One of the best-loved comedies ever written, Twelfth Night is perhaps Shakespeare's most lyrical as well as most experimental play. This Penguin Shakespeare edition is edited by M. M. Mahood with an introduction by Michael Dobson. 'If music be the food of love, play on...' Separated from her twin brother Sebastian after a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a boy to serve the Duke of Illyria. Wooing a countess on his behalf, she is stunned to find herself the object of his beloved's affections. With the arrival of Viola's brother, and a trick played upon the countess's steward, confusion reigns in this romantic comedy of mistaken identity. This book contains a general introduction to Shakespeare's life and Elizabethan theatre, a separate introduction to Twelfth Night, a chronology, suggestions for further reading, an essay discussing performance options on both stage and screen, and a commentary. William Shakespeare was born some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Stanley Wells is Emeritus Professor of the University of Birmingham and Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Michael Dobson is Director of the Shakespeare Institute and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham. 'Unrequited love, melancholy, cruelty and joy held together in perfect balance' - Nicholas Hytner
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Rustic old Riddlesdale Lodge was a Wimsey family retreat filled with country pleasures and the thrill of the hunt -- until the game turned up human and quite dead. He lay among the chrysanthemums, wore slippers and a dinner jacket and was Lord Peter's brother-in-law-to-be. His accused murderer was Wimsey's own brother, and if murder set all in the family wasn't enough to boggle the unflappable Lord Wimsey, perhaps a few twists of fate would be -- a mysterious vanishing midnight letter from Egypt...a grieving fiancee with suitcase in hand...and a bullet destined for one very special Wimsey. Views: 932
In this third self-contained volume of her autobiography, which began with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou moves into the adult world, and the white world as well, as she marries, enters show business, and tours Europe and Africa in Porgy and Bess.
As the book opens, Maya, in order to support herself and her young son, gets a job in a record shop run by a white woman. Suspicious of almost any kindness shown her, she is particularly confused by the special attentions of a young white customer. Soon the relationship grows into love and then marriage, and Maya believes a permanent relationship is finally possible. But it is not to be, and she is again forced to look for work.
This time she finds a job as a dancer in a sleazy San Francisco bar. Her remarkable talent, however, soon brings her attention of a different kind, and before long she is singing in one of the most popular nightclubs on the coast. From there, she is called to New York to join the cast of Porgy and Bess, which is just about to begin another tour abroad.
The troupe's joyous and dramatic adventure through Italy, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Egypt becomes the centerpiece of Singin' and Swingin'. This remarkable portrayal of one of the most exciting and talented casts ever put together, and of the encounters between these larger-than-life personalities and audiences who had rarely seen black people before, makes a hilarious and poignant story. The excitement of the journey -- full of camaraderie, love affairs, and memorable personalities -- is dampened only by Maya's nagging guilt that she has once again abandoned the person she loves most in life, her son.
Back home, and driven close to suicide by her guilt and concern, she takes her son with her to Hawaii, where she discovers that devotion and love, in spite of forced absence, have the power to heal and sustain.
As always, Maya Angelou's writing is charged with that remarkable sense of life and love and unique celebration of the human condition that have won her such a loyal following.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 932
Edgar Allan Poe remains the unsurpassed master of works of mystery and madness in this outstanding collection of Poe's prose and poetry are sixteen of his finest tales, including "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "William Wilson," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "Eleonora". Here too is a major selection of what Poe characterized as the passion of his life, his poems - "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," Ulalume," "Lenore," "The Bells," and more, plus his glorious prose poem "Silence - A Fable" and only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
From the Paperback edition. Views: 932
In his National Book Award–winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been. Views: 930
Billy the Kid is 80 today, and looks back over his life. His adventures include going off to war, living rough as a tramp, and best of all, being picked to play football for Chelsea. Views: 930
The story of how the Wolfings fight, and eventually destroy, the invading Roman legions. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press. Views: 929
Fiction. "More Pricks Than Kicks", Beckett's early tragicomic masterpiece, is a collection of stories about Belacqua, a student in Dublin in the twenties, his adventures, encounters and amours, that through its original style and wry commentary succeeds in turning everyday incidents into high drama and lets us see street and university life through the observant and caustic wit of the author. Highly enjoyable to read, it delights in exuberant language and the pleasure of discovery, very typical of the young writer who in the post-war years was to astonish the world with Waiting for Godot and Molloy. First published in 1934, "More Pricks Than Kicks" is Beckett's second work of fiction. It serves as an excellent introduction to the later work of one of the most seminal and exciting major writers of the twentieth century. Views: 929
Look! We Have Come Through! . Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Views: 929
Translated, edited and with an Introduction by Wyatt Mason
“The definitive translation for our time.”
–Edward Hirsch
From Dante’s Inferno to Sartre’s No Exit, writers have been fascinated by visions of damnation. Within that rich literature of suffering, Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell–written when the poet was nineteen–provides an astonishing example of the grapple with self.
As a companion to Rimbaud’s journey, readers could have no better guide than Wyatt Mason. One of our most talented young translators and critics, Mason’s new version of A Season in Hell renders the music and mystery of Rimbaud’s tale of Hell on Earth with exceptional finesse and power.
This bilingual edition includes maps, a helpful chronology of Rimbaud’s life, and the unfinished suite of prose poems, Illuminations. With A Season in Hell, they cement Rimbaud’s reputation as one of the foremost, and most influential, writers in French literature.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 928
“Gaudy Night stands out even among Miss Sayers’s novels. And Miss Sayers has long stood in a class by herself.”
—Times Literary Supplement
The great Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many to be the premier detective novelist of the Golden Age, and her dashing sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, one of mystery fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists. Acclaimed author Ruth Rendell has expressed her admiration for Sayers’s work, praising her “great fertility of invention, ingenuity, and wonderful eye for detail.” The third Dorothy L. Sayers classic to feature mystery writer Harriet Vane, Gaudy Night is now back in print with an introduction by Elizabeth George, herself a crime fiction master. Gaudy Night takes Harriet and her paramour, Lord Peter, to Oxford University, Harriet’s alma mater, for a reunion, only to find themselves the targets of a nightmare of harassment and mysterious, murderous threats. Views: 928
Lord Peter Wimsey bent down over General Fentiman and drew the Morning Post gently away from the gnarled old hands. Then, with a quick jerk, he lifted the quiet figure. It came up all of a piece, stiff as a wooden doll . . .
But how did the general die? Who was the mysterious Mr X who fled when he was wanted for questioning? And which of the general's heirs, both members of the Bellona Club, is lying? Views: 927
The Magic World is an influential collection of twelve short stories by E. Nesbit. It was first published in book form in 1912 by Macmillan and Co. Ltd., with illustrations by H. R. Millar and Gerald Spencer Pryse. The stories, previously printed in magazines (like Blackie\'s Children\'s Annual), are typical of Nesbit\'s arch, ironic, clever fantasies for children.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition. Views: 924
One day Robbie is hit by a car while running after his dog, Lucky. Unconscious, Robbie lies in hospital, unable to speak, move or eat. But he can hear; he is aware.
His friends and family try desperately to reach him – even Zola, his favourite Chelsea footballer, comes to see him. And still Robbie can’t ‘wake up’. Until one day, against hospital rules, Dad brings Lucky into the hospital. Can Lucky bring Robbie back to life? Views: 923
Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature n 1969; his literary output of plays, novels, stories and poetry has earned him an uncontested place as one of the greatest writers of our time. "Endgame, " originally written in French and translated into English by Beckett himself, is considered by many critics to be his greatest single work. A pinnacle of Beckett's characteristic raw minimalism, it is a pure and devastating distillation of the human essence in the face of approaching death. Views: 922
