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Oxford University Press
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The new Oxford World's Classics edition of Oliver Twist is based on the authoritative Clarendon edition, which uses Dickens's revised text of 1846. It includes his preface of 1841 in which he defended himself against hostile criticism, and includes all 24 original illustrations by George Cruikshank. Stephen Gill's groundbreaking Introduction gives a fascinating new account of the novel. He also provides appendices on Dickens and Cruikshank, on Top page Dickens's Preface and the Newgate Novel Controversy, on Oliver Twist and the New Poor Law and on thieves' slang. |
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The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers — A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings — Extensive introduction gives full attention to the play's bold treatment of racial themes, gender, and social relations — Detailed performance history designed to meet the needs of theatre professionals — On-page commentary and notes explain language, word-play, and staging — Appendices on music in the play and a full translation of the Italian novella from which the story derives — Illustrated with production photographs and related art — Full index to introduction and commentary — Durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major Top page achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.' |
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In 1836 the 23-year-old Dickens was invited by his publishers to write 'a monthly something' illustrated by sporting plates. Thus the Pickwick Club was Top page born: its supposed 'papers' soom outgrew their origins and became a brilliantly comic novel, still among Dicken's most popular works. |
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A schoolteacher in a provincial town falls in love with and marries a young local woman. He thinks he's found a bliss only described in novels. But before long, his sharp points of bliss become blurred. The loss of ideals and poverty of actual experience are the themes of these stories. Chekhov's Russians, at the close of the 19th century are trapped in a prison of frustration, which he depicts with laconic power. |
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Since their first publication in the 1830s and 1840s, Edgar Allan Poe's extraordinary Gothic tales have established themselves as classics of horror fiction and have also created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detective fiction. Yet, as well as being highly enjoyable, Poe's tales are works of very real intellectual exploration. Abandoning the criteria of characterization and plotting in favour of blurred boundaries between self and other, will and morality, identity and memory, Poe uses the Gothic to question the integrity of human existence. Indeed, Poe is less interested in solving puzzles or in moral retribution than in exposing the misconceptions that make things seem 'mysterious' in the first place. Attentive to the historical and political dimensions of these very American tales, this new critical edition selects twenty-four tales and places the most popular — 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Masque of the Red Death', 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue; and 'The Purloined Letter' — alongside less well-known Top page travel narratives, metaphysical essays and political satires. |
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Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for others and for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete with self-centred fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, whilst Marianne's unswerving belief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerously susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men. Through her heroines' parallel experiences of love, loss, and hope, Jane Austen offers a powerful analysis of the ways in which women's lives were shaped by the claustrophobic society in which they had to Top page survive. |
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The Three Musketeers (1844) is one of the most famous historical novels ever written. It is also one of the world's greatest historical adventure stories, and its heroes have become symbols for the spirit of youth, daring, and comradeship. The action takes place in the 1620s at the court of Louis XIII, where the musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, with their companion, the headstrong d'Artagnan, are engaged in a battle against Richelieu, the King's minister, and the beautiful, unscrupulous spy, Milady. Behind the flashing blades and bravura, in this first adventure of the Musketeers, Dumas explores the eternal conflict between good and evil. This new edition is the most fully annotated to date in English, providing explanatory Top page notes which set the work in its historical, literary, and cultural context. |
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The profoundest book there is, born from the innermost richness of truth, an inexhaustible well into which no bucket descends without coming up with gold and goodness.''Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885) was Nietzsche's own favourite among all his books and has proved to be his most popular, having sold millions of copies in many different languages. In it he addresses the problem of how to live a fulfilling life in a world without meaning, in the aftermath of 'the death of God'. Nietzsche's solution lies in the idea of eternal recurrence which he calls 'the highest formula of affirmation that can ever be attained''. A successful engagement with this profoundly Dionysian idea enables us to choose clearly among the myriad possibilities that existence offers, and thereby to affirm every moment of our lives with others on this 'sacred' earth. This translation of Zarathustra (the first new English version for over forty years) conveys the musicality of the original German, and for the first time annotates the abundance of allusions to the Top page Bible and other classic texts with which Nietzsche's masterpiece is in conversation. |
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This adventure story tells of three men and their guide Umslopogaas who trek into the remote interior of Africa in search of a lost white race. Through unknown territories their perilous journey takes them to Zu-vendis, a kingdom ruled by the beautiful twin sisters, Nyleptha and Sorais. |
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'But I don't want to go among mad people', Alice remarked. 'Oh, you ca'n't help that', said the Cat. 'We're all mad here'. The 'Alice' books are two of the most translated, most quoted, and best-known books in the world, but what exactly are they? Apparently delightful, innocent fantasies for children, they are also complex textures of mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. Alice's encounters with the White Rabbit, the Cheshire-Cat, the King and Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and many other extraordinary characters have made them masterpieces of carefree nonsense, yet they also appeal to adults on a quite different level. Layers of satire, allusion, and symbolism about Victorian culture and politics, as well as revelations about the intricate subconscious problems of their author, add to their fascination and make them impossible to classify. This new edition explores the phenomenal range of reference, and the paradoxical appeal of two of the most inventive books in world literature. It also includes an episode removed by Carroll from the proofs of Through the Looking-Glass, called 'The Wasp in a Wig'. |
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In The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes we read the last twelve stories Conan Doyle was to write about Holmes and Watson. They reflect the disillusioned world of the 1920s in which they were written, and he can be seen to take advantage of new, more open conventions in fiction. Suicide as a murder weapon and homosexual incest are some of the psychological tragedies whose consequences are unravelled by the mind of Holmes before the eyes of Watson. That said, the collection also includes some of the best turns of wit in the series, and indeed in the whole of English literature. The editor of this volume, W.W. Robson, is Emeritus David Masson, Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and the author of Modern English Literature. The general editor of the Oxford Sherlock Holmes, Owen Dudley Edwards, is Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh and author of The Quest for Sherlock Holmes. A Biographical Study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. |
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Jane Austen began writing in her early teens, and filled three notebooks with her fiction. Her earliest work reflects her interest in the novel as a genre; in brilliant short pieces she plays with plots, stock characters, diction, and style, developing a sense of form at a remarkably early age. The characters of these stories have a jaunty and never-failing devotion to themselves. They perpetually lie, cheat, steal — and occasionally commit murder. Throughout these short or unfinished pieces, Austen exhibits her sense of the preposterous in life and fiction with tough-mindedness and robust humour. Alice, the mock-heroine of Jack and Alice has 'many rare and charming qualities, but Sobriety is not one of them'. In her later published fiction, Austen had learned to take demands for propriety seriously, reining in whatever might be thought boisterous or coarse. Here we see Jane Austen without her inhibitions. In addition to prose fiction and prayers, this collection also contains many of Jane Austen's poems, written to amuse or console friends, and rarely reprinted. The texts have been compared with the manuscripts and edited to give a number of new readings.The notes recreate the texture of daily life in Jane Austen's age, and demonstrate her knowledge of the fiction of her time. The introduction by Margaret Anne Doody sets the writings within the context of Jane Austen's life and literary career. |
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The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the works for modern readers — a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings — on-page and facing-page commentary and notes explain language and allusions — detailed introductions consider the sonnets' biographical and literary background, how the poems relate to the plays, dating and textual matters, and the mysteries of 'Mr W. H.' and the 'Dark Lady' — includes poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth century — full index to introductions and commentary — durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.' |
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When A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was published in 1889, Mark Twain was undergoing a series of personal and professional crises. Thus what began as a literary burlesque of British chivalry and culture grew into a disturbing satire of modern technology and social thought. The story of Hank Morgan, a nineteenth-century American who is accidentally returned to sixth-century England, is a powerful analysis of such issues as monarchy versus democracy and free will versus determinism, but it is also one of Twain's finest comic novels, still fresh and funny after more than 100 years. In his introduction, M. Thomas Inge shows how A Connecticut Yankee develops from comedy to tragedy and so into a novel that remains a major literary and cultural text for new generations of readers. This edition reproduces a number of the original drawings by Dan Beard, of whom Twain said 'he not only illustrates the text but he illustrates my thoughts'. |
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La Dame aux Camelias still has the power to cast the spell that has fascinated generations of readers. Dumas's marvellously beautiful, intelligent, and vibrant heroine lives on in revivals of the stage version, in film and television adaptations, and inLa Traviata, Verdi's perennially popular opera. For Marguerite has long since attained the status of a myth. Dumas's subtle and moving portrait of a woman in love is a timeless antidote to the cynicism of every age. |
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The Decameron (c.1351) was written in the wake of the Black Death, a shattering epidemic which had shaken Florence's confident entrepreneurial society to its core. In a country villa outside the city, ten young noble men and women who have escaped the plague decide to tell each other stories. Boccaccio's skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in this virtuoso performance of one hundred tales, vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots which revel in a bewildering variety of human reactions. Themes are playfully restated from one story to another within an elegant and refined framework. One of Chaucer's most fruitful sources for the Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's work artfully combines the essential ingredients of narrative: fate and desire, crises and quick-thinking. This new translation by Guido Waldman captures the exuberance and variety and tone of Boccaccio's masterpiece. |
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'I regret to see that my book has turned out un fiasco solenne' James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation in Ireland'. Joyce's aim was to tell the truth — to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century and by rejecting euphemism, reveal to the Irish the unromantic reality the recognition of which would lead to the spiritual liberation of the country. Each of the fifteen stories offers a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Dubliners — a death, an encounter, an opportunity not taken, a memory rekindled — and collectively they paint a portrait of a nation. |
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The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers — a new, modern-spelling text, based on the Quarto text of 1608 — on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, allusions and much else — detailed introduction considers composition, sources, performances and changing critical attitudes to the play — illustrated with production photographs and related art — includes 'The Ballad of King Lear' and related offshoots — full index to introduction and commentary — durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.' |
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'Such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero.' Sharpe's London Magazine (June 1855) Jane Eyre is an orphan grown up under the harsh regime first of her aunt and then as a pupil at Lowood Institution. She leaves to become a governess to the daughter of the mysterious Mr Rochester; gradually their relationship deepens, but Jane's passionate nature has yet to endure its deepest blows. In this new edition Sally Shuttleworth explores the power of a narrative that questions the rights of women, the nature of servitude and madness, martyrdom and rebellion in a story whose emotional charge is a strong today as it was more than 150 years ago. |
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The text and notes are reproduced from the Oxford English Novels edition. The introduction sheds light on the relationship of the Journal to Pepys's diary, and a medical note relates the latest research on the Plague. |
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