Bücher der Reihe Oxford World's Classics

the fates ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of the world's mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods' Romulus and Remus, the rape of Lucretia, Horatius at the bridge, the saga of Coriolanus, Cincinnatus called from his farm to save the state - these and many more are stories which, immortalized by Livy in his history of early Rome, have become part of our cultural heritage. The historian's huge work, written between 20 BC and AD 17, ran to 12 books, beginning with Rome's founding in 753 BC and coming down to Livy's own lifetime (9 BC). Books 1-5 cover the period from Rome's beginnings to her first great foreign conquest, the capture of the Etruscan city of Veii and, a few years later, to her first major defeat, the sack of the city by the Gauls in 390 BC.

One of the most influential Gothic novels, The Castle of Otranto established the literary effects associated with the genre: an ancient castle, secret passages, supernatural visitations, an innocent girl threatened with violence, sudden revelations, terror, and excitement. This new edition explores the reasons for the novel's impact.

A fully revised translation of the great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry known as the Poetic Edda, containing the narratives of the creation of the world and the coming of Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods. Gods, giants, and human heroes populate the poems. This edition includes three new poems.

Daniel Deronda, George Eliot's last great novel, charts the intertwined lives of spirited Gwendolen Harleth and the idealistic Deronda. Both are damaged by their pasts, and alienated from the society around them, in a story set against the backdrop of economic crisis, political uncertainty, and proto-Zionism.

M. R. James's classic ghost stories are some of the finest in English, creating menace and terror in lonely country houses and remote inns. This is the only one-volume edition to include all James's published stories, an appendix of James's writings on the ghost story, and a critical introduction and notes.

Edward Waverley, a young English soldier, is caught up in the Jacobite rising of 1745-6, the last civil war fought on British soil and the attempt to reinstate the Stuart monarchy. With Waverley Scott invented the modern historical novel and profoundly influenced the development of European and American fiction for a century at least.

Charlotte Bronte's letters are our most direct source of information about the Brontes and the life of the novelist. Vivid and passionate, they describe her inmost feelings as well as the world around her in Haworth, Belgium, and London. They offer insights into her novels and the development of her literary style.

In these stories Dostoevsky explores both the figure of the dreamer divorced from reality and also his own ambiguous attitude to utopianism, themes central to many of his great novels. This new translation captures the power and lyricism of Dostoevsky's writing, while the introduction examines the stories in relation to one another and to his novels.

The two 'Alice' books are masterpieces of carefree nonsense for children and also embody layers of satire and allusion and mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. This new edition explores their complex status and the many interpretations of them, taking account of the most recent research and critical opinion.

Dickens' last completed novel traces John Harmon's covert observation of Bella Wilfer, whom he must marry if he is to inherit a fortune.

In the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply held beliefs of the Western world. The present edition provides a detailed discussion of his theories and adds an account of the responses of readers to the book on first publication. These cast light on recent controversies, such as questions of design and descent.

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Byron's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important letters, journals, and conversations - to give the essence of his work and thinking.

A captivating fusion of elegy, autobiography, socio-political critique and visionary thrust, To the Lighthouse is the most accomplished of all Woolf's novels. This new edition includes a full contextualizing introduction and notes by David Bradshaw.

Edith Wharton's most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War, is a brilliantly realized anatomy of New York society in the 1870s. The charming Newland Archer is content to live within its constraints until he meets Ellen Olenska, whose arrival threatens his impending marriage as well as his comfortable future.

The four tales in this volume share autobiographical origins in Conrad's experience at sea and his exile from Poland. They vividly present Conrad's preoccupation with the theme of solidarity, challenged from without by the elements and from within by human doubts and fears. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.

One of the most significant literary works of the twentieth century, and one of the most innovative. Young Irish Catholic, Stephen Dedalus, rejects religion and national ties to develop unfettered as an artist. Stronly autobiographical, the novel is one of the founding texts of Modernism and the precursor of Ulysses.

''I regret to see that my book has turned out un fiasco solenne''James Joyce''s disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would ''retard the course of civilisation in Ireland''.Joyce''s aim was to tell the truth - to create a work of art that would reflect life in Ireland at the turn of the last century and by rejecting euphemism, reveal to the Irish the unromantic reality the recognition of which would lead to the spiritual liberation of the country. Each of the fifteen stories offers a glimpse of the lives of ordinary Dubliners - a death, an encounter, an opportunity not taken, a memory rekindled - and collectively they paint a portrait of a nation. 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.

'The chief thing is that they all need him' -thus Dostoyevsky described Prince Myshkin, the hero of perhaps his most remarkable novel. As the still, radiant center of a plot whose turbulent action is extraordinary even for Dostoyevsky, Myshkin succeeds in dominating through sheer force a personality a cast of characters who vividly and violently embody the passions and conflicts of the 19th century Russia.

This selection of Cicero's letters not merely documents in detail Cicero's career but simultaneously provides a month-by-month record of the collapse of the republic and its replacement by a tyranny. It provides a vivid picture of daily life and politics in Rome, the assassination of Caesar, and Cicero's vain resistance to the rise of Mark Antony.

The Revenge Tragedy flourished in Britain in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Each of the four plays here defines the problems of the revenge genre, and deals with fundamental moral questions about justice and the individual, while registering the strains of life in an increasingly fragile social hierarchy.

A scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy, "Hard Times" is a daring novel of ideas--and ultimately a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of the imagination. Revised reissue.

'Heart of Darkness' is Conrad's finest tale and tells of Marlow's journey up the Congo River to meet Mr Kurtz. This volume also includes 'An Outpost of Progress', 'Karain', and 'Youth' in a revised edition using the English first edition texts and with new chronology and bibliography.

An invaluable source of pleasure to those English readers who wish to read this great medieval classic with true understanding, Sinclair's three-volume prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy provides both the original Italian text and the Sinclair translation, arranged on facing pages, and commentaries, appearing after each canto, which serve as brilliant examples of genuine literary criticism. This volume contains the complete translation of Dante's Paradiso.

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.