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Yet Being Someone Other
By Sir Laurens Van Der Post. 1982
Yet Being Someone Other is the most revealing book that Laurens van der Post wrote about his extraordinary and eventful…
life, and the most far-reaching; it is a distillation of the experiences that have moved him at the deepest level of the imagination and made him the exceptional person and writer he was.Xerxes Invades Greece
By Herodotus. 1954
A king who would be worshipped as a god...When Xerxes, King of Persia, crosses the Hellespont at the head of…
a formidable army, it seems inevitable that Greece will be crushed beneath its might. But the Greeks are far harder to defeat than he could ever have imagined.As storms lash the Persian ships, and sinister omens predict a cruel fate for the expedition, Xerxes strives onward, certain his enemies will accept him as their king. But as he soon discovers, the Greeks will sacrifice anything, even their lives, to keep their liberty...The Women's War
By Alexandre Dumas. 2006
The Baron des Canolles is a man torn apart by the civil war that dominates mid-seventeenth century France. For while…
the naïve Gascon soldier cares little for the politics behind the battles, he is torn apart by a deep passion for two powerful women on opposing sides of the war: Nanon de Lartigues, a keen supporter of the Queen Regent Anne of Austria, and the Victomtesse de Cambes, who supports the rebellious forces of the Princess de Condé. Set around Bordeaux during the first turbulent years of the reign of Louis XIV, The Women's War sees two women taking central stage in a battle for all France. Humorous, dramatic and romantic, it offers a compelling exploration of political intrigue, the power of redemption, the force of love and the futility of war.Women Who Did: Stories by Men and Women, 1890-1914
By Angelique Richardson. 2005
"A lady? decidedly. Fast? perhaps. Original? undoubtedly. Worth knowing? rather." Daring and dynamic, the 'new woman' came to represent the…
very spirit of the age. The stories in this anthology take up this phenomenon and examine society throughthe eyes of the new woman, as she encountered new choices in marriage, motherhood, work and love.Women Who Did charts a rebellion that was social, sexual and literary. It tells the stories of competing voices - of the men and women who entered into the fray of the fin de siècle, and were not afraid to confront, challenge or delight in the irrepressible New, in an irrepressibly new form, the short story.Wives and Daughters
By Elizabeth Gaskell. 1996
Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he decides to remarry, Molly's life is thrown off course by…
the arrival of her vain, shallow and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia's love affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the gossiping village of Hollingford - and jeopardizing everything with the man she is secretly in love with.Deadly Thought: Hamlet And The Human Soul (Applications Of Political Theory Ser.)
By Jan H. Blits. 2001
The Wings of the Dove
By Henry James. 1986
Beautiful Kate Croy may have been left penniless by her relatives, but her bold, ambitious nature ensures she will not…
succumb meekly to a life of poverty. If the financial circumstances of Merton Densher, the man she is passionately in love with, are not sufficient to secure her future, perhaps her cunning will. So when Milly Theale arrives in Europe from America, laden with wealth but also gravely ill, Kate sees an opportunity to exploit her vulnerability and devises a plan that will see her and Merton financially provided for. Her scheming is flawed though, for it fails to take into account the inconstancies of the human heart.John Bayley's introduction examines the novel in the context of James's other late, great works.Who Is Ozymandias?: And other Puzzles in Poetry
By John Fuller. 2011
Part of the pleasure of poetry is unravelling the mysteries and difficulties it contains and solving the puzzles that lie…
within. Who, for instance, is Ozymandias? What is the Snark? Who is the Emperor of Ice-Cream? Or indeed, who is 'you' in a poem? In this perceptive and playful new book, acclaimed poet John Fuller looks at some of our greatest poems and considers the number of individual puzzles at their heart, casting light on how we should approach these conundrums as readers. From riddling to double entendres, mysterious titles to red herrings, Fuller unpicks the puzzles in works that range from Browning to Bishop, Empson to Eliot, Shelley to Stevens, to help us reach the rewards and revelations that lie at the centre of some of our best-loved poems.Vanessa: A Portrait of Evil
By Wensley Clarkson. 2011
The compelling and disturbing true story of Vanessa George and the evil abuse she doled out upon the children of…
more than 300 families.As a nursery worker, wife and mother, she was a figure to place trust in. Yet her adulterous relationship and sick love triangle with Colin Blanchard and Angela Allen drew her into a dark world of violence and sexual abuse. To compete for Blanchard's attention she would do everything in her power to impress him, even if this meant committing unspeakable acts of sexual violence on children as young as two years old.What could have driven a mother to betray not only her daughters and loving husband, but the very families who entrusted her with their children? How could a seemingly caring women become engaged in a sordid and vile love triangle with a man and woman she had never met? Were there events in her own childhood that pushed her to commit these acts?True crime expert Wensley Clarkson pieces together the events surrounding the case as well as new investigative research to compile a fascinating yet disturbing account of a case which shocked a nation.We may never know the full extent of Vanessa George's cruelty, but the horror of her story will remain as a chilling memory for generations.Vita Nuova
By Dante Alighieri. 2004
A unique treatise by a poet, written for poets, on the art of poetry, LA VITA NUOVA is elaborately and…
symbolically patterned, consisting of a selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own prose commentary. The poems themselves tell the story of his love for Beatrice, from their first meeting at a May Day party in her father's house, through Dante's sufferings and his attempts to conceal the true object of his devotion by the use of 'screen-loves', to his overwhelming grief ather death, ending with the transformative vision of her in heaven. These are some of the richest love poems in literature and the movement from self-pitying lament to praise for the beloved's beauty and virtue, illustrate the elevating power of love.What is Art? (Bloomsbury Revelations Ser.)
By Leo Tolstoy. 1995
During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics…
on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and iconoclastic, this powerfully influential work both criticizes the elitist nature of art in nineteenth-century Western society, and rejects the idea that its sole purpose should be the creation of beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and Wagner are all vigorously condemned, as Tolstoy explores what he believes to be the spiritual role of the artist - arguing that true art must work with religion and science as a force for the advancement of mankind.The Wanderer: Elegies, Epics, Riddles (Legends from the Ancient North)
By Petra Borner. 2013
Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Wanderer tells the classic tales that influenced JRR Tolkien's…
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings'So the company of men led a careless life,All was well with them: until One beganTo encompass evil, an enemy from hell.Grendel they called this cruel spirit...'J.R.R. Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating and teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves and magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature and, even if he had never written The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales.Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behind Tolkien's fiction.They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations.They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength.They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe and bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century.'I squeezed through the narrow gap and out into the hallway and I stood for a moment, unable to decide…
where to go. Should I make a dash for the kitchen, where my mother would be swigging from a bottle? Or should I run upstairs and try to find somewhere to hide? It was a choice I didn't really need to make, because there was no escape'Anna Lowe grows up on the doorsteps of pubs, waiting for her mum to come out. Having to give up her bedroom to her mother's drunken friends. And regularly calling out the ambulance, after finding her mother unconscious and covered in vomit. But it is when they move in with her mother's boyfriend Carl that things take the ugliest turn. Not only is he violent with her mother, but he also sexually abuses Anna from the age of six - destroying any semblance of normal childhood she had left. Wake Up, Mummy is the heartbreaking true story of a little girl who eventually found the courage to break free from the past.The Voyage of Argo
By Apollonius Rhodes. 1971
Written in the third century BC in Alexandria, this is the only full surviving account of Jason's legendary quest for…
the Golden Fleece. It describes the thrilling adventures of the Argonauts on their voyage to Colchis to plead with king Aeetes for the fleece, his greatest treasure - and the Eros-inspired passion felt by his daughter, the beautiful witch-princess Medea, for the scheming Jason. Chronicling a journey that sees Jason and his crew traverse perilous seas, negotiate the treacherous Cyanean Rocks, and confront the lure of the Sirens' song, The Voyage of Argo is a masterful depiction of distinctly human heroism and betrayal caused by love. An eloquent marriage of romance and realism, it tells the definitive version of one of the greatest legends of the classical age: an epic tale of bravery, prophecy and magic.Volpone and Other Plays
By Ben Jonson. 1966
The three plays collected in this volume depict the faults, errors and foibles of ordinary people with exuberant humour, savage…
satire and acute observations. Volpone portrays a rich Venetian who pretends to be dying so that his despised acquaintances will flock to his bedside with extravagant gifts in hope of an inheritance. The Alchemist also deals with greed and gullibility, as a rascally trio of confidence tricksters, claiming to have the legendary Philosopher's Stone, fool a series of victims who are hoping to make some easy money. And in a wonderfully energetic portrait of Jacobean life, Bartholomew Fair shows a diverse group of Londoners sampling the delights and temptations of the Fair - and the traders, prostitutes and cutpurses who set out to exploit them.Eliot After "the Waste Land"
By Robert Crawford. 2022
The second volume of Robert Crawford's magisterial biography of the revolutionary modernist, visionary poet and troubled man, drawing on extensive…
new sources. In this compelling and meticulous portrait of the twentieth century's most important poet, Robert Crawford completes the story he began in Young Eliot. Drawing on extensive new sources and letters, this is the first full-scale biography to make use of Eliot's most significant surviving correspondence, including the archive of letters (unsealed for the first time in 2020) detailing his decades-long love affair with Emily Hale. This long-awaited second volume, Eliot After 'The Waste Land', tells the story of the mature Eliot, his years as a world-renowned writer and intellectual, and his troubled interior life. From his time as an exhausted bank employee after the publication of The Waste Land, through the emotional turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s, and his years as a firewatcher in bombed wartime London, Crawford reveals the public and personal experiences that helped generate some of Eliot's masterpieces. He explores the poet's religious conversion, his editorship at Faber and Faber, his separation from Vivien Haigh-Wood and happy second marriage to Valerie Fletcher, and his great work Four Quartets. Robert Crawford presents this complex and remarkable man not as a literary monument but as a human being: as a husband, lover and widower, as a banker, editor, playwright and publisher, but most of all as an epoch-shaping poet struggling to make art among personal disasters.Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their Time
By A S Byatt. 1970
Unruly Times is a superlative portrait of the relationship between Wordsworth and Coleridge, and a fascinating exploration of the Romantic…
Movement and the dramatic events that shaped it. With a novelist's insight and eye for detail, A. S. Byatt brings alive this tumultuous period and shows a deep understanding of the effects upon the minds of Wordsworth, Coleridge and their contemporaries - de Quincey, Lamb, Hazlitt, Byron and Keats.Unhooked: The Rehab of a London Call Girl
By Clare Gee. 2012
Addicted to coke and booze and reliant on selling her body for cash, Katie, the heroine of Clare Gee's bestselling…
Hooked, can no longer cope with the life she's created for herself. She has messed up badly and thrown everything away.Mentally, she is an anxious wreck and physically she is in pieces. Yet she is terrified of who she will become without her vices. She has to do something, though, and her choices are get help or die. She leaves London and admits herself to a residential rehab centre for three months.In Unhooked, reformed addict Clare Gee draws on her own experiences of cocaine addiction, alcoholism and prostitution in telling a moving story of a young woman battling through hell to create a sober life for herself. There are threats of expulsion from rehab and relapses, but through dedication and honesty, Katie begins the long journey to becoming clean and finding peace of mind.In March 1807, the British Parliament passed an Act making the trading and transportation of slaves illegal. It was many…
years before slavery, as it was known then, was abolished, and slavery still continues today in different ways, but it was a big step forward towards the empancipation of a people. Malorie Blackman has drawn together some of the finest of today's writers and poets to contribute to this important anthology. Their short stories and poems sit alongside first-hand accounts of slavery from freed slaves, making a fascinating and absorbing collection that remembers and commemorates one of the most brutal and long-lasting inflictions of misery that human beings have inflicted upon other human beings.The Treasure of the City of Ladies: Or the Book of the Three Virtues
By Christine De Pizan. 2003
Written by Europe’s first professional woman writer, The Treasure of the City of Ladies offers advice and guidance to women…
of all ages and from all levels of medieval society, from royal courtiers to prostitutes. It paints an intricate picture of daily life in the courts and streets of fifteenth-century France and gives a fascinating glimpse into the practical considerations of running a household, dressing appropriately and maintaining a reputation in all circumstances. Christine de Pizan’s book provides a valuable counterbalance to male accounts of life in the middle ages and demonstrates, often with dry humour, how a woman’s position in society could be made less precarious by following the correct etiquette.