Penguin classics

This long-awaited new edition of Lattimore's Iliad is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first century—while leaving the poem as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever. Lattimore's elegant, fluent verses—with their memorably phrased heroic epithets and remarkable fidelity to the Greek—remain unchanged, but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life, warfare, society, and poetry, while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms, information about the Greek gods and heroes, and literary appreciation. A glossary and maps round out the book. The result is a volume that actively invites readers into Homer's poem, helping them to understand fully the worlds in which he and his heroes lived—and thus enabling them to marvel, as so many have for centuries, at Hektor and Ajax, Paris and Helen, and the devastating rage of Achilleus.

"Explores life on the Makuyu and Kameno ridges of Kenya in the early days of white settlement. Faced with an alluring new religion and 'magical' customs, the Gikuyu people are torn between those who fear the unknown and those who see beyond it. Some follow Joshua and his fiery brand of Christianity. Others proudly pursue tribal independence. In the midst of this disunity stands Waiyaki, a dedicated visionary born to a line of prophets. He struggles to educate the tribe--a task he sees as the only unifying link between the two factions--but his plans for the future raise issue which will determine both his and the Gikuyu's survival" -- back cover.

This story is set in the mid-fourth century B.C., in the city-state of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. It's the story of two father-and-son tyrant rulers who called themselves kings, both named Dionysius (pronounced Die-oh-nee-see-us). But the main character is Dion (pronounced Dion as in Lion), who was a relative, mentor, and finally mortal enemy to the second Dionysius. It has been pointed out that Dion and his siblings Megacles and Aristomache, as the children of Hipparinus, a wealthy and powerful man, had a social status that the upstart Dionysius I lacked, which suggests that envy might have been partially to blame for the increasing conflict between the families. However, Dionysius was clever enough to make use of Dion's good connections in his dealings with other rulers, where he himself, perhaps, might not have been shown as much respect.

Theron Ware is a promising young Methodist pastor recently assigned to a congregation is small town in the Adirondack Mountains. His education has been limited and his experiences limited to church society and his strict enforcement of its norms. Theron has a number of experiences that cause him to begin to question the Methodist religion, his role as a minister and the existence of God. His "illumination" consists of his awakening to new intellectual and artistic experiences embodied by several of his new acquaintances including the town's Catholic priest who introduces him to the latest Biblical scholarship; a local man of science, who eschews religion and advocates for Darwin; and a local Irish Catholic girl with musical talent and artistic pretensions, with whom Theron becomes infatuated.

Eliot's touching novel of a miser and a little child combines the charm of a fairy tale with the humor and pathos of realistic fiction. The gentle linen weaver, Silas Marner, exiles himself to the town of Raveloe after being falsely accused of a heinous theft. There he begins to find redemption and spiritual rebirth through his unselfish love for an abandoned child he discovers in his isolated cottage.

"Rachel Ray is an 1863 novel by Anthony Trollope. It recounts the story of a young woman who is forced to give up her fiancé because of baseless suspicions directed toward him by the members of her community, including her sister and the pastors of the two churches attended by her sister and mother" --

Londoner Bert Smallways accidentally becomes involved in a German plot to invade America by air, launching an era of total warfare in which the great 20th century civilizations are bomarded into rubble.

Reprinted with updated Further Reading

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

7 Stories: [Bartleby, the Scrivener]( The piazza -- The Encantadas -- The Bell-tower -- Benito Cereno -- The paradise of bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids -- [Billy Budd](

The passing thoughts Goethe jotted down during his long, varied, and hectic life -- thankfully preserved on theater programs, visiting cards, draft manuscripts, and bills -- show him to be the last true "Renaissance man" of Europe. Although employed as a privy councillor at the Duke of Weimar's court, he also painted; directed plays; carried out research in the classics, anatomy, botany, and optics; and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His 1,413 maxims and reflections reveal not only some of his deepest thoughts on art, ethics, literature, and natural science but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters, and his administrative work. With freshness and immediacy, Maxims and Reflections vividly conjures up Goethe the man and the genius.

The moral stories of Rabelais (c.1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour, while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world. Gargantua depicts a young giant, reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones, and syphilitic professors, who is rescued and turned into a cultured Christian knight. And in Pantagruel and its three sequels, Rabelais parodied tall tales of chivalry and satirized the law, theology, and academia to portray the bookish son of Gargantua who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided in his wisdom, and his idiotic, self-loving companion Panurge.

For the first time in English,all of Jorge Luis Borges's fictions collected in a single volume.

Gerald of Wales was among the most dynamic and fascinating churchmen of the twelfth century. A member of one of the leading Norman families involved in the invasion of Ireland, he first visited there in 1183 and later returned in the entourage of Henry II. The resulting Topographia Hiberniae is an extraordinary account of his travels. Here he describes landscapes, fish, birds and animals; recounts the history of Ireland's rulers; and tells fantastical stories of magic wells and deadly whirlpools, strange creatures and evil spirits. Written from the point of view of an invader and reformer, this work has been rightly criticized for its portrait of a primitive land, yet it is also one of the most important sources for what is known of Ireland during the Middle Ages.

Rich in drama and humour, these dialogues provide the definitive portrait of Socrates and his times.

Narrated by a young Native American living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana, Winter in the Blood is the unforgettable story of a man living out the tragedy of his people. Intelligent sensitive, and self destructive he is haunted by the untimely deaths of his father and older brother and the shards of his once proud heritage. He sleepwalks through his days working on his stepfather's cattle ranch and consoles himself with alcohol and women. An ironic epiphany provides a tie to the vast land of his ancestors and an alternative to despair.

This selection traces the development of the medieval Latin lyric from its source in the first century A.D. to its full flowering in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The wandering scholars, or vagantes, who flourished in the later Middle Ages, left behind them a splendid harvest of poetry, including the most famous anthology of medieval lyric, the "Carmina Burana". These poems of love and wine, of life and death, were written not to be read, but to be sung; in her translation, which is set alongside the Latin, Helen Waddell succeeds in capturing the rhythmic vitality and youthful flavour of the original.

A major new bilingual edition of the Peruvian poet's workCesar Vallejo is one of the best-known Latin American poets of the twentieth century. Challenging, intense, and difficult to translate, Vallejo's work has often been overshadowed by his fervent endorsement of communism. Noted scholar Ilan Stavans tackles the avant-garde poet's politics head-on in an enlightening new introduction that places Vallejo in his proper literary context, while Margaret Sayers Peden's new translation does full justice to Vallejo's complex literary style. Including Spanish and English versions of more than eighty poems that span the arc of his career, this volume is certain to become the leading collection of Vallejo's work for years to come.

Contains the complete text of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" and "Lady Windermere's Fan."

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a Unitarian minister, was a fervent member of New England's abolitionist movement, an active participant in the Underground Railroad, and part of a group that supplied material aid to John Brown before his ill-fated raid on Harpers Ferry. When the Civil War broke out, Higginson was commissioned as a colonel of the black troops training in the Sea Islands off the coast of the Carolinas. Shaped by American Romanticism and imbued with Higginson's interest in both man and nature, Army Life in a Black Regiment ranges from detailed reports on daily life to a vivid description of the author's near escape from cannon fire, to sketches that conjure up the beauty and mystery of the Sea Islands.

In 1870s Berlin, an aristocratic officer in a glamorous cavalry regiment and a seamstress supporting herself and her invalid foster-mother with piecework, defy convention by falling in love. What might have been a simple tale of conflict between love and duty becomes, in Fontane's hands, something more sophisticated. The contrast between the lovers' whole-hearted view of each other and the world's trivializing view of their relationship underlies a tautly sprung narrative which is tenderly moving without being sentimental; gently ironic and full of social comedy. Fontane's brilliant use of dialogue creates a vigorous and loving portrait of the new German capital and its inhabitants. ""The immense pleasures of the novel lie in the author's cool-headed approach to what, in other hands, could have been a forgettable melodrama. . . . The book is filled with comparable moments of small facts transfigured into something magical.""-The New Yorker March 7, 2011 As much a psychological as a social realist, the author is interested in the emotional conflicts that arise between individual desire and social conditioning, class expectations and personality.

"This novel takes the life of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent as its subject matter and provides an insight into the effects of forced vocations"--Provided by publisher.

René Descartes was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. In his Discourse on method he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the extent to which each one can achieve certainty. Drawing on his own work in geometry, optics, astronomy, and physiology, Descartes developed the hypothetical method that characterizes modern science, and this soon came to replace the traditional techniques derived from Aristotle. Many of Descartes' most radical ideas--such as the disparity between our perceptions and the realities that cause them--have been highly influential in the development of modern philosophy.

"With his wit, eloquence and shrewd perception of contemporary morals, Samuel Johnson was the most versatile of Augustan writers. His dictionary, dramas and poetry established his reputation, but it was the essays published in The Rambler, The Adventurer and The Idler that demonstrated the range of his talent. Tackling ethical questions such as the importance of self-knowledge, awareness of mortality, the role of the novel, and, in a lighter vein, marriage, sleep and deceit, these brilliant and thought-provoking essays are a mirror of the time in which they were written and a testament to Johnson's stature as the leading man of letters of his age." "This new edition contains a broad selection of essays presenting both the forcefully argued moral pieces of Johnson's middle years and the more light-hearted essays of his later work. The introduction places the works in their historical and literary context, and there is also a chronology of Johnson's life and times."--Jacket.

The House of Ulloa is Emilia Pardo Bazan's masterpiece and the work that most accurately expresses the ideals of French Naturalism. The story is that of a rural aristocratic Galician family and its decline, a habitual scene in the historical context of the author.

In 1885, Elizabeth Jane Cochran -- pen name, Nellie Bly -- was hired as one of the first female journalists after writing a scathing rebuttal to a misogynist newspaper column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The newspaper's editor was so taken aback by Bly's incendiary prose that he posted an ad asking the article's author to come work for him. Within five years, Bly had become the first "girl stunt reporter," going undercover to write wildly popular stories that no one at the time thought a woman could or should write. She committed herself to the Lunatic Asylum at Blackwell's Island for ten days to expose the abysmal treatment of the patients and later traveled around the world alone in seventy-two days, breaking Jules Verne's fictional record by eight days. This volume is the only existing printed and edited collection of work by one of America's most famous journalists, an irresistible hero to girls, women, and adventurers everywhere. -- page 4 of cover.

"Along with The Discovery of America by the Turks, two masterworks by the greatest Brazilian novelist of the twentieth century, published for the centennial of his birth. Widely considered the greatest work by the foremost Brazilian author of the twentieth century, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray comes to Penguin Classics in a new translation by the dean of Portuguese-language translators, Gregory Rabassa. It tells the story of Joaquim Soares da Cunha, who drops dead after he abandons his life of upstanding citizenship to assume the identity of Quincas Water-Bray, a "champion drunk" and bum who is whisked along on a postmortem journey that climaxes in his loss at sea"--

" The only available English translation of writings by an Enlightenment-era Dutch aristocrat, writer, composer-and woman. Born Dutch, noble, and free-spirited, Isabelle de Charrière (also known as Belle de Zuylen) was an enlightened woman whose writings-not unlike Jane Austen's-tackled the intricacies of high society, particularly in matters of love. Published when she was only twenty- two, "The Nobleman" is a Persuasion-like tale whose heroine challenges her stodgy father in order to marry a man of unassuming ancestry. But Charrière did not confine herself to simple marriage plots and country courtships. Another story, "Eagonlette and Suggestina," is a thinly veiled critique of Marie Antoinette, cleverly disguised as a fairy tale. The nobleman and other romances will delight fans of Jane Austen and Enlightenment-era French literature. "--

Contains the three Greek tragedies Aeschylus's "Agamemnon," Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," and Euripides' "Medea," with extracts from "Frogs" by Aristophanes and selections from Aristotle's "Poetics," and includes a chronology and detailed notes on each work.

The Adventures of David Simple (1744), Sarah Fielding's first and most celebrated novel, went through several editions, the second of which was heavily revised by her brother Henry. This edition, the fourth in the series Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women, reproduces the original text of the novel for the first time since its initial publication and includes Henry's "corrections" in an appendix. In recounting the guileless hero's search for a true friend, the novel depicts the derision with which almost everyone treats his sentimental attitudes to human nature. Acclaimed as an accurate portrait of mid-eighteenth-century London, The Adventures of David Simple sets forth some provocative feminist ideas. Also included is Fielding's much darker sequel, Volume the Last (1753).

"The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes, Galli being the Latin equivalent of Celt. These tribes, along with many others, made up the confederation of tribes that was the Celtic nation, or the Celtic Tribe of Tribes. Rome's war against the Gallic tribes lasted from 58 BC to 50 BC and culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the Roman Republic over the whole of Gaul (mainly present day France and Belgium). The wars paved the way for Julius Caesar to become the sole ruler of the Roman Republic."--Wikipedia.

Dating from at least a millennium ago, this title features the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. It features monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune.

Originally published in 1897, this is Durkheim's pioneering attempt to offer a sociological explanation for a phenomenon regarded until then as exclusively psychological and individualistic.

A very different work from his well-known The Prince, and posthumously published a year prior to it, Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy is one of his most debated works. Some critics see it as presenting a counterpoint or refutation of The Prince, calling it a key founding document of modern liberal republicanism. Others maintain that it is complementary, arguing that leaders of republics must act in the manner Machiavelli prescribes in The Prince if they are to maintain their state’s freedom. In any case, it is a deep and complex work of political philosophy. Both complementary and critical of contemporary Italian Renaissance politics, culture, and religion, Discourses on Livy uses Roman history, as described in the first ten books of Livy’s Ab urbe condita, to explain Machiavelli’s views across a broad range of subjects. The 142 discourses discuss political violence, military strategy, political corruption and reform, conspiracy, public opinion, the role of religion in public life, and much more.

"In Freud's view we are driven by the desire for pleasure as well as by the desire to avoid pain. But the pursuit has never been a simple thing. Pleasure can be a form of fear, a form of memory and a way of avoiding reality. Above all, as these essays show with remarkable eloquence, pleasure is a way in which we repeat ourselves." "The essays collected in this volume explore, in Freud's uniquely subtle and accessible style, the puzzles of pleasure and morality - the enigmas of human development."--BOOK JACKET.

À rebours (French pronunciation: [a ʁ(ə).buʁ]; translated Against Nature or Against the Grain) is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences. À rebours contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea to portray a man "soaring upwards into dream, seeking refuge in illusions of extravagant fantasy, living alone, far from his century, among memories of more congenial times, of less base surroundings ... each chapter became the sublimate of a specialism, the refinement of a different art; it became condensed into an essence of jewellery, perfumes, religious and secular literature, of profane music and plain-chant." (Wikipedia)

" This captivating portrait of the greatest writer of the Colonialist age, as told by himself, is the last work he wrote. Shedding light on both his life and his work, this charming autobiographical sketch opens with an account of his miserable early childhood, his time at school, and his beginnings as a journalist in India, where he first started to write. He describes how he felt on being published ("Lord ha' mercy, this is none of I"), the writers he met, and the people he worked with. Most interestingly of all, Kipling recalls the books and incidents that inspired and shaped his many writings."--web.

A collection of twelve short stories by Honoré De Balzac.

"A monumental literary event: the newly discovered final novel by seminal Harlem Renaissance writer Claude McKay, a rich and multilayered portrayal of life in 1930s Harlem and a historical protest for black freedom The unexpected discovery in 2009 of a completed manuscript of Claude McKay's final novel was celebrated as one of the most significant literary events in recent years. Building on the already extraordinary legacy of McKay's life and work, this colorful, dramatic novel centers on the efforts by Harlem intelligentsia to organize support for the liberation of fascist-controlled Ethiopia, a crucial but largely forgotten event in American history. At once a penetrating satire of political machinations in Depression-era Harlem and a far-reaching story of global intrigue and romance, Amiable with Big Teeth plunges into the concerns, anxieties, hopes, and dreams of African-Americans at a moment of crisis for the soul of Harlem--and America. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators"--

"Chilling real-life accounts of witches, from medieval Europe through colonial America from a manual for witch hunters written by King James himself in 1597, to court documents from the Salem witch trials of 1692, to newspaper coverage of a woman stoned to death on the streets of Philadelphia while the Continental Congress met, The Penguin Book of Witches is a treasury of historical accounts of accused witches that sheds light on the reality behind the legends. Bringing to life stories like that of Eunice Cole, tried for attacking a teenage girl with a rock and buried with a stake through her heart; Jane Jacobs, a Bostonian so often accused of witchcraft that she took her tormentors to court on charges of slander; and Increase Mather, an exorcism-performing minister famed for his knowledge of witches, this volume provides a unique tour through the darkest history of English and North American witchcraft."--publisher.

"The Cambridge edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover (and A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover") newly establishes the text of D. H. Lawrence's most famous novel. It does so by peeling off thick layers of typists' corruptions and compositors' errors, which have seriously marred the novel for over sixty years. It is the first edition ever to restore to Lawrence's text the words he wrote, and the first to correct authoritatively the 1928 Florence edition which Lawrence personally supervised. The Cambridge text includes hundreds of new words, phrases and sentences - and thousands of changes in punctuation. In every detail the new text now projects the sound of Lawrence's voice, embodies the precision of his mature style and reveals the force of his rhetorical power. The introduction establishes for the first time an accurate history of composition, typing, printing, publication and reception; the notes freshly identify dozens of difficult allusions; and the appendix, a wholly original essay, explains how Lawrence imaginatively weaves real places and people into the fictional tapestry that he creates. For students and scholars alike, the Cambridge text is the only text of the novel that can be read or quoted with confidence."--BOOK JACKET.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; 'Lois the Witch', a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors. Whether darkly surreal, such as 'The Poor Clare', where an evil doppelganger is formed by a woman's bitter curse, or mischievous like 'Curious, if True', a playful reworking of fairy tales, all the stories in this volume form a stark contrast to the social realism of Gaskell's novels, revealing a darker and more unsettling style of writing.

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom is a novel by Tobias Smollett first published in 1753. It was Smollett's third novel... The central character is a villainous dandy who cheats, swindles and philanders his way across Europe and England with little concern for the law or the welfare of others. The son of an equally disreputable mother, Smollett himself comments that "Fathom justifies the proverb, 'What's bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh'." Sir Walter Scott commented that the novel paints a "complete picture of human depravity." --Wikipedia.com.

An allegorical poem by twelfth-century Sufi poet Farid Ud-Din Attar in which a gathering of birds embark upon a quest for Simurgh, the lord of creation.

Bruce Sterling, one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk genre, now presents a novel of vivid imagination and invention that proves his talent for creating brilliant speculative fiction is sharper than ever. Forty years from now, Earth's climate has been drastically changed by the greenhouse effect. Tornadoes of almost unimaginable force roam the open spaces of Texas. And on their trail are the Storm Troupers: a ragtag band of computer experts and atmospheric scientists who live to hack heavy weather -- to document it and spread the information as far as the digital networks will stretch, using virtual reality to explore the eye of the storm. Although it's incredibly addictive, this is no game. The Troupers' computer models suggest that soon an "F-6" will strike -- a tornado of an intensity that exceeds any existing scale; a storm so devastating that it may never stop. And they're going to be there when all hell breaks loose.

"Books VI-X of Livy's monumental work trace Rome's fortunes from its near collapse after defeat by the Gauls in 386 BC to its emergence, in a matter of decades, as the premier power in Italy, having conquered the city-state of Samnium in 293 BC. In this fascinating history, events are described not simply in terms of partisan politics, but through colourful portraits that bring the strengths, weaknesses and motives of leading figures such as the noble statesman Camillus and the corrupt Manlius vividly to life. While Rome's greatest chronicler intended his history to be a memorial to former glory, he also had more didactic aims?hoping that readers of his account could learn from the past ills and virtues of the city."--From back cover.

Contains two eighteenth-century plays by German dramatist Friedrich Schiller, including "The Robbers," a tragedy of liberty and fraternity; and "Wallenstein," a trilogy in the traditions of Sophocles, Shakespeare, and French Classical drama. "Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. Wallenstein, produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak." -- Book cover.

One Sunday morning, Gloria wakes up in a stranger's apartment with nothing but a torn evening dress, stockings, and panties. When she steals a fur coat from the wardrobe to wear home, she unleashes a series of events that can only end in tragedy. Inspired by true events, this novel caused a sensation on its publication for its frank depiction of the relationship between a wild and beautiful young woman and a respectable, married man.

188 pages ; 20 cm

Plutarch here provides a fascinating account of the everyday lives and customs of the Spartan people, the famous warriors who gave their name to a way of life. A life of constant and rigorous training, self denial and hardship.

Contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, Bachelard's lyrical, landmark work examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself.

Born in A.D. 1008 at the height of the Heian Period, the Lady Sarashina (as she is known) left behind her a diary that is remarkable for its wistfulness and sensitivity. Its shy and vulnerable author found happiness neither in her work at court nor with her family, and projected into her writing dreams and veiled longings that are both timeless and poignant.

On Mysticism is a collection of Borges' essays, fiction and poetry that explores the role of the mysterious and spiritual in Borges' life and writing. Borges had profound knowledge of eastern religions and was raised by a philosophically astute father. As a result he was preoccupied with a metaphysical uneasiness that infiltrated his work. This book is a unique collection of Borges' meditations on the mystical realm that fascinated him so much.

A set of tales within a tale of a wandering a French army officer's encounters of the supernatural as he travels after the siege of Saragossa. According to the preface by Roger Caillois, it was originally published in St. Petersburg around 1804 by the Polish writer Count Jan Potocki and part of the work was published in Paris in 1893. The French version was published in Polish in 1847 and several editions came out during the next century. Additional parts of the French version were found in Cracow in around 1956. This version follows the St. Petersburg text and does not include the new fragments. The tales are marvelous. They contain illusion and fantasy as the characters tell their stories. The narrator (Officer) has a difficult time determining what is real, and so will you. There is death and corpses, beguiling spirit temptresses, phantoms, cabala, gypsies and much more - sometimes there is even a thread to connect the tales! As a bonus, try to find the film version, which is just as fascinating. The entire film, but in segments, is available on YouTube in Polish. Somewhere, there is a version with English subtitles, which certainly adds to the dialog if you don't understand Polish.

Introducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India “the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story.” Composed of powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan’s imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This edition includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Jhumpa Lahiri.

At the age of seventy, after a gap of twenty years, Jorge Luis Borges returned to writing short stories. In "Brodie's Report," he returned also to the style of his earlier years with its brutal realism, nightmares, and bloodshed. Many of these stories, including "Unworthy" and "The Other Duel," are set in the macho Argentinean underworld, and even the rivalries between artists are suffused with suppressed violence. Throughout, opposing themes of fate and free will, loyalty and betrayal, time and memory flicker in the recesses of these compelling stories, among the best Borges ever wrote.

Contains both the short text, which is mainly an account of the 'showings' themselves and Julian's initial interpretation of their meaning, and the long text, completed some twenty years later, which moves from vision to a daringly speculative theology.