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books tagged “19th c.”
books tagged “19th c.”
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Adam Bedeby George Eliot, Valentine CunninghamISBN 0192834959 (0-19-283495-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Adam Bede'Book summary:In Adam Bede (1859) George Eliot took the well-worn tale of a lovely dairy-maid seduced by a careless squire, and out if it created a wonderfully innovative and sympathetic portrait of the lives of ordinary Midlands working people--their labors and loves, their beliefs, their talk. This edition reprints the original broadsheet reports of the murder case that was a starting point for the book, and detailed notes illuminate Eliot's many literary and Biblical allusions. [via]
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmesby Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Lancelyn GreenISBN 0192823787 (0-19-282378-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Allan Quatermainby H. Rider Haggard, Dennis ButtsISBN 0192822977 (0-19-282297-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Allan Quatermain'Book summary:This sequel to King Solomon's Mines is based on Rider Haggard's own experiences in Africa. During their search for a white race reputed to live near Mount Kenya, Allan Quatermain and his companions undergo a series of dangerous and thrilling adventures. The dramatic and often poetic story reveals Victorian preoccupations with evolution, race, sexuality, and the "New Woman." This is the only critical edition available, and the notes help clarify many of the contemporary references Haggard makes throughout the tale. [via]
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Around the World in Eighty Daysby Jules Verne, William ButcherISBN 0192830937 (0-19-283093-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Around the World in Eighty Days'Book summary:Around the World in Eighty Days has been a bestseller for over a century, but it has never before appeared in a critical edition. While most translations misread or even abridge the original, this stylish new version is completely true to Verne's classic, moving as fast and as brilliantly as Phineas Fogg's own race against time. Around the World in Eighty Days offers a strong dose of post-romantic reality but not a shred of science fiction: its modernism lies instead in the experimental technique and Verne's unique twisting of space and time. [via]
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Aurora Leighby Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Kerry McSweeneyISBN 0192828754 (0-19-282875-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Aurora Leigh'Book summary:This verse-novel is a detailed representation of the early-Victorian age. The social panorama extends from the slums of London, through the literary world, to the upper classes and a number of satirical portraits: an aunt with rigidly conventional notions of female education; Romney Leigh, the Christian socialist; Lord Howe, the amateur radical; sir Blaise Delorme, the ostentatious Roman Catholic; and the unscrupulous society beauty, Lady Waldemar. However, the dominant presence in the work is the narrator, Aurora Leigh herself. From early years in Italy and adolescence in the West country, to the vocational choices, creative struggles, and emotional entanglements of her early adult life, Aurora Leigh develops her ideas on love, art, God, the Woman Question, and society. This edition is critically edited and fuly annotated. It should be of interest to readers of Victorian poetry and students of 19th-century English literature and women's writing. [via]
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The Awakeningby Kate Chopin, Pamela KnightsISBN 0192823000 (0-19-282300-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Before the Stormby Theodor Fontane, R.J. HollingdaleISBN 0192816497 (0-19-281649-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Birth of Tragedyby Friedrich Nietzsche, Douglas SmithISBN 0192832921 (0-19-283292-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Birth of Tragedy'Book summary:In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche expounds on the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. He declares it to be the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche critiques complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. A wide ranging discussion of the nature of art, science, and religion, The Birth of Tragedy's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still valid today. [via]
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Bostoniansby Henry James, R. D. GooderISBN 0192834428 (0-19-283442-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bostonians'Book summary:The plot of this novel revolves around the feminist movement in Boston in the 1870's. F.R. Leavis called it one of "the 2 most brilliant novels in the language. "The novel's many allusions to the historical and social background of Boston society are explained in the editorial material. [via]
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Bride of Lammermoorby Walter Scott, Fiona RobertsonISBN 0192817914 (0-19-281791-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bride of Lammermoor'Book summary:The text is based on the Magnum Opus' edition of 1830. First published in 1918, "The Bride of Lammermoor" is Scott's classic tale of the romance between Edgar, Master of Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton. The novel also establishes its own status as both an historical document and a work of art. [via]
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The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Storiesby Jack London, Robert C. Leitz, Earle LaborISBN 019282709X (0-19-282709-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Captains Courageousby Rudyard Kipling, Leonee OrmondISBN 0192829297 (0-19-282929-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes IIby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 0192823744 (0-19-282374-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Christmas Booksby Charles Dickens, Ruth GlancyISBN 0192817906 (0-19-281790-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Christmas Books'Book summary:These five short novels, written for Christmas 1843 to 1848, demonstrate Dickens' most characteristic writing. The volume includes A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Haunted Man, The Cricket on the Hearth, and The Battle of Life. [via]
Classic Scottish Short Storiesby J.M. ReidISBN 0192826867 (0-19-282686-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writingsby Thomas De QuinceyISBN 0192816756 (0-19-281675-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings'Book summary:This unique selection includes a number of texts not available elsewhere. [via]
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Count of Monte Cristoby Alexandre Dumas, David CowardISBN 0192833952 (0-19-283395-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Count of Monte Cristo'Book summary:The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great literary adventures, indeed William Thackeray was so enthralled he began reading `at six one morning and never stopped till eleven at night'. The hero is Edmond Dant 'es, a young sailor who, falsely accused of treason, is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the island fortress of Ch teau d'If. After staging a dramatic escape he sets out to discover the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo and catch up with his enemies. A novel of enormous tension and excitement, Monte Cristo is also a tale of obsession and revenge, with Dant 'es, believing himself to be an `Angel of Providence', pursuing his vengeance to the bitter end before realizing that he himself is a victim of fate. This new edition uses the classic, anonymous translation that has been in print since the nineteenth century. This book is intended for general readers; students of French literature. [via]
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Dead Soulsby Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol, Christopher EnglishISBN 0192818376 (0-19-281837-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dead Souls'Book summary:Gogol's tale of a dismissed civil servant turned unscrupulous confidence man is the most essentially Russian of all the great novels in Russian literature. With its rich and ebullient language, ironic twists, and cast of comedic characters, Dead Souls (1842) stands as one of the most dazzling and poetic masterpieces of the nineteenth century. This brilliant new translation by Christopher English is complemented by a superb introductory essay by the pre-eminent Gogol scholar, Robert Maguire. [via]
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Elective Affinitiesby Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, David ConstantineISBN 0192828614 (0-19-282861-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Elective Affinities'Book summary:Elective Affinities was written when Goethe was sixty and long established as Germany's literary giant. This is a new edition of his penetrating study of marriage and passion, bringing together four people in an inexorable manner. The novel asks whether we have free will or not and confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of repressing what little "real life" they have in themselves, a life so far removed from their natural states that it appears to them as something terrible and destructive. [via]
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Eugene Oneginby James E. Falen, Aleksandr Sergeevich PushkinISBN 0192824910 (0-19-282491-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Eustace Diamondsby Anthony Trollope, W.J. Mc Cormack, Blair Hughes-StantonISBN 0192834665 (0-19-283466-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Flowers of Evilby Charles Baudelaire, James McGowan, Jonathan CullerISBN 0192829726 (0-19-282972-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Flowers of Evil'Book summary:This bold new translation with facing French text restores once banned poems to their original places and reveals the full richness and variety of the collection. This book is intended for general readers interested in Baudelaire, French poetry and 19th-century French culture. Students of Baudelaire, French literature. [via]
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Frances Hodgson Burnett's the Secret Gardenby Dennis Butts, Frances Hodgson BurnettISBN 0192817728 (0-19-281772-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Frances Hodgson Burnett's the Secret Garden'Book summary:Mistress Mary is quite contrary until she helps her garden grow. Along the way, she manages to cure her sickly cousin Colin, who is every bit as truculent as she. These two are sullen little peas in a pod, cooped up in a gloomy old manor on the Yorkshire moors, until a locked-up garden captures their imaginations and puts the blush of a wild rose in their cheeks; "It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of roses which were so thick, that they matted together.... 'No wonder it is still,' Mary whispered. 'I am the first person who has spoken here for ten years.'" As new life sprouts from the earth, Mary and Colin's sour natures begin to sweeten. For anyone who has ever felt afraid to live and love, The Secret Garden's portrayal of reawakening spirits will thrill and rejuvenate. Frances Hodgson Burnett creates characters so strong and distinct, young readers continue to identify with them even 85 years after they were conceived. (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
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The French Revolution: A Historyby Thomas CarlyleISBN 0192818430 (0-19-281843-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Germinal: Library Editionby Emile Zola, Peter CollierISBN 0192827014 (0-19-282701-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Germinal: Library Edition'Book summary:Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolize the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted "Germinal! Germinal!"
While it is a dramatic novel of working life and everyday relationships, Germinal is also a complex novel of ideas, given fresh vigor and power in this new translation. It is also the thirteenth book in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, which celebrates its centenary in October 1993 with a new film version of Germinal starring Gerard Depardieu. [via]More editions of Germinal: Library Edition:
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The Golden Bowlby Henry James, Virginia Llewellyn SmithISBN 0192816535 (0-19-281653-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Bowl'Book summary:'A thing to marvel at, a thing to be grateful for.'
A rich American art-collector and his daughter Maggie buy in for themselves and to their greater glory a beautiful young wife and noble husband. They do not know that Charlotte and Prince Amerigo were formerly lovers, nor that on the eve of the Prince's marriage they had discovered, in a Bloomsbury antique shop, a golden bowl with a secret flaw. The superstitious Amerigo, fearing for his gilded future, refuses to accept it as a wedding gift from Charlotte. 'Don't you think too much of "cracks,"' she is later to say to him, 'aren't you too afraid of them? I risk the cracks...' When the golden bowl is broken, Maggie must leave the security of her childhood and try to reassemble the pieces of her shattered happiness.
In this, the last of his three great poetic masterpieces, James combined with a dazzling virtuosity elements of social comedy, of mystery, terror, and myth. "The Golden Bowl" is the most controversial, ambiguous, and sophisticated of James's novels.
The text of this World's Classics paperback is that of the first English edition (1905). James's Preface is included, and a new introduction, notes, and selected variant readings. [via]
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Hide and Seekby Wilkie Collins, Catherine PetersISBN 0192830929 (0-19-283092-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hide and Seek'Book summary:At the center of Hide and Seek 1854 a secret waits to be revealed. Why should the apparently respectable painter Valentine Blyth refuse to account for the presence in his household of the beautiful girl known only as Madonna? It is not until his young friend Zack Thorpe--rebelling against his repressive father--takes up with bad company and meets a mysterious stranger that the secret of Madonna can be unravelled. [via]
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His Last Bowby Arthur Conan Doyle, Owen Dudley EdwardsISBN 0192823817 (0-19-282381-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.by William Makepeace ThackerayISBN 0192827278 (0-19-282727-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.'Book summary:Orphaned in the England of the later Stuarts, Henry Esmonde is raised by his aristocratic, Jacobite relatives the Castlewoods. As a young man he falls in love with both Lady Castlewood and Beatrix, her beautiful, headstrong daughter, and is inspired to join the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to reinstate James Stuart to the throne. Thackeray valued Henry Esmonde more than any of his other novels and it displays many of his own memories and emotions. [via]
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The Hound of the Baskervillesby Arthur Conan Doyle, W.W. RobsonISBN 0192823779 (0-19-282377-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'Book summary:We owe 1902's The Hound of the Baskervilles to Arthur Conan Doyle's good friend Fletcher "Bobbles" Robinson, who took him to visit some scary English moors and prehistoric ruins, and told him marvelous local legends about escaped prisoners and a 17th-century aristocrat who fell afoul of the family dog. Doyle transmogrified the legend: generations ago, a hound of hell tore out the throat of devilish Hugo Baskerville on the moonlit moor. Poor, accursed Baskerville Hall now has another mysterious death: that of Sir Charles Baskerville. Could the culprit somehow be mixed up with secretive servant Barrymore, history-obsessed Dr. Frankland, butterfly-chasing Stapleton, or Selden, the Notting Hill murderer at large? Someone's been signaling with candles from the mansion's windows. Nor can supernatural forces be ruled out. Can Dr. Watson--left alone by Sherlock Holmes to sleuth in fear for much of the novel--save the next Baskerville, Sir Henry, from the hound's fangs?
Many Holmes fans prefer Doyle's complete short stories, but their clockwork logic doesn't match the author's boast about this novel: it's "a real Creeper!" What distinguishes this particular Hound is its fulfillment of Doyle's great debt to Edgar Allan Poe--it's full of ancient woe, low moans, a Grimpen Mire that sucks ponies to Dostoyevskian deaths, and locals digging up Neolithic skulls without next-of-kins' consent. "The longer one stays here the more does the spirit of the moor sink into one's soul," Watson realizes. "Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay ... while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet ... it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths." Read on--but, reader, watch your step! --Tim Appelo [via]
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The Idiotby Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan MyersISBN 0192834118 (0-19-283411-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Idiot'Book summary:The Idiot (1868), written under the appalling personal circumstances Dostoevsky endured while travelling in Europe, not only reveals the author's acute artistic sense and penetrating psychological insight, but also affords his most powerful indictment of a Russia struggling to emulate contemporary Europe while sinking under the weight of Western materialism. It is the portrait of nineteenth-century Russian society in which a "positively good man" clashes with the emptiness of a society that cannot accomodate his moral idealism. Meticulously faithful to the original, this new translation includes explanatory notes and a critical introduction by W.J. Leatherbarrow. [via]
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The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Playsby Oscar Wilde, Peter RabyISBN 0192834444 (0-19-283444-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays'Book summary:Oscar Wilde was already one of the best-known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. This collection offers newly edited texts of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and, arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English, The Importance of Being Earnest. [via]
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In a Glass Darklyby Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert TracyISBN 0192828053 (0-19-282805-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Jungle Booksby Rudyard Kipling, W.W. RobsonISBN 0192835033 (0-19-283503-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Jungle Books'Book summary:The Jungle Books, regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children and best known for the "Mowgli" series, also constitutes a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is expressed in miniature. The stories, a mixture of fantasy, myth and magic, are underpinned by Kipling's abiding preoccupation with the theme of self-discovery and the nature of the "Law." [via]
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Kimby Rudyard Kipling, Alan SandisonISBN 0192816519 (0-19-281651-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kim'Book summary:One of the particular pleasures of reading Kim is the full range of emotion, knowledge, and experience that Rudyard Kipling gives his complex hero. Kim O'Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier stationed in India, is neither innocent nor victimized. Raised by an opium-addicted half-caste woman since his equally dissolute father's death, the boy has grown up in the streets of Lahore:
Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very poorest.
From his father and the woman who raised him, Kim has come to believe that a great destiny awaits him. The details, however, are a bit fuzzy, consisting as they do of the woman's addled prophecies of "'a great Red Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and'--dropping into English--'nine hundred devils.'"In the meantime, Kim amuses himself with intrigues, executing "commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion." His peculiar heritage as a white child gone native, combined with his "love of the game for its own sake," makes him uniquely suited for a bigger game. And when, at last, the long-awaited colonel comes along, Kim is recruited as a spy in Britain's struggle to maintain its colonial grip on India. Kipling was, first and foremost, a man of his time; born and raised in India in the 19th century, he was a fervid supporter of the Raj. Nevertheless, his portrait of India and its people is remarkably sympathetic. Yes, there is the stereotypical Westernized Indian Babu Huree Chander with his atrocious English, but there is also Kim's friend and mentor, the Afghani horse trader Mahub Ali, and the gentle Tibetan lama with whom Kim travels along the Grand Trunk Road. The humanity of his characters consistently belies Kipling's private prejudices, and raises Kim above the mere ripping good yarn to the level of a timeless classic. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The Ladies' Paradiseby Emile Zola, Brian NelsonISBN 0192831801 (0-19-283180-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ladies' Paradise'Book summary:The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) recounts the rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family: it is emblematic of changes in consumer culture and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place at the end of the century. This new translation of the eleventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle captures the spirit of one of Zola's greatest works. [via]
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Lady Annaby Anthony TrollopeISBN 0192821342 (0-19-282134-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Lady Audley's Secretby David Skilton, Mary E. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth BraddonISBN 0192817418 (0-19-281741-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Audley's Secret'Book summary:This novel, with its most untypically forceful heroine, can be seen as an anticipation of Ibsen's great dramas, and as an unabashed bid for freedom from the constraints of Victorian womanhood. [via]
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Lady Windermere's Fan/Salome/a Woman of No Importance/an Ideal Husband/the Importance of Being Earnestby Oscar Wilde, Peter RabyISBN 0192822462 (0-19-282246-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Windermere's Fan/Salome/a Woman of No Importance/an Ideal Husband/the Importance of Being Earnest'Book summary:Oscar Wilde was already one of the best-known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. This collection offers newly edited texts of Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, Salome, An Ideal Husband, and, arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English, The Importance of Being Earnest. [via]
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The Last of the Mohicansby James Fenimore CooperISBN 0192826387 (0-19-282638-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last of the Mohicans'Book summary:Set in 1757, during the American colonial wars between the English and French, this second of Cooper's five tales shows both camps united in dispossessing the native Indians and concentrates on the adventures of three men on their way to join the besieged Fort William Henry on Lake George. [via]
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Lorna Dooneby R. D. BlackmoreISBN 0192817671 (0-19-281767-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lorna Doone'Book summary:"Lorna Doone" is the perenially popular story of how John Ridd, a Devon farmer, falls in love with the aristocratic Lorna Doone, kidnapped as a child by the outlaw Doones of Exmoor. Since it was first published in 1869, the novel has remained constantly in print. This text of "Lorna Doone" is accompanied by an examination of the novel in its different contexts as a romance, as an historical novel set at the time of the Monmouth Rebellion in the 17th century, and as a new development in the pastoral tradition. The editor discusses Victorian social values and the image of a "manly" hero whose inward doubts prompt him constantly to prove his own masculinity to himself. Sally Shuttleworth is the author of "George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science" and co-editor with John Christie of "Transfigurations - Essays on Science and Literature 1700-1900". [via]
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Lost Worldby Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian DuncanISBN 0192833529 (0-19-283352-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lost World'Book summary:Forget the Michael Crichton book (and Spielberg movie) that copied the title. This is the original: the terror-adventure tale of The Lost World. Writing not long after dinosaurs first invaded the popular imagination, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spins a yarn about an expedition of two scientists, a big-game hunter, and a journalist (the narrator) to a volcanic plateau high over the vast Amazon rain forest. The bickering of the professors (a type Doyle knew well from his medical training) serves as witty contrast to the wonders of flora and fauna they encounter, building toward a dramatic moonlit chase scene with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And the character of Professor George E. Challenger is second only to Sherlock Holmes in the outrageous force of his personality: he's a big man with an even bigger ego, and if you can grit your teeth through his racist behavior toward Native Americans, he's a lot of fun. [via]
The Man Who Would Be King and Other Storiesby Rudyard Kipling, Louis L. CornellISBN 0192816748 (0-19-281674-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Mary Bartonby Edgar Wright, Elizabeth GaskellISBN 0192817507 (0-19-281750-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mary Barton'Book summary:This is Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, a widely acclaimed work based on the actual murder, in 1831, of a progressive mill owner. It follows Mary Barton, daughter of a man implicated in the murder, through her adolescence, when she suffers the advances of the mill owner, and later through love and marriage. Set in Manchester, between 1837-42, it paints a powerful and moving picture of working-class life in Victorian England. [via]
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The Masterpieceby Thomas Walton, Emile Zola, Roger PearsonISBN 0192829068 (0-19-282906-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Masterpiece'Book summary:The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zola's career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public. [via]
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McTeagueby Frank Norris, Jerome LovingISBN 0192823566 (0-19-282356-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'McTeague'Book summary:The novelist Frank Norris is almost forgotten today, but in books like "McTeague," published in 1899, he paved the way for a whole generation of American writers--a generation that included Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis and, less directly, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. McTeague is a dentist saddled with a grasping wife, and the book chronicles his rise and fall in awkward but powerful prose. This type of social realism, so contrary to the uplifting entertainment of the day (and to Mark Twain's more fanciful, comic novels), provided turn-of-the-century America a disturbing mirror in which to view itself. [via]
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The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.by William Makepeace Thackeray, Andrew SandersISBN 0192816675 (0-19-281667-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.'Book summary:First published in 1844, this is Thackeray's earliest substantial work of fiction and perhaps his most original. The text is that of Saintbury's 1908 Oxford edition which incorporates Thackeray's revisions. [via]
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The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmesby Arthur Conan Doyle, Christopher RodenISBN 0192823752 (0-19-282375-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'Book summary:Penzler Pick, February 2000: What is there about the greatest series of short stories in the history of the world that hasn't already been said? This is the second (of five) story collections by Doyle about the greatest detective in literature--and a splendid volume it is, containing such superb puzzles as "The Greek Interpreter," in which readers are introduced to Mycroft Holmes; "The Musgrave Ritual"; "Silver Blaze"; and the earth-shattering "The Final Adventure," recounting the struggle between Holmes and the evil Professor Moriarty in which the two titans were apparently killed as they went over the edge of the Reichenbach Falls.
But every mystery reader already knows this. I'm pointing out this marvelous book because it has been extensively annotated by a fine Sherlockian scholar, Les Klinger, who has brought to all serious students of the Holmesian canon a level of erudition seldom encountered. In addition to the expected illustrations from The Strand magazine and meticulous scrutiny of chronological evidence of various events, there are references to primary sources and a staggering helping of information from the thousands of works about Sherlock Holmes by others.
More than 30 years ago, another great Sherlockian scholar, William S. Baring-Gould, produced a ground-breaking volume that enjoyed more than 35 printings in its original two-volume format and probably sold just as many copies in a slightly less elaborate one-volume size. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes became the single most essential volume in the library of any true Sherlockian, of which the world has far more than you think.
Les Klinger has acknowledged Baring-Gould in every way imaginable, and it was an act of extraordinary courage to attempt to supercede that monumental work. But that is exactly what he appears to be doing. The first volume, his annotated edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was introduced by the same publisher last year. There are seven yet to come.
If you want to master just about everything there is to know about The Great Detective and The Good Doctor, to understand what Holmes meant when he referred to "a comet vintage" of wine, and to know what discrepancies there are between the English and American editions of the works, plus a thousand other things relating to Holmes, Watson, and the England of the Victorian era, you must have this volume, as well as all the others in the series as they become available over the next few years. --Otto Penzler [via]
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucketby Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald KennedyISBN 0192828444 (0-19-282844-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'Book summary:Contains Poe's only novel and eight short stories which further illustrate themes related to "Pym". "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" is the archetypal American story of escape from home and family, which traces a young man's rites of passage during a fateful sea voyage. [via]
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New Grub Streetby George Gissing, John GoodeISBN 0192829637 (0-19-282963-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Nicholas Nickleby: Library Editionby Charles Dickens, Paul SchlickeISBN 0192817949 (0-19-281794-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nicholas Nickleby: Library Edition'Book summary:This edition of the celebrated novel by Dickens comes with extensive notes and an appendix reproducing the Nickleby "Proclamation" - a pre-publication advertisement for the novel signed by "Boz". [via]
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North and Southby Angus Easson, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Sally ShuttleworthISBN 0192831941 (0-19-283194-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'North and South'Book summary:Mary Gaskell's North and South examines the nature of social authority and obedience and provides an insightful description of the role of middle class women in nineteenth century society. Through the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skillfully explores issues of class and gender, as Margaret's sympathy for the town mill workers conflicts with her growing attraction to the mill owner, John Thornton. This new and revised expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate. [via]
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Notre-Dame De Parisby Victor Hugo, Alban KrailsheimerISBN 0192829114 (0-19-282911-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Notre-Dame De Paris'Book summary:At the center of Hugo's classic novel are three extraordinary characters caught in a web of fatal obsession. The grotesque hunchback Quasimodo, bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, owes his life to the austere archdeacon, Claude Frollo, who in turn is bound by a hopeless passion to the gypsy dancer Esmeralda. She, meanwhile, is bewitched by a handsome, empty-headed officer, but by an unthinking act of kindness wins Quasimodo's selfless devotion. Behind the central figures moves a pageant of picturesque characters, including the underworld of beggars and petty criminals whose assault on the cathedral is one of the most spectacular set-pieces of Romantic literature.
Alban Kraisheimer's new translation offers a fresh approach to this monumental work by France's most celebrated Romantic authors. [via]More editions of Notre-Dame De Paris:
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The Origin of Species: Library Editionby Charles Robert Darwin, Gillian BeerISBN 019283438X (0-19-283438-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origin of Species: Library Edition'Book summary:In The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply-held beliefs of the Western world. Arguing for a material, not divine, origin of species, he showed that new species are achieved by "natural selection." The Origin communicates the enthusiasm of original thinking in an open, descriptive style, and Darwin's emphasis on the value of diversity speaks more strongly now than ever. As well as a stimulating introduction and detailed notes, this edition offers a register of the many writers referred to by Darwin in the text. [via]
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The Origin of Species: Library Editionby Gillian Beer, Charles Robert DarwinISBN 0192817833 (0-19-281783-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origin of Species: Library Edition'Book summary:In The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply-held beliefs of the Western world. Arguing for a material, not divine, origin of species, he showed that new species are achieved by "natural selection." The Origin communicates the enthusiasm of original thinking in an open, descriptive style, and Darwin's emphasis on the value of diversity speaks more strongly now than ever. As well as a stimulating introduction and detailed notes, this edition offers a register of the many writers referred to by Darwin in the text. [via]
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Our Mutual Friendby Charles Dickens, Michael CotsellISBN 0192817957 (0-19-281795-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Mutual Friend'Book summary:Our Mutual Friend was the last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river.
Harmon's death is the catalyst for everything else that happens in the novel. It seems the fortune was left to the young man on the condition that he marry a girl he'd never met, Bella Wilfer. His death, however, brings a new heir onto the scene, Nicodemus Boffin, the kind-hearted but low-born assistant to Harmon's father. Boffin and his wife adopt young Bella, who is determined to marry money, and also hire a mysterious young secretary, John Rokesmith, who takes an uncommon interest in their ward. Not content with just one plot, Dickens throws in a secondary love story featuring the riverman's daughter, Lizzie Hexam; a dissolute young upper-class lawyer, Eugene Wrayburn; and his rival, the headmaster Bradley Headstone. Dark as the novel is, Dickens is careful to leaven it with secondary characters who are as funny as they are menacing--blackmailing Silas Wegg and his accomplice Mr. Venus, the avaricious Lammles, and self-centered Charlie Hexam. Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens's most satisfying novels, and a fitting denouement to his prolific career. --Alix Wilber [via]
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A Pair of Blue Eyesby Thomas Hardy, Alan ManfordISBN 0192816845 (0-19-281684-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Pair of Blue Eyes'Book summary:This novel is of special interest because of the strong autobiographical parallels between the characters and circumstances of Stephen Smith and Elfride Swancourt and those of Hardy and his first wife Emma Gifford. This was the third of Hardy's novels to be published and the first to bear his name. [via]
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Peer Gyntby Henrik Ibsen, Christopher Fry, Johan FillingerISBN 0192822276 (0-19-282227-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Peer Gynt'Book summary:Ibsen wrote "Peer Gynt" while in Italy in 1867. He warned his publisher that it would be "a large-scale dramatic poem, the main character of which is to be one of those half-mythological fairy-tale figures in the public domain from the recent past". It was his last work to use poetry as a medium of dramatic expression, but it carries the marks of his later prose plays in the kind of spare, dramatically eloquent dialogue which has become characteristic of 20th century drama. "Peer Gynt" draws on Ibsen's own childhood and character - he wrote that he derived many features of Peer Gynt "from self-dissection". The present translation is taken from the Oxford Ibsen series and should be of interest to students of 19th and 20th century drama and Scandinavian studies as well as the general reader. [via]
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Pere Goriotby Honore De BalzacISBN 0192828584 (0-19-282858-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pere Goriot'Book summary:Nobody writes about money like Balzac, and his classic chronicle of a young man from the provinces clawing his way to success in 19th century Paris, even as an older man is victimized by the same milieu, shrewdly captures the financial dimension of so much that goes on between people. The boarding house in which the two protagonists live is a microcosm of their world, and Goriot's treatment by his daughters would make Lear blanch. [via]
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Plain Tales from the Hillsby Rudyard Kipling, Andrew RutherfordISBN 0192816527 (0-19-281652-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Plain Tales from the Hills'Book summary:First published in 1888, Plain Tales from the Hills was Kipling's first volume of prose fiction. His vignettes of life in British India give vivid insights into Anglo-India at work and play, and into the character of the Indians themselves. Witty, wry, sometimes cynical, these tales with their brevity and concentration of effect are landmarks in the history of the short story as an art-form. [via]
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The Prisoner of Zendaby Anthony Hope, Tony WatkinsISBN 0192829335 (0-19-282933-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prisoner of Zenda'Book summary:Five times made into film versions since its original publication in 1894, The Prisoner of Zenda is a perennially popular adventure and romance story. Hope's swashbuckling romance transports his English gentleman hero, Rudolf Rassendyll, from a comfortable life in London to fast-paced adventures in Ruritania, a mythical land steeped in political intrigue. Rassendyll must impersonate the rightful king in order to rescue him from the castle Zenda, all the while facing tests of honor with the beautiful Princess Flavia, and enduring tests of strength in his encounters with the villainous Black Michael and his handsome, debonair bodyguard, Rupert of Hentzau. [via]
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The Professorby Margaret Smith, Charlotte Bronte, Herbert RosengartenISBN 0192827413 (0-19-282741-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Quentin Durwardby Walter Scott, Susan ManningISBN 0192826581 (0-19-282658-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Gameby Peter HopkirkISBN 0192833081 (0-19-283308-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Rachel Rayby Anthony TrollopeISBN 0192818090 (0-19-281809-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Red Badge of Courageby Stephen Crane, Fiona Robertson, Anthony Matthew MellorsISBN 0192833154 (0-19-283315-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Red Badge of Courage'Book summary:Oxford offers the most generously annotated edition of The Red Badge of Courage (1895), a vivid psychological account of a young man's experience fighting in the American Civil War based on Crane's reading of popular descriptions of battle. This volume also includes the short stories "The Open Boat"(1898), "The Monster"(1899), and "The Blue Hotel". The editors explore Crane's work from a fresh critical perspective, focusing on his role as an experimental writer, his modernist legacy, and his social as well as literary revisionism. [via]
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Redgauntletby Walter Scott, Kathryn SutherlandISBN 0192816683 (0-19-281668-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Redgauntlet'Book summary:Set in the summer of 1765, Redgauntlet centers around a fictitious Jacobite rebellion. This is the last of Scott's major Scottish novels. The text is that of the 'Magnum' edition of 1832. [via]
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes I: The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, and The Adventure of the Three Studentsby Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Lancelyn GreenISBN 0192823760 (0-19-282376-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes I: The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, and The Adventure of the Three Students'More editions of The Return of Sherlock Holmes I: The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, and The Adventure of the Three Students:
Rob Royby Walter Scott, Ian DuncanISBN 0192817639 (0-19-281763-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Second Jungle Bookby Rudyard Kipling, W.W. RobsonISBN 0192816551 (0-19-281655-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Secret Agentby Joseph Conrad, Roger TennantISBN 0192834770 (0-19-283477-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Secret Agent'Book summary: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. [via]
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Selected Talesby Edgar Allan Poe, David Van LeerISBN 0192832247 (0-19-283224-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Tales'Book summary:Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic tales have established themselves as classics of horror fiction, and as the inventor of the modern mystery, Poe created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detective fiction. Attentive to the historical and political dimensions of these very American tales, this new selection of twenty-four tales places the most popular--"The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Purloined Letter"--alongside less well-known travel narratives, metaphysical essays, and political satires. [via]
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Sheby H. Rider HaggardISBN 0192827677 (0-19-282767-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'She'Book summary:Ayesha is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a 2,000-year-old queen who rules a fabled lost city deep in a maze of African caverns. She has the occult wisdom of Isis, the eternal youth and beauty of Aphrodite, and the violent appetite of a lamia. Like A. Conan Doyle's Lost World, She is one of those magnificent Victorian yarns about an expedition to a far-off locale shadowed by magic, mystery, and death.
Tim Stout writes, in Horror: 100 Best Books, "As the plot takes hold one has the fancy that [Ayesha] had always existed, in some dark dimension of the imagination, and that [H. Rider] Haggard was the fortunate author to whom she chose to reveal herself." Haggard did, in fact, write this book in a six-week burst of feverish inspiration: "It came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down," he later said.
This edition of the 1887 classic features an introductory essay by literary critic Regina Barreca, who likens Ayesha to Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina--"literally fantastic female figures who must be stopped before they love again." [via]
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Sign of Fourby Arthur Conan Doyle, Christopher RodenISBN 0192823795 (0-19-282379-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sign of Four'Book summary:When a woman who has received mysterious pearls in the mail is asked to meet her correspondent, Holmes and Watson are called in on the case. A terrible death and vanishing treasure lead to an epic chase through the dawn streets and along the River Thames in this spellbinding mystery. [via]
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A Study in Scarletby Arthur Conan Doyle, Owen Dudley EdwardsISBN 0192823809 (0-19-282380-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Study in Scarlet'Book summary:Arthur Conan Doyle's Study in Scarlet is the first published story involving the legendary Sherlock Holmes, arguably the world's best-known detective, and the first narrative by Holmes's Boswell, the unassuming Dr. Watson, a military surgeon lately returned from the Afghan War. Watson needs a flat-mate and a diversion. Holmes needs a foil. And thus a great literary collaboration begins.
Watson and Holmes move to a now-famous address, 221B Baker Street, where Watson is introduced to Holmes's eccentricities as well as his uncanny ability to deduce information about his fellow beings. Somewhat shaken by Holmes's egotism, Watson is nonetheless dazzled by his seemingly magical ability to provide detailed information about a man glimpsed once under the streetlamp across the road.
Then murder. Facing a deserted house, a twisted corpse with no wounds, a mysterious phrase drawn in blood on the wall, and the buffoons of Scotland Yard--Lestrade and Gregson--Holmes measures, observes, picks up a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and generally baffles his faithful Watson. Later, Holmes explains: "In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.... There are few people who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result." Holmes is in that elite group.
Conan Doyle quickly learned that it was Holmes's deductions that were of most interest to his readers. The lengthy flashback, while a convention of popular fiction, simply distracted from readers' real focus. It is when Holmes and Watson gather before the coal fire and Holmes sums up the deductions that led him to the successful apprehension of the criminal that we are most captivated. Subsequent Holmes stories--The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes--rightly plunge the twosome directly into the middle of a baffling crime, piling mystery upon mystery until Holmes's denouement once more leaves the dazzled Watson murmuring, "You are wonderful, Holmes!" Generations of readers agree. --Barbara Schlieper [via]
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Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes, and Selected Travel Writingsby Robert Louis Stevenson, Emma LetleyISBN 0192826298 (0-19-282629-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes, and Selected Travel Writings'Book summary:This volume of Stevenson's travel writings includes his first published book An Inland Voyage (1878) - a vivid account of a canoe voyage in Belgium and France in two sail-powered skiffs, named Cigarette and Arethusa - and Stevenson's popular description of a tour with his recalcitrant donkey Modestine, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879). Stevenson's natural affinity for France, his appreciation of its landscape, and his enthusiasm for the French way of life are borne out by these works, which prompted a contemporary critic to suggest that he was `a Frenchman born out of place', rather than `a Scotsman of the Scots'. In addition to these longer pieces, a selection of travel essays deriving from the writer's experiences on the C te d'Azur, at Fontainbleau, and in the Swiss Alps reveal Stevenson's iconoclasm, his unconventionality, and the Bohemian stance which brought about his confrontation with the Edinburgh literary establishment. [via]
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The Trumpet-majorby Thomas Hardy, Richard NemesvariISBN 0192827189 (0-19-282718-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Under the Greenwood Treeby Thomas Hardy, Simon GatrellISBN 019281706X (0-19-281706-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Under the Greenwood Tree'Book summary:This edition presents a critically established text based on comparisons of every revised version. Hardy placed this tale among his Novels of Character and Environment, a group which is held to include his most characteristic work. [via]
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Up from Slavery: An Autobiographyby Booker T. Washington, William L. AndrewsISBN 0192823485 (0-19-282348-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Up from Slavery: An Autobiography'Book summary:Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society. [via]
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The Valley of Fear: Library Editionby Arthur Conan Doyle, Owen Dudley EdwardsISBN 0192823825 (0-19-282382-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Valley of Fear: Library Edition'Book summary:A cipher message and a horrible murder in a Sussex village begin this dark and powerful tale in which Holmes battles with the forces of the criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarity. In an investigation involving a terrorist brotherhood and one that brings Holmes to wit's end, it is the professor who has the final word. [via]
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War and Peaceby Leo Tolstoy, Louise Maude, Aylmer MaudeISBN 0192833987 (0-19-283398-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'War and Peace'Book summary:A new one-volume edition of Tolstoy's classic historical chronicle of Russia's struggle with Napoleon. The novel is an affirmation of life itself, focusing on the lives of individuals and the physical reality of human experience and its bewildering complexity. It is a historical vision ranging beyond national frontiers. This translation was approved by Tolstoy. This edition also includes Tolstoy's essay "Some Words About 'War and Peace'" [via]
Waverlyby Walter Scott, Clair LamontISBN 0192817221 (0-19-281722-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Way of All Fleshby Samuel Butler, Michael MasonISBN 0192829807 (0-19-282980-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Way of All Flesh'Book summary:The Way of All Flesh (1903) "exploded like a bomb" in Edwardian drawing rooms. Based on Samuel Butler's own life and published posthumously, it offers a scathing indictment of Victorian bourgeois values as personified in five generations of the Pontifex family.
Butler's satire centers on Ernest Pontifex, an orthodox young man who suddenly sees the falseness of the rules and expectations forced on him by parents and teachers, an epiphany which leads him to renounce the moral, religious, and social values he once held. [via]More editions of The Way of All Flesh:
Wessex Tales: The Three Strangers; a Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four; the Melancholy Hussar; the Withered Armby Thomas Hardy, Kathryn R. KingISBN 0192827200 (0-19-282720-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Wild Irish Girlby Morgan, (Sydney), Kathryn J. KirkpatrickISBN 0192832832 (0-19-283283-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Woodlandersby Thomas Hardy, Dale KramerISBN 0192835041 (0-19-283504-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Storiesby Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Robert ShulmanISBN 0192834800 (0-19-283480-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories'Book summary:Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection ever printed of her short fiction, featuring the pioneering feminist masterpiece of the title, her stories contemporary with The Yellow Wallpaper, the fiction from her neglected California period (1890-95), and her later explorations of "the woman of fifty." Together, these impressive works throw new light on Gilman as a writer of fiction. [via]
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