Three years have passed since the events narrated in Little Women, and the four March sisters are approaching adulthood, with all its accompanying challenges and expectations. Meg is preparing for her wedding, Beth continues to struggle with her health, Jo is more than ever devoting herself to literature and Amy is about to go on a tour of Europe with her aunt. Their experiences, hopes and ambitions are set in counterpoint to each other, until the whole family is brought together by tragedy and misfortune.
Following on the immediate commercial success of Little Women, Good Wives completes the story of the March sisters and their friend Laurie, and is, together with its prequel, Louisa May Alcott's crowning achievement and one of the most popular young-adult tales ever written.
If you enjoyed Good Wives, don't miss Alma Junior edition of Little Women. Both books are illustrated by Ella Bailey and contain extra material for young readers including a quiz and test yourself section.
Alma Junior Classics series of illustrated classics includes some of the greatest books ever written for younger readers and new translations of unjustly neglected international works. Our aim is to give our list an international feel and offer young readers to opportunity to connect with other cultures and literatures - this applies not only to the titles we chose but also to the illustrators we commission - so that we can bring a bit of novelty into the canon of British children s literature. All children's classics contain extra material for young readers, including a profile of the author, a section on the book, a list of characters, a glossary and a test-yourself quiz.
Three years have passed since the events narrated in Little Women, and the four March sisters are approaching adulthood, with all its accompanying challenges and expectations. Meg…
The shop owner Adolf Verloc, member of an anarchist group and secret agent for a foreign government, is summoned to meet Mr Vladimir, the country’s ambassador, who asks him to carry out a terrorist attack at a famous London landmark. Verloc has misgivings, but Mr Vladimir knows how to make people do what he wants, and when the plan goes wrong, it is Verloc - as well as his young wife, Winnie - who must deal with the consequences.
A story of espionage, intrigue and corruption based on a real-life attempted terrorist attack in Victorian London, The Secret Agent was one of literature’s first political thrillers, and is widely considered to be among Conrad’s most compelling works.
The shop owner Adolf Verloc, member of an anarchist group and secret agent for a foreign government, is summoned to meet Mr Vladimir, the country’s ambassador, who asks him to…
The small town of Mordasov is all abuzz at the arrival of Prince K-, a wealthy, ageing landowner, after an absence of several years. Maria Alexandrovna Moskalyova, a local gossip and fearsome schemer, decides that he would be an advantageous match for her daughter Zina. But in her endeavours to make such a union come about, she must contend with rival matchmakers and Zina’s wilfulness.
Written soon after Dostoevsky was released from the prison camp that inspired The House of the Dead, Uncle’s Dream shares very little of that novel’s gloomy tone and contains many elements of a light, drawing-room farce. Beneath the surface, however, lies a sharply satirical voice which looks ahead in part to later novels such as Devils.
The small town of Mordasov is all abuzz at the arrival of Prince K-, a wealthy, ageing landowner, after an absence of several years. Maria Alexandrovna Moskalyova, a local gossip…
A masterpiece of the Gothic genre, The Monk tells the story of the Capuchin friar Ambrosio and his fall from grace through desire, greed and lust. Favourably reviewed at first, the novel was later so widely and raucously denounced for its perceived licentiousness, blasphemy and corrupting influence that Lewis had to remove controversial passages from future editions. Unsurprisingly, amidst this furore, the book was immensely popular with the reading public.
Suffused with eroticism, and focusing on the corrupting influence of power, The Monk pioneered a shocking new form of Gothic novel, where elements such as mob violence, incest and brutal murder replaced the gentler horrors of earlier practitioners of the genre.
A masterpiece of the Gothic genre, The Monk tells the story of the Capuchin friar Ambrosio and his fall from grace through desire, greed and lust. Favourably reviewed at first,…
Written as a passionate riposte to Talleyrand’s report to the French National Assembly, in which he declared that women needed only a domestic education, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the traditional view of decorative femininity and deplored the educational restrictions and the "mistaken notions of female excellence" that degraded women and kept them in a state of "slavish dependence". Indeed, independence, "the grand blessing of life", was at the heart of Wollstonecraft’s philosophy, and it is a mark of the profound influence of her words that Virginia Woolf, writing almost a century and a half later, could state that "her originality has become our commonplace". As a companion piece, this volume also includes A Vindication of the Rights of Men - an earlier influential pamphlet advocating republicanism and social equality. The two Vindications, taken together, showcase Wollstonecraft’s rhetorical talents, as well as her brilliance and depth of thought as an anti-establishment polemist and social reformer.
Written as a passionate riposte to Talleyrand’s report to the French National Assembly, in which he declared that women needed only a domestic education, A Vindication of the…
While spending the summer in the resort of Grand Isle with her husband and children, Edna Pontellier begins a process of self-discovery that is accelerated after she meets the charming Robert Lebrun. Yet, when Robert departs for Mexico and the summer vacation ends, Ednas new-found sense of independence and personal freedom mean that she isolates herself from New Orleans society and rejects her former lifestyle. Moving into a home of her own and choosing a lover, Edna soon becomes a protegee of the unconventional pianist Mademoiselle Reisz, through whom she learns that Robert still longs for her. Centring upon the conflict between Ednas increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood and the prevailing social attitudes of the fin de siecle American South, The Awakening is widely seen as a landmark of early feminism and a precursor of American modernism.
While spending the summer in the resort of Grand Isle with her husband and children, Edna Pontellier begins a process of self-discovery that is accelerated after she meets the…
Having frittered away his family's fortune in Paris, the profligate Guido, driven by his ungovernable passions, is forced out of his native Genoa and harbours plans for revenge. After a mighty storm, he sees a mysterious, misshapen creature approaching from the sea, with whom he makes an infernal bargain to exchange bodies, with momentous consequences.
First published in 1831 and here presented with the supernatural stories 'The Evil Eye' and 'The Mortal Immortal', the chilling Gothic tale 'Transformation' is a paragon of the genre by the author of Frankenstein.
Having frittered away his family's fortune in Paris, the profligate Guido, driven by his ungovernable passions, is forced out of his native Genoa and harbours plans for revenge.…
In response to the dire economic conditions in eighteenth-century Ireland, A Modest Proposal ironically exhorts the poor to provide their offspring as food to the rich. Skilfully applying a wealth of classical rhetorical techniques, Swift s satirical tour de force takes a savage swipe at the selfishness of the ruling classes and the heartlessness of the various utilitarian solutions put forward by contemporary thinkers. In addition to this seminal piece, this volume includes other humorous and polemical writings which, taken together, provide an invaluable introduction to Swift as a master satirist and pamphleteer. Contains: 'A Short View of the State of Ireland', 'A Modest Proposal', 'The Present State of Ireland Considered' and 'An Examination of Certain Abuses, Corruptions and Enormities in the City of Dublin'
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In response to the dire economic conditions in eighteenth-century Ireland, A Modest Proposal ironically exhorts the poor to provide their offspring as food to the rich. Skilfully…
In 778, after years of fierce battle, the army of the Franks is finally on the brink of victory over the Saracens at Saragossa. Having sent one of his knights, Ganelon, to act as an envoy in the negotiations over the surrender of their king Marsile, Roland, the young commander of the rearguard and nephew of Charlemagne, prepares for the retreat of his troops back to France. Little does he suspect Ganelon's treachery and the disaster that is about to unfold at the Pass of Roncesvalles. Probably written around three centuries after the events it describes, The Song of Roland is the earliest and finest example of the French chanson de geste, a verse epic celebrating heroic deeds to be sung or recited by wandering minstrels. Presented here in a sparkling new translation by Anthony Mortimer along with the original Anglo-Norman French, this poetic masterpiece offers the modern reader both an engrossing narrative and a compelling insight into the medieval value system.
In 778, after years of fierce battle, the army of the Franks is finally on the brink of victory over the Saracens at Saragossa. Having sent one of his knights, Ganelon, to act as…
When the young nobleman Des Grieux lays eyes on the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut, he immediately falls in love with her, and they elope to Paris, incurring the wrath of his family and forfeiting his inheritance. However, he struggles to satisfy her taste for luxury, frittering away the little he has left, and his domestic bliss finally disintegrates when he finds out that Manon has betrayed him for a rich lover. Although causing scandal on its initial publication in 1731 and subsequently being banned, Manon Lescaut proved very popular with eighteenth-century readers, and remains one of literature's finest and most evocative depictions of obsessive love.
When the young nobleman Des Grieux lays eyes on the beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut, he immediately falls in love with her, and they elope to Paris, incurring the wrath of…
Travelling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a trick on the conceited ageing litterateur Mario Samigli: he dupes him into thinking that a representative of a prestigious Viennese publishing house wants to commission a German translation of a long-forgotten novel Samigli had written and published at his own expense forty years ago. This leads the old man to reach new heights of self-delusion, spurred on by Gaia s succession of ruses. In this tragicomic study of deception and disappointment, Italo Svevo who himself was an undiscovered writer until his old age parodies elements of his own life and offers an insightful psychological portrait of a person who has lost touch with reality.
Travelling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a trick on the conceited ageing litterateur Mario Samigli: he dupes him into thinking that a representative of a prestigious…
Written after Woolf had finished her emotionally draining work on The Waves, Flush purports to be an autobiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning s eponymous cocker spaniel, charting the dog s early days in the countryside, his adoption by the famous poet, his subsequent life in London and his travels with his owners to Italy. While the resulting narrative is light-hearted and playful on the surface, Woolf ingeniously uses the faux-naif impressions of her animal narrator to voice her social criticism on topics such as the class system and the relationship between man and woman. Much like its predecessor Orlando, Flush is a genre-defying blend of biography and fantasy, and an accessible yet stylistically innovative jeu d'esprit.
Written after Woolf had finished her emotionally draining work on The Waves, Flush purports to be an autobiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning s eponymous cocker spaniel,…
Ichabod Crane is a young schoolmaster from Connecticut now living in Sleepy Hollow, a settlement in New York State notorious for rumours of ghostly visitations, especially from the infamous Headless Horseman. Considered an outsider by the local inhabitants, he falls in love with the eighteen-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, but has to contend with the loutish Brom Bones for her affections. Then one night Crane's mounting problems come to a head when he finally experiences the horrors of the supernatural first-hand…
A classic tale of American Gothic, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' has found a central place in the collective imagination and inspired many adaptations. Also included in this volume is a selection of some of Irving's most celebrated ghostly tales, such as 'The Phantom Island' and 'The Devil and Tom Walker'.
Ichabod Crane is a young schoolmaster from Connecticut now living in Sleepy Hollow, a settlement in New York State notorious for rumours of ghostly visitations, especially from…
A carriage transporting ten passengers fleeing from Rouen is stopped at a village inn by Prussian soldiers, who decide to detain them until one of their party, the prostitute Boule de Suif, consents to sleep with their officer. When Boule de Suif refuses to do so on account of her principles and patriotic sentiments, the solidarity initially manifested by her fellow travellers becomes increasingly tested as the deadlock continues, and the strained relationship between her and her "respectable" counterparts gradually worsens. A scathing satire of bourgeois prejudice and hypocrisy and a compelling snapshot of France during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, `Boule de Suif' - here presented with five other major stories on the lives of prostitutei - was declared a masterpiece by Flaubert and is widely considered to be Maupassant's finest short story.
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A carriage transporting ten passengers fleeing from Rouen is stopped at a village inn by Prussian soldiers, who decide to detain them until one of their party, the prostitute…
When Lord Petre had the effrontery of cutting off a lock of Lady Arabella Fermor's hair, a veritable war erupted between the two noble families. A mutual friend, saddened by their estrangement, asked Alexander Pope, then a young poet, to write a poem about it, in order to make a joke of it and “laugh them together again”. But the result – which in its ingenuity and poetical brilliance reaches peaks of epic sublime – concealed darker and more dangerous undertones that unleashed an even greater storm between the parties involved – and among the whole literary world of the time.
As Belinda glides along the Thames admired for her beauty and the crafty Baron schemes to take his prize, a host of supernatural beings – elfs, sylphs, gnomes – dance around them to avoid the impending doom, in what is Pope's crowning poetical achievement and perhaps the greatest satirical poem ever written. Included in this volume are the original two-canto version of The Rape of the Lock and Pope's hilarious mock-interpretation of the poem as a seditious work, A Key to the Lock.
When Lord Petre had the effrontery of cutting off a lock of Lady Arabella Fermor's hair, a veritable war erupted between the two noble families. A mutual friend, saddened by their…
First published in 1861, Humiliated and Insulted plunges the reader into a world of moral degradation, childhood trauma, unrequited love and irreconcilable relationships. At the centre of the story are a young struggling author, an orphaned teenager and a depraved aristocrat, who not only foreshadows the great figures of evil in Dostoevsky's later fiction, but is a powerful and original presence in his own right. This new translation catches the verve and tumult of the original, which - in concept and execution - affords a refreshingly unfamiliar glimpse of the author.
First published in 1861, Humiliated and Insulted plunges the reader into a world of moral degradation, childhood trauma, unrequited love and irreconcilable relationships. At the…
The notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels - on the run from the authorities of his native Venice - around northern Europe, poking fun at the ruling classes he encounters there, before focusing on a pivotal incident that occurs in Warsaw. Insulted by a Polish count over an Italian ballerina, Casanova finds himself forced to challenge his rival to a duel, and the sequence of events and their aftermath are described with gusto by the narrator. A rollicking autobiographical account by one of the most iconic figures of eighteenth-century Europe, The Duel is presented here with an extract about the same event from Casanova's memoirs, written fifteen years later.
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The notorious adventurer and seducer Giacomo Casanova tells of his travels - on the run from the authorities of his native Venice - around northern Europe, poking fun at the…
Jane Tressider has never been afraid of speaking her mind, even if she admits that she may have occasionally given offence by doing so. But as a busy mother of nine children, she cannot let such a small foible get in the way of her job, which is to keep her feckless husband on his toes while ensuring the perfect management not just of her own household but also of that of her married daughters and sons. Since mothers-in-law have always been misunderstood and no one has ever taken up their side of the argument properly, Jane is determined to set the record straight and plead the cause of the most maligned race on the face of the earth. The result is a hilarious comedy of manners and a gentle satire of Edwardian mores and attitudes.
Jane Tressider has never been afraid of speaking her mind, even if she admits that she may have occasionally given offence by doing so. But as a busy mother of nine children, she…
When the young Ishmael gets on board Captain Ahab's whaling ship, little does he suspect that the mission on which he is about to embark is the fulfilment of his master's obsessive desire for revenge on Moby Dick, a white whale who has already claimed countless human victims and destroyed many fleets. With some sinister crew members in their midst and the hazardous conditions of the sea to contend with, the expedition becomes increasingly dangerous the closer it gets to its quarry.
One of the great American novels, if not the greatest, Moby Dick epically combines rip-roaring adventure, a meticulously realistic portrayal of the whaling trade and a profound philosophical disquisition on the nature of good and evil.
When the young Ishmael gets on board Captain Ahab's whaling ship, little does he suspect that the mission on which he is about to embark is the fulfilment of his master's…
‘Tobermory’ – the title story of this collection – is widely considered one of Saki’s finest pieces, in which a short-sighted dinner-party guest introduces a talking cat to the diners, inadvertently revealing gossip and pushing fickle characters into the limelight – in the process undermining the common perceptions of grandiose and genteel high society.
From some of his earliest successes, such as ‘Gabriel-Ernest’, ‘The Bag’ and the Clovis stories, about a young man with an impish sense of humour, to later tales such as ‘The Boar-Pig’, which is as bizarre as it is hilarious, and ‘The Toys of Peace’, which he was never able to see in print, this selection contains a wealth of well-known tales with vastly different themes – from reincarnation to psychological warfare – and bearing every trademark token of wit with which Saki has enthralled generations of eager readers.
‘Tobermory’ – the title story of this collection – is widely considered one of Saki’s finest pieces, in which a short-sighted dinner-party guest introduces a talking cat to the…
