The only available English edition of Fried's poetry—one of the most acclaimed and popular 20th-century German language poets Fried's writing holds some of the most tender lines of poetry in any lang
Turgenev's first novel is a subtle examination of human weakness which foreshadows many of the themes in the author's later work Dmitry Rudin, a high-minded gentleman of reduced means, arrives at the
Alexander Pope was, at one time, the world's most celebrated poet. His trenchant satirical works – in which the foibles of all the critics, hacks and bad poets of his day are exploded – and his master
These five stories were collected and published as Tales of Unrest in 1898, shortly before Heart of Darkness, the first of Conrad's major novels. Ranging from the faraway and unfamiliar, where the acq
“Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown.”Rich in allegory and symbolism, and suffused with darkness and tragedy, satire and touching humour, these tales,
“Though absent long,These forms of beauty have not been to me,As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the dinOf towns in cities, I have owed to them,In hours of wearin
During a conversation about literary forgeries, Erskine tells his young guest that he has received – as a legacy from a friend, the Cambridge scholar Cyril Graham –what is purported to be an Elizabeth
When her wealthy family prepares to host a lavish summer party, the young, hitherto sheltered Laura Sheridan suddenly feels a kinship with the staff and the helpers hired to set up the venue for the f
'Tobermory' – the title story of this collection – is widely considered one of Saki's finest pieces, in which a short-sighted dinner-party guest introduces a talking cat to the diners, inadvertently r
The founding father of modern Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin has exerted – through his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, his plays, his short stories and his narrative poetry – a long-lasting influ
This volume, first published in 1856, collects three of Melville's most important pieces of prose fiction. In 'Bartleby, the Scrivener', a Wall Street lawyer hires a melancholy young clerk called Bart
When Lord Petre had the effrontery of cutting off a lock of Lady Arabella Fermor's hair, a veritable war erupted between the two noble families. A mutual friend, saddened by their estrangement, asked
Candide is an innocent young nobleman who leads an idyllic, sheltered life and has adopted the optimistic mindset promoted by his tutor Dr Pangloss. But after committing an indiscretion and being expe
The Devil's Elixirs is a macabre masterpiece of German literature, and is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Romantic movement, or the genres of fantasy and horror which it spawned
Comprising one finished novel, Lady Susan, which was published posthumously, and two unfinished fragments, Sanditon and The Watsons, this collection – full of melodrama and burlesque, and exploring a
When the orphaned William refuses his uncles' proposal to become a clergyman and angrily leaves his job in the counting-house of his brother's mill, he decides to accept a position as an English teach
In order to repay a small debt, the young student Mitya is persuaded by a friend to falsify a bank bond and cash it in. Little does he suspect that this small misdemeanour will have a profound impact
This selection of plays by Luigi Pirandello contains some of his best-known works, such as Six Characters in Search of an Author – an absurdist piece in which the characters, actors and Pirandello him
Mark Twain’s gloriously funny Diary of Adam and Eve, which John Updike described as a paradigm of the relations between sexes, is presented here with a number of other Twain pieces on our two oldest a
