Voltaire's shocking wit and biting portrayal of the eighteenthcentury church and aristocracy are now showcased in a newtranslation of Candide, a bestseller in its time and essentialreading for a deeper understanding of Voltaire and Enlightenmentthought. Preserving the text's provocative nature as well as itsaccuracy, Daniel Gordon has paid special attention to improving notonly the rendering of particular words, but to Voltaire's semanticovertones by amplifying the book's innuendo, enhancing Candide'sreadability and ensuring that readers will not miss bold featuresof the story. The introduction places Candide and Voltaire in theirhistorical context, relating the complexities of Voltaire's life tothe events, philosophy, and characters of Candide, showingprecisely why the Enlightenment is known as the Age ofVoltaire.
The translations, created through a fresh approach to theNorwegian original in tandem with a keen sense of Ibsen'stheatricallity and playability, have all been tested and refined inproductions at professional theaters. The translators have paid particular attention to threeaspects of Ibsen's technique: his wit and humor, his "supertext" -the web of rich allusions and references that he weaves in andaround his dialogue - and the bold theatricallity of the plays. Theresult is an Ibsen that sounds contemporary without being slangy orcolloquial - an Ibsen of strong ideas but also living characters -and surprisingly different from the image of the cold, forbidding"scold of the North" that we often associate with this giantwriter. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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.
An international team of scholars offers:?? modernised, easilyaccessible texts?? ample but unobtrusive academic guidance??attention to the theatrical qualities of each play and its stagehistory?? informative illustations, including reconstructions ofearly performances --This text refers to an out of print orunavailable edition of this title.
" 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
Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad’s first novel, is a tale ofpersonal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils ofcolonialism. Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, ittells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of richesfor his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of hisown greed and prejudice. Nadine Gordimer writes in herIntroduction, “Conrad’s writing is lifelong questioning . . . Whatwas ‘Almayer’s Folly’? The pretentious house never lived in? Hisobsession with gold? His obsessive love for his daughter, whoseprogenitors, the Malay race, he despised? All three?” Conradestablished in Almayer’s Folly the themes of betrayal, isolation,and colonialism that he would explore throughout the rest of hislife and work.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From one of the most brilliantand influential thinkers of the twentieth century-two novels, sixshort stories, and a pair of essays in a single volume. In both hisessays and his fiction, Albert Camus (1913--1960) de-ployed hislyric eloquence in defense against despair, providing anaffirmation of the brave assertion of humanity in the face of auniverse devoid of order or meaning. "The Plague"-written in 1947and still profoundly relevant-is a riveting tale of horror,survival, and resilience in the face of a devastating epidemic."The Fall" (1956), which takes the form of an astonishingconfession by a French lawyer in a seedy Amsterdam bar, is ahaunting parable of modern conscience in the face of evil. The sixstories of "Exile and the Kingdom "(1957) represent Camus at theheight of his narrative powers, masterfully depicting hischaracters-from a renegade missionary to an adulterous wife -atdecisive moments of revelation. Set beside their fictionalcounterparts, Camus's famous essays
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.' In Carroll's sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice once again finds herself in a bizarre and nonsensical place when she passes through a mirror and enters a looking-glass world where nothing is quite as it seems. From her guest appearance as a pawn in a chess match to her meeting with Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking Glass follows Alice on her curious adventure and shows Carroll's great skill at creating an imaginary world full of the fantastical and extraordinary.
A philosopher and his disciple journey to find "the best of all possible worlds" in this classic work of eighteenth-century satire. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis, including modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the wo
The dramatic concluding months of The Wars of the Rosesprovide the setting for Shakespeare’s incomparable saga of powerand intrigue. 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: CompleteWorks. Each play includes an Introduction as well as anoverview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past andcurrent productions based on interviews with leading directors,actors, and designers; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about thework; a chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; andblack-and-white illustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers,these modern and accessible editions set a new standard inShakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.
Here is the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the hunchback;Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer; and Claude Frollo, the priest torturedby his own damnation. Shaped by a profound sense of tragic irony,it is a work that gives full play to the author's brilliantimagination.
On the 150th anniversary of its publication, a new edition ofthe nature classic First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau'sgroundbreaking book has influenced generations of readers andcontinues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind and a loveof nature. With Bill McKibben providing a newly revisedIntroduction and helpful annotations that place Thoreau firmly inhis role as cultural and spiritual seer, this beautiful edition ofWalden for the new millennium is more accessible and relevant thanever. " Thoreau] says so many pithy and brilliant things, andoffers so many piquant, and, we may add, so many just, comments onsociety as it is, that this book is well worth the reading, bothfor its actual contents and its suggestive capacity." --A. P.Peabody, North American Review, 1854 " Walden] still seems to methe best youth's companion yet written by an American, for itcarries a solemn warning against the loss of one's valuables, itadvances a good argument for traveling light and trying newadventures,
This all-new Signet Classic contains many of T.S. Eliot's mostimportant early peoms, leading to perhaps his greatest masterpiece,The Waste Land, which has long been regarded as one of thefundamental texts of modernism. By combining poetic elements frommany diverse sources with bits of popular culture and common speechlinked in a fragmented narrative, Eliot recreated the chaos anddisillusionment of Europe in the aftermath of WWI. * The Waste Land is a modernist literary masterpiece. * Contains a number of early poems, including Spleen, The Deathof St. Narcissus, The Love Song of J. Prufrock, Preludes,Gerontion, The Hippopotmaus, and Sweeny Among theNightingales. * T.S Eliot is the winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature,and is one of America's greatest poets. * Edited and with an Introduction by Helen Vendler, a foremostscholar of moderism at Harvard University who writes regularly forthe New Yorker and The New Republic. * Vendler is also the author of books on other
Alex Jennings will be the reader for this unabridged recordingof the The Sonnets. --This text refers to the AudioCassette edition.
Phaedra is consumed with passion for Hippolytus, her stepson.Believing her husband dead, she confesses her love to him and isrebuffed. When her husband returns alive, Phaedra convinces himthat it was Hippolytus who attempted to seduce her. In hisinterpretation, Racine replaced the stylized tragedy withhuman-scale characters and actions. Introduction by RichardWilbur.
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP Virgil's sweeping epic of Trojan warrior Aeneas and the founding of Rome -- a stirring tale of exile, heroism, and combat, and of a man caught between love, duty, and fate. THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and in
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.
As a young man in the summer of 1897, Jack London joined theKlondike gold rush. From that seminal experience emerged thesegripping, inimitable wilderness tales, which have endured as someof London' s best and most defining work. With remarkable insightand unflinching realism, London describes the punishing adversitythat awaited men in the brutal, frozen expanses of the Yukon, andthe extreme tactics these adventurers and travelers adopted tosurvive. As Van Wyck Brooks observed, " One felt that the storieshad been somehow lived- that they were not merely observed- thatthe author was not telling tales but telling his life." Thisedition is unique to the Modern Library, featuring twenty-threecarefully chosen stories from London' s three collected Northlandvolumes and his later Klondike tales. It also includes two maps ofthe region, and notes on the text.
On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throngoutside a London crematorium to pay their last respects to MollyLane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's loversin the days before they reached their current eminence: Clive isBritain's most successful modern composer, and Vernon is editor ofthe newspaper "The Judge." Gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers,too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notoriousright-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days thatfollow Molly's funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact withconsequences that neither could have foreseen. Each will make adisastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to itslimits, and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life.A sharp contemporary morality tale, cleverly disguised as a comicnovel, Amsterdam is "as sheerly enjoyable a book as one is likelyto pick up this year" ("The Washington Post Book World").
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) "A Tale of Two Cities" begins ona muddy English road in an atmosphere charged with mystery anddrama, and it ends in the Paris of the French Revolution with oneof the most famous acts of self-sacrifice in literature. In betweenlies one of Charles Dickens's most exciting books- a historicalnovel that, generation after generation, has given readers accessto the profound human dramas that lie behind cataclysmic social andpolitical events. Famous for the character of Sydney Carton, whosacrifices himself upon the guillotine-"It is a far, far betterthing that I do, than I have ever done"-the novel is also apowerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused bythe Revolution, and is illuminated by Dickens's lively comedy. Thisedition reprints the original Everyman introduction by G. K.Chesterton and includes sixteen illustrations by Phiz.
A triumphantly patriotic play that also casts a critical eyeat war and warriors, this great epic drama depicts a charismaticruler in a time of national struggle. The young King Henry’svictory over the French despite overwhelming odds creates aspectacle of action, color, and thundering battles. Whether thewarrior-king is urging his men “Once more unto the breach, dearfriends,” or wooing Katharine of France, Henry is magnificentlyadapted to the role he must play in England’s greatness. Henry Vrepresents the culmination of Shakespeare’s art as a writer ofhistorical drama. Each Edition Includes: ? Comprehensive explanatory notes ? Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship ? Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enablingcontemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English ? Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performancehistories ? An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, alongwith an extensive filmography
Pip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not havemuch in the way of great expectations between his terrifyingexperience in a graveyard with a convict named Magwitch and hishumiliating visits with the eccentric Miss Havisham's beautiful butmanipulative niece, Estella, who torments him until he is elevatedto wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettablecharacters, Great Expectations is a tale of intrigue, unattainablelove, and all of the happiness money can't buy. Great Expectationshas the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for anovel in the English language, according to John Irving, and J.Hillis Miller declares, Great Expectations is the most unified andconcentrated expression of Dickens's abiding sense of the world,and Pip might be called the archetypal Dickens hero.