The thirty-four stories in this volume span Chekhov’s creative career. They present a wide spectrum of comic and serious themes and a variety of techniques. (His short novels, available in another Norton volume, Seven Short Novels by Chekhov, have been omitted.) Two of the stories have been translated for this edition by Professor Matlaw; the other translations, by Constance Garnett, Ivy Litvinov, and Marian Fell, have been revised in accordance with contemporary usage. Footnotes have been supplied wherever necessary to explain peculiarities of Russian life and the historical era in which Chekhov lived and wrote. Backgrounds includes a rich selection of Chekhov’s letters, in new translations by Professor Matlaw, and Gorky’s celebrated essay on Chekhov, translated by Ivy Litvinov. The critical essays offer general views of Chekhov’s art and achievement and detailed analyses of particular stories. The critics are D. S. Mirsky, A. B. Derman (whose essay has been translated from the Russian especially

It is the summer holidays and soon Harry Potter will be starting his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.Harry is Countiong the day:there are new spells to be learnt,more Quidditch to be played,and Hogwarts castle to continue exploring.But Harry needs to be carefulthere are unexpcted dangers lurking... J.K.Rowling contuinues to surprise and delight with the power of her rich,denanding and action-packed storytelling.

Pocket-sized consumer text discusses how vitamin D can help utilize calcium and phosphorous, promote development of bones and teeth, aid thyroid function, maintain normal blood clotting, regulate heartbeat, and enhance immunity. Trim size: 7 x 5 inches. Softcover. 作者简介: Stephanie Pedersen is a writer and editor who specializes in ares of health.Her articles have appearde in numerous publications,including American Woman,Sassy,Teen,Weigth Watchers and Woman's World.She has salo co-wirtten What Your Cat is Trying to Tell You:A HEAD -to-Tail Guide to Your Cat's Symptoms and Their Solutions and What Your Dog is Trying to Tell You:A Head-to-Tail Guide to Your Dog's Symptoms and Their Solutions,both published by St.Martin's Press.She currently resides in New York City.

FROM THE WORLD FAMOUS ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, THE FIRST AUTHORITATIVE, MODERNIZED, AND CORRECTED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST FOLIO IN THREE CENTURIES. Skillfully assembled by Shakespeare’s fellow actors in 1623, the First Folio was the original Complete Works. It is arguably the most important literary work in the English language. But starting with Nicholas Rowe in 1709 and continuing to the present day, Shakespeare editors have mixed Folio and Quarto texts, gradually corrupting the original Complete Works with errors and conflated textual variations. Now Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, have edited the First Folio as a complete book, resulting in a definitive Complete Works for the twenty-first century. Combining innovative scholarship with brilliant commentary and textual analysis that emphasizes performance history and values, this landmark edition will be indispensable to students, theater professionals, and general r

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its highly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, melancholy philosophising and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manu* featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him. And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before ...A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant Robin Ellacott.

Anne Frank's extraordinary diary, written in the Amsterdam attic where she and her family hid from the naxis for two years, has become a world classic and a timeless testament to the human spirit. Nowk, in a new edition enriched by many passages originally withheld by her father, we meet and Anne more real ,more human, and more vital than ever. Here she is first and foremost a teenage girl-stubbornly honest ,touchingly vulnerable, in love with life. She imparts her deeply secet world of sous-searching and hungering for affection,m rebllious clashes with her mother, romance and newly discovered sexuality, and wry candid observations of her companions. Facing hunger, fear of discovery and death ,and the petty frustrations of such confined puarters Anne writes with adult wisdom and views beyond her yeras. Her story is that of every teenager,lived out in conditions few teenagers have ever known. 作者简介： Anne Frank kept a diary from June 12, 1942,to August 1, 1944. Initially, she wrote it stric

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex Much Ado About Nothing has long been celebrated as one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. The central relationship, between Benedick and Beatrice, is wittily combative until love prevails. Broader comedy is provided by Dogberry, Verges and the watchmen. The drama ranges between the destructively sinister and the lyrically romantic, giving the whole a complex and sometimes problematic character.

Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash the FrenchRiviera was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Amongthe most fashionable are the Divers, Dick and Nicole who hold courtat their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star,who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of thedark secrets and hidden corruption that hold them together. As Dickdraws closer to Rosemary, he fractures the delicate structure ofhis marriage and sets both Nicole and himself on to a dangerouspath where only the strongest can survive. In this exquisite,lyrical novel, Fitzgerald has poured much of the essence of his ownlife; he has also depicted the age of materialism, shatteredidealism and broken dreams.

They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception SparkNotes has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles. SparkNotes ' motto is Smarter, Better, Faster because: They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts. They're easier to understand, because the same people who use them have also written them. The clear writing style and edited content enables students to read through the material quickly, saving valuable time.

In 1896, at the age of forty-seven, Sarah Orne Jewett publishedthis classic novel of a female writer looking for seclusion andinspiration in the coastal town of Dunnet Landing, Maine. Returningto the women and men of small New England towns for theaccompanying collection of short fiction, this remarkable volumeweaves a colorful and moving tapestry of the grand complexities,joys, and beauties of life. "The young student of American Literature in far distant yearsto come will take up this book and say 'a masterpiece.'"-- WillaCather

In this now-classic tale--a terrifying variation on the traditional boys' adventure story--the brutal behavior of a group of English schoolboys left stranded on a deserted island after an atomic war is an allegory for the defects of society.

Book De*ion This work tells the storyof 30 pilgrims who meet by chance at the Tabard Inn in Southwark,London, and journey together to the shrine of St Thomas Becket inCanterbury cathedral. To pass the time along the way, they tellstories to one another, shot through with cunning wit and dryhumour. About this book: Geoffey Chaucer (c.1340-1400) was one of thefinest storytellers in the English language, as well as being agreat poet and an accomplished prose writer. The Canterbury Tales,although incomplete at the time of Chaucer's death, is generallyregarded as his greatest work. The Canterbury Tales tells the storyof 30 pilgrims who meet by chance at the Tabard Inn in Southwark,London and journey together to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket inCanterbury cathedral. To pass the time along the way, they tellstories to one another. The Tales themselves range from theexemplary saints' lives told by the nuns, to the bawdy, comic talesof the miller and the reeve, always shot through with Chaucer'scunning wit and dr

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on thecondescending patronage of her socially superior relatives inParis: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philanderingBaron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentfulof their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love withplans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire toexact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of theHulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice."Cousin Bette" is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexualpassion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping,bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comediehumaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of hisgreatest triumphs as a novelist.

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.

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known by the title of"The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners inChinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Debtof Tears" is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of theillustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with thefortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters,Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour,realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects theritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and abovethe novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another planeof existence a theme, which affirms the Buddhist belief in asupernatural scheme of things.

A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one JosephK., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused ofa crime he did not commit, a crime whose nature is never revealedto him. Once arrested, he is released, but must report to court ona regular basis--an event that proves maddening, as nothing is everresolved. As he grows more uncertain of his fate, his personallife--including work at a bank and his relations with his landladyand a young woman who lives next door--becomes increasinglyunpredictable. As K. tries to gain control, he succeeds only inaccelerating his own excruciating downward spiral.

When Richard Hannay, the hero of The Thirty-nine Steps, is recalled by the Head of British Intelligence from the Western Front at a critical moment in the battle for France, he has little idea that his contribution to the war effort will be much more crucial than the command of his Brigade in Flanders. In his strange odyssey to unravel the most sinister of conspiracies 'to defeat the allies in the West' he travels from an idyllic manor house in the Cotswolds to a provincial Garden City where pacifism is the order of the day, through Scotland and London under attack, and thence back to the trenches, and the greatest battle of the First World War. There, amid the devastation and the squalor, he finds both love and a horrifying glimpse of chemical warfare before the thrilling d noument in the skies above the battlefield.

Lively and informed narrative by two expert authorities in their field. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Is it a gesture of good will or a sinister trap that lures Rupert St. Vincent and his family to magnificent estate? How desperate is Joyce Lambert, a destitute young widow whose only recourse is to marry a man she despises? What unexpected circumstance stirs old loyalties in Theodora Darrell, and unfaithful wife about to run away with her lover? In this collection of short stories, the answers are as unexpected as they are satisfying. The Queen of Crime takes bizarre romantic entanglements, supernatural visitations, and classic murder to inventive new heights. 作者简介： AGATHA CHRISTIE is the world's best known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her writing career spanned more than half a century, during which she wrote 80 novels and short story col-lections, as well as 14 plays, one

"The Story of the Stone (c. 1760)", also known by the title of"The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners inChinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "TheWarning Voice" is the third, it charts the glory and decline of theillustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with thefortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters,Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour,realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects theritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and abovethe novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another planeof existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in asupernatural scheme of things.

Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is, for Russians, their greatest writer; Eugene Onegin is his greatest work. Yet it remains little known outside Russia. Attempts to render Pushkin's Russian stanzas into verse have tried in vain to imitate the most inimitable features of the original, while masking many of its other glories. This prose version, for the first time, gives us a Eugene Onegin that is easy and enjoyable to read. Where previous versions lost the novel in the verse, Roger Clarke has discarded the verse to bring us the novel. And more than the novel: what shines through here are not only Puskin's touching story and subtle characterisation, but his incisive pictures of contemporary Russian life and landscapes, his social and literary comment, his humour, and indeed the essential poetry of the work. The addition of four captivating verse-tales from Pushkin's early maturity makes this book a must for anybody interested in Russian or European literature.