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Waves
Introduction and Notes by Deborah Parsons, University of Birmingham. ‘I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot’, Virginia Woolf stated of her eighth novel, The Waves. Widely regarded as one of her greatest and most original works, it conveys the rhythms of life in synchrony with the cycle of nature and the… Read More
To the Lighthouse
With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading. This simple and haunting story captures the transcience of life and its surrounding emotions. To the Lighthouse is the most autobiographical of Virginia Woolf’s novels. It is based on her own early experiences, and while it touches on childhood and children’s perceptions and… Read More
Mrs Dalloway
With an Introduction and Notes by Merry M. Pawlowski, Professor and Chair, Department of English, California State University,Bakersfield. Virginia Woolf’s singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is… Read More
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding – Second Treatise of Government
Notes and Introduction by Mark G. Spencer, Brock University, Ontario John Locke (1632-1704) was perhaps the most influential English writer of his time. His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Two Treatises of Government (1690) weighed heavily on the history of ideas in the eighteenth century, and Locke’s works are often − rightly − presented… Read More
Night Terrors: The Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson
With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. ‘His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert… Read More
Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
With an Introduction by Dr. Julian Wolfreys. ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. it is my business to know what other people don’t know’. ’The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes first introduced Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant detective the readers of The Strand Magazine. In these twenty three tales, collected here in one volume, you have some of… Read More
Tale of Two Cities
With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant, Principal Lecturer in English, Canterbury Christ Church University College. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens’ greatest historical novel, traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dickens… Read More
Great Expectations
With an Introduction and Notes by Dr John Bowen, Keele University. Illustrations by F.W. Pailthrope. Considered by many to be Dickens’ finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book’s narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the… Read More
Complete Father Brown Stories
With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G.K. Chesterton’s kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This complete… Read More