«'his perfect indifference, and your pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd!' «Pride and Prejudice» has delighted generations of readers with its unforgettable cast of characters, carefully choreographed plot, and a hugely entertaining view of the world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and menide down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity, as misconceptions and hasty judgements lead to heartache and scandal, but eventually to true understanding, self-knowledge, and love. In this supremely satisfying story, Jane Austen balances comedy with seriousness, and witty observation with profound insight. If Elizabeth Bennet returns again and again to her letter from Mr Darcy, readers»

Herodotus is not only known as the `father of history', as Cicero called him, but also the father of ethnography; as well as charting the historical background to the Persian Wars, his curiosity also prompts frequent digression on the cultures of the peoples he introduces. While much of the information he gives has proved to be astonishingly accurate, he also entertains us with delightful tales of one-eyed men and gold-digging ants. This readable new translation is supplemented with expansive notes that provide readers the background that they need to appreciate the book in depth.

«This edition contains generous selections from all five volumes of «The Wealth of Nations», and places Smith's inquiry into its historical, intellectual, and cultural context.»

Writing at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in Middlemarch (1871-2) the quintessential Victorian novel, a concept of life and society free from the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age. In a panoramic sweep of English life during thr years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Eliot explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar: Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician: the passionate artist Will Ladislaw: and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein. Felicia Bonaparte has provided a new Introduction for this updated edition, the text of which is taken from David Carroll's Clarendon Middlemarch (1986), the first critical edition.

Fielding's comic masterpiece of 1749 was immediately attacked as `A motley history of bastardism, fornication, and adultery'. Indeed, his populous novel overflows with a marvellous assortment of prudes, whores, libertines, bumpkins, misanthropes, hypocrites, scoundrels, virgins, and all too fallible humanitarians. At the centre of one of the most ingenious plots in English fiction stands a hero whose actions were, in 1749, as shocking as they are funny today. Expelled from Mr Allworthy's country estate for his wild temper and sexual conquests, the good-hearted foundling Tom Jones loses his money, joins the army, and pursues his beloved across Britain to London, where he becomes a kept lover and confronts the possibility of incest. Tom Jones is rightly regarded as Fielding's greatest work, and one of the first and most influential of English novels. This carefully modernized edition is based on Fielding's emended fourth edition text and offers the most thorough notes, maps, and bibliography. The introduction uses the latest scholarship to examine how Tom Jones exemplifies the role of the novel in the emerging eighteenth-century public sphere.

«This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Byron's poetry and prose — all the major poems, complemented by important letters, journals, and conversations — to give the essence of his work and thinking. Byron is regarded today as the ultimate Romantic, whose name has entered the language to describe a man of brooding passion. Although his private life shocked his contemporaries his poetry was immensely popular and influential, especially in Europe. This comprehensive edition includes the complete texts of his two poetic masterpieces «Childe Harold's Pilgrimage» and «Don Juan», as well as the dramatic poems «Manfred» and «Cain». There are many other shorter poems and part of the satire «English Bards and Scotch Reviewers». In addition there is a selection from Byron's inimitable letters, extracts from his journals and conversations, as well as more formal writings.»

This novel, which has always been regarded as one of Scott's finest, opens with the Edinburgh riots of 1736. The people of the city have been infuriated by the actions of John Porteous, Captain of the Guard, and when they hear that his death has been reprieved by the distant monarch they ignore the Queen and resolve to take their own revenge. At the cente of the story is Edinburgh's forbidding Tolbooth prison, known by all as the Heart of Midlothian.

The Barber of Seville * The Marriage of Figaro * The Guilty Mother Eighteenth-century France produced only one truly international theatre star, Beaumarchais, and only one name, Figaro, to put with Don Quixote or D'Artagnan in the ranks of popular myth. But who was Figaro? Not the impertinent valet of the operas of Mozart or Rossini, but both the spirit of resistance to oppression and a bourgeois individualist like his creator. The three plays in which he plots and schemes chronicle the slide of the ancien régime into revolution but also chart the growth of Beaumarchais' humanitarianism. They are also exuberant theatrical entertainments, masterpieces of skill, invention, and social satire which helped shape the direction of French theatre for a hundred years. This lively new translation catches all the zest and energy of the most famous valet in French literature.

«This wide-ranging, jargon-free dictionary contains over 2,000 entries on all aspects of statistics, including terms used in computing, mathematics, and probability. It also includes biographical information on over 200 key figures in the field and coverage of statistical journals and societies. While embracing the whole multi-disciplinary spectrum of this complex subject, information is presented in a clear and practical manner. This revised and updated edition features recommended web links for many entries, accessible via the «Dictionary of Statistics» website, which provide valuable extra information. Entries are generously illustrated with useful figures and diagrams, and include worked examples where applicable. Appendices include a historical calendar of important statistical events, lists of statistical and mathematical notation, and statistical tables. An invaluable dictionary for statistics students and professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including economics, politics, market research, medicine, psychology, pharmaceuticals, and mathematics. Also provides a clear introduction to the subject for the general reader.»

«In these tales Gogol guides us through the elegant streets of St Petersburg, the city erected by force and ingenuity on the marshes of the Neva estuary. Something of the deception and violence of the city's creation seems to lurk beneath its harmonious facade, however, and it confounds its inhabitants with false dreams and absurd visions — `nothing is what it seems!' warns Gogol. St Petersburg is also the setting for «Marriage», Gogol's satire on courtship and cowardice. Finally, for «The Government Inspector», indisputably Russia's greatest comedy, we move to the provinces although even here St Petersburg's preoccupation with status and appearances makes its presence felt.»

The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commerical upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. Soames Forsyte is the brilliantly portrayed central figure, a Victorian who outlives the age, and whose baffled passion for his beautiful but unresponsive wife Irene reverberates throughout the saga. Written with both compassion and ironic detachment, Galsworthy's masterly narrative examines not only the family's fortunes but also the wider developments within society, particularly the changing position of women in an intensely competitive male world. Above all, Galsworthy is concerned with the conflict at the heart of English culture between the soulless materialism of wealth Top page and property and the humane instincts of love, beauty, and art.

''The ordinary laws of Nature are suspended. The various checks with influence the struggle for existence in the world at large are all neutralized or altered. Creatures survive which would otherwise disappear.'' Headed by the larger than life figure of Professor Challenger, a scientific expedition sets out to explore a plateau in South America that remains frozen in time from the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Seemingly impossible to penetrate, this lost word holds great danger for the four men, whether from fiendish ape-men or terrifying prehistoric creatures. Arthur Conan Doyle's Top page classic tale of adventure and discovery still excites the reader today, just as dinosaurs continue to grip the popular imagination.

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The 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 — Extensive introduction gives full attention to the play's bold treatment of racial themes, gender, and social relations — Detailed performance history designed to meet the needs of theatre professionals — On-page commentary and notes explain language, word-play, and staging — Appendices on music in the play and a full translation of the Italian novella from which the story derives — 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 Top page achievement of twentieth-century scholarship.'

A schoolteacher in a provincial town falls in love with and marries a young local woman. He thinks he's found a bliss only described in novels. But before long, his sharp points of bliss become blurred. The loss of ideals and poverty of actual experience are the themes of these stories. Chekhov's Russians, at the close of the 19th century are trapped in a prison of frustration, which he depicts with laconic power.

Since 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 detective fiction. Yet, as well as being highly enjoyable, Poe's tales are works of very real intellectual exploration. Abandoning the criteria of characterization and plotting in favour of blurred boundaries between self and other, will and morality, identity and memory, Poe uses the Gothic to question the integrity of human existence. Indeed, Poe is less interested in solving puzzles or in moral retribution than in exposing the misconceptions that make things seem 'mysterious' in the first place. Attentive to the historical and political dimensions of these very American tales, this new critical edition selects twenty-four tales and places the most popular — 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Masque of the Red Death', 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue; and 'The Purloined Letter' — alongside less well-known Top page travel narratives, metaphysical essays and political satires.

Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for others and for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete with self-centred fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, whilst Marianne's unswerving belief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerously susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men. Through her heroines' parallel experiences of love, loss, and hope, Jane Austen offers a powerful analysis of the ways in which women's lives were shaped by the claustrophobic society in which they had to Top page survive.

The profoundest book there is, born from the innermost richness of truth, an inexhaustible well into which no bucket descends without coming up with gold and goodness.''Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885) was Nietzsche's own favourite among all his books and has proved to be his most popular, having sold millions of copies in many different languages. In it he addresses the problem of how to live a fulfilling life in a world without meaning, in the aftermath of 'the death of God'. Nietzsche's solution lies in the idea of eternal recurrence which he calls 'the highest formula of affirmation that can ever be attained''. A successful engagement with this profoundly Dionysian idea enables us to choose clearly among the myriad possibilities that existence offers, and thereby to affirm every moment of our lives with others on this 'sacred' earth. This translation of Zarathustra (the first new English version for over forty years) conveys the musicality of the original German, and for the first time annotates the abundance of allusions to the Top page Bible and other classic texts with which Nietzsche's masterpiece is in conversation.

This adventure story tells of three men and their guide Umslopogaas who trek into the remote interior of Africa in search of a lost white race. Through unknown territories their perilous journey takes them to Zu-vendis, a kingdom ruled by the beautiful twin sisters, Nyleptha and Sorais.

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the works for modern readers — a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings — on-page and facing-page commentary and notes explain language and allusions — detailed introductions consider the sonnets' biographical and literary background, how the poems relate to the plays, dating and textual matters, and the mysteries of 'Mr W. H.' and the 'Dark Lady' — includes poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth century — full index to introductions 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.'

When 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 of modern 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, but it 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 original drawings by Dan Beard, of whom Twain said 'he not only illustrates the text but he illustrates my thoughts'.