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The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works
By Thomas Nashe. 2006
Written in the late sixteenth century, at the pinnacle of the English Renaissance, the rich and ingenious works of Thomas…
Nashe uniquely reveal the ambivant nature of the Elizabethan era. Mingling the devout and the bawdy, scholarship and slang, they express throughout an irrepressible, inexhaustible wit and an astonishing command of language. This collection of Nashe's finest works includes The Unfortunate Traveller, the sharp and grotesque tale of Jack Wilton, an Englishman travelling through Europe; Pierce Penniless, a biting satire on the society of his age; Terrors of the Night; Lenten Stuff; the sensual poem The Choice of Valentines; and extracts from Christ's Tears over Jerusalem and other works. Wide-ranging in subject, all capture the unique voice and fantastic ingenuity of one of the most entertaining Elizabethan writers - a man regarded by his contemporaries as the 'English Juvenal'.Under Western Eyes
By Joseph Conrad. 2007
'It was I who removed de P- this morning.' With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence…
of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a 'dense Westerner' to the end.Under the Greenwood Tree
By Thomas Hardy. 2012
'At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it continue to cover its normal…
area of ground? It was a question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours - the meditation, after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was impossible to say'The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his decision to abolish the church's traditional 'string choir' and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing.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.Under the Greenwood Tree
By Thomas Hardy. 1998
The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love…
affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his decision to abolish the church's traditional 'string choir' and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing.Uncle Tom's Cabin
By Harriet Beecher Stowe. 2015
Beecher Stowe’s vivid descriptions uncover the harrowing situations faced by slaves in Civil War America.When a Kentucky farmer faces financial…
ruin, he reluctantly sells his slaves, and Uncle Tom finds himself the property of a cruel plantation owner, fighting for his freedom and ultimately, for his right to live. With a rich narrative and wonderfully realised characters, this is a panoramic, incredibly accomplished work. Originally published to much acclaim in 1852, it quickly established Harriet Beecher Stowe as one of America’s most influential female novelists and was crucial in helping to secure the abolition of slavery.Uncle Silas (Penguin Modern Classics)
By J. Le Fanu. 2000
One of the most significant and intriguing Gothic novels of the Victorian period and is enjoyed today as a modern…
psychological thriller. In UNCLE SILAS (1864) Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menacedby unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn, is a 17 year old orphan left in the care of her fearful uncle, Silas. Together with his boorish son and a sinister French governess, Silas plots to kill Maud and claim her fortune. The novel established Le Fanu as a master of horror fiction.Uncle And The Treacle Trouble
By J. P. Martin, Quentin Blake, R N Currey. 1967
A great mural, commissioned by the King of the Badgers after the defeat of the Badfort crowd at Crack House,…
is to be painted on the wall at Homeward by Waldovenison Smeare. To protect the mural while it is being painted Uncle employs a watchman called Sleepy Sam, who sleeps in a wheelbarrow and is paid two loaves of bread and two quarts of Koolvat. Sleepy Sam is immediately put to work when Beaver Hateman tries to climb in through Uncle's window . . .Uncle And His Detective
By J. P. Martin, Quentin Blake. 1966
It begins with the arrival not of a detective, but of disaster: Badfort is for sale, but when Uncle decides…
to buy it, demolish it, and build a pleasantly appointed park on the site, he is forestalled. Beaver Hateman has sold it cheaply to someone on the condition that he, Hateman, is allowed to stay on as a paying guest. Forgetting that the man who has bought Badfort is certain to regret the "bargain", Uncle tries to console himself by continuing his never-ending exploration of Homeward. He soon discovers the mysterious Crack House - lair of a vicious and horribly squawking creature, half-bat, half-bird, called Batty - where there are rumours of buried treasure. Uncle is in need of a detective . . .Ulysses (Penguin Modern Classics)
By James Joyce. 1992
'Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century' Anthony Burgess, ObserverFollowing the events of one single…
day in Dublin, the 16th June 1904, and what happens to the characters Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, Ulysses is a monument to the human condition. It has survived censorship, controversy and legal action, and even been deemed blasphemous, but remains an undisputed modernist classic: ceaselessly inventive, garrulous, funny, sorrowful, vulgar, lyrical and ultimately redemptive. It confirms Joyce's belief that literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'.'The most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape' T. S. Eliot'Intoxicating ... a towering work, in its word play surpassing even Shakespeare' GuardianTyphoon and Other Stories
By Joseph Conrad. 2007
In these four stories, written between 1900 and 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea…
and began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In 'Typhoon' Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct and intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival. 'Falk', the companion sea-story, contrasts, as Conrad once put it, 'common sentimentalism with the frank standpoint of a more or less primitive man', a man with a conscience, however, about the girl he desires. In one of the 'land-stories' Conrad explores the utter isolation of an East European emigrant in England; in the other, the plight of a woman ironically trapped by the unwitting alliance of two retired widowers - each blind in his own way.Typhoon (Penguin Little Black Classics)
By Joseph Conrad. 2016
'She's done for...'The crew aboard a ramshackle steamer faces a treacherous storm in this gripping tale, inspired by Conrad's own…
time at sea.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.Two on a Tower (The Penguin English Library)
By Thomas Hardy. 2012
With an essay by Rosemary Sumner.'Then they proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single stars…
to double stars, from double to coloured stars...'Hardy's atmospheric, moving story of star-crossed lovers shows human beings at the mercy of forces far beyond their control, setting a tragic drama of human passion and conflict against a background of vast stellar space and scientific discovery. Two on a Tower tells the story of Lady Constantine, who breaks all the rules of decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. Together, in an ancient monument converted into an astronomical observation tower, they create their own private universe - until the pressures of the outside world threaten to destroy it.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.Two on a Tower
By Thomas Hardy. 1999
TWO ON A TOWER (1882) is a tale of star-crossed love in which Hardy sets the emotional lives of his…
two lovers against the background of the stellar universe. The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband's death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart. This is Hardy's most complete treatment of the theme of love across the class and age divide and the fullest expression of his fascination with science and astronomy.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
By Jules Verne. 2007
French naturalist Professor Aronnax has joined a task force to rid the seas of a monster that is terrorizing shipping…
lanes. But the Professor’s mission takes an unexpected turn when he falls overboard – to be rescued by a submarine called Nautilus, built by the mysterious Captain Nemo. At first this new journey is exciting, as Nemo takes Aronnax on an adventure through underwater marvels, but soon he realizes that his host’s motives may be more sinister than he realized. This triumphant work of the imagination shows the limitless possibilities of science and the dark depths of the human mind.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
By Jules Verne. 2017
'It is a ripping yarn, but it is also an eerie tale of isolation and madness ... with a compellingly…
Byronic central character' GuardianCombining thrilling adventure with scientific facts and a wonder at the natural world, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is Jules Verne's most enduringly popular novel. It begins when a vast black object is spotted menacing the oceans, causing panic over the world. When Professor Aronnax joins an expedition to hunt down the creature, he and his two companions discover it is a giant submarine, the Nautilus. Captured and held prisoner on board by its captain, Nemo - unpredictable, enigmatic, exiled from humanity - they have no choice but to travel the terrifying underwater depths with him. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by David CowardThe Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers
By Henry James. 1984
The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge…
of two orphans. Unsettled by a sense of intense evil in the house she soon becomes obsessed with the idea that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Meanwhile The Aspern Papers explores obsession of a more worldly kind, with its tale of a literary historian determined to get his hands on some letters written by a great poet. Such is his drive, he is quite prepared to use trickery and deception to achieve his aims...*The inspiration behind Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor*Discover Henry James's most famous and terrifying story in an edition which…
also includes a unique selection of his best loved ghost stories. A young governess is sent to a great country house to care for two orphaned children. To begin with Flora and Miles seem to be model pupils but gradually the governess starts to suspect that something is very wrong with them. As she sets out to uncover the corrupt secrets of the house she becomes more and more convinced that something evil is watching her.'A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale' Oscar WildeThe Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories
By Henry James. 2017
An unsettling new collection of Henry James's best short stories exploring ghosts and the uncanny'There had been a moment when…
I believed I recognised, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously starting as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep''I see ghosts everywhere', wrote Henry James, who retained a fascination with the supernatural and sensational throughout his writing career. This new collection brings together eight of James's tales exploring the uncanny, including his infamous ghost story, 'The Turn of the Screw', a work saturated with evil, in which a fraught governess becomes convinced that malicious spirits are menacing the children in her care. The other masterly works here include 'The Jolly Corner', 'Owen Wingrave' and further tales of visitations, premonitions, madness, grief and family secrets, where the living are just as mysterious and unknowable as the dead. With an introduction and notes by Susie BoytGeneral Editor Philip HorneThe Turn of the Screw
By Henry James. 2011
'A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale' Oscar WildeThe Turn of the Screw, James's great masterpiece of haunting atmosphere and…
unbearable tension, tells of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something, or someone, malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence, or a manifestation of something else entirely? Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by David Bromwich Series Editor: Philip HorneThe Trumpet-Major
By Thomas Hardy. 1997
Anne Garland, who lives with her widowed mother in a mill owned by Miller Loveday, has three suitors: the local…
squire's nephew Festus and the miller's two sons, Robert and John. While Festus' aggressive pursuit deters the young woman from considering him as a husband, the indecisive Anne wavers between light-hearted Bob and gentle, steadfast John. But as their Wessex village prepares for possible invasion by Napoleon's fleet, all find their destinies increasingly tangled with the events of history. The Loveday brothers, one a sailor and one a soldier, must wrestle with their commitments to their country and their feelings for Anne. Lyrical and light-hearted, yet shot through with irony, The Trumpet-Major (1880) is one of Hardy's most unusual novels and a fascinating tale of love and desire.