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With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine, University of Kent at Canterbury.These three wonderful comic novels drolly record the battle between Lucia and Elisabeth Mapp for social and cultural supremacy in the village of Tilling (based on Rye). Their constant skirmishes ensure that every game of bridge, tea or dinner-party, church service, council meeting or art-exhibition are thrilling encounters that ensure Tilling is always on 'a very agreeable rack of suspense'. Both Elisabeth and Lucia are gross hypocrites, snobs and bullies, the huge differences in temperament and style ensure the battle is usually unequal. Elisabeth is incurably mean-spirited and Lucia suffers from splendid delusions of grandeur and personal prestige. Driven by demons of revenge, Elisabeth always acts impulsively, and therefore every revelation of her meanness allows Lucia, the consummate actress, to kill her ally with a sickening kindness.In his insightful Introduction Keith Carabine shows that these books are excruciatingly funny because Benson, like Jane Austen, invites the reader to view the world through the self-deluded chronic anger and jaundiced suspicions of Elisabeth and through the self-deluded fabrications and day-dreams of Lucia. Carabine also concentrates on the novels' disturbing, bitchy, 'camp' humour whenever 'that horrid thing which Freud calls sex is raised'

Selected and Introduced by M J Elliott.'They were removing the stones quietly, one by one, from the centuried wall. And then, as the breach became large enough, they came out into the laboratory in single file; led by a stalking thing with a beautiful head made of wax.'From the dark, mind-expanding imagination of H P Lovecraft, Wordsworth presents a third volume of tales penned by the greatest horror writer of the 20th Century. Here are some of Lovecraft's weirdest flesh-creeping masterpieces, including Pickman's Model, The Shunned House, his famous serial Herbert West - Reanimator, and several classic tales from the Cthulhu Mythos, in which mankind is subjected to the unimaginable terrors known only to those who have read from the forbidden Necronomicon. Also included in this compelling collection are the complete Randolph Carter stories, chronicling his adventures in this world and the realm of his dreams, where he faces perils beyond comprehension.

With an Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.Tender is the Night is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the 'Roaring Twenties'. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Divers' troubled marriage, and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth that springs from the quality of Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the novel is based.Six years separate Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon, the novel Fitzgerald left unfinished at his death in December 1940. Fitzgerald lived in Hollywood more or less continuously from July 1937 until his death, and a novel about the film industry at the height of 'the studio system' centred on the working life of a top producer was begun in 1939. Even in its incomplete state The Last Tycoon remains the greatest American novel about Hollywood and contains some of Fitzgerald's most brilliant writing.

In 1869 a young Russian was strangled, shot through the head and thrown into a pond. His crime? A wish to leave small group of violent revolutionaries, from which he had become alienated.

With an Introduction by M.J. Elliott.'My eyes, perversely shaken open, gazed for an instant upon a sight which no human creature could even imagine without panic, fear and physical exhaustionA wax museum in London boasts a new exhibit, which no man has seen and remained sane A businessman is trapped in a train carriage with a madman who claims to have created a new and efficient method of capital punishment A doctor plans a horrible revenge, using as his murder weapon an insect believed capable of consuming the human soul Within these pages, some of H P Lovecraft's more obscure works of horror and science fiction can be found, including several fantastic tales from his celebrated Cthulhu Mythos. No true Lovecraft aficionado dare be without this volume.

Mark Twain's voyage from New York City to Europe and the Holy Land in June 1867 produced The Innocents Abroad, a book so funny and provocative it made him an international star for the rest of his life.

A group of men escape imprisonment during the American Civil War by stealing a balloon. Blown across the world, they are air-wrecked on a remote desert island. In a manner reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe, the men apply their scientific knowledge and technical skill to exploit the island's bountiful resources.

Millenia ago, the Old Ones ruled our planet. Since that time, they have but slumbered. But when a massive sea tremor brings the ancient stone city of R'lyeh to the surface once more, the Old Ones awaken at last. This work brings together the original Cthulhu Mythos stories of the legendary horror writer H P Lovecraft.

The heroine of this novel is Lily Bart, whose goal is to secure a rich husband who can sustain her lifestyle. She operates in a world where social position is important, but money can buy it. Lily is redeemed by her clear view of the corrupt society which is her gilded cage.

Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies: a spectacular, widely-ranging drama of love and war, passion and politics

Although this play ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. It 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.

A sometimes violent and brutal tale of love and betrayal, separation and reconciliation, set in the familiar Bronte landscape of bleak houses in moorland settings.

John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. He is believed drowned under suspicious circumstances - a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity until he can evaluate Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance.

Presenting a tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, this novel highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life.

Tolstoy wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time.

Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned.

Carved by Old Gepetto, Pinnochio has an enormous nose which grows longer whenever he tells a lie. He runs away and joins a circus but eventually the conscious of a talking cricket and Pinnochio's guardian fairy restore him to good behaviour, obedience and care for others.

Translated by C.E.Detmold. With an Introduction by Lucille Margaret Kekewich.Written in 1513 for the Medici, following their return to power in Florence, The Prince is a handbook on ruling and the exercise of power. It remains as relevant today as it was in the sixteenth century. Widely quoted in the Press and in academic publications, The Prince has direct relevance to the issues of business and corporate governance confronting global corporations as they enter a new millennium.Much of what Machiavelli wrote has become the common currency of realpolitik, yet still his ideas retain the power to shock and annoy. In the words of Norman Stone, The Prince is 'a manual of man-management that would suit a great many parts of the modern world'.

Born in 1759 into miserable rustic poverty, by the age of 18 Burns had acquired a good knowledge of both classical and English literature. This collection includes some of his most famous works such as the ballad "Auld Lang Syne", and "Tam o'Shanter".

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".

Features 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.

Traditional rhymes and stories have been collected under the wing of Mother Goose for centuries. This collection contains the old favourites from "Jack and Jill" to comic alphabets and the fearful fate of Anthony Rowley.

Explains about three generations of the Brangwen family of Nottinghamshire from the 1840s to the early years of the twentieth century. This framework is with the passional lives of author's characters as he explores the pressures that determine their lives, using a religious symbolism in which the 'rainbow' of the title is his unifying motif.

Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen. Now, an ambassador in Costantinople, awakes to find that he is a woman.

Set in the reign of Richard I, Coeur de Lion, this title is packed with incidents - sieges, ambushes and combats - and characters: Cedric of Rotherwood, the die-hard Saxon; his ward Rowena; the fierce Templar knight, Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert; the Jew, Isaac of York, and his daughter Rebecca; Wamba and Gurth, jester and swineherd respectively.

Heidi is the tale of a small girl's power for good. When she is sent to live in a city comic chaos ensues, and eventually it is arranged that Heidi should return to the mountains. With her friend Peter, the goat-herd, the two children achieve wondrous changes in the community in which they live.

It was the Psammead, the grumpy sand-fairy that could, if in the mood, grant a wish a day. When the five children befriend him they find that each wish granted often has a sting in its tail.

When Father goes away one evening, the lives of Roberta, Peter and Phyllis are shattered. They and their mother have to move from their comfortable London home to go and live in a simple country cottage, They soon come to love the railway near their cottage and all associated with it.

Mary Lennox was horrid. Selfish and spoilt, she was sent to stay with her hunchback uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the way into a secret garden and begins to tend it, a change comes over her and her life.She meets and befriends a local boy, the talented Dickon, and comes across her sickly cousin Colin who had been kept hidden from her. Between them, the three children work astonishing magic in themselves and those around them.The Secret Garden is one of the best-loved stories of all time.

These witty stories were originally told by Kipling to his own children. In them he gives fanciful accounts of how and why things came to be as they are. Stories include how the leopard got his spots, and the beginning of armadillos.