Robinson Crusoe (1719) is one of the most famous adventure stories ever written. The account of a sailor shipwrecked on a desert island for twenty-eight years, it is also a tale of mythic proportions, an allegory, and a spiritual autobiography.

Organizes information on the places, people, and allusions found in Blake's writings into a concise reference work

This complete and unabridged edition is the only complete critical edition in paperback. Samuel Johnson was a poet, essayist, dramatist, and pioneering lexicographer, but his continuing reputation depends less on his literary output than on the fortunate accident of finding an ideal biographer in James Boswell. As Johnson's constant and admiring companion, Boswell was able to record not only the outward events of his life, but also the humour, wit, and sturdy common sense of his conversation. His brilliant portrait of a major literary figure of the eighteenth century, enriched by historical and social detail, remains a monument to the art of biography.

Twins Viola and Sebastian are shipwrecked. Believing her brother drowned, and determined to survive alone, Viola disguises herself as a boy. As 'Cesario' she enters the service of Orsino and is sent by him to woo Olivia. But Olivia isn't interested and 'Cesario' is swept into a merry-go-round world of unrequited love, mistaken identities, high comedy, low tricks and desperate passion. --Publisher.

A cipher message and a horrible murder in a Sussex village begin this dark and powerful tale as Holmes battles with the forces of the criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty. Central to the novel lies the story of a terrorist brotherhood and the hold it acquired over an American mining valley. At the end of the investigation, which Holmes declares is making him lose his wits, it is Professor Moriarty who has the final laugh. - ;A cipher message and a horrible murder in a Sussex village begin this dark and powerful tale as Holmes battles with the forces of the criminal mastermind, Professor Moriarty. Central to the novel lies the story of a terrorist brotherhood and the hold it acquired over an American mining valley. At the end of the investigation, which Holmes declares is making him lose his wits, it is Professor Moriarty who has the final laugh. -

A TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Drawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literary biographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, Peter Ackroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare--and brings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. With characteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us in sixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape–the industry, the animals, even the flowers–that would appear in Shakespeare’s plays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood and the fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor and writer. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constant reviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details with profound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd has produced an altogether engaging masterpiece.

The fourth edition of Jane Austen's Letters incorporates the findings of new scholarship to enrich our understanding of Austen and give us the fullest view yet of her life and family. The biographical and topographical indexes have been updated, a new subject index has been created, and the contents of the notes added to the general index.

This definitive work on Joyce's life has been revised and expanded to include the discovery of much primary material - including a new love affair, Boswellian records of his brother's conversations by Stanislaus Joyce, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.

Stephen Greenblatt sets out to explain his longtime fascination with the ghost of Hamlet's father, and his daring and ultimately gratifying journey takes him through surprising intellectual territory. It yields an extraordinary account of the rise and fall of Purgatory as both a belief and a lucrative institution--as well as a capacious new reading of the power of Hamlet. In the mid-sixteenth century, English authorities abruptly changed the relationship between the living and dead. Declaring that Purgatory was a false "poem," they abolished the institutions and banned the practices that Christians relied on to ease the passage to Heaven for themselves and their dead loved ones. Greenblatt explores the fantastic adventure narratives, ghost stories, pilgrimages, and imagery by which a belief in a grisly "prison house of souls" had been shaped and reinforced in the Middle Ages. He probes the psychological benefits as well as the high costs of this belief and of its demolition. With the doctrine of Purgatory and the elaborate practices that grew up around it, the church had provided a powerful method of negotiating with the dead. The Protestant attack on Purgatory destroyed this method for most people in England, but it did not eradicate the longings and fears that Catholic doctrine had for centuries focused and exploited. In his strikingly original interpretation, Greenblatt argues that the human desires to commune with, assist, and be rid of the dead were transformed by Shakespeare--consummate conjurer that he was--into the substance of several of his plays, above all the weirdly powerful Hamlet. Thus, the space of Purgatory became the stage haunted by literature's most famous ghost. This book constitutes an extraordinary feat that could have been accomplished by only Stephen Greenblatt. It is at once a deeply satisfying reading of medieval religion, an innovative interpretation of the apparitions that trouble Shakespeare's tragic heroes, and an exploration of how a culture can be inhabited by its own spectral leftovers.

This is the first introduction to rhythm and meter that begins where students are: as speakers of English familiar with the rhythms of ordinary spoken language, and of popular verse such as nursery rhymes, songs, and rap. Poetic rhythm builds on this knowledge and experience, taking the reader from the most basic questions about the rhythms of spoken English to the elaborate achievements of past and present poets. Terminology is straightforward, the simple system of scansion that is introduced is suitable for both handwriting and computer use, and there are frequent practical exercises. Chapters deal with the elements of verse, English speech rhythms, the major types of metrical poetry, free verse, and the role of sense and syntax. Poetic rhythm will help readers of poetry experience and enjoy its rhythms in all their power, subtlety, and diversity, and will serve as an invaluable tool for those who wish to write or discuss poetry in English at a basic as well as a more advanced level.