Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most peopleeven knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the Englishlanguage's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all itsdimensions-desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration anddisgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in thesame breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of JonathanBate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplishedShakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all ofShakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis"and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works.Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes from WilliamShakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes anexpanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems inliterary and historical context and illuminates their relationshipto Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Also featured are key factsabout the individual selections; an index of the first lines of thesonnets; a chron
Letting Go is Roth's first full-length novel, published justafter Goodbye, Columbus, when he was twenty-nine. Set in 1950sChicago, New York, and Iowa city, Letting Go presents as brillianta fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined bysocial and ethical constraints and by moral compulsionsconspicuously different from those of today. Newly discharged fromthe Korean War army, reeling from his mother's recent death, freedfrom old attachments and hungrily seeking others, Gabe Wallach isdrawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate student in literature, and toLibby, Paul's moody, intense wife. Gabe's desire to be connected tothe ordered andquot; world of feelingandquot; that he finds inbooks is first tested vicariously by the anarchy of the Herzes'struggles with responsible adulthood and then by his own eager loveaffairs. Driven by the desire to live seriously and act generously,Gabe meets an impassable test in the person of Martha Reganhart, aspirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, a formidable
One of the last plays Shakespeare penned on his own, TheWinter’s Tale is a transcendent work of death and rebirth,exploring irrational sexual jealousy, the redemptive world ofnature, and the magical power of art. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and EricRasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars,this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts andauthoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Eachplay includes an Introduction as well as an overview ofShakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past and currentproductions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, anddesigners; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; achronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; and black-and-whiteillustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers,these modern and accessible editions from the Royal ShakespeareCompany set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for thetwenty-first century
In the tradition of Philippa Gregory's smart, transportingfiction comes this tale of dark suspense, love, and betrayal,featuring two star-crossed sisters, one lost and the othersearching. Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by afather who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautifuland reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of propriety in theirsmall English town, Hannah harbors her own secret: their father hasgiven her an education forbidden to women. But Hannah's secretserves her well when she journeys to colonial Maryland to reunitewith May, who has been married off to a distant cousin after hersexual misadventures ruined her marriage prospects in England. AsHannah searches for May, who has disappeared, she finds herselffalling in love with her brother-in-law. Alone in a wild,uncultivated land where the old rules no longer apply, Hannah isfreed from the constraints of the society that judged both her andMay as dangerous--too smart, too fearless, and too hungry for life.But Hannah
In this powerful book we enter the world of Jurgis Rudkus, ayoung Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America fired with dreamsof wealth, freedom, and opportunity. And we discover, with him, theastonishing truth about "packingtown," the busy, flourishing,filthy Chicago stockyards, where new world visions perish in ajungle of human suffering. Upton Sinclair, master of the"muckraking" novel, here explores the workingman's lot at the turnof the century: the backbreaking labor, the injustices of"wage-slavery," the bewildering chaos of urban life. The Jungle, astory so shocking that it launched a government investigation,recreates this startling chapter if our history in unflinchingdetail. Always a vigorous champion on political reform, Sinclair isalso a gripping storyteller, and his 1906 novel stands as one ofthe most important -- and moving -- works in the literature ofsocial change. --This text refers to an alternate Mass MarketPaperback edition.
A ferocious political satire in the great tradition, Our Gangis Philip Roth’s brilliantly indignant response to the phenomenonof Richard M. Nixon. In the character of Trick E. Dixon, Roth shows us a man whooutdoes the severest cynic, a peace-loving Quaker and believer inthe sanctity of human life who doesn’t have a problem with killingunarmed women and children in self-defense. A master politicianwith an honest sneer, he finds himself battling the Boy Scouts,declaring war on Pro-Pornography Denmark, all the time trusting inthe basic indifference of the voting public.
Kafka's first and funniest novel, Amerika tells the story ofthe young immigrant Karl Rossmann who, after an embarrassing sexualmisadventure, finds himself "packed off to America" by his parents.Expected to redeem himself in this magical land of opportunity,young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzyingreversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures. Although Kafka never visited America, images of its vastlandscape, dangers, and opportunities inspired this saga of the"golden land." Here is a startlingly modern, fantastic andvisionary tale of America "as a place no one has yet seen, in ahistorical period that can't be identified," writes E. L. Doctorowin his new foreword. "Kafka made his first novel from his ownmind's mythic elements," Doctorow explains, "and the research datathat caught his eye were bent like light rays in a field ofgravity."
In the hopeful 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler appear to be amodel cou-ple: bright, beautiful, talented, with two young childrenand a starter home in the suburbs. Perhaps they married too youngand started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. AndApril never saw herself as a housewife.Yet they have always livedon the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner.But now that certainty is about to crumble. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, RichardYates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritualbirthright, betraying not only each other, but their bestselves.
Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies avision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dreamcountry, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death bybeheading for andquot; gnostical turpitude.andquot; an imaginarycrime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days inan absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers. anexecutioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by hisin-laws. who lug their furniture with them into his cell. WhenCincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills hisexecutioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the wholeworld they inhabit.
In this extraordinary literary debut third-generationhomesteader Judy Blunt describes her hardscrabble life on theprairies of eastern Montana in prose as big and bold as thelandscape. On a ranch miles from nowhere, Judy Blunt grew up with cattle andsnakes, outhouse and isolation, epic blizzards and devastatingprairie fires. She also grew up with a set of rules and rolesprescribed to her sex long before she was born, a chafing set ofstrictures she eventually had no choice but to flee, taking alongthree children and leaving behind a confused husband and the onlylife she’d ever known. Gritty, lyrical, unsentimental and wise, Breaking Clean is at once informed by the myths of the Westand powerful enough to break them down.
Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of threenovels--previously published separately by Anchor--by NaguibMahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here isa collection of Mahfouz's artful meditations on the vicissitudes ofpost-Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique,together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonantvision of modern life in the Middle East. The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In theaftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work andfamily to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail inpost-Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blamesan unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himselfto destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility,isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who isone of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution inEgypt.
From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Remains ofthe Day" "comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born inearly-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age ofnine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, morethan twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in Londonsociety; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him famehas done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents'alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthinecity of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own,painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyondrecognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficultto trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful andpsychologically acute, When We Were Orphans" "offers a profoundmeditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibilityof avenging one's past.
Book De*ion The handsome Morris Townsend would do anything to win the hand ofplain Catherine Sloper--even if it means pretending that he lovesthe homely ingenue, not her opulent wealth. Includes a newAfterword by the author of "The Hours." Reissue.
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzyof prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small NewEngland town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forcedto retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. Thecharge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would haveastonished even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has asecret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, hisfour children, his colleagues, and his friends, including thewriter Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk'ssecret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of thiseminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all hislife, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life cameunraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing privatehistory is, in the words of "The" "Wall Street Journal,""magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history ofmodern America."
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923.This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introducedtypographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may haveoccasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poorpictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the originalartifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believethis work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuingcommitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. Weappreciate your understanding of the imperfections in thepreservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
The novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterousproprietor of a men's clothing emporium store. Ruddy,self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnantto his exquisite but cold middle-class wife Martha. Attracted tohis money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs fortheir nephew instead, the myopic Franz. Newly arrived in Berlin,Franz soon repays his uncle's condescension in his aunt's bed.
Spine-tingling and entertaining, "The Invisible Man" is ascience fiction classic-and a penetrating, unflinching look intothe heart of human nature. To its author, H. G. Wells, the novelwas as compelling as "a good gripping dream." But to generations ofreaders, the terrible and evil experiment of the dementedscientist, Griffin, has conveyed a chilling nightmare of believablehorror. An atmosphere of ever-increasing suspense begins with thearrival of a mysterious stranger at an English village inn andbuilds relentlessly to the stark terror of a victim pursued by amaniacal invisible man. The result is a masterwork: a dazzlingdisplay of the brilliant imagination, psychological insight, andliterary craftsmanship that made H. G. Wells one of the mostinfluential writers of his time.
The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, awicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study ofa man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. Thesetting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renownedpianist, has come to give the most important performance of hislife. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic andinfuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital cluesto his own past. In The Unconsoled Ishiguro creates a work that isitself a virtuoso performance, strange, haunting, and resonant withhumanity and wit. "A work of great interest and originality....Ishiguro has mapped out an aesthetic territory that is all hisown...frankly fantastic and] fiercer and funnier thanbefore."--"The New Yorker"
Once again, Carlos Ruiz Zafón takes us into a dark, gothicBarcelona and creates a breathtaking tale of intrigue, romance, andtragedy. At the beginning of this powerful, labyrinthian thriller,David Martin, a pulp fiction writer struggling to stay afloat, isholed up in an abandoned mansion in the heart of Barcelona,furiously tapping out story after story, becoming increasinglydesperate and frustrated. When he is approached by a mysteriouspublisher offering a book deal that seems almost too good to bereal, David leaps at the chance. But as he begins the work, andafter a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, he realizes thatthere is a connection between his book and the shadows thatsurround his dilapidated home and that the publisher may be hidinga few troubling secrets of his own.
Sparkling with mischief, jumping with youthful adventure, MarkTwain's Tom Sawyer is one of the most splendid re-creations ofchildhood in all of literature. It is a lighthearted romp, full ofhumor and warmth. It shares with its sequel, Huckleberry Finn, notonly a set of unforgettable characters--Tom, Huck, Aunt Polly andothers--but a profound understanding of humanity as well. Throughsuch hilarious scenes as the famous fence-whitewashing incident,Twain gives a portrait--perceptive yet tender--of a humanityrendered foolish by his own aspirations and obsessions. Written asmuch for adults as for young boys and girls, Tom Sawyer is the workof a master storyteller performing in his shirt sleeves, using hisbest talents to everyone's delight.
This new collection of Sandburgs finest and most representativepoetry draws on all of his previous volumes and includes fourunpublished poems about Lincoln. The Hendricks comprehensiveintroduction discusses how Sandburgs life and beliefs colored hiswork and why it continues to resonate so deeply with americanstoday. Edited and with an Introduction by George and WilleneHendrick.
