Oxford World Classic

The four tales in this volume share autobiographical origins in Conrad's experience at sea and his exile from Poland, the country of his birth. 'Typhoon' is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by tempest, and of the stolid captain whose doggedcourage is tested to the limit. In 'Falk' a taciturn young woman is bizarrely courted by a tug-boat master who is haunted by a terrible secret. 'Amy Foster' tells of an emigrant Pole struggling to overcome isolation and prejudice in England. The finaltale, 'The Secret Sharer', is Conrad's most famous short story, a masterpiece of suspense and ambiguity. Giving sanctuary to a fugitive sailor, a young sea-captain risks his ship and his command in order to save him.This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.

John Donne's description of the Psalms celebrates not only the perfection of the biblical psalms but their translation into poetic form by the Sidneys, who turned them into some of the most accomplished lyric poems of the English Renaissance. Although itwas not printed until the nineteenth century, the Sidney Psalter was widely read in manuscript and influenced poets from Donne and Herbert to Milton and beyond. It turned these well-known and well-loved Psalms into sophisticated verse, selecting orinventing a different stanza form for each one. This variety of forms matches the appeal of their content: there are Psalms of praise and blame, Psalms of cursing and lamentation, Psalms of joy and exaltation, Psalms that recount history, and Psalms thatdescribe Creation or divine law.This is the first complete edition of the Psalter for over forty years. The Psalms are provided in an authoritative modernized text, with helpful glosses and notes illuminating points of interpretation, and an introduction setting the Psalms in theirliterary and cultural contexts.

The Communist ManifestoKarl Marx and Friedrich EngelsEdited with an introduction and notes by David McLellanThe Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential pieces of political propaganda ever written. It is a summary of the whole Marxist vision of history and is the foundation document of the Marxist movement.Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were aged 29 and 27 respectively when The Communist Manifesto was published on the eve of the 1848 revolutions. The authors had been close collaborators since 1844, and the Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account ofthe world-view they had evolved during their hectic intellectual and political involvement of the previous few years.

News from NowhereWilliam MorrisEdited by David LeopoldOxford World's ClassicsNews from Nowhere is the best-known prose work of Willam Morris. Set in London and the Thames Valley in the twenty-second century, these ...

A Tale of a Tub is the masterpiece of Swift's earlier years. It is presented here with The Battle of the Books, The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, and the Additions.

'Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin'On topics ranging from intelligent design and climate change to the politics of gender and race, the evolutionary writings of Charles Darwin occupy a pivotal position in contemporary public debate. This volume brings together the key chapters of his mostimportant and accessible books, including the Journal of Researches on the Beagle voyage (1845), the Origin of Species (1871), and the Descent of Man, along with the full text of his delightful autobiography. They are accompanied by generous selectionsof responses from Darwin's nineteenth-century readers from across the world. More than anything, they give a keen sense of the controversial nature of Darwin's ideas, and his position within Victorian debates about man's place in nature.The wide-ranging introduction by James A. Secord, Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, explores the global impact and origins of Darwin's work and the reasons for its unparalleled significance today.

This collection brings together seventeen of Kipling's early stories, written between 1885 and 1888, when Kipling was working as a journalist in India. Wry comedies of British officialdom alternate with glimpses into the harsh lives of the commonsoldiers and the Indian poor, revealing Kipling's legendary powers of observation and, in 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep' his own miserable childhood.From Mrs Hauksbee's Simla drawing-room to Mulvaney's cot in barracks, to the wild hills of Kafiristan, Kipling re-creates the India he knew in stories by turns ironic and sentimental, compassionate and bitter, displaying the brilliance that hascaptivated readers for over a century.

'I shall never forget the day I wrote The Mark on the Wall - all in a flash, as if flying, after being kept stone breaking for months. The Unwritten Novel was the great discovery, however. That - again in one second - showed me how I could embody allmy deposit of experience in a shape that fitted it... I saw, branching out of the tunnel I made, when I discovered that method of approach, Jacob's Room, Mrs Dalloway etc - How I trembled with excitement.'The thrill Woolf got from these stories is readily apparent to the reader. She wrote them in defiance of convention, with a heady feeling of liberation and with a clear sense that she was breaking new ground. Indeed, if she had not made her bold andexperimental forays into the short story in the period leading up to the publication of Jacob's Room (1922), it seems certain that her arrival as a great modernist novelist would have been delayed. Quirky, unrestrained, disturbing and surprising, many ofthese stories, particularly the early ones, are essential to an understanding of Woolf's development as a writer. She thought some of her short fiction might be 'unprintable' but, happily, she was mistaken.

In 1836 the 23-year-old Dickens was invited by his publishers to write `a monthly something' illustrated by sporting plates. Thus the Pickwick Club was born: its supposed `papers' soom outgrew their origins and became a brilliantly comic novel, stillamong Dicken's most popular works.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 mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation'In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his home town of Concord, Massachusetts to begin a new life alone, in a rough hut he built himself a mile and a half away on the north-west shore of Walden Pond. Walden is Thoreau's classic autobiographical account ofthis experiment in solitary living, his refusal to play by the rules of hard work and the accumulation of wealth and above all the freedom it gave him to adapt his living to the natural world around him.This new edition of Walden traces the sources of Thoreau's reading and thinking and considers the author in the context of his birthplace and his sense of its history - social, economic and natural. In addition, an ecological appendix provides modernidentifications of the myriad plants and animals to which Thoreau gave increasingly close attention as he became acclimatized to his life in the woods by Walden Pond.

'For as I look deeper into the mirror, I find myself a more curious person than I had thought.'John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a towering figure of the nineteenth century: an art critic who spoke up for J. M. W. Turner and for the art of the Italian Middle Ages

*Combines a revised text of T. M. Knox's respected translation with a new Introduction and notes by Stephen Houlgate to offer the most accessible edition of Hegel's classic work*Integrates Hegel's additional lecture notes within the body of the text instead of as Additions printed separately at the end, improving usability.*The Introduction provides biographical and historical context as well as a cogent analysis of Hegel's ideas and their continuing relevance to the modern world.*Includes a glossary of key terms, up-to-date bibliography, and invaluable notes.What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational.Hegel's Outlines of the Philosophy of Right is one of the greatest works of moral, social, and political philosophy. It contains significant ideas on justice, moral responsibility, family life, economic activity, and the political structure of the state- all matters of profound interest to us today.Hegel's aim is to lay out the various forms that human freedom must take on, if it is to be true freedom. He seeks to show that genuine human freedom does not consist in doing whatever we please, but involves living with others in accordance withpublicly recognized rights and laws. Hegel demonstrates that institutions such as the family and the state provide the context in which individuals can flourish and enjoy full freedom. He also demonstrates that misunderstanding the true nature of freedomcan lead to crime, evil, and poverty. His penetrating analysis of the causes of poverty in modern civil society was to be a great influence on Karl Marx. Hegel's study remains one of the most subtle and perceptive accounts of freedom that we possess.This new edition combines a revised translation with a cogent introduction to his work.

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique selection from the full range of Swift's fifty-year career - prose, poetry, and letters- to give the essence of his work and thinking.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is best known as the author of Gulliver's Travels, which alone would have secured his place in the history of English literature. But in addition to this classic fictional satire, Swift wrote numerous works concerning politics,religion, and Ireland, some savage (such as A Modest Proposal), others humorous, and all suffused with his tremendous wit, inventiveness, and vigour. This anthology includes satirical works such as A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, politicalpamphlets, pieces for the popular press, poems, and a generous selection from Swift's correspondence. Presented chronologically, the anthology offers a new and clearer awareness of the unity as well as the complexity of Swift's vision, and the powerfulbonds between disparate pieces.

After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean, and life is renewed. The Poetic Edda begins with The Seeress's Prophecy which recounts the creation of the world, and looks forward to its destruction andrebirth. In this great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry, the exploits of gods and humans are related. The one-eyed Odin, red-bearded Thor, Loki the trickster, the lovely goddesses and the giants who are their enemies walkbeside the heroic Helgi, Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, Brynhild the shield-maiden, and the implacable Gudrun. New in this revised translation are the quest-poem The Lay of Svipdag and The Waking of Angantyr, in which a girl faces down her dead father toretrieve his sword.Comic, tragic, instructive, grandiose, witty and profound, the poems of the Edda have influenced artists from Wagner to Tolkien and a new generation of video-game and film makers.

'He appears to be persecutor and I the persecuted: is not this difference the mere creature of the imagination?'Caleb is a guileless young servant who enters the employment of Ferdinando Falkland, a cosmopolitan and benevolent country gentleman. Falkland is subject to fits of unexplained melancholy, and Caleb becomes convinced that he harbours a dark secret. Hisdiscovery of the truth leads to false accusations against him, and a vengeful pursuit as suspenseful as any thriller.The novel is also a powerful political allegory, inspired by the events of the decade following the French Revolution. This new edition reproduces the original novel of 1794, which captures the raw indignation and sense of injustice felt by victims ofBritish law. It includes the startlingly different manuscript ending, and selected variants in the second and third editions reflecting changes in Godwin's political and philosophical thinking.

This authoritative edition was formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Donne's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by rarelypublished letters and extracts from Donne's sermons - to give the essence of his work and thinking.John Donne (1572-1631) is today celebrated as one of the greatest of the metaphysical poets, whose verse was daringly original and whose use of imagery and conceits marked a new, intellectual approach to poetry. His Satires, Elegies, and Songs andSonnets, which contain his most famous love poems, were complemented by his religious writing, both verse and prose. He was one of the most renowned preachers of his day, and this volume does equal justice to the full range of his work. In addition tonearly all his English poetry this volume includes over 130 extracts from Donne's sermons, as well as the full text of his last sermon, 'Death's Duel'. A distinguishing feature of the selection is that the works are arranged in the chronological order oftheir composition.

Malthus's Essay looks at the perennial tendency of humans to outstrip their resources: reproduction always exceeds food production. Today Malthus remains a byword for concern about man's demographic and ecological prospects.

The Koran is a book apart, not only as Holy Scripture for Muslims, but as the supreme classic of Arabic literature. In its 114 Suras, or chapters, it comprises the total of revelations believed to have been communicated to the prophet Muhammad as a finalexpression of God's will and purpose for man. The revelations were received over a number of years, the first dating from AD 610, the last shortly before Muhammad's death in AD 632, and the definitive canon was established some twenty years later. TheKoran is neither prose nor poetry but a unique fusion of both. In his attempt to convey the sublime rhetoric of the original, Professor Arberry has carefully studied the intricate and richly varied rhythms which - apart from the message itself - serve toexplain the Koran's undeniable claim to rank among the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind.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.

Born in 1554, Sir Philip Sidney was hailed as the perfect Renaissance patron, soldier, lover, and courtier, but it was only after his untimely death at the age of 31 that his literary accomplishments were truly recognized. This collection ranges morewidely through Sidney's works than any previous volume and includes substantial parts of both versions of the Arcadia, The Defence of Poesy and the whole of the sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella. Supplementary texts, such as his letters and thenumerous elegies which appeared after his death, help to illustrate the whole spectrum of his achievements, and the admiration he inspired in his contemporaries.

'I think I must be an improper woman without knowing it, I do so manage to shock people.'Elizabeth Gaskell's second novel challenged contemporary social attitudes by taking as its heroine a fallen woman. Ruth Hilton is an orphan and an overworked seamstress, an innocent preyed upon by a weak, wealthy seducer. When he heartlessly abandons hershe finds shelter and kindness in the home of a dissenting minister and his sister, who do not reject her when she gives birth to an illegitimate child. But Ruth's self-sacrificing love and devotion are tested to the limit by a twist of fate that bringsher past back to haunt her.Gaskell's depiction of Ruth lays bare Victorian hypocrisy and sexual double-standards, and her novel is a remarkable story of love, of the sanctuary and tyranny of the family, and of the consequences of lies and deception.

This volume unites, for the first time, Books IV and V of Mill's great treatise on political economy with his fragmentary chapters on socialism. It shows him applying his classical economic theory to policy questions of abiding concern, particularly thedesirability of sustained growth of national wealth and population versus a stationary state, the merits of capitalism versus socialism, and the expedient scope of government intervention in the competitive market economy.His answers to those questions have considerable relevance today, and they serve to illustrate the enduring power and imagination of his distinctive liberal utilitarian philosophy.In his introduction, Jonathan Riley clarifies Mill's approach, considers what constitutes the Millian Utopia, and shows how examination of such an ideal society provides valuable insights into the structure of his philosophy.

Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte Bront‰, and, having been invited to write the offical life, determined both to tell the truth and to honour her friend. She contacted those who had known Charlotte and travelled extensively in England and Belgium togather material. She wrote from a vivid accumulation of letters, interviews, and observation, establishing the details of Charlotte's life and recreating her background. Through an often difficult and demanding process, Gaskell created a vital sense of alife hidden from the world.This edition is based on the Third Edition of 1857, revised by Gaskell. It has been collated with the manuscript, and the previous two editions, as well as with Charlotte Bront'e's letters, and thus offers fuller information about the process ofcomposition than any previous edition.

'Coward! Sneak! May good men shun him, from henceforth! may his Queen refuse to receive him! You, an earl's daughter! Oh, Isabel! How utterly you have lost yourself!' When the aristocratic Lady Isabel abandons her husband and children for her wickedseducer, more is at stake than moral retribution. Ellen Wood played upon the anxieties of the Victorian middle classes who feared a breakdown of the social order as divorce became more readily available and promiscuity threatened the sanctity of thefamily. In her novel the simple act of hiring a governess raises the spectres of murder, disguise, and adultery. Her sensation novel was devoured by readers from the Prince of Wales to Joseph Conrad and continued to fascinate theatre-goers and cinemaaudiences well into the next century. This edition returns for the first time to the racy, slang-ridden narrative of the first edition, rather than the subsequent stylistically 'improved' versions hitherto reproduced by modern editors.

`An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot . . . it will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.'Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution

'He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price.'The Monk (1796) is a sensational story of temptation and depravity, a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and the first horror novel in English literature. The respected monk Ambrosio, the Abbot of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, is overwhelmed with desire fora young girl

This edition, which uses the 1878 Cabinet edition, is based on the last edition for which Eliot provided corrections. A fresh introduction that places the novel in its biographical, intellectual, and critical context, while also paying close attention to the nuances and patterns of the work. It considers, in particular, the themes of memory and parenthood, thecombination of realism and fable, the novel's preoccupation with mystery and interpretation, its focus on habits, and Eliot's extraordinarily complex use of the imagery of threads and weaving. The 'note on the text' offers a clearer and more accurate account of the novel's publication history than can be found in other editions. There are extensive and clearly presented textual variants which are not found in other editions. These have drawn on archival research in the British Library and the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. Up-to-date Bibliography and detailed explanatory notes.

St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) saw religion as part of the natural human propensity to worship. His ability to recognize the naturalness of this phenomenon and simultaneously to go beyond it, to explore spiritual revelation, makes his work fresh andhighly readable today.While drawing on a strong distinction between theology and philosophy, Aquinas interleaved them intricately in his writings, which range from an examination of the structures of thought to the concept of God as the end of all things.This accessible new translation chooses substantial passages not only from the indispensable Summa Theologicae, but from many other works, fully illustrating the breadth and progression of Aquinas's philosophy.