Szépirodalom

'Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?'Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but he is rebuffed, and trapped in a loveless marriage. He falls in love with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead, and their refusal to marry when free to do soconfirms their rejection of and by the world around them. The shocking fate that overtakes them is an indictment of a rigid and uncaring society.Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused outrage when it was published in 1895. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. It includes a new chronology andbibliography and substantially revised notes.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: students and readers of English literature, the novel, the works of Thomas Hardy

Based on Chaucer's Knight's Tale, the central themes of this humourous and moving play are the claims of love and friendship. The introduction to this new edition offers an illuminating account of Shakespeare's collaboration with his younger colleagueJohn Fletcher, and there are full and helpful notes on unfamiliar words, stage business, allusions, and the play's often complex language.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This new translation of Zola's most acerbic social satire captures the directness and robustness of Zola's language and restores the omissions of earlier abridged versions.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The only critically established text of the novel, based on a comprehensive study of the manuscript and editions, and incorporating Hardy's later revisions.New introduction by Penny Boumelha considers the novel in the context of Hardy's career, the characters' relationships,the role of destiny and individual choice, narrative perspective and the communityNew and up-to-date bibliographyNew chronologyTwo maps Two mapsHistory of the text and textual notesNew to this editionNew introduction by Penny Boumelha considers the novel in the context of Hardy's career, the characters' relationships,the role of destiny and individual choice, narrative perspective and the communityNew and up-to-date bibliographyNew chronology'If ever I forget your name let me forget home and heaven...But no, no, my love, I never can forget 'ee

*This is the fullest selection from the Marquis de Sade's four-volume collection of short stories, The Crimes of Love. David Coward's vibrant new translation captures the verve of the original, and his introduction and notes describe Sade's notoriouscareer.*The stories variously depict the desperate lengths to which people are driven by passion, and feature embezzlement, abduction, murder and incest.*This selection includes the 'Essay on Novels', the preface to the collection and an important statement of his concept of fiction and one of the few literary manifestoes published during the Revolution.*Appendices include the denunciatory review of the collection that it received on publication, and Diderot's vigorous response.'Senneval, you see in me your sister, the girl you seduced at Nancy, the woman who murdered your son, the wife of your own father and the ignoble creature who sent your mother to the gallows...'Who but the Marquis de Sade would write, not of the pain, tragedy, and joy of love but of its crimes? Murder, seduction, and incest are among the cruel rewards for selfless love in his stories

'I was jealous of her writing. The only writing I have ever been jealous of.' Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf was not the only writer to admire Mansfield's work: Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and Elizabeth Bowen all praised her stories, and her early death at the age of thirty-four cut short one of the finest short-story writers in the Englishlanguage.This selection covers the full range of Mansfield's fiction, from her early satirical stories to the subtly nuanced comedy of 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' and the macabre and ominous 'A Married Man's Story'. The stories that pay what Mansfieldcalls 'a debt of love' to New Zealand are as sharply etched as the European stories, and she recreates her childhood world with mordant insight. Disruption is a constant theme, whether the tone is comic, tragic, nostalgic, or domestic, echoingMansfield's disrupted life and the fractured expressions of Modernism.This new edition increases the selection from 27 to 33 stories and prints them in the order in which they first appeared, in the definitive texts established by Anthony Alpers.

Julius Caesar's exciting plot, brilliant rhetoric, and searching characterisation have made it one of Shakespeare's most popular plays with both readers and theatre-goers.Introducing this thoroughly reconsidered edition, Arthur Humphreys provides a fresh look at the play's date and its place in the Shakespeare canon and examines Shakespeare's transmutation of history into drama. He investigates the play's ethical andmoral concerns in a section on Roman values and analyses its fortunes in performance, from its immediately successful first staging to modern productions for cinema, television, and stage.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Students from A-level up to postgraduate of English literature, Shakespeare, Elizabethan drama, drama and politics

Loosely connected with Part One and the German legend of Faust, Part Two is a dramatic epic rather than a strictly constructed drama. It is conceived as an act of homage to classical Greek culture and inspired above all by the world of story-telling andmyth at the heart of the Greek tradition, as well as owing some of its material to the Arabian Nights tales.The restless and ruthless hero, advised by his cynical demon-companion Mephistopheles, visits classical Greece i search of the beautiful Helen of Troy. Returning to modern times, he seeks to crown his career by gaining control of the elements, and at hisdeath is carried up into the unkown regions, still in pursuit of the `Eternal Feminine'.David Luke's translation of Part One won the European Poetry Translation Prize. Here he again imitates the varied verse-forms of the original, and provides a highly readable - and actable - translation, supported by an introduction, full notes, and anindex of classical mythology.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Sixth form students up to postgraduate, studying German Literature. Undergraduates Studying Modern Languages.

The only volume of Stevenson's Pacific storiesThe literary world was shocked when in 1889, at the height of his career, Robert Louis Stevenson announced his intention to settle permanently on the Pacific island of Samoa. His readers were equally shocked when he began to use the subject materialoffered by his new environment, not to promote a romance of empire, but to produce some of the most ironic and critical treatments of imperialism in nineteenth-century fiction.In these stories, as in his work generally, Stevenson shows himself to be a virtuoso of narrative styles: his Pacific fiction includes the domestic realism of `The Beach at Falesé, the folktale plots of `The Bottle Imp' and `The Isle of Voices', and themodernist blending of naturalism and symbolism in The Ebb-Tide. But beyond their generic diversity the stories are linked by their concern with representing the multiracial society of which their author had become a member. In this collection - the firstto bring together all his shorter Pacific fiction in one volume - Stevenson emerges as a witness both to the cross- cultural encounters of nineteenth-century imperialism and to the creation of the global culture which characterizes the post-colonialworld.

SophoclesOliver Taplin- A major new verse translation of four of Sophocles' great tragedies- The volume brings together Sophocles' four plays with male protagonists- Oliver Taplin's translation encourages the reader to hear the sound of the spoken words, and to relish the potential for song within the lyrics- The volume includes individual introductions to each of the plays, a general introduction to Sophocles and Greek theatre, and substantial notes on meaning, mythical references, aspects of performance, and cultural contextTable of ContentsThe Priorities of this TranslationIntroduction to Sophocles and Greek Tragic TheatreNote on Text, Spellings, Stage Directions, etc.List of Maps- Oedipus the KingIntroductionTranslation- AiasIntroductionTranslation- PhiloctetesIntroductionTranslation- Oedipus at ColonusIntroductionTranslationNotesSelect Biblography

*The best-value edition, combining Northanger Abbey with three minor works, two early, one late, showing her originality across the full range of her career.*New introduction by Claudia L. Johnson reassesses received opinion about Northanger Abbey at the level of style as well as theme, and addresses recent critics as well as long established ones. Integrates for the first time the shorter, less-discussedworks into the argument.*Reset text has crisper appearance.*New, up-to-date bibliography, and new chronology by General Editor Vivien Jones (University of Leeds).*New and extensive notes in particular draw attention to the many subtle parodies of the Gothic genre.*Appendices on social rank and dancing further contextualize the works.'...in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.'Northanger Abbey is about the misadventures of Catherine Morland, young, ingenuous, and mettlesome, and an indefatigable reader of gothic novels. Their romantic excess and dark overstatement feed her imagination, as tyrannical fathers and diabolicalvillains work their evil on forlorn heroines in isolated settings. What could be more remote from the uneventful securities of life in the midland counties of England? Yet as Austen brilliantly contrasts fiction with reality, ordinary life takes a moresinister turn, and edginess and circumspection are reaffirmed alongside comedy and literary burlesque.Also including Austen's other short fictions, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, this valuable new edition examines the ambitious and innovative works with which she inaugurated as well as closed her career.

- A new, up-to-date edition of one of the most popular and successful adventure stories ever written, with entertaining and useful additional features.- Fascinating Introduction discusses Stevenson, the book's composition and publication history, the novel's status and reputation as both adults' and children's classic, critical reception, its place in children's literature, its innovations in the boys'story genre and its relation to the romance.- Unrivalled explanatory notes plus glossary of nautical terms.- Up-to-date bibliography and chronology.- Three appendices: two entertaining piece by Stevenson - his account of the writing and publication of Treasure Island, 'My First Book', and 'The Persons of the Tale', in which Long John Silver and another character take a break between chapters todiscuss the ethics of fiction. A third appendix brings together parallels from Stevenson's sources.New to this edition- Introduction by Peter Hunt- Note on the Text including important variants between serial and volume publication- Up-do-date Select Bibliography- Revised Chronology- Additional appendices: Stevenson's short fable 'The Persons of the Tale' and appendix of comparative episodes from Stevenson's sources- Explanatory Notes by Peter Hunt- Glossary of Nautical Terms- Text of novel completely reset'there were only seven out of the twenty-six on whom we knew we could rely

This is the only edition to combine Pushkin's most famous play, Boris Godunov with The Little Tragedies, Rusalka and A Scene from Faust and is the most comprehensive edition of Pushkin's dramatic works. James E. Falen's translations of Pushkin are widely admired and his OWC translation of Eugene Onegin is considered the best. Falen's verse translations are accompanied by a first-rate introduction from Caryl Emerson, an equally distinguished Russianist, which emphasizes the cosmopolitan nature of Pushkin's drama, the position of Russian culture on the European stage,together with excellent analyses of the individual works in the volume. The edition displays all aspects of Pushkin's dramatic genius: historical, metaphysical, and folklorist. Musorgsky's opera, based on Boris Godunov, is frequently performed.'The people are silent'So ends Pushkin's great historical drama Boris Godunov, in which Boris's reign as Tsar witnesses civil strife and intrigue, brutality and misery. Its legacy is an uncertain future for the new Tsar whose inauguration is met with devastating silence by thepeople. Pushkin's dramatic work displays a scintillating variety of forms, from the historical to the metaphysical and folkloric. After Boris Godunov, they evolved into Pushkin's own unique, condensed transformations of Western European themes andtraditions. The fearful amorality of A Scene from Faust is followed by the four Little Tragedies which confront greed, envy, lust, and blasphemy , while Rusalka is a tragedy of a different kind - a lyric fairytale of despair and transformation.James E. Falen's verse translations of Pushkin's dramas are here accompanied by an Introduction by Caryl Emerson on Russia's most cosmopolitan playwright.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Readers interested in Russian literature, drama, and Pushkin

MS Found in a BottleBerenic‰MorellaLigeiaThe Man That Was Used UpThe Fall of the House of UsherWilliam WilsonThe Man of the CrowdThe Murders in the Rue MorgueEleonoraThe Masque of the Red DeathThe Pit and the PendulumThe Mystery of Marie RogetThe Tell-Tale HeartThe Gold-BugThe Black CatA Tale of the Ragged MountainsThe Purloined LetterThe Systems of Doctor Tarr and Professor FetherThe Imp of the PerverseThe Cask of AmontilladoThe Domain of ArnheimHop-FrogVon Kempelen and his Discovery A unique selection of 24 talesSince their first publication in the 1830s and 1840s, Edgar Allan Poe's extraordinary Gothic tales have established themselves as classics of horror fiction and have also created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detectivefiction.

- The first full edition of Timon of Athens to identify the play as a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton.- Supplies the previously missing context of Middleton and his works in generous detail.- The Introduction provides the fullest account of the play's performance history available. It explores issues of gender, gift-theory, and ecology in relation to the play.- The up-to-date commentary is more detailed and thorough than any previously published.- Appendices include source materials and a chronology of all major stage productions.The Oxford ShakespeareGeneral Editor: Stanley WellsThe Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers- A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings- On-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, language, and allusions- Detailed introduction provides a full account of the play's performance history and explores issues of gender, gift-theory, and ecology- Appendices include source materials and a chronology of major productions worldwide- Illustrated with production photographs and related art- Full index to introduction and commentary- Durable sewn binding for lasting use'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'

Includes: The Tinder-Box

*Completes the Henry VI trilogy in The Oxford Shakespeare*Michael Taylor's wide-ranging introduction discusses key issue of authorship, structure, language, and performance history and receptionThe Oxford ShakespeareGeneral Editor: Stanley WellsThe Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers*A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings*On-page commentary and notes explain meaning, staging, language, and allusions*Detailed introduction considers the first performance in 1592 in relation to the 1623 folio, structure, theatrical history, and the role of women in the play*Illustrated with production photographs and related art*Full index to introduction and commentary*Durable sewn binding for lasting use'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare. This is a major achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Readers and students of Shakespeare, English literature, drama, Elizabethan studies

- The Maudes' translation of Tolstoy's epic masterpiece has long been considered the best English version, and now for the first time it has been revised to bring it fully into line with modern approaches to the text. French passages are restored,Anglicization of Russian names removed, and outmoded expressions updated.- A new introduction by Any Mandelker considers the novel's literary and historical context, the nature of the work and Tolstoy's artistic and philosophical aims.- New, expanded notes provide historical background and identifications, as well as insight into Russian life and society.- Includes lists of historical characters and the fictional families, a chronology of Tolstoy and of historical events in the novel, five maps, and Tolstoy's essay 'Some Words about War and Peace' in an Appendix.New to this edition- Sensitively revised translation that restores the French passages (translated in footnotes), removes the Anglicization of Russian names, and updates outmoded expressions.- New introduction by Amy Mandelker that considers the novel's literary and historical context, the nature of the work and Tolstoy's artistic and philosophical aims.- New list of historical characters to complement the existing list of fictional characters.- Fully revised and expanded notes.'If life could write, it would write like Tolstoy.' Isaac BabelTolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimatelyconnected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirées alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whoseextraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence.Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them.In this revised and updated version of the definitive and highly acclaimed Maude translation, Tolstoy's genius and the power of his prose are made newly available to the contemporary reader.

* Fully annotated* One of the most popular and well-known of Dickens' novels* RSC production greatly increased interest in the novelOur hero confronts a large and varied cast, including Wackford Squeers, the fantastic ogre of a schoolmaster, and Vincent Crummles, the grandiloquent ham actor, on his comic and satirical adventures up and down the country. Punishing wickedness,befriending the helpless, strutting the stage, and falling in love, Nicholas shares some of his creator's energy and earnestness as he faces the pressing issues of early Victorian society.

'What dark history is this?'This is the question that hangs over Dickens's brooding novel of mayhem and murder in the eighteenth century. Set in London at the time of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, Barnaby Rudge tells a story of individuals caught up in the mindless violence ofthe mob. Lord George Gordon's dangerous appeal to old religious prejudices is interwoven with the murder mystery surrounding the father of the simple-minded Barnaby. The discovery of the murderer and his involvement in the riots put Barnaby's life injeopardy. Culminating in the terrifying destruction of Newgate prison by the rampaging hordes, the descriptions of the riots are among Dickens's most powerful.Written at a time of social unrest in Victorian Britain, Barnaby Rudge explores the relationship between repression and liberation in private and public life. It looks forward to the dark complexities of Dickens's later novels, whose characters also seekrefuge from a chaotic and unstable world.

Arabella Trefoil, the beautiful anti-heroine of this novel, inspired Trollope to write of her, I wished to express the depth of my scorn for women who run down husbands. Arabella's determination to find a rich husband is at the heart of this story andher character, though often maligned, is one of Trollope's most famous and vivid creations.

- Washington Square is one of the most instantly appealing of James's early masterpieces, a tale of a trapped daughter and domineering father that has to do with money and love and innocence betrayed.- Adrian Poole's excellent introduction shows how James's apparently simple story carries a great depth of meaning and understanding

*The first novel in Zola's famous Rougon-Macquart series, The Fortune of the Rougons is the series' founding text in which the prehistory of the family's two branches is recounted, establishing the hereditary basis for the family characteristics andflaws evident in the later novels.*Set during the time of Louis-Napoleon's coup d'état in 1851, the exciting events establish the symbolic links between a tainted family and the diseased society of the Second Empire.*The first new translation since the nineteenth century.*The wide-ranging introduction explains the background to the Rougon-Macquart series as well as the historical setting of the novel and its special qualities.*Brian Nelson is the established translator of four other Zola novels in Oxford World's Classics.*Includes chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes.'He thought he could see, in a flash, the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of wild satiated appetites in the midst of a blaze of gold and blood.'Set in the fictitious Proven‡al town of Plassans, The Fortune of the Rougons tells the story of Silvcre and Miette, two idealistic young supporters of the republican resistance to Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état in December 1851. They join thewoodcutters and peasants of the Var to seize control of Plassans, opposed by the Bonapartist loyalists led by Silvcre's uncle, Pierre Rougon. Meanwhile, the foundations of the Rougon family and its illegitimate Macquart branch are being laid in thebrutal beginnings of the Imperial regime.The Fortune of the Rougons is the first in Zola's famous Rougon-Macquart series of novels. In it we learn how the two branches of the family came about, and the origins of the hereditary weaknesses passed down the generations. Murder, treachery, andgreed are the keynotes, and just as the Empire was established through violence, the 'fortune' of the Rougons is paid for in blood.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Readers of classic fiction, French literature, and Zola, anyone interested in French culture and history

*A new edition that draws on the scholarship of the Oxford English Texts edition for both text and editorial apparatus.*Reproduces the critically established 1891 text from the OET edition.*Joseph Bristow's introduction draws on the wealth of scholarship of the last 15 years to provide the most up-to-date exploration of the novel's composition, Wilde's revisions for the 1891 edition, critical approaches, and the reputation of the novelsince publication.*Textual notes will show important variants.*Full explanatory notes identify Wilde's sources.*Up-to-date bibliography.New to this edition*The text is derived from the OET edition, which prints a critically established version of the 1891 first book edition.*New, fuller introduction drawing on the OET edition which considers the important differences between the 1890 and 1891 texts, Wilde's range of sources, significant critical approaches to the novel and its reputation since 1891.*Textual notes including important variants.*New explanatory notes.*New Bibliography.'The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.'When Dorian Gray has his portrait painted, he is captivated by his own beauty. Tempted by his world-weary, decadent friend Lord Henry Wotton, he wishes to stay forever young, and pledges his very soul to keep his good looks. Set in fin-de-siécle London,the novel traces a path from the studio of painter Basil Hallward to the opium dens of the East End. As Dorian's slide into crime and cruelty progresses he stays magically youthful, while his beautiful portrait changes, revealing the hideous corruptionof moral decay.Ever since its first publication in 1890 Wilde's only novel has remained the subject of critical controversy. Acclaimed by some as an instructive moral tale, it has been denounced by others for its implicit immorality. Combining elements of thesupernatural, aestheticism, and the Gothic, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an unclassifiable and uniquely unsettling work of fiction.

*A new edition of one of the earliest and most influential Gothic novels, the best introduction to the work that inaugurated a literary genre.*Nick Groom's wide-ranging introduction explores the novel's Gothic context in the cultural movement that affected political and religious thinking before Walpole developed it as a literary style, helping to explain the novel's impact on contemporaries,its importance, and Walpole's pioneering innovations.*Up-to-date bibliography and notes, drawing on the latest scholarship.*Useful chronology of Walpole and the Gothic context.*Appendix includes extracts from contemporary non-fiction by Walpole and Richard Hurd demonstrating the domestication of medieval Gothic for eighteenth-century readers that fed into The Castle of Otranto.New to this edition*New introduction by Nick Groom.*Up-to-date bibliography.*Fuller chronology of Walpole and seventeenth/eighteenth century Gothic.*New notes.*An appendix with extracts from contemporary non-fiction relating to the domestication of medieval Gothic for eighteenth-century readers.*Reset text.'Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!'The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be atranslation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction. After the grotesque death of his only son, Conrad, on his weddingday, Manfred determines to marry the bride-to-be. The virgin Isabella flees through a castle riddled with secret passages. Chilling coincidences, ghostly visitations, arcane revelations, and violent combat combine in a heady mix that terrified thenovel's first readers.In this new edition Nick Groom examines the reasons for its extraordinary impact and the Gothic culture from which it sprang. The Castle of Otranto was a game-changer, and Walpole the writer who paved the way for modern horror exponents.

At the centre of Hide and Seek (1854) a secret waits to be revealed. Why should the apparently respectable painter Valentine Blyth refuse to account for the presence in his household of the beautiful girl known as Madonna? It is not until his youngfriend Zack Thorpe, who is in rebellion against his repressive father, gets into bad company and meets a mysterious stranger that the secret of Madonna can be unravelled.Wilkie Collins's third novel, dedicated to his life-long friend Dickens, is a story in which excitement is combined with charm and humour. In its mixture of the everyday and the extraordinary, Hide and Seek forms a bridge between the domestic novel andthe sensational fiction for which Collins later became famous.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: General readers, fans of Collins, students of 19th-century literature at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Fully explains the Stories' exotic references and cunning subtextsHow did the camel get his hump? Why won't cats do as they are told? Who invented reading and writing? How did an inquisitive little elephant change the lives of elephants everywhere.Kipling's imagined answers to such questions draw on the beast fables he heard as a child in India, as well as on folk traditions he later collected all over the world. He plays games with language, exploring the relationships between thought, speech,and written word. He also celebrates his own joy in fatherhood. The tales were told to his own and his friends' children over many years before he wrote them down, adding poems and his own illustrations. They invite older and younger readers to share amagical experience, each contributing to the other's pleasure but each can also enjoy them alone, as more jokes, subtexts, and exotic references emerge with every reading.This fully illustrated edition icludes two extra stories and Kipling's own explanation of the title.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: Students of early twentieth-century literature.How did the camel get his hump? Why won't cats do as they are told? Who invented reading and writing? How did an inquisitive little elephant change the lives of elephants everywhere. Kipling's imagined answers to such questions draw on the beast fableshe heard as a child in India, as well

Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's first truly experimental novel. It is a portrait of a young man, who is both representative and victim of the social values which led Edwardian society into war. Jacob's life is traced from the time he is a small boyplaying on the beach, through his years in Cambridge, then in artistic London, and finally making a trip to Greece, but this is no orthodox Bildungsroman. Jacob is presented in glimpses, in fragments, as Woolf breaks down traditional ways of representingcharacter and experience.The novel's composition coincided with the consolidation of Woolf's interest in feminism, and she criticizes the privileged thoughtless smugness of patriarchy, `the other side', `the men in clubs and Cabinets'. Her stylistic innovations are consciousattempts to realize and develop women's writing and the novel dramatizes her interest in the ways both language and social environments shape differently the lives of men and women.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth ofother valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Readership: General readers, students and teachers of English literature.