{"title":"Literary Classics","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"kafka-castle","title":"Kafka: Castle","description":"'He is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him' Vladimir Nabokov\n\nThe story of K. and his arrival in a village where he is never accepted, and his relentless, unavailing struggle with authority in order to gain entrance to the castle that seems to rule it. K.'s isolation and perplexity, his begging for the approval of elusive and anonymous powers, epitomises Kafka's vision of twentieth-century alienation and anxiety.","brand":"smeikalbooks","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":32686182301781,"sku":"9780749399528N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/9780749399528.jpg?v=1598879468"},{"product_id":"secret-garden","title":"Vintage Classics: The Secret Garden","description":"\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb data-path-to-node=\"1\" data-index-in-node=\"0\"\u003eAn enchanting story of transformation and compassion, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s \u003ci data-path-to-node=\"1\" data-index-in-node=\"80\"\u003eThe Secret Garden\u003c\/i\u003e is widely considered to be one of the most important works of children’s literature.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"2\"\u003eAfter the sudden loss of her parents, Mary Lennox—a difficult, sickly, and unloved little girl—is sent from India to live at her uncle’s grim and sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors. Initially cold and self-absorbed, Mary’s life begins to shift as she explores the mysterious Misselthwaite Manor and its vast grounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"3\"\u003eOne day, Mary discovers a hidden, neglected garden that has been locked away for years. As she begins to tend to the withered plants with the help of the gentle gardener Ben Weatherstaff and her spirited friend Dickon, she also uncovers her secret, invalid cousin, Colin Craven. Together, the children bring the garden back to life, and in doing so, find their own paths to health, happiness, and friendship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"4\"\u003eThis timeless masterpiece is a beautiful exploration of the healing power of nature and the resilience of the human spirit.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"New - Paperback","offer_id":32686452637781,"sku":"9780099572954N","price":4.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/811EmpRsSxL._SL1500.jpg?v=1772729579"},{"product_id":"bulgakov-heart-of-a-dog","title":"Vintage Bulgakov: The Heart Of A Dog","description":"\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"0\"\u003e\u003cb data-path-to-node=\"0\" data-index-in-node=\"0\"\u003eThis absurd and superbly comic classic follows a successful Moscow professor who attempts a daring scientific experiment by transplanting human organs into a stray dog.\u003c\/b\u003e The result is a distinctly—and worryingly—human animal that quickly turns the professor’s respectable life into an unendurable nightmare. As the creature begins to navigate Soviet society, the boundaries between man and beast blur with hilarious and horrifying consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"1\"\u003eFeaturing a new introduction by Andrey Kurkov, \u003ci data-path-to-node=\"1\" data-index-in-node=\"47\"\u003eHeart of a Dog\u003c\/i\u003e serves as a fierce and biting parable of the Russian Revolution and the attempt to \"engineer\" a new type of citizen. Mikhail Bulgakov’s sharp satire explores the dangers of scientific hubris and the chaotic reality of post-revolutionary life. Both a dark comedy and a profound political allegory, this masterpiece remains one of the most provocative works of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Classics","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":32688203661397,"sku":"9780099529941N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/71OhxuzGfoL._SL1500.jpg?v=1777899443"},{"product_id":"troy-the-epic-battle-as-told-in-homers-iliad","title":"Troy: The epic battle as told in Homer's Iliad","description":"HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.\n\n\n          When Paris falls in love with legendary beauty Helen of Troy, the devastating effects of their affair on their families and fellow citizens are unimaginable. Battle lines are drawn, alliances are forged, and as the Greeks and Trojans march into battle, the resilience and humanity of all will be tested.\n\n\n          In his epic story of divine ego, human frailty, and the ravages of war, Homer created an unforgettable cast of characters, whose moral dilemmas and heroic deeds will stay with readers long past the final pages of this book. Samuel Butler's famous prose translation of Homer's original brings the epic to an entirely new generation of readers.","brand":"smeikalbooks","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":32689330454613,"sku":"9780008275952N","price":4.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/9780008275952.jpg?v=1598948134"},{"product_id":"auster-new-york-trilogy-1","title":"Auster: The New York Trilogy","description":"The New York Trilogy is perhaps the most astonishing work by one of America's most consistently astonishing writers. The Trilogy is three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. It is a riveting work of detective fiction worthy of Raymond Chandler, and at the same time a profound and unsettling existentialist enquiry in the tradition of Kafka or Borges. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. The New York Trilogy is the modern novel at its finest: a truly bold and arresting work of fiction with something to transfix and astound every reader. \"Marks a new departure for the American novel.\" (Observer). \"A shatteringly clever piece of work...Utterly gripping, written with an acid sharpness that leaves an indelible dent in the back of the mind.\" (Sunday Telegraph). \"The New York Trilogy established him as the only author one could compare to Samuel Beckett.\" (Guardian).","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"New - Paperback","offer_id":32911359770709,"sku":"9780571276653N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/9780571276653.jpg?v=1606576058"},{"product_id":"wright-native-son-2","title":"Native Son","description":"\"Reissued to mark the 80th anniversary of Native Son's publication - discover Richard Wright's brutal and gripping masterpiece this black history month.\n\n                                                                                                                                                                    '[Native Son] possesses an artistry, penetration of thought, and sheer emotional power that places it into the front rank of American fiction' Ralph Ellison\n\nReckless, angry and adrift, Bigger Thomas has grown up trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago. But a job with the affluent Dalton family provides the setting for a catastrophic collision between his world and theirs. Hunted by citizen and police alike, and baited by prejudiced officials, Bigger finds himself the cause celebre in an ever-narrowing endgame.\n\nFirst published in 1940, Native Son shocked readers with its candid depiction of violence and confrontation of racial stereotypes. It went on to make Richard Wright the first bestselling black writer in America.\n\n'The most important and celebrated novel of Negro life to have appeared in America' James Baldwin\n\nWITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY GARY YOUNGE\"","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39655384678485,"sku":"9781784877552N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/28c8195d-25bd-4c1e-becd-58c3a0685cbe.jpg?v=1644282777"},{"product_id":"vintage-woolf-the-waves","title":"The Waves","description":"Set on the English coast against the vivid backdrop of the sea, The Waves introduces six characters who are grappling with the death of a beloved friend, Percival. The characters are almost imperceptibly revealed through the kaleidoscopic accumulation of their reflections on themselves and each other. Regarded by many as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, The Waves was partially written in order to exorcise her private ghosts as the central, yet absent, character of Percival represents her brother Thoby, who died in 1906. It is a poetic dreamscape, visual, experimental and thrilling. With introductions by Jeanette Winterson and Gillian Beer.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39655489273941,"sku":"9780099478270N","price":3.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/91985b8a-bd90-45d3-b3d0-cbd13f7232de.jpg?v=1644285367"},{"product_id":"aesop-s-fables","title":"Aesop’s Fables","description":"HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.\n\n\n          'It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.'\n\n\n          Living in Ancient Greece in the 5th Century BC, Aesop was said to be a slave and story-teller. His much-loved, enduring fables are revered the world over and remain popular as moral tales for children. With infamous vignettes, such as the race between the hare and the tortoise, the vain jackdaw, and the wolf in sheep's clothing, the themes of the fables remain as fresh today as when they were first told and give an insight into the Ancient Greek world.","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39656238809173,"sku":"9780007902125N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/5fe01cd2-1267-454d-8179-34f51f9013a5.jpg?v=1644282912"},{"product_id":"echos-bone-1","title":"Echo's Bones","description":"\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"3\"\u003e\u003cb data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"0\"\u003e\"A vital link in the evolution of Beckett's early work.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"4\"\u003eOriginally intended as the \"recessional\" or final piece to Samuel Beckett's 1934 short story collection \u003ci data-path-to-node=\"4\" data-index-in-node=\"104\"\u003eMore Pricks Than Kicks\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb data-path-to-node=\"4\" data-index-in-node=\"128\"\u003eEcho's Bones\u003c\/b\u003e was written at the specific request of his publisher. However, it was ultimately held back and has remained a legendary, unpublished fragment of the Beckett canon—until now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"5\"\u003eThis definitive edition finally brings the story to light, following the protagonist Belacqua Shuah into a surreal, purgatorial afterlife. More than just a literary curiosity, the text is a bridge between Beckett's early, exuberant prose and the minimalist mastery of his later masterpieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"6\"\u003eEdited by \u003cb data-path-to-node=\"6\" data-index-in-node=\"10\"\u003eMark Nixon\u003c\/b\u003e, Director of the Beckett International Foundation, this volume provides essential biographical context and unpicks the dense web of intertextual references that define Beckett's intellectual landscape. It is an indispensable addition to the library of any Beckett scholar or dedicated fan of 20th-century modernism.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39660639289429,"sku":"9780571246380N","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/d927080b-b98f-465e-8aa0-f25712d5031a.jpg?v=1644277715"},{"product_id":"vintage-hesse-glass-bead-game","title":"Glass Bead Game","description":"\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Profound and Timeless Masterpiece of Intellect and Spirit\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"2\"\u003eIn the remote, intellectual Kingdom of Castalia, the scholars of the Twenty-Third Century devote themselves to playing the Glass Bead Game (known as \u003ci\u003eMagister Ludi\u003c\/i\u003e). This elaborately coded game is a fusion of all human knowledge—of mathematics, music, philosophy, science, and art—representing the ultimate spiritual and intellectual pursuit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"3\"\u003eIntrigued as a schoolboy, Joseph Knecht becomes consumed with mastering the Game as an adult, fulfilling his lifelong quest to become the revered Magister Ludi. However, as Knecht achieves the pinnacle of the intellectual life, he must contend with unexpected moral dilemmas and the deep longing for a purposeful life beyond the ivory tower.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"4\"\u003eThis monumental 20th-century classic is Hermann Hesse's final novel, a profound exploration of the relationship between mind and body, theory and action, and the pursuit of truth versus the needs of the world. It is the ultimate immersive read for the thoughtful, ambitious reader.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661438533717,"sku":"9780099283621N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/11abe9c3-5fe8-41ee-a58b-d12c967ee2d6.jpg?v=1644248131"},{"product_id":"vintage-greene-tenth-man","title":"Tenth Man","description":"In a prison in Occupied France one in every ten men is to be shot. The prisoners draw lots among themselves - and for rich lawyer Louis Chavel it seems that his whole life has been leading up to an agonising and crucial failure of nerve. Hysterical with panic, fear, and a sense of injustice, he offers to barter everything he owns for someone to take his place. \n\nGraham Greene wrote The Tenth Man in 1944, when he was under a two-year contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the manuscript lay forgotten in MGM's archives until 1983. It was published two years later with an introduction by the author.","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661438566485,"sku":"9780099284147N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/1fd93d38-9b01-4341-8b3f-05f8e144bd86.jpg?v=1644250547"},{"product_id":"vintage-woolf-mrs-dalloway","title":"Vintage Woolf: Mrs Dalloway","description":"\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"0\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Modernist Masterpiece of Memory and Emotion\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"citation-120\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"citation-120 citation-121\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb data-path-to-node=\"1\" data-index-in-node=\"0\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"citation-120 citation-121\"\u003eIn this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan class=\"citation-120 citation-121 citation-end-121\"\u003e As she readies her house, she is flooded with memories and\u003csup class=\"superscript\" data-turn-source-index=\"1\"\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"citation-120 citation-end-120\"\u003e re-examines the choices sh\u003csup class=\"superscript\" data-turn-source-index=\"2\"\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/span\u003ee has made over the course of her life.\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"source-inline-chip-container ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"source-inline-chip-container ng-star-inserted\"\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c!----\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"2\"\u003eSet in London just after the First World War, Virginia Woolf’s seminal novel explores the complexities of the human psyche through her revolutionary \"stream of consciousness\" style. The story weaves together the lives of Clarissa and the shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith, creating a profound meditation on time, mental health, and the hidden depths of the everyday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-path-to-node=\"3\"\u003eThis Vintage edition features insightful introductions by \u003cb data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"58\"\u003eValentine Cunningham\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"83\"\u003eCarol Ann Duffy\u003c\/b\u003e, providing fresh perspectives on Woolf’s poetic prose and the enduring significance of this literary landmark. It remains one of the most essential novels of the twentieth century, capturing the fleeting beauty and tragedy of a single day.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661439320149,"sku":"9780099470458N","price":4.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/106515f9-15a5-43b7-b826-bf340a7da488.jpg?v=1644302276"},{"product_id":"brighton-rock","title":"Brighton Rock","description":"WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J.M. COETZEE A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Seventeen-year-old Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous, life-embracing Ida Arnold. Greene's gripping thriller, exposes a world of loneliness and fear, of life lived on the 'dangerous edge of things'.","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661439647829,"sku":"9780099478478N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/7d3d2321-507d-456b-8052-347aca4982b6.jpg?v=1644297491"},{"product_id":"will-you-please-be-quiet-please-vintage-classics","title":"Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (Vintage Classics)","description":"With this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed how humour and tragedy dwell in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661441515605,"sku":"9780099530343N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/6600a3ce-1f70-4187-b439-03acf00aa5bb.jpg?v=1644304916"},{"product_id":"wodehouse-blandings","title":"Blandings","description":"Now a major BBC drama starring Timothy Spall, David Walliams and Jennifer Saunders. Published to coincide with the star-filled BBC production of Blandings, this superb new anthology sees these celebrated stories together for the first time. Set in the delightfully dysfunctional mess of Blandings Castle these 6 gems follow the trials of poor Earl Emsworth and his beloved pig Empress as they clash with a panoply of friends and family, servants and spongers, bookies and hucksters. And all served up with great lashings of comedy from that rarest of geniuses: P.G. Wodehouse.","brand":"Cornerstone","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39661446168661,"sku":"9780099580690N","price":4.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/ab41decd-6e90-413d-9b1a-f63d6cc76fa9.jpg?v=1644297493"},{"product_id":"collected-stories","title":"Collected Stories","description":"This unique edition presents the complete span of Thomas' short stories, from his urgent hallucinatory visions of the dark forces beneath the surface of Welsh life to the inimitable comedy of his later autobiographical writings. 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Written in the midst of terror, but with such clarity, such acuity; Seghers is a writer of rare insight' RACHEL SEIFFERT author of A Boy in Winter\n\nSeven prisoners escape from Westhofen concentration camp. Seven crosses are erected in the grounds and the commandant vows to capture the fugitives within a week. Six men are caught quickly, but George Heisler slips through his pursuers' fingers. It becomes a matter of pride to track him down, at whatever cost.\n\nWho can George trust? Who will betray him? The years of fear have changed those he knew best: his brother is now an SS officer; his lover turns him away. Hunted, injured and desperate, time is running out for George, and whoever is caught aiding in his escape will pay with their life.\n\nThe Seventh Cross is one of the most powerful and influential novels of the twentieth century, a tense thriller that helped to alert the world to the grim realities of Nazi Germany.\n\n'It was [Seghers] who taught my generation and anyone who had an ear to listen after that not-to-be-forgotten war to distinguish right from wrong. The Seventh Cross shaped me; it sharpened my vision' GUNTER GRASS\n\n'A fascinating insight into life in pre-war Nazi Germany just as the horrors of the Nazi regime were beginning to unfold. This is an important novel, as much for its picture of German society as for its insight into the psyche of ordinary people confronting their personal fears and mixed loyalties' SIMON MAWER, author of The Glass Room\n\n\nIn The Seventh Cross, Seghers's aim was to write, 'A tale that makes it possible to get to know the many layers of fascist Germany through the fortunes of a single man.' She had four copies of the manuscript: one was destroyed in an air raid; a friend lost the second copy while fleeing the Nazis; another was found by the Gestapo; only the fourth copy survived, which, fortunately, she sent to her publisher in America just before she escaped Nazi-occupied France. Published in 1942, The Seventh Cross was an immediate bestseller and was the basis for an MGM film starring Spencer Tracy in 1944. It has been translated into more than 40 languages.\n\nMargot Bettauer Dembo's expert new translation makes the complete text of this great political novel available in English for the first time.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39667997704277,"sku":"9780349010410N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/2a9a2900-372b-4b76-ad69-3cdbbf3cf7e4.jpg?v=1644285723"},{"product_id":"growing-up-virago-modern-classics","title":"Growing Up (Virago Modern Classics)","description":"'Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself' Alexander McCall Smith\n\nIt is wartime in Barsetshire, and so much has changed. Belier's Priory is now a hospital for wounded soldiers, and Sir Harry and Lady Waring have moved to the servants' quarters, where they make the best of it - so much more practical than the large, draughty house! Soon, their niece Leslie, who has a hush-hush job with the navy, comes to recuperate: her nerves are frayed from overwork and a close call with a torpedo.\n\nWhen the Warings are then asked to house an intelligence officer and his wife, they reluctantly agree. They cannot know what a much-needed tonic Noel and Lydia Merton will prove to be. With the Priory being both the Waring residence and the army hospital, it becomes the hub of activity for all of Barsetshire.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39668002390101,"sku":"9780349013435N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/c6700650-4657-4193-98e2-72f7d18d4696.jpg?v=1644297895"},{"product_id":"the-return-of-the-soldier-virago-modern-classics","title":"The Return Of The Soldier (Virago Modern Classics)","description":"'Spellbinding . . . Probably her best fiction' - Sunday Times\n\nThe soldier returns from the front to the three women who love him. His wife, Kitty, with her cold, moonlight beauty, and his devoted cousin Jenny wait in their exquisite home on the crest of the Harrow-weald. Margaret Allington, his first and long-forgotten love, is nearby in the dreary suburb of Wealdstone. But the soldier is shell-shocked and can only remember the Margaret he loved fifteen years before, when he was a young man and she an inn-keeper's daughter. His cousin he remembers only as a childhood playmate; his wife he remembers not at all. The women have a choice - to leave him where he wishes to be, or to 'cure' him. It is Margaret who reveals a love so great that she can make the final sacrifice.\n\nBooks included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39668003012693,"sku":"9780349010380N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/59b3e567-ee26-4c72-abba-f0c504a34e17.jpg?v=1644272849"},{"product_id":"wells-ann-veronica","title":"Ann Veronica","description":"Stong-willed, reckless and fiercely independent, Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to be a 'Person', to work, love and, above all, to live. Walking away from her stifling father and the social conventions of her time, she leaves drab suburbia for Edwardian London and encounters an unknown world of suffragettes, Fabians and free love. But it is only when she meets the charismatic Capes that she truly confronts the meaning of her new found freedom. Ann Veronica caused a sensation, damned in the press and preached against from the pulpits when it was first published in 1909 due to Wells' groundbreaking treatment of female sexuality.","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39668084113493,"sku":"9780297860457N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/0e89c982-004a-4040-ad9f-d0585973befc.jpg?v=1644272869"},{"product_id":"east-of-eden-penguin-modern-classics","title":"East of Eden","description":"California's fertile Salinas Valley is home to two families whose destinies are fruitfully, and fatally, intertwined. Over the generations, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of the First World War, the Trasks and the Hamiltons will helplessly replay the fall of Adam and Eve and the murderous rivalry of Cain and Abel.\n\nEast of Eden was considered by Steinbeck to be his magnum opus, and its epic scope and memorable characters, exploring universal themes of love and identity, ensure it remains one of America's most enduring novels. This edition features a stunning new cover by renowned artist Bijou Karman.","brand":"Penguin Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39668084408405,"sku":"9780241980354N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/1a99ff8e-5dab-4af2-b2b1-b61307275ec8.jpg?v=1639149875"},{"product_id":"hangover-square","title":"Hangover Square","description":"The seventy-fifth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Anthony Quinn.  'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters  'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby  London, 1939, and in the grimy publands of Earls Court, George Harvey Bone is pursuing a helpless infatuation. Netta is cool, contemptuous and hopelessly desirable to George. George is adrift in a drunken hell, except in his 'dead' moments, when something goes click in his head and he realises, without a doubt, that he must kill her. In the darkly comic Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton brilliantly evokes a seedy, fog-bound world of saloon bars, lodging houses and boozing philosophers, immortalising the slang and conversational tone of a whole generation and capturing the premonitions of doom that pervaded London life in the months before the war.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40050588811349,"sku":"9780349141565N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/04787408-04fa-4655-9f79-6dab5a79963a.jpg?v=1651065886"},{"product_id":"wright-native-son-3","title":"Wright: Native Son","description":"About the Author      Richard Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1908, to a sharecropping family of ex-­slaves. His mother was a schoolteacher but, abandoned by her husband, she had to resort to menial jobs to feed her two sons before suffering a series of strokes. During a childhood scarred by hunger, Wright lived in Memphis, Tennessee, then in an orphanage, and with various relatives. He left home at fifteen, returned to Memphis for two years to work, and in 1934 went to Chicago where he was employed at the Post Office before beginning work at the Federal Writers' Project in 1935. He published Uncle Tom's Children in 1938 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship the following year. His other books include Native Son (1940), his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953). After the war, Richard Wright chose expatriation and went to live in Paris with his family, remaining there until his death in 1960.      Product Description      Reissued to mark the 80th anniversary of Native Son's publication - discover Richard Wright's brutal and gripping masterpiece this black history month. '[Native Son] possesses an artistry, penetration of thought, and sheer emotional power that places it into the front rank of American fiction' Ralph EllisonReckless, angry and adrift, Bigger Thomas has grown up trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago. But a job with the affluent Dalton family provides the setting for a catastrophic collision between his world and theirs. Hunted by citizen and police alike, and baited by prejudiced officials, Bigger finds himself the cause célèbre in an ever-narrowing endgame.First published in 1940, Native Son shocked readers with its candid depiction of violence and confrontation of racial stereotypes. It went on to make Richard Wright the first bestselling black writer in America.'The most important and celebrated novel of Negro life to have appeared in America' James BaldwinWITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY GARY YOUNGE","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40118190309461,"sku":"9781784876128N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/dd7193dd-97c9-467d-9326-07dbe9bcba1c.jpg?v=1654843034"},{"product_id":"blaming","title":"Blaming","description":"When Amy's husband dies on holiday in Istanbul, she is supported by the kindly but rather slovenly Martha, a young American novelist who lives in London. Upon their return to England, Amy is ungratefully reluctant to maintain their friendship, but the skeins of their existence seem inextricably linked as grief gives way to resilience and again to tragedy.  Reversals of fortune and a compelling cast of characters, including Ernie, ex-sailor turned housekeeper, and Amy's wonderfully precocious granddaughters, add spice to a novel that delights even as it unveils the most uncomfortable human emotions.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40136090091605,"sku":"9781844083084N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/d3ab4b31-e86f-482a-807e-df9f71b3c712.jpg?v=1656146458"},{"product_id":"miss-marley-a-christmas-ghost-story-a-prequel-to-a-christmas-carol","title":"Miss Marley: A Christmas Ghost Story - A Prequel To A Christmas Carol","description":"`Exquisite' Veronica Henry\n          Before A Christmas Carol there was... Miss Marley\n          A seasonal tale of kindness and goodwill\n          Orphans Clara and Jacob Marley live by their wits, scavenging for scraps in the poorest alleyways of London, in the shadow of the workhouse. Every night, Jake promises his little sister `tomorrow will be better' and when the chance to escape poverty comes their way, he seizes it despite the terrible price.\n\n\n          And so Jacob Marley is set on a path that leads to his infamous partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge. As Jacob builds a fortress of wealth to keep the world out, only Clara can warn him of the hideous fate that awaits him if he refuses to let love and kindness into his heart...\n\n\n          In Miss Marley, Vanessa Lafaye weaves a spellbinding Dickensian tale of ghosts, goodwill and hope - a perfect prequel to A Christmas Carol.\n\n\n          Praise for Miss Marley:\n          `A spellbinding Dickensian tale of ghosts, goodwill and hope' Mail on Sunday\n\n\n          `Redemptive... a fitting legacy for a writer who is so sadly missed' Red\n\n\n          `evocative' Heat\n\n\n          `delightful' Sunday Mirror\n\n\n          `a reminder of the power of kindness and love' Stylist\n\n\n          A `gem of a tale' Sunday Express\n\n\n          `A beautifully written Dickensian tale' Candis\n\n\n          `Captivating ... A beautiful and tender fable' Daily Express\n\n\n          `Fantastic' Good Housekeeping\n\n\n          `ghosts, goodwill and hope on every page' My Weekly\n\n\n          `Lafaye masterfully brings the setting of 19th-Century London to life' Woman\n\n\n          `Love, disappointment, kindness and greed all play their parts in this delightful companion piece to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol' Woman \u0026amp; Home\n\n\n          `A seasonal tale of kindness and goodwill that captures the atmosphere of Dickens' Yours\n\n\n          `Exquisite' Veronica Henry\n\n\n          `A beautiful, warm, rich hug of a story and bittersweet reminder to embrace life and enrich others as you go'  Liz Fenwick","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40149057306709,"sku":"9780008306113N","price":4.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/bcea3f30-c5bb-4b7d-8b43-81d52b9d19ae.jpg?v=1656852943"},{"product_id":"wright-native-son-4","title":"Wright: Native Son","description":"Review      Before he was 40, Wright dominated literary America, publishing four books in seven years, each a triumph in its genre. His first novel, Native Son (1940), sold at the rate of 2,000 copies a day, making Wright the first best-selling black writer in the country's history. Black Boy (1945), his memoir of his Southern childhood, was a bigger success, selling more than a half-million copies. ― New York TimesRichard Wright's Native Son is, in addition to being a masterpiece, a Great American Novel ― GuardianUnsettling urban violence from the man who was Mosley's inspiration ― The TimesNative Son is the story of a young black man who kills two white women; and it was the first book - published in 1940 - to suggest that black Americans could actually get angry. When it came out, it beat The Grapes of Wrath in the best-seller lists ― Independent      Product Description      Discover Richard Wright’s brutal and gripping masterpiece. 'The most important and celebrated novel of Negro life to have appeared in America' James BaldwinGripping and furious, Native Son follows Bigger Thomas, a young black man who is trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago. Unwittingly involved in a wealthy woman's death, he is hunted relentlessly, baited by prejudiced officials, charged with murder and driven to acknowledge a strange pride in his crime. Native Son shocked readers on its first publication in 1940 and went on to make Richard Wright the first bestselling black writer in America.      About the Author      Richard Wright was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1908. As a child he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, then in an orphanage, and with various relatives. He left home at fifteen and returned to Memphis for two years to work, and in 1934 went to Chicago, where in 1935 he began to work on the Federal Writers' Project. He published Uncle Tom's Children in 1938 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the following year. His other titles include his autobiography, Black Boy (1945), and The Outsider (1953). After the war Richard Wright went to live in Paris with his wife and daughters, remaining there until his death in 1960.","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40151321903189,"sku":"9780099282938N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/2f161c58-04de-4918-8280-829c3ed036e5.jpg?v=1657008957"},{"product_id":"portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-dog","title":"Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog","description":"First the young schoolboy, gloriously immersed in make-believe in a shabby farmyard; then the budding poet with his thrilling friendships and dreams of fortune. Finally, the neophyte reporter roaming suburban Swansea for momentous material. In ten wonderfully evocative short stories, Dylan Thomas conveys the exuberance and enthusiasm of youth as he fictionalises events from his childhood. Adolescent sexuality and male friendship are two of the themes that pervade this collection, along with the more familiar topics of love, death and religion.","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40236051726421,"sku":"9781780227276N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/91700c41-ad03-4762-aa81-18163ba5eaae.jpg?v=1660302518"},{"product_id":"mrs-palfrey-at-the-claremont-a-virago-modern-classic-virago-modern-classics-83","title":"Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics): 83","description":"Shortlisted for the Booker Prize  A humorous and compassionate look at friendship between an old woman and a young man.  On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper.   Then one day Mrs Palfrey strikes up an unlikely friendship with an impoverished young writer, Ludo, who sees her as inspiration for his novel.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40236097994837,"sku":"9781844083213N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/1afda092-6cf7-463f-8ff7-54a67b2c1344.jpg?v=1660304762"},{"product_id":"the-return-of-the-soldier-vmc-virago-modern-classics","title":"The Return Of The Soldier (VMC) (Virago Modern Classics)","description":"The soldier returns from the front to the three women who love him. His wife, Kitty, with her cold, moonlight beauty, and his devoted cousin Jenny wait in their exquisite home on the crest of the Harrow-weald. Margaret Allington, his first and long-forgotten love, is nearby in the dreary suburb of Wealdstone. But the soldier is shell-shocked and can only remember the Margaret he loved fifteen years before, when he was a young man and she an inn-keeper's daughter. His cousin he remembers only as a childhood playmate; his wife he remembers not at all. The women have a choice - to leave him where he wishes to be, or to 'cure' him. It is Margaret who reveals a love so great that she can make the final sacrifice.","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40236098158677,"sku":"9781844086986N","price":5.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/8f04a672-1eef-4a01-8423-410d56fc0b1b.jpg?v=1660304766"},{"product_id":"keep-the-aspidistra-flying","title":"Keep the Aspidistra Flying","description":"A new edition of Orwell's end-of-tether third novel, introduced and annotated by his biographer, D.J. Taylor\n\nFirst published in 1936, and drawing on Orwell's own experiences of working in a Hampstead bookshop, Keep the Aspidistra Flying tracks the career of Gordon Comstock ('nearly 30 and moth-eaten already') a struggling poet who tries to rebel against the conventions of middle-class English life, only to be drawn inexorably back into the world that grinds him down.\n\nThis new edition includes an introduction and extensive end-notes, and an appendix containing original responses to the novel as well as letters and documents from the period in which it was written.","brand":"Constable","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40594203017301,"sku":"9781472133106N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/aa24fe74-49b1-47a3-9970-4519044d5014.jpg?v=1682333029"},{"product_id":"coming-up-for-air","title":"Coming Up For Air","description":"A new edition of Orwell's elegiac fourth novel, introduced and annotated by his biographer, D.J. Taylor  First published in 1939 and dominated by the shadow of the Second World War, Coming up for Air finds fat, middle-aged and unhappily-married George Bowling trying to revisit the world of his Edwardian childhood in rural Oxforshire, only to discover that the certainties of his past are dead and that a very different future is looming up to claim him.  This new edition includes an introduction and extensive end-notes, and an appendix containing original responses to the novel as well as letters and documents from the period in which it was written.","brand":"Constable","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40594203050069,"sku":"9781472133090N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/products\/8a014fad-63fc-45f9-9e4f-ca0741bd89d2.jpg?v=1682333031"},{"product_id":"maud-martha-faber-editions","title":"Maud Martha (Faber Editions)","description":"Review\n\nSuch a wonderful book. Utterly unique, exquisitely crafted and quietly powerful. I loved it and want everyone to read this lost literary treasure. ― Bernardine Evaristo\n\nThe quotidian rises to an exquisite portraiture of black womanhood in the hands of one of America's most foundational writers. -- Claudia Rankine\n\nIncredible ... She is a quietly radical seer, she is literature itself, a person in the world. It's a rare kind of perfect! -- Max Porter\n\nOne of the major American poets of the 20th century. She was a writer of great power and great empathy, and wrote lines and sentences as good as anybody's - better, really, than almost everybody's ...Sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, Brooks shows herself to be a prose stylist of the first order. ***** ― Telegraph\n\nExtraordinary ... Delights in sensory and emotional details ... Luminous ... Maud Martha doesn't deny racism's power, but she denies its power to rule her life. -- Margo Jefferson\n\nMaud Martha finds beauty in the brutal formative moments that make us. It is one of my favorite depictions of how a woman comes to trust her eyes. -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster\n\nReveals the poetry, power and splendour of an ordinary life. -- Tayari Jones\n\nOne of the most spatially poetic novels ever. Each room Maud Martha lives in is grown by the very cautious and awesome pace of her language. -- Eileen Myles\n\nAlive, reaching, and very much of today. -- Langston Hughes\n\nThe pauses, the unsaids cause internal bleeding ... A new movement and energy, intensity, richness, power of statement and a new stripped, lean, compressed style. -- Toni Cade Bambara (author of The Salt Eaters)\n\nI read [it] with absolute delight from start to finish, delight in the beautiful structure of the book, delight in the way Maud Martha comes alive as a person caught up in timeless elemental situations. -- Ann Petry (author of The Street)\n\nA real poet ... She takes hold of reality as it is, and renders it faithfully. -- Richard Wright\n\nExtraordinary ... Full of living. ― New York Times\n\nI love its tactile language and how it jumps. It's a deeply pleasurable book-funny, profound, compressed, filled with the intimate texture of physical life. -- Kathryn Scanlan\n\nBrooks achieved more than her fair share of 'firsts' in a vocation that spanned eight decades ... [Maud Martha] is a significant precursor of more recent fiction by African-American women. -- Margaret Busby ― Guardian\n\nProduct Description\n\nThe stunning only novel by the celebrated poet and first Black author to win a Pulitzer Prize, introduced by Margo Jefferson.\n\n'Such a wonderful book. Utterly unique, exquisitely crafted and quietly powerful. I loved it and want everyone to read this lost literary treasure.' Bernardine Evaristo\n'Maud Martha finds beauty in the brutal formative moments that make us. It is one of my favorite depictions of how a woman comes to trust her eyes.' Raven Leilani\n'The quotidian rises to an exquisite portraiture of black womanhood in the hands of one of America's most foundational writers.' Claudia Rankine\n'Maud Martha reveals the poetry, power and splendor of an ordinary life.' Tayari Jones\n'Incredible ... She is a quietly radical seer, she is literature itself, a person in the world. It's a rare kind of perfect!' Max Porter\n\nWhat, what, am I to do with all of this life?\n\nMaud Martha Brown is a little girl growing up on the South Side of 1940s Chicago. Amidst the crumbling taverns and overgrown yards, she dreams: of New York, romance, her future. She admires dandelions, learns to drink coffee, falls in love, decorates her kitchenette, visits the Jungly Hovel, guts a chicken, buys hats, gives birth. But her lighter-skinned husband has dreams too: of the Foxy Cats Club, other women, war. And the 'scraps of baffled hate' - a certain word from a saleswoman; that visit to the cinema; the cruelty of a department store Santa Claus- are always there .\n\nWritten in 1953 but never published in Britain, Maud Martha is a poetic","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40595652575317,"sku":"9780571373253N","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/fd72d0ab-65ac-4561-8f4b-20939748e66c.jpg?v=1682420908"},{"product_id":"craven-house","title":"Craven House","description":"'All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters  Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell.  In Craven House, among the shifting, uncertain world of the English boarding house, with its sad population of the shabby genteel on the way down - and the eternal optimists who would never get up or on - the young Patrick Hamilton, with loving, horrified fascination, first mapped out the territory that he would make, uniquely, his own.   Although many of Hamilton's lifelong interests are here, they are handled with a youthful brio and optimism conspicuously absent from his later work. The inmates of Craven House have their foibles, but most are indulgently treated by an author whose world view has yet to harden from scepticism into cynicism.   The generational conflicts of Hamilton's own youth thread throughout the narrative, with hair bobbing and dancing as the battle lines. That perennial of the 1920s bourgeoisie, the 'servant problem', is never far from the surface, and tensions crescendo gradually to a resolution one climactic dinnertime.","brand":"Abacus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40597396389973,"sku":"9780349141510N","price":6.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2481\/5790\/files\/f1920c6c-62b1-44c9-b541-169f06f28fc4.jpg?v=1682516348"},{"product_id":"less-than-angels","title":"Less Than Angels","description":"INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS\n\n'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN\n\n'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heart-breaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLER\n\nCatherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love tangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.\n\nThe course of true love or academia never did run smooth.\n\n'Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable. 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