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CRW Publishing
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Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The afterword for this edition is by David Stuart Davies. The challenge and pleasure of these stories is the simultaneous appeal to both child and adult with their themes of love, truth and sacrifice, which are as relevant today as when they were written. In this collection are to be found some of the brightest gems from the treasure trove of Oscar Wilde's incomparable writing. |
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Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword is by leading UK playwright, novelist and eminent Sherlockian, David Stuart Davies. |
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Over the centuries Ireland has preserved a magical, mystical aura that lends itself to tales of the supernatural — from leprechauns and fairies to ghosts and hauntings. Stories and storytelling have always been central to Irish folk culture, and this anthology of the best ghost stories from Ireland and Irish writers includes contributions from Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Patrick Kennedy, George Moore and W. B. Yeats. The result is a collection of tingling tales of poltergeists, supernatural experiences, haunted houses, death warnings and banshees that will chill the blood of readers and listeners alike. |
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Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by David Stuart Davies. The Jungle Book shows Kipling's writing for children at its best. It is a collection of short stories and poems, revolving round the boy Mowgli, who was raised by a pack of wolves in India. We meet the tiger Shere Khan who attacked and drove off Mowgli's parents, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo 'the sleepy brown bear, and the evil python, Kaa. Other stories include Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The White Seal and Toomai of the Elephants, and the book contains the original illustrations of J Lockwood Kipling (Rudyard's father) and W H Drake. |
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Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by Ned Halley.Set in Scotland in 1751, Kidnapped tells of how young David Balfour, orphaned, and betrayed by his uncle Ebenezer who should have been his guardian, is kidnapped, and falls in with Alan Breck, the unscrupulous but heroic champion of the Jacobite cause. The novel revolves around their friendship and their differences, suggesting a metaphor for Scotland itself.Modern critics see the novel as more than a boy's adventure yarn; at the heart of it lies what Henry James described as the 'really excellent' chapters of the flight in the heather that raise the novel to greatness. |
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The Limerick packs laughs anatomical into space that is quite economical, but the good ones I've seen so seldom are clean, and the clean ones so rarely are comical. This collection of witty Limericks, some clean, many filthy, and some packed with double-entendre has been assembled to add gaiety to nations. It contains over 1,000 Limericks historical, wistful, whimsical, clerical, medical, cynical and gastronomical, all of which will delight connoisseurs of the English language. |
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Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king to ensure his ambitions come true. But he soon learns the meaning of terror — killing once, he must kill again and again, and the dead return to haunt him. A story of war, witchcraft and bloodshed, Macbeth also depicts the relationship between husbands and wives, and the risks they are prepared to take to achieve their desires. |
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A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the best loved of Shakespeare's plays. It brings together aristocrats, workers, and fairies in a wood outside Athens, and from there the magic begins. A young woman flees Athens with her lover, only to be pursued by her would-be husband and by her best friend. Unwittingly, all four find themselves in an enchanted forest where fairies and sprites soon take an interest in human affairs, dispensing magical love potions and casting mischievous spells. In this dazzling comedy, confusion ends in harmony, as love is transformed, misplaced, and ultimately restored. |
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This is undoubtedly the greatest love story ever written, spawning a host of imitators on stage and screen, including Leonard Bernstein's smash musical West Side Story and Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet filmed in 1968. A young man and woman meet by chance and fall instantly in love. But their families are bitter enemies, and in order to be together the two lovers must be prepared to risk everything. Set in a city torn apart by feuds and gang warfare, Romeo and Juliet is a dazzling combination of passion and hatred, bawdy comedy and high tragedy. |
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The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, a cycle of 154 linked poems, were first published — that is to say, entered at Stationers' Hall by the publisher Thomas Thorpe — on 20th May 1609. This 400th-anniversary edition contains all of the poems and they deal with many of Shakespeare's most common themes: jealousy, betrayal, melancholy, and are written in the same beautiful and innovative language that we have come to know from his plays. They ache with unfulfilled longing, and for many they are the most complete and moving meditations on love ever written. |
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Each volume in the Collector's Library series has a specially commissioned Afterword, brief biography of the author and a further reading list. The Afterword for this edition of is by Ned Halley.This is the story of Dorothy and her little dog Toto who are carried away from Kansas by a cyclone and transported to the wonderful world of Oz. She meets three companions — the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion — and the three journey to the Emerald City of Oz to ask the Wizard of Oz to give them their heart's desires, which in Dorothy's case is to return home to Kansas.On their way to Oz and while fulfilling the tasks that the surprising Wizard asks of them they encounter witches, winged monkeys, the Deadly Desert, fighting trees and magic shoes. |
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«An anthology that brings together «The Frog Who Became an Emperor from China», «The Thee Billy Goats Gruff from Norway», and «Pinocchio» from Italy as well as the classic stories of Aesop, Andersen, the Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault and Oscar Wilde, among many others.» |
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The short story is the perfect format for traditional ghost stories. They have their roots in folklore, but in modern form they can be traced back to the romanticised writers of the Gothic tradition. Authors include Charles Dickens, Sheridan Le Fanu, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, F. Marion Crawford, Elizabeth Gaskell and H. H. Munro (Saki). Perhaps the finest exponent of the genre was M. R. James whose sly, academic tales are well represented in this collection, as well as those of Le Fanu, whom James acknowledged as his inspiration. This is a book to be relished by the fireside, with the curtains drawn against ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night. |
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'All grown-ups were once children — although few of them remember it'. A pilot forced to crash land in the Sahara desert encounters a little prince who is visiting the earth from his own small planet with its three volcanoes and a beautiful flower. Through this meeting, the aviator comes to discover many of life's universal truths which illuminate the human condition with all its foibles, cunning and eccentricities. This wonderful and remarkable book will enchant both children and adults alike. It is a strange and wonderful parable for all ages, championing the beauty and wisdom of childhood which fades when one becomes 'a grown up'. Antoine De Saint-Exupery's book has been translated into over 180 languages and sold over 80 million copies. Its magic is in its charm, its simplicity and its truths which speak to people of many nations and generations. |
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Robinson Crusoe is among the first novels written in English. Thanks to its extraordinary realism and drama, it is easily the longest-enduring work of popular fiction in the language. The story, probably based on the Pacific-island ordeal of castaway Alexander Selkirk, was presented by Daniel Defoe as a true account, and is utterly convincing in its topography, action and character, even 300 years after its first publication. Robinson Crusoe is a true page-turner: Dr Samuel Johnson said it was one of only three books he had read that would have been better for being longer. This new edition includes over thirty illustrations by George Cruikshank specially engraved for the 1831 edition. |
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In a remote Hertfordshire village, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise lies the erratic courtship of his second headstrong daughter, Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor — Fitzwilliam Darcy. |
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