Oxford World Classic

Rumi's Masnavi is widely recognized as the greatest Sufi poem ever written, and has been called 'the Koran in Persian'. The thirteenth-century Muslim mystic Rumi composed his work for the benefit of his disciples in the Sufi order named after him, betterknown as the whirling dervishes. In order to convey his message of divine love and unity he threaded together entertaining stories and penetrating homilies. Drawing from folk tales as well as sacred history, Rumi's poem is often funny as well asspiritually profound.

*The supposed autobiography of its heroine, Moll Flanders tells the astonishing story of a woman on the make, using fair means and foul to survive in eighteenth-century London.*A key work in the development of the novel, this new edition offers a critically edited text and a wide-ranging introduction.*The introduction looks at the circumstances out of which the novel grew, its strengths and weaknesses as fiction, its reception and influence and the social and cultural issues examined in the novel, including the position of women, the role of religionand providence, and the questionable relationship between crime and its punishments.*Comprehensive notes clarify meanings, allustions, and other references, and note changes between the later editions of the text.*Includes a glossary, and a note on money.*Maps of England, London, and the American colonies.New to this edition*Introduction by Linda Bree, providing a fuller historical context and critical discussion.*Up-to-date bibliography.*New chronology of the author.*New notes, drawing on scholarship of the last 39 years, since the previous edition.*Glossary, note on money, maps.*Reset text.'Twelve Year a Whore, fives times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent'So the title page of this extraordinary novel describes the career of the woman known as Moll Flanders, whose real name we never discover. And so, in a tour-de-force of writing by the businessman, political satirist, and spy Daniel Defoe, Moll tells herown story, a vivid and racy tale of a woman's experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and seduced in the home of her adoptive family, she learns to live off herwits, defying the traditional depiction of women as helpless victims. First published in 1722, and one of the earliest novels in the English language, its account of opportunism, endurance, and survival speaks as strongly to us today as it did to itsoriginal readers.

Richard III is one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on the stage and has been adapted successfully for film. This new and innovative edition recognizes the play's pre-eminence as a performance work: a perspective that informs every aspect of theediting. Challenging traditional practice, the text is based on the 1597 Quarto which, it is argued, brings us closest to the play as it would have been staged in Shakespeare's theatre. The introduction, which is illustrated, explores the longperformance history from Shakespeare's time to the present. Its critical engagement with the play responds to recent historicist and gender-based approaches. The commentary gives detailed explication of matters of language, staging, text, and historicaland cultural contexts, providing coverage that is both carefully balanced and alert to nuance of meaning.Documentation of the extensive textual variants is organized for maximum clarity: the readings of the Folio and the Quarto are presented in separate banks, and more specialist information is given at the back of the book. Appendices also include selectedpassages from the main source and a special index of actors and other theatrical personnel.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, scholars and teachers of all levels, theatregoers

Titus Andronicus was the young Shakespeare's audacious, sporadically brilliant experiment in sensational tragedy. Its horrors are notorious, but its powerful poetry of grief is the work of a true tragic poet.Introducing this edition, E.M. Waith provides a fresh view of the play in its historical context as well as an original discussion of the famous `Peacham' drawing - the only surviving contemporary Shakespeare illustration. An illustrated account ofperformances, notably Peter Brook's production with Oliver as Titus, leads to an assessment of the play's qualities in the light of its critical reception. The eighteenth-century version of the play's probable source is given in one of the appendices.

Translated by Anthony Verity and with introduction and notes by Barbara Graziosi A major new translation of Homer's great epic poem, that out of an episode from the Trojan war encapsulates the great tragedy of war, and the meaning of life and death. Anthony Verity's rendering transmits the directness, power, and dignity of Homer's poetry in an elegant and accurate translation that respects the original line numbers. Barbara Graziosi, an authority on Homeric poetry, offers a full introduction that guides the reader in understanding the composition of the poem, its literary qualities, and the many different contexts in which it was performed and read. Extensive notes offer book-by-book summaries and elucidate difficult words and passages, mythological allusions, references to ancient practices and artefacts, and geographical names. An annotated bibliography offers a succinct guide to further scholarship in English

Uses the first American edition textWhen A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was published in 1889, Mark Twain was undergoing a series of personal and professional crises. Thus what began as a literary burlesque of British chivalry and culture grew into a disturbing satire ofmodern technology and social thought. The story of Hank Morgan, a nineteenth-century American who is accidentally returned to sixth-century England, is a powerful analysis of such issues as monarchy versus democracy and free will versus determinism, butit is also one of Twain's finest comic novels, still fresh and funny after more than 100 years.In his introduction, M. Thomas Inge shows how A Connecticut Yankee develops from comedy to tragedy and so into a novel that remains a major literary and cultural text for new generations of readers. This edition reproduces a number of the originaldrawings by Dan Beard, of whom Twain said `he not only illustrates the text but he illustrates my thoughts'.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, high school to postgraduate level for American literature courses

Audiences have always delighted in the robust comedy and verbal inventiveness of The Taming of the Shrew. It has survived many adaptations ranging from, probably, the play printed in 1594 as The Taming of the Shrew through several eighteenth-centuryversions to modern-dress productions and transformations into ballet, musical, film, and opera.Introducing this new edition, H.J. Oliver pays attention to the play's theatrical virtues while also providing a deeply considered study of its textual problems, structural complexities, and interpretive challenges.

Coriolanus is perhaps the most brilliant political play ever written. Set in Ancient Rome, it remains a gripping psychological study of the relationship between personality and politics.The introduction to this new edition considers Shakespeare's adaptation of his historical material (Plutarch's Lives) in relation to the social and political conditions in London and Stratford at the time of the play's composition, also offering newevidence that it was written in 1608. Professor Parker examines the play's history and particularly its staging at the Blackfriars theatre, where it was probably the first of Shakespeare's plays to be presented and for which it may have been written. Athorough commentary pays special attention to the needs of actors and directors.

- Thorstein Veblen's searing indictment of modern consumer society is startlingly relevant in a world of Paris Hiltons and Victoria Beckhams

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes are overshadowed by the event with which they close - the meeting of the great detective and Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. Their struggle, seemingly to the death, was to leave many readers desolate at the loss of Holmes,but was also to lead to his immortality as a literary figure. However illogical as a detective story, `The final Problem' has proved itself an unforgettable tale. The stories that precede it included two narratives from Holmes himself, on a mutiny at seaand a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house, as well as a meeting with his brilliant brother Mycroft, of whom Holmes says, `If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from any armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent thatever lived.'

'How is the mind agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world!' - William Bartram 'Thus you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would have us believe.' - MaryWortley Montagu With widely varied motives - scientific curiosity, commerce, colonization, diplomacy, exploration, and tourism - British travellers fanned out to every corner of the world in the period the Critical Review labelled the 'Age ofPeregrination'. The Empire, already established in the Caribbean and North America, was expanding in India and Africa and founding new outposts in the Pacific in the wake of Captain Cook's voyages. In letters, journals, and books, travellers wrote atfirst-hand of exotic lands and beautiful scenery, and encounters with strange peoples and dangerous wildlife. They conducted philosophical and political debates in print about slavery and the French Revolution, and their writing often affords unexpectedinsights into the writers themselves. This anthology brings together the best writing from authors such as Daniel Defoe, Celia Fiennes, Mary Wollstonecraft, Olaudah Equiano, Mungo Park, and many others, to provide a comprehensive selection from thisemerging literary genre.

'To become a member of the British Parliament!...He almost thought that he could die happy'Phineas Finn, the handsome Irishman, is equally successful at scaling the political ladder and gaining the affection of influential women. As he makes his precarious way in parliament he discovers how far principles must be sacrificed to the commoncause, and how essential money is to political progress. Set during the turbulent passage of the second Reform Act of 1867, the novel paints a vivid picture of the compromises and tactics of daily political life. Loss of independence is felt just askeenly by Lady Laura and Violet Effingham, whose choice of marriage partner will determine their future freedom as much as their happiness. With politics and the personal so closely entwined, Phineas faces an act of conscience that will have a profoundeffect on his life.The second novel in Trollope's Palliser series, Phineas Finn's engaging plot embraces matters as diverse as reform, the position of women, the Irish question, and the conflict between integrity and ambition.

Uses a unique critical edition text`Yet each man kills the thing he loves,By each let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword!'A powerful poem of universal guilt and a protest against capital punishment, The Ballad of Reading Gaol is Wilde's best-known poem, yet it is quite unlike the rest of his poetry. At Oxford Wilde discarded the passion and politics of his mother's Irishnationalistic anti-famine poetry and opted to follow an English Romantic tradition, paying tribute to Keats, Swinburne, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Admiration of French masters gradually led to his writing Impressionist, even decadent poems and hiscollection Poems (1881) brought accusations of obscenity and plagiarism as well as scathing reviews. Unabashed, Wilde revised and reprinted his final `Author's Edition' in 1892, by which time he was the successful author of fiction, criticism, and LadyWindermere's Fan.This volume follows as closely as possible the chronological order of composition, highlighting autobiographical elements including the young Wilde's conflicting attitudes to Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, and his fluctuating attraction to RomanCatholicism. The Appendix shows Wilde's original ordering, constructed with great care around a `musical' arrangement of themes. The poems reveal unexpected aspects of a literary chameleon usually identified with sparkling wit and social comedy.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: Undergraduate - late nineteenth-century poetry or `Nineties' Poetry

Little Women has remained enduringly popular since its publication in 1868, becoming the inspiration for a whole genre of family stories. Set in a small New England community, it tells of the March family: Marmee looks after daughters in the absence ofher husband, who is serving as an army chaplain in the Civil War, and Meg, Jo,Beth, and Amy experience domestic trials and triumphs as they attempt to supplement the family's small income. In the second part of the novel (sometimes known as Good Wives)the girls grow up and fall in love.The novel is highly autobiographical, and in Jo's character Alcott portrays a strong-minded and independent woman, determined to control her own destiny. The introduction to this edition provides a fascinating history of the Alcotts,and of LouisaAlcott's own struggles as a writer.

The Jungle Books can be regarded as classic stories told by an adult to children. But they also constitute a complex literary work of art in which the whole of Kipling's philosophy of life is expressed in miniature. They are best known for the `Mowgli'stories

Twelfth Night is one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in the modern theatre, and this edition places particular emphasis on its theatrical qualities throughout. Peopled with lovers misled either by disguises or their own natures, it combineslyrical melancholy with broad comedy.The introduction analyses its many views of love and the juxtaposition of joy and melancholy, while the detailed commentary pays particular attention to its linguistic subtleties.Music is particularly important in Twelfth Night, and this is the only modern edition to offer material for all the music required in a performance. James Walker has re-edited the existing music from the original sources, and where noe exists hascomposed settings compatible with the surviving originals.

A young, inexperienced governess is charged with the care of Miles and Flora, two small children abandoned by their uncle at his grand country house. She sees the figure of an unknown man on the tower and his face at the window. It is Peter Quint, themaster's dissolute valet, and he has come for little Miles. But Peter Quint is dead.Like the other tales collected here - `Sir Edmund Orme', `Owen Wingrave', and `The Friends of the Friends' - `The Turn of the Screw' is to all immediate appearances a ghost story. But are the appearances what they seem? Is what appears to the governess aghost or a hallucination? Who else sees what she sees? The reader may wonder whether the children are victims of corruption from beyond the grave, or victims of the governess's `infernal imagination', which torments but also entrals her?`The Turn of the Screw' is probably the most famous, certainly the most eerily equivocal, of all ghostly tales. Is it a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the haunted house of Victorian culture, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease? Or is itsimply, `the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read'?The texts are those of the New York Edition, with a new Introduction and Notes.

- The last major play in the Oxford Shakespeare series, Richard II features a freshly edited version of the text based on the early quartos and first Folio of 1623, with thorough accompanying material for readers, students, and performers.- Wide-ranging introduction describes the play's historical circumstances, both the period that it dramatizes (the start of the 'wars of the roses') and the period in which it was written (late Elizabethan England), and the play's political significancein its own time and our own. It also focuses on the play's richly poetic language and its success over the centuries as a play for the stage.- Extensive explanatory notes help readers at all levels understand and appreciate the language, characters, and dramatic action.- Careful analysis of textual issues for those interested in the transmission of the text.- Lively illustrations provide a sense of the historical background and performance history.The Oxford ShakespeareGeneral Editor: Stanley WellsThe Oxford Shakespeare offer 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 the early texts- wide-ranging introduction discusses the play's historical contexts, political significance, characters, sources, and language- detailed stage history designed to meet the needs of students and theatre professionals- on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, allusions, staging, and much else- illustrated with production photographs, historical portraits, textual facsimiles, and map- full index to introduction and commentary- durable sewn binding for lasting use'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare' Times Literary Supplement

Translated by John Davie and Edited by Tobias Reinhardt The fullest translation of Seneca's treatises (dialogues and essays) in print, showing the range of Seneca's philosophical interests in its most accessible form. John Davie's translations are modern and readable and reflect Seneca's desire to make Stoic teaching accessible and comprehensible. Tobias Reinhardt's introduction is wide ranging and as well as covering Seneca's career, literary style, and influence,includes a masterly summary of Stoic philosophy and Seneca's interpretation of it. His notes are the fullest of any comparableedition. Seneca's philosophical writings on subjects such as the shortness of life, anger, tranquillity of mind, and consolations for grief on the loss of a loved one, are strikingly applicable to our modern world.'No man is crushed by misfortune unless he has first been deceived by prosperity.'In these dialogues and essays the Stoic philosopher Seneca outlines his thoughts on how to live in a troubled world. Tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote exercises in practical philosophy that draw upon contemporary Roman life and illuminate theintellectual concerns of the day. They also have much to say to the modern reader, as Seneca ranges widely across subjects such as the shortness of life, tranquillity of mind, anger, mercy, happiness, and grief at the loss of a loved one. Seneca'saccessible, aphoristic style makes his writing especially attractive as an introduction to Stoic philosophy, and belies its reputation for austerity and dogmatism. This edition combines a clear and modern translation with an introduction to Seneca's lifeand philosophical interests, and helpful notes.

Love's Labour's Lost, now recognized as one of the most delightful and stageworthy of Shakespeare's comedies, came into its own both on the stage and in critical esteem only during the 1930s and 1940s, after three hundred years of neglect by the theatreand undervaluation and misuse by critics. The Introduction to this new edition pays particular attention to this process of rehabilitation. The text, based on the quarto of 1598 and taking full account of the extensive scholarly study that text hasreceived over recent years, rests on the hypothesis that the quarto goes back, probably by way of `lost' quarto, to an authorial manuscript representing the play in a state prior to `fair copy'. If this is so, the quarto takes on a special significancebecause through it we can watch Shakespeare in the act of composition, improvising, changing his mind, and revising as his play develops under his hand. The editor offers a number of new readings of difficult and disputed passages, together with somesuggestions about the way in which the play's notorious `tangles' may have come about. A detailed commentary offers full and helpful guidance to the play's scintillating language.

'The finest translation in and for our time'(Kevin Crossley-Holland)Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separateand very ancient Celtic motifs of the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th century poet. His telling comprehends a great variety of moods and modes - from the stark realism of the hunt-scenes to the delicious anddangerous bedroom encounters between Lady Bercilak and Gawain, from moments of pure lyric beauty when he evokes the English countryside in all its seasons, to authorial asides that are full of irony and puckish humour. This new verse translation uses amodern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time as it strives for fidelity.

Translated by Margaret Mauldon, Edited by Malcolm Bowie, and Notes by Mark Overstall-The new translation by award-winning translator Margaret Mauldon replaces the slightly old-fashioned one by Gerard Hopkins. Mauldon perfectly captures Flaubert's famously pared-down style to produce a faithful and carefully nuanced translation.-Respected critic and writer Malcolm Bowie has written a wide-ranging and original new introduction to the novel.-Updated bibliography.-Revised notes.-Madame Bovary consistently appears in lists of the best novels of all time and has been frequently adapted for radio and television.

*One of Austen's five major novels in a superb new edition*The standard Chapman/Kinsley text in a newly set typeface gives a more attractive appearance*The new introduction examines the novel in its historical moment in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, and how nations and individuals can escape from the past*The new notes are fuller and bring out Austen's extensive knowledge of the Navy and the novel's topicality*New chronology and bibliography provide up-to-date resources for further reading*Appendices on social rank, dancing and the navy, and the deleted chapter that was the original ending of PersuasionNew to this edition*Introduction by Deidre Shauna Lynch*Explanatory Notes by Deidre Shauna Lynch*Fuller three-column chronology*Expanded and updated Bibliography*Appendices on social rank, dancing, the navy'She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older - the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.'Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to anaval captain with neither fortune, ancestry, nor prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances.Persuasion celebrates romantic constancy in an era of turbulent change. Written as the Napoleonic Wars were ending, the novel examines how a woman can at once remain faithful to her past and still move forward into the future.

*A new selection of Gandhi's writings, with an important Introduction by a leading scholar of Gandhi's life, designed to introduce his life and thought to readers.*Drawn from the full range of Gandhi's published work - books, articles, broadcasts, interviews, letters - the selection covers his thinking on religion and spirituality, on society and its problems, on politics and British rule, and on non-violence andcivil disobedience.*The selection is arranged to demonstrate Gandhi's belief that transformation in human life should be from the roots upwards, from the individual through to social and political relations.*Judith Brown's Introduction provides a succinct account of Gandhi's life and his ambiguous role in the Indian nationalist movement

Translated with introduction and notes by Robin WaterfieldRepublic is the central work of the Western world's most famous philosopher. Essentially an inquiry into morality, Republic also contains crucial arguments and insights into many other areas of philosophy. It is also a literary masterpiece: thephilosophy is presented for the most part for the ordinary reader, who is carried along by the wit and intensity of the dialogue and by Plato's unforgettable images of the human condition.This new, lucid translation by Robin Waterfield is complemented by full explanatory notes and an up-to-date critical introduction.

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 Johnson's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by essays,criticism, and fiction - to give the essence of his work and thinking.Samuel Johnson's literary reputation rests on such a varied output that he defies easy description: poet, critic, lexicographer, travel writer, essayist, editor, and, thanks to his good friend Boswell, the subject of one of the most famous Englishbiographies.This volume celebrates Johnson's astonishing talent by selecting widely across the full range of his work. It includes 'London' and 'The Vanity of Human Wishes' among other poems, and many of his essays for the Rambler and Idler. The prefaces to hisedition of Shakespeare and his famous Dictionary, together with samples from the texts, are given, as well as selections from A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, the Lives of the Poets, and Rasselas in its entirety. There is also a substantialrepresentation of lesser-known prose, and of his poetry, letters, and journals.

*New critical edition based on authoritative Clarendon Dickens with 24 original illustrations*Penguin's edition dates from 1966*Oliver Twist bridges schools and university marketThe new Oxford World's Classics edition of Oliver Twist is based on the authoritative Clarendon edition, which uses Dickens's revised text of 1846. It includes his preface of 1841 in which he defended himself against hostile criticism, and includes all24 original illustrations by George Cruikshank. Stephen Gill's groundbreaking Introduction gives a fascinating new account of the novel. He also provides appendices on Dickens and Cruikshank, on Dickens's Preface and the Newgate Novel Controversy, onOliver Twist and the New Poor Law and on thieves' slang.

Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880) is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered