| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'
This classic selection brings together twelve of the original stories serialized in the Strand Magazine in the early 1890s. Thrilling adventures such as "A Scandal in Bohemia" catapulted the keen-witted Holmes to fame and continue to make him the most beloved sleuth of all time. [via]
More editions of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass'
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]
More editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'
More editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There'
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]
More editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass'
More editions of Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass:

› Find signed collectible books: 'American Gothic'
More editions of American Gothic:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Angels & Insects'
In these breathtaking novellas, A.S. Byatt returns to the territory she explored in Possession: the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion. Angels and Insects is "delicate and confidently ironic.... Byatt perfectly blends laughter and sympathy [with] extraordinary sensuality" (San Francisco Examiner).
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Anna and the King of Siam'
"Anna and the King of Siam" is a wonderful blend of old-fashioned fiction writing and the meticulously researched true story of the young English woman who was the tutor to the children of King Mongkut of Siam during the 1860s. Her most important pupil was the prince who would become Thailand's most progressive king. It was Anna who taught him about Abraham Lincoln and the Western ideals which would later influence his reign and the transformation of Thailand from a feudal state to a modern progressive society. [via]
More editions of Anna and the King of Siam:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Barchester Towers'
This 1857 sequel to The Warden wryly chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester. The evangelical but not particularly competent new bishop is Dr. Proudie, who with his awful wife and oily curate, Slope, maneuver for power. The Warden and Barchester Towers are part of Trollope's Barsetshire series, in which some of the same characters recur. [via]
More editions of Barchester Towers:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Barchester Towers'
This 1857 sequel to The Warden wryly chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester. The evangelical but not particularly competent new bishop is Dr. Proudie, who with his awful wife and oily curate, Slope, maneuver for power. The Warden and Barchester Towers are part of Trollope's Barsetshire series, in which some of the same characters recur. [via]
More editions of Barchester Towers:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beyond Good and Evil'
This is a major work by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings have been deeply influential on subsequent generations of philosophers. It is offered here in a new translation by Judith Norman, with an introduction by Rolf Peter Horstmann that places the work in its historical and philosophical context. [via]
More editions of Beyond Good and Evil:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Body Project : An Intimate History of American Girls'
Adolescent girls today face the issues girls have always faced: "Who am I?" and "Who do I want to be?" Unfortunately their answers, now more than ever before, revolve around the body rather than the mind, heart, or soul. "The body is at the heart of the crisis that [Carol] Gilligan, [Mary] Pipher, and others describe.... The fact that American girls now make the body their central project is not an accident or a curiosity," writes Brumberg, "it is a symptom of historical changes that are only now beginning to be understood." The historical photos, thorough research, and political even-handedness make this a book of worth and sincerity. The Body Project is also comforting for women, adolescents, parents, lesbians, and male lovers of women--helping us sort out the roots of female insecurities, obsessions, and angst. [via]
More editions of The Body Project : An Intimate History of American Girls:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Calendar Papers'
More editions of Calendar Papers:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cambridge Companion to Darwin'
More editions of The Cambridge Companion to Darwin:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Charles Dickens' a Tale of Two Cities'
More editions of Charles Dickens' a Tale of Two Cities:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: Library Edition'
More editions of The Complete Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: Library Edition:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Daniel Deronda'
More editions of Daniel Deronda:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age'
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
More editions of The Diamond Age:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'
John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society. But Hackworth loses the primer before he can give it to Fiona, and now the "book" has fallen into the hands of young Nell, an underprivileged girl whose life is about to change. [via]
More editions of The Diamond Age/Or, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dickens :Public Life and Private Passion: Public Life and Private Passion'
In this remarkable new biography, Peter Ackroyd offers a different view of Dickens to that presented in his earlier study of the author. In that book, Ackroyd's attempts to mimic the voice of the great writer were highly controversial, though some saw the book as a radical re-invention of the biography form. There is no arguing with the brilliant achievement of the more straightforward Charles Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion, however; the picture of Dickens and his complicated private life that emerges is fastidiously detailed and powerfully evocative, while Ackroyd's customary skill at creating a panoply of the city of London is as dazzling as ever (London, is, in fact, the subject of another biography by the author, who is unquestionably the keenest chronicler of the city's colourful history). Here, Ackroyd attempts to peel away the mask of a man whose life was outwardly a picture of Victorian rectitude, but whose love life was as complicated (and unconventional) as any modern writer. Dickens had everything--fame, success and riches--but he died harbouring a deep sadness he had experienced all his life. He was a man of mercurial character, had enormous vitality and humour, but he also had a sense of loss and longing that would constantly appear in his work. Like many eminent Victorians, he led a double life: although he insisted that nothing in the newspapers he edited should upset his middle-class readers, he regularly indulged in dubious night-time escapades with fellow author Wilkie Collins, and, for the last 13 years of his life, kept a secret mistress.
While presenting a warm but astringent portrait of the man who (along with George Eliot) can be classed as the greatest writer of his age, Ackroyd also masterfully recreates the relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, a strong and intelligent woman (herself the subject of a biography by Claire Tomalin, The Inviisble Woman who, like her lover, outwardly observed the proprieties while living her real life behind closed doors. Ackroyd also vividly conjures the reality of Victorian life, the issues that sparked Dickens' fervent call for social reform, and the great landmarks of the time, which profoundly affected his life and work. --Barry Forshaw [via]
More editions of Dickens :Public Life and Private Passion: Public Life and Private Passion:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Difference Engine'
A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Difference Engine'
A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. [via]
More editions of The Difference Engine:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'
The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Falling Angels : A Novel'
Set among the sweeping skirts and social upheavals of Edwardian London, Tracy Chevalier's Falling Angels is a meditation on change, loss, and recovery. Her central characters are two young girls of the same age, whose family plots are situated side-by-side in a cemetery modeled on Highgate. Lavinia Waterhouse is respectably middle-class, devoted, like her conventional, doting mother, to the right way to do things, although suspiciously well- schooled in subjects like funerary sculpture and the English practices of mourning. Her friend Maude Coleman comes from a slightly more privileged and free-thinking background. In contrast with Lavinia's mother, Maude's mother Kitty Coleman is well-educated by the standards of the day, and it has made her restless and irritable. But neither her reading, nor her gardening, nor her affair with the somber, high-thinking governor of the cemetery is enough for Kitty. She comes alive only when she discovers the women's suffrage movement, and her devotion to the cause takes her away from Maude in every sense.
Although the point of view shifts between many characters (with even the Coleman's maid and cook getting their say, sometimes unnecessarily), Falling Angels is essentially the children's story, since it is their lives that are most open to change. The narrative spans exactly the years of Edward VII's reign, from the morning after his mother Queen Victoria's death in January 1901 to his own death in May 1910. Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) deftly uses the nation's dramatically different mourning for these two monarchs to signal the social transformations of the period. Readers at ease with English history will find Falling Angels an unusually subtle novel, with an emotional range that recalls the best of the Edwardian novelists, E.M. Forster, and his quintessential novel of Edwardian manners, Howard's End. --Regina Marler [via]
More editions of Falling Angels : A Novel:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Far from the Madding Crowd'
Bathsheba Everdene is a beautiful young woman with three men who love her, but, unfortunately for her, she chooses the wrong man to marry. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. "Penguin Readers" are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from "Easystarts" with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: "Contemporary", "Classics" or "Originals". At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying "Penguin Readers Factsheets" which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class. [via]
More editions of Far from the Madding Crowd:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Henry James' the Portrait of a Lady'
More editions of Henry James' the Portrait of a Lady:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'
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]
More editions of The Hound of the Baskervilles:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles : Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes'
More editions of The Hound of the Baskervilles : Another Adventure of Sherlock Holmes:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford'
Flora Thompson's memoirs of a childhood spent in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Juniper in the 1880s. [via]
More editions of The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Journey to the Center of the Earth'
Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Vernes prophetic novel of mans race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen.
When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicanes adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a manned flight, one mans dream turns into an international space race.
A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Vernes timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days.
[via]
More editions of A Journey to the Center of the Earth:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Journey to the Center of the Earth'
More editions of Journey to the Center of the Earth:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lempriere's Dictionary'
"An important and inspiring novel."
VOICE LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
It is 18th-century London and John Lempriere, a young scholar, is writing a dictionary of classical mythology in an attempt to exorcise the demons raised by his father's violent and bizarre death. While tending to his father's business affairs, Lempriere discovers a 150-year old conspiracy that has kept his family from its share of the fabulously wealthy East India Company. But as John begins to untangle the years of mystery and deceit, people begin to die, in ways that mirror the very myths he is researching....
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
More editions of Lempriere's Dictionary:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lewis Carroll: An Illustrated Biography'
More editions of Lewis Carroll: An Illustrated Biography:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century'
More editions of The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'
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]
More editions of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mill on the Floss'
This volume aims to help students understand George Eliot's novel by providing primary sources that clarify what students may find obscure. These sources are crucial to appreciating the allusions and references that Eliot uses to develop her characters and to enhance her overall presentation of English life. Excerpts and complete texts provide context for both the action of the novel (set in the 1830s) and the period of its composition (1859-1860). The volume also presents some of the best modern criticism of the work to further explore how the novel is currently studied. [via]
More editions of The Mill on the Floss:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde'
A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."
As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment." [via]
More editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Portrait of a Lady'
By using the 1882 edition of The Portrait of a Lady, the text reflects more clearly the culture from and to which it was written. A significant number of fairly contemporary materials deal with etiquette/behavior, conceptions of the American girl and the American woman, discussions of Americans (especially girls/women) living abroad, and international marriages. Magazine and newspapers articles of the period also help to place Isabel Archer in a historical context. The volume includes reprints of contemporary reviews, emphasizing those that found the ending of the novel perplexing. [via]
More editions of The Portrait of a Lady:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice'
Mrs Bennet wants all of her five daughters to marry and to marry well. When two rich young men come to the village, Mrs Bennet is sure that they will make wonderful husbands. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. "Penguin Readers" are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from "Easystarts" with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: "Contemporary", "Classics" or "Originals". At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying "Penguin Readers Factsheets" which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class. [via]
More editions of Pride and Prejudice:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice'
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Pride and Prejudice:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice : Oxford World Classics'
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Pride and Prejudice : Oxford World Classics:

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'
More editions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Introduction by Rosemary Ashton
The isolated, misanthropic, miserly weaver Silas Marner is one of George Eliots greatest creations, and his presence casts a strange, otherworldly glow over the moral dramas, both large and small, that take place in the pastoral landscape that surrounds him.
When Marner is wrongly accused of crime and expelled from his community, he vows to turn his back upon the world. He moves to the village of Raveloe, where he remains an outsider and an object of suspicion until an extraordinary sequence of events, including the theft of his gold and the appearance of a tiny, golden-haired child in his cottage, transforms his life. Part beautifully realized rural portraiture and part fairy tale, the story of Marners redemption and restoration to humanity has long been George Eliots most beloved and widely read work. [via]
More editions of Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe:
![[???]: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde [???]: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0582084849.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg)
The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
More editions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tale of Two Cities'
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. [via]
More editions of A Tale of Two Cities:

› Find signed collectible books: 'This Was America: True Accounts of People and Places'
More editions of This Was America: True Accounts of People and Places:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Victoria Victorious'
In this unforgettable novel of Queen Victoria, Jean Plaidy re-creates a remarkable life filled with romance, triumph, and tragedy.
At birth, Princess Victoria was fourth in line for the throne of England, the often-overlooked daughter of a prince who died shortly after her birth. She and her mother lived in genteel poverty for most of her childhood, exiled from court because of her mothers dislike of her uncles, George IV and William IV. A strong, willful child, Victoria was determined not to be stifled by her powerful uncles or her unpopular, controlling mother. Then one morning, at the age of eighteen, Princess Victoria awoke to the news of her uncle Williams death. The almost-forgotten princess was now Queen of England. Even better, she was finally free of her mothers iron hand and her uncles manipulations. Her first act as queen was to demand that she be given a roomand a bedof her own.
Victorias marriage to her German cousin, Prince Albert, was a blissfully happy one that produced nine children. Albert was her constant companion and one of her most trusted advisors. Victorias grief after Prince Alberts untimely death was so shattering that for the rest of her lifenearly forty yearsshe dressed only in black. She survived several assassination attempts, and during her reign Englands empire expanded around the globe until it touched every continent in the world.
Derided as a mere girl queen at her coronation, by the end of her sixty-four-year reign, Victoria embodied the glory of the British Empire. In this novel, written as a memoir by Victoria herself, she emerges as truthful, sentimental, and essentially humanboth a lovable woman and a great queen. [via]
More editions of Victoria Victorious:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Way of All Flesh'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Samuel Butler was among the most wide-ranging of the accomplished crew of late Victorian writers to which be belonged -- a forceful controversialist in the debates that surrounded Darwin's theory of evolution, a painter who sometimes exhibited at the Royal Academy, an idiosyncratic critic and a gifted travel writer, and even, in his early years, a highly successful sheep farmer in New Zealand. He was also, as The Way of All Flesh, his deterministic tale of the havoc wrought by genetic inheritance, suggests, one of the great British masters of the novel of ideas. [via]
More editions of The Way of All Flesh:
› Find signed collectible books: 'Wide Sargasso Sea'
In 1966 Jean Rhys reemerged after a long silence with a novel called Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys had enjoyed minor literary success in the 1920s and '30s with a series of evocative novels featuring women protagonists adrift in Europe, verging on poverty, hoping to be saved by men. By the '40s, however, her work was out of fashion, too sad for a world at war. And Rhys herself was often too sad for the world--she was suicidal, alcoholic, troubled by a vast loneliness. She was also a great writer, despite her powerful self-destructive impulses.
Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up in the West Indies on a decaying plantation. When she comes of age she is married off to an Englishman, and he takes her away from the only place she has known--a house with a garden where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched."
The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë's book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell--that of the madwoman in the attic, Rochester's terrible secret. Antoinette is Rhys's imagining of that locked-up woman, who in the end burns up the house and herself. Wide Sargasso Sea follows her voyage into the dark, both from her point of view and Rochester's. It is a voyage charged with soul-destroying lust. "I watched her die many times," observes the new husband. "In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty."
Rhys struggled over the book, enduring rejections and revisions, wrestling to bring this ruined woman out of the ashes. The slim volume was finally published when she was 70 years old. The critical adulation that followed, she said, "has come too late." Jean Rhys died a few years later, but with Wide Sargasso Sea she left behind a great legacy, a work of strange, scary loveliness. There has not been a book like it before or since. Believe me, I've been searching. --Emily White [via]
More editions of Wide Sargasso Sea:
