Product Sections:
Online Catalogue | FICTION | Wordsworth Editions | Other Authors (A-Z by Author)
Quantity:
This work contains Artistotle's views on what makes a good human life. It has served as an influence on the history of ideas and offers insights into the human condition.
Lorna Doone, a Romance of Exmoor is an historical novel of high adventure set in the South West of England during the turbulent time of Monmouth's rebellion (1685). It is also a moving love story told through the life of the young farmer John Ridd, as he grows to manhood determined to right the wrongs in his land, and to win the heart and hand of the beautiful Lorna Doone. ISBN: 9781853260766
The flaxen-haired beauty of the child-like Lady Audley would suggest that she has no secrets. But M.E. Braddon's classic novel of sensation uncovers the truth about its heroine in a plot involving bigamy, arson and murder. It challenges assumptions about the nature of femininity and investigates the narrow divide between sanity and insanity, using as its focus one of the most fascinating of all Victorian heroines. Combining elements of the detective novel, the psychological thriller and the romance of upper class life, Lady Audley's Secret was one of the most popular and successful novels of the nineteenth century.
Following the end of the First World War Richard Hannay, the hero of John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle and Mr Standfast, has retired to the Cotswolds with his wife and young son. There, news comes to him of three kidnappings and a plot of political and financial magnitude that would shake the world. ISBN: 9781853262524
This selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the famous illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. No greater books for children have ever been written. The simple language, dreamlike atmosphere, and fantastical characters are as appealing to young readers today as ever they were. Meanwhile, however, these apparently simple stories have become recognised as adult masterpieces, and extraordinary experiments, years ahead of their time, in Modernism and Surrealism. Through wordplay, parody and logical and philosophical puzzles, Carroll engenders a variety of sub-texts, teasing, ominous or melancholy. For all the surface playfulness there is meaning everywhere. The author reveals himself in glimpses. ISBN: 9781853260025
Anton Chekhov is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. He constructs stories where action and drama are implied rather than described openly, and which leave much to the reader's imagination. This collection contains some of the most important of his earliest and shortest comic sketches, as well as examples of his great, mature works. Throughout, the doctor-turned-writer displays compassion for human suffering and misfortune, but is always able to see the comical, even farcical aspects of the human condition.ISBN: 9781853262883
Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.K. Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This complete collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories, showing a quiet wit and compassion that has endeared him to many, whilst solving his mysteries by a mixture of imagination and a sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner. ISBN: 9781853260032
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, better known as Fanny Hill, is one of the most notorious texts in English literature. As recently as 1963 an unexpurgated edition was the subject of a trial, yet in the eighteenth century John Cleland's open celebration of sexual enjoyment was a best selling novel. Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is vividly coloured by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures. The moral outrage that this has always provoked has only recently been countered by serious critical appraisal. ISBN: 9781840224177
This is a book to be read by a blazing fire on a winter's night, with the curtains drawn close and the doors securely locked. The unquiet souls of the dead, both as fictional creations and as 'real' apparitions, roam the pages of this haunting new selection of ghost stories by Rex Collings. Some of these stories are classics while others are lesser-known gems unearthed from this vintage era of tales of the supernatural. There are stories from distant lands - Fisher's Ghost by John Lang is set in Australia and A Ghostly Manifestation by 'A Clergyman' is set in Calcutta. In this selection, Sir Walter Scott (a Victorian in spirit if not in fact), keeps company with Edgar Allen Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu and other illustrious masters of the genre. ISBN: 9781853261862
Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended, is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies and the cataclysmic behaviour this induced in some individuals. ISBN: 9781853262401
First published in 1900, Lord Jim established Conrad as one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century. Set in the Malay Archipelago, the novel not only provides a gripping account of maritime adventure and romance, but also an exotic tale of the East. Its themes also challenge the conventions of nineteenth-century adventure fiction, confirming Conrad' s place in literature as one of the first modernists of English letters. Lord Jim explores the dilemmas of conscience, of moral isolation, of loyalty and betrayal confronting a sensitive individual whose romantic quest for an honourable ideal are tested to the limit.
This book is edited and with an introduction by Dr Keith Carabine, Chairperson of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain. As these three specially commissioned stories amply demonstrate, Conrad is our greatest writer of the sea. His characters are tested by dramatic events 'that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret stuff of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself'.In "Typhoon", Conrad's funniest story, Captain MacWhirr blunders into a hurricane that reveals the sea's treachery, violence and terror. Falk is desperate to get married, but first he must tell of his terrible experiences as sole survivor of a stricken ship that once drifted into the ice-caps of Antarctica. "The Shadow-Line" is a poignant and beautiful story. Written during the First World War and based on Conrad's fond evocation of his own first command, it expresses his solidarity with all who were obliged to cross in early youth the shadow-line of their war-torn generation. It includes a glossary of nautical terms.
This book contains an introduction and notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury. It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father.Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawk-eye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe. Cooper's novel is full of vivid incident - pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality - but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.
Follows the life of the heroine through her many vicissitudes, which include her early seduction, careers in crime and prostitution, conviction for theft and transportation to the plantations of Virginia, and her ultimate redemption and prosperity in the new World.
Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of the Russian ruling class of his day who have created a world which cannot accomodate the goodness of this idiot. ISBN: 9781853261756
This title is selected and edited by David Stuart Davies. "The Best of Sherlock Holmes" is a collection of twenty of the very best tales from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fifty-six short stories featuring the arch-sleuth. Basing his selection around the author's own twelve personal favourites, David Stuart Davies has added a further eight sparkling stories to Conan Doyle's "Baker Street Dozen" creating a unique volume which distils the pure essence of the world's most famous detective. ISBN: 9781853267482
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the classic detective chiller. It features the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, in his most challenging case. The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast "with blazing eyes and dripping jaws" which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Now the hound seems to be stalking young Sir Henry, the new master of the Baskerville estate. Is this devilish spectre the manifestation of the family curse? Or is Sir Henry the victim of a vile and scheming murderer? Only Sherlock Holmes can solve this devilish affair. ISBN: 9781840224009
The science fiction stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stand alongside those of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The protagonist, the 'cave-man in a lounge suit', is the maddening, irascible and fascinating Professor George Edward Challenger. In these collected tales he faces adventures such as that high above the Amazon rain forest in "The Lost World" and the challenges of "The Land of Mist".
Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot's first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in 'the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis'. But it is also a rich and pioneering record - drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory - of a rural world that we have lost. The movement of the narration between social realism and reflection on its own processes, the exploration of motives, and the constant authorial presence all bespeak an art that strives to connect the fictional with the actual. ISBN: 9781853261923
When William Blackwood, George Eliot's publisher, first saw the manuscript of Felix Holt in 1866 he could not contain his enthusiasm; in a letter to a friend he described the novel as "a perfect marvel. The time is 1832 just after the passing of the Reform Bill, and surely such a... series of pictures of English Life, manners, and conversation never was drawn. You see and hear the people speaking. Every individual character stands out a distinct figure." A political radical and a child of the working class, Felix has lost faith in a political system in which candidates never represent the interests of the working class. Harold Transome, the cynical son of wealthy Tory landowners, embraces radical politics for very different reasons. Both Harold and Felix vie for the affections of Esther Lyon, and she must weigh her feelings for them with the social and material goals she has set for herself. Their personal drama unfolds against the broad canvas of social and political upheaval of 1830s England. ISBN: 9781853267307
George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72) is one of the classic novels of English literature and was admired by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." The complex main plot and many subplots revolve around Dorothea Brooke, an ardent young woman, and her relationship to three men: Casaubon, a clergyman and scholar twice her age; Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor who shares Dorothea's enthusiasm for reform but whose flaws compromise his ambitions; and Will Ladislaw, a young man of mysterious origins, romantic temperament, and artistic inclinations. A female Bildungsroman and a study of character and society in the realistic mode pioneered by Balzac, Middlemarch is also an historical novel that offers a panorama of English society in an era of social reform and political agitation.
`the ideal reading...for the hours after midnight' Thus Henry James described the style of supernatural tale of which Sheridan Le Fanu was a master. Known in nineteenth-century Dublin as `The Invisible Prince' because of his reclusive and nocturnal habits, Le Fanu was fascinated by the occult. His writings draw on the Gothic tradition, elements of Irish folklore, and even on the social and political anxieties of his Anglo-Irish contemporaries. In exploring sometimes inexplicable terrors, the tales focus on the unease of the haunted men and women who encounter the supernatural, rather than on the origin or purpose of the visitant. This makes for spine-chilling reading. The five stories presented here have been collected by Dr Hesselius, a `metaphysical' doctor, the forerunner of the modern psychiatrist, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience.ISBN: 9781853262654
"He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was . . ." The Great Gatsby (1925), F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, stands among the greatest of all American fiction. Jay Gatsby's lavish lifestyle in a mansion on Long Island's gold coast encapsulates the spirit, excitement, and violence of the era Fitzgerald named `the Jazz Age'. Impelled by his love for Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby seeks nothing less than to recapture the moment five years earlier when his best and brightest dreams - his `unutterable visions' - seemed to be incarnated in her kiss. A moving portrayal of the power of romantic imagination, as well as the pathos and courage entailed in the pusuit of an unattainable dream, The Great Gatsby is a classic fiction of hope and disillusion. This edition is fully annotated with a fine Introduction incorporating new interpretation and detailing Fitzgerald's struggle to write the novel, its critical reception and its significance for future generations.ISBN: 9781853260414
Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert's contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist's meticulous account of provincial matters. For the writer, subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert s protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Romantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protester against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert s admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert's meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of modern fiction.
This book is with an introduction and notes by Dr Patsy Stoneman, University of Hull. Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author's first-hand experience, "North and South" follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs - of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundred and fifty years later: the complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes.
In the early years of the 18th century, Scotland is torn by religious and political strife. Hogg's sinner, justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained, is suspected of involvement in a series of bizarre and hideous crimes. A century later his memoirs reveal the extraordinary, macabre truth. The tale is chilling for its astute psychological accuracy as it illustrates, with power and economy, the dire effect of self-righteous bigotry on a fanatical character.
With an introduction and notes by Adam Roberts, Royal Holloway, University of London, the product of more than a decade's continuous work (1598-1611), Chapman's translation of Homer's great poem of war is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. In muscular, onward-rolling verse Chapman retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans. Chapman regarded the translation of this epic, and of Homer's Odyssey (also available in Wordsworth Editions) as his life's work, and dedicated himself to capturing the 'soul' of the poem. ISBN: 9781853262425
Set in 1482, "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" is a compelling story of love and betrayal, brutal deeds and one of the most famous acts of revenge in world literature. Quasimodo, the hunchback of the title, is one of fiction's most extreme characters - beneath his monstrous disfigurement, his love for the beautiful Esmerelda reveals a heart full of intense emotion. The novel is set in the great cathedral of Notre-Dame and had a profound influence on the Romantic Movement. ISBN: 9781853260681
This book is with an Introduction and Notes by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury. One of the great Classics of Western Literature, "Les Miserables" is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical description. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean, the street urchin Gavroche, the rascal Thenardier, the implacable detective Javert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosette, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis personae.
About this book: Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche. This edition includes all ten of his 'appacitional' stories, or ghost stories in the strict sense of the term, and as such is the fullest collection currently available. The stories range widely in tone and type. They include 'The Jolly Corner', a compelling story of psychological doubling; 'Owen Wingrave', which is also a subtle parable of military tradition; 'The Friends of the Friends', a strange story of uncanny love; and 'The Private Life', which finds high comedy in its ghostly theme. The volume also includes James's great novella 'The Turn of the Screw', perhaps the most ambiguous and disturbing ghost story ever written. ISBN: 9781840224221
Henry James's last completed novel, The Golden Bowl, is the story of two flawed marriages. The lives and relationships of Maggie Verver and her widowed American millionaire father, Adam, are changed and challenged by the beautiful and charming Charlotte Stant, who is the former lover of Maggie's husband, the impoverished Italian, Prince Amerigo. The gilded crystal bowl, with its almost invisible flaw, is the vehicle which James uses to reveal past misdemeanors and make his characters face their own defects in this classic tale of redemption. ISBN: 9781840224320
The tail piece "Stories I have tried to write " accompanies 30 classic tales of their genre set against convincing backgrounds to afflict chilling terror on the reader.
One of the important records of Judaism and the Jews, this historical enterprise is an account in twenty books of Jewish history, from the creation to the outbreak of the Jewish revolt against Rome in AD 66.
This book contains introduction and notes by Laurence Davies, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Living overseas but writing, always, about his native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable. The stories in "Dubliners" show us truants, seducers, gossips, rally-drivers, generous hostesses, corrupt politicians, failing priests, amateur theologians, struggling musicians, moony adolescents, victims of domestic brutishness, sentimental aunts and poets, patriots earnest or cynical, and people striving to get by. In every sense an international figure, Joyce was faithful to his own country by seeing it unflinchingly and challenging every precedent and piety in Irish literature. ISBN: 9781853260483
This is a fascinating selection of Kipling's most famous short stories, bringing together the very best of his work. "Life's Handicap" reflects his experiences of India, and contains two horror stories which permeate the collection with an air of haunted destinies. Delusions and obsessions, past lives and the slums of London in 1890 are the diverse topics featured in "Many Inventions". While "Traffics and Discoveries" is Kipling's well-loved story about a polo pony. ISBN: 9781853261794
The Jungle Book introduces Mowgli, the human foundling adopted by a family of wolves. It tells of the enmity between him and the tiger Shere Khan, who killed Mowgli's parents, and of the friendship between the man-cub and Bagheera, the black panther, and Baloo, the sleepy brown bear, who instructs Mowgli in the Laws of the Jungle. The Second Jungle Book contains some of the most thrilling of the Mowgli stories. It includes Red Dog, in which Mowgli forms an unlikely alliance with the python Kaa, How Fear Came and Letting in the Jungle as well as The Spring Running, which brings Mowgli to manhood and the realisation that he must leave Bagheera, Baloo and his other friends for the world of man.
For Kim, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, India is an exotic, richly coloured, magical land with an exciting array of landscapes, people and cultures. From life as a street vagabond in Lahore, to companion and devotee of an old Tibetan lama, Kim learns to find a new vision amid the kaleidoscopic scenes before him, a vision that unites, not divides, and promotes harmony not discord. Kim is a masterly novel from an expert craftsman and presents an enduring and powerful portrait of India under the Raj. AUTHBIO: Born in Bombay in 1865, Rudyard Kipling retained a deep love for the colour and exotic richness of India throughout his life and this passion affected much of his writing. Best known for his masterpieces The Jungle Books, Kim, and Captains Courageous, Kipling also penned an extraordinary number of powerful and evocative poems and short stories including the remarkable Just So Stories. The first Englishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Kipling commands a place amongst the finest of English writers.
This anthology of Rudyard Kipling's greatest short stories contains some of the most memorable and popular examples of the genre of which he was an undisputed master. "The Man Who Would be King" is a classic tale of adventure as the opportunistic, renegade and vagabond pair of Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan attempt to establish themselves at the level of god and king over the primitive people of Kafiristan. Other famous short stories included are: "Only a Subaltern", "The Phantom Rickshaw", "Wee Willie Winkie", and "Baa Baa Black Sheep".
This work begins with the birth of Arthur and the establishment of his kingdom and the fellowship of knights. It describes courtly society which is outwardly secure and successful, but which is, in reality, torn by dissent and ultimately treachery.
The plays collected in this text provide the reader with a clear picture of Marlowe as a radical theatrical poet of great linguistic and dramatic daring, whose characters constantly strive to break out of the social, religious, and rhetorical binds within which they are confined.
This collection reflects Maupassant's remarkable diversity, with stories that vary in theme and tone, and range from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. Boule de Suife, his most famous tale exposes the brutality and hypocrisy of war. His stories are linked by irony and the frailty of human nature. ISBN: 9781853261893
Melville's short stories are masterpieces. The best are to be appreciated on more than one level and those presented here are rich with symbolism and spiritual depth. Set in 1797, "Billy Budd", Foretopman exploits the tension of this period during the war between England and France to create a tale of satanic treachery, tragedy and great pathos that explores human relationships and the inherently ambiguous nature of man-made justice. Tales such as "Bartleby", "Benito Cereno", "The Lightning Rod Man", "The Tartarus of Maids or I" and "My Chimney", show the timeless poetic power of Melville's writing as he consciously uses the disguise of allegory in various ways and to various ends. ISBN: 9781853267499
This classic story of high adventure, manic obsession, and metaphysical speculation was Melville's masterpiece. The tale of Captain Ahab's frantic pursuit of the cunning and notorious white whale Moby Dick, is packed with drama, and draws heavily on the author's own experiences on the high seas. This edition includes passages from Melville's correspondence with Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which the two discussed the philosophical depths of the novel's plot and imagery.
Sir Willoughby Patterne, rich, fashionable and fatuous, is "The Egoist". He pursues three women, each more discerning than he, with little thought for anything but the fulfilment of his own desires and the gratification of his vanity that will come from a prestigous marriage. ISBN: 9781853262661
All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other peoples'. Saki (H H Munro) stands alongside Anton Chekhov and O Henry as a master of the short story. His extraordinary stories are a mixture of humorous satire, irony and the macabre, in which the stupidities and hypocrisy of conventional society are viciously pilloried. This collection includes "Sredni Vastor" and "The Unrest Cure". 'We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart' ISBN: 9781853260711
Arguably India's greatest gift to the world, The Bhagavadgita ('The Song of the Blessed') forms an episode in the sixth book of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata and is the supreme work of that religion. The Gita consists of the dialogue between Prince Arjuna and his mentor and friend, Lord Krishna, on the eve of the climactic battle of Kuruksetra. This discourse contains an exposition of the Hindu philosophy of Karma Yoga (disciplined action performed in the right spirit) as Prince Arjuna struggles with his understandable 'existential' anguish at having to join battle against his gurus and kinsmen. The Gita, although almost 2,500 years old, contains profound truths of great relevance to contemporary society in India and the West. ISBN: 9781853261978
Cervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squire, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the 'books of chivalry', this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. Cervantes' greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels, all suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out to encompass the reader. ISBN: 9781853260360
More than a century after the Norman Conquest, England remains a colony of foreign warlords. The dissolute Prince John plots to seize his brother's crown, his barons terrorize the country, and the mysterious outlaw Robin Hood haunts the ancient greenwood. The secret return of King Richard and the disinherited Saxon knight, Ivanhoe, heralds the start of a splendid and tumultuous romance, featuring the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, the siege of Torquilstone, and the clash of wills between the wicked Templar Bois-Guilbert and the sublime Jewess Rebecca. In Ivanhoe Scott fashioned an imperial myth of national cultural identity that has shaped the popular imagination ever since its first appearance at the end of 1819. The most famous of Scottish novelists drew on the conventions of Gothic fiction, including its risky sexual and racial themes, to explore the violent origins and limits of English nationality. This edition uses the 1830 Magnum Opus text, corrected against the Interleaved Set, and incorporates readings from Scott's manuscript.ISBN: 9781853262029
The Myth, Legend, and Folklore series is the product of the unique partnership between Wordsworth Editions and The Folklore Society. Folklore Society scholars provide in-depth introductions, making this the most authoritative series of its kind.
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. ISBN: 9781853260230
A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancee and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England's shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately? ISBN: 9781853260865
Barchester Towers in half the time ISBN: 9781853260896
Jules Verne's third 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, together with his ward and joined by his nephew and an Icelandic guide commence the journey.
Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's combination of powerful prose combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920. In 1921 The Age of Innocence achieved a double distinction - it won the Pulitzer Prize and it was the first time this prestigious award had been won by a woman author. ISBN: 9781853262104
This title includes an introduction and notes by Merry M. Pawlowski, Professor and Chair, Department of English, California State University, Bakersfield. Virginia Woolf's singular technique in "Mrs Dalloway" heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.