in its different manifestations - from idealistic romance to sexual jealousy, from desperate lust to relentless longing. Family Happiness, an early work, portrays the struggles of a couple as they move from courtship and passion through disillusionment to the quieter stage of married love. A passenger tells a bitter tale of sex, suspicion and murder when strangers on a train discuss the nature of love in The Kruetzer Sonata, a novella banned for its scandalous content in 1890. In The Devil, a young man finds it impossible to resist a beautiful peasant woman with whom he had an affair before his marriage, while Father Sergius shows a man going to increasingly desperate ends - from a soldier to monk, to hermit to beggar - in order to avoid the temptations of the flesh. The translations by David McDuff and Paul Foote faithfully convey Tolstoy's candid, vigorous prose. This edition also includes a new introduction by Donna Orwin discussing Tolstoy's depiction of love and sex in these works, as well as a chronology, further reading and notes.
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The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney Set in Australia during the gold-mining boom, this remarkable trilogy is one of the classics of Australian literature. Henry Handel Richardson's great literary achievement, comprising the novels Australia Felix, The Way Home and Ultima Thule, weaves together many themes. Richard Mahony, despite finding initial contentment with his wife, Mary, becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his ordered life. His restlessness is not understood by Mary, who has to endure the constant shattering of her security as Richard desperately attempts to free himself; his attempts finally plunge them into poverty. In the figure of Richard Mahony, Richardson captures the soul of the emigrant, ever restless, ever searching for some equilibrium, yet never really able to settle anywhere. Richard's search, though, is also the more universal one for a meaning that will validate and give purpose to his existence.
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The Death of Ivan Illyich & Other Stories "There was no death. Instead of death there was light." At the age of forty-one, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) underwent a profound spiritual crisis, from which he emerged believing that he had encountered Death itself. These seven compelling stories explore, in very different ways, his subsequent preoccupation with mortality. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a devestating account of a man fighting his inevitable end, and ask the existential question: why must a good person be taken before his time? In Polikushka a light-fingered drunk's chance to prove himself has tragic repercussions, while Three Deaths depicts the last moments of an aristocrat, a peasant and a tree, and The Forged Coupon shows a seemingly minor offence that leads inexorably to ever more horrific crimes. And in three tales about soldiers, After the Ball, The Wood-felling and The Raid, Tolstoy portrays the brutality that all too often accompanies military life. The translations by Anthony Briggs, David McDuff and Ronald Wilks capture Tolstoy's powerful, vivid prose. This edition also includes a new introduction by Anthony Briggs discussing Tolstoy's breakdown and the effect this had on his writing, as well as a chronology, further reading and notes.
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The Rule of St Benedict Founder of a monastery at Monte Cassino, between Roma and Naples, in the sixth century, St Benedict intended his Rule to be a practical guide to Christian monasteric life. Based on the key precepts of humility, obedience and love, its aim is to create a harmonious and efficient religious community in which individuals can make progress in the Christian virtues and gain eternal life. Here, Benedict sets out ideal monastery routines and regulations, from the qualities of a good abbot, the twelve steps to war, humility and the value of silence to such everyday matters as kitchen duties, the care of the sick and the suitable punishment for lateness at mealtimes. Benedict's legacy is still strong – his Rule remains a source of inspiration and a key work in the history of the Christian church.
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Russian Thinkers Isaiah Berlin witnessed the excesses of the Russian Revolution as a child, and in becoming one of the key liberal intellects of the last century some of his most important contributions were on the subject of Russia and the concept of freedom. In the ten essays gathered here, Berlin addresses the great Russian minds of the nineteenth century: Herzen, Bakunin, Tutgenev, Belinsky and Tolstoy, as well as exploring the political and social revolutions they inspired and responded to. Berlin himself describes this extraordinary outpouring as `the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world'.
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Species of Spaces and Other Pieces Georges Perec (1936-82), author of the novel Life: A User's Manual, was one of the most surprising and enjoyable of all modern French writers. The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at others, but always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the "infra-ordinary", the things we do everyday – eating, sleeping, working – and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing. This volume contains a selection of Georges Perec's non-fiction works, along with a charming short story. It includes notes and an introduction describing Perec's life and career.
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Heart of Darkness Heart of Darkness has been considered for most of this century as a literary classic, and also as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians in one of the largest acts of genocide committed up to that time. Conrad's narrator encounters at the end of the story a man named Kurtz, dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities.
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The Portable Conrad A great novelist of the sea, a poet of the tropics, a critic of empire and analyst of globalization, a harbinger of the modern spy novel, an unparalleled observer of the moments in which people are stripped of their illusions – Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. This revised edition of The Portable Conrad features the best known and most enduring of Conrad's works, including The Secret Agent, Heart of Darkness, and The Nigger of the "Narcissus," as well as shorter tales like "Amy Forster" and "The Secret Sharer," a selection of letters, and his observations on the sinking of the Titanic.
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The Twelve Caesars As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero and the recovery that came with his successors. A masterpiece of observation, anecdote and detailed physical description, The Twelve Caesars presents us with a gallery of vividly drawn – and all too human – individuals.
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Critique of Pure Reason Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is the central text of modern philosophy. It brings together the two opposing schools of philosophy: rationalism, which grounds all our knowledge in reason, and empiricism, which traces all our knowledge to experience. The Critique is a profound and challenging investigation into the nature of human reason, establishing its truths and its falsities, its illusions and its reality. Reason, argues Kant, is the seat of all concepts, including God, freedom and immortality, and must therefore precede and surpass human experience. Marcus Weigelt's lucid re-working of Max Muller's classic translation makes the critique accessible to a new generation of readers. His informative introduction places the work in context and elucidates Kant's main arguments. This edition also contains a bibliography and explanatory notes.
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The Beast Within La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within.
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King Solomon's Mines La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart Three men trek to the remote African interior in search of a lost friend – and reach, at the end of a perilous journey, an unknown land cut off from the world, where terrible dangers threaten anyone who ventures near the spectacular diamond mines of King Solomon...
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Selected Poems: Tennyson The works in this volume trace nearly sixty years in the literary career of one of the nineteenth century's greatest poets, and show the wide variety of poetic forms he mastered. It gives some of Tennyson's most famous works in full, including Maud, depicting a tragic love affair, and In Memoriam, a profound tribute to his dearest friend. Excerpts from Idylls of the King show a lifelong passion for Arthurian legend, also seen in the dream-like Lady of Shalott and in Morte d'Arthur. Other works respond to contemporary events, such as Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, written in Tennyson's official role as Poet Laureate, or the patriotic Charge of the Light Brigade, while Locksley Hall provides a Utopian vision of the future, and the late poem Crossing the Bar is a haunting meditation on his own mortality. |
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Letters from My Windmill Alphonse Daudet's novels established him as the most successful writer in France by the end of the XIX century; but it was the LETTERS, first published in book form in 1869, which remained his favourite creation and has proved his most lasting. Throughout his working life in Paris Daudet never lost his almost umbilical attachment to Provence. These tales of that region are characterised by a tenderness and delicacy, a wistfulness and wry humour, which give moving substance to his claim that to invent, for him, was to remember.
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The Penguin Book of First World War Stories An anthology of Great War short stories by British writers, both famous and lesser-known authors, men and women, during the war and after its end. These stories are able to illustrate the impact of the Great War on British society and culture and the many modes in which short fiction contributed to the war's literature. The selection covers different periods: the war years themselves, the famous boom years of the late 1920s to the more recent past in which the First World War has received new cultural interest.
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War & Peace At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace (1868-9), Tolstoy entwines grand themes – conflict and love, birth and death, free will and fate – with unforgettable scenes of nineteenth-century Russia, to create a magnificent epic of human life in all its imperfection and grandeur. |
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Selected Poems: Milton The poems of John Milton (1608-74) have inspired readers for generations and the selection in this new edition spans his entire career, from his earliest works to the magnificent epics of his later life. The devotional 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity', his first great poem, anticipates the probing religious questions of Paradise Lost. Works such as 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso' consider divisions of loyalties, while 'A Masque' ('Comus') explores Milton's great theme of temptation, and the pastoral elegy 'Lycidas' contemplates mortality and the meaning of human life. This volume includes considerable selections from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained – Milton's late epics on the Fall of Man and Christ's temptation in the wilderness – and the complete Samson Agonistes, in which the great hero undergoes a profound crisis of faith in his final hours.
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The Divine Comedy: Paradiso Having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory in parts one and two of the Divine Comedy, Dante ascends to Heaven in this third and final part, continuing his soul's search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise he grows in understanding, until he finally experiences divine love in the radiant presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, Dante exercised all his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.
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The Divine Comedy: Inferno Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin. |
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The Divine Comedy: Purgatory In Purgatorio Dante, having described his journey into Hell, narrates his ascent of Mount Purgatory with Virgil, as he encounters penitents who toil through physical agonies, starvation and flames to assuage their earthly vices. Only by learning from them can he achieve his final enlightened transition to the lost Earthly Paradise at the mountain's summit, where he meets his dead love, Beatrice, and prepares to ascend to Heaven. Depicting a realm of intense sensation and physical experience, Dante's poem transformed the traditional Christian idea of Purgatory by showing how the free will of the aspiring soul could change wordly perversions into perfection. It is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human possibility, hope and redemption. |
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The Secret History A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. Yet all the while the dutiful scribe was working on a very different – and dangerous – history to be published only once its author was safely in his grave. The Secret History portrays the 'great lawgiver' Justinian as a rampant king of corruption and tyranny, the Empress Theodora as a sorceress and whore, and the brilliant general Belisarius as the pliable dupe of his scheming wife Antonina. Magnificently hyperbolic and highly opinionated, The Secret History is a work of explosive energy, depicting holy Byzantium as a hell of murder and misrule.
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The Black Arrow Caught in the midst of England's War of the Roses, young Dick Shelton's loyalties are torn between a guardian who betrays him and the leader of the secret fellowship, "The Black Arrow". the Houses of York and Lancaster are locked in a brutal struggle for England's crown and the fate of the kingdom is at stake. Shelton finds himself entangled in the conspiracy. In order to survive he must distinguish friend from foe and confront the tests of war, shipwreck, murder and forbidden love. |
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Kidnapped This is the story of sixteen-year-old David Balfour, an orphan, who after being kidnapped by his villainous uncle manages to escape and becomes involved in the struggle of the Scottish highlanders against English rule. |
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Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Great Speeches The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time – phrases such as 'iron curtain', 'business as usual', 'the few', and 'summit meeting' passed quickly into everyday use – Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty. In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, 'he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle' (Edward R. Murrow). |
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Arabian Sands Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated at Eton and Oxford. Though British, he was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life, "the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets, etc." In the spirit of T.E. Lawrence, Thesiger spent five years exploring and wandering the deserts of Arabia. With vivid descriptions and colourful anecdotes he narrates his stories, including two crossings of the Empty Quarter, among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. |
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The Marsh Arabs During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail. Untouched by the modern world until recently, these independent people, their way of life and their surroundings have suffered widespread destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wilfred Thesiger's magnificent account of his time spent among them is a moving testament to their now threatened culture and the landscape they inhabit. |
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A Dog's Heart This is Bulgakov's surreal tale of a Moscow doctor who befriends a stray dog and performs on it a human transplant - with disastrous consequences. |
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A Dead Man's Memoir This is Bulgakov's semi-autobiographical story of a writer who fails to sell his novel and fails to commit suicide. When his play is taken up by the theatre, literary success beckons, but he has reckoned without the grotesquely inflated egos of the actors, directors and theatre managers. |
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The Master and Margarita The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices - including a demonic, gun-toting tomcat - he immediately begins to create havoc. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves . . . |
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The Aeneid The Aeneid is a sweeping epic of arms and heroism and a searching portrait of a man caught between love, duty, and the force of his own destiny. Here, Fagles brings to life the timeless journey of Aeneas - Achilles' erstwhile foe - as he flees the ashes of Troy to found the Roman people and change forever the course of the Western world.
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The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, leaves the easy life of the Happy Valley, accompanied by his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah, and the much-travelled philosopher Imlac. Their journey takes them to Egypt, where they study the various conditions of men's lives, before returning home in a 'conclusion in which nothing is concluded'. Johnson's tale is not only a satire on optimism, but also an expression of truth about the human mind and its infinite capacity for hope. |
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The Nature of Things Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is mortal, and the world and everything in it is governed by the mechanical laws of nature and not by gods; and that by believing this men can live in peace of mind and happiness. He bases this on the atomic theory expounded by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, and continues with an examination of sensation, sex, cosmology, meteorology, and geology, all of these subjects made more attractive by the poetry with which he illustrates them. |
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The Secret Agent In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verlac, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verlac must deal with the repercussions of his actions. |
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Lord Jim This compact novel, completed in 1900, as with so many of the great novels of the time, is at its baseline a book of the sea. An English boy in a simple town has dreams bigger than the outdoors and embarks at an early age into the sailor's life. The waters he travels reward him with the ability to explore the human spirit, while Joseph Conrad launches the story into both an exercise of his technical prowess and a delicately crafted picture of a character who reaches the status of a literary hero. |
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Nostromo Nostromo, published in 1904, is one of Conrad's finest works. Nostromo - though one hundred years old - says as much about today's Latin America as any of the finest recent accounts of that region's turbulent political life. Insistently dramatic in its storytelling, spectacular in its recreation of the subtropical landscape, this picture of an insurrectionary society and the opportunities it provides for moral corruption gleams on every page with its author's dry, undeceived, impeccable intelligence. |
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The Nigger of 'Narcissus' & Other Stories The volume includes: 'Youth'; 'The Secret Sharer'; 'The Lagoon'; 'An Outpost of Progress'; 'Il Conde'; 'The Duel'. The intention is a range of settings - we move from the sea to the colonial world, the Far East and Africa to England and then the Continent. |
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Under Western Eyes 'It was I who removed de P- this morning.' With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a 'dense Westerner' to the end. |
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Typhoon & Other Stories In these four stories, written between 1900 and 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea and began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In 'Typhoon' Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct and intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival. 'Falk', the companion sea-story, contrasts, as Conrad once put it, 'common sentimentalism with the frank standpoint of a more or less primitive man', a man with a conscience, however, about the girl he desires. In one of the 'land-stories' Conrad explores the utter isolation of an East European emigrant in England; in the other, the plight of a woman ironically trapped by the unwitting alliance of two retired widowers - each blind in his own way. |