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Light and Dark: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia)
By Sōseki Natsume. 2014
Light and Dark, Natsume Soseki's longest novel and masterpiece, although unfinished, is a minutely observed study of haute-bourgeois manners on…
the eve of World War I. It is also a psychological portrait of a new marriage that achieves a depth and exactitude of character revelation that had no precedent in Japan at the time of its publication and has not been equaled since. With Light and Dark, Soseki invented the modern Japanese novel.Recovering in a clinic following surgery, thirty-year-old Tsuda Yoshio receives visits from a procession of intimates: his coquettish young wife, O-Nobu; his unsparing younger sister, O-Hide, who blames O-Nobu's extravagance for her brother's financial difficulties; his self-deprecating friend, Kobayashi, a ne'er-do-well and troublemaker who might have stepped from the pages of a Dostoevsky novel; and his employer's wife, Madam Yoshikawa, a conniving meddler with a connection to Tsuda that is unknown to the others. Divergent interests create friction among this closely interrelated cast of characters that explodes into scenes of jealousy, rancor, and recrimination that will astonish Western readers conditioned to expect Japanese reticence.Released from the clinic, Tsuda leaves Tokyo to continue his convalescence at a hot-springs resort. For reasons of her own, Madam Yoshikawa informs him that a woman who inhabits his dreams, Kiyoko, is staying alone at the same inn, recovering from a miscarriage. Dissuading O-Nobu from accompanying him, Tsuda travels to the spa, a lengthy journey fraught with real and symbolic obstacles that feels like a passage from one world to another. He encounters Kiyoko, who attempts to avoid him, but finally manages a meeting alone with her in her room. Soseki's final scene is a sublime exercise in indirection that leaves Tsuda to "explain the meaning of her smile."El escándalo del siglo
By Gabriel García Márquez. 1983
Dejó muy claro Gabriel García Márquez que el periodismo siempre fue su principal pasión, la más perdurable y por la…
que quiso ser recordado: No quiero que se me recuerde por Cien años de soledad, ni por el premio Nobel, sino por el periódico. [...] Nací periodista y hoy me siento más reportero que nunca. Lo llevo en la sangre, me tira. Esta antología pretende ser la muestra más representativa de la tensión narrativa entre periodismo y literatura que recorrió toda su trayectoria como reportero. Cubriendo cuatro décadas, este delicioso viaje a través de medio centenar de textos muestra como el mejor oficio del mundo está en el corazón de la obra del premio Nobel colombiano. Con edición a cargo de Cristóbal Pera y prólogo de Jon Lee Anderson, este volumen contiene piezas tan indispensables como los reportajes escritos desde Roma sobre la muerte de una joven italiana, suceso que permitió al autor pintar un fresco incomparable de las élites políticas y artísticas delpaís en un marco de novela policiaca, crónicas sobre la vida tras el telón de acero, sobre la trata de blancas desde París hasta América Latina o apuntes sobre Fidel Castro o Pío XII. Encontramos también fragmentos tempranos en los que aparecen por primera vez las familias Buendía y Aracataca, junto con artículos que contemplan la política, la sociedad y la cultura bajo la luz sólida, profunda y experimentada de ese gran contador de historias que siempre será maestro de periodistas.Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse: Commentary (Vol. 2)
By Aleksandr Pushkin. 1991
When Vladimir Nabokov first published his controversial translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin in 1964, the great majority of the edition…
was taken up by Nabokov’s witty and detailed commentary. Presented here in its own volume, the commentary is a unique and exhaustive scholarly masterwork by one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers—a work that Nabokov biographer Brian Boyd calls “the most detailed commentary ever made on” Onegin and “indispensable to all serious students of Pushkin’s masterpiece.”In his commentary, Nabokov seeks to illuminate every possible nuance of this nineteenth-century classic. He explains obscurities, traces literary influences, relates Onegin to Pushkin’s other work, and in a characteristically entertaining manner dwells on a host of interesting details relevant to the poem and the Russia it depicts. Nabokov also provides translations of lines and stanzas deleted by the censor or by Pushkin himself, variants from Pushkin’s notebooks, fragments of a continuation called “Onegin’s Journey,” the unfinished and unpublished “Chapter Ten,” other continuations, and an index.A work of astonishing erudition and passion, Nabokov’s commentary is a landmark in the history of literary scholarship and in the understanding and appreciation of the greatest work of Russia’s national poet.Memoirs of Montparnasse
By John Glassco. 2007
Memoirs of Montparnasse is a delicious book about being young, restless, reckless, and without cares. It is also the best…
and liveliest of the many chronicles of 1920s Paris and the exploits of the lost generation. In 1928, nineteen-year-old John Glassco escaped Montreal and his overbearing father for the wilder shores of Montparnasse. He remained there until his money ran out and his health collapsed, and he enjoyed every minute of his stay. Remarkable for their candor and humor, Glassco's memoirs have the daft logic of a wild but utterly absorbing adventure, a tale of desire set free that is only faintly shadowed by sadness at the inevitable passage of time.Telegrams of the Soul
By Peter Wortsman, Peter Altenberg. 2005
"If it be permitted to speak of 'love at first sound,' then that's what I experienced in my first encounter…
with this poet of prose." So said Thomas Mann of the work of PeterAltenberg. A virtuoso Fin-de-Siècle Viennese innovator of what he called the "telegram style" of writing, Altenberg's signature short prose straddles the line between the poetic and the prosaic, fiction and observation, harsh verity and whimsical vignette. Inspired by the prose poems of Charles Baudelaire and the Feuilleton--a light journalistic reflection of his day--Altenberg carved out a spare, strikingly modern aesthetic that speaks with an eerie prescience to our own impatient time. Peter Wortsman's new selection and translation reads like a sly lyrical wink from the turnof-the-century of the telegram to the turn-of-the-millennium of email.The Lord Chandos Letter and Other Writings: And Other Writings
By John Banville, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, Joel Rotenber. 2005
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal made his mark as a poet, as a playwright, and as the librettist for Richard Strauss's greatest…
operas, but he was no less accomplished as a writer of short, strangely evocative prose works. The atmospheric stories and sketches collected here--fin-de-siècle fairy tales from the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, a number of them never before translated into English--propel the reader into a shadowy world of uncanny fates and secret desires. An aristocrat from Paris in the plague years shares a single night of passion with an unknown woman; a cavalry sergeant meets his double on the battlefield; an orphaned man withdraws from the world with his four servants, each of whom has a mysterious power over his destiny.The most influential of all of Hofmannsthal's writings is the title story, a fictional letter to the English philosopher Francis Bacon in which Lord Chandos explains why he is no longer able to write. The "Letter" not only symbolized Hofmannsthal's own turn away from poetry, it captured the psychological crisis of faith and language which was to define the twentieth century.The Annotated Emma
By Jane Austen, David M. Shapard. 2012
From the editor of the popular Annotated Pride and Prejudice comes an annotated edition of Jane Austen's Emma that makes…
her beloved tale of an endearingly inept matchmaker an even more satisfying read. Here is the complete text of the novel with more than 2,200 annotations on facing pages, including: -Explanations of historical context-Citations from Austen's life, letters, and other writings-Definitions and clarifications-Literary comments and analysis-Maps of places in the novel-An introduction, bibliography, and detailed chronology of events-Nearly 200 informative illustrations Filled with fascinating information about everything from the social status of spinsters and illegitimate children to the shopping habits of fashionable ladies to English attitudes toward gypsies, David M. Shapard's Annotated Emma brings Austen's world into richer focus.The Essential Prose of John Milton (Modern Library Classics)
By John Milton, William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, Stephen M. Fallon. 2007
Edited by William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon The legendary author of Paradise Lost and other poems was…
also a superb and provocative prose writer. Culled from Modern Library's definitive The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton, this indispensable collection, authoritatively annotated and updated for this new volume, now includes selections from Milton's Commonplace Book and the complete text of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates in addition to Milton's letters, pamphlets, political tracts, and essays. Milton tackles diverse subjects and takes controversial positions, including notorious defenses of divorce and protests against censorship. With expert analysis, a chronology of the author's life, clean layouts, and a comprehensive index, The Essential Prose of John Milton is an invaluable keepsake--a book bound to be a revelation for all readers of this monumental author."Meticulously edited, full of tactful annotations that set the stage for his work and his times, and bringing Milton, as a poet and a thinker, vividly alive before us."--Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United StatesThe Mysterious Correspondent: New Stories
By Marcel Proust. 2019
'Startlingly audacious.' Literary Review New writing from the literary master Throughout Proust&’s life, nine of his short stories remained unseen…
– the writer never even spoke of them. Perhaps he was not ready to share the early themes he was nurturing for his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Or perhaps, in dealing directly with gay desire, they were too audacious – too near to life – for the censorious society of the time. In these stories, published in English for the first time, we find an intimate portrait of a young author full of darkness, complexity and melancholy, longing to reveal himself to the world.Mrs. Dalloway (Norton Critical Editions #0)
By Virginia Woolf. 2021
“Illuminating and original combination of biographical, historical, literary, and critical sources for Mrs. Dalloway by the leading Woolf scholar who…
edited the annotated edition of the novel. Diary and letter selections provide fresh contexts. Superb resource for teachers and students!” —Susan Stanford Friedman, University of Wisconsin, Madison This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1925 first American edition text, introduced and annotated by Anne Fernald. A map of Mrs. Dalloway’s London. An unusually rich selection of contextual materials, including diary entries and letters related to the composition of the novel, essays, short stories, and biographical excerpts, and the only introduction that Virginia Woolf wrote to any of her novels. The voices of other writers are also included, allowing readers to consider the literary passages that influenced Woolf’s art and historical moment. Eight reviews of Mrs. Dalloway, from publication to the present day. A chronology and a selected bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts, and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.Corregidora (Virago Modern Classics #785)
By Gayl Jones. 1975
'No novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON'Corregidora is the most brutally honest…
and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women' JAMES BALDWINUpon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions of slavery, this powerful novel paved the way for Beloved and The Colour Purple. Now, this lost classic is published for a new generation of readers.Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Charged with 'making generations' to bear witness to the abuse embodied in the family name, Ursa Corregidora finds herself unable to keep alive this legacy when she is made sterile in a violent fight with her husband. Haunted by the ghosts of a Brazilian plantation, pained by a present of lovelessness and despair, Ursa slowly and firmly strikes her own terms with womanhood.AS HEARD ON THE BACKLISTED PODCAST'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGEAlso new to the VMC list: Eva's Man and The Healing by Gayl Jones.'An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood' JOHN UPDIKE'Gayl Jones's first novel, Corregidora (1975), was both shocking and ground-breaking in its probing of the psychological legacy of slavery and sexual ownership through the life of a Kentucky blues singer ... it predated Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's Beloved, revealing an unfinished emancipation and the power of historical memory to shape lives. It also marked a shift in African-American literature that made women, and relationships between black people, central' MAYA JAGGI, Guardian'Corregidora's survey of trauma and overcoming has become even better and more relevant with the passage of time. It remains an indispensable point of entry into the tradition of African American writing that Gayl Jones reshaped and enriched' PAUL GILROYE. M. Forster: The Personal Voice (Routledge Revivals)
By John Colmer. 1975
Originally published in 1975, E. M. Forster: The Personal Voice draws on information about the life and works of E.…
M. Forster that came to light following his death in 1970. Exploring in particular the publication of Maurice in 1971, The Life to Come in 1972, and the Forster papers in King's College Library, Cambridge, this volume is an extensive study of E. M. Forster. It provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of Forster's work, his intellectual and literary background, his personality, and the reception of his work. E. M. Forster: The Personal Voice places Forster's works in their social and cultural context and provides an excellent insight into his development as a writer.The Last Greek (Commander #2)
By Christian Cameron. 2020
Few writers are better at conjuring up a vision of Ancient Greece' THE TIMES* * * * * * *210BCE.The…
most powerful empires in the world brawl over the spoils of a declawed Greece.Philopoemen has a vision to end the chaos and anarchy that consumes his homeland - to stop the endless wars and preserve the world he loves. He must resist the urge of the oligarchs to surrender to their oppressors and raise an army to defend his countrymen from the all-conquering powers of Sparta, Macedon and Rome.It is the last roll of the dice for the Achean League. The moment Philopoemen has been training for his whole life.The new Achilles is poised to restore the glory of the former empire. To herald a new era.To become the last great hero of Greece.* * * * * * *Praise for Christian Cameron:'One of the finest writers of historical fiction in the world' BEN KANE'The master of historical fiction' SUNDAY TIMES'A storyteller at the height of his powers' HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETYNorthern Spy: A Reese Witherspoon's Book Club Pick
By Flynn Berry. 2020
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK'You'll devour Northern Spy . . . I loved this thrill…
ride of a book'Reese Witherspoon'A sharp, moving thriller: you lose your breath for adrenalin'Abigail Dean, author of Girl A'An exciting thriller... A domestic noir with a difference'Adrian McKinty, author of The Chain'A chilling, gorgeously written tale'New York Times'Nerve-shredding suspense'Daily Mail'Thrillingly good... Flynn Berry shows a le Carré-like flair for making you wonder what's really going on at any given moment'Washington Post A producer at the Belfast bureau of the BBC, Tessa is at work one day when the news of another IRA raid comes on the air: as the anchor requests the public's help in locating those responsible for this latest attack - a robbery at a gas station - Tessa's sister Marian appears on the screen, pulling a black mask over her face.The police believe Marian has joined the IRA, but Tessa knows this is impossible. But when the truth of what has happened to her sister reveals itself, Tessa will be forced to choose: between her ideals and her family. Praise for Flynn Berry'Breathtaking . . . Berry writes thrillingly'New York Times'Beautifully paced and satisfyingly ominous'Guardian'Mesmerizingly effective'The Times 'A thrilling page-turner'Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train'Berry's clever, thrilling writing wound me in and left me heartbroken'Fiona Barton, author of The Widow'What a book! A skillful and compelling exploration of families, crime, and class'Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You GoThe Odyssey (Johns Hopkins New Translations from Antiquity)
By Homer. 2004
A bold new translation that preserves the swiftness, austerity, and clarity of the original."Tell us, Goddess, daughter of Zeus, start…
in your own place:when all the rest at Troy had fled from that steep doomand gone back home, away from war and the salt sea,only this man longed for his wife and a way home."Homer's Odyssey, at once an exciting epic of strife and subterfuge and a deeply felt tale of love and devotion, stands at the very beginning of the Western literary tradition. From ancient Greece to the present day its influence on later literature has been unsurpassed, and for centuries translators have approached the meter, tone, and pace of Homer's poetry with a variety of strategies. Chapman and Pope paid keen attention to color, drama, and vivacity of style, rendering the Greek verse loosely and inventively. In the twentieth century, translators such as Lattimore kept rigorously close to the sense of each word in the original; others, including Fitzgerald and Fagles, have departed further from the language of the original, employing their own inventive modern style.Poet and translator Edward McCrorie now opens new territory in this striking rendition, which captures the spare, powerful tone of Homer's epic while engaging contemporary readers with its brisk pace, idiomatic language, and lively characterization. McCrorie closely reproduces the Greek metrical patterns and employs a diction and syntax that reflects the plain, at times stark, quality of Homer's lines, rather than later English poetic styles. Avoiding both the stiffness of word-for-word literalism and the exaggeration and distortion of free adaptation, this translation dramatically evokes the ancient sound and sense of the poem. McCrorie's is truly an Odyssey for the twenty-first century.To accompany this innovative translation, noted classical scholar Richard Martin has written an accessible and wide-ranging introduction explaining the historical and literary context of the Odyssey, its theological and cultural underpinnings, Homer's poetic strategies and narrative techniques, and his cast of characters. In addition, Martin provides detailed notes—far more extensive than those in other editions—addressing key themes and concepts; the histories of persons, gods, events, and myths; literary motifs and devices; and plot development. Also included is a pronunciation glossary and character index.The Brontë sisters' first poetry collection has just been published, potentially marking an end to their careers as amateur detectors,…
when Anne receives a letter from her former pupil Lydia Robinson.Lydia has eloped with a young actor, Harry Roxby, and following her disinheritance, the couple been living in poverty in London. Harry has become embroiled with a criminal gang and is in terrible danger after allegedly losing something very valuable that he was meant to deliver to their leader. The desperate and heavily pregnant Lydia has a week to return what her husband supposedly stole, or he will be killed. She knows there are few people who she can turn to in this time of need, but the sisters agree to help Lydia, beginning a race against time to save Harry's life.In doing so, our intrepid sisters come face to face with a terrifying adversary whom even the toughest of the slum-dwellers are afraid of . . . The Red Monarch.Praise for Bella Ellis and the series:'Evocative and utterly enchanting' Sarah Hilary'Bella Ellis is a very special talent' Angela Clarke'Brilliantly entertaining and original' C.L. Taylor'More heart-warming than blood-chilling' Sunday Express'Ellis's writing flows beautifully' Yorkshire Magazine'Elegant, witty and compulsively readable - I think the Brontë sisters would have been delighted' Rosie Walsh'A breath-taking concept . . . Fun, charming and intriguing' Araminta Hall'A delight' Wall Street JournalThe Confusions of Young Törless
By Robert Musil. 2021
The Confusions of Young Torless is a taut, powerful depiction of teenage masculinity in this short novel set in an…
Austrian military academy. An unpopular boy is gradually bullied and humiliated by a coterie of better-off classmates until the almost unbearable conclusion. This was the work which made Musil's name and is his most popular work before his unfinished masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities.The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: The Stoke Newington Edition
By Daniel Defoe Defoe. 2022
Defoe’s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson…
Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone—a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.A beautiful hardcover repackaging of this timeless classic from the publishers of the Autobiography of Mark Twain and in partnership…
with the Mark Twain Project. This definitive edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was the only version of Mark Twain’s masterpiece based on his complete manuscript, including the 663 pages found in a Los Angeles attic in 1990. Prepared by the Mark Twain Papers, the official archive of Sam Clemens’s papers at the University of California, Berkeley, this volume features the gorgeous original illustrations that Twain commissioned from Edward Windsor Kemble and John Harley and also includes historical notes, a glossary, maps, selected manuscript pages, and even a gallery of letters, advertisements, and playbills from Twain’s first "book tour" to promote the original publication—everything the discerning reader needs to enjoy this classic of American literature again and again.The Scarlet Pimpernel: Large Print (The Psammead Ser. #Vol. 1)
By Baroness Orczy. 1913
Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure during the French Revolution. Also available as an unabridged audiobook, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt.Paris,…
1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a league of young English gentlemen who are risking their lives to spirit French aristocrats away to safety across the Channel. Led by a man known only as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel', they leave no trace behind them save a single note. Determined to stop them, ruthless spymaster Chauvelin travels to England and embarks on a quest to uncover the identity of their leader, forcing the Scarlet Pimpernel and his men to summon all their courage and wits to evade capture and stay alive.PRAISE FOR THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL"Anyone who feels that their outward manner is but a travesty of their inner self can hardly fail to respond to THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL" - Independent"The Baroness Orczy invented the "masked avenger" genre of fiction - the swashbuckling hero of dual identity. Her progeny include Zorro, Superman, The Lone Ranger and many others." - Audiofile Magazine