Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'.
Thirteen ingeniously crafted stories make up Vladimir Nabokov's baker's dozen. In some of these stories shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, with nowhere to escape.
The American poet John Shade is dead; murdered. His last poem, Pale Fire, is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote.
When Lolita was first published in 1955 it created a sensation and established Nabokov as one of the most original prose writers of the twentieth century.
Nabokov's first novel written in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a nuanced, enigmatic potrayal of the conflict between the real and the unreal, and the futile quest for human truth.
In 1908, deep in Siberia, it fell to earth. Their Ice. A young man on a scientific expedition found it. It spoke to his heart, and his heart named him Bro.
Anthony Browne's world-renowned artwork is full of expressive gorillas, vibrant colours and numerous nods to Magritte and other artists, while being uniquely Browne's own style.
By the summer of 1939 Hitler was at the zenith of his power. Yet despite initial triumphs in the early stages of war, the Führer's fortunes would turn dramatically as the conflict raged on.
W.B. Yeats' life spanned the end of the nineteeth and the beginning of the twentieth century, and his poetry reflects all the turmoil, fervour, traditions and revolutions of that period.
In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past.
This classic collection of stories moves from England, France and Spain to the silver sands of the South Pacific. It includes the famous story 'Rain', the tragedy of a narrow-minded and overzealous missionary and a prostitute,...
The stories in this collection move from Malaya to America and England, and include some of Maugham's most famous tales; 'Flotsam and Jetsam', the story of an old woman trapped for years in a loveless marriage in the remote rubber plantations; ...
The third volume of Somerset Maugham's Collected Short Stories, introduced by the author, contains the celebrated series about Ashenden, a secret service agent in World War I.
This final classic collection of stories reveals Somerset Maugham's unique talent for exposing and exploring the bitter realities of human relationships.
Considered by Graham Greene to be Maugham's best work, Don Fernando is a paean to a golden age of enormous creative energy. It discusses the writings of St. Teresa and the paintings of El Greco, and comments with sagacity and...
Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure.
Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness,,....
Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied by her marriage, she starts an affair with charming, attractive and exciting Charles Townsend.