Irodalom

Dark and violent, Macbeth is also the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's tragedies. Indeed, for 250 years - until early this century - it was performed with grand operatic additions set to baroque music.In his introduction Nicholas Brooke relates the play's changing fortunes to changes within society and the theatre and investigates the sources of its enduring appeal. He examines its many layers of illusion and interprets its linguistic turns andechoes, arguing that the earliest surviving text is an adaptation, perhaps carried out by Shakespeare himself in collaboration with Thomas Middleton.This fully annotated edition reconsiders textual and staging problems, appraises past and present critical views, and represents a major contribution to our understanding of Macbeth.

'Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science' For more than a century the Holmes stories have held a strange, almost inexplicable grip on the popular imagination. They are intimately associated with late Victorian and Edwardian society, yet curiouslytimeless in their appeal. The characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, together with their housekeeper Mrs Hudson and their address at 221B Baker Street are as familiar today as when they made their first appearance in the late 1880s. The storieshave been endlessly interpreted, adapted, and modernized, but still it is to Arthur Conan Doyle's originals that we return. This new selection of some of the best of them is designed to give readers a full sense of their world: the brooding fog ofLondon, ruined heirs in creaking mansions, and hidden crimes in the farthest-flung corners of the British Empire. The stories take Holmes's career from its early days to its close, and include the book-length Sign of the Four. Barry McCrea's introductioninvestigates the currents that lie beneath their surface.

This prose translation of the Odyssey is so successful that it has taken its place as one of the few really outstanding versions of Homer's famous epic poem. It is the story of the return of Odysseus from the siege of Troy to his home in Ithaca, and ofthe vengeance he takes on the suitors of his wife Penelope. Odysseus's account of his adventures since leaving Troy includes his encounter with the enchantress Circe, his visit to the Underworld, and the lure of the Sirens.Translated by Walter Shewring and with an introduction by G. S. KirkOxford World's Classics A famous and well-admired translation by Walter Shewring, which comes as close to the spirit of the original Greek as our language will allow With an introduction explaining the significance of the work to Greek literature and literature as a whole, the features that characterise Homers writing style, and the links between the work and the Trojan War Includes a glossary and index of names to help the reader unfamiliar with Greek literature follow the events and characters Includes several maps linking the literary events with real locations

Usually classifed as a 'problem comedy', All's Well that Ends Well invites a fresh assessment. Its psychologically disturbing presentation of an agressive, designing woman and a reluctant husband wooed by trickery won it little favour in earliercenturies, and both directors and critics have frequently tried to avoid or simplify its uncomfortable elements. More recently, several distinguished productions have revealed it as an exceptionally penetrating study of both personal and social issues.In her introduction Susan Snyder makes the play's clashing ideologies of class and gender newly accessible. She explains how the very discords of style can be seen as a source of theatrical power and complexity, and offers a fully reconsidered, helpfullyannotated text for both readers and actors.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 scholars of Shakespeare, directors, actors, and playgoers.

*Jeri Johnson's edition of Ulysses is acknowledged by reviewers, Anthony Burgess among them, as the best available*The intro is the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and accessible intro to the collection, its history and its reception in both literary/media world, and Ireland.*The notes are the fullest of any edition, giving historical, personal, cultural and literary references and details.*Includes the original version of 'The Sisters' and Joyce's correspondence concerning censorship which he wanted printed as the book's preface.'I regret to see that my book has turned out un fiasco solenne'James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 whenhe signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation in Ireland'.Joyce's aim was to tell the truth - to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century and by rejecting euphemism, reveal to the Irish the unromantic reality the recognition of which would lead to the spiritualliberation of the country. Each of the fifteen stories offers a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Dubliners - a death, an encounter, an opportunity not taken, a memory rekindled - and collectively they paint a portrait of a nation.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: For all scholars, students, teachers and enthusiasts of Joyce and Irish literature.

*A unique anthology covering 150 years of Irish writing in English across a wide range of literary genres, of which Paul Muldoon says: 'Stephen Regan's anthology vividly and valiantly presents a nation, and a national literature, coming into being.'*The best-value single-volume anthology of Irish writing, featuring essays, speeches, and memoirs as well as fiction, poems, plays, and stories.*The anthology charts the emergence of a distinctive Irish literature in which Irish writers forged a tradition of their own using the English language for their own purposes.*The introduction offers a clear account of the growth of an Irish national literature between 1789 and 1939. It explores the concept of cultural nationalism and the distinctive features of Irish literature written in English. It highlights the concernof Irish writers with questions of national destiny and identity.*The notes offer guidance on cultural, historical, and political issues.*Writers' biographies provide a wealth of additional information, and a chronology provides a useful summary of key dates and events in Irish history.*Includes three plays in their entirety and the opening episode of Ulysses, material rarely anthologized.'Can we not build up a national tradition, a national literature, which shall be none the less Irish in spirit from being English in language?' W. B. YeatsThis anthology traces the history of modern Irish literature from the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century to the early years of political independence. From Charlotte Brooke and Edmund Burke to Elizabeth Bowen and Louis MacNeice, theanthology shows how, in forging a tradition of their own, Irish writers have continually challenged and renewed the ways in which Ireland is imagined and defined.The anthology includes a wide-ranging and generous selection of fiction, poetry, and drama. Three plays by W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory, and J. M. Synge are printed in their entirety, along with the opening episode of James Joyce's Ulysses. The volumealso includes letters, speeches, songs, memoirs, essays, and travel writings, many of which are difficult to obtain elsewhere.'Stephen Regan's anthology vividly and valiantly presents a nation, and a national literature, coming into being.' Paul MuldoonABOUT 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, Irish literature, Irish Studies, cultural studies

Peter Stoneley's wide-ranging introduction looks at the genesis of the text, its historical reception, and recent criticism, paying particular attention to how Twain's invocation of an American pastoral relates to contemporary and present-day anxietiesover modernity, 'progress', and racial diversity.*Uses the first American edition text.*Notes gloss literary allusions and other references.*Up to date bibliographyNew to this edition*Introduction by Peter Stoneley.*Much fuller notes.*Up-to-date bibliography.*New text: the first American edition replaces the current 1926 reprint.'Tom was a glittering hero once more - the pet of the old, and the envy of the young...There were some that believed he would be President yet, if he escaped hanging.'In this enduring and internationally popular novel, Mark ogaincombines social satire and dime-novel sensation with a rhapsody on boyhood and on America's pre-industrial past. Tom Sawyer is resilient, enterprising, and vainglorious. In a series ofadventures along the banks of the Mississippi, he usually manages to come out on top. From petty triumphs over his friends and over his long-suffering Aunt Polly, to his intervention in a murder trial, Tom engages readers of all ages. He has long been adefining figure in the American cultural imagination.Alongside the charm and the excitement, Twain raises serious questions about community, race, and the past. Above all, the book invites discussion of the way in which childhood is invoked to counter the uncomfortable truths of the adult world.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: Anyone interested in this classic of American literature, and students of American literature, Mark Twain, children's literature

Between the Acts is Virginia Woolf's last novel, and in her own opinion it was `more quintessential' than any of her others. Set in the summer of 1939 on the day of the annual village pageant at Pointz Hall, the book weaves together the musings ofseveral disparate characters and their reactions to the imminence of a war which is to change the pattern of history. Before the book was published in the spring of 1941, Virginia Woolf had taken her own life.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, students and teachers of English Literature, women's studies.

Virginia Woolf, FlushEdited by Kate FlintVirginia Woolf's humorous biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel is charming yet also radical. A work of sensuous imagination, it ...'I lay in the garden and red the Browning love letters, and the figure of their dog made me laugh so I couldn't resist making him a Life.' Throughout her career, Woolf invokes the animal world both directly and metaphorically. She started to write abiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel after finishing The Waves, tracing the life of the spaniel from his country origins, his puppyhood spent with the writer Mary Mitford, through his sheltered existence with Elizabeth Barrett in her sickroom, and later travels in Florence. But Flush is much more than a playful writer's holiday. As well as offering an exploration of a life of the senses free from the tyranny of words, Flush can be read as an allegorical testimony to the inscrutable,discarded, unrepresentable lives of the Victorian women poets, who were barely discussed or read in the 1930s. From a quite literally low point of view, Woolf explores class and gender in Victorian London, with gently mocking humour. Charming yet alsoradical, Flush is a work of sensuous imagination, an apparently light text that opens up a range of questions concerning difference which are woven through the whole of Woolf's writing. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics hasmade 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 of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leadingauthorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powersand the volume is full of famous cases, including `The Red-Headed League', `The Blue Carbuncle', and `The Speckled Band'. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detectivedefeated by Irene Adler - the woman - in the very first story, `A Scandal in Bohemia'.The editor of this volume, Richard Lancelyn Green is editor of The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. With John Michael Gibson, he compiled the Soho Series Bibliography of A. Conan Doyle.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 the early detective novel, turn-of-the-century fiction, from undergraduate up. General readers.

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minorelegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of othercharacters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein.Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and it shows him attempting to transform himself from a romantic poet into a realistic novelist. This new translation seeks to retain both the literal sense and the poetic music of the original, and capturethe poem's spontaneity and wit. The introduction examines several ways of reading the novel, and text is richly annotated.

Then Winnie's afternoon sleep is cut short by the crash of a vase, it's just the start of some very odd happenings in her house. Could it be haunted? Winnie wants to make sure it isn't with the help of a spell. But her spell doesn't quite go to plan . .. Get ready for silly spookiness in this supernatural Winnie and Winnie adventure!

For Mouse, Christmas means just one thing . . . DANGER! It's a health-and-safety nightmare from spiky pine needles to dusty icing sugar to songs about open fires. In fact, it would be safer if Christmas was simply cancelled. CANCELLED?! Can the animalsof Jingle Bell Forest save Christmas from the grip of Mouse's checklist before it's too late?

Now a classic of children's literature, though not originally published for children, this new edition of Anna Sewell's 'Autobiography of a Horse' is the only critical edition, with illuminating features not available elsewhere. Includes illustrations and material from the first American edition, including an introductory chapter, 'What is Overloading a Horse, and How Proved?' and 'Killing Animals Humanely'. The wide-ranging Introduction considers the multiple ways in which the story has been read: as children's classic, protest novel, horse-care manual, feminist text, autobiography and more. Edited by Anna Sewell's biographer, Adrienne E. Gavin, drawing on the latest scholarship. Includes an appendix of variants between the first British and American editions

*Oresteia is the collective name given to the three plays by Aeschylus, the founder of Greek tragedy, on the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Orestes*This new translation is deliberately faithful to the original in meaning and tone, reproducing the dignity of Aeschylus' verse*Introduction offers an appreciation of the Oresteia in the context of dramatic poetry then and now*Detailed notes explain mythical, historical, and cultural phenomena and trace the complex linking of ideas and language in the plays*The translation uses the most authoritative critical edition of the Greek text*Includes textual appendix and mapAgamemnon *Libation Bearers *EumenidesAeschylus' Oresteia is the only trilogy to survive from Greek tragedy, and the religious and moral ideas it enacts afterwards influenced a great dramatic genre, as well as giving its three plays their lasting significance. In this family history, Fateand the gods decree that each generation will repeat the crimes and endure the suffering of their forebears. When Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son Orestes must avenge his father's death. Only Orestes' appeal to the goddessAthena saves him from his mother's Furies, breaking the bloody chain

Edgar Allen PoeA kút és az inga - The Pit and the PendulumKétnyelvű klasszikusokA kút és az inga Poe egyik remekműve. A spanyol inkvizíció egy halálra ítélt foglyát ájultan zárják a toledói pincebörtön egyik cellájába. Amikor feleszmél, a legteljesebb sötétség veszi körül. Megpróbálja kideríteni, hová is zárták be: tapogatózvakörbejár a falak mentén, igyekszik megjegyezni a sarkokat. Amikor megbotlik és elesik, észleli, hogy a cella közepén verem tátong. Utána elalszik, ébredéskor érzi, hogy szorosan egy padhoz kötözték. Rémülten látja az időközben beeresztett gyenge fényben,hogy felette egy bárdszerű inga mozog...

*The only paperback edition of this classic Gothic novel.*Written in response to Walpole's Castle of Otranto, The Old English Baron was a major influence on the development of Gothic fiction.*Popularity of the Gothic genre in universities and among general readers.*The contextualizing introduction looks at Reeve in the context of late-eighteenth-century women's writing, and the history of the Gothic.*Appendices reprint the 1777 'Address to the Reader' and the 1780 'Dedication'.'Though I have been dead these fifteen years, I still command here, and none can enter these gates without my permission.'When Sir Philip Harclay returns to England after a long absence, he finds that his childhood friend, Arthur, Lord Lovel, is no longer alive, and that the castle and estates of the Lovel family have twice changed hands. But a mysteriously abandoned set ofrooms in the castle of Lovel promises to disclose the secrets of the past. After a series of frantic episodes and surprising revelations, culminating in a trial by combat, the crimes of the usurper and the legitimacy of the true heir are finallydiscovered.'The literary offspring of the castle of Otranto', as Reeve described it, The Old English Baron provides an ambitious rewriting of Horace Walpole's groundbreaking work, transporting the trappings of the Gothic to medieval England. Innovative and originalin its day, Reeve's historical romance is increasingly recognized as a major influence on the development of Gothic fiction.

- A new edition of Anne Bront‰'s compelling novel about the destructive consequences of alcoholism on a marriage, featuring a wide-ranging new introduction, and up-to-date editorial material.- New, wide-ranging introduction by Josephine McDonagh examines the intellectual and cultural context of the novel, its complex narrative structure and the contemporary moral and medical debates about alcohol and the body with which the novel engages.- Reprints the authoritative Clarendon text in improved typesetting.- Improved chronology- Up-to-date bibliography- Additional notes draw attention to the novel's use of contemporary medical publications on the effects of alcohol, on the study of physiognomy and phrenology and on the author's wide range of reading.New to this edition- New, wide-ranging introduction by Josephine McDonagh examines the intellectual and cultural context of the novel, its complex narrative structure and the contemporary moral and medical debates about alcohol and the body with which the novel engages.- New, up-to-date bibliography- Improved chronology-Additional notes draw attention to the novel's use of contemporary medical publications on the effects ofalcohol, on the study of physiognomy and phrenology and on the author's wide range of reading.'he looked up wistfully in my face, and gravely asked - Mamma, why are you so wicked?'The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall has a dark secret. But as the captivated Gilbert Markham will discover, it is not the story circulating among local gossips. Living under an assumed name, 'Helen Graham' is the estranged wife of a dissoluterake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence. Her diary entries reveal the shocking world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. Combining a sensational story of a man's physical and moral decline through alcohol, a studyof marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Bront‰'soptimistic belief in universal redemption. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Bront‰'s novel scandalized contemporary readers. It still retains its power to shock.

Set in turn-of-the-century London, Henry James' The Wings of the Dove tells the story of Mildred Milly Theale, an orphaned American heiress, and the mixed motives of those around her, namely Kate Croy. Kate is a scheming young woman in love with MertonDensher, a man too poor to offer her a fashionable marriage. Thus, she conspires to push Merton towards Milly, who has an unnamed fatal illness, with the hope of eventually enhancing her lover's financial status. Like much of James' earlier works, TheWings of the Dove involves the universal themes of selfishness, greed, conspiracy, love, and betrayal. It also addresses the Victorian tradition and pitches American innocence against European cunning. However, the novel, written later in the author'slife, deals with deeper psychological aspects than his earlier works. While it does include social commentary, the central conflict of the novel regards moral character as opposed to cultural background. There have been many adaptations of The Wings ofthe Dove.

'I loathe what I did, but what I loathe even more is your virtue.'Seventeen-year-old Effi Briest is steered by her parents into marriage with an ambitious bureaucrat, twenty years her senior. He takes her from her home to a remote provincial town on the Baltic coast of Prussia where she is isolated, bored, and prey tosuperstitious fears. She drifts into a half-hearted affair with a manipulative, womanizing officer, which ends when her husband is transferred to Berlin. Years later, events are triggered that will have profound consequences for Effi and her family.Effi Briest (1895) is recognized as one of the masterpieces by Theodor Fontane, Germany's premier realist novelist, and one of the great novels of marital relations together with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. It presents life among the conservativePrussian aristocracy with irony and gentle humour, and opposes the rigid and antiquated morality of the time by treating its heroine with sympathy and keen psychological insight.

*A lively new translation of one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages, and the first surviving autobiography in English, with full supporting editorial material.*Margery Kempe's Book opens a window into life in the Middle Ages and a distinctive record of popular religion, women's spirituality, travel, pilgrimage practices, and the vibrant world of late medieval East Anglia, England, and Europe.*A highly readable translation for non-specialist and student readers alike that preserves the author's forceful narrative voice.*Wide-ranging introduction that discusses Kempe and her status as a woman writer and proto-feminist, the historical context, medieval pilgrimage and travel, audience and reception.*Full notes, up-to-date bibliography, chronology showing key moments in the authorship, translation, and reception of the text, map of Kempe's travels, glossary and indexes.'Alas that I ever did sin! It is so merry in Heaven!'The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1436-8) is the extraordinary account of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic. Known as the earliest autobiography written in the English language, Kempe's Book describes the dramatic transformation of its heroine from failedbusinesswoman and lustful young wife to devout and chaste pilgrim. She vividly describes her prayers and visions, as well as the temptations in daily life to which she succumbed before dedicating herself to her spiritual calling. She travelled to themost holy sites of the medieval world, including Rome and Jerusalem.In her life and her boisterous devotion, Kempe antagonized many of those around her

*Attractive new setting using English first edition text for this outsanding edition by acclaimed Conrad scholar Cedric Watts*Features new chronology and bibliography*A unique combination of Conrad's stories*Includes glossary of nautical terms, and a map of the Congo riverHEART OF DARKNESS * AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS * KARAIN * YOUTHThe finest of all Conrad's tales, 'Heart of Darkness' is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr Kurtz. What he sees on hisjourney, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at hismost intense and sophisticated.The other three tales in this volume depict corruption and obsession, and question racial assumptions. Set in the exotic surroundings of Africa, Malaysia. and the east, they variously appraise the glamour, folly, and rapacity of imperial adventure. Thisrevised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.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, history of the novel, modernism, colonial literature, Conrad

This is the final judgement of Satan on Victoria di Loredani, the heroine of Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria's progress fromspoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan's watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre's narrative deftly displays her heroine's movement from the vitalized positionof Ann Radcliffe's heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of `Monk' Lewis's deluded Ambrosio. The novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria's intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya thattransgresses taboos both of class and race.A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealized stereotypes of women's writing, thenovel's portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, andmonumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb.The introduction to this edition, the first for nearly 200 years, examines why Zofloya deserves to be read alongside established Gothic classics as the highly original work of an intriguingand unconventional writer.

*A newly set and updated edition of the novel that marks the transition to Hardy's mature fiction. Its two central male characters draw on Hardy's own experiences as architect and writer. With new introduction, bibliography, and chronology, this is themost critically up-to-date edition on the market.New to this edition*New introduction by Tim Dolin considers the novel's place in Hardy's fiction, the relationship between romance and realism it exemplifies and how it reflects the uncertainty of his position between the professions of architecture and writer, embodied inthe two central male characters.*Up to date bibliography.*New, fuller chronology.*Reset text.'Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface.'Elfride is the daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a remote sea-swept parish in Cornwall based on St Juliot, where Hardy began the book during the first days of his courtship of his first wife Emma. Blue-eyed and high-spirited, Elfride has littleexperience of the world beyond, and becomes entangled with two men: the boyish architect, Stephen Smith, and the older literary man, Henry Knight. The former friends become rivals, and Elfride faces an agonizing choice.Written at a crucial time in Hardy's life, A Pair of Blue Eyes expresses more directly than any of his novels the events and social forces that made him the writer he was. Elfride's dilemma mirrors the difficult decision Hardy himself had to make withthis novel: to pursue the profession of architecture, where he was established, or literature, where he had yet to make his name?'Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface.' Elfride is the daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a remote sea-swept parish in Cornwall based on St Juliot, where Hardy began the book during the first days of his courtship ofhis first wife Emma. Blue-eyed and

This volume includes Daisy Miller, Pandora, The Patagonia, and Four Meetings.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.

Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world: he dominated the Roman courts, usually appearing for the defence. His speeches are masterpieces of persuasion: compellingly written, emotionally powerful, and somtimes hilariously funny.This book presents five of his most famous defences: of Roscius, falsely accused of murdering his father

*Perhaps Dickens's best-loved work, Great Expectations features memorable characters such as the convict Magwitch, the mysterious Miss Havisham and her proud ward Estella, as Pip unravels the mystery of his benefactor and of his own heart. Widely adaptedfor film and television, the story attracts readers of all ages.*This edition reprints the authoritative text of the Clarendon edition, correcting both original printer's errors and later textual corruptions, and retains facsimiles of the original title-pages for each of the three volumes of the 1861 edition.*Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's new introduction ranges widely across critical issues raised by the novel: its biographical genesis

John Polidori's classic tale The Vampyre(1819), was a product of the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein . The present volume selects thirteen other tales of mystery and the macabre, including the works of James Hogg,J.S. LeFanu, Letitia Landon, Edward