Originally published in 1965, The Painted Bird established Jerzy Kosinski as a major literary figure. A harrowing story that follows the wanderings of a boy abandoned by his parents during World War II, The Painted Bird is a dark novel that examines the proximity of terror and savagery to innocence and love. It is the first, and the most famous, novel by a writer who is now discredited.

Tender Is the Night is a modern classic, restored by Fitzgerald scholar James L.W. West III and featuring a personal foreword by Fitzgerald’s great-granddaughter Blake Hazard and a new introduction by bestselling Amor Towles. Set in the south of France in the late 1920s, it is the tragic tale of a young actress, Rosemary Hoyt, and her complicated relationship with the alluring American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth pushed him into a glamorous lifestyle, and whose growing strength highlights Dick’s decline. Lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative, Tender Is the Night was one of the most talked-about books of the year when it was originally published in 1934, and is even more beloved by readers today.

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is a captivating tale that combines fantasy and adventure in a magical journey across Sweden. Written by the gifted storyteller Selma Lagerlöf, it tells the story of Nils Holgersson, a mischievous 14-year-old boy who is transformed by an elf into a tiny being, gaining the ability to understand the speech of birds and animals.

Through a breathtaking and beautiful fable, Nils embarks on an extraordinary adventure as he is carried over the countryside on the back of a goose. From this unique vantage point, Nils witnesses a host of events, providing readers with a rich tapestry of nature, geography, folklore, and animal life.

This timeless classic, reset in easy-to-read type and enhanced with new illustrations, invites readers into the enchanting world of Nils, where fact and fiction are brilliantly woven into a tale that captivates generations.

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume: Jenkins, a budding writer; Templer, a passionate womanizer; Stringham, aristocratic and reckless; and Widermerpool, hopelessly awkward yet intensely ambitious, lurking on the periphery of their world.

Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich panorama of life in England between the wars.

Includes these novels: A Question of Upbringing, A Buyer's Market, The Acceptance World.

Caught in a tornado, Dorothy and her little dog Toto are transported to the fantastical land of Oz. Here, Munchkins live, monkeys fly, and Wicked Witches rule. Desperate to return home and pursued by the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy and Toto, along with their new friends the Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow, and cowardly Lion, journey along the Yellow Brick Road to seek the Emerald City. Their hope is to meet the legendary, all-powerful Wizard of Oz, who may have the power to grant their every wish.

This tale of whimsy and adventure has captured the hearts of readers for over a century, becoming a beloved story for all ages.

The great Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many to be the premier detective novelist of the Golden Age, and her dashing sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, one of mystery fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists. Acclaimed author Ruth Rendell has expressed her admiration for Sayers’s work, praising her “great fertility of invention, ingenuity, and wonderful eye for detail.”

The third Dorothy L. Sayers classic to feature mystery writer Harriet Vane, Gaudy Night takes Harriet and her paramour, Lord Peter, to Oxford University, Harriet’s alma mater, for a reunion, only to find themselves the targets of a nightmare of harassment and mysterious, murderous threats.

Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran's musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set in 1889 largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Holmes and Watson investigate the case. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in The Final Problem, and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character's eventual revival.

In this, one of the most famous of Doyle's mysteries, the tale of an ancient curse and a savage ghostly hound comes frighteningly to life. The gray towers of Baskerville Hall and the wild open country of Dartmoor will haunt the reader as Holmes and Watson seek to unravel the many secrets of the misty English bogs.

Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe's greatest writers. A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks. It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society are snapped. This is not anarchy, this is blindness.

Saramago repeatedly undertakes to unite the pressing demands of the present with an unfolding vision of the future. This is his most apocalyptic, and most optimistic, version of that project yet.

Nooit meer slapen is het meesterlijke verhaal van de jonge geoloog Alfred Issendorf, die in het moerassige noorden van Noorwegen onderzoek wil verrichten om de hypothese van zijn leermeester en promotor Sibbelee te staven. Issendorf is ambitieus: hij hoopt dat hem op deze reis iets groots te wachten staat, dat zijn naam aan een belangrijk wetenschappelijk feit zal worden verbonden. Deze ambitie hangt samen met het verlangen het werk van zijn vader, die door een ongeluk tijdens een onderzoekstocht om het leven kwam, te voltooien.

Nooit meer slapen is een grootse roman over grote dromen.

More than a hundred years ago, Oscar Wilde created this moving story for his children. Now shimmering illustrations, as bejeweled and golden as the Prince himself, give glowing life to the many dimensions of his tale.

His story of friendship, love, and a willingness to part with one's own riches may be more important today than ever before. This enchanting story tells the tale of a majestic golden statue, once a prince, who befriends a compassionate swallow. Together, they embark on a poignant journey of selflessness, sacrifice, and love for humanity.

Wilde's eloquent prose and vivid imagination transport readers to a world where kindness and empathy triumph over materialism and indifference. The Happy Prince is a literary gem that continues to inspire readers of all ages, reminding us of the enduring power of compassion and the beauty that lies within the human heart.

My ntonia, authored by Willa Cather, is a profound narrative set in the Nebraska heartland. This novel, the third in the Great Plains Trilogy, unfolds through the eyes of Jim Burden, a character whose voice is tinged with affection and admiration.

Readers are catapulted into the diverse experiences of immigrant life, where the bonds of community are both insistent and deep. A cast of compelling characters guides us through this journey: Russian brothers haunted by a tragic memory, ntonia's father who yearns for his homeland, and her mother, whose priorities often seem misplaced. At the core of this pastoral society is the enchanting ntonia, whose free spirit captivates all who know her.

Jim Burden's narrative is one of personal reflection as he remembers his youth and the poignant moments he shared with ntonia. Their relationship, oscillating between platonic affection and a deeper connection, offers a window into ntonia's life, her challenges, and her victories.

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work. Sword & Citadel brings together the final two books of the tetralogy in one volume:

The Sword of the Lictor is the third volume in Wolfe's remarkable epic, chronicling the odyssey of the wandering pilgrim called Severian, driven by a powerful and unfathomable destiny, as he carries out a dark mission far from his home.

The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will forever alter the realm known as Urth.

The Road to Serfdom is a classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics. This influential book has both inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for decades. Originally published in England in 1944, The Road to Serfdom offers a passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production.

Friedrich A. Hayek argues that the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia, but to the horrors experienced in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, the book garnered immediate attention and popularity. The first printing of 2,000 copies sold out instantly, and within six months, more than 30,000 copies were sold.

A perennial best-seller, The Road to Serfdom has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone, not including its British edition or the many translations into languages such as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese. It stands alongside works by Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relationship between individual liberty and government authority.

This influential book continues to impact political and social climates, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions in the 1980s, and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.

Swami and Friends is the first novel set in the fictional Indian town of Malgudi, where ten-year-old Swaminathan's excitement about his country's initial stirrings for independence competes with his ardor for cricket and all other things British.

Offering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in Malgudi. The story provides a universal vision of childhood, early love, and grief, set against the backdrop of pre-partition India.

This semi-autobiographical novel captures the ordinary tensions of maturing, heightened by the particular circumstances of the time, and presents a delightful exploration of youth and young adulthood.

The famous confession of Alexander Portnoy, who is thrust through life by his unappeasable sexuality, yet held back at the same time by the iron grip of his unforgettable childhood. Hilariously funny, boldly intimate, startlingly candid, Portnoy’s Complaint was an immediate bestseller upon its publication in 1969, and is perhaps Roth’s best-known book.

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933-)] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. 'The Puzzled Penis', Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

Escape from Freedom explores the paradox of freedom and the human tendency towards authoritarianism. If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of this landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time.

Erich Fromm delves into the forces shaping modern society and the causes of authoritarian systems. While the rise of democracy liberated some, it also birthed a society where individuals feel alienated and dehumanized. Using psychoanalysis as a tool, Fromm analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as evidenced by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

This examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in Europe also explains how economic and social constraints can lead to authoritarianism. A timeless classic, it offers a profound understanding of the anxiety underlying our darkest impulses.

The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom, Pecola's life does change - in painful, devastating ways.

With its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment, The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels - and a significant work of American fiction.

Once regarded as a brilliant eccentric whose works skirted the outer fringes of English art and literature, William Blake (1757–1827) is today recognized as a major poet, a profound thinker, and one of the most original and exciting English artists. Nowhere is his glorious poetic and pictorial legacy more evident than in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which many consider his most inspired and original work.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is both a humorous satire on religion and morality and a work that concisely expresses Blake's essential wisdom and philosophy. Much of it is revealed in the 70 aphorisms of his "Proverbs of Hell." This beautiful edition, reproduced from a rare facsimile, invites readers to enjoy the rich character of Blake's own hand-printed text along with his deeply stirring illustrations, reproduced on 27 full-color plates. A typeset transcription of the text is included.

Dostoevsky’s most revolutionary novel, Notes from Underground marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In complete retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man’s essentially irrational nature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth—an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1901, when Mann was only twenty-six, has become a classic of modern literature. It is the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany facing the advent of modernity; in an uncertain new world, the family’s bonds and traditions begin to disintegrate. As Mann charts the Buddenbrooks’ decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence, and madness, he ushers the reader into a world of stunning vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip, and earthy humor.

In its immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modern family chronicles. With remarkable fidelity to the original German text, this superb translation emphasizes the magnificent scale of Mann’s achievement in this riveting, tragic novel.

"Fortune's Favorites" is a captivating historical fiction novel set in the tumultuous times of ancient Rome. Blessed by the gods at birth with wealth and privilege, a new generation of Romans vies for greatness amidst the disintegrating remnants of their beloved Republic.

Amidst this backdrop, one figure towers above them all—a brilliant and beautiful boy whose ambition is unequaled, whose love is legendary, and whose glory is Rome's. This is the story of a boy who would one day be called Caesar.

Join the journey through a cataclysmic upheaval, where the chosen and the cursed are entangled in a savage struggle for power. Experience the ambition, love, and destiny that shape the course of history in this epic tale of ancient Rome.

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

Hardy's last work of fiction, Jude the Obscure is also one of his most gloomily fatalistic, depicting the lives of individuals who are trapped by forces beyond their control. Jude Fawley, a poor villager, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster. Sidetracked by Arabella Donn, an earthy country girl who pretends to be pregnant by him, Jude marries her and is then deserted. He earns a living as a stonemason at Christminster; there he falls in love with his independent-minded cousin, Sue Bridehead. Out of a sense of obligation, Sue marries the schoolmaster Phillotson, who has helped her. Unable to bear living with Phillotson, she returns to live with Jude and eventually bears his children out of wedlock. Their poverty and the weight of society's disapproval begin to take a toll on Sue and Jude; the climax occurs when Jude's son by Arabella hangs Sue and Jude's children and himself. In penance, Sue returns to Phillotson and the church. Jude returns to Arabella and eventually dies miserably.

The novel's sexual frankness shocked the public, as did Hardy's criticisms of marriage, the university system, and the church. Hardy was so distressed by its reception that he wrote no more fiction, concentrating solely on his poetry.

John Keats, an archetypal Romantic genius, believed he would be recognized among the English poets after his death. His works endure as a testament to his exploration of the imagination and the pleasures of the senses.

This collection includes all of Keats's magnificent verse: 'Lamia', 'Isabella', 'The Eve of St. Agnes'; his sonnets and odes; the allegorical romance Endymion; and the five-act poetic tragedy Otho the Great. Also presented are the famous posthumous and fugitive poems, including the fragmentary 'The Eve of Saint Mark' and the great 'La Belle Dame sans Merci', perhaps the most distinguished literary ballad in the language.

Keats’s writing is illuminated by his exaltation of the imagination and abounds with sensuous descriptions of nature’s beauty. It also explores profound philosophical questions, making him one of the greatest and most original thinkers of the second generation of Romantic poets.

Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.

"In English my name means hope," she says. "In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting." This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct.

Throughout a single day in 1892, John Shawnessy recalls the great moments of his life—from the love affairs of his youth in Indiana, to the battles of the Civil War, to the politics of the Gilded Age, to his homecoming as schoolteacher, husband, and father. Shawnessy is the epitome of the place and period in which he lives, a rural land of springlike women, shady gamblers, wandering vagabonds, and soapbox orators.

Yet here on the banks of the Shawmucky River, which weaves its primitive course through Raintree County, Indiana, he also feels and obeys ancient rhythms. A powerful novel, Raintree County is a compelling vision of 19th-century America with timeless resonance.

This volume contains the six major novels by Jane Austen, which are:

• Emma
• Mansfield Park
• Northanger Abbey
• Persuasion
• Sense and Sensibility
• Pride and Prejudice

Pedro Páramo is a classic of Mexican modern literature about a haunted village. As one enters Juan Rulfo's legendary novel, one follows a dusty road to a town of death. Time shifts from one consciousness to another in a hypnotic flow of dreams, desires, and memories, a world of ghosts dominated by the figure of Pedro Páramo - lover, overlord, murderer.

Rulfo's extraordinary mix of sensory images, violent passions, and unfathomable mysteries has been a profound influence on a whole generation of Latin American writers, including Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez. To read Pedro Páramo today is as overwhelming an experience as when it was first published in Mexico back in 1955.

Forward the Foundation is the long-awaited final novel of Isaac Asimov's classic science-fiction masterpiece, the Foundation series. Completed just before his death, it is both a crowning achievement of a great writer's life and a stirring testament to the creative genius of Isaac Asimov.

As Hari Seldon struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory and ensure a place for humanity among the stars, the great Galactic Empire totters on the brink of apocalyptic collapse. Seldon and all he holds dear become pawns in the struggle for dominance. The control of Seldon equates to the control of psychohistory—and with it the future of the Galaxy.

Among those seeking to wield psychohistory as the greatest weapon known to man are a populist political demagogue, the weak-willed Emperor Cleon I, and a ruthless militaristic general. In his final act of service to humanity, Hari Seldon must protect his life's work from their grasp as he embarks on a search for its true heirs, a quest that begins with his own granddaughter and the dream of a new Foundation.

The original and bestselling leadership book! Sun Tzu's ideas on survival and success have been read across the world for centuries. Today they can still be applied to business, politics and life. The Art of War demonstrates how to win without conflict. It shows that with enough intelligence and planning, it is possible to conquer with a minimum of force and little destruction.

This luxury hardback edition includes an introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon that draws out lessons for managers and business leaders, and highlights the power of Sun Tzu's thinking in everyday life.

The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal's abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.

Part One: The Garden of Forking Paths
Prologue
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim (1936, not included in the 1941 edition)
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote (1939)
The Circular Ruins (1940)
The Lottery in Babylon (1941)
An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain (1941)
The Library of Babel (1941)
The Garden of Forking Paths (1941)
Part Two: Artifices
Prologue
Funes the Memorious (1942)
The Form of the Sword (1942)
Theme of the Traitor and the Hero (1944)
Death and the Compass (1942)
The Secret Miracle (1943)
Three Versions of Judas (1944)
The End (1953, 2nd edition only)
The Sect of the Phoenix (1952, 2nd edition only)
The South (1953, 2nd edition only)

Published when Truman Capote was only twenty-three years old, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a literary touchstone of the mid-twentieth century. In this semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Joel Knox, after losing his mother, is sent from New Orleans to live with the father who abandoned him at birth.

But when Joel arrives at Skully’s Landing, the decaying mansion in rural Alabama, his father is nowhere to be found. Instead, Joel meets his morose stepmother, Amy, eccentric cousin Randolph, and a defiant little girl named Idabel, who soon offers Joel the love and approval he seeks.

Fueled by a world-weariness that belied Capote’s tender age, this novel tempers its themes of waylaid hopes and lost innocence with an appreciation for small pleasures and the colorful language of its time and place.

Mikhail Bulgakov's absurdist parable of the Russian Revolution. A world-famous Moscow professor -- rich, successful, and violently envied by his neighbors -- befriends a stray dog and resolves to achieve a daring scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a dead man. But the results are wholly unexpected: a distinctly and worryingly human animal is on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance.

As in The Master and Margarita, the masterpiece he completed shortly before his death, Mikhail Bulgakov's early novel, written in 1925, combines outrageously grotesque ideas with a narrative of deadpan naturalism. Heart of a Dog can be read as an absurd and wonderfully comic story; it can also be seen as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first published novel, was written in English and published in London in 1938. Beckett himself subsequently translated the book into French, and it was published in France in 1947. The novel recounts the hilarious but tragic life of Murphy in London as he attempts to establish a home and to amass sufficient fortune for his intended bride to join him.

Set in London and Dublin, during the first decades of the Irish Republic, the title character loves Celia in a “striking case of love requited” but must first establish himself in London before his intended bride will make the journey from Ireland to join him. Beckett comically describes the various schemes that Murphy employs to stretch his meager resources and the pastimes that he uses to fill the hours of his days.

Eventually, Murphy lands a job as a nurse at Magdalen Mental Mercyseat hospital, where he is drawn into the mad world of the patients which ends in a fateful game of chess. While grounded in the comedy and absurdity of much of daily life, Beckett’s work is also an early exploration of themes that recur throughout his entire body of work including sanity and insanity and the very meaning of life.

The Master and Margarita, recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature, is an audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate. The novel's portrayal of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during Bulgakov's lifetime, appearing only in a censored edition in the 1960s.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue including a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: the Master, a writer criticized for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate, and Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing to go to hell for him.

A novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, Bulgakov's work emerges splendidly in this English translation, revealing its nuances for the first time.

Banned in America for almost thirty years because of its explicit sexual content, this companion volume to Miller's Tropic of Cancer chronicles his life in 1920s New York City. Famous for its frank portrayal of life in Brooklyn's ethnic neighborhoods, and Miller's outrageous sexual exploits, Tropic of Capricorn is now considered a cornerstone of modern literature.

Probably the most popular book in the history of the Far East, this classic sixteenth-century novel is a combination of picaresque novel and folk epic that mixes satire, allegory, and history into a rollicking adventure.

It is the story of the roguish Monkey and his encounters with major and minor spirits, gods, demigods, demons, ogres, monsters, and fairies.

This translation, by the distinguished scholar Arthur Waley, is the first accurate English version; it makes available to the Western reader a faithful reproduction of the spirit and meaning of the original.

Sexus is the first novel of Henry Miller's frank, autobiographical trilogy known collectively as The Rosy Crucifixion. This captivating narrative uses dream, fantasy, and burlesque to portray the life of a struggling writer in pre-World War I New York.

Delve into Miller's tempestuous marriage and his relentless sexual exploits in the vibrant city of New York. The trilogy continues with the novels Plexus and Nexus, exploring further the depths of human desire and artistic ambition.

This is the first complete English translation of the play that many critics consider to be Dürrenmatt's finest work. Unlike an earlier version adapted for the English-language stage, this translation adheres faithfully to the author's original play as it was published and performed in German.

The action of The Visit takes place in the small town of Guellen, "somewhere in Central Europe." An elderly millionairess, Claire Zachanassian, returns to Guellen, her home town, after an absence of many years. Merely on the promise of her millions, she shortly turns what has been a depressed area into a boom town. But there is a condition attached to her largess, which the natives of Guellen realize only after they have become enmeshed in her vengeful plot: murder.

Out of these elements, Dürrenmatt has fashioned a many-leveled play which is at once a macabre parable, a deeply moving tragedy, and a scathing indictment of the power of greed.

A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

Caligula is a fascinating exploration of the complexities of human nature, penned by the illustrious Albert Camus. Originally conceived before the war, Caligula is portrayed as an angel in search of the absolute, as well as a bloodthirsty monster. This duality makes him one of the most intriguing figures in theater.

In 1945, the play was received as a fable reflecting the horrors of Nazism. Over time, different versions and stagings, along with the evolving sensibilities of audiences, have contributed to making Caligula a deeply unsettling character. His image is forever intertwined with the faces of Gérard Philipe, who originated the role, and Albert Camus himself, who combined a need for tenderness and purity with a peculiar obsession with murder and an "inner violence" that animates his Roman emperor.

Andersonville is a gripping tale of the notorious Georgia prison, where over 50,000 Union soldiers were held captive during the American Civil War. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel captures the glory and shame of America's most tragic conflict.

Based on extensive research and nearly twenty-five years in the making, MacKinlay Kantor's masterwork delves into the lives of those inside and outside the prison's barricades. The novel tells the heartbreaking story of the infamous camp where the best and worst of the Civil War came together, portraying the savagery of the camp commandant, the compassion of a nearby planter and his gentle daughter, and the daily fight for survival among the prisoners.

A moving portrait of bravery, cowardice, and the human spirit, Andersonville is an inspiring American classic about an unforgettable period in history.

Othello is a powerful drama created by William Shakespeare that delves into the complexities of a marriage that starts with fascination and intense mutual devotion but ends in jealous rage and tragic demises. The play transports the audience to the romantic Mediterranean, transitioning from Venice to the island of Cyprus, and adds an exotic touch with tales of Othello's African past.

The narrative weaves a tale of stark contrasts between the hero, Othello, a Moor, and Desdemona, a Venetian lady. Despite differences in race, age, and cultural background, their love is portrayed as strong enough to overcome these obstacles. However, the malevolent Iago, who harbors a deep-seated hatred for Othello, sets out to dismantle this love through deceit and manipulation.

As Othello falls prey to Iago's insinuations of Desdemona's infidelity, the early fascination morphs into horror, particularly for the audience. We witness the generous and trusting Othello caught in Iago's web, and the innocent Desdemona, completely devoted to her love, subjected to Othello's brutal accusations and assaults—a result of his erroneous beliefs about her loyalty.

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

This book contains the complete Andersen's fairy tales and stories in audiobook and hardcopy format. Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales, a literary genre he so mastered that he himself has become as mythical as the tales he wrote. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories - called eventyrs, or "fantastic tales" - express themes that transcend age and nationality.

During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide and was feted by royalty. Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature listeners/readers as well. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.