‘This solitude, the romance and wild loveliness of everything here … all make beloved Scotland the proudest, finest country in the world.’ Queen Victoria (1819-1901) wrote a diary nearly every day of her life. Originally intended for...

'When the snow water had broken crevices open in the mountain a shot or even just a sharp cry was enough to tear loose a huge slab and send it toppling.'Lieutenant Thomas Glahn spends a summer in northern Norway, where the midnight sun triggers a short...

"I've lived in so many countries, yet when anything comes to me, it's early always Africa―Africa that sets it."Olive Schreiner's From Man to Man or Perhaps Only―, unfinished at the time of her death and posthumously published in 1926, tells the...

Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history--these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven tales that make up the Welsh medieval masterpiece known as the Mabinogion...

'the metamorphosis of Monsieur de Charlus into a new person was so complete that... everything which had appeared incoherent to me until then, was becoming intelligible, and self-evident'The fourth volume of Proust's In Search of Lost...

'Lorca brought an understanding of the paradox that was Spain - sensuality chafing under a rigid moral code, individual desire at war with tradition.' Manuel DuranFederico García Lorca is perhaps the most celebrated of all twentieth-century...

'Until effaced no one can actuallyEnter the Court of Holy Majesty.What is the meaning of the heavenly ascension?Non-being: the mystics' law school and religion.'Rumi is the greatest mystic poet to have written in Persian, and The Masnavi is his...

'It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.'The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) proclaims that it is 'A Trivial Play for Serious People'. In fact, collected here alongside Lady Windermere's...

As more and more westerners study and practice Buddhism, reliable modern translations of the Buddha's teachings are increasingly in demand. One of the main sources for knowledge of the Buddhadharma is the four Pali Nikayas or "collections" of his sayings...

'The god wanted everything to be good, marred by as little imperfection as possible.'Timaeus, one of Plato's acknowledged masterpieces, is an attempt to construct the universe and explain its contents by means of as few axioms as possible. The result is...

Mahatma Gandhi was a profound and original thinker, one of the most influential figures in the history of the twentieth century, and a famous advocate of non-violent civil resistance. His many and varied writings largely respond to the specific...

Hegel's Outlines of the Philosophy of Right is one of the greatest works of moral, social, and political philosophy. It contains significant ideas on justice, moral responsibility, family life, economic activity, and the political structure of...

A tour-de-force of writing by Daniel Defoe, this extraordinary novel tells the vivid and racy tale of a woman's experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and...

A sweeping epic of the Viking Age, Grettir's Saga follows the life of the outlaw Grettir the Strong as he battles against sorcery, bad luck, and the vengefulness of his enemies. Feared by many, Grettir is a warrior and also a poet and a lover...

Beyond all doubt the greatest work of English literature before Shakespeare, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales brings together an unforgettable group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, pilgrims who came from all ranks of society, from the...

This selection covers the full range of Mansfield's fiction, from her early satirical stories to the subtly nuanced comedy of 'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' and the macabre and ominous 'A Married Man's Story'.

These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance," was the first to outline the influential theory of...

One hundred years ago Sigmund Freud published The Interpretations of Dreams, a book that, like Darwin's The Origin of Species, revolutionized our understanding of human nature. Now this groundbreaking new translation--the first to be based...

Don Quixote, originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, stands as Cervantes' belated but colossal literary success. A work which has achieved mythic status, it is considered to have pioneered the modern novel. Don Quixote, a poor gentleman from...

The discovery of a treasure map sets young Jim Hawkins in search of buried gold, along with a crew of buccaneers recruited by the one-legged Long John Silver. As they near their destination, and the lure of Captain Flint's treasure grows ever stronger,...