Mrs Rosie and the Priest

Author	Jonathan Swift
ISBN	1605977276

Last night my daughter asked me to watch what passes for comedy to pre-teens on Nickelodeon; a show low on laughs but high on laugh track. It's Halloween week and of course the thematic drum of cheap scares and slutty costumes (those of you dads that have 11 year old girls know what it is like to take a knee...

Author	Hans Christian Andersen
ISBN	0141398043

I love the fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson, I think there really quite enchanting. The Tinderbox is one of the short tales in this edition and it depicts the life of a greedy, and quite cunning, solider. A witch has tasked him with fetching her tinderbox from a well, as a reward he gets to keep the silver...

Author	Thomas Hardy
ISBN	0141398310

'Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me...'

After the death of his wife Emma, a grief-stricken Hardy wrote some of the best verse of his career. Moving and evocative, it ranks among the greatest elegiac poetry in the language.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for...

Author	John Keats
ISBN	0141398299

This poem has a real good story to it; it wasn’t a conveyance of metaphor, but a story of love and longing. It’s a narrative poem, which means it’s fairly long and plot driven. It’s really quite imaginative in this because it explores different types of dreams and wishes through a few different...

Author	Apollonius of Rhodes
ISBN	0141397942

'The Argonauts were terrified at the sight. But Jason planting his feet apart stood to receive them, as a reef in the sea confronts the tossing billows in a gale.'

The tragic, epic love affair that allowed Jason to get the Golden Fleece.

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for...

Author	Wang Wei
ISBN	0141398205

'Can I bear to leave these blue hills?'

A generous selection from three of the greatest and most enjoyable of Chinese poets

Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics,...

Author	Thomas de Quincey
ISBN	0141397888

'People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed - a knife - a purse - and a dark lane...'

In this provocative and blackly funny essay, Thomas de Quincey considers murder in a purely aesthetic light and explains how practically...