Selected works of humour and criticism by a revered Americanmaster. Beloved by millions, Mark Twain is the quintessentialAmerican writer. More than anyone else, his blend of scepticism,caustic wit and sharp prose defines a certain American mythos.While his novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still taughtto anyone who attends school and is considered by many to be theGreat American Novel, Twain's shorter stories and criticisms haveunequalled style and bite. In a review that's less than kind to thewriting of James Fenimore Cooper, Twain writes: "Every time aCooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth fourdollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be ahundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfyCooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and ifhe can't do it, go and borrow one." It's difficult to imagineanyone else writing in quite this style, which is why Twain'slegacy only continues to grow.

As a novelist, Graham Swift delights in the possibilities ofthe human voice, imagining his way into the minds and hearts of anextraordinary range of characters. In "Making an Elephant", hisfirst ever work of non-fiction, the voice is his own. Swift bringstogether a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry,and reflections on his life in writing, full of insights into hispassions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family, andother writers who have mattered to him over the years. KazuoIshiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrivesfor Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of aDevon river. There are private moments, too, with long-deadwriters, as well as musings on history and memory that readers ofSwift's novels will recognize and love. 'A rewarding collection,with the same humanity and flair for detail that distinguishesSwift's fiction.

For many years, the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher andCharlie Citrine, a young man inflamed with a love for literature,were the best of friends. At the time of his death, however,Humboldt is a failure, and Charlie's life has reached a low point:his career is at a standstill, and he's enmeshed in an acrimoniousdivorce, infatuated with a highly unsuitable young woman andinvolved with a neurotic mafioso. And then Humboldt acts frombeyond the grave, bestowing upon Charlie an unexpected legacy thatmay just help him turn his life around.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) If William Shakespeare hadnever written a single play, if his reputation rested entirely uponthe substantial and sterling body of nondramatic verse he leftbehind, he would still hold the position he does in the hierarchyof world literature. The strikingly modern ?sonnets-intimate,baroque, and expansive at once; the invigorating narratives drawnfrom classical subjects; and the flawless lyricism represented by apoem like "The Phoenix and the Turtle"-permanently deepen ourunderstanding of the multiplicity and extravagant energy of ourgreatest poet.

This major collection contains all of Doris Lessing's shortfiction, other than the stories set in Africa, from the beginningof her career until now. Set in London, Paris, the south of France,the English countryside, these thirty-five stories reflect thethemes that have always characterized Lessing's work: the bedrockrealities of marriage and other relationships between men andwomen; the crisis of the individual whose very psyche is threatenedby a society unattuned to its own most dangerous qualities; thefate of women.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Shakespeare's four greatesttragedies were written in a remarkably short period of time,between 1598 and 1606. "Hamlet," "Othello," "Macbeth," and "KingLear" are each so singular an achievement that any rereading ofthem reinforces the awe and almost idolatrous worship that thismost uncanny of the world's great writers invariably inspires. Inthese four plays, Shakespeare engages the problem that is centralto tragedy and crucial to any human community--the problem ofviolence and revenge--on an unprecedented scale. No other literarytexts have been more instrumental in deepening our knowledge ofourselves as individuals and as a civilization. This authoritativeedition of the plays is supplemented with footnotes,bibliographies, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare's life andtimes, and a substantial introduction in which Tony Tannerdiscusses each play individually while setting each in context.

The air of Eastwick breeds witches - women whose powerfullongings can stir up thunderstorms and fracture domestic peace.Jane, Alexandra and Sukie, divorced and dangerous, have formed acoven. Into the void of Eastwick breezes Darryl Van Horne, acharismatic magus of a man who entrances the trio, luring them tohis mansions...

" A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say 'Slum ' because he could see no more." But to its residents thisderelict corner of Trinidad' s capital is a complete world, whereeverybody is quite different from everybody else. There' s Popo thecarpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build " the thing withouta name." There' s Man-man, who goes from running for public officeto staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bullywith glass tear ducts. There' s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrallto her monstrous husband. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S.Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighborsconstruct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhoviancompassion.Set during World War II and narrated by an unnamed- butprecociously observant- neighborhood boy, Miguel Street is a workof mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy andanarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.

This is the perfect introduction for young readers to the lives and times of America’s 43 most influential leaders. Just as the new president is inaugurated, readers can easily relive the course of American history through a detailed timeline, more than 50 vivid photographs and illustrations, information about each president’s term in office, and the major political issues of each era. Quick-reference sidebars provide brief summaries of the major events and important people who emerged during each presidential term. Famous quotes and fun facts about each president ensure that this perennial favorite continues to be an entertaining and enlightening addition to any child’s library.

Written when Hemingway was at the height of his creativepowers, the stories in "Winner Take Nothing" glow with the mark ofhis unique talent. Hunters, wives, old men of wisdom, waiters,fighters, women loved, women lost: they are all here, living on theraw edge, making love, facing the inevitable reality of death. Thecharacters, the dialogue, the settings, the remarkable insightcould have come only from Hemingway's imagination. As anintroduction to his work, or as an overview of the themes hedeveloped at greater length in his novels, it is a stunninglysuccessful collection.

V. S. Naipaul’s legendary command of broad comedy and acutesocial observation is on abundant display in these classic works offiction–two novels and a collection of stories–that capture therhythms of life in the Caribbean and England with impressivesubtlety and humor. The Suffrage of Elvira is Naipaul’s hilarious take on anelectoral campaign in the back country of Trinidad, where thecandidates’ tactics include blatant vote-buying and supernaturalsabotage. The eponymous protagonist of Mr. Stone and the KnightsCompanion is an aging Englishman of ponderously regular habitswhose life is thrown into upheaval by a sudden marriage andunanticipated professional advancement. And the stories in AFlag on the Island take us from a Chinese bakery inTrinidad–whose black proprietor faces bankruptcy until he takes aChinese name–to a rooming house in London–where the genteellandlady plays a nasty Darwinian game with her budgerigars.Unfailingly stylish, filled with intelligence and feeling, here isthe wo

The Subterraneans haunt the bars and clubs of San Francisco,surviving on a diet of booze and benzedrine, Proust and Verlaine.Living amongst them is Leo, an aspiring writer, and Mardou,half-Indian, half-Negro, beautiful and neurotic. Their bitter-sweetand ill-starred love affair sees Kerouac at his most evocative.Many regard this as being Kerouac's most touching and tenderbook.

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.

Laurence is a young ex-sailor who can't resist the lure of the good life, and when he finds a job as chauffeur to the wealthy Mr and Mrs Bannister, his occasional work leaves him free to indulge. Bannister himself is bitter - his twisted leg keeps him on the sidelines while his ravishingly beautiful wife endures his moods with saintly patience. Or does she? It's the Bannisters' closest friend, Grisby, who starts stirring, getting Laurence to agree to a crazy plot. It will net him thousands, no strings attached. But is it all too easy?

Gulliver's Travels is one of the most popular works of fiction published in England in the eighteenth century, and one of the best satires ever written. This new Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1726 text, the version that textual scholars now maintain should be the basis for all modern editions of the work. It is accompanied by extensive textual annotations and a dozen illustrations.

"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.

Though the story has been told on film—and whispered inhistoric gossip—this is the first book in almost fifty years tosolely explore the great queen’s attachment to her beloved RobertDudley, the Earl of Leicester. Fueled by scandal and intrigue,their relationship set the explosive connection between public andprivate life in sixteenth-century England in bold relief. Why didthey never marry? How much of what seemed a passionate obsessionwas actually political convenience? Elizabeth and Leicesterreignites this 400- year-old love story in a book for anyoneinterested in Elizabethan literature.

A collection of Greek and Roman myths arranged in sections on the gods and early heroes, love and adventure stories, the Trojan war, and a brief section on Norse mythology.

Among the few indispensable, common-property books upon whichWestern culture can be founded ... it is hardly too much to saythat these tales rank next to the Bible in importance. - W.H.Auden A wonderful collection of all 210 tales and popular legendscollected by the Grimm brothers over a century ago.

"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.

Vanity Fair , by William Makepeace Thackeray , ispart of the Barnes Noble Classics series,which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the studentand the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtfuldesign, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of theremarkable features of Barnes Noble Classics : New introductions commissioned from today's top writers andscholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporaryhistorical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes andendnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems,books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired bythe work Comments by other famous authors Study questions tochallenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographiesfor further reading Indices Glossaries, when appropriateAlleditions are beautifully designed and are printed to superiorspecifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes Noble Classics pulls together a constellationof i