Tess is an innocent young girl until the day she goes to visit her rich 'relatives', the D'Urbervilles. Her encounter with her manipulative cousin, Alec, leads her onto a path that is beset with suffering and betrayal. When she falls in love with another man, Angel Clare, Tess sees a potential escape from her past, but only if she can tell him her shameful secret...'Gloriously physical, full of passion and irony, humour and tenderness' Anne Michaels

A wonderful book about Stephen Hawking's biggest legacy' Spectator'Truly mind-stretching... Immensely rewarding' The Times'This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos' Sir Martin ReesStephen Hawking's closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar's final thoughts on the universe. Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his ...

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Public Books Best Book of the Year "A profound and optimistic call to action and reflection. For Piketty, the arc of history is long, but it does bend toward equality. There is nothing automatic about it, however: as citizens, we must be ready to fight for it, and constantly (re)invent the myriad of institutions that will bring it about. This book is here to help." -Esther Duflo "A sustained argument for why we should be optimist...

As Seen on BBC Between the CoversA brief visit to a Swiss sanatorium becomes a life-altering seven-year odyssey.Hans Castorp arrives at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin, intending to stay for just three weeks. But when he falls ill, he remains and is drawn in by the introspection and erudition that define life in the mountains. As his stay extends to seven transformative years, Hans falls in love and becomes intoxicated with the ideas he hears at the clinic ...

With an Introduction by Mishtooni Bose. More’s Utopia is a complex, innovative and penetrating contribution to political thought, culminating in the famous ’description’ of the Utopians, who live according to the principles of natural law, but are receptive to Christian teachings, who hold all possessions in common, and view gold as worthless. Drawing on the ideas of Plato, St Augustine and Aristotle, Utopia was to prove seminal in its turn, giving rise to the genres of utopi...

Introduction and Notes by Norman Vance, Professor of English, University of Sussex. Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with his unconventional cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts proves undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left ...

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. A Pair of Blue Eyes, though early in the sequence of Hardy's novels, is lively and gripping. Its dramatic cliff-hanging episode, for example, is at once tense, ironic, feministic and erotic. With settings in Wessex and London, the novel also has some strongly autobiographical features, as the blue-eyed heroine, Elfride Swancourt, is based largely on Emma Gifford, who became Thomas Ha...

Introduction and Notes by Norman Vance, Professor of English, University of Sussex. 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...

Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury.The proverbial phrase 'life's little ironies' was coined by Hardy for his third volume of short stories. These tales and sketches possess all the power of his novels: the wealth of description, the realistic portrayal of the quaint lore of Wessex, the 'Chaucerian' humour and characterisation, the shrewd and critical psychology, the poignant estimate of human nature and the brooding sense of wonder a...

With an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews. Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and cannot marry her intended, Giles Winterborne. Her alternative choice proves disastrous, and in a moving tale that has vibrant characters, many humorous moments and genuine pathos coupled with tragic irony, Hardy eschews a happy ending. With characteristic derision, he exposes t...

Surrounded by idiots at work? Fed up with a bad boss or lazy colleagues? Thomas Erikson, author of the runaway international bestseller Surrounded by Idiots, will help you handle them and get things done, the right wayWhy is good leadership so rare? Everyone has to manage up to some extent but frankly some bosses are worse than others. If you're being driven crazy by a micro-manager, frequently drown under your boss's unreasonable expectations or struggle with being handed ou...

"It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year--and maybe of the decade." --Paul Krugman, New York Times "The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat." --The Economist "Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of...

Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury. Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family ...

Under Milk Wood is Dylan Thomas’s best-known and best-loved work, his radio play completed in 1953 at the very end of his life. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog is his first collection solely of short stories, published in 1940. These two works show us his remarkable creative brilliance at the start and at the end of a highly productive writing life. Thomas described Under Milk Wood variously as ‘a play, an impression for voices, an entertainment out of the darkness’. It...

Since its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial, works of political philosophy written in English. Forged in the crucible of the civil and religious warfare of the mid-seventeenth century, it proposes a political theory that combines an unequivocal commitment to natural human liberty with the conviction that the sovereign power of government must be exercised absolutely. Leviathan begins ...

With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue? Dylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’. This edition reproduces the Collected Poems 1934-1952 which the poet authorised just before his tragically early death at the age of 39 and which contains, as he said, ‘most of the poems I have written, and all, u...

The Marvel Age of Comics was a triumphant era of comic book and pop culture innovation that redefined the superhero genre. This treasure trove of images and exclusive insights reveals the making of such popular characters as the Hulk and Spider-Man, as well as the legends who created them, from Stan "The Man" Lee to Jack "King" Kirby.

With an Introduction and Notes by Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury. The Return of the Native is widely recognised as the most representative of Hardy's Wessex novels. He evokes the dismal presence and menacing beauty of Egdon Heath - reaching out to touch the lives and fate of all who dwell on it. The central figure is Clym Yeobright, the returning ‘native’ and the story tells of his love for the beautiful but capricious Eustacia Vye. As the narrative unfolds ...

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow th...

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury. Under the Greenwood Tree is Hardy's most bright, confident and optimistic novel. This delightful portrayal of a picturesque rural society, tinged with gentle humour and quiet irony, established Hardy as a writer. However, the novel is not merely a charming rural idyll. The double-plot, in which the love story of Dick Dewey and Fancy Day is inter-related with a tragic chapter in the history ...

Lively and mischievous, idle and brave, Tom Brown is both the typical boy of his time and the perennial hero celebrated by authors as diverse as Henry Fielding (in Tom Jones) and Alec Waugh (in The Loom of Youth). The book describes Tom's time at Rugby School from his first football match, through his troubled adolescence when he is savagely bullied by the unspeakable Flashman, to his departure for a wider world as a confident young man. This classic tale of a boy's schoolday...

Wyobraź sobie urządzenie, które może przenieść Twój umysł do pupila domowego. Możesz patrzeć na świat jego oczyma. Jest tylko jeden warunek: nie możesz przenosić się w umysły dzikich zwierząt.Poznaj historię Thomasa, Twojego rówieśnika, który dla takiego urządzenia gotów jest poświecić bardzo wiele. Oczywiście szybko łamie jedyny zakaz, jakim obwarowane jest IconAnimal. Jak daleko się posunie? I co się stanie, gdy granice między grą a rzeczywistością zaczną się zacierać?...

Miłość i magia nie lubią, kiedy ktoś się nimi bawi. Rowan jest nieśmiałą dziewczyną, na którą nikt nie zwraca uwagi. Wszystko się zmienia, kiedy szkolny projekt sprawia, że musi współpracować ze swoją rywalką. Muszą połączyć siły i zebrać jak najwięcej pieniędzy na cele charytatywne. Dziewczyny decydują się na... sprzedawanie zaklęć miłosnych. To, co miało być zabawą, niespodziewanie staje się rzeczywistością, gdy okazuje się, że zaklęcia miłosne działają wtedy, gdy napisze ...

Jak stworzyć potwora, czyli największy skandal sądowy w historii szwedzkiej kryminalistyki. Zastanawiam się, co byście o mnie pomyśleli, gdybym powiedział, że zrobiłem coś naprawdę strasznego… Tak zaczynają się wyznania Thomasa Quicka – najokrutniejszego seryjnego mordercy w szwedzkiej historii. W 1992 roku przebywający w klinice psychiatrycznej Thomas Quick oświadcza, że dwanaście lat wcześniej zamordował nastoletniego chłopca. Na przestrzeni kolejnych dziewięciu lat Quick p...