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books tagged “British lit”
books tagged “British lit”
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found Thereby Lewis Carroll, Hugh HaughtonISBN 0140433171 (0-14-043317-1)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There'Book summary:That Alice. When she's not traipsing after a rabbit into Wonderland, she's gallivanting off into the topsy-turvy world behind the drawing-room looking glass. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll's masterful and zany sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she makes more eccentric acquaintances, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the White Queen, and a somewhat grumpy Humpty Dumpty. Through a giant and elaborate chess game, Alice explores this odd country, where one must eat dry biscuits to quench thirst, and run like the wind to stay in one place. As in life, Alice must stay on her toes to learn the rules of this game. Through the Looking Glass immediately took its rightful place beside its partner on the shelf of eternal classics. And luckily for generations of enraptured children, Carroll was again able to persuade John Tenniel to create the fantastic woodblock engravings that have become so indelibly associated with the Alice stories. For almost 130 years, Alice's curious adventures have amused, perplexed, and delighted readers, young and old. This gorgeous, deluxe boxed set of both volumes contains engravings from Tenniel's original woodblocks that were discovered in a London bank in 1985, and reproduced for the first time here. "'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures?'" What indeed? (All ages) [via]
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As You Like Itby William Shakespeare, Ralph SargeantISBN 0140714170 (0-14-071417-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'As You Like It'Book summary:This wisely funny comedy, which contains some of Shakespeare's loveliest poetry, contrasts a country's world of envy and rivalry with a forest's world of compassion and harmony. In the Forest of Arden, the banished young heroine, Rosalind, disguised as a gentleman farmer, encounters an extraordinary assemblage of characters, including a fool, a malcontent traveler, her own banished father, and the banished young man she loves. Romantic happiness triumphs, even as we laugh at the excesses of love, at the ways of court and countryside, indeed, at everything, in this masterpiece of comic writing, [via]
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Aurora Leigh, and Other Poemsby Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Julia Bolton Holloway, John Robert Glorney BoltonISBN 0140434127 (0-14-043412-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Aurora Leigh, and Other Poems'Book summary:Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic novel in blank verse, tells the story of the making of a woman poet, exploring 'the woman question', art and its relation to politics and social oppression.[via]The texts in this selection are based in the main on the earliest printed versions of the poems. What Edgar Allan Poe called 'her wild and magnificent genius' is abundantly in evidence. In addition to Aurora Leigh, this volume contains poetry from the several volumes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's published poetry from 1826 to 1862, including Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Songs for the Ragged Schools of London (1854) and the British Library manuscript text of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1846) which records her courtship with Robert Browning.
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Capitalby Karl Marx, Ben FowkesISBN 0140445684 (0-14-044568-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Capital'Book summary:The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories. [via]
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Chocolatby Joanne HarrisISBN 014100018X (0-14-100018-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chocolat'Book summary:Greeted as "an amazement of riches ... few readers will be able to resist" by The New York Times, Chocolat is an enchanting novel about a small French town turned upside down by the arrival of a bewitching chocolate confectioner, Vianne Rocher, and her spirited young daughter. [via]
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The Comedy of Errorsby William Shakespeare, Frances E. DolanISBN 014071474X (0-14-071474-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Comedy of Errors'Book summary:Generally believed to be Shakespeare's first comedy, The Comedy of Errors was first performed at the London Inns of Court in 1594, and has been unfairly dismissed as a piece of knockabout farce from Shakespeare's apprentice years. The play's action is very funny, especially in performance. Shipwrecked many years before the start of the play, Egeon of Syracuse searches vainly for his lost wife, one of his twin sons and one of their twin servants. Landing in Ephesus he falls foul of an obscure law condemning him to death unless he pays an enormous fine within 24 hours. The clock starts ticking and the action of the play begins to unfold. Egeon is not aware that his son Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio have also landed in Ephesus, but even worse, it soon becomes clear to the audience that Ephesus is also the home of the lost twin and servant, Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus.
So begins the comedy of errors, as the pairs of twins are repeatedly and hilariously mistaken for each other, much to the consternation of their friends, creditors and lovers. Yet the play is also shot through with more serious issues. The sentence of death hangs over the father from the very beginning of the play, strange things happen to time as the play progresses, and the space of trade and the marketplace are never far away. The laughter of mistaken identity also gives way to more profound questions of identity, as when Antipholus of Syracuse says of himself that "I to the world am like a drop of water/That in the ocean seeks another drop." The Comedy of Errors is a much neglected play which is only now achieving the critical and theatrical attention it deserves. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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The Complete English Poems of John Donneby John Donne, A.J. SmithISBN 0140802363 (0-14-080236-3)
Hardcover, Penguin
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The Complete Playsby Robert Lindsey, Christopher Marlowe, Frank RomanyISBN 0140436332 (0-14-043633-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Coriolanusby William Shakespeare, Jonathan CreweISBN 0140714731 (0-14-071473-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Danny the Champion of the Worldby Roald Dahl, Quentin BlakeISBN 0141301147 (0-14-130114-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Danny the Champion of the World'Book summary:"My father, without the slightest doubt, was the most marvelous and exciting father any boy ever had." Danny feels very lucky. He adores his life with his father, living in a gypsy caravan, listening to his stories, tending their gas station, puttering around the workshop, and occasionally taking off to fly home-built gas balloons and kites. His father has raised him on his own, ever since Danny's mother died when he was four months old. Life is peaceful and wonderful... until he turns 9 and discovers his father's one vice. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most incredible plot ever attempted against nasty Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner with a bad attitude. Can they pull it off? If so, Danny will truly be the champion of the world. Danny is right up to Roald Dahl's impishly brilliant standards. An intense and beautiful father-son relationship is balanced with sublegal high jinks that will have even the most rigid law-abider rooting them on. Dahl's inimitable way with words leaves the reader simultaneously satisfied and itching for more. (Ages 9 to 13) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Draculaby Bram StokerISBN 014062063X (0-14-062063-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dracula'Book summary:The aristocratic vampire that haunts the Transylvanian countryside has captivated readers' imaginations since it was first published in 1897. Hindle asserts that Dracula depicts an embattled man's struggle to recover his "deepest sense of himself as a man, " making it the "ultimate terror myth.". [via]
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A Fairly Honourable Defeatby Iris Murdoch, Peter J. ReedISBN 0141186178 (0-14-118617-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Fairly Honourable Defeat'Book summary:In a dark comedy of errors, Iris Murdoch portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties. As puppet master, Julius artfully plays on the human tendency to embrace drama and intrigue and to prefer the distraction of confrontations to the difficult effort of communicating openly and honestly. [via]
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The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibilityby Natalie Tyler, Reid Boates, Jon WinokurISBN 0141001925 (0-14-100192-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility'Book summary:Every generation rediscovers Jane Austen with a renewed passion for her timeless stories of romance, family relations, and foibles of human nature. Today she is more popular than ever. Natalie Tyler captures the essence of this enthusiasm in a book that shuns obscure academic approaches and provides lively
discussions about every one of Austen's novels and characters. Readers can experience the highlights of Austen's early writings, learn about the man who almost won her hand, and puzzle over what on earth she meant by the last line of Persuasion. Tyler includes quizzes, eye-catching illustrations, interviews with Austen scholars and lovers of her work-such as Jane Smiley, T. C. Boyle, and Miss Manners-plus a filmography, a bibliography, and browsable quotes and sidebars to create this wildly entertaining Austen
companion. [via]
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The Golden Bowlby Henry James, Gore Vidal, Patricia CrickISBN 0141000902 (0-14-100090-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Bowl'Book summary:This story of the alliance between Italian aristocracy and American millionaires is "a work unique among all [James's] novels: it is [his] only novel in which things come out right for his characters. . . . he had finally resolved the questions, curious and passionate, that had kept him at his desk on his inquiries into the process of living. He could now make his peace with America-and he could now collect and unify the work of a lifetime." -Leon Edel, The Life of Henry James [via]
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The Good Apprenticeby Iris MurdochISBN 0141186682 (0-14-118668-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Henry IV. Part 2by William Shakespeare, Claire McEachernISBN 014071457X (0-14-071457-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Henry IV. Part 2'Book summary:Written in 1598, hard on the heels of the massive popular success of Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two takes up where the first part finished, and completes Shakespeare's portrayal of the troubled reign of Henry IV. Rebellion has apparently been quelled, but dissension still permeates the country, and Henry is disillusioned, sick and dying. After the pace and comedy of Part One., Part Two is a much more subdued and gloomy affair. The tone is set by the early appearance of Falstaff, who relishes the possibilities of easy picking in the face of more civil unrest with his sinister quip that "I will turn diseases to commodity".
The drama focuses on Henry IV's difficult relationship with his son Prince Hal, and the latter's gradual emergence as a charismatic sovereign. In the process he sheds his image as a prodigal wastrel dramatised in the first half of Part One, assuming the title of King Henry V in the closing scenes of Part Two. Perhaps the most poignant moment of the whole play remains Henry's cold-blooded rejection of Falstaff, his surrogate father for much of Part One. "I know thee not, old man" he tells the crushed Falstaff as he assumes the royal crown, preparing the audience for the type of monarch they will see in Shakeseare's subsequent dramatisation of English history, Henry V. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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Henry VI. Part 3by William Shakespeare, William MontgomeryISBN 0140714677 (0-14-071467-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slaveby Mary Prince, Sara SalihISBN 0140437495 (0-14-043749-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Hound of the Baskervillesby Arthur Conan Doyle, Christopher FraylingISBN 014043786X (0-14-043786-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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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 Importance of Being Earnest and Other Playsby Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen CaveISBN 0140436065 (0-14-043606-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays'Book summary:Oscar Wilde was at once a family man and a homosexual outsider, a socialite, socialist, and Irish nationalist. His contradictions inspired him to ponder the roles and masks donned in conventional society, and his acute and wry insights are wonderfully displayed in this collection of his essential plays. Known not only for his brilliant, epigrammatic language, but also for his sense of theatrical design, color, and staging, Wilde created an enduring body of finely crafted works, whose delights and ironies still speak to modern audiences. In addition to Lady Windermere's Fan, Salomé, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, A Florentine Tragedy, and The Importance of Being Earnest, this edition contains an introduction, notes and commentaries, and an excised scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.[via]More editions of The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays:
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The Interesting Narrative and Other Writingsby Olaudah Equiano, Vincent CarrettaISBN 0140434852 (0-14-043485-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings'Book summary:This is an account of the slave trade by a native African, former slave. Olaudah Equiano recounts his kidnapping at the age of ten in Africa, his service as the slave of an officer in the British Navy and his years of labour on slave ships until he was able to purchase his freedom in 1766. As a free man on a Central American plantation, he supervised slaves. Increasingly disgusted by their treatment, he returned to England in 1771. In England he worked for the resettlement of blacks in Sierra Leone, married an English woman and became a leading and respected figure in the anti-slave movement. This narrative is an autobiography and a treatise on religion, politics and economics. [via]
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The Italianby Robert Miles, Ann RadcliffeISBN 0140437541 (0-14-043754-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Ivanhoeby Walter Scott, Graham TullochISBN 0140436588 (0-14-043658-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ivanhoe'Book summary:"Ivanhoe" (1819) was the first of Scott's novels to adopt a purely English subject and was also his first attempt to combine history and romance, which later influenced Victorian medievalism. Set at the time of the Norman Conquest, "Ivanhoe" returns from the Crusades to claim his inheritance and the love of Rowena and becomes involved in the struggle between Richard Coeur de Lion and his Norman brother John. The gripping narrative is structured by a series of conflicts: Saxon versus Norman, Christian versus Jew, men versus women, played out against Scott's unflinching moral realism. [via]
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James and the Giant Peachby Roald Dahl, Quentin BlakeISBN 0141304677 (0-14-130467-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'James and the Giant Peach'Book summary:Roald Dahl's classic children's novel is now a motion picture from The Walt Disney Company, and this version of James and the Giant Peach grew out of the making of the movie. Lane Smith, conceptual artist for the film, has given James and company a new and arresting look, much in the style of his many highly regarded books, such as Math Curse and The Stinky Cheeseman. Karey Kirkpatrick, the film's screenwriter, created a text that is true to the spirit of Dahl's original, and deftly pulls young readers into the remarkable story. All in all, it's a peach of a book sure to be the pick of every child's bookshelf! [via]
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John Keats--the Complete Poemsby John Keats, John BarnardISBN 0140806687 (0-14-080668-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Education
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Keats--the Complete Poems'Book summary:Here is the first reliable edition of Keats's complete poems designed expressly for general readers and students.
Upon its publication in 1978, Stillinger's The Poems of John Keats won exceptionally high praise: "The definitive Keats," proclaimed The New Republic--"An authoritative edition embodying the readings the poet himself most probably intended, prepared by the leading scholar in Keats textual studies."
Now this scholarship is at last available in a graceful, clear format designed to introduce students and general readers to the "real" Keats. In place of the textual apparatus that was essential to scholars, Stillinger here provides helpful explanatory notes. These notes give dates of composition, identify quotations and allusions, gloss names and words not included in the ordinary desk dictionary, and refer the reader to the best critical interpretations of the poems. The new introduction provides central facts about Keats's life and career, describes the themes of his best work, and speculates on the causes of his greatness.
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Julius Caesarby William Shakespeare, Norman SandersISBN 0140707042 (0-14-070704-2)
Softcover, Viking Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Julius Caesar'Book summary:One of Shakespeare's most political plays, Julius Caesar continued Shakespeare's interest in Roman history, first developed in Titus Andronicus. Drawing on Plutarch, the great historian of Rome, Shakespeare dramatises one of the most crucial moments in Roman history--the assassination of Julius Caesar. Loved by the Roman crowd but increasingly feared by the Senators, Caesar increasingly shows signs of his desire to abolish the Republic and crown himself emperor. A conspiracy is hatched, led by Cassius and Brutus, who murder Caesar on the steps of the Capitol. Mourning over his dead friend's body, Mark Antony gives one of the famous rhetorical speeches in literature, asking "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" to lament Caesar's death, privately vowing to "let slip the dogs of war" against those who have shed Caesar's blood. Antony joins forces with Caesar's son Octavius to defeat Cassius and Brutus in battle, and establish an uneasy alliance whose collapse is dramatised in Shakespeare's later play Antony and Cleopatra. Written at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Julius Caesar has been seen by many as a radically pro-Republican play which sailed close to the political wind of the time. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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The Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronteby Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Frances BeerISBN 0140432671 (0-14-043267-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Juvenilia of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte'Book summary:Their most striking similarity was that both produced a considerable body of juvenilia. For both authors this was a period in which to experiment and to develop character and style. Their work moved in very different directions: in her first short burlesques, Jane Austen exhibits a merciless wit as she lampoons human vanities and vices, later sharpened in 'The Three Sisters' and 'Catherine' to reveal a maturer moral perspective. Charlotte Bronte's appetite was for romantic adventure and, with her brother Branwell, she created the fabulous kingdom of Angria. Yet the prevailing interests of her novels - a concern with the psychological intricacies of her characters' relationships and a desire to explore the forms of human passion - are already apparent. As Frances Beer comments in her Introduction, 'both sets of juvenilia provide us with an extraordinary opportunity to watch the growth and coalescence of the creative consciousness'. [via]
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King Henry IVby William Shakespeare, Alan ChesterISBN 0140714081 (0-14-071408-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'King Henry IV'Book summary:Written in 1598, hard on the heels of the massive popular success of Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two takes up where the first part finished, and completes Shakespeare's portrayal of the troubled reign of Henry IV. Rebellion has apparently been quelled, but dissension still permeates the country, and Henry is disillusioned, sick and dying. After the pace and comedy of Part One., Part Two is a much more subdued and gloomy affair. The tone is set by the early appearance of Falstaff, who relishes the possibilities of easy picking in the face of more civil unrest with his sinister quip that "I will turn diseases to commodity".
The drama focuses on Henry IV's difficult relationship with his son Prince Hal, and the latter's gradual emergence as a charismatic sovereign. In the process he sheds his image as a prodigal wastrel dramatised in the first half of Part One, assuming the title of King Henry V in the closing scenes of Part Two. Perhaps the most poignant moment of the whole play remains Henry's cold-blooded rejection of Falstaff, his surrogate father for much of Part One. "I know thee not, old man" he tells the crushed Falstaff as he assumes the royal crown, preparing the audience for the type of monarch they will see in Shakeseare's subsequent dramatisation of English history, Henry V. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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Lady Audley's Secretby Mary E. Braddon, Jenny Bourne TaylorISBN 0140435840 (0-14-043584-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Audley's Secret'Book summary:Lady Audleys Secret epitomized the scandalous and irresistible "sensation" fiction of the period and established Braddon as the doyenne of the genre. Lady Audley, a beautiful woman with a mysterious past, serves as a commentary on the rise of the middle class and the consumer culture, and her fate reflects the publics fascination with psychological theories about the nature of identity and the definition of madness.[via]More editions of Lady Audley's Secret:
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemanby Laurence Sterne, Melvyn New, Joan NewISBN 0140435050 (0-14-043505-0)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'Book summary:A comic masterpiece -- bawdy, profane, irreverent, brazenly illogical -- and one of the most entertaining and original works in English literature
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy is a brilliant pastiche of character sketches, obscene and hilarious vignettes, parodies of scholarly treatises on theology, art, and science, comments to the reader, blank pages, playful typography and graphics, narrative threads that appear, disappear, and reappear at whim, and incidents and images that relate, at one and the same time, to the characters and to the novel itself. The technical audacity and stylistic virtuosity Sterne brought to this eccentric fiction about fiction-writing redefined the form and scope of the novel forever. Both James Joyce and Thomas Mann acknowledged their debt to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, and its influence is apparent in the works of Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes, and other contemporary novelists. The text and notes in this edition are taken from the acclaimed (and definitive) Florida Edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne. [via]
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The Life of Charlotte Bronteby Elisabeth Jay, Elizabeth GaskellISBN 0140434933 (0-14-043493-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life of Charlotte Bronte'Book summary:Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her close friend Charlotte Bronte was published in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim, and remains the most significant study of the enigmatic author who gave Jane Eyre the subtitle An Autobiography. It recounts Charlotte Bronte's life from her isolated childhood, through her years as a writer who had 'foreseen the single life' for herself, to her marriage at thirty-eight and death less than a year later. The resulting work - the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist - explored the nature of Charlotte's genius and almost single-handedly created the Bronte myth. [via]
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The Life of Samuel Johnsonby James Boswell, David P. WomersleyISBN 0140436626 (0-14-043662-6)
Softcover, Penguin Classics
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The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacobby George Eliot, Sally Shuttleworth, Julia BriggsISBN 0140435174 (0-14-043517-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Little Dorrit: Library Editionby Charles Dickens, Stephen Wall, Helen SmallISBN 0140434925 (0-14-043492-5)
Softcover, Penguin USA
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Love's Labor's Lostby William Shakespeare, Peter HollandISBN 0140714774 (0-14-071477-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Mary Bartonby Macdonald Daly, Elizabeth GaskellISBN 014043464X (0-14-043464-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mary Barton'Book summary:[via]O Jem, her father wont listen to me, and its you must save Mary! Youre like a brother to her
Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owners son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men. Through Marys dilemma, and the moving portrayal of her father, the embittered and courageous activist John Barton, Mary Barton (1848) powerfully dramatizes the class divides of the hungry forties as personal tragedy. In its social and political setting, it looks towards Elizabeth Gaskells great novels of the industrial revolution, in particular North and South.
In his introduction Maconald Daly discusses Elizabeth Gaskells first novel as a pioneering book that made public the great division between rich and poor a theme that inspired much of her finest work.
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Mary/Maria/Matildaby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Mary WollstonecraftISBN 0140433716 (0-14-043371-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mary/Maria/Matilda'Book summary:This book brings together three extraordinary novels by an extraordinary pair, Mary Wollstonecraft, radical feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Mary Shelley, her daughter, author of Frankenstein.[via]In Mary (1788), Mary Wollstonecraft explores the position of an alienated intellectual woman and, in portraying her struggle against the constraints of a claustrophobic feminine world, began a line that would include the more substantial heroines of Jane Eyre and Villette. In the posthumously published Maria (1798) she continues in fiction the arguments of the Vindication. Mary Shelley wrote Matilda in 1819, while in mourning for her first son. William Godwin, Mary's father, found its subject of father-daughter incest so 'disgusting and detestable' that he refused to publish it and the work remained suppressed for over a century.
In her illuminating introduction to this edition Janet Todd explores how these novels are linked, not only through the mother-daughter relationship of their authors, but in their perceptions of feminism and female sexuality and in their autobiographical richness.
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Measure for Measureby William Shakespeare, Jonathan V. CreweISBN 0140714790 (0-14-071479-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Measure for Measure'Book summary:A dark and difficult play, Measure for Measure has been a popular play since the latter half of the 20th century for its prescient dramatisation of the issues of sexual and political hypocrisy, and the ways in which the state interferes in the private lives of its citizens. Set in Duke Vincentio's Vienna, where poverty, disease and prostitution are rife, Claudio and his fiancée Juliet are arrested for having sex before marriage, and Claudio is sentenced to death. Angelo, the Duke's deputy, who stands in for the Duke whilst he ostensibly goes off on a pilgrimage, enthusiastically endorses the sentence. In fact the Duke remains behind the scenes, watching Angelo as he falls for Claudio's sister Isabella, who comes to beg for her brother's life. Angelo is a wonderful creation, loathsome yet fascinating as he struggles with the double standards of his enforcement of draconian laws whilst lusting after the sister of the man he is prepared to execute, debating "The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?".
No one is spared Shakespeare's withering look at the mores of early 17th-century life, not even the pimps and madams who try to get by in the midst of the Duke's bizarre and coercive disguises and performances. The deeply ambiguous ending of Measure for Measure confirms it as one of Shakespeare's most ambivalent and arguably despairing plays. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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The Monk: A Longman Cultural Editionby Matthew Lewis, Christopher MacLachlanISBN 0140436030 (0-14-043603-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Monk: A Longman Cultural Edition'Book summary:[via]Few could sustain the glance of his eye, at once fiery and penetrating
Savaged by critics for its supposed profanity and obscenity, and bought in large numbers by readers eager to see whether it lived up to its lurid reputation, The Monk became a succès de scandale when it was published in 1796 not least because its author was a member of parliament and only twenty years old. It recounts the diabolical decline of Ambrosio, a Capuchin superior, who succumbs first to temptations offered by a young girl who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy, and continues his descent with increasingly depraved acts of sorcery, murder, incest and torture. Combining sensationalism with acute psychological insight, this masterpiece of Gothic fiction is a powerful exploration of how violent and erotic impulses can break through the barriers of social and moral restraint.
This edition is based on the first edition of 1796, which appeared before Lewiss revisions to avoid charges of blasphemy. In his introduction, Christopher MacLachlan discusses the novels place within the Gothic genre, and its themes of sexual desire and the abuse of power.
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The Moonstoneby Wilkie Collins, Sandra KempISBN 0140434089 (0-14-043408-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Moonstone'Book summary:[via]When you looked down into the stone, you looked into a yellow deep that drew your eyes into it so that they saw nothing else
The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachels household is above suspicion. Hailed by T. S. Eliot as the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels, The Moonstone is a marvellously taut and intricate tale of mystery, in which facts and memory can prove treacherous and not everyone is as they first appear.
Sandra Kemps introduction examines The Moonstone as a work of Victorian sensation fiction and an early example of the detective genre, and discusses the technique of multiple narrators, the role of opium, and Collinss sources and autobiographical references.
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Much Ado About Nothingby William Shakespeare, Josephine Waters BennettISBN 014071412X (0-14-071412-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Much Ado about Nothing'Book summary:"I feel that I have spent half my career with one or another Pelican Shakespeare in my back pocket. Convenience, however, is the least important aspect of the new Pelican Shakespeare series. Here is an elegant and clear text for either the study or the rehearsal room, notes where you need them and the distinguished scholarship of the general editors, Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller who understand that these are plays for performance as well as great texts for contemplation." (Patrick Stewart) The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series, which has sold more than four million copies, is now completely revised and repackaged. Each volume features: * Authoritative, reliable texts * High quality introductions and notes * New, more readable trade trim size * An essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare and essays on Shakespeare's life and the selection of texts [via]
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Nicholas Nickleby: Library Editionby Charles Dickens, Mark Ford, Hablot Knight BrowneISBN 0140435123 (0-14-043512-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nicholas Nickleby: Library Edition'Book summary:[via]When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his fathers death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world.
Nicholass adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray a extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummle, and their daughter, the infant phenomenon. Like many of Dickenss novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterized by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing Dickenss comic genius at its most unerring.
Mark Fords introduction compares Nicholas Nickleby to eighteenth-century picaresque novels, and examines Dickenss criticism of the Yorkshire Schools, his social satire and use of language. This edition also includes the original illustrations by Phiz, a chronology and a list for further reading.
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North and Southby Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Patricia InghamISBN 0140434240 (0-14-043424-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'North and South'Book summary:[via]"How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?"
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
In her introduction Patricia Ingham examines geographical, economic and class differences, and male and female roles in North and South. This edition also includes a list for further reading, notes and a glossary.
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Oroonokoby Aphra Behn, Janet M. ToddISBN 0140439889 (0-14-043988-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Oroonoko'Book summary:[via]When Prince Oroonokos passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonokos noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behns visit to Surinam, Oroonoko reflects the authors romantic views of native peoples as being in the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin. The novel also reveals Behns ambiguous attitude toward slavery: while she favored it as a means to strengthen Englands power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.
- A new single-volume edition of this early anti-slavery novel
- Includes introduction, carefully modernized text, chronology, suggestions for further reading, and explanatory notes
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Othelloby William Shakespeare, Bentley, Gerald E., Jr.ISBN 0140714103 (0-14-071410-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Othello'Book summary:If anything, Othello has increased its stature as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies ever since it was first written, between 1603 and 1604, due to the victimisation suffered by its tragic hero, Othello, as a result of his skin colour. Othello is a "noble Moor", a North African Muslim who has converted to Christianity and is deemed one of the Venetian state's most reliable soldiers. However, his ensign Iago harbours an obscure hatred against his general, and when Othello secretly marries the beautiful daughter of the Venetian senator Brabanzio, Iago begins his subtle campaign of vilification, which will inevitably lead to the deaths of more than just Othello and Desdemona.
An extraordinary play, both for its dramatic economy and power as well as its remarkable language, from Othello's bombastic "traveller's history" to Desdemona's elegiac "willow song", the play raises uncomfortable questions about ongoing questions of not only racial identity but also sexuality, as Othello and Desdemona's sexual relationship becomes the voyeuristic site of Iago's attempt to destroy them. Particularly fascinated with the question of what it means to "see", Othello also contains one of the greatest tragic death scenes in all of Shakespeare, with Othello's final identification with "a malignant and a turbaned Turk". --Jerry Brotton [via]
The Penguin Book of Victorian Verseby Daniel KarlinISBN 0140445781 (0-14-044578-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Pictures from Italyby Charles Dickens, Kate FlintISBN 0140434313 (0-14-043431-3)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Pooh's Libraryby A. A. MilneISBN 0140955607 (0-14-095560-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pooh's Library'Book summary:Stop everything! If at least one copy of each of these classics is not in a prominent place on your bookshelf, your home and your progeny's childhood is incomplete. Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends--blustery old Owl, bouncy Tigger, clever Christopher Robin, glum Eeyore, and the rest--have been a staple of children's literature for over 70 years in A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. And Milne's immortal collections of children's verse, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, have soothed many a savage beast at bedtime with such incomparable delights as "If I Were King" and "Us Two." All four of these classics, complete with Ernest H. Shepard's original illustrations, are gathered here in a handsome boxed set. These hardcover editions will most certainly be a cherished legacy to be handed down for generations to come. After all, as Rabbit says solemnly one day, "Without Pooh, the adventure would be impossible." (Ages 3 to 103) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Preludeby William Wordsworth, J.C. MaxwellISBN 0140801057 (0-14-080105-7)
Hardcover, Penguin
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The Prelude: The Four Texts (1798, 1799, 1805, 1850)by William Wordsworth, Jonathan WordsworthISBN 0140433694 (0-14-043369-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Professorby Charlotte Bronte, Heather GlenISBN 0140433112 (0-14-043311-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Professor'Book summary:The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zoraide Reuter, complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school. [via]
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Red Strangersby Elspeth HuxleyISBN 0141182059 (0-14-118205-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Red Strangers'Book summary:Epic in its scale, Red Strangers spans four generations of Kikuyu family in Africa and their relationship with European settlers, nicknamed "red" strangers because of their sunburns. Huxley's engrossing portrait of a Kenyan tribe and their way of life, with its rituals, its beliefs, its codes and its morality, shows Europeans and their customs in stark, unflattering contrast with the Kikuyu. The differences in their attitudes to war, methods of cultivation, the administering of justice, and the use of money are played out in this novel of the damaging forces of colonization. [via]
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The Return of the Soldierby Rebecca WestISBN 014118065X (0-14-118065-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Richard IIIby William Shakespeare, G. Blakemore EvansISBN 0140714162 (0-14-071416-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Richard III'Book summary:"Now is the winter of our discontent," intones Richard, Duke of Gloucester at the beginning of Shakespeare's Richard III, one of his most abidingly popular plays, and one of the most chilling portrayals of political tyranny ever seen on stage. Richard emerges from the chaos which surrounds the reign of Henry VI, already dramatised by Shakespeare earlier in his career, determined to become king by removing his elder brother Edward IV by convincing him that their brother Clarence is plotting against the crown. The deaths of both Clarence and Edward take Richard inexorably towards the crown, and the series of murders and conspiracies that Richard masterminds confirms his claim that "I am determined to prove a villain". Richard's political and sexual charisma are truly chilling, and his seduction of Lady Anne, over her husband's corpse is one of the most disturbing scenes in Shakespeare. At another level, the play is also a strongly anti-Yorkist play, which has a vested interest in portraying Richard as such as vicious tyrant before seeing him toppled, ushering in a period of rule which prefigured the Tudor dynasty of which Elizabeth I was herself a part. The play has had a deep and lasting influence on audiences and writers; Brecht rewrote the play as The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, while both Laurance Olivier and Ian Mckellen have produced memorable film versions of Richard III, the latter updating the play into a 1930s fascist state ruled over by a Richard akin to Oswald Mosley. --Jerry Brotton [via]
The Ring and the Bookby Robert Browning, Richard D. AltickISBN 0140802835 (0-14-080283-5)
Hardcover, Penguin
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Romeo and Julietby William Shakespeare, Peter HollandISBN 0140714847 (0-14-071484-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Romeo and Juliet'Book summary:Part of "The New Penguin Shakespeare" series, this text looks at "Romeo and Juliet" with an introduction, a list of further reading, commentary and a short account of the textual problems of the play. The series is used and recommended by the Royal Shakespeare Company. [via]
Romolaby George Eliot, Dorothea BarrettISBN 0140434704 (0-14-043470-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Selected Poemsby John Donne, John HaywardISBN 0140585184 (0-14-058518-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Selected Poemsby Thomas Hardy, Robert MezeyISBN 0140436995 (0-14-043699-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Mr. Yorickby Laurence Sterne, Paul GoringISBN 0140437797 (0-14-043779-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Shelleyby Isabel QuiglyISBN 0140585044 (0-14-058504-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shelley'Book summary:Shelley's work has been criticized for its didacticism and undisciplined emotionalism. But essentially, he was a poet of ideas and in his search for truth and original human perfection, Shelley was inspired as much by the Greek poets and philosophers, particularly Plato, as by the radicalism of his own age. Above all, his great gift was his lyricism and his verse comes as near to music as poetry can. [via]
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Sign of Fourby Arthur Conan Doyle, Peter AckroydISBN 0140439072 (0-14-043907-2)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sign of Four'Book summary:Yellow fog is swirling through the streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes himself is sitting in a cocaine-induced haze until the arrival of a distressed and beautiful young lady forces the great detective into action. Each year following the strange disappearance of her father, Miss Morstan has received a present of a rare and lustrous pearl. Now, on the day she is summoned to meet her anonymous benefactor, she consults Holmes and Watson.[via]More editions of Sign of Four:
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A Study in Scarletby Arthur Conan Doyle, Ed Glinert, Iain SinclairISBN 0140439080 (0-14-043908-0)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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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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Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog! & Three Men on the Bummelby Jerome K. Jerome, Jeremy LewisISBN 0140437509 (0-14-043750-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog! & Three Men on the Bummel'Book summary:When J. the narrator, George, Harris and Montmorency the dog set off on their hilarious misadventures, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts, imaginary illnesses, butter pats and tins of pineapple chunks. Denounced as vulgar by the literary establishment, Three Men in a Boat nevertheless caught the spirit of the times. The expansion of education and the increase in office workers created a new mass readership, and Jerome's book was especially popular among the 'clerking classes' who longed to be 'free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life.'[via]So popular did it prove that Jerome reunited his heroes for a bicycle tour of Germany. Despite some sharp, and with hindsight, prophetic observations of the country, Three Men on the Bummel describes an equally picaresque journey constrained only 'by the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started'.
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Titus Andronicusby William Shakespeare, Russ McDonaldISBN 014071491X (0-14-071491-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Traffics and Discoveriesby Rudyard Kipling, Hermione LeeISBN 0140432868 (0-14-043286-8)
Hardcover, Penguin Books
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The Tragedy of Julius Caesarby William Shakespeare, William MontgomeryISBN 0140714685 (0-14-071468-5)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tragedy of Julius Caesar'Book summary:One of Shakespeare's most political plays, Julius Caesar continued Shakespeare's interest in Roman history, first developed in Titus Andronicus. Drawing on Plutarch, the great historian of Rome, Shakespeare dramatises one of the most crucial moments in Roman history--the assassination of Julius Caesar. Loved by the Roman crowd but increasingly feared by the Senators, Caesar increasingly shows signs of his desire to abolish the Republic and crown himself emperor. A conspiracy is hatched, led by Cassius and Brutus, who murder Caesar on the steps of the Capitol. Mourning over his dead friend's body, Mark Antony gives one of the famous rhetorical speeches in literature, asking "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" to lament Caesar's death, privately vowing to "let slip the dogs of war" against those who have shed Caesar's blood. Antony joins forces with Caesar's son Octavius to defeat Cassius and Brutus in battle, and establish an uneasy alliance whose collapse is dramatised in Shakespeare's later play Antony and Cleopatra. Written at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Julius Caesar has been seen by many as a radically pro-Republican play which sailed close to the political wind of the time. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Veniceby William Shakespeare, Russ McDonaldISBN 0140714634 (0-14-071463-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice'Book summary:"I feel that I have spent half my career with one or another Pelican Shakespeare in my back pocket. Convenience, however, is the least important aspect of the new Pelican Shakespeare series. Here is an elegant and clear text for either the study or the rehearsal room, notes where you need them and the distinguished scholarship of the general editors, Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller who understand that these are plays for performance as well as great texts for contemplation." (Patrick Stewart)[via]
The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series, which has sold more than four million copies, is now completely revised and repackaged.
Each volume features:
* Authoritative, reliable texts
* High quality introductions and notes
* New, more readable trade trim size
* An essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare and essays on Shakespeare's life and the selection of textsMore editions of The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice:
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Treasure Islandby Robert Louis Stevenson, John D. SeelyeISBN 0140437681 (0-14-043768-1)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Treasure Island'Book summary:The quintessential adventure story that first established pirates in the popular imagination, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" is edited with an introduction by John Seelye in "Penguin Classics". When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circumstances at the Admiral Benbow inn, young Jim Hawkins stumbles across a treasure map among the dead man's possessions. But Jim soon becomes only too aware that he is not the only one who knows of the map's existence, and his bravery and cunning are tested to the full when, with his friends Squire Trelawney and Dr Livesey, he sets sail in the Hispaniola to track down the treasure. With its swift-moving plot and memorably drawn characters - Blind Pew and Black Dog, the castaway Ben Gunn and the charming but dangerous Long John Silver - Stevenson's tale of pirates, treachery and heroism was an immediate success when it was first published in 1883 and has retained its place as one of the greatest of all adventure stories. In his introduction John Seelye examines Stevenson's life and influences and the novel's place within adventure fiction. This edition also includes Stevenson's essay on the composition of "Treasure Island". Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous civil engineer. Although he began his career as an essayist and travel writer, the success of "Treasure Island" (1883) and "Kidnapped" (1886) established his reputation as a writer of tales of action and adventure. Stevenson's Calvinist upbringing lent him a preoccupation with predestination and a fascination with the presence of evil, themes he explored in "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886), and "The Master of Ballantrae" (1893). If you enjoyed "Treasure Island", you might like Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe", also available in "Penguin Classics". [via]
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The Two Gentlemen of Veronaby William Shakespeare, Mary Beth RoseISBN 0140714618 (0-14-071461-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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Two Gentlemen of Veronaby N. Sanders SkakespearISBN 0140707174 (0-14-070717-4)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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The Valley of Fear and Selected Casesby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 014043772X (0-14-043772-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Valley of Fear and Selected Cases'Book summary:Holmes has been summoned by a coded message to the house of a man called Douglas. But he and Watson arrive to find they are too late - Douglas has been murdered, with a mysterious calling card left by his side. Scotland Yard is stumped, but Holmes, detecting the diabolical workings of his arch-enemy Moriarty, has some ideas of his own. In this compelling selection of tales, The Valley of Fear is accompanied by ten of the great detective's most curious cases, including The Six Napoleons, in which the statues of the Emperor are smashed to pieces; Charles Augustus Milverton, which features an evil blackmailer; and His Last Bow, in which Holmes is called out of retirement on a matter of national importance. [via]
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Villette: Library Editionby Charlotte Bronte, Helen M. CooperISBN 0140434798 (0-14-043479-8)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Villette: Library Edition'Book summary:[via]"I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading Villette..." George Eliot
With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster, and her own complex feelings, first for the schools English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor, Paul Emmanuel. Charlotte Brontës last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.
- Villette draws on Brontës own unhappy experience as a governess in Brussels
- New Introduction examines the novel's social and historical context and argues for its importance as an exploration of imperialism
- Includes chronology, suggestions for further reading, and explanatory notes
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The Wings of the Doveby Henry JamesISBN 0140432639 (0-14-043263-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wings of the Dove'Book summary:The Wings of the Dove is a classic example of Henry James's morality tales that play off the naiveté of an American protagonist abroad. In early-20th-century London, Kate Croy and Merton Densher are engaged in a passionate, clandestine love affair. Croy is desperately in love with Densher, who has all the qualities of a potentially excellent husband: he's handsome, witty, and idealistic--the one thing he lacks is money, which ultimately renders him unsuitable as a mate. By chance, Croy befriends a young American heiress, Milly Theale. When Croy discovers that Theale suffers from a mysterious and fatal malady, she hatches a plan that can give all three characters something that they want--at a price. Croy and Densher plan to accompany the young woman to Venice where Densher, according to Croy's design, will seduce the ailing heiress. The two hope that Theale will find love and happiness in her last days and--when she dies--will leave her fortune to Densher, so that he and Croy can live happily ever after. The scheme that at first develops as planned begins to founder when Theale discovers the pair's true motives shortly before her death. Densher struggles with unanticipated feelings of love for his new paramour, and his guilt may obstruct his ability to avail himself of Theale's gift. James deftly navigates the complexities and irony of such moral treachery in this stirring novel. [via]
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The Winter's Taleby William Shakespeare, Frances E. DolanISBN 014071488X (0-14-071488-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Winter's Tale'Book summary:One of Shakespeare's most haunting and enigmatic late plays, The Winter's Tale is a fine example of Shakespeare's fascination with the dramatic genre of "romance": the portrayal of magical lands, familial conflict and exile, and final reunion and reconciliation. Drawing on Robert Green's story Pandosto, Shakespeare play tells the story of the middle-aged Leontes, king of Sicilia, and his childhood friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia. Leontes mistakenly believes that his friend is having an affair with his wife, Hermione. In his jealousy, and consumed by "tremor cordis", he tries to murder Polixenes, who flees, and accuses his wife of adultery. Hermione gives birth to a baby girl, Perdita, who Leontes denounces as illegitimate, and casts her out into the wilderness. Hermione is ultimately proved innocent, but her son, Mamillius, dies of grief. Hermione collapses, apparently dead, and Leontes is left to pick up the tragic consequences of his actions. Time passes, and the action moves to Bohemia, where the lost child Perdita has grown up a shepherdess in the midst of "great creating nature". The final scenes of the play draw towards resolution and reconciliation between Leontes, Hermione and their lost daughter, culminating in one of Shakespeare's most moving final scenes. One of Shakespeare's most consummate plays, The Winter's Tale is a fascinating study of male insecurity and the relations between art and nature. --Jerry Brotton. [via]
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The Winter's Tale : Texts and Contextsby William Shakespeare, Baldwin MaxwellISBN 0140714049 (0-14-071404-9)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Winter's Tale : Texts and Contexts'Book summary:One of Shakespeare's most haunting and enigmatic late plays, The Winter's Tale is a fine example of Shakespeare's fascination with the dramatic genre of "romance": the portrayal of magical lands, familial conflict and exile, and final reunion and reconciliation. Drawing on Robert Green's story Pandosto, Shakespeare play tells the story of the middle-aged Leontes, king of Sicilia, and his childhood friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia. Leontes mistakenly believes that his friend is having an affair with his wife, Hermione. In his jealousy, and consumed by "tremor cordis", he tries to murder Polixenes, who flees, and accuses his wife of adultery. Hermione gives birth to a baby girl, Perdita, who Leontes denounces as illegitimate, and casts her out into the wilderness. Hermione is ultimately proved innocent, but her son, Mamillius, dies of grief. Hermione collapses, apparently dead, and Leontes is left to pick up the tragic consequences of his actions. Time passes, and the action moves to Bohemia, where the lost child Perdita has grown up a shepherdess in the midst of "great creating nature". The final scenes of the play draw towards resolution and reconciliation between Leontes, Hermione and their lost daughter, culminating in one of Shakespeare's most moving final scenes. One of Shakespeare's most consummate plays, The Winter's Tale is a fascinating study of male insecurity and the relations between art and nature. --Jerry Brotton. [via]
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Wives and Daughtersby Elizabeth Gaskell, Pam MorrisISBN 014043478X (0-14-043478-X)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wives and Daughters'Book summary:Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centres on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new step-sister enters Molly's quiet life loveable, but worldly and troubling, Cynthia. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford.[via]Wives and Daughters is far more than a nostalgic evocation of village life; it offers an ironic critique of mid-Victorian society. 'No nineteenth-century novel contains a more devastating rejection than this of the Victorian male assumption of moral authority', writes Pam Morris in her introduction to this new edition, in which she explores the novel's main themes the role of women, Darwinism and the concept of Englishness and its literary and social context.
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