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Wordsworth
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The magical Peter Pan comes to the night nursery of the Darling children, Wendy, John and Michael. He teaches them to fly, then takes them through the sky to Never-Never Land, where they find Red Indians, wolves, Mermaids and... Pirates. The leader of the pirates is the sinister Captain Hook. His hand was bitten off by a crocodile, who, as Captain Hook explains 'liked me arm so much that he has followed me ever since, licking his lips for the rest of me'. After lots of adventures, the story reaches its exciting climax as Peter, Wendy and the children do battle with Captain Hook and his band. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is the magical tale that first introduces Peter Pan, the little boy who never grows any older. He escapes his human form and flies to Kensington Gardens, where all his happy memories are, and meets the fairies, the thrushes, and Old caw the crow. The fairies think he is too human to be allowed to stay in after Lock-out time, so he flies off to an island which divides the Gardens from the more grown-up Hyde Park… Peter’s adventures, and how he eventually meets Mamie and the goat, are delightfully illustrated by Arthur Rackham. |
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Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in 'art for art's sake', to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the 'note of doom' which runs like 'a purple thread' through its carefully crafted prose. |
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The plays collected in this text provide the reader with a clear picture of Marlowe as a radical theatrical poet of great linguistic and dramatic daring, whose characters constantly strive to break out of the social, religious, and rhetorical binds within which they are confined. |
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Anton Chekhov’s popularity in the west is without parallel for a foreign writer. He has been absorbed into our culture, and accepted as one of our own. His plays lend themselves easily to the stage, calling for actors with intelligence and common sense rather than a dramatic voice or histrionic skills. He takes from everyday life themes of frustration which apply to us all – the difficulty of carving out a happy existence, the problems of love, the fading of hope, the universal feeling that time passes and we never quite get things right. This seems pessimistic, and yet Chekhov claimed he was writing comedy. Readers, actors and directors must decide for themselves which way to play these pieces. They are full of sadness, but a sadness described as the ‘darkness of the last hour before the dawn’. Whether tragic or comic, however, they are works of the first importance. The Cherry Orchard has been described as ‘the best play since Shakespeare’, Three Sisters as ‘the best play in the world’. |
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In this novel, symptomatic of Lawrence's later work, Kate Leslie, an Irish widow visiting Mexico, finds herself equally repelled and fascinated by what she sees as the primitive cruelty of the country. As she becomes involved with Don Ramon and General Cipriano, her perceptions change. Caught up in the plans of these two men to revive the old Aztec religion and political order, she submits to the 'blood-consciousness' and phallic power that they represent. |
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Robert Browning (1812-1889) represents the intellectual and argumentative strand in English poetry in contrast to the more ornate style of Spenser and Tennyson. His poetry demonstrates how a poet must be a sharp perceptive observer of the complexity of the human condition. Perhaps his most moving poetry was written to express his feelings for his wife, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which he deals in a very 'modern' way with the uncomfortable fact that we can never quite bridge the gap between ourselves and the people we love. |
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In his draft Preface, Wilfred Owen includes his well-known statement 'My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity'. All of his important poems were written in just over a year, and Dulce et Decorum Est, S.I.W., Futility and Anthem for Doomed Youth still have an astonishing power to move the reader. Owen pointed out that 'All a poet can do today is to warn. That is why all true Poets must be truthful'. His warning was based on his acute observation of the soldiers with whom he served on the Western Front, and his poems reflect the horror and the waste of the First World War. This volume contains all Owen's best-known poems, only four of which were published in his lifetime. He was killed a week before the Armistice in November 1918. |
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Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim — that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. With its wit, its social precision and, above all, its irresistible heroine, Pride and Prejudice has proved one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language. |
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Written in 1513 for the Medici, following their return to power in Florence, The Prince is a handbook on ruling and the exercise of power. It remains as relevant today as it was in the sixteenth century. Widely quoted in the Press and in academic publications, The Prince has direct relevance to the issues of business and corporate governance confronting global corporations as they enter a new millennium. Much of what Machiavelli wrote has become the common currency of realpolitik, yet still his ideas retain the power to shock and annoy. In the words of Norman Stone, The Prince is 'a manual of man-management that would suit a great many parts of the modern world'. |
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In the early years of the 18th century, Scotland is torn by religious and political strife. Hogg's sinner, justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained, is suspected of involvement in a series of bizarre and hideous crimes. A century later his memoirs reveal the extraordinary, macabre truth. The tale is chilling for its astute psychological accuracy as it illustrates, with power and economy, the dire effect of self-righteous bigotry on a fanatical character. |
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The Prophet represents the acme of Kahlil Gibran's achievement. Writing in English, Gibran adopted the tone and cadence of King James I's Bible, fusing his personalised Christian philosophy with a spirit and oriental wisdom that derives from the richly mixed influences of his native Lebanon. His language has a breath-taking beauty. Before returning to his birthplace, Almustafa, the 'prophet', is asked for guidance by the people of Orphalese. His words, redolent with love and understanding, call for universal unity, and affirm Gibran's certainty of the correlated nature of all existence, and of reincarnation. 'The Prophet' has never lost its immediate appeal and has become a ubiquitous touchstone of spiritual literature. |
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When Dan and Una stage a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in a fairy ring, they are astonished by the appearance of Puck in person. He explains that he is the last of the People of the Hills, who started as gods before descending into this world. Puck leads the two children in a series of extraordinary historical adventures in which they meet, Romans and Crusaders, Saxons and Vikings. Kipling's charming songs and verses, including the famous Smuggler's Song are placed between each thrilling story. The book is beautifully illustrated by H.R. Millar. |
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When Father goes away with two strangers one evening, the lives of Roberta, Peter and Phyllis are shattered. They and their mother have to move from their comfortable London home to go and live in a simple country cottage, where Mother writes books to make ends meet. However, they soon come to love the railway that runs near their cottage, and they make a habit of waving to the Old Gentleman who rides on it. They befriend the porter, Perks, and through him learn railway lore and much else. They have many adventures, and when they save a train from disaster, they are helped by the Old Gentleman to solve the mystery of their father's disappearance. |
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Rebecca Randall is one of seven fatherless children, but is full of fun and strange ideas. She leaves her family at Sunnybrook Farm and goes to live with her two aunts in Riverboro. There she goes to school for the first time, embarks on a madcap scheme to sell soap, nearly runs away, befriends the kindly stagecoach driver Jeremiah Cobb, and with 'Mr Aladdin' helps repair her family's fortunes. |
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The Red Badge of Courage is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It reports on the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy turned soldier. It evokes the chaos and the dull clatter of war: the acrid smoke, the incessant rumours of coming battles, the filth and cold, the numbing monotony, the unworldly wailing of the dying. Like an impressionist painter, Crane also captures the strange beauty of war: the brilliant red flags against a blue sky, steel bayonets flashing in the morning sun as soldiers step off into battle. In the midst of this chaotic outer world, he creates an intricate inner world as he takes us inside the head of Henry Fleming. |
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The ideas of Plato (c429-347BC) have influenced Western philosophers for over two thousand years. Such is his importance that the twentieth-century philosopher A.N. Whitehead described all subsequent developments within the subject as foot-notes to Plato's work. Beyond philosophy, he has exerted a major influence on the development of Western literature, politics and theology. The Republic deals with the great range of Plato's thought, but is particularly concerned with what makes a well-balanced society and individual. It combines argument and myth to advocate a life organized by reason rather than dominated by desires and appetites. Regarded by some as the foundation document of totalitarianism, by others as a call to develop the full potential of humanity, the Republic remains a challenging and intensely exciting work. |
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«After Sherlock Holmes' apparently fatal encounter with the sinister Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, the great detective reappears, to the delight of the faithful Dr Watson in «The Adventure of the Empty House». This is the second of three volumes of «The Complete Sherlock Holmes» reproduced from original copies of «The Strand Magazine».» |
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«Beware, the Dead are coming back! This is a unique and fascinating collection of early mummy stories that helped to establish the chilling concept of the Dead returning to life as a potent sub-genre of horror fiction. The main feature on the mummy bill, «The Jewel of the Seven Stars» by Bram Stoker, is generally regarded as his best work after «Dracula». A weird mixture of adventure, the supernatural and science fiction is found in Jane Webb's «The Mummy», a tale written in 1827 but set in 2126. «Some Words with a Mummy» is by the great horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Arthur Conan Doyle's «The Ring of Thoth» is the classic mummy tale and was the basis for the 1932 movie «The Mummy» starring Boris Karloff and, indeed most mummy films ever since. «Lot 249», another Doyle chiller, completes this collection, which is guaranteed to entertain and possibly prompt a nightmare.» |
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«The central figure of this novel is the returning «native», Clym Yeobright, and his love for the beautiful but capricious Eustacia Vye. As character after character is driven to self-destruction, the presence of Egdon Heath becomes all-embracing, while Clym becomes a preacher.» |
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This edition presents the classic free translation by Edward Fitzgerald of the great Persian poem by the 12th century astronomer and poet — Omar Khayyám. Fitzgerald's masterful translation was first published as an anonymous pamphlet in 1859. Its colourful, exotic and remote imagery greatly appealed to the Victorian age's fascination with the Orient, while its luxurious sensual warmth acted as a striking counterpoint to the growth of scientific determinism, industrialisation and the soulless Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest. Greatly praised by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne, Ruskin and William Morris, the romantic melancholy of the poem anticipates the poetry of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Hardy, while its epicurean motifs link it to the Aesthetic Movement |
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