Wordsworth

The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate. Dickens was conscious of the 'many friends' the novel had won for him, and 'the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow', and it remains one of the most familiar and well-loved of his works.

Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However human joy is not excluded thanks to Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.

The Phoenix and the Carpet is E. Nesbit's second fantasy novel and is the sequel to Five Children and It. From Robert, Anthea, Jane and Cyril's new nursery carpet there falls a mysterious egg which is hatched in the fire to reveal a benevolent, resourceful and ingenious Phoenix who explains that the carpet is possessed of magic qualities. And so begins a series of fantastic and bizarre adventures as the carpet transports the children and the Phoenix to places as diverse as a chilling French castle, a desert island and even the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company's offices, which the Phoenix believes to be a shrine for his followers.

The Little Prince is a classic tale of equal appeal to children and adults. On one level it is the story of an airman's discovery in the desert of a small boy from another planet — the Little Prince of the title — and his stories of intergalactic travel, while on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition. First published in 1943, the year before the author's death in action, this new translation contains Saint-Exupery's delightful illustrations.

Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself, a brave warrior, is fatally impelled by supernatural forces, by his proud wife, and by his own burgeoning ambition. As he embarks on his murderous course to gain and retain the crown of Scotland, we see the appalling emotional and psychological effects on both Lady Macbeth and himself. The cruel ironies of their destiny are conveyed in poetry of unsurpassed power. In the theatre, this tragedy remains perennially engrossing. This volume is part of the new Wordsworth Classics Shakespeare Series, in which each text has been freshly edited by Professor Cedric Watts.

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The science fiction stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stand alongside those of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The protagonist, the 'cave-man in a lounge suit', is the maddening, irascible and fascinating Professor George Edward Challenger. In these collected tales he faces adventures such as that high above the Amazon rain forest in «The Lost World» and the challenges of «The Land of Mist».

The Aeneid is Virgil's Masterpiece. His epic poem recounts the story of Rome's legendary origins from the ashes of Troy and proclaims her destiny of world dominion. This optimistic vision is accompanied by an undertow of sadness at the price that must be paid in human suffering to secure Rome's future greatness. The tension between the public voice of celebration and the tragic private voice is given full expression both in the doomed love of Dido and Aeneas, and in the fateful clash between the Trojan leader and the Italian hero, Turnus. Hailed by T.S. Eliot as 'the classic of all Europe', Virgil's Aeneid has enjoyed a unique and enduring influence on European literature, art and politics for the past two thousand years.

The First World War was one of seemingly endless and unremitting waste and sacrifice. Who will remember, passing through this Gate, The unheroic Dead who fed the guns? was Siegfried Sassoon's anguished cry for those whose sacrifice seemed futile. Yet eighty years later it is because of Sassoon and his fellow poets — Owen, Rosenberg, Sorley and many others — that we do remember. This new anthology will serve as an introduction to the poetry of that great conflict, and the inclusion of a number of rarely anthologised poets, many from the ranks, as well as anonymous poems and songs, serves to bring a quality of freshness to the selection.

Each of these short stories was written specifically for Christmas. They combine concern for social ills with the myths and memories of childhood and traditional Christmas spirit-lore. The stories include «A Christmas Carol», «The Chimes», «The Battle of Life» and «The Cricket on the Hearth».

From Amara Dulcis to Yarrow, All-Heal to Viper's Bugloss, Culpeper's «Complete Herbal» and «English Physician Enlarged» offers remedies for all ills known to Seventeenth century society. Together with the alphabetical section on herbs, their provenance and properties, there is «The English Physician and Family Dispensary», which provides an astrologo-physical discourse of the human virtues in the body of man. Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) studied at Cambridge and became an apothecary, physician and astrologer in London. Whilst only the imprudent would follow his dictates today without question, the Herbal remains a fascinating historical treatise, and stands as a monument to botanical and medical science.

The story opens with the shipwreck on a Pacific Island of the young friends Ralph Rover and Jack Martin and Peterkin Gray. Despite the pleasurable presence of delicious breadfruit, coconuts, and succulent oysters, the intrepid trio are not alone and they soon witness a battle between rival bands of cannibals led by 'Bloody Bill'. Their lives are placed in serious peril from which only courage and determined pluck can save them.

»The Deerslayer» is the first of James Fenimore Cooper's «Leatherstocking Tales», and it introduces Natty Bumppo, the Deerslayer of the title, and the Mohican Chief Chingachgook. The action takes place in upstate New York during the French and Indian wars of the 1740s. The young frontiersman Natty Bumppo and his friend Hurry Harry go to the rescue of the trapper Thomas Hutter and his daughters, whose floating fort on Lake Glimmerglass is under attack by the Iriquois. The plot twists and turns, and the exciting action and the romantic interest of this historical adventure have made it a firm favourite with generations of readers. Cooper's evocation of the simple values of frontier life, combined with his mastery of the straightforward adventure story established him in the forefront of American writers. The other «Leatherstocking Tales» in chronological order, though not in order of composition, are «The Last of the Mohicans» (also published as a Wordsworth Classic), «The Pathfinder», «The Pioneers» and «The Prairie».

Whenever struck by campaigns, fads, cults and fashions, the reader may take some comfort that Charles Mackay can demonstrate historical parallels for almost every neurosis of our times. The South Sea Bubble, Witch Mania, Alchemy, the Crusades, Fortune-telling, Haunted Houses, and even 'Tulipomania' are only some of the subjects covered in this book, which is given a contemporary perspective through Professor Norman Stone's lively new Introduction.

Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) is rightly regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology. The Golden Bough, his masterpiece, appeared in twelve volumes between 1890 and 1915. This volume is the author's own abridgement of his great work, and was first published in 1922. Remarkable for its vast assembly of facts and its charm of presentation, it offers the thesis that man progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. It discusses fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat and many other symbols and practices which have influenced a whole generation of 20th century writers, including D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.

Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended, is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies and the cataclysmic behaviour this induced in some individuals.

The product of more than a decade's continuous work (1598-1611), Chapman's translation of Homer's great poem of war is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. In muscular, onward-rolling verse Chapman retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans. Chapman regarded the translation of this epic, and of Homer's Odyssey (also available in Wordsworth Editions) as his life's work, and dedicated himself to capturing the 'soul' of the poem.

Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.

In this, his final adventure, Buchan's hero Richard Hannay becomes embroiled in one of the most hazardous escapades of his life. Two men are honour bound to help the tormented Valdemar Haraldsen, and a third decides to mastermind the whole affair out of a sheer love of adventure and a dislike of villains.

Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with his unconventional cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts proves undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left in despair.

Maggie is an astonishing novel of social realism, which parallels many of today's ills. Set in the urban squalor of New York in the 1890s, it follows the careers of the innocent Maggie and her brother Jimmie, children of brutal and drunken parents. It is a tour-de-force equal to The Red Badge of Courage. Also included in this volume are seven of Stephen Crane's short stories. The Monster is a novelette which provides a bitter commentary on man's inhumanity to man; The Blue Hotel, a tale of murder in a small Nebraska town; His New Mittens, which concerns the reflections of a runaway boy, is followed by four stories of sensation and excitement.

In the hope of saving her brother's life, should a woman submit to rape? Should the law be respected when its administrator is corrupt? How powerful in the state should religion become? Although Measure for Measure ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The drama shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation. These problems remain topical, and, in Measure for Measure, they are given immediacy by vivid character-conflicts and memorably intense poetry. This is one of Shakespeare's most probing and powerful works.

Much Ado About Nothing has long been celebrated as one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. The central relationship, between Benedick and Beatrice, is wittily combative until love prevails. Broader comedy is provided by Dogberry, Verges and the watchmen. The drama ranges between the destructively sinister and the lyrically romantic, giving the whole a complex and sometimes problematic character.

Following the success of Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a 'literary gentleman'. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nickleby, taking in the eccentric Crummles and his travelling players, the Mantalinis, the Kenwigs and many more. Combining these with typically Dickensian elements of burlesque and farce, the novel is eminently suited to dramatic adaptation. So great was the impact as it left Dickens' pen that many pirated versions appeared in print before the original was even finished. Often neglected by critics, Nicholas Nickleby has never ceased to delight readers and is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic masterpieces of nineteenth-centure literature.