The Jungle Book introduces Mowgli, the boy foundling adopted by a family of wolves, Shere Khan the tiger, Bagheera the black panther and Baloo the sleepy brown bear. How did the Leopard get his spots? How did the Elephant get his trunk? In Just So Stories Kipling wittily supplies the answers to these and other questions. Puck of Pook's Hill relates how Dan and Una's magical meeting with Puck, the last of the People of the Hills, leads to their adventures with Romans and Crusaders, Saxons and Vikings...And later, in Rewards and Fairies, the three meet an array of characters ranging from Iron Age warriors to 'Good Queen Bess' and Sir Francis Drake. In Kipling's rattling school yarn Stalky & Co, Stalky, M'Turk and the Beetle are a trio of scallywags with a keen desire to break the rules, their unruly activities give the stories an enduring appeal to all children - especially those who have ever wilted beneath the stern glance of a peevish schoolmaster. Kipling's wry, sometimes tongue-in-cheek style will delight and entertain young readers while adults throughout the world will remember his stories with affection.

Pages: 864

Dimensions: 150 x 232 x 32 mm

Publication Date: 01-01-2005

With humour, wit and insight David Carter provides an account of the mixed fortunes of the Nobel Prize in Literature, together with tongue-in-cheek guidelines for the would-be laureate.
There are acclaimed writers - James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain - who never won the Nobel Prize - and others, less well-known, such as Henryk Sienkiewicz, Paul Heyse and Wladyslaw Reymont, who did. What do you have to do to impress, or be snubbed by the Nobel Committee? Using the device of a set of guidelines for the would-be laureate, the book explores many of the unusual and controversial decisions made by the committee over the years. The reader can discover the many quirky considerations that hopeful writers must bear in mind. Certain factors always help, such as 'being a man', and 'having your work translated into Swedish'. Presenting interesting quotes from the presentation and acceptance speeches and from other sources in the writers' works, David Carter provides answers to some intriguing questions, such as: why did some writers refuse to accept the prize, and why were others rejected? Is there evidence for political, ideological and geographical bias in the selection? Why was it sometimes awarded to two writers and sometimes not at all? What does it actually take to win?

Bind: hardback

Pages: 200

Publication Date: 20-09-2012

Based on the doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, The Frozen Deep is a dramatic tale of vengeance and self-sacrifice. Exchanging vows of love with sailor Frank Aldersley the night before his departure, Clara Burnham is haunted by the memory of Richard Wardour, and his mistaken belief that they will one day marry. On different ships, the two men have no cause to meet—until disaster strikes and they find themselves united by their battle for survival. When they learn of their rivalry, there follows an act of pure selflessness, making The Frozen Deep one of Collins' most moving and tragic works. The author of The Moonstone, The Woman in White, and Who Killed Zebedee?, Wilkie Collins is widely regarded as the originator of the English detective novel.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 28-09-2012

Compiled by Charles Dickens, and counting Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins among its contributors, this rediscovered work is an ingenious collaborative tale of the supernatural with indelible touches of pure Dickensian comedy. When the narrator spies a deserted house from his railway carriage, he determines to take up residence. But local legend has it that this is a haunted house, and no servant will dare enter employment. Refusing to be thwarted, he instead invites a number of acquaintances to join him, commissioning each with the task of routing out any supernatural inhabitants. As they gather together on twelfth night, each recounts his version of the ghostly activities.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 28-09-2012

Dostoevsky’s Underground Man is a composite of the tormented clerk and the frustrated dreamer of his earlier stories, but his Notes from the Underground is a precursor of his great later novels and their central concern with the nature of free will. Initially musing on his “sickness” and the detested notion of self-interest, the maladjusted and willful Underground Man turns to a series of incidents from years earlier. Scornful of others and of himself, he recounts a party he attended at which, unwelcome, he got drunk and acted scandalously, the visit to a brothel that ensued, and the chance arrival there of love—love which, of course, by his very nature he cannot accept, and so debases. Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the greatest, most influential prose writers of all time.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 28-09-2012

In this hilarious sequel to The Secret Life of Nuns, courtesan Nanna reveals to her confidante, Antonia, what really goes on in the lives of married women. A woman can only be saved from a life-threatening craving and utter damnation by a well-endowed priest; an over-devout matron releases the devil within her when she meets an attractive hermit; an insatiable wife is redressed by her husband in a most barbarous manner - these are merely some of the 'truths' that Aretino exposes behind the respectable mask of marriage. And in describing the subterfuges, machinations and diabolical ruses wives resort to - unbeknownst to their poor husbands - in order to secure the secret object of their desires, Aretino adds another titillating page to his immense catalogue of human characters.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 100

Publication Date: 09-11-2012

The Wordsworth Poetry Library comprises the works of the greatest English-speaking poets, as well as many lesser-known poets. Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.

Pages: 672

Dimensions: 129 x 198 x 36 mm

Publication Date: 01-09-1995

The Wordsworth Poetry Library comprises the works of the greatest English-speaking poets, as well as many lesser-known poets. Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.

Pages: 640

Dimensions: 129 x 198 x 37 mm

Publication Date: 01-07-1994

This book includes an introduction and notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury. This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges. However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book's poignant climax.

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 126 x 198 x 13 mm

Publication Date: 01-05-1992

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 126 x 198 x 14 mm

Publication Date: 01-03-1992