Carti in categoria Literature & Biography

The Penguin English Library Edition of Ethan Frome by Edith WhartonHe seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surfaceEthan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeenas vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the poss...

These essays, reviews and articles illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of this century - a man who created a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and who elevated political writing to an art.

Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organising her acquaintances love affairs. Her plans for the matrimonial success of her new friend Harriet, however, lead her into complications that ultimately test her own detachment from the world of romance.

The Penguin English Library Edition of Emma by Jane AustenI never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shallBeautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Dubliners by James JoyceEvery night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears ... But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly workFrom a child grappling with the death of a fallen priest, to a young womans dilemma over whether to elope to Argentina with her lover, to ...

Whats the worst another drink could do? John Cheever pours out our most sociable of vices, and hands it to us in a highball. From the calculating teenager who raids her parents liquor cabinet, only to drown her sorrows in it, to the suburban swimmer withering away with every plunge he takes, these are stories suffused with beauty, sadness, and the gathering storm of a bender well-done. Seen through the gin-lacquered looking glass of Cheevers writing, your next drink may have you reaching for a l...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Dracula by Bram StokerAlone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken windowA chilling masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also illuminated dark corners of Victorian sexuality. When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to advise Count Dracula on a London home, he makes a horrifying discovery. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; stra...

Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with his identity. He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature and allows him occasionally to abandon himself to his most corrupt inclinations as the monstrous Mr Hyde. But gradually he begins to find that the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult, and the risk that Mr Hyde will break free entirely from Dr Jekylls control puts all of London in grave peril.

The Penguin English Library Edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis StevensonAll human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evilPublished as a shilling shocker, Robert Louis Stevensons dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekylls strange association with damnable young man Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the...

Collecting five stories of suspense, mystery and slow, creeping horror, Daphne Du Mauriers Dont Look Now and Other Stories includes an introduction by Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black, in Penguin Modern Classics.John and Laura have come to Venice to try and escape the pain of their young daughters death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that instead of laying their ghosts to rest they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange and v...

A definitive work...explains clearly and succinctly concepts and theories at the heart of European and American philosophy. - Brenda AlmondWhat do philosophers mean by absolute and akrasia? What are Polish notation and prime matter? What contributions to human thought were made by Plato, Machiavelli, Kant and Derrida? These questions and many more are answered by this illuminating dictionary, which draws on contributions from over 100 leading philosophers.

The Penguin Dictionary of Economics explains a host of economic terms, from acceleration principle to venture capital, Euro to X-efficiency, globalisation to zero-sum game. The eighth edition has been fully revised and updated to include those terms that have become so familiar since the global recession begun (quantitative easing and sub-prime among them), but whose meanings escape most of us. Wide-ranging and accessible, this detailed practical and international guide will be indispensable for...

How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist William Styron had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, Styron describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction. He lived to give us this gripping description of his descent into mental anguish, and his eventual success in overcoming a little-understood yet very common condition.The unabridged text of Darkness Visible ...

Arthur Millers extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. A man is not an orange. You cant eat the fruit and throw the peel awayWilly Loman is on his last legs. Failing at his job, dismayed at his the failure of his sons, Biff and Happy, to live up to his expectations, and tortured by his jealousy at the success and happiness of his neighbour Charley and his son Bernard, Willy spirals int...

When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this disarmingly witty book, Julian Barnes confronts our unending obsession with the end. He reflects on what it means to miss God, whether death can be good for our careers and why we eventually turn into our parents. Barnes is the perfect guide to the weirdness of the only thing that binds us all.Selected from the book Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian BarnesVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short ...

Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben WhishawDickenss epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfields extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.Dickenss great Bildung...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw by Henry JamesIm a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not?This edition contains two of Henry Jamess most popular short works. Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts...

This is the definitive collection of short stories by Saul Bellow. Abundant, precise, various, rich and exuberant, the stories display the stylistic and emotional brilliance which characterizes this master of prose. Some stories recount the events of a single day, some are contained in a wider frame; each story is a characteristic combination of observation and a celebration of humanity.

Still an acknowledged masterpiece and a model for historical fiction ... sympathetic and intensely involving: a great feat of imagination Hilary Mantel Bringing to life the intrigue of ancient Rome, Robert Gravess I, Claudius is one of the most celebrated, gripping historical novels ever writtenDespised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. I...

A sizzling drama of desire, avarice and deception set in the American Deep South, Tennessee Williamss Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is published in Penguin Modern Classics.Big Daddy Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and children, Brick, an ageing football hero who has turned to drink, and his feisty wife Maggie. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of ha...