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Wordsworth
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«Some six or seven feet above the port bulwarks, framed in fog, and as utterly unsupported as the full moon, hung a Face. It was not human, and it certainly was not animal, for it did not belong to this earth as known to man». Rudyard Kipling, celebrated author of «The Jungle Book», the «Just So Stories» and other entertaining fictions, was also a master of the short story in which he was able to combine the strange and unnerving in order to draw the reader into the world of his own dark imaginings. This collection presents the best of these strange tales in which ghosts, monsters and inexplicable happenings abound. From the exotic and magical locale of India, to the leafy suburbs of England and then to the blood-soaked trenches of the First World War, Kipling provides us with a chilling array of experiences and images which will linger long in the memory.» |
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«This story tells of the happy discovery of the wonders of natural history by a family shipwrecked on a desert island, who remain united through all the adversities they encounter. Inspired by «Robinson Crusoe», this joyful narrative by a Swiss pastor remains a classic tale to be enjoyed by all.» |
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The Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb were written to be an 'introduction to the study of Shakespeare', but are much more entertaining than that. All of Shakespeare's best-loved plays, comic and tragic, are retold in a clear and robust style, and their literary quality has made them popular and sought-after ever since their first publication in 1807. This edition contains the delightful pen-and-ink drawings of Arthur Rackham. |
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Andrew Lang draws on his classical learning to recount the Homeric legend of the wars between the Greeks and the Trojans. Paris, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Hector, Ulysses, the Amazons and the Wooden Horse all figure in this magical introduction to one of the greatest legends ever told. Also included in this book are the adventures of Theseus and his dramatic battle with the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne, and the quest of Jason for the Golden Fleece with the help of the Princess Medea. |
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«Selected and with an introduction by David Stuart Davies, this gripping set of tales by the master storyteller Arthur Conan Doyle is bound to thrill and unnerve you. In these twilight excursions, Doyle's vivid imagination for the strange, the grotesque and the frightening is given full rein. We move from the mysteries of Egypt and the strange powers granted by «The Ring of Thoth» to the isolated ghostlands of the Arctic in «The Captain of the Polestar», we encounter a monstrous creature in «The Terror of Blue John Cap» and the beings that live above our heads in «The Brazilian Cat» and «The Leather Funnel»; and we shudder at the thing in the next room in «Lot 249». Sit down in your uneasy chair and enjoy this unique collection of chillers.» |
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The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most famous and controversial of Shakespeare's comedies. The central relationship, in which Petruchio boisterously 'tames' a rebellious Kate, has often appeared problematic. In the theatre, it has been treated in a diversity of ways, so that Kate's apparent capitulation varies between the ironic and the sincere. Feminists have been divided in their responses. |
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Dating from around 300BC, Tao Te Ching is the first great classic of the Chinese school of philosophy called Taoism. Within its pages is summed up a complete view of the cosmos and how human beings should respond to it. A profound mystical insight into the nature of things forms the basis for a humane morality and vision of political utopia. The ideas in this work constitute one of the main shaping forces behind Chinese spirituality, art and science, so much so that no understanding of Chinese civilisation is possible without a grasp of Taoism. This edition presents the authoritative translation by Arthur Waley, with a new Introduction reflecting recent developments in the interpretation of the work. |
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«The Tempest» is the most lyrical, profound and fascinating of Shakespeare's late comedies. Prospero, long exiled from Italy with his daughter Miranda, seeks to use his magical powers to defeat his former enemies. Eventually, having proved merciful, he divests himself of that magic, his 'art', and prepares to return to the mainland. «The Tempest» has often been regarded as Shakespeare's 'farewell to the stage' before his retirement.» |
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon, the mysterious ‘tenant’ of the title, and her dissolute, alcoholic husband. Defying convention, Helen leaves her husband to protect their young son from his father's influence, and earns her own living as an artist. Whilst in hiding at Wildfell Hall, she encounters Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her. On its first publication in 1848, Anne Brontë's second novel was criticised for being 'coarse' and 'brutal'. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall challenges the social conventions of the early nineteenth century in a strong defence of women's rights in the face of psychological abuse from their husbands. Anne Brontë's style is bold, naturalistic and passionate, and this novel, which her sister Charlotte considered 'an entire mistake', has earned her a position in English Literature in her own right. |
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«Three Men in a Boat There are four of them — George, Harris, the writer himself and that dog, Montmorency — all participants in a boating expedition on the Thames. The difficulties and vicissitudes heaped upon these innocents develop to epic proportions as they experience the hazards of the great English waterway. Their problems are in no way diminished by the outrageous behaviour of Montmorency, who lays waste several riverside communities in the course of their journey. Three Men on the Bummel 'What is a «bummel»?' said George. 'How would you translate it?' 'A «bummel»', I explained, I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started...' After considerable indecision the bummel takes our heroes to Germany's Black Forest where they manage to disrupt the tranquil way of life usually enjoyed by the denizens, whose curious behaviour they closely observe and record in their account of this second epic journey. Even without that dog, chaos and mayhem reign supreme.» |
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«As these three specially commissioned stories amply demonstrate, Conrad is our greatest writer of the sea. His characters are tested by dramatic events 'that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret stuff of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself'. In «Typhoon», Conrad's funniest story, Captain MacWhirr blunders into a hurricane that reveals the sea's treachery, violence and terror. «Falk» is desperate to get married, but first he must tell of his terrible experiences as sole survivor of a stricken ship that once drifted into the ice-caps of Antarctica. «The Shadow-Line» is a poignant and beautiful story. Written during the First World War and based on Conrad's fond evocation of his own first command, it expresses his solidarity with all who were obliged to cross in early youth the shadow-line of their war-torn generation. It includes a glossary of nautical terms.» |
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This astonishing series of aphorisms, put into the mouth of the Persian sage Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, contains the kernel of Nietzsche's thought. 'God is dead', he tells us. Christianity is decadent, leading mankind into a slave morality concerned not with this life, but with the next. Nietzsche emphasises the 'Ubermensch, or Superman, whose will to power makes him the creator of a new heroic mentality. The intensely felt ideas are expressed in prose-poetry of indefinable beauty. |
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«To the Lighthouse» is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf's novels. It is based on her own early experiences, and while it touches on childhood and children's perceptions and desires, it is at its most trenchant when exploring adult relationships, marriage and the changing class-structure in the period spanning the Great War.» |
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«Lively and mischievous, idle and brave, Tom Brown is both the typical boy of his time and the perennial hero celebrated by authors as diverse as Henry Fielding (in «Tom Jones») and Alec Waugh (in «The Loom of Youth»). The book describes Tom's time at Rugby School from his first football match, through his troubled adolescence when he is savagely bullied by the unspeakable Flashman, to his departure for a wider world as a confident young man. This classic tale of a boy's schooldays under the benevolent eye of the renowned Dr Arnold still retains the appeal for which it was acclaimed on its first publication in 1857. In its less well-known sequel, «Tom Brown at Oxford», we follow our hero to St Ambrose's College, and, in sharing his undergraduate experiences, gain a vivid impression of university life in the mid nineteenth century.» |
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Marco Polo (1254-1329) has achieved an almost archetypal status as a traveller, and his Travels is one of the first great travel books of Western literature, outside the ancient world. The Travels recounts Polo's journey to the eastern court of Kublai Khan, the chieftain of the Mongol empire which covered the Asian continent, but which was almost unknown to Polo's contemporaries. Encompassing a twenty-four year period from 1721, Polo's account details his travels in the service of the empire, from Beijing to northern India and ends with the remarkable story of Polo's return voyage from the Chinese port of Amoy to the Persian Gulf. Alternately factual and fantastic, Polo's prose at once reveals the medieval imagination's limits, and captures the wonder of subsequent travel writers when faced with the unfamiliar, the exotic or the unknown. |
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«Laurence Sterne's «The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman» is a huge literary paradox, for it is both a novel and an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour and generous sentiments, it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. As an anti-novel, it is a deliberately tantalising and exuberantly egoistic work, ostentatiously digressive, involving the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. This mercurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism and postmodernism. Vibrant and bizarre, «Tristram Shandy» provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne 'the most liberated spirit of all time'.» |
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«Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, «The Trumpet Major» is set in Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy skilfully immerses us in the life of the day, making us feel the impact of historical events on the immemorial local way of life — the glamour of the coming of George III and his soldiery, fears of the press-gang and invasion, and the effect of distant but momentous events like the Battle of Trafalgar. He interweaves a compelling, bitter-sweet romantic love story of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of the heroine Anne Garland, played out against the loves of a lively gallery of other characters. While there are elements of sadness and even tragedy, «The Trumpet-Major» shows Hardy's skills of story-telling, characterisation and description in a novel of vitality, comedy and warmth.» |
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«The Turn of the Screw» is the classic ghost story for which James is most remembered. Set in a country house, it is a chilling tale of the supernatural. «The Aspern Papers» is a tale of Americans in Europe, cleverly evoking the drama of comedie humaine against the settings of a Venetian palace.» |
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«The gentle melancholy and lyrical atmosphere of «Twelfth Night» have long made the play a favourite with Shakespearian audiences. The plot revolves around mistaken identities and unrequited love, but is further enlivened by a comic sub-plot of considerable accomplishment. In it, Sir Toby Belch and his companion outwit the pretentious Malvolio, who despite suffering their most outrageous and insulting practical jokes, emerges as an almost noble figure.» |
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«The three works in this collection, all dating from Nietzsche's last lucid months, show him at his most stimulating and controversial: the portentous utterances of the prophet (together with the ill-defined figure of the Ubermensch) are forsaken, as wit, exuberance and dazzling insights predominate, forcing the reader to face unpalatable insights and to rethink every commonly accepted 'truth'. Thinking with Nietzsche, in Jaspers' words, means holding one's own against him, and we are indeed refreshed and challenged by the vortex of his thoughts, by concepts which test and probe. In «The Twilight of the Idols», The Antichrist, and Ecce Homo Nietzsche writes at breakneck speed of his provenance, his adversaries and his hopes for mankind; the books are largely epigrammatic and aphoristic, allowing this poet-philosopher to bewilder and fascinate us with their strangeness and their daring. He who fights with monsters, Nietzsche once told us, should look to it that he himself does not become one, and when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. Reader, beware.» |
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