This edition contains Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass. It is illustrated throughout by Sir John Tenniel, whose drawings for the books add so much to the enjoyment of them. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Red Queen and the White Rabbit all make their appearances, and are now familiar figures in writing, conversation and idiom. So too, are Carroll's delightful verses such as The Walrus and the Carpenter and the inspired jargon of that masterly Wordsworthian parody, The Jabberwocky.
One of the great classics of Western literature,Les Miserables is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical de*ion. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean. the street urchin Gavroche.the rascal Thenardier. the implacable detective lavert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosotte, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis persoae. The reader is also treated to the unforgettable de*ions of the Battle of Waterloo and Valjean's flight through the Paris sewers.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,Gentleman took fiction into unknown realms,combining an entirely new concept in form with an idiosyncratic type of sentimental comedy.The poblication of the first two of nine volumes brought the novel's exuberant mixture of bawdry and virtuous feeling also provided considerable moral outrage,which the author relished. An amorphous mass of inconsequential incidents,musings,reminiscences and countless hilarious digressins into side issues of the vaguest tangential relevance,make up this engaging anti-novel which has no beginning middle or end,and is dominated by the author's vibrant personality which commands the reader's active participation.
Dickens' final novel, left unfinished at his death in 1870, is a mystery story much influenced by the 'Sensation Novel' as written by his friend Wilkie Collins. The action takes place in an ancient cathedral city and in some of the darkest places in Victorian London. Drugs, disappearances, sexual obsession, disguise and a possible murder are among the themes and motifs. A sombre and menacing atmosphere, a fascinating range of characters and Dickens' usual command of language combine to make this an exciting and tantalising story. Also included in this volume are a number of unjustly neglected stories and sketches, with subjects as different as murder , guilt and childhood romance.
Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, Frankenstein, is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the popular imagination while establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction.
A long-awaited collection of stories about the real heroes ofthe frontier--the survivors--from America's favorite storyteller ofthe authentic West. They came West to stay, risking their blood todig for gold, ride the range, conquer the greedy, and carve out alegacy of freedom. Reissue.
Oliver Twist was Dickens's second novel and one of his darkest, dealing with burglary, kidnapping, child abuse, prostitution, and murder. Alongside this gallery of horrors are the corrupt and incompetent institutions of 19th-century England set up to address social problems and instead making them worse. The author's moral indignation drives the creation of some of his most memorably grotesque characters: squirming, vile Fagin; brutal Bill Sykes; the brooding, sickly Monks; and Bumble, the pompous and incorrigibly dense beadle. Clearly, a reading of this work must carry the author's passionate narrative voice while being flexible and broad enough to define the wide range of character voices suggested by the text. John Wells's capable but bland reading only suggests the rich possibilities of the material. Restraint and Dickens simply don't go together. The abridgment deftly and seamlessly manages to deliver all major characters and plot lines, but there are many superior audiobook versions of this material, bo
Novel by Jules Verne, published in 1864 in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre. It is the second book in his popular science-fiction series Voyages extraordinaires (1863-1910). Otto Lidenbrock, an impetuous German professor of geology, discovers an encoded manu* in which a 16th-century explorer claims to have found a passageway to the center of the Earth. Otto impulsively prepares a subterranean expedition, enlisting his young nephew Axel and a stoic Icelandic guide, Hans Bjelke. After descending into an extinct volcano in Iceland, the men spend several months in a underground world of luminous rocks, antediluvian forests, and fantastic sea creatures until they ride a volcanic eruption out of Stromboli Island, off the coast of Italy.
Fathers and Sons is one of the greatest of nineteenth century Russian novels, and has long been acclaimed as turgenev's finest work. It is a political novel set in a domestic context, with a universal theme, the generational divide between fathers and sons. Set in 1859 at the moment when the Russian autocratic state began to move hesitantly towards social and political reform, the novel explores the conflict between the liberal-minded fathers of Russian reformist sympathies and their free-thinking intellectual sons whose revolutionary ideology threatened the stability of the state. At its centre is Evgeny Bazarov, a strong-willed antagonist of all forms of social orthodoxy who proclaims himself a nihilist and believes in the need tooverthrow all the institutions of the state. As the novel develops Bazarov's politial ambitions become fatally meshed with emotional and private concerns, and his end is a tragic failure. the novel caused a bitter furore on its publication in 1862, and this, a year later, drove Tur
Based on Charlotte Bronte's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. Villette is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the frustrations of confinement within a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman’s right to love and be loved.
The Time Machine (1895) and The Invisible Man (1897) are now more than a century old. Yet they endure as literarytexts, radio plays, and movies, because they appeal directly to twoof our deepest desires: immortality and omnipotence. The timemachine would allow us to escape death and gain knowledge of thefate of the earth, while invisibility would enable us to go andcome as we please, under the noses of friends and enemies. At thesame time, both fictions show us the dangers of fulfilled wishes:The Time Traveller discovers the future of humanity is not brightbut hideously dark, while the Invisible Man drowns in the madnessbrought about by his own experimentation. Of course, what Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) wanted to expressin these fantasies and what generations of readers have made ofthem are two radically different things. Erroneously labeled“science fiction,” and tricked out in their film versions with allkinds of fanciful devices with flashing lights and ominous buzzersWells never mentions
Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm。 His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it,despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health。 But Dombey also has a daughter,whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned。 'Girls' said Mr Dombey,'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son'。 When Walter Gay,a young clerk in her father's office,rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London,his unforgettable friends believe he is well on his way to receiving her hand in marriage and inheriting the company。 It is to be a very different type of story。 Dombey and Son moved grown men to tears (Thackeray despaired of‘Writing against such power as this’),but its rich,comic characters and their joyful explosions of language draw laughter with equally ujnerring magic。
Bill Canavan rode into the valley with a dream to start hisown ranch. But when he managed to stake claims on the three bestwater holes, the other ranchers turned against him. No one is moredetermined to see Canavan dead than Star Levitt. Levitt is anunscrupulous businessman who has been accumulating cattle at analarming rate. Suspicious after witnessing a secret meeting betweenthe riders of warring ranches, Bill begins noticing other dubiousbehavior: Why is Levitt's fiancee, Dixie Venable, acting more likea hostage than a willing bride-to-be? Canavan doesn't have muchtime to figure out what's going on. The entire valley is againsthim, and everyone is ready to shoot on sight.
This is far and away the finest critical edition of the play available' Eric Rasmussen, Shakespeare Survey --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
With an Introduction and Notes by Jeff Wallace, University of Glamorgan These stories of myth and resurrection, of uncanny events and violent impulse, were with one exception written and published in the latter half of the 1920s, coinciding with the composition of Lawrence's controversial masterpiece Lady Chatterley's Lover. At this time Lawrence declared himself to be 'really awful sick of writing'; yet here we find some of his most beautiful, hauntingly melancholy fictions. In struggling to escape from their thwarted lives and to achieve human 'tenderness', the characters embody and continue the major preoccupations of Lawrence's work as a whole. 'Love Among the Haystacks' provides an early illustration of the intensity and innovation which made Lawrence one of the most distinctive and important of twentieth-century writers.
Jules Verne’s third great’ science fiction' novel describes the discovery and exploration of a secret tunnel which leads through a volcano to the centre of the Earth. The leader of the expedition is an archetypal comic and eccentric boffin, and together with his ward,his nephew Axel (who is in love with the ward), and an estimable Icelandic guide, the journey is made. Journey to the Centre of the Earth achieved instant and enduring popularity on publication in 1874. Together with Around the World in Eighty Days, Five Weeks in a Balloon and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, (all available as Wordsworth Classics), it established Verne as an author of high adventure who filled his stories with a wealth of technical detail, and the energy and freshness of an extraordinary,inventive imagination.
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, Calico Pie and The Pobble Who Has No Toes, together with Edward Lear's crazy limericks, have entertained adults and children alike for over 100 years. This edition, illustrated by the author, contains all the verse and stories of The Book of Nonsense, More Nonsense, Nonsense Songs, Nonsense Stories and Nonsense Alphabets and Nonsense Cookery. It has a biographical Preface by Lear himself, and concludes with some delightful 'heraldic' sketches of his cat, Foss. 作者简介: Edward Lear (1812-1888) Born in London, Edward Lear was the youngest of twenty-one children. He made his reputation as a water-colorist, and invented himself as an Old Man with a Beard.
Henry David Thoreau's masterwork, Walden, is a collection of hisreflections on life and society. His simple but profound musings-aswell as "Civil Disobedience," his protest against the government'sinterference with civil liberty-have inspired many to embrace hisphilosophy of individualism and love of nature.
Tom,a poor orphan,is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep,Grimes,to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot.While engaged in this dreadful task,he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie,the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief.He runs away,and,hot and bothered,he slips into a cooling stream,falls asleep,and becomes a Water Baby. In his new life,he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures,including an engaging old lobster,other water babies,and at last reaches St Branden's lsle where he encounters the fierce Mrs Bedonbyasyoudid and the motherly Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby.After a long and arduous quest to the Othe-end-of-Nowhere young Tom achieves his heart's desire.
Novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published serially in the Cornhill Magazine (August 1864-January 1866) and then in book form in 1866; it was unfinished at the time of her death in November 1865. Known as her last, longest, and perhaps finest work, it concerns the interlocking fortunes of several families in the country town of Hollingford. Wives and Daughters chronicles the maturation of Molly Gibson, a sincere young woman whose widowed father, the town doctor, marries Hyacinth Kirkpatrick, a charming but petty widow and former governess in the household of Lord Cumnor. Although Molly resents her stepmother, she befriends her stepsister Cynthia, who is secretly engaged to Lord Cumnor's land agent, Mr. Preston. Molly is warmly received at the home of Squire Hamley and his disabled wife. The Hamleys' two sons are Osborne, a clever but shallow man who marries unwisely and dies young, and Roger, an honest scientist who eventually marries Molly after being engaged to Cynthia, who ultimately weds a London barrist
Fanny Price is a poor relation living with the Bertrams, acutely conscious of her status and yet daring to love their son Edmund— from afar. But with five marriageable young people on the premises, any peace at Mansfield cannot last...
Captain Sean Mulkerin comes home from the sea to find hisfamily's Malibu ranch in jeopardy. The death of Sean's father haspushed his mother to the edge of financial ruin, and now it's up toSean to find a way out. The rumor is that the elder Mulkerin foundgold in the wild and haunted California hills, but the only clue toits whereabouts lies with an ancient, enigmatic Indian. When Seanand his brother set forth to retrace their father's footsteps, theyknow they are in search of a questionable treasure--with creditors,greedy neighbors, and ruthless gunmen watching every move theymake. Before they reach their destination, the Mulkerins will testboth the limits of their faith and the laws of nature as they seeksalvation in a landscape where reality can blur like sand and skyin a desert mirage.
Tender is the Night is a story set in tile hedonistic high society of Europe during the 'Roaring Twenties'.A wealthy schizophrenic. Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. Tile resulting saga of the Divers troubled marriage and their circle of friends.includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people.unhappy love affairs, a duel. incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstronl of interpersona conflict. Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth which springs frorn the quality of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the book is based.
With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story 'Family Happiness', Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In 'The Kreutzer Sonata' he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in 'The Devil' a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality.
Cmbridge University Press has provided a very great service to the scholarly community with its series The Early Quartos produced in parallel with....this text is a valuable contribution to the study of this play and of the history of Shakespare's texts in general." Shakespare Bulletin --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Includes an updated bibliography, suggested references, and state and film history, a New Overview by Sylvan Barnet, former chairman of the English Department at Tufts University. An active approach to Shakespeare in the classroom. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespeare with these features: Illustrated with photographs from New York Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readable introductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, a lively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on the play in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-date annotated bi