Product Description: It's inevitable--when you spend some times in the outdoors, you're likely to encounter an animal of some sort, be it a squirrel, a moose, or even something a bit more frightening. There's a story in each of these encoutners, and Animal Encounters Trail Tales captures twelve of them in this anthology...read more

Product Description: Mist (Niebla), published in 1914, is one of Miguel de Unamuno's key works; a truly Modernist work of Europe-wide significance which aims to shatter the conventions of fiction, using the novel as a vehicle for exploration of philosophical themes...read more

Ramon del Valle-Inclan (1866-1936) is one of Spains greatest twentieth-century authors, and though he remains little known outside the country of his birth he is widely recognised by Hispanists as one of Spains most talented and significant authors. A highly innovative writer, Valle-Inclan is best known for his invention of the dramatic genre of the esperpento, a genre that combines puppetry and farce with bitter satire. In the four plays he classified within this new genre, including the two in this edition, Valle-Inclan attacked Spains institutions for their self-interest, hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. He portrays a pragmatic society motivated by materialism and a rapacious instinct for self-preservation, in which love, politics and religion are reduced to cliche and insincere bluster. Frustrated by the bourgeois sentimentality and lack of innovation that characterised the commercial theatre of his day, Valle-Inclan sought to develop a new aesthetic vision, a new and dispassionate dramatic mode that would supply the audience with a much-needed critical distance. The Dead Man's Finery (La hija del capitan), Valle's final esperpento, has the satirical and bitter humour of a political cartoon. It traces a chain of events arising from a seemingly trivial incident that leads to a national crisis and the downfall of a regime. It is based on actual events; a notorious murder committed by an army captain and his daughter in 1913, and the military coup which brought Primo de Rivera to power in 1923. These are the first English translations of these plays which are not only of huge literary significance but also highly entertaining works of great dramatic intensity.

Product Description: One of many writers inspired by Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy, the German novelist Jean Paul Richter coined the term Shandean humour in his work of aesthetic theory. The essays in this volume investigate how Sternes humour functions, the reasons for its enduring appeal, and what role it played in identity-construction and in the representation of melancholy...read more

Product Description: Shedding the constraints that existed for women in turn-of-the-century America, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented "motor-car" to explore the cities and countryside of France. Originally published in 1908, A Motor-Flight Through France is considered by many to be the very best of Wharton’s outstanding travel writings...read more

Product Description: Part fun- and information-filled almanac, part good book guide, the Children's Book-a-Day Almanac is a new way to discover a great children's book--every day of the year!This fresh, inventive reference book is a dynamic way to showcase the gems, both new and old, of children's literature...read more

Product Description: Everyone loves a good ghost story, and Haunted Trail Tales will make the hairs on your neck stand on edge. A collection of beloved contemporary and classic ghostly tales, this anthology is sure to spoke even the most unrattled. Featuring twelve stories from a variety of well-known authors, this is the perfect book to read aloud from by the campfire...read more

Product Description: Going Down to Morocco (Bajarse al moro), is one of the most emblematic and best known theatrical work of recent times in Spain. It both contributed to and documented La Movida, a drug-fuelled youth movement that placed Madrid firmly on the global cultural map in the early 1980s...read more

A special edition that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. Complemented by lavish illustrations, this book is full of essays, poems, songs, and stories written by and for the author.

Adapted from the fifth edition of The Bedford Introduction to Drama, this concise version provides more plays, more commentaries, and more editorial features than any other brief anthology, making it — like the longer edition — the most comprehensive anthology of its kind.

Product Description: The scale of the 2012 bicentenary celebrations of Dickens's birth is testimony to his status as one of the most globally popular literary authors the world has ever seen. Yet Dickens has also become associated in the public imagination with a particular version of the Victorian past and with respectability...read more

Product Description: "Familiarity breeds contempt — and children." "When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear." "Heaven for climate. Hell for company." This attractive paperback gift edition of the renowned American humorist's epigrams and witticisms features hundreds of quips on life, love, history, culture, travel, and other topics from his fiction, essays, letters, and autobiography...read more