In 1666 London&s citizens woke to see the skyline above their city&s cramped wooden houses ablaze The Great Fire of London is a hauntingly beautiful visual re-telling of one of the most well-known disasters in the city&s history To commemorate the 350th anniversary of the fire powerful & sumptuous drawings from the new east London illustrator James Weston Lewis bring the events of November 1666 to life in this stunning gift book Lewis&s drawings take readers on a journey from the single smouldering coal that falls out of the baker&s oven to the swirling clouds of ash that engulf the city & then in to the very heart of the fire itself As the pages turn you can witness London burning to the ground & then rebuilding again Children will love examining the rich detail of each spread from the detailed city map to the drawings of London before during & after the fire took hold This book takes the dramatic historical information surrounding the Great Fire of London & transforms it into a breathtaking story that will transfix readers of all ages ...

' With one's face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops'A selection from Pepys' startlingly vivid & candid diary including his famous account of the Great Fire Introducing Little Black Classics 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range & diversity of Penguin Classics with books from around the world & across many centuries They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California & the Russian steppe Here are stories lyrical & savage; poems epic & intimate; essays satirical & inspirational; & ideas that have shaped the lives of millions Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) The Diary of Samuel Pepys A Selection is available in Penguin Classics ...

For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth Victorian Britain & Tsarist Russia fought a secret war in the lonely passes & deserts of Central Asia Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it ' The Great Game' a phrase immortalized by Kipling When play first began the two rival empires lay nearly 2000 miles apart By the end some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India This classic book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers both British & Russian who risked their lives playing it Disguised as holy men or native horse-traders they mapped secret passes gathered intelligence & sought the allegiance of powerful khans Some never returned The violent repercussions of the Great Game are still convulsing Central Asia today ...

The Great Gardens of Cornwall represents the very best of the huge number of estates & gardens open to the public in Cornwall Their diversity is astonishing from the castle setting of Caerhays with its long traditions of magnolia & camellia propagation dating back to the days of the Victorian plant hunters to the cutting-edge modernism of contemporary garden sculpture at Tremenheere Also in the group are the extraordinary Abbey Garden on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly; the Mediterranean jewel of Lamorran House Gardens & the historic Tregothnan as well as family favourites including The Eden Project Trebah The Lost Gardens of Heligan & the gardens of the National Trust This book celebrates twenty-five years of The Great Gardens of Cornwall nineteen excellent Cornish gardens their owners & head gardeners who over the years have loved & tended them & made them today's great gardens ...

The Great American Novel of love & betrayal in the Jazz Age is now a major film I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited Peoplewere not invited
- they went there' Jay Gatsby's opulent Long Island mansion throngs with the bright young things of the Roaring Twenties But Gatsby himself young handsome & mysteriously rich never appearsto his guests He stands apart from the crowd yearning for something just out of reach
- Daisy Buchanan lost years before to another man One fateful summer when the pair finally reunite their actions set in motion a series of events that will unravel their lives bringing tragedy to all who surround them Widely considered F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby is a tale of excess & obsession & a work of classictwentieth-century American literature

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Now the subject of a major new film from director Baz Luhrmann (Romeo Juliet Moulin Rouge!) starring Leonardo Di Caprio & Carey Mulligan The Great Gatsby is F Scott Fitzgerald's brilliant fable of the hedonistic excess & tragic reality of 1920s America This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction & notes by Tony Tanner Young handsome & fabulously rich Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion where the party never seems to end he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby's origins & desires Beneath the shimmering surface of his life Gatsby is hiding a secret a silent longing that can never be fulfilled & soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusionment of post-war America & the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth & status But he does more than render the essence of a particular time & place for
- in chronicling Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream
- Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion & reality Like Jay Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history & his masterwork The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the 'great American novel' In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre dubbed 'the first American Flapper' & their traumatic marriage & Zelda's gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing As well as many short stories Fitzgerald wrote five novels This Side of Paradise The Great Gatsby The Beautiful & the Damned Tender is the Night & incomplete at the time of his death The Last Tycoon After his death The New York Times said of him that 'in fact & in the literary sense he created a generation ''A classic perhaps the supreme American novel' John Carey Sunday Times Books of the Century

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These sumptuous new hardback editions mark the 70th anniversary of Fitzgerald's death Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties Day & night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking dancing & debating his mysterious character For Gatsby
- young handsome fabulously rich
- always seems alone in the crowd watching & waiting though no one knows what for Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret a silent longing for the one thing that will always be out of his reach & soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel

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Invited to an extravagantly lavish party in a Long Island mansion Nick Carraway a young bachelor who has just settled in the neighbouring cottage is intrigued by the mysterious host Jay Gatsby a flamboyant but reserved self-made man with murky business interests & a shadowy past As the two men strike up an unlikely friendship details of Gatsby's impossible love for a married woman emerge until events spiral into tragedy ...

Invited to an extravagantly lavish party in a Long Island mansion Nick Carraway a young bachelor who has just settled in the neighbouring cottage is intrigued by the mysterious host Jay Gatsby a flamboyant but reserved self-made man with murky business interests & a shadowy past As the two men strike up an unlikely friendship details of Gatsby's impossible love for a married woman emerge until events spiral into tragedy Regarded as Fitzgerald's masterpiece & one of the greatest novels of American literature The Great Gatsby is a vivid chronicle of the excesses & decadence of the Jazz Age as well as a timeless cautionary critique of the American dream ...

The Great Gatsby is a dazzling social satire F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece & a milestone in twentieth-century literature now beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range' There was music from my neighbour's house through the summer nights In his blue gardens men & girls came & went like moths among the whisperings & the champagne & the stars' Everybody who is anybody is seen at the glittering parties held in millionaire Jay Gatsby's mansion in West Egg east of New York The riotous throng congregates in his sumptuous garden coolly debating Gatsby's origins & mysterious past None of the frivolous socialites understands him & among various rumours is the conviction that 'he killed a man' A detached onlooker Gatsby is oblivious to the speculation he creates but always seems to be watching & waiting though no one knows what for As the tragic story unfolds Gatsby's destructive dreams & passions are revealed leading to disturbing consequences A brilliant evocation of 1920s high society The Great Gatsby peels away the layers of this glamorous world to display the coldness & cruelty at its heart' Not only a page-turner & a heartbreaker it's one of the most quintessentially American novels ever written' Time' He (F Scott Fitzgerald) was better than he knew for in fact & in the literary sense he invented a generation' New York Times' The most perfectly crafted work of fiction to have come out of America' Professor Tony Tanner' The American masterwork the finest work of fiction by any of this country's writers' Washington Post ...