Quirky Classics - Alma Classics

Written for the poet John Addington Symonds’s young daughter Janet while she was ill and confined to her bed, ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ sees the two enamoured animals sail away in a boat “for a year

“There was an Old Derry down Derry,Who loved to see little folks merry;So he made them a Book,And with laughter they shookAt the fun of that Derry down Derry.”First published in 1846 under the pseudon

In response to the dire economic conditions in eighteenth-century Ireland, A Modest Proposal ironically exhorts the poor to provide their offspring as food to the rich. Skilfully applying a wealth of

Inside these covers you will find a collection of licentious limericks which have been handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, some of them for over a hundred years. Until quite re

"A glorious exercise in cheeky punmanship, The Wonderful Wonder of Wonders sees Jonathan Swift in fine scatological form. Flying by the seat of his pants, the great author treats us to a condensed bio

"In the library of a country house in Nottinghamshire, Vivian is writing an article about the importance of lying, when he is interrupted by Cyril, who tries to tempt him away, but instead is drawn in

"Never published in its author’s lifetime and intended solely for his own children, to whom he read it every Christmas, The Life of Our Lord is an accessible and gently humorous take on the life of Je

"Inspired by Boileau’s Lutrin and illustrating the debate within European intellectual circles between the “Ancients”, who argued that all essential knowledge was to be found in classical texts, and t

"What is the nature, essence and definition of a fart? What are the consequences and disadvantages of suppressing one? Why is farting considered to be taboo? Swift’s The Benefit of Farting argues eloq

A spoof encyclopedia of contemporary accepted wisdom and commonplaces, the Dictionary of Received Ideas sees Flaubert at his witty and satirical best. Perhaps intended as a companion to his final, unf

In this dispassionate analysis of the act of murder, De Quincey's innovative, idio­syncratic artistic vision found space for gruesome reportage, satire, aesthetic and literary criticism, in a work str

The civil servant Ivan Matveich and his wife Yelena Ivanovna are spectators of an exhibition - in a shopping arcade - of a crocodile owned by a German, when Ivan is suddenly swallowed alive by the animal. Unsuccessful in his attempts to be freed from his prison, due to the German's concern for his crocodile and excessive desire for compensation, the civil servant gradually comes to appreciate his new environment, while his wife begins to enjoy her new-found freedom. Inspired by Gogol's surreal tales, Dostoevsky's hilarious story has been interpreted by some as a vitriolic piece of social criticism and a veiled attack on the revolutionary philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky.