Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Ten years after RABBIT REDUX, Harry Angstrom has come to enjoyprosperity as the Chief Sales Representative of Springer Motors.The rest of the world may be falling to pieces, but Harrry's doingall right. That is, until his son returns from the West, and theimage of an old love pays a visit to his lot....
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us hisfirst cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched,interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essentialcharacter. A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turningfrom the one certainty in his life . . . A man whose unerring tastein music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . Astruggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failingmarriage of a couple he’s only just met . . . A gifted,underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe thatplastic surgery will help his career . . . A young cellist whosetutor promises to “unwrap” his talent . . . Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of thetwo—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, inone way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment ofreckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes justeluding their grasp. An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable fo
With dramatic eloquence, this story of the French Revolutionbrings to life a time of terror and treason, and a starving peoplerising in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadentregime.
From its spectacular opening–the astonishing scene in whichdrunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passingsailor at a county fair–to the breathtaking series of discoveriesat its conclusion, The Mayor of Casterbridge claims a unique placeamong Thomas Hardy’s finest and most powerful novels. Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in earlynineteenth-century England, the story build into an awesomeSophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willfulHenchard rises to a position of wealth and power–only to suffer amost bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to hisown destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, “Hardy’sLord Jim…his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroesin all fiction.
Edith Wharton's masterpiece brings to life the grandeur and hypocrisy of a gilded age. Set among the very rich in 1870s New York, it tells the story of Newland Archer, a young lawyer engaged to marry virginal socialite May Welland, when he meets her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, a woman unbound by convention and surrounded by scandal. As all three are drawn into a love triangle filled with sensuality, subtlety, and betrayal, Archer faces a harrowing choice between happiness and the social code that has ruled his life. The resulting tale of thwarted love is filled with irony and surprise, struggle and acceptance. Recipient of the first Pulitzer Prize for fiction ever awarded to a woman, this great novel paints a timeless portrait of "society" still unmatched in American literature—an arbitrary, capricious social elite that professes inviolable standards but readily abandons them for greed and desire.
In Forster's most popular novel, he tracks British society'sclass warfare, as seen by members of three different castes-thewealthy Wilcoxes, the cultured and emancipated Schlegal sisters,and poor, young Leonard Bast.
At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with amysterious affliction--pure pain, beginning in his neck andshoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit.Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Nowhis work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can finda cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman himselfwonders if the pain can have been caused by his own books. Andwhile he is wondering, his dependence on painkillers grows into anaddiction to vodka, marijuana, and Percodan. The Anatomy Lesson isa great comedy of illness written in what the English criticHermione Lee has described as "a manner at once...brash andthoughtful... lyrical and wry, which projects through comicexpostulations and confessions...a knowing, humane authority." Thethird volume of the trilogy and epilogue "Zuckerman Bound," TheAnatomy Lesson provides some of the funniest scenes in all ofRoth's fiction as well as some of the fiercest.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) In his first and still mostwidely read novel, James Joyce makes a strange peace with thetraditional narrative of a young man's self-discovery by respectingits substance while exploding its form, thereby inaugurating aliterary revolution. Published in 1916 when Joyce was al?ready atwork on "Ulysses," "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" isexactly what its title says and much more. In an exuberantlyin?ventive masterpiece of subjectivity, Joyce portrays his alterego, Stephen Dedalus, growing up in Dublin and struggling throughreligious and sexual guilt toward an aesthetic awak?ening. In parta vivid picture of Joyce's own youthful evolution into one of thetwentieth century's greatest writers, it is also a moment in theintellectual history of an age.
" Zamyatin's] intuitive grasp of the irrational side oftotalitarianism- human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself-makesWe] superior to Huxley's Brave New World]."-George Orwell Aninspiration for George Orwell's "1984" and a precursor to the workof Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem, We is a classic of dystopianscience fiction ripe for rediscovery. Written in 1921 by theRussian revolutionary Yevgeny Zamyatin, this story of the thirtiethcentury is set in the One State, a society where all live for thecollective good and individual freedom does not exist. The noveltakes the form of the diary of state mathematician D-503, who, tohis shock, experiences the most disruptive emotion imaginable: lovefor another human being.At once satirical and sobering-and nowavailable in a powerful new modern translation-We speaks to all whohave suffered under repression of their personal and artisticfreedom. "One of the greatest novels of the twentiethcentury."-Irving Howe
Renaissance England’s great tragedy of intellectual overreaching is as relevant and unsettling today as it was when first performed at the end of the sixteenth century. This edition provides newly edited texts of both the 1604 (A-Text) and 1616 (B-Text) versions of the play, each with detailed explanatory annotations. "Sources and Contexts" includes a generous selection from Marlowe’s main source, The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, along with contemporary writings on magic and religion (including texts by Agrippa, Calvin, and Perkins) that establish the play’s intellectual background. This volume also reprints early documents relating to the writing and publication of the play and to its first performances, along with contemporary comments on Marlowe’s scandalous reputation. Twenty-five carefully chosen interpretations—written from the eighteenth century to the present—allow students to enrich their critical understanding of the play. These diverse critical essays in
Joyce Carol Oates's Wonderland Quartet comprises fourremarkable novels that explore social class in America and theinner lives of young Americans. In "A Garden of Earthly Delights,"Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole,the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers.Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence andpoverty, determined not to repeat her mother's life, Clarastruggles for independence by way of her relationships with fourvery different men: her father, a family man turned itinerantlaborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, whorescues Clara as a teenager and offers her the possibility of love;Revere, a wealthy landowner who provides Clara with stability; andSwan, Clara's son, who bears the psychological and spiritual burdenof his mother's ambition. A masterly work from a writer with "theuncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her America"("National Review"), "A Garden of Earthly Delights "is the openingstanza i
Robert Louis Stevenson's cherished, unforgettable adventuremagically captures the thrill of a sea voyage and a treasure huntthrough the eyes of its teenage protagonist, Jim Hawkins. Crossingthe Atlantic in search of the buried cache, Jim and the ship's crewmust brave the elements and a mutinous charge led by thequintessentially ruthless pirate Long John Silver. Brilliantlyconceived and splendidly executed, it is a novel that has seizedthe imagination of generations of adults and children alike. And asDavid Cordingly points out in his Introduction, Treasure Island isalso the best and most influential of all the stories aboutpirates.
The 1920s novel of a passion threatened by convention andplayed outagainst a backdrop of New York City-s upper class,unimaginable wealth,and unavoidable tragedy.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Arriving in a village to takeup the position of land surveyor for the mysterious lord of acastle, the character known as K. finds himself in a bitter andbaffling struggle to contact his new employer and go about hisduties. As the villagers and the Castle officials block his effortsat every turn, K.'s consuming quest-quite possibly a self-imposedone-to penetrate the inaccessible heart of the Castle and take itsmeasure is repeatedly frustrated. Kafka once suggested that thewould-be surveyor in "The Castle" is driven by a wish "to get clearabout ultimate things," an unrealizable desire that provided thedriving force behind all of Kafka's dazzlingly uncanny fictions.Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir
Magic, love spells, and an enchanted wood provide thematerials for one of Shakespeare’s most delightful comedies. Whenfour young lovers, fleeing the Athenian law and their ownmismatched rivalries, take to the forest of Athens, their livesbecome entangled with a feud between the King and Queen of theFairies. Some Athenian tradesmen, rehearsing a play for theforthcoming wedding of Duke Theseus and his bride, Hippolyta,unintentionally add to the hilarity. The result is a marvelousmix-up of desire and enchantment, merriment and farce, all touchedby Shakespeare’s inimitable vision of the intriguing relationshipbetween art and life, dreams and the waking world.
The sweep of Japanese literature in all its great variety wasmade available to Western readers for the first time in thisanthology. Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays tothe poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place inthis book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections intheir proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy thebook both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history ofJapan. Selections include “Man’yoshu” or “Collection of TenThousand Leaves” from the ancient period; “Kokinshu” or “Collectionof Ancient and Modern Poetry,” “The Tosa Diary” of Ki No Tsurayuki,“Yugao” from “Tales of Genji” of Murasaki Shikibu, and “The PillowBook” of Sei Shonagon from the Heian Period; “The Tale of theHeike” from the Kamakura Period; Plan of the No Stage, “Birds ofSorrow” of Seami Motokiyo, and “Three Poets at Minase” from theMuromachi Period; and Sections from Basho, including “The NarrowRoad of O
This brilliant new verse translation by Allen Mandelbaumcaptures the consummate beauty of the third and last part ofDante's Divine Comedy. The Paradiso is a luminous poem of love andlight, of optics, angelology, polemics, prayer, prophecy, andtranscendent experience. As Dante ascends to the Celestial Rose, inthe tenth and final heaven, all the spectacle and splendor of agreat poet's vision now becomes accessible to the modern reader inthis highly acclaimed, superb dual language edition. With extensivenotes and commentary.
Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survivedalone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coastof Chile, "The Mysterious Island" is considered by many to be JulesVerne's masterpiece. "Wide-eyed mid-nineteenth-century humanisticoptimism in a breezy, blissfully readable translation by Stump"("Kirkus Reviews"), here is the enthralling tale of five men and adog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island ofbewildering goings-on and their struggle to survive as they uncoverthe island's secret.