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Wordsworth
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Virginia Woolf's second novel, Night and Day (1919), portrays the gradual changes in a society, the patterns and conventions of which are slowly disintegrating; where the representatives of the younger generation struggle to forge their own way, for '... life has to be faced: to be rejected; then accepted on new terms with rapture'. Woolf begins to experiment with the novel form while demonstrating her affection for the literature of the past. Jacob's Room (1922), Woolf's third novel, marks the bold affirmation of her own voice and search for a new form to express her view that 'the human sou... orientates itself afresh every now & then. It is doing so now. No one can see it whole therefore.' Jacob's life is presented in subtle, delicate and tantalising glimpses, the novel's gaps and silences are as replete with meaning as the wicker armchair creaking in the empty room. |
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Oscar Wilde took London by storm with his first comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. The combination of dazzling wit, subtle social criticism, sumptuous settings and the theme of a guilty secret proved a winner, both here and in his next three plays, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and his undisputed masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. This volume includes all Wilde's plays from his early tragedy Vera to the controversial Salome and the little known fragments, La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy. The edition affords a rare chance to see Wilde's best known work in the context of his entire dramatic output, and to appreciate plays which have hitherto received scant critical attention. Wilde's plays have never failed to delight audiences and are a lasting testimony to their author's supreme wit and theatrical genius. |
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«Confessions of an English Opium-man» (1812) relates Thomas De Quincey's early life and experiences of opium addiction at a time when that drug was widely used for the relief of pain, and before its addictive qualities were properly understood. It is a work which encompasses amusement with nightmare as the author experiences in turn the marvels of opium-induced dreams and the equally vivid nightmares which are their counterpoint.» |
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Aristotle (384-322BC) is the philosopher who has most influence on the development of western culture, writing on a wide variety of subjects including the natural sciences as well as the more strictly philosophical topics of logic, metaphysics and ethics. To the poet Dante, he was simply 'the master of those who know'. The Ethics contains his views on what makes a good human life. While the work continues to stimulate and challenge modern philosophers, the general course of the argument is easily accessible to the non-specialist. Both as a key influence in the history of ideas and as a work containing unique insights into the human condition, this is a book that simply demands to be read. |
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Rights of Man is a classic statement of the belief in humanity's potential to change the world for the better. Published as a reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, it differs from that great work in every relevant respect. Where Burke uses the language of the governing classes, Paine writes with the vigour of a self-taught mast-maker and exciseman. With passionate and rapier wit, Paine challenges Burke's assertion that society cannot be judged by rational standards and found wanting. Rights of Man contains a fully-costed budget, advocating measures such as free education, old age pensions, welfare benefits and child allowance over 100 years before these things were introduced in Britain. It remains a compelling manifesto for social change. |
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Charles Darwin's travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world's beauty and sublimity which language could barely capture. Words, he said, were inadequate to convey to those who have not visited the inter-tropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences'. Yet in a travel journal which takes the reader from the coasts and interiors of South America to South Sea Islands, Darwin's descriptive powers are constantly challenged, but never once overcome. In addition, The Voyage of the Beagle displays Darwin's powerful, speculative mind at work, posing searching questions about the complex relation between the Earth's structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself. |
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Henry James (1843-1916), son of Henry James Sr. and brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an American-born author and literary critic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He spent much of his life in Europe and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for novels, novellas and short stories based on themes of consciousness and morality. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. |
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Benedict de Spinoza lived a life of blameless simplicity as a lens-grinder in Holland. And yet in his lifetime he was expelled from the Jewish community in Amsterdam as a heretic, and after his death his works were first banned by the Christian authorities as atheistic, then hailed by humanists as the gospel of Pantheism. His Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order shows us the reality behind this enigmatic figure. First published by his friends after his premature death at the age of forty-four, the Ethics uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity, properly called both 'God' and 'Nature', of which mind and matter are two manifestations. From this follow, in ways that are strikingly modern, the identity of mind and body, the necessary causation of events and actions, and the illusory nature of free will. |
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Demobilised officer, finding peace incredibly tedious would welcome diversion. Legitimate if possible; but crime, of a comparatively humorous description, no objection. Excitement essential. Bulldog Drummond was the original daredevil adventurer who, with his various friends, made it their mission to fight all enemies of Britain in the uncertain years following the First World War. Fearless, resourceful and debonair, Drummond could easily have been the father of James Bond. In the first four novels of the series, Bulldog Drummond, The Black Gang, The Third Round, The Final Count, all of which are contained within this volume, Hugh Drummond finds himself pitting his wits again Carl Peterson, a criminal genius with an insatiable passion for power and world domination. He has the great facility of disguise and his chameleon appearances are one of the joys of these thrilling tales. Peterson s constant companion is the sinister but beautiful Irma. The Drummond books are exciting page-turning adventures for grown up boys and girls. |
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This volume brings together two series of short fiction by the poet, writer and religious philosopher Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). It includes the first complete publication of Simple Simon, the detective series featuring Crowley's most memorable fictional creation, the mystic-magician-philosopher-psychoanalyst-detective Simon Iff. The idealised Crowley in old age, Simon Iff is wise, knowing and unfailingly humorous as he applied psychoanalysis, Taoism and his own religious philosophy of Thelema to divine the depths of human nature and solve a wide array of crimes and mysteries. The six Scrutinies of Simon Iff stories are set in France and England, anchored by Iff's beloved Hemlock Club. The twelve Simon Iff in America stories afford Crowley's penetrating insights into America as he found it during his residence from 1914 to 1919. His three Simon Iff Abroad stories take the reader to tribal North Africa, inaccessible Central Africa and to the high seas. The two Simon Iff Psychoanalyst stories were among the earliest tales to use the new science of psychoanalysis to solve mysteries. Also included is Crowley's other major short fiction series, the eight stories of his legendary Golden Twigs, which were inspired by Sir J.G. Frazer's encyclopedic study of myth and religion in history, The Golden Bough. |
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This volume brings together Virginia Woolf's last two novels, The Years (1937) which traces the lives of members of a dispersed middle-class family between 1880 and 1937, and Between the Acts (1941), an account of a village pageant in the summer preceding the Second World War which successfully interweaves comedy, satire and disturbing observation. Rewriting the traditional family saga and the pageant, these unsettling novels provide extraordinary critiques of Englishness and English identity while pursuing compelling existentialist and psychological themes such as the nature of time, memory, personal relationships and sexual desire. Their tightly constructed narratives enable the reader to experience the fragmented lives of their characters and the difficulties that they have in communicating with each other and even understanding themselves. Read together, these novels illuminate each other in ways that will engage both the student and the general reader. |
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'To be a moderately successful wielder of the rod may be looked upon as a very desirable accomplishment, nay, more, a laudable ambition; but, beyond mere skill in casting a fly and killing and landing a fish, a little rudimentary knowledge of the truly scientific and, consequently, most attractive part of the art is essential in order to attain proficiency.' 'Rodsters' everywhere will welcome the reappearance of David Forster's classic work on the art and science of fishing, with its wealth of detailed piscatorial knowledge and its exhaustive information and guidance in practical matters, from how to make one's own tackle and flies to how and when to catch which fish where. Writing in 1885, Forster tells us that, while the 'angler's skill has advanced wondrously' since the time of Izaak Walton, 'keenness of perception and wariness have developed among the denizens of the liquid element in a degree quite proportionate'. However, armed with this volume, as readable and relevant today as any contemporary manual, 'let there be clear water, clear weather and clear scope for observation' and any enthusiast may pit his or her 'superior intelligence against the animal instincts of the brute creation'. |
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On War is perhaps the greatest book ever written about war. Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian soldier, had witnessed at first hand the immense destructive power of the French Revolutionary armies which swept across Europe between 1792 and 1815. His response was to write a comprehensive text covering every aspect of warfare. On War is both a philosophical and practical work in which Clausewitz defines the essential nature of war, debates the qualities of the great commander, assesses the relative strengths of defensive and offensive warfare, and — in highly controversial passages — considers the relationship between war and politics. His arguments are illustrated with vivid examples drawn from the campaigns of Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. For the student of society as well as the military historian, On War remains a compelling and indispensable source. |
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The Little Prince is a classic tale of equal appeal to children and adults. On one level it is the story of an airman's discovery in the desert of a small boy from another planet — the Little Prince of the title — and his stories of intergalactic travel, while on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition. First published in 1943, the year before the author's death in action, this new translation contains Saint-Exupery's delightful illustrations. |
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Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself, a brave warrior, is fatally impelled by supernatural forces, by his proud wife, and by his own burgeoning ambition. As he embarks on his murderous course to gain and retain the crown of Scotland, we see the appalling emotional and psychological effects on both Lady Macbeth and himself. The cruel ironies of their destiny are conveyed in poetry of unsurpassed power. In the theatre, this tragedy remains perennially engrossing. This volume is part of the new Wordsworth Classics Shakespeare Series, in which each text has been freshly edited by Professor Cedric Watts. |
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«Rip van Winkle is an amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect; a familiar figure about the village, he is loved by all except his wife. One autumn day he escapes her nagging to wander up into the mountains, and there after drinking some liquor offered to him by a band of very strange folk, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village to find that not only is his wife dead but war and revolution have changed many things. He, on the other hand, although older is not appreciably wiser and soon slips back into his idle habits. Three equally compelling stories, «The Spectre Bridegroom», «The Pride of the Village» and «Mountjoy», complete this collection of classic tales from the inspired pen of Washington Irving, one of America's greatest writers.» |
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Traditional rhymes and stories have been collected under the wing of Mother Goose for centuries, and this collection of favourite nursery rhymes has been put together by the masterly illustrator Arthur Rackham. It is a wonderful collection of old favourites, from Jack and Jill, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep and Who Killed Cock Robin? to comic alphabets and the fearful fate of Anthony Rowley. It is illustrated with Rackham's beautiful pen and ink drawings, and is one of his finest books. |
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Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.R. Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This complete collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories. They represent the quiet wit and compassion which is so different from his moody and caustic predecessor, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Father Brown solves his mysteries by a mixture of intuition and sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner. |
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Robin Hood is the best-loved outlaw of all time. In this beautifully illustrated edition, Henry Gilbert tells of the adventures of the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest — Robin himself, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet and Alan-a-Dale, as well as Maid Marian, good King Richard, and Robin's deadly enemies Guy of Gisborne and the evil Sheriff of Nottingham. |
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