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Vainglory: with Inclinations and Caprice
By Ronald Firbank. 2012
The fairly young and entirely alive Mrs Shamefoot wants nothing more than to have a memorial stained-glass window erected in…
her honour in an English cathedral. From this premise, the inimitable Ronald Firbank extends his witty, eccentric Vainglory, with a crowded cast of hilariously drawn characters - Winsome Brooks, Lady Anne Pantry, Miss Wookie, Mrs Barrow of Dawn and Mrs Steeple - a riot of parties, and a bottomless sense of the ridiculous. Admired by Auden, Forster and Waugh, Firbank's fine comic skill, quick-fire dialogue and descriptive flights of fancy are perfectly captured in Vainglory, his first and longest novel, as well as in two novellas included here: Inclinations and Caprice.The Valley of Fear
By Arthur Conan Doyle. 2011
'There should be no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation.'In this tale drawn…
from the note books of Dr Watson, the deadly hand of Professor Moriarty once more reaches out to commit a vile and ingenious crime. However, a mole in Moriarty's frightening criminal organization alerts Sherlock Holmes of the evil deed by means of a cipher. When Holmes and Watson arrive at a Sussex manor house they appear to be too late. The discovery of a body suggests that Moriarty's henchmen have been at their work. But there is much more to this tale of murder than at first meets the eye and Sherlock Holmes is determined to get to the bottom of it.Vanity Fair (The Penguin English Library)
By William Makepeace Thackeray. 2012
With a selection of letters by Charlotte Brontë.'Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us…
has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?'No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.The Vicar of Wakefield
By Oliver Goldsmith. 1982
When Dr Primrose loses his fortune in a disastrous investment, his idyllic life in the country is shattered and he…
is forced to move with his wife and six children to an impoverished living on the estate of Squire Thornhill. Taking to the road in pursuit of his daughter, who has been seduced by the rakish Squire, the beleaguered Primrose becomes embroiled in a series of misadventures - encountering his long-lost son in a travelling theatre company and even spending time in a debtor's prison. Yet Primrose, though hampered by his unworldliness and pride, is sustained by his unwavering religious faith. In The Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith gently mocks many of the literary conventions of his day - from pastoral and romance to the picaresque - infusing his story of a hapless clergyman with warm humour and amiable social satire.The Valley of Fear
By Arthur Conan Doyle. 2008
From the annals of Dr Watson comes this dark tale of Sherlock Holmes’ early encounter with Professor Moriarty. When Holmes…
and Watson receive a cipher from one of Moriarty’s henchmen warning of dark doings at a manor house, they find themselves on the trail of a murderer.Almost immediately, they are on their way to Sussex where they discover a corpse with its head blown to pieces. But all is not as it seems. For the origins of this case lie in America, and involve a Pinkerton’s man and the doings of a terrible and secretive lodge ...Villette
By Charlotte Bronte. 1989
With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in…
the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.Vanity Fair
By William Thackeray. 2013
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp,…
who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.The Valley of Fear (The Penguin English Library)
By Arthur Conan Doyle. 2014
The Penguin English Library EditionThe deadly hand of Professor Moriarty once more reaches out to commit a vile and ingenious…
crime, but a mole in Moriarty's criminal organization alerts Sherlock Holmes of the evil deed by means of a cipher . . . When Holmes and Watson arrive at a Sussex manor house they appear to be too late. The discovery of a body suggests that Moriarty's henchmen have been at their work. But there is much more to this tale of murder than at first meets the eye.The Village of Stepanchikovo: And its Inhabitants: from the Notes of an Unknown
By Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ignat Avsey. 1983
Summoned to the country estate of his wealthy uncle Colonel Yegor Rostanev, the young student Sergey Aleksandrovich finds himself thrown…
into a startling bedlam. For as he soon sees, his meek and kind-hearted uncle is wholly dominated by a pretentious and despotic pseudo-intellectual named Opiskin, a charlatan who has ingratiated himself with Yegor’s mother and now holds the entire household under his thumb. Watching the absurd theatrics of this domestic tyrant over forty-eight explosive hours, Sergey grows increasingly furious - until at last, he feels compelled to act. A compelling comic exploration of petty tyranny, The Village of Stepanchikovo reveals a delight in life’s wild absurdities that rivals even Gogol’s. It also offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of the characters and situations of many of Dostoyevsky’s great later novels, including The Idiot, Devils and The Brothers Karamazov.The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America
By Magnus Magnusson, Hermann Palsson. 1965
One of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration, these two Icelandic sagas tell of the discovery of…
America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Together, the direct, forceful twelfth-century Graenlendinga Saga and the more polished and scholarly Eirik's Saga, written some hundred years later, recount how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore - and if possible exploit - the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land. In spare and vigorous prose they record Europe's first surprise glimpse of the eastern shores of the North American continent and the natives who inhabited them.He lusts and kills in equal measure. The brutal Don Juan – an unrepentant sinner – makes a pact with…
the Virgin of the Seven Daggers. He promises to forever proclaim her supreme beauty and asks that in return she save him from damnation. Emboldened by the deal and driven by insatiable greed, he embarks on a necromantic journey to an enchanted palace beneath the Alhambra. In an orgy of beasts, demons and slumbering infantas Don Juan is called upon to uphold his side of the bargain and in doing so lose everything his lustful heart desires.Vathek and Other Stories
By Malcolm Jack, William Beckford. 1993
Beckford's Gothic novel Vathek, an Arabian tale, was originally written in French when the author was twenty-one. Published in English…
in 1786, it was one of the most successful of the oriental tales then in fashion. This edition makes available to a new generation of scholars and general readers, the originality of Beckford's ideas, and the excellence of his prose.Vanity Fair
By William Makepeace Thackeray. 2009
'I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year' Becky Sharp is a poor…
orphan when she first makes friends with the lovely Amelia Sedley at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies. She may not have the natural advantages of her companion but she more than makes up for it with her wit, charm, deviousness and determination to make a success of herself in the world, whatever the cost. Vanity Fair is the story of anti-hero Becky's spectacular rise and fall as she gambles, manipulates and seduces her way through high society against the backdrop of Waterloo and the Napoleonic wars.What Maisie Knew
By Henry James. 2010
After her parents' bitter divorce, young Maisie Farange finds herself shuttled between her selfish mother and vain father, who value…
her only as a means for provoking each other. Maisie - solitary, observant and wise beyond her years - is drawn into an increasingly entangled adult world of intrigue and sexual betrayal, until she is finally compelled to choose her own future. What Maisie Knew is a subtle yet devastating portrayal of an innocent adrift in a corrupt society. Part of a relaunch of three James titles.What Maisie Knew: and The Pupil
By Henry James. 2010
'A very modern story about aimless lives and messy marriages' Paul Theroux Caught in the crossfire of her parents' acrimonious…
divorce, witness to their battles, intrigues and affairs, neglected and exploited, Maisie is a child who knows too much about the world of adults. James's portrait of a little girl who maintains her goodness and dignity in the face of the bitterness and profligacy of her warring parents is both thought-provoking and inspiring.The Well of Loneliness (Penguin Modern Classics)
By Radclyffe Hall. 2014
New to Penguin Modern Classics, the seminal work of gay literature that sparked an infamous legal trial for obscenity and…
went on to become a bestseller.The Well of Loneliness tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short - and who gradually comes to realise that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furore on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Hall herself, however, saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognised as a landmark work of gay fiction.This Penguin edition includes a new introduction by Maureen Duffy.'The archetypal lesbian novel' - Times Literary Supplement'One of the first and most influential contributions of gay and lesbian literature' - New StatesmanRadclyffe Hall was born in 1880. After an unhappy childhood, she inherited her father's estate and from then on was free to travel and live as she chose. She fell in love and lived with an older woman before settling down with Una Troubridge, a married sculptor. Hall wrote many books but is best known for The Well of Loneliness, first published in 1928. She died in 1943 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.Maureen Duffy was born in 1933 and educated at Kings College London. She became a full-time writer in the 1960s, and has since written numerous screenplays, poetry and novels. A lifelong campaigner for gay rights and animal rights, Duffy is also president of the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society.The Well of Loneliness (Wordsworth Classics Ser.)
By Radclyffe Hall. 2014
This pride month, discover the groundbreaking and moving lesbian novel that rocked the British establishment.As a little girl Stephen Gordon…
always felt different.A talent for sport, a hatred of dresses and a preference for solitude were not considered suitable for a young lady of the Victorian upper-class. But when Stephen grows up and falls passionately in love with another woman, her standing in the county and a place at the home she loves becomes untenable.Stephen must set off to discover whether there is anywhere in the world that will have her.The complete and enhanced edition contains extra information and archival material that tells the fascinating story behind The Well’s controversial publication, trial and ban in 1928.The Way We Live Now
By Anthony Trollope. 1994
Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into…
making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. Persuaded to put money into a notional plot to run a railroad from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, the capricious gambler Felix Carbury soon becomes one of his victims. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit - which also draws in characters as diverse as his own daughter Marie and Felix's mother, the pulp novelist Lady Carbury - begins to unravel. A radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, this is a fascinating satire about a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy.The Way We Live Now
By Anthony Trollope. 2012
‘A tale of financial skulduggery reminiscent of recent city scandals’ Daily Telegraph Trollope's magnificent and prescient satire about a dishonest…
financier who buys his way into a corrupt society, and throws it into turmoil. When the Melmottes arrive in London everyone agrees their manners are wanting, their taste is excerable and their lineage and background decidedly shadowy. But their money is far from revolting, and city society quickly makes allowances for the mysterious financier and his family. Soon hearts, minds and family savings are swept into the whirl of Augustus Melmotte's lavish parties and exciting investment plans - but is it all an elaborate swindle?The Way of All Flesh
By Samuel Butler. 2012
With an essay by V. S. Pritchett.'The greater part of every family is always odious; if there are one or…
two good ones in a very large family, it is as much as can be expected'Written with great humour, irony and honesty, The Way of All Flesh exploded perceptions of the Victorian middle-class family in its radical depiction of Ernest Pontifex, a young man who casts off his background and discovers himself. The awkward but likeable son of a tyrannical clergyman and a priggish mother, and destined to follow his father into the church, Ernest gleefully rejects his parents' respectability, and chooses instead to find his own way in the world.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.