Серия книг «Wordsworth Classics» — 62 книги

Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in "art for art's sake", to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the "note of doom" which runs like "a purple thread" through its carefully crafted prose.

Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between…

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant. Canterbury Christ Church College.

The tough-mindedness of the social satire in and its air of palpable integrity give this novel a special place in Anthony Trollope's Literary career. Trollope paints a picture as panoramic as his title promises, of the life of 1870s London, the loves of those drawn to and through the city, and the career of Augustus Melmotte. Melmotte is one of the Victorian novel's greatest and strangest creations, and is an achievement undimmed by the passage of time.

Trollope's 'Now' might, in the twenty-first century, look like some distant disenchanted 'Then', but this is still the yesterday which we must understand in order to make proper sense of our today.

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant. Canterbury Christ Church College.

The tough-mindedness of the social satire in and its air of palpable integrity give this…

With an introduction by David Stuart Davies.

The father of science fiction, Jules Verne, invites you to join the intrepid and eccentric Professor Liedenbrock and his companions on a thrilling and dramatic expedition as they travel down a secret tunnel in a volcano in Iceland on a journey which will lead them to the centre of the earth. Along the way they encounter various hazards and witness many incredible sights such as the underground forest, illuminated by electricity, the Great Geyser, the battle between prehistoric monsters, the strange whispering gallery, giant insects and the vast subterranean sea with its ferocious whirlpool.


Although published in the nineteenth century, Journey to the Centre of the Earth has lost none of its power and potency to excite and engage the modern reader. The novel has been filmed many times, but nothing can compare with the thrills and excitement generated by the written narrative. It is supreme escapist entertainment for all ages.

With an introduction by David Stuart Davies.

The father of science fiction, Jules Verne, invites you to join the intrepid and eccentric Professor Liedenbrock and his…

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex.

Othello has long been recognised as one of the most powerful of Shakespeare’s tragedies. This is an intense drama of love, deception, jealousy and destruction. Desdemona’s love for Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but the envious Iago conspires to devastate their lives.

In its vivid rendering of racism, sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from Shakespeare’s major phase as a dramatist. Productions on stage and screen regularly renew its power to engross, impress and trouble the imagination.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex.

Othello has long been recognised as one of the most powerful of…

With an Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.

The four novels gathered here constitute the complete longer works of one the most brilliant and original American writers. West’s vision of American modernity is terrifyingly comical and diagnoses the tawdriness and meretriciousness of much of American popular culture. His greatest work, Miss Lonelyhearts, which begins this collection, is unique in modern literature. It describes New York in the early years of the Great Depression through the point of view of an ‘agony aunt’ who corresponds with his suffering readers in the guise of Miss Lonelyhearts: ‘(Are you in trouble? – Do you need advice?)’. A Cool Million is, as its subtitle suggests, the ‘dismantling’ of a myth, here a caustic satire of the ‘rags to riches’ story. West’s final novel, The Day of the Locust, is a comic, yet apocalyptic account of the fantasies of 1930s Hollywood. This volume concludes with West’s parodic and surreal first venture into fiction, The Dream Life of Balso Snell.

Henry Claridge’s introduction to this new edition of West’s fictional writings contextualises his work in the United States of the Great Depression, in his evocation of 1930s Hollywood (where he worked as a writer of screenplays), and in the larger context of his Eastern European Jewish background, and, particularly, his reading of Dostoyesvky. The text comes with extensive annotations, a note on the textual history of West’s writings, and a guide to further reading for both the student and the general reader.

With an Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury.

The four novels gathered here constitute the complete…

Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels, - of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life's many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.

Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this…

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull.

Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer.

Although subtitled A Novel without a Hero, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world.

When Vanity Fair was published in 1848, Charlotte Brontë commented: ‘The more I read Thackeray’sworks the more certain I am that he stands alone – alone in his sagacity, alone in his truth, alone in his feeling… Thackeray is a Titan.’

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull.

Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven…

Introduction and Notes by Dr David Rogers, Kingston University.

'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst the swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.'
Thus Bram Stoker, one of the greatest exponents of the supernatural narrative, describes the demonic subject of his chilling masterpiece Dracula, a truly iconic and unsettling tale of vampirism.

Introduction and Notes by Dr David Rogers, Kingston University.

'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark…

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex.

The Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series, with Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its inaugural volumes, presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare’s works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal.

Its lyricism, comedy (both broad and subtle) and magical transformations have long made A Midsummer Night’s Dream one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s works. The supernatural and the mundane, the illusory and the substantial, are all shimmeringly blended. Love is treated as tragic, poignant, absurd and farcical. ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’, jeers Robin Goodfellow; but the joke may be on him and on his master Oberon when Bottom the weaver, his head transformed into that of an ass, is embraced by the voluptuously amorous Titania.

Recent stage-productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream have emphasised the enchanting, spectacular, ambiguous and erotically joyous aspects of this magical drama which culminates in a multiple celebration of marriage.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex.

The Wordsworth Classics’ Shakespeare Series, with Romeo and Juliet,…

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its highly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, melancholy philosophising and finally a multiplicity of marriages.

The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre.


The text of this edition is taken, by arrangement, from the Cambridge University Press ‘New Shakespeare’, edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies,…

Far from the Madding Crowd is perhaps the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells the story of the young farmer Gabriel Oak and his love for and pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy and true love. It tells of the dashing Sergeant Troy whose rakish philosophy of life was '...the past was yesterday; never, the day after'. And lastly, of the introverted and reclusive gentleman farmer, Mr Boldwood, whose love fills him with '...a fearful sense of exposure', when he first sets eyes on Bathsheba.
The background of this tale is the Wessex countryside in all its moods.
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Far from the Madding Crowd is perhaps the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells the story of the young farmer Gabriel Oak and his love for and pursuit of the elusive…

Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic.
But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each.
Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing. Expanding to equal his "mighty theme" - not only the whale but all things sublime - Melville breathes in the world's great literature. Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written by an American.

Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a…

Little Women is one of the best-loved children's stories of all time, based on the author's own youthful experiences. It describes the family life of the four March sisters living in a small New England community, Meg, the eldest, is pretty and wishes to be a lady; Jo, at fifteen is ungainly and unconventional with an ambition to be an author; Beth is a delicate child of thirteen with a taste for music and Amy is a blonde beauty of twelve.
The story of their domestic adventures, their attempts to increase the family income, their friendship with the neighbouring Lawrence family, and their later love affairs remains as fresh and beguiling as ever.
Good Wives takes up the story of the March sisters, some three years later, when, as young adults, they must face up to the inevitable trials and traumas of everyday life in their search for individual happiness.

Little Women is one of the best-loved children's stories of all time, based on the author's own youthful experiences. It describes the family life of the four March sisters living…

This is a collection of tales of the supernatural, where patients of Dr Heselius are plagued by malignant apparitions and vampires, or are drugged into a state of living death. The doctor usually explains such phenomena in terms of psychopathology, but the author is ambivalent to such theories.

This is a collection of tales of the supernatural, where patients of Dr Heselius are plagued by malignant apparitions and vampires, or are drugged into a state of living death.…

`Then vision of an enormous town presented itself, of a monstrous town... a cruel devourer of the world's light. There was room enough there to place any story, depth enough for tiny passion, variety enough there for any setting, darkness enough to bury five millions of lives`.

Conrad's 'monstrous town' is London, and his story of espionage and counter-espionage, anarchists and embassies, is a detective story that becomes the story of Winnie Verloc's tenacity in maintaining her devotion to her peculiar and simple-minded brother, Stevie, as they pursue their very ordinary lives above a rather dubious shop in the back streets of Soho. However, far from offering any sentimental picture, `The Secret Agent` is Conrad's funniest novel. Its savagely witty picture of human absurdity and misunderstanding is written in an ironic style that provokes laughter and unease at the same time, and that continues to provide one of the most disturbing visions of aspiration and futility in twentieth century literature.

`Then vision of an enormous town presented itself, of a monstrous town... a cruel devourer of the world's light. There was room enough there to place any story, depth enough for…

Dickens's first historical novel is set against the infamous "No Popery" riots that were instigated by Lord George Gordon in 1780, and terrorised London for days. Prejudice, intolerance, misplaced religious and nationalistic fervour, together with the villains who would exploit these for political ends, are Dickens's targets. His vivid account of the riots at the heart of the novel is interwoven with the mysterious tale of a long unsolved murder, and a romance that combines forbidden love, passion, treachery and heroism.
A typically rich cast of comic characters, from the snivelling Miss Miggs and the posturing Simon Tappertit to the half-witted "Barnaby Rudge" of the title, ensures high entertainment.

Dickens's first historical novel is set against the infamous "No Popery" riots that were instigated by Lord George Gordon in 1780, and terrorised London for days. Prejudice,…

The Waves, first published in 1931, is Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis. Also important is Percival, the seventh character, though readers never hear him speak through his own voice. The monologues that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset.

The Waves, first published in 1931, is Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville,…

Edited and with an Introduction by Dr Keith Carabine, Chairperson of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain.

As these three specially commissioned stories amply demonstrate, Conrad is our greatest writer of the sea. His characters are tested by dramatic events 'that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret stuff of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself'. In Typhoon, Conrad's funniest story, Captain MacWhirr blunders into a hurricane that reveals the sea's treachery, violence and terror. Falk is desperate to get married, but first he must tell of his terrible experiences as sole survivor of a stricken ship that once drifted into the ice-caps of Antarctica. The Shadow-Line is a poignant and beautiful story. Written during the First World War and based on Conrad's fond evocation of his own first command, it expresses his solidarity with all who were obliged to cross in early youth the shadow-line of their war-torn generation.

Includes a glossary of nautical terms.

Edited and with an Introduction by Dr Keith Carabine, Chairperson of the Joseph Conrad Society of Great Britain.

As these three specially commissioned stories amply…

"Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821) relates Thomas De Quincey's early life and experiences of opium addiction at a time when that drug was widely used for the relief of pain, and before its addictive qualities were properly understood. It is a work which encompasses amusement with nightmare as the author experiences in turn the marvels of opium-induced dreams and the equally vivid nightmares which are their counterpoint.

"Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821) relates Thomas De Quincey's early life and experiences of opium addiction at a time when that drug was widely used for the relief of…

This specially commissioned selection of Conrad`s matchless short stories includes such favourites as `Youth`, a modern epic of the sea; `The Secret Sharer`, a thrilling psychological drama; `An Outpost of Progress`, a blackly comic prelude to

This specially commissioned selection of Conrad`s matchless short stories includes such favourites as `Youth`, a modern epic of the sea; `The Secret Sharer`, a thrilling…