Considered by some to be her finest work, Edith Wharton's Summer created a sensation when first published in 1917, as it was one of the first novels to deal honestly with a young woman's sexual awakening. Summer is the story of Charity Royall, a child of mountain moonshiners adopted by a family in a poor New England town, who has a passionate love affair with Lucius Harney, an educated man from the city. Wharton broke the conventions of women's romantic fiction by making Charity a thoroughly independent modern woman—in touch with her emotions and sexuality, yet kept from love and the larger world she craves by the overwhelming pressures of heredity and society. Praised for its realism and honesty by such writers as Joseph Conrad and Henry James and compared to Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Summer remains as fresh and powerful a novel today as when it was first written.

Three Early Comedies Love's Labor's Lost Farce and fun follow when ayoung king and his three friends vow to give up women for ayear—just as a pretty princess and her three ladies-in-waitingarrive—in a delightful play that ends with one of Shakespeare’sloveliest songs. The Two Gentlemen of Verona In this lyricalcomedy, two friends are infatuated with the same woman, while ajilted girl disguised as a boy and a clownish servant with araffish mutt set the scene for laughter and a timeless story oflove. The Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare’s famousrogue, Falstaff, woos two married women with identical loveletters—and becomes the focus of a hilarious comedy when the womenconspire to teach him a lesson.

Women In Love, the book Lawrence considered his best, waswritten during World War I, and while that conflict is nevermentioned in the novel, a sense of background danger, of lurkingcatastrophe, continually informs its drama of two couplesdynamically engaged in a struggle with themselves, with each other,and with life's intractable limitations. Lawrence was a powerful,prophetic writer, but in addition he brought such delicacy to histreatment of the human and natural worlds that E. M. Forster'sclaim that he was the greatest imaginative novelist of ourgeneration does him too little justice rather than too much.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Naguib Mahfouz's magnificentepic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for thefirst time. The Nobel Prize--winning writer's masterwork is theengrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain'soccupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.The novels of "The Cairo Trilogy" trace three generations of thefamily of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, whorules his household with a strict hand while living a secret lifeof self-indulgence. "Palace Walk" introduces us to his gentle,oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija,and his three sons-the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolutehedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal.Al-Sayyid Ahmad's rebellious children struggle to move beyond hisdomination in "Palace of Desire," as the world around them opens tothe currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoilbrought by the 1920s. "Sugar Street" brings Mahfouz's vividtapestr

Introduction by David Ellis The struggle for power at theheart of a family in conflict, the mysteries of sexual initiation,and the pain of irretrievable loss are the universal motifs withwhich D. H. Lawrence fashions one of the world's most originalautobiographical novels. Gertrude Morel is a refined woman whomarried beneath her and has come to loathe her brutal,working-class husband. She focuses her passion instead on her twosons, who return her love and despise their father. Trouble beginswhen Paul Morel, a budding artist, falls in love with a young womanwho seems capable of rivaling his mother for possession of hissoul. In the ensuing battle, he finds his path to adulthoodtragically impeded by the enduring power of his mother's grasp.Published on the eve of World War I, SONS AND LOVERS confirmedLawrence's genius and inaugurated the controversy over his explicitwriting about sexuality and human relationships that would followhim to the end of his career.

A pair of twins are separated by a shipwreck, each believing theother has drowned. A lovesick duke woos a countess deep in mourningfor her brother, while her rowdy household plots the downfall ofher puritanical steward. Disguise, confusion, and mistaken identityfollow in Shakespeare’s great comedy of love in all itsmanifestations. 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 fro

Nabokov's first novel. A tale of youth, first love andnostalgia. In a Berlin rooming house, a vigorous young officerpoised between his past and his future relives his first loveaffair.

Shakespeare shines a fierce spotlight on the jealous heart andon our attitudes toward the outsider. A story of its time and forour time, full of terror and beauty, Othello is urgent,gripping, radical, and beautiful. 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.

Uncertain of their standing in court and fearing for theirlives, Rosalind and Orlando are forced into exile in the Forest ofArden, only to become entangled in a beguiling game of love, lust,and mistaken identity. One of Shakespeare’s great comedies, As YouLike It subverts the traditional rules of romance, confusing genderroles, nature, and politics. 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 acces

As the citizens of Venice compete for advantageousmarriages, wealth, and status, a moneylender is intent on deadlyrevenge. Mistrust and resentment thrive in Shakespeare’s darkcomedy. 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.

'Although it's difficult to believe, the sixties are not fictional; they actually happened' (Author's Afterword) Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last US troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war - and the protests against it - had flooded America's living rooms for a decade. Hearts in Atlantis is composed offive linked stories set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War. Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Hearts in Atlantis will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave.

Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egyptcombines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with thesuspense and rapid pace of a detective story. After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahranemerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in moreways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a morepersonal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, whoconspired to betray him to the police, are now married to eachother and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But inthe most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrandrevolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich in aunjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, arespected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with thedisgraced Said. As Said's wild attempts to achieve his idea ofjustice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatredthat he can only recognize too late his last chance atredemption.

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.

Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells hissoul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works.Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full ofstinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of DorianGray's moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when itfirst appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence andcorrupting influence, and a few years later the book and theaesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trialsoccasioned by Wilde's homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted inhis imprisonment. Of the book's value as autobiography, Wilde notedin a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry whatthe world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages,perhaps."

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

FROM THE WORLD FAMOUS ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, THE FIRSTAUTHORITATIVE, MODERNIZED, AND CORRECTED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’SFIRST FOLIO IN THREE CENTURIES. Skillfully assembled by Shakespeare’s fellow actors in 1623,the First Folio was the original Complete Works. It is arguably themost important literary work in the English language. But startingwith Nicholas Rowe in 1709 and continuing to the present day,Shakespeare editors have mixed Folio and Quarto texts, graduallycorrupting the original Complete Works with errors and conflatedtextual variations. Now Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today’s mostaccomplished Shakespearean scholars, have edited the First Folio asa complete book, resulting in a definitive Complete Works for thetwenty-first century. Combining innovative scholarship with brilliant commentary andtextual analysis that emphasizes performance history and values,this landmark edition will be indispensable to students, theaterprofessionals, and general readers alik

Shakespeare’s greatest achievement in nondramatic verse washis collection of 154 magnificent sonnets that portray a tumultuousworld of love, rivalry, and conflict among a poet, an aristocraticyoung man, a rival poet, and a mysterious “dark lady.” Moreprofound than other Elizabethan sonnet sequences and neversurpassed as archetypes of the form, these poems explore almostevery imaginable emotional complexity related to love andfriendship. Some poems are dark, bitter, and self-hating, othersexpress idealism with unmatchable eloquence–and all are ofquintessential beauty, part of the world’s great literaryheritage. In addition to his sonnets, Shakespeare published two long poemsearly in his career: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.Immediately popular in Shakespeare’s time, they display a richnessthat can also reward us with insights into the powerful imagery ofhis plays. Rounding out this volume are two minor poems, “A Lover’sComplaint” and “The Phoenix and Turtle,”

With his family’s claim to the throne uncertain, Henry seeksto secure his position by turning the country’s attention abroad.But when his outnumbered army is trapped at Agincourt, disasterseems inevitable. Shakespeare probes notions of leadership andpower in this iconic depiction of England’s charismatic warriorking. 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 edition

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.

A stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currentlypublished in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormoussocial change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sonsand daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying torecreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night,however, art and reality collide--with unforeseencircumstances.

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 a beleaguered city where rats and roving gangs terrorizethe streets, where government has broken down and meaninglessviolence holds sway, a woman -- middle-aged and middle-class -- isbrought a twelve-year-old girl and told that it is herresponsibility to raise the child. This book, which the author hascalled "an attempt at autobiography," is that woman's journal -- aglimpse of a future only slightly more horrendous than our present,and of the forces that alone can save us from totaldestruction.