Книги жанра Oxford University Press
Название: Kafka: A Very Short Introduction
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Franz Kafka is among the most intriguing and influential writers of the last century. During his lifetime he worked as a civil servant and published only a handful of short stories, the best known being The Transformation. His other three novels, published after his death, helped to found his reputation as a uniquely perceptive interpreter of the twentieth century. Discussing both Kafka's crisis-ridden life and the subtleties of his art, Ritchie Robertson provides an intriguing and accessible look at the life of this fascinating author. Using Metamorphosis as a recurring example, Robertson shows how Kafka's work explores such characteristically modern themes as the place of the body in culture, the power of institutions over people, and the possibility of religion after Nietzsche had proclaimed «the death of God».
Название: Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
With his well-known idiosyncrasies and aphoristic style, Friedrich Nietzsche is always bracing and provocative, and temptingly easy to dip into. Michael Tanner's introduction to the philosopher's life and work examines the numerous ambiguities inherent in his writings and explodes many of the misconceptions that have grown in the hundred years since Nietzsche wrote «do not, above all, confound me with what I am not!»
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
A complete intermediate course which develops essential language skills and introduces students to a wide range of exam tasks. Especially written and designed for young teenagers.
Название: Robinson Crusoe
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2010
Рейтинг:
Описание:
'I made him know his Name should be Friday, which was the Day I saved his Life... I likewise taught him to say Master'. Robinson Crusoe's seafaring adventures are abruptly ended when he is shipwrecked, the solitary survivor on a deserted island. He gradually creates a life for himself, building a house, cultivating the land, and making a companion from the native whose life he saves. Daniel Defoe's enthralling story-telling and imaginatively detailed descriptions have ensured that his fiction masquerading as fact remains one of the most famous stories in English literature. On one level a simple adventure story, the novel also raises profound questions about moral and spiritual values, society, and man's abiding acquisitiveness. This new edition includes a scintillating Introduction and notes that illuminate the historical context.
Название: The Rainbow
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
In The Rainbow (1915) Lawrence challenged the customary limitations of language and convention to carry into the structures of his prose the fascination with boundaries and space that characterize the entire novel. Condemned and suppressed on first publication for its open treatment of sexuality and its «unpatriotic» spirit, the novel chronicles the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family over a period of more than 60 years, setting them against the emergence of modern England.
Название: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Combining a sensational story of a man's physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Brontes optimistic belief in universal redemption. It tells the story of the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence, in full flight from a shocking world of debauchery and cruelty. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Brontes novel scandalized contemporary readers and still retains its power to shock today. The new introduction by Josephine McDonagh sheds light on the intellectual and cultural context of the novel, its complex narrative structure, and the contemporary moral and medical debates about alcohol and the body with which the novel engages. Based on the authoritative Clarendon text, the book has an improved chronology, an up-to-date bibliography, and many informative notes.
Название: The Professor
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
The hero of Charlotte Bront�'s first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zora�de Reuter, complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school. Also included in this edition is Emma, Charlotte Bront�'s last, unfinished novel. Both works are drawn from the original Clarendon texts.
Название: The Aspern Papers and Other Stories
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
An American editor with an enthusiasm for the works of Jeffrey Aspern, a romantic poet of the early 19th century, goes to Venice to acquire the letters that Aspern wrote to his mistress, a Miss Bordereau, whom he called «Juliana.» Under an assumed name he rents a suite in the ancient palace where she lives in poverty and seclusion with her niece, Miss Tina. He finds that the old lady is shrewd and haughty and accepts him as a lodger only to put aside money for the future of Miss Tina, a timid, unattractive spinster much in awe of her aunt. During his residence with them, the editor wins the friendship of Miss Tina, to whom he reveals his mission. Leaving Venice for a fortnight, he returns to find that Miss Bordereau has died. Miss Tina, who is clearly in love, Welcomes him expectantly, but confesses that she could only give him the papers if he were «a relative». In addition to «The Aspern Paper», this collection contains «The Private Life», «The Middle Years», and «The Death of the Lion», as well as prefaces by Henry James, a chronology of his life, and editor's notes.
Название: Symposium
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC. The guests--including the comic poet Aristophanes and Plato's mentor Socrates--each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness, and a brilliant sketch of Socrates himself by a drunken Alcibiades, the most popular and notorious Athenian of the time. Engaging the reader on every page, this new translation conveys the power, humor, and pathos of Plato's creation and is complemented by full explanatory notes and an illuminating introduction.
Название: Shirley
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Shirley is Charlotte Bronte e's only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bronte's deep yearning for an earlier time.
Название: The Secret Agent
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in London's Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be «a simple tale» proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats and London's fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising interrelations. Based on the text which Conrad's first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a full and up-to-date bibliography, a comprehensive chronology and a critical introduction which describes Conrad's great London novel as the realization of a «monstrous town», a place of idiocy, madness, criminality, and butchery. It also discusses contemporary anarchist activity in the UK, imperialism, and Conrad's narrative techniques.
Название: Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own «wicked» life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. This edition uses the rare first edition text, with a new Introduction, detailed Notes, textual history and a map of contemporary London.
Название: Hard Times
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Hard Times--Dickens's shortest novel and one of his triumphs--tells the tragic story of Louisa Gradgrind and her father and has had lasting appeal to generations of readers.
Название: Basil
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
In Basil's secret and unconsummated marriage to Margaret Sherwin, and the consequent horrors of betrayal, insanity, and death, Collins reveals the bustling, commercial London of the first half of the nineteenth century. Collins' treatment of adultery shocked contemporary reviewers, and even today the passionate and lurid atmosphere he created has the power to disturb the modern reader.
Название: Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice. Hardy's indictment of society's double standards, and his depiction of Tess as «a pure woman», caused controversy in his day and has held the imagination of readers ever since. Hardy thought it his finest novel, and Tess the most deeply felt character he ever created. This unique critical text is taken from the authoritative Clarendon edition, which is based on the manuscript collated with all Hardy's subsequent revisions.
Название: Villette
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Название: Daisy Miller and Other Stories
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
The tale of Daisy's irruption into staid European society enjoyed, as did Daisy herself, a success de scandale; and it has remained one of Jamess most popular short stories. Like the others collected here 'Pandora', 'The Patagonia', and 'Four Meetings' it describes a confrontation between different values in a changing world. Is the new independent American girl enchanting in her spontaneity, alarming in her unpredictability, or merely vulnerable in her ignorance of social codes? Hung about with make admirers who seek, uncertainly, to grasp the new phenomenon, Daisy marches on undiscourageable, to her triumphant-or tragic-destiny. This volume contains prefaces by Henry James, a chronology of his life, and editor's notes.
Название: The Tempest
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Performed variously as escapist fantasy, celebratory fiction, and political allegory, The Tempest is one of the plays in which Shakespeare's genius as a poetic dramatist found its fullest expression. Significantly, it was placed first when published in the First Folio of 1623, and is now generally seen as the playwright's most penetrating statement about his art. Stephen Orgel's wide-ranging introduction examines changing attitudes to The Tempest, and reassesses the evidence behind the various readings. He focuses on key characters and their roles and relationships, as well as on the dramatic, historical, and political context, finding the play to be both more open and more historically determined than traditional views have allowed.
Название: Timon of Athens
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Timon of Athens is a bitterly intriguing study of a fabulously rich man who wastes his wealth on his friends, and, when he is finally impoverished, learns to despise humanity with a hatred that drives him to his grave. The play's plot structure is schematically clear, and the poetry of Timon's rage is arresting in its savage intensity. Yet readers have often detected loose ends, and the tone of writing is uneven. In his introduction, John Jowett explains how these characteristics arise because the play was written as a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton. This edition pays full justice to Middleton's presence, explaining how his contribution gave the play its distinctive edge. Readers need to read this play as a dialogue between writers of different temperaments, and this edition is the first to make such a reading possible. The introduction provides the fullest account of the play's performance history available. The commentary is the most detailed ever to have been published. Appendices include source materials and a listing of major productions worldwide.
Название: Room of Ones Own and Three Guineas
Жанр: Oxford University Press
Год: 2009
Рейтинг:
Описание:
In A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf considers with energy and wit the implications of the historical exclusion of women from education and from economic independence. In A Room of One's Own (1929), she examines the work of past women writers, and looks ahead to a time when women's creativity will not be hampered by poverty, or by oppression. In Three Guineas (1938), however, Woolf argues that women's historical exclusion offers them the chance to form a political and cultural identity which could challenge the drive towards fascism and war.
