Wordsworth

D.H. Lawrence, 2008

Lawrence's reputation as a novelist has often meant that his achievements in poetry have failed to receive the recognition they deserve. This edition brings together, in a form he himself sanctioned, his Collected Poems of 1928, the unexpurgated version of Pansies, and Nettles, adding to these volumes the contents of the two notebooks in which he was still writing poetry when he died in 1930. It therefore allows the reader to trace the development of Lawrence as a poet and appreciate the remarkable originality and distinctiveness of his achievement. Not all the poems reprinted here are masterpieces but there is more than enough quality to confirm Lawrence's status as one of the greatest English writers of the twentieth century. Подробнее

The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus

N. Halley, 2008

Who was Nostradamus, and what faith should we place in his predictions? This book gives objective answers. It reveals that Michel de Nostredame, a 16th-century French doctor, was more Renaissance man than arcane magician — and that his prognostications can be compellingly astute. In this edition all of the cryptic short verses of Nostradamus's «Centuries» appear in the original French, with new translations. Uncanny prophecies such as those of the French Revolution and the rise of Hitler are examined in detail. Here too are interpretations of the many verses believed to augur future events. Editor Ned Halley works in fields of journalism as diverse as medicine, wine and business. He takes a Plain English approach to 'a subject far too often wreathed in language that seems calculated to obscure, rather than to demonstrate, the truth'. Подробнее

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, 1996

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of «Hamlet», «King Lear», «Othello» and «Macbeth» as well as the moving history plays and the comedies such as «A Midsummer Night's Dream», «The Taming of the Shrew» and «As You Like It» with their magical combination of humour, ribaldry and tenderness. This volume is a reprint of the Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in chronological order in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets, as well as his longer poems «Venus and Adonis» and «The Rape of Lucrece». Подробнее

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, 2007

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time. He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of «Hamlet», «King Lear», «Othello», and «Macbeth» as well as the moving history plays and the comedies such as «A Midsummer Night's Dream», «The Taming of the Shrew» and «As You Like It» with their magical combination of humour, ribaldry and tenderness. This volume is a reprint of the Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in chronological order in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets, as well as his longer poems «Venus and Adonis» and «The Rape of Lucrece». Подробнее

The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology

W. Skeat, 1993

Walter Skeat (1835-1912) was one of the greatest investigators of the roots of the English language, and his remarkable scholarship was instrumental in the revival of the great works of early English Literature. His astonishing detective work into the origins and development of the world's most widely used language provides an unsurpassed guide to its flexibility and richness. Подробнее

The Coral Island

R.M. Ballantyne, 1995

The story opens with the shipwreck on a Pacific Island of the young friends Ralph Rover and Jack Martin and Peterkin Gray. Despite the pleasurable presence of delicious breadfruit, coconuts, and succulent oysters, the intrepid trio are not alone and they soon witness a battle between rival bands of cannibals led by 'Bloody Bill'. Their lives are placed in serious peril from which only courage and determined pluck can save them. Подробнее

The Count of Monte Cristo

Dumas Alexandre, 1997

The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate. The sensational narrative of intrigue, betrayal, escape, and triumphant revenge moves at a cracking pace. Dumas' novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil embodied in an epic saga of rich diversity that is complicated by the hero's ultimate discomfort with the hubristic implication of his own actions. Подробнее

Cranford and Other Stories

Elizabeth Gaskell, 2006

The sheer variety and accomplishment of Elizabeth Gaskell's shorter fiction is amazing.This new volume contains six of her finest stories that have been selected specifically to demonstrate this, and to trace the development of her art. As diverse in setting as in subject matter, these tales move from the gentle comedy of life in a small English country town in «Dr Harrison's Confessions», to atmospheric horror in far north-west Wales with «The Doom of the Griffiths». The story of «Cousin Phillis», her masterly tale of love and loss, is a subtle, complex and perceptive analysis of changes in English national life during an industrial age, while the gripping «Lois the Witch» recreates the terrors of the Salem witchcraft trials in seventeenth-century New England, as «Gaskell» shrewdly shows the numerous roots of this furious outbreak of delusion. Whimsically modified fairy tales are set in a French chateau, while an engaging love story poetically evokes peasant life in wine-growing Germany. Подробнее

Crime Scenes

David Stuart Davies, 2008

»Crime Scenes» is a sparkling collection of short stories written by modern masters and mistresses of the crime fiction genre. Within these pages you will find tales of murder, mystery and mayhem in a great variety of styles and tones from the time-honoured whodunnit to the psychological chiller to the history mystery to the crime procedural to the noir thriller to the gangster epic and the darkly humorous narrative. This volume demonstrates clearly how the crime story has developed and matured over the last two hundred years or so into the exciting, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining form of fiction it is today. The impressive cast of contributors includes well-respected and well-established names such as Peter Lovesey, Edward Marston, Natasha Cooper, Judith Cutler and Russell James as well as those currently making their reputation as fine exponents of their craft and a few young lions whose work is bristling with promise. Crime Scenes is a treasure chest of delights for the fans of crime fiction. Подробнее

The Crimson Blind and Other Stories

H.D. Everett, 2006

Mrs H.D. Everett was the last in a long line of gifted Victorian novelists who knew how to grip the reader through the invasion of everyday life by the abnormal and dramatic, leaving the facts to produce their special thrills without piling on the agony. 'I always know', says one of her characters, 'how to distinguish a true ghost story from a faked one. The true ghost story never has any point and the faked one dare not leave it out.' From the chilling horror of «The Death Mask» to the shocking violence of «The Crimson Blind», from the creeping menace of Parson Clench to the mounting suspense of «The Pipers of Mallory», these thrilling stories were enthusiastically received by readers and critics when they first appeared, and are sure to delight and terrify the modern reader in equal measure. Подробнее

Daisy Miller and Other Stories

Henry James, 1994

»Daisy Miller» is one of Henry James's most attractive heroines: she represents youth and frivolity. As a tourist in Italy, her American freedom and freshness of spirit come up against the corruption and hypocrisy of European manners. From its first publication, readers on both sides of the Atlantic have quarrelled about her, defending or attacking the liberties that Daisy takes and the conventions that she ignores. All three tales in this collection, «Daisy Miller», «An International Episode» and «Lady Barbarina», express James's most notable subject, 'the international theme', the encounters, romantic and cultural, between Americans and Europeans. His heroes and heroines approach each other on unfamiliar ground with new freedoms, yet find themselves unexpectedly hampered by old constraints. In «An International Episode», an English lord visiting Newport, Rhode Island, falls in love with an American girl, but their relationship becomes more complicated when she travels to London. In the light-hearted comedy «Lady Barbarina», a rich young American seeks an English aristocratic bride. The unusual outcomes of these three tales pose a number of social questions about marriage and the traditional roles of men and women. Is an international marriage symbolic of the highest cultural fusion of values or is it an old style raid and capture? Is marriage to remain the feminine destination? Подробнее

Daniel Deronda

George Eliot, 1996

George Eliot's final novel, «Daniel Deronda» (1876), follows the intertwining lives of the beautiful but spoiled and selfish Gwendolene Harleth and the selfless yet alienated Daniel Deronda, as they search for personal and vocational fulfilment and sympathetic relationship. Set largely in the degenerate English aristocratic society of the 1860s, «Daniel Deronda» charts their search for meaningful lives against a background of imperialism, the oppression of women, and racial and religious prejudice. Gwendolen's attempts to escape a sadistic relationship and atone for past actions catalyse her friendship with Deronda, while his search for origins leads him, via Judaism, to a quest for moral growth. Eliot's radical dual narrative constantly challenges all solutions and ensures that the novel is as controversial now, as when it first appeared. Подробнее

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens, 1992

Dickens wrote of «David Copperfield»: 'Of all my books I like this the best'. Millions of readers in almost every language on earth have subsequently come to share the author's own enthusiasm for this greatly loved classic, possibly because of its autobiographical form. Following the life of David through many sufferings and great adversity, the reader will also find many light-hearted moments in the company of a host of English fiction's greatest stars including Mr Micawber, Traddles, Uriah Heep, Creakle, Betsy Trotwood, and the Peggoty family. Подробнее

Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio, 2005

1348. The Black Death is sweeping through Europe. In Florence, plague has carried off one hundred thousand people. In their Tuscan villas, seven young women and three young men tell tales to recreate the world they have lost, weaving a rich tapestry of comedy, tragedy, ribaldry and farce. Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day. Boccaccio makes the incredible believable, with detail so sharp we can look straight into the lives of people who lived six hundred years ago. His Decameron hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past — the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East — and the colourful squalor of contemporary life, where wives deceive husbands, friars and monks pursue fleshly ends, and natural instincts fight for satisfaction. Here are love and jealousy, passion and pride — and a shrewd calculation of profit and loss which heralds the rise of a dynamic merchant class. These stories show us early capitalism during a moment of crisis and revelation. Подробнее

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon, 1998

Gibbon's «The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire», published between 1776 and 1788, is generally acknowledged to be a masterpiece of English historical writing. Gibbon takes the reader through the history of Europe from the 2nd-century AD, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This edition includes Gibbon's footnotes and quotations, together with brief explanatory comments, a precis of the chapters not included and a list of emperors. Подробнее

The Deerslayer

James Fenimore Cooper, 1995

»The Deerslayer» is the first of James Fenimore Cooper's «Leatherstocking Tales», and it introduces Natty Bumppo, the Deerslayer of the title, and the Mohican Chief Chingachgook. The action takes place in upstate New York during the French and Indian wars of the 1740s. The young frontiersman Natty Bumppo and his friend Hurry Harry go to the rescue of the trapper Thomas Hutter and his daughters, whose floating fort on Lake Glimmerglass is under attack by the Iriquois. The plot twists and turns, and the exciting action and the romantic interest of this historical adventure have made it a firm favourite with generations of readers. Cooper's evocation of the simple values of frontier life, combined with his mastery of the straightforward adventure story established him in the forefront of American writers. The other «Leatherstocking Tales» in chronological order, though not in order of composition, are «The Last of the Mohicans» (also published as a Wordsworth Classic), «The Pathfinder», «The Pioneers» and «The Prairie». Подробнее

Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1998

Democracy in America is a classic of political philosophy. Hailed by John Stuart Mill and Horace Greely as the finest book ever written on the nature of democracy, it continues to be an influential text on both sides of the Atlantic, above all in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. De Tocqueville examines the structures, institutions and operation of democracy, and shows how Europe can learn from American success and failures. His central theme is the advancement of the rule of the people, but he also predicts that slavery will bring about the 'most horrible of civil wars', foresees that the USA and Russia will be the Superpowers of the twentieth century, and is 150 years ahead of his time in his views on the position and importance of women. Подробнее

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories

F.Scott Fitzgerald, 1994

»The Diamond as Big as the Ritz» is an ominous fable about the pursuit of great wealth. Readers will be transported to a fabulous fantasy land of such opulence that its very existence has to remain a jealously guarded secret. Fatal consequences lie in store for 'bona fide' guests and uninvited visitors alike, while the sybaritic luxury of the place is evoked in an effortless prose style which is quintessentially F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also featured in this volume are «The Cut-Glass Bowl», «May Day», «The Rich Boy», «Crazy Sunday», «An Alcoholic Case», «The Lees of Happiness», «The Lost Decade» and «Babylon Revisited». Подробнее

The Diary of a Nobody

George and Weedon Grossmith, 1994

The diary is that of a man who acknowledges that he is not a «Somebody» — Charles Pooter of 'The Laurels', Brickfield Terrace, Holloway, a clerk in the city of London — and it chronicles in hilarious detail the everyday life of the lower middle class during the Great Victorian age. Подробнее

Concise English Dictionary Highly acclaimed for its competitive edge on other editions of its kind, the Wordsworth Concise English Dictionary is an authorative, user friendly and up-to-date lexicon of the world's most widely used language. It reflects the usage not just of the UK and the USA but also of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and all those parts of the world where English is the first language. The pefect reference book for everyday use, it provides definitions written in clear, jargon-free language readily accessible to every level of reader, and care has been taken to include coverage of current scientific and technical terminology, as well as literary and colloquial words and phrases. Impressively comprehensive, this dictionary contains 121,000 references and over 156,000 definitions, together with copious and invaluable appendices consisting of conversion tables, mathematical symbols, the Greek alphabet, Roman numerals and an extensive list of abbreviations. No citizen of the world today can afford to be without a dictionary of this quality. Подробнее

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