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HarperCollins Publishers
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Alas that mortals Should blame the gods! From us, they say, All evils come. Yet they themselves It is who through defiant deeds Bring sorrow on them-far more sorrow Than fate would have them bear.' Attributed to the blind Greek poet, Homer, The Odyssey is an epic tale about cunning and strength of mind. It takes its starting point ten years after the fall of the city of Troy and follows its Greek warrior hero Odysseus as he tries to journey to his home of Ithaca in northwest Greece after the Greek victory over the Trojans. On his travels, Odysseus comes across surreal islands and foreign lands where he is in turn challenged and supported by those that he meets on his travels as he attempts to find his way back home in order to vanquish those who threaten his estate. In turn, his son Telemachus has to grow up quickly as he attempts to find his father and protect his mother from her suitors. Dealing with the universal themes of temptation and courage, the epic journey that Odysseus undertakes is as meaningful today as it was almost 3,000 years ago when the story was composed. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Now he found out a new thing — namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.' An idyllic snapshot of a boy's childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author's work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s. Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety. A 'coming of age' tale, it is through Tom's adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aware of his own inner conflict. Through the central characters of Tom and Huck, Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society and adult hypocrisy, whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy's journey into adulthood. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.' Orphaned as a young teenager, Lowlander David Balfour's only relative is his guardian and uncle, Ebenezer. Ill-thought of and disliked by many, it's not long before Ebenezer betrays his nephew and David finds himself trapped aboard a ship. He soon strikes up a friendship with fugitive stranger and Scottish Highlander Alan Breck and becomes embroiled in the fierce Jacobite struggle against English rule. A tale of high-seas adventure, loyalty and fighting, the complex relationship between Alan and David stops Stevenson's novel from becoming 'just' a boys adventure novel. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.' Set in the agricultural town of Raveloe in the English countryside, Silas Marner is a tragic figure. Exiled from a religious community because of a wrongful accusation of theft, he works from day to day as a weaver, saving his money and living a lonely life as a recluse. It is only when his money is stolen and a small orphan girl, Eppie appears in his life that Silas's fortunes begin to change and he truly begins to learn what it means to regain his faith in life. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart — one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which gives direction to the character of Man.' Including Poe's most terrifying, grotesque and haunting short stories, Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the ultimate collection of the infamous author's macabre works. Considered to be one of the earliest American writers to encapsulate the genre of detective-fiction, the collection features some of his most popular tales.'The Gold-Bug' is the only tale that was popular in his lifetime, whereas 'The Black Cat', 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' became more widely read after his death. Focussing on the internal conflict of individuals, the power of the dead over the living, and psychological explorations of darker human emotion that appear to anticipate Sigmund Freud's later theories on the psyche, Poe's Gothic terror stories are considered masterpieces the world over. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Featuring the last 12 stories ever written about the infamous detective, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes contains some of Conan Doyle's most villainous and unusual characters. The 1920s was a disenchanting era, and the darker mood of many of these stories reflects the environment at the time. Some even felt that the stories showed Conan Doyle exploring Spiritualism as it was an area he was interested in at the time and the mental derangement and physical disfigurements that crop up in many of the stories allude to the horrors of the First World War. The collection includes 'The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire', 'The Adventure of the Creeping Man' and 'The Adventure of the Lion's Mane'. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Centred around a glorious yellow diamond, The Moonstone tells the story of Rachel Verinder, who inherits the stone on her 18th birthday. That very evening, the diamond is stolen and there begins an epic enquriy into hunting down the thief. Told from the perspective of 11different characters, Wilkie Collins' tale of mystery and suspicion was considered the first modern English detective novel at its time of publication. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'They swarmed numerous like locusts, industrious like ants, thoughtless like a natural force, pushing on blind and orderly and absorbed, impervious to sentiment, to logic — to terror, too, perhaps.' Considered one of Conrad's most political works, The Secret Agent is set against the dismal backdrop of a drab and alienating London, and tells the story of the bombing of Greenwich Observatory by a group of anarchists. Shopkeeper, spy and reluctant anarchist Mr Verloc becomes embroiled in this terrorist plot, exploiting his mentally disabled brother-in-law Stevie in the process, leading to tragic circumstances. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice!' Living secretly beneath the Paris Opera House, 'The Phantom of the Opera', Erik has haunted those who work there with his demands and shrouded the opera house in fear with the legend of his disfigured face. When Christine joins the company, a young woman with a beautiful voice, Erik is instantly smitten and secretly teaches her to become a great singer. He soon develops an obsessive love for his beautiful protege, even though she has fallen for her childhood friend, resulting in her disappearance during a performance and sparking a tragic and terrifying chain of events. One of the most well-known and well-loved gothic horror stories, Leroux's suspenseful tale of unrequited love, passion and tragedy is both dark and moving in its portrayal of Erik, the anti-hero in his yearning for Christine. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Revered as one of the greatest ghost stories ever told, James's The Turn of the Screw is an eerie Victorian masterpiece. When an inexperienced governess goes to work at Bly, a country house in Essex to look after a young boy Miles and his sister Flora, all manner of strange events begin to occur. The governess begins to spot a ghostly man and woman around the grounds and is told by the housekeeper that they are the ghosts of the valet and the previous governess. It soon becomes clear that the children are inexplicably connected to these ghosts in some way and the young governess struggles to protect the children, although from exactly what, she is not sure. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I pay very little regard to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.' Humble and lowly, a young Fanny Price goes to live with her wealthy Aunt and Uncle at their grand house, Mansfield Park. Growing up with her privileged and spoilt cousins, the Bertrams, she lives in the shadows of their glamorous lives, but manages to find an ally in her cousin, Edmund. When Henry and Mary Crawford come to visit, the house is thrown into disarray as romance flourishes between the young people, leading Fanny to finally confront the extent of her true feelings for Edmund. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'For her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web in every cranny of her heart.' Married to Charles, a provincial doctor, Emma Bovary yearns for a more glamorous life. Disenchanted with her husband and seeking an escape from their dull marriage she is soon tempted into a brief romantic liaison with another man. Although short-lived, she remains desirous of passion and the finer things in life and embarks on another affair, destroying her reputation. Considered scandalous at the time, Emma Bovary's superficial and immoral behaviour shocked readers and caused moral outcry. Flaubert holds up to ridicule not only Madame Bovary herself, but the society that dares to judge her. |
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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'I'll not listen to reason, she said, now in full possession of her voice, which had been rather choked with sobbing. Reason always means what someone else has got to say. 'First published in serial format in a magazine, Gaskell's Cranford is a delightfully light-hearted series of stories about early Victorian life in a country village. Following the lives of two spinster sisters, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah as they gossip about the inconsequential goings-on of the community around them, Gaskell's best-loved work affectionately comments on the role of women in society at that time and the changing face of the Victorian world. |
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Recently divorced, Anna Dunlap has two passionate attachments: her daughter, four-year-old Molly, and her lover, Leo, the man who makes her feel beautiful — and sexual — for the first time. Swept away by happiness and passion, Anna feels she has everything she's ever wanted. Then come the shocking charges that would threaten her new love, her new family... that force her to prove she is a good mother. |
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In his Newbery Medal-winning novel, Gaiman introduces Bod, a boy who is the only living resident of a graveyard. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead? |
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The series that has sold over nine million copies continues with the first book in the new sixbook Omen of the Stars story arc. The Fourth Apprentice also includes the first adventure in the Warriors Adventure Game. |
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Travis Chase is back in this thrilling follow-up to Patrick Lee's instant New York Times bestseller, The Breach. |
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For over fifty years, the Type Directors Club has encouraged the worldwide graphic arts community to achieve excellence in typography through its annual international competitions. Typography 31 is the only annual devoted exclusively to typography and presents the finest work in this field for the year 2009. Selected from approximately 2300 international submissions to the annual Type Directors Club competition, the winning designs are models of excellence and innovation in the use of type design, encompassing a wide range of categories, including books, magazines, corporate identities, logo types, stationery, annual reports, video and web graphics, and posters. |
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Join the movement Combining the core elements of running, jumping, and climbing with the discipline of the martial artist, the grace of the gymnast, and the virtuosity of the skateboarder, parkour — or freerunning — is more than simply an elegant noncompetitive sport. It's an art form, a philosophy promoting fitness, imagination, community spirit, and ethical, healthy living. The Parkour and FreeRunning Handbook is your guide to becoming part of this urban revolution. With standout features on fitness and training, global cityscapes and using the space of the urban environment, and tips on how to avoid mistakes and injuries, this is more than just a user's manual. It explores the techniques, culture, clothes, and community of freerunning, showing just what it takes to hit those handstands, kong vaults, and wall hops. This essential handbook is the only guide the fledgling traceur will ever need to get jumping! |
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Beautifully designed, this work reflects the elegance of its subject, and includes 60 color illustrations throughout of the life and work of Coco Chanel. |
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