Wordsworth

It is more than a century since the ascetic, gaunt and enigmatic detective, Sherlock Holmes, made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the now legendary and pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyle's matchless tales of detection, featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal and lovably pedantic friend and companion, Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget from whom our images of Sherlock Holmes and his world derive and who first equipped Holmes with his famous deerstalker hat. The literary cult of Sherlock Holmes shows no sign of fading with time as each new generation comes to love and revere the penetrating mind and ruthless logic which were the undoing of so many Victorian master criminals.

Aristotle (384-322BC) is the philosopher who has most influence on the development of western culture, writing on a wide variety of subjects including the natural sciences as well as the more strictly philosophical topics of logic, metaphysics and ethics. To the poet Dante, he was simply 'the master of those who know'. The Ethics contains his views on what makes a good human life. While the work continues to stimulate and challenge modern philosophers, the general course of the argument is easily accessible to the non-specialist. Both as a key influence in the history of ideas and as a work containing unique insights into the human condition, this is a book that simply demands to be read.

Benedict de Spinoza lived a life of blameless simplicity as a lens-grinder in Holland. And yet in his lifetime he was expelled from the Jewish community in Amsterdam as a heretic, and after his death his works were first banned by the Christian authorities as atheistic, then hailed by humanists as the gospel of Pantheism. His Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order shows us the reality behind this enigmatic figure. First published by his friends after his premature death at the age of forty-four, the Ethics uses the methods of Euclid to describe a single entity, properly called both 'God' and 'Nature', of which mind and matter are two manifestations. From this follow, in ways that are strikingly modern, the identity of mind and body, the necessary causation of events and actions, and the illusory nature of free will.

'To be a moderately successful wielder of the rod may be looked upon as a very desirable accomplishment, nay, more, a laudable ambition; but, beyond mere skill in casting a fly and killing and landing a fish, a little rudimentary knowledge of the truly scientific and, consequently, most attractive part of the art is essential in order to attain proficiency.' 'Rodsters' everywhere will welcome the reappearance of David Forster's classic work on the art and science of fishing, with its wealth of detailed piscatorial knowledge and its exhaustive information and guidance in practical matters, from how to make one's own tackle and flies to how and when to catch which fish where. Writing in 1885, Forster tells us that, while the 'angler's skill has advanced wondrously' since the time of Izaak Walton, 'keenness of perception and wariness have developed among the denizens of the liquid element in a degree quite proportionate'. However, armed with this volume, as readable and relevant today as any contemporary manual, 'let there be clear water, clear weather and clear scope for observation' and any enthusiast may pit his or her 'superior intelligence against the animal instincts of the brute creation'.

On War is perhaps the greatest book ever written about war. Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian soldier, had witnessed at first hand the immense destructive power of the French Revolutionary armies which swept across Europe between 1792 and 1815. His response was to write a comprehensive text covering every aspect of warfare. On War is both a philosophical and practical work in which Clausewitz defines the essential nature of war, debates the qualities of the great commander, assesses the relative strengths of defensive and offensive warfare, and — in highly controversial passages — considers the relationship between war and politics. His arguments are illustrated with vivid examples drawn from the campaigns of Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte. For the student of society as well as the military historian, On War remains a compelling and indispensable source.

The Wordsworth Reference Library includes language dictionaries, language guides, historical references, and much more. This popular series covers everything from the familiar and practical to the extraordinary and outrageous.

The Wordsworth Reference Library includes language dictionaries, language guides, historical references, and much more. This popular series covers everything from the familiar and practical to the extraordinary and outrageous.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) began his diary on 1 Jan 1660, immediately prior to the Restoration of Charles II to the throne and the subsequent loosening of the rigid and social code enforced during the Puritan Commonwealth. As variously, Clerk to the Council, a Member of Parliament, a prisoner in the Tower of London, twice Secretary to the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, Pepys was in a unique position to observe and record the details of a ten-year period of English history which included not only the Restoration, but the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of London of the following year. However, it was not only for affairs of state which took up the great diarist's interest, for he was a regular attendant at the King's Theatre, was a hearty eater and drinker and delighted in recording his fondness of women, especially his own and his friends' young servant girls.

Полный, неадаптированный текст произведения.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its highly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, melancholy philosophising and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre.

The Gateway of the Monster… The Red Hand… The Ghost Hunter To Sherlock Holmes the supernatural was a closed book: but other great detectives have always been ready to do battle with the dark instead. This volume brings together sixteen chilling cases of these supernatural sleuths, pitting themselves against the peril of ultimate evil. Here are encounters from the casebooks of the Victorian haunted house investigators John Bell and Flaxman Low, from Carnacki, the Edwardian battler against the abyss, and from horror master Arthur Machen’s Mr Dyson, a man-about-town and meddler in strange things. Connoisseurs will find rare cases such as those of Allen Upward’s The Ghost Hunter, Robert Barr’s Eugene Valmont (who may have inspired Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot) and Donald Campbell’s young explorer Leslie Vane, the James Bond of the jazz age, who battles against occult enemies of the British Empire. And the collection is completed by some of the best tales from the pens of modern psychic sleuth authors.

The Wordsworth Book of Hymns is a fresh anthology of favourite hymns. This inspiring selection has such time-honoured favourites as the harvest 'We plough the fields and scatter', the Christmas 'O come all ye faithful', as well as hymns suitable for weddings 'Love divine, all loves excelling' and even funerals 'The Lord's my Shepherd'. Hymns have always played a significant role in our cultural heritage and this new selection is ideal for use both in planning services and also personal devotion.

This is a book to be read by a blazing fire on a winter's night, with the curtains drawn close and the doors securely locked. The unquiet souls of the dead, both as fictional creations and as 'real' apparitions, roam the pages of this haunting new selection of ghost stories by Rex Collings. Some of these stories are classics while others are lesser-known gems unearthed from this vintage era of tales of the supernatural. There are stories from distant lands — Fisher's Ghost by John Lang is set in Australia and A Ghostly Manifestation by 'A Clergyman' is set in Calcutta. In this selection, Sir Walter Scott (a Victorian in spirit if not in fact), keeps company with Edgar Allen Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu and other illustrious masters of the genre.

Thomas Hardy started composing poetry in the heyday of Tennyson and Browning. He was still writing with unimpaired power sixty years later, when Eliot and Yeats were the leading names in the field. His extraordinary stamina and a consistent individuality of style and vision made him a survivor, immune to literary fashion. At the start of the twenty-first century his reputation stands higher than it ever did, even in his own lifetime. He is now recognised not only as a great poet, but as one who is widely loved. He speaks with directness, humanity and humour to scholarly or ordinary readers alike.

Lawrence's reputation as a novelist has often meant that his achievements in poetry have failed to receive the recognition they deserve. This edition brings together, in a form he himself sanctioned, his Collected Poems of 1928, the unexpurgated version of Pansies, and Nettles, adding to these volumes the contents of the two notebooks in which he was still writing poetry when he died in 1930. It therefore allows the reader to trace the development of Lawrence as a poet and appreciate the remarkable originality and distinctiveness of his achievement. Not all the poems reprinted here are masterpieces but there is more than enough quality to confirm Lawrence's status as one of the greatest English writers of the twentieth century.

Who was Nostradamus, and what faith should we place in his predictions? This book gives objective answers. It reveals that Michel de Nostredame, a 16th-century French doctor, was more Renaissance man than arcane magician — and that his prognostications can be compellingly astute. In this edition all of the cryptic short verses of Nostradamus's «Centuries» appear in the original French, with new translations. Uncanny prophecies such as those of the French Revolution and the rise of Hitler are examined in detail. Here too are interpretations of the many verses believed to augur future events. Editor Ned Halley works in fields of journalism as diverse as medicine, wine and business. He takes a Plain English approach to 'a subject far too often wreathed in language that seems calculated to obscure, rather than to demonstrate, the truth'.

»Crime Scenes» is a sparkling collection of short stories written by modern masters and mistresses of the crime fiction genre. Within these pages you will find tales of murder, mystery and mayhem in a great variety of styles and tones from the time-honoured whodunnit to the psychological chiller to the history mystery to the crime procedural to the noir thriller to the gangster epic and the darkly humorous narrative. This volume demonstrates clearly how the crime story has developed and matured over the last two hundred years or so into the exciting, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining form of fiction it is today. The impressive cast of contributors includes well-respected and well-established names such as Peter Lovesey, Edward Marston, Natasha Cooper, Judith Cutler and Russell James as well as those currently making their reputation as fine exponents of their craft and a few young lions whose work is bristling with promise. Crime Scenes is a treasure chest of delights for the fans of crime fiction.

The Wordsworth Dictionary of Culinary & Menu Terms contains over 12,000 entries and should prove useful to budding chefs and gourmands, fascinating to browsers and crossword enthusiasts, and a handy companion for hungry travellers or those wishing to avoid the potential pitfalls of self-catering and ordering meals in restaurants in foreign lands. In short, this book is essential reading for those who want to know the difference between chiorro, chiozzo, choko and chorizo, or who cannot tell a kaboucha from a kabanosi. Rodney Dale has assembled and arranged a rich diet of terms used for ingredients and recipes which are encountered in cuisine world-wide. This pabular vocabulary will be eagerly embraced by all those interested in and engaged in food and its preparation from whatever culture and tradition they may come.

Dreams have variously inspired and haunted kings, poets, inventors, artists, musicians, statesmen and others since the dawn of recorded experience. Gustavus Hindman Miller's Dictionary of Dreams first appeared in 1909, ten years after Sigmund Freud's pioneering work The Interpretation of Dreams, and is therefore an historical work on dream analysis first published at the time of a quantum leap in human consciousness. 10,000 entries cover Bananas to Cauliflowers, Measles to Mustard and Virgins to Zebras.

What is a slack-ma-girdle? Or a submarino? How did White Horse whisky get its name? Or Old Bawdy barley wine? How do you make a really dry martini? Or beer? Or champagne? The answers to these enquiries and thousands of others are revealed in this unique guide to every kind of alcohol, compiled by dedicated drinker and collector of little histories, Ned Halley, who is an award-winning writer on beer, a nationally syndicated wine columnist and author of numerous books on drink. In a straightforward A to Z format, The Wordsworth Dictionary of Drink identifies thousands of individual brewers, distillers and winemakers, as well as the names of their products. The dictionary aims to be of real, practical help in locating beers and ciders, wines and spirits of every hue to their maker and place of origin. Here, too, are descriptive terms used on labels, along with the less-formal words used by producers and purveyors to promote their products in the market place. Origins, from village breweries to entire wine-producing regions, are located by nation, province and district. In many cases, there is a mention of when a producer or product was established, perhaps a word about the founder or a brief explanation of a curious-sounding brand name. The book is laced with historical anecdotes, a thousand cocktail recipes, essys on topics from the Guiness dynasty to the principles of brewing, from the discovery of distilling to the history of exise duty — and illustrated with hundreds of drink labels from all around the world.

Quotations have exercised a particular fascination for humanity since the birth of recorded language and their potency in the age of the soundbite is stronger than ever. We revel in quotations, compete to know them, love them, hate them and inscribe them in books and on buildings, and this freshly revised and updated dictionary includes a wealth of new material among its 13,000 familiar, serious, outrageous, witty and thought-provoking entries. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations is an essential work of reference for every writer, journalist and speech-maker, as well as being a treasure-trove for the browser and the simply curious. From the Roman poet Ovid's observation that 'Judgement of beauty can er, what with the wine and the dark' to Oscar Wilde's that 'Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes', there is a wide diversity of sayings to add spice to our conversation and enrich our daily lives. The book is alphabetically arranged by author and indexed by keyword for ease of use.

According to tradition Cervantes first conceived his comic masterpiece in jail — his avowed intent being to debunk the romances of chivalry. From first publication Don Quixote was a best-seller, initially taken as a knockabout account of a mad Spanish gentleman and his cowardly peasant squire, but later reinterpreted as an enlightenment text, a representation of universal human nature, a myth of a tragic hero defending man's nobler aspirations, a study in alienation, a spiritual autobiography, a metaphor for Spain's imperial decline, an experimental novel that shaped later prose fiction, a tragedy and comedy in one, and a demonstration that ambiguity and uncertainty can lie at the centre of great art and that great art can be comic. Smollet's vigorous and lively translation brilliantly catches the feeling and tone of the Spanish original. It is a comic novelist's homage to a comic novelist.

Drawing on the experience she gained while 'constantly employed by fashionable and noble families', Eliza Smith, writing a hundred years before Mrs Beeton, compiled a collection of more than 600 recipes which had met with 'the general approbation'. She was also at pains to pass on, for the benefit of every 'accomplished gentlewoman', a multitude of cures and remedies 'never before made publick' for every ailment from a pimpled face to the bite of a mad dog, together with a number of useful DIY tips. Published originally as The Compleat Housewife, Eliza's compendium proved so popular that by 1758, thirty years after her death, it was in its seventeenth edition and famous not only in Britain but in America, where it was the first cookery book ever published. Today, in an age of convenience foods, labour-saving technology, fashionable fads and sophisticated cuisine, this once indispensable handbook provides a fascinating glimpse of domestic economy in the eighteenth century, when a housewife's duties ranged from marketing, cooking, brewing and preserving to applying medieval cures which sound to the modern ear more likely to kill than cure.

»Human, All Too Human» (1878) marks the point where Nietzsche abandons German romanticism for the French Enlightenment. At a moment of crisis in his life (no longer a friend of Richard Wagner, forced to leave academic life through ill health), he sets out his views in a scintillating and bewildering series of aphorisms which contain the seeds of his later philosophy (e.g. the will to power, the need to transcend conventional Christian morality). The result is one of the cornerstones of his life's work. It well deserves its subtitle 'A Book for Free Spirits', and its original dedication to Voltaire, whose project of radical enlightenment here finds a new champion. «Beyond Good and Evil» (1886) is a scathing and powerful critique of philosophy, religion and science. Here Nietzsche presents us with problems and challenges that are as troubling as they are inspiring, while at the same time outlining the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterise the philosophy of the future. Relentless, energetic, tirelessly probing, he both determines that philosophy's agenda and is himself the embodiment of the type of thought he wants to foster.