An astonishingly frank and deeply autobiographical account of homosexual relationships in an era when love between men was not only stigmatised, but also illegal, E.M. Forster's Maurice is edited by P.N. Furbank with an introduction by David Leavitt in Penguin Classics. Maurice Hall is a young man who grows up confident in his privileged status and well aware of his role in society. Modest and generally conformist, he nevertheless finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive, whom he encounters at Cambridge, and through Alec, the gamekeeper on Clive's country estate, Maurice gradually experiences a profound emotional and sexual awakening. A tale of passion, bravery and defiance, this intensely personal novel was completed in 1914 but remained unpublished until after Forster's death in 1970. Compellingly honest and beautifully written, it offers a powerful condemnation of the repressive attitudes of British society, and is at once a moving love story and an intimate tale of one man's erotic and political self-discovery. In his introduction, David Leavitt explores the significance of the novel in relation to Forster's own life and as a founding work of modern gay literature. This edition reproduces the Abinger text of the novel, and includes new notes, a chronology and further reading. E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was a noted English author and critic and a member of the Bloomsbury group. His first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread appeared in 1905. The Longest Journey appeared in 1907, followed by A Room With A View (1908), based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. Howards End (1910) was a story that centred on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. Maurice was revised several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971. If you enjoyed Maurice, you might like Forster's A Room With a View, also available in Penguin Classics.

Visiting Italy with her prim and proper cousin Charlotte as a chaperone, Lucy Honeychurch meets the unconventional lower-class Mr. Emerson and his son, George. Upon her return to England she becomes engaged to the supercilious Cecil Vyse, but finds herself increasingly torn between the expectations of the world in which she moves and the passionate yearnings of her heart. As Forster writes, "You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you." More than a love story, A Room With a View is a perceptive examination of class structure and a penetrating social comedy.
With an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm Bradbury

When Adela and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its ins ular and prejudiced British community. Determined to explore the real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal that rouses violent passions among both the British and their Indian subjects. A masterly portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

在线阅读本书
Housman's melodic and memorable poems have been popular for over a century. He writes typically of lost love, of the brevity of happiness, of young soldiers doomed to die. Admirers have found his work elegant and resonant; detractors have thought much of it mannered and glib. But Housman speaks with two voices: the smooth texts conceal a dark sub-text. This tormented and secretive man wrote poems alive with indirect self-disclosure.

Contains the Author's Note. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

在线阅读本书
JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) was one of the most remarkable figures in English literature. Born in Poland, and originally named Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski, he went to sea at the age of seventeen and eventually joined the crew of an English vessel, becoming a British citizen in the process. He retired from the sea in 1894 and took up the pen, writing all his works in English, a language he had only learned as an adult. Despite this, he was a master stylist, both lush and precise. His outsider's eye gave him special insights into the moral dangers of the great age of European empires. In his prefactory note to _The Nigger of the Narcissus,_ Conrad wrote, "A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect. . . ."

The Fourth Edition is again based on Robert Kimbrough's meticulously re-edited text. Missing words have been restored and the entire novel has been repunctuated in accordance with Conrad's style. The result is the first published version of Heart of Darkness that allows readers to hear Marlow's voice as Conrad heard it when he wrote the story.
" Backgrounds and Contexts " provides readers with a generous collection of maps and photographs that bring the Belgian Congo to life. Textual materials, topically arranged, address nineteenth-century views of imperialism and racism and include autobiographical writings by Conrad on his life in the Congo. New to the Fourth Edition is an excerpt from Adam Hochschild's recent book, King Leopold's Ghost , as well as writings on race by Hegel, Darwin, and Galton.
" Criticism " includes a wealth of new materials, including nine contemporary reviews and assessments of Conrad and Heart of Darkness and twelve recent essays by Chinua Achebe, Peter Brooks, Daphne Erdinast-Vulcan, Edward Said, and Paul B. Armstrong, among others. Also new to this edition is a section of writings on the connections between Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now by Louis K. Greiff, Margot Norris, and Lynda J. Dryden.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
About the Series : No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions . Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

'The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?' Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is fated to be a modern-day tragic hero, unable to survive in the new commercial world, his story is also a journey towards love. This edition is the only critically established text of the novel, based on a comprehensive study of the manuscript and Hardy's extensive revisions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

在线阅读本书
Edited with Notes by Tim Dolin and an Introduction by Margaret R. Higonnet

This "Norton Critical Edition of Kim" is now available for the first time in the European Union. Recognised as Rudyard Kipling's finest work, "Kim" was a key factor in his winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is the 1901 first English edition, annotated for undergraduate readers. Background material includes selections from Kipling's autobiography, letters, short stories and poems; four contemporary assessments; an excerpt from Charles Carrington's biography and contextual essays. Thirteen interpretive essays are included along with a chronology and bibliography.

Shaw radically reworks Ovid's tale with a feminist twist: while Henry Higgins successfully teaches Eliza Doolittle to speak and act like a duchess, she adamantly refuses to be his creation. First produced in 1914, it remains one of Shaw's most popular plays.
The Definitive Text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence
With an Introduction by Nicholas Grene

Oscar Wilde was already one of the best known literary figures in Britain when he was persuaded to turn his extraordinary talents to the theatre. Between 1891 and 1895 he produced a sequence of distinctive plays which spearheaded the dramatic renaissance of the 1890s and retain their power today. The social comedies, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband, offer a moving as well as witty dissection of society and its morals, with a sharp focus on sexual politics. By contrast, the experimental, symbolist Salome, written originally in French, was banned for public performance by the English censor. His final dramatic triumph was his 'trivial' comedy for serious people, The Importance of Being Earnest' arguably the greatest farcical comedy in English. Under the General Editorship of Dr Michael Cordner of the University of York, the texts of the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation. In addition, there is a scholarly introduction and detailed annotation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

在线阅读本书
Enthralled by a portrait of himself, young Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to exchange his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Thus he is able to indulge in his desires, as only the portrait bears the traces of his decadence and becomes a nightmarish picture of his soul.
Edited with an Introduction by Robert Mighall
Preface by Peter Ackroyd

在线阅读本书

Flouting conventional Victorian attitudes about religion, politics, decorum and morality, Swinburne was a sensualist, alive to pleasure and to pain. He was a poet not of objects and things, or of word paintings, but of energies-of wind and water-and what Tennyson called wonderful rhythmic invention. Atalanta in Calydon is a drama in classical Greek form, with choruses that reveal Swinburne's mastery of melodious verse. His poems are opulent hymns to sensual love in all its aspects, to the loss of love, and to death.
Together, the works in this unique volume demonstrate Swinburne's mastery of form and the rich complexity of his poetry. This edition contains a preface, a commentary on the poems and two appendices, including a map of the places mentioned in Atalanta in Calydon .

This edition of Meredith's satirical novel of manners reprints the text of 1897, which incorporated Meredith's revisions to the first edition of 1879. The editor has corrected some errors which escaped Meredith's attention and has provided exceptionally useful notes on the novel.

"Backgrounds" includes Meredith's "Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit."

"The Critical Essays" are by Robert D. Mayo, Richard B. Hudson, Jenni Calder, Gillian Beer, John Goode, Charles J. Hill, Michael Sundell, Virginia Woolf, John Lucas, and Robert M. Adams.

A Bibliography is also included.

'The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.' Matthew Arnold's famous series of essays, which were first published in book form under the title Culture and Anarchy in 1869, debate important questions about the nature of culture and society that are as relevant now as they have ever been. Arnold seeks to find out 'what culture really is, what good it can do, what is our own special need of it' in an age of rapid social change and increasing mechanization. He contrasts culture, 'the study of perfection', with anarchy, the mood of unrest and uncertainty that pervaded mid-Victorian England. How can individuals be educated, not indoctrinated, and what is the role of the state in disseminating 'sweetness and light'? This edition reproduces the original book version and enables readers to appreciate its immediate historical context as well as the reasons for its continued importance today, in the face of the challenges of multi-culturalism and post-modernism. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

It came to me first of all, quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment. Falsely accused, cut off from his past, Silas the weaver is reduced to a spider-like existence, endlessly weaving his web and hoarding his gold. Meanwhile, Godfrey Cass, son of the squire, contracts a secret marriage. While the village celebrates Christmas and New Year, two apparently inexplicable events occur: Silas loses his gold and finds a child on his hearth. The imaginative control George Eliot displays as her narrative gradually reveals causes and connections has rarely been surpassed. Silas Marner (1861) is the shortest and most immediately accessible of Eliot's novels. She takes the materials of legend and fairy tale and provides them with a historically precise setting, drawing on some of the most advanced ideas of her day in order to represent states of mind and belief at the limits of rational perception. This edition, which is based on the carefully corrected text George Eliot prepared a few months after the first edition, is accompanied by an introduction which illuminates the intellectual context of what has often been presented as a nostalgic, sentimental tale. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire's son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris. A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.