The four plays selected for this collection--The Taming of theShrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and TheTempest--represent a significant stage in the development of theworld's greatest dramatist.
A modern translation exclusive to signet From perhaps the greatest of the ancient Greekplaywrights comes this collection of plays, including Alcestis,Hippolytus, Ion, Electra, Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia Among theTaurians, Medea, The Bacchae, The Trojan Women , and TheCyclops .
The series of which this title forms a part examines the wayin which all the major editions of Shakespeare's plays have beeninterpolated by a series of editors who have been systematicallychanging Shakespeare's texts from the 18th century onwards. Thistext looks at "Measure for Measure". --This text refers to anout of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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.
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.
From the incredible wizadry of Merlin to the passion of SirLancelot, these tales of Arthur and his knights offer epicadventures with the supernatural as well as timeless battles without own humanity.
The adventures of Mowgli, a man-child raised by wolves in thejungle, have captured the imaginations not just of children, but ofall readers, for generations.
Reason, Facts, and statistics... Dickens’ scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society andits misapplied utilitarian philosophy, Hard Times featuresschoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, one of his most richly dimensional,memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders ofsmall-town life, it is also a daring novel of ideas—and ultimately,a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of theimagination.
Jude Fawley is a bright but impoverished stonemason who aspiresto attend university and become a scholar. H is failure to fulfillthe expectations of the two women he loves points to his finaltragedy. Concerned with the destructive conventions of marriage andthe English class system, Jude the Obscure is a raging indictmentof Victorian society; the censure of this insightful book wasalmost without precedent in the history of English literature.
A beautiful and hearty farm girl, Tess Durbeyfield is about tohave her life tragically changed by forces outside her control:lust, poverty, and hypocrisy. This controversial Victorian tale hascome to be recognized as a triumph of literary art.
New package for Austen's brilliant satire of the gothicnovel A sly commentary on the power of literature and a warning forwomen about being too innocent, here is a fresh, funny novel of ayoung woman receiving, as Margaret Drabble reveals in herilluminating introduction, "intensive instruction in the ways ofthe world."
In The Paradiso, Dante explores the goal of human striving:the merging of individual destiny with universal order. One of thetowering creations of world literature, this epic discovery oftruth is a work of mystical intensity- an immortal hymn to God,Nature, Eternity, and Love.
The debut of an American original. Here is the accomplished first novel that catapulted F. ScottFitzgerald to literary fame-at the age of 23. It follows theeducation-intellectual, spiritual, and sexual-of young AmoryBlaine.
Lush de*ions of the rolling Nebraska grasslands interweavewith the blossoming of a woman in the early days of the twentiethcentury, in an epic novel that chronicles America's past.
Wrongfully imprisoned for fourteen years, Edmond Dantes escapesto the island of Monte Cristo. What awaits him there is a fortunein gold-and a new identity with which to persue his revenge andredemption.
From the exquisite lyric “ To Helen ,” to the immortalmasterpieces “ Annabel Lee,” “The Bells, ” and “ The Raven,”The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates theauthor’s gift for the form.
Volume two in a collection of tales representing distinctivegenres- from fairy tales to erotica-revealing the customs andsocieties in the medieval Middle East, as told by the mythicSheherazade.
The beloved sequel to Little Women , this classiccontinues the story of Jo March, who goes on to get married andinherit an estate with which she creates an experimental school forboys.
Stories of terror and suspense. Master of the macabre Edgar Allan Poe brings his nightmarevisions to vivid, dramatic life in this definitive collection of 14of his classic stories, including "The Pit and the Pendulum," "TheTell-Tale Heart," and his only full-length novel, "Narrative of A.Gordon Pym."
There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts ofpassionate love than V/uthering Heights. This is the story of thesavage, tormented foundling Heatheliff, who falls wildly in lovewith Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and of theviolence and misery that result from their thwarted longing foreach other. A book of great power and strength, it is filled withthe raw beauty of the moors and an uncanny un- derstanding of theterrible truths about men and women. It is an understanding madeeven more extraordinary by the fact that it came from the heart ofa woman who lived most of her brief life in the remote wildness ofthe moors. Emily Bronte died a year after this great novel waspublished.
A masterpiece of Western culture, this is the first attempt tolink all the Greek myths in a cohesive whole to the Roman myths ofOvid's day. Horace Gregory, in this modern translation, turns hisown poetic gifts toward a deft reconstruction of Ovid's ancientthemes.
These three masterworks placed the great seventeenth-centuryEnglish poet Milton beside Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, andVirgil in the pantheon of world literature. A monumental achievement,Parudise Lost is the epic poem about the magnificent Lucifer, whose failed rebellion against Heaven's tyranny casts him into thedarkness of Hell and leads to man's fall from grace. SamsonAgonistes, the greatest English drama modeled on the Greekclassics, depicts blinded, once-mighty Samson regaining his strength as God's champion and delivering his people-whilede-stroying himself and his captors. And "Lycidas" is animmortal elegy on lost hopes and the nature of fate. Written in a grandstyle of superb power, these works display a majesty of lan- guage, a sublime wealth of detail, and the unmistakable genius ofone of literature's greatest minds.
