Godwin’s Mandeville, published in 1817, was described as his best novel by Shelley, who sent a copy to Byron, and it was recognized by its admirers as a work of unique psychological power. As Shelley
Arguably no medieval English literary work has had as far and wide a reach as Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur; among the many adaptations are Tennyson's Idylls of the King, T.H. White's The Once
Regarded by Bernard Shaw as a master of the theatre, Dion Boucicault was arguably the most important figure in drama in North America and in Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century. H
The Siege of Jerusalem (c. 1370-90 CE) is a difficult text. By twenty-first-century standards, it is gruesomely violent and offensive. It tells the story of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple
Hamel, the Obeah Man is set against the backdrop of early nineteenth-century Jamaica, and tells the story of a slave rebellion planned in the ruins of a plantation. Though the novel is sympathetic to
"Henry Fielding called Amelia his `favourite Child.'but the readers who loved Tom Jones, on the lookout for more jokes from this author, found the child unfunny and refused to take her in. Linda Bree'
This is a student edition with full Glossary of Old English poems, from manuscripts dated between A.D. 975 and 1060, which are based on liturgical materials used in the Anglo-Saxon Church. Each poem i
The Secret Agent is set in the seedy world of Adolf Verloc, a storekeeper and double agent in late-Victorian London who pretends to sympathize with a group of international anarchists but reports on t
After its publication in early 1791, A Simple Story was widely read in England and abroad, going into a second edition in March of the same year. The novel's young heroine, Miss Milner, scandalously d
The Way We Live Now—regarded by many as Anthony Trollope's greatest novel—encompasses in its broad scope much of the business, political, social, and literary life of 1870s London. At its centre is th
The most exotic of George Eliot's works, Romola recounts the story of the famous religious leader Savonarola in Florence at the time of Machiavelli and the Medicis. Of all her novels, this was the aut
Published here for the first time in a modern edition, Charlotte Smith's third novel is both rivetingly plotted and unique for its time in its powerful depiction of a gifted Romantic woman poet. The n
George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72) is one of the classic novels of English literature and was admired by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." The complex ma
The Infernal Quixote (1801) is a comic romp in which Charles Lucas engages directly with the most pressing political issues of his day and establishes himself as one of the most forthright of all the
Juliet Appleton is an officer's daughter who is forced to make her own way in the world after her father's death. Having been trained in typewriting and shorthand, she obtains employment at a law offi
Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888) is one of the most influential utopian novels in English. The narrative follows Julian West, who goes to sleep in Boston in 1887 and wakes in the ye
Marcella, young and with a new-womanly independence, has a yearning to help the poor. When a gamekeeper is murdered near where she lives, Marcella finds herself at odds with her wealthy fiancAc over b
Mary Hays was an outspoken Radical intellectual in the turbulent decade of the 1790's. She argued vehemently for the need to recognise the moral and rational qualities of women, the necessity of a be
Aurora Floyd is one of the leading novels in the genre known as ‘sensation fiction’—a tradition in which the key texts include Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, Ellen Wood’s East Lynne, and Dickens
In 1906, two years after the appearance of her best-known novel, The Imperialist, Duncan published its darker twin, an Anglo-Indian novel which returns to political themes but with a deeper and more c
John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure has been described as the first erotic novel in English and is perhaps the greatest example of the genre. From the outset it was mired in disrepute. Clela
For the third edition of this volume a number of changes have been made. Author entries for James Macpherson and Thomas Moore have been added to the bound book, as have additional poems by Anna Laetit
This group of fifteen brief narratives connected by a place and a time, the city of Dublin at the beginning of the twentieth century, was written when James Joyce was a precocious young graduate of Un
In January of 1649, after years of civil war, King Charles I stood trial in a specially convened English court on charges of treason, murder, and other high crimes against his people. Not only did the
The story of a young soldier, Henry Fleming, who flees a Civil War battle, The Red Badge of Courage has been celebrated for its depiction of both the physical action of battle and the protagonist’s in
The first edition of The Morality of War was one of the most widely-read and successful books ever written on the topic. In this second edition, Brian Orend builds on the substantial strengths of the
The Return of the Native was a radical departure for Thomas Hardy, ushering in his tragic literary vision of the world. Though set in a small space (Egdon Heath in the fictional county of Wessex) and
While The Sun Is Above Us takes readers deep into the extraordinary world of Sudan through the intertwined narratives of two women. In the midst of a bloody civil war, Adut is brutally captured and he
Feldman (English, U. of South Carolina) offers a facsimile edition of the 1829 issue of the British literary annual The Keepsake, which ran from 1827 to 1856 and played a major role in 19th-century Br
This 1856 novel, one of the most beloved of the Victorian period, follows the life, from childhood to death, of an orphaned boy who grows to become a wealthy and powerful leader in his community. The
Jane Austen's Emma (1816) tells the story of the coming of age of Emma Woodhouse, "handsome, clever, and rich," who "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex
The Monk is the most sensational of Gothic novels. The main plot concerns Ambrosio, an abbot of irreproachable holiness, who is seduced by a woman (or perhaps a demon) disguised as a novice, and who g
In a book that is a blend of text and readings, Martin P. Golding explores legal reasoning from a variety of angles-including that of judicial psychology. The primary focus, however, is on the a??logi
In 1750 at the age of twenty-seven Sarah Scott published her first novel, a conventional romance. A year later she left her husband after only a few months of marriage and devoted herself thereafter t
Of her twenty-five novels and novellas, Ethan Frome is the one of which Edith Wharton was most proud. In the novel, young Ethan Frome marries Zeena Pierce, who is seven years his senior, after she nur
When the Anti-Jacobin Review described Memoirs of Modern Philosophers in 1800 as "the first novel of the day" and as proof that "all the female writers of the day are not corrupted by the voluptuous d
First published in 1613, The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is probably the first play in English known to have been authored by a woman, and it has become increasingly popular in the stud
The late Alice Kane was born in Ireland in 1908. Moving with her parents to Canada in 1921, she was educated in New Brunswick and at McGill University in Montreal before beginning a career with the To
Claudia, single mom of two, pines for her past independent life. Her ex, after all, has moved on to a new wardrobe, new hobbies and—worst of all—new adult friends. But in Claudia's house she's still f
"Because Utilitarianism is a work of enduring value, it is easy to forget that Mill meant for it to be a topical and relevant contribution to the moral debates of his time. In this edition of Mill's e
