Key

Features: * Study methods * Introduction to the text * Summaries with critical notes * Themes & techniques

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William Blake was an engraver painter & visionary mystic as well as one of the most revolutionary of the Romantic poets. His writing attracted the astonished admiration of authors as diverse as Wordsworth Ruskin W.B. Yeats & more recently beat poet Allen Ginsberg & the flower power generation. He is one of Englands most original artists whose works aim to liberate imaginative energies & subvert the mind-forged manacles of restriction. This volume contains many of his writings including: Songs of Innocence Songs of Experience The Marriage of Heaven & Hell & a generous selection from the Prophetic Books including Milton & Jerusalem. ...

Living in a revolutionary age Coleridges poetry was written in a spirit of moral & emotional inquiry into the absolutes of the human condition. He is best known for his visionary poetry (Kubla Khan) & his ballads (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) but he used & transformed a variety of verse forms from the sonnet to the conversation poem on subjects as diverse as nature love & politics. This selection calls attention to the range of Coleridges work its strong autobiographical content & its artistic development throughout his career. The old chronological form has been abandoned & the poems are organised according to genre with each section displaying its own individual development in craft & theme. ...

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is regarded as the most important poet of the early eighteenth century. An invalid from infancy Pope devoted his energies towards literature & achieved remarkable success with his first published work at the age of 21. A succession of brilliant poems followed including An Essay on Criticism (1711) Windsor Forest (1713) & his masterpiece The Rape of the Lock (1712). A second period of great poetry was begun in 1728 with the appearance of the first Dunciad. All these works which exhibit Popes astonishing human insight his wide sympathies & powers of social observation (displayed to greatest effect in his talent for satire) feature in this selection. In his introduction
- an eloquent defence of Popes poetic practice
- Pat Rogers argues that we must abandon our Romantic conception of poetry as a record of fleeting & subjective states if we are to understand Pope fully. Instead we must see him as an accomplished practitioner of the poetry of ideas & of satirical reflection on human society. This collection is chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition of Popes major works. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study & much more.

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The First World War was one of seemingly endless & unremitting waste & sacrifice. Who will remember passing through this Gate The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? was Siegfried Sassoons anguished cry for those whose sacrifice seemed futile. Yet eighty years later it is because of Sassoon & his fellow poets
- Owen Rosenberg Sorley & many others
- that we do remember. This new anthology will serve as an introduction to the poetry of that great conflict & the inclusion of a number of rarely anthologised poets many from the ranks as well as anonymous poems & songs serves to bring a quality of freshness to the selection.

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'I was jealous of her writing. The only writing I have ever been jealous of.' Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf was not the only writer to admire Mansfield's work: Thomas Hardy D. H. Lawrence & Elizabeth Bowen all praised her stories & her early death at the age of thirty-four cut short one of the finest short-story writers in the English language. This selection covers the full range of Mansfield's fiction from her early satirical stories to the subtly nuanced comedy of ' The Daughters of the Late Colonel' & the macabre & ominous 'A Married Man's Story'. The stories that pay what Mansfield calls 'a debt of love' to New Zealand are as sharply etched as the European stories & she recreates her childhood world with mordant insight. Disruption is a constant theme whether the tone is comic tragic nostalgic or domestic echoing Mansfield's disrupted life & the fractured expressions of Modernism. This new edition increases the selection from 27 to 33 stories & prints them in the order in which they first appeared in the definitive texts established by Anthony Alpers. 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 of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study & much more. ...

Collecting the most incisive & influential writings of one of Romes finest orators Ciceros Selected Works" is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant in " Penguin Classics". Lawyer philosopher statesman & defender of Romes Republic Cicero was a master of eloquence & his pure literary & oratorical style & strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature & thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics philosophy & faith. This selection demonstrates the diversity of his writings &

Includes:: letters to friends & statesmen on Roman life & politics; the vitriolic Second Philippic Against Antony; & his two most famous philosophical treatises " On Duties" & " On Old Age"
- a celebration of his own declining years. Written at a time of brutal political & social change Ciceros lucid ethical writings formed the foundation of the Western liberal tradition in political & moral thought that continues to this day. This translation by Michael Grant conveys the elegance of Ciceros writings. His introduction describes their social & political background while maps genealogical charts timelines & a glossary place the works in context. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator & statesman was born at Arpinium to a wealthy local family. Having been educated in Rome by 70 BC he had established himself as a leading barrister & was beginning a successful political career. Cicero received honours usually reserved only for the Roman aristocracy & was one of the greatest Roman orators. If you enjoyed " Selected Works" you might like Suetonius " The Twelve Caesars" also available in " Penguin Classics"."


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Lord Jim first published in 1900 confirmed Conrads place in literature as one of the first modernists of English letters. Set in the Malay Archipelago not only does the novel provide a gripping account of maritime adventure & romance but also an exotic tale of the East. Nostromo is the only man capable of the decisive action needed to save the silver of the San Tome mine & secure independence for Sulaco Occidental Province of the Latin American state of Costaguana. Is his integrity as unassailable as everyone believes or will his ideals like those which have inspired the struggling state itself buckle under economic & political pressure? The Secret Agent Conrads story of espionage & anarchists tells of Winnie Verloc & her devotion to her peculiar & simple-minded brother Stevie. Its savagely witty themes of human absurdity & misunderstanding are written in an ironic style that provokes both laughter & unease. This volume also

Includes:: a selection of Conrads matchless short stories
- Youth Typhoon Heart of Darkness The End of the Tether & The Shadow-Line.


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Thirty-five beautiful girls. Thirty-five beautiful rivals... It's the chance of a lifetime & 17-year-old America Singer should feel lucky. She has been chosen for The Selection a reality TV lottery in which the special few compete for gorgeous Prince Maxon's love. Swept up in a world of elaborate gowns glittering jewels & decadent feasts America is living a new & glamorous life. & the prince takes a special interest in her much to the outrage of the others. Rivalry within The Selection is fierce & not all of the girls are prepared to play by the rules. But what they don't know is that America has a secret
- one which could throw the whole competition...and change her life forever.
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This remarkable poem dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I was Spenser's finest achievement: the first epic poem in modern English The Faerie Queene" combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite & picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth & Error..." ...