Series: Oxford World's Classics

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and betrayal, is probably the most skilfully told story in the whole of the English Arthurian cycle. Originating from the north-west midlands of England, it is based on two separate and very ancient Celtic motifs: the Beheading and the Exchange of Winnings, brought together by the anonymous 14th-century...

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests—including the comic poet Aristophanes and, of course, Plato's mentor Socrates—each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is...

Herodotus is not only known as the father of history, as Cicero called him, but also the father of ethnography. As well as charting the historical background to the Persian Wars, his curiosity also prompts frequent digression on the cultures of the peoples he introduces. While much of the information he gives has proved to be astonishingly accurate, he also...

He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price. The Monk (1796) is a sensational story of temptation and depravity, a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and the first horror novel in English literature. The respected monk Ambrosio, the Abbot of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, is overwhelmed with desire for a young...

As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains... And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running. My Antonia (1918) depicts the pioneering period of European settlement on...

The new Oxford World's Classics edition of Oliver Twist is based on the authoritative Clarendon edition, which uses Dickens's revised text of 1846. It includes his preface of 1841 in which he defended himself against hostile criticism, and includes all 24 original illustrations by George Cruikshank. Stephen Gill's groundbreaking introduction gives a fascinating new account of the novel. He also...

K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before. A remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats - this is the setting for Kafka's story about a man seeking both acceptance in the village...

"To be loved to madness - such was her great desire." Eustacia Vye criss-crosses the wild Egdon Heath, eager to experience life to the full in her quest for "music, poetry, passion, war". She marries Clym Yeobright, native of the heath, but his idealism frustrates her romantic ambitions. Her discontent draws others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness....

The profoundest book there is, born from the innermost richness of truth, an inexhaustible well into which no bucket descends without coming up with gold and goodness. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885) was Nietzsche's own favourite among all his books and has proved to be his most popular, having sold millions of copies in many different languages. In it, he addresses...

In 1872, the mistress of a neighbouring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy's home. This event provided Tolstoy with the inspiration he needed to compose what many believe to be the greatest novel ever written. In writing Anna Karenina, he moved away from the vast historical sweep of War and Peace to portray, with extraordinary...

Love... it means too much to me, far more than you can understand. At its simplest, Anna Karenina is a love story. It is a portrait of a beautiful and intelligent woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties— to her marriage and to the network of relationships and moral values that bind the society...

One death, in exchange for thousands of lives - it's simple arithmetic! This is a new translation of Dostoevsky's epic masterpiece, Crime and Punishment (1866) by Nicolas Pasternak Slater, with editorial material by the UK's leading Dostoevsky expert, Dr Sarah J. Young. The impoverished student Raskolnikov decides to free himself from debt by killing an old moneylender, an act he...

One afternoon in the autumn of 1851, a solitary horseman, followed by a pack-mule, was pushing through an arid stretch of country somewhere in central New Mexico. He had lost his way. Death Comes for the Archbishop is the story of two missionary priests, travelling through the American Southwest in the aftermath of the Mexican American wars. Father Jean-Marie Latour...

"He thought it expedient and necessary that he should commence knight-errant, and wander through the world, with his horse and arms, in quest of adventures." Don Quixote de la Mancha, first published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is one of the world's greatest comic novels. Inspired by tales of chivalry, Don Quixote of La Mancha embarks on a...

I wonder what will become of her! So speculate the friends and neighbours of Emma Woodhouse, the lovely, lively, wilful, and fallible heroine of Jane Austen's fourth published novel. Confident that she knows best, Emma schemes to find a suitable husband for her pliant friend Harriet, only to discover that she understands the feelings of others as little as she...

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana...

"Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt!" Throughout the hardships of her childhood—spent with a severe aunt and abusive cousin, and later at the austere Lowood charity school—Jane Eyre clings to a sense of self-worth, despite her treatment from those close to her. At the age of eighteen, sick of her narrow existence, she seeks work as...

The theme of the Metamorphoses is change and transformation, as illustrated in Graeco-Roman myth and legend. On this ostensibly unifying thread, Ovid strings together a vast and kaleidoscopic sequence of brilliant narratives, in which the often paradoxical and always arbitrary fates of his human and divine characters reflect the never-ending flux and reflux of the universe itself. About the series:...

The Dhammapada, the Pali version of one of the most popular texts of the Buddhist canon, ranks among the classics of the world's great religious literature. Like all religious texts in Pali, The Dhammapada belongs to the Therevâda school of the Buddhist tradition, adherents of which are now found primarily in Kampuchea, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The Dhammapada, or...

“I regret to see that my book has turned out un fiasco solenne.” James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names, and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for...

Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902, it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted 'Germinal! Germinal!'. The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the...

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they...

I am making up To the Lighthouse - the sea is to be heard all through it Inspired by the lost bliss of her childhood summers in Cornwall, Virginia Woolf produced one of the masterworks of English literature in To the Lighthouse. It concerns the Ramsay family and their summer guests on the Isle of Skye before and after the...

The definitive English version of the stories of King Arthur, Le Morte Darthur was completed in 1469-70 by Sir Thomas Malory, knight-prisoner. In a resonant prose style, Malory charts the tragic disintegration of the fellowship of the Round Table, destroyed from within by warring factions. Recounting the life of King Arthur, the knightly exploits of Sir Lancelot du Lake, Sir...

Study me reader, if you find delight in me...Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature. Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them, he recorded everything that...

Turgenev's masterpiece about the conflict between generations is as fresh, outspoken, and exciting today as it was when it was first published in 1862. The controversial portrait of Bazarov, the energetic, cynical, and self-assured nihilist who repudiates the romanticism of his elders, shook Russian society. Indeed, the image of humanity liberated by science from age-old conformities and prejudices is one...

"It will be a strange sort of a book, tho', I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho' you may get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—& to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy.... Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing,...

You said I killed you - haunt me, then! Wuthering Heights is one of the most famous love stories in the English language. It is also one of the most potent revenge narratives. The intense and unbreakable bond between the fiery Catherine Earnshaw and the foundling Heathcliff has startled and fascinated readers since its first publication in 1847. Of uncertain...

"What is your nation if I may ask," says the citizen. "Ireland," says Bloom. "I was born here. Ireland." Ulysses, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, has had a profound influence on modern fiction. In a series of episodes covering the course of a single day, 16 June 1904, the novel traces the movements of Leopold Bloom...

The greatest historian that ever lived Such was Macaulay's verdict on Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) and his history of the The Peloponnesian War, the momentous struggle between Athens and Sparta as rival powers and political systems that lasted for twenty-seven years from 431 to 404 BC. This conflict involved virtually the whole of the Greek world and ended in the...

One ought to choose something very deliberately, and be faithful to that. Isabel Archer is a young, intelligent, and spirited American girl, determined to relish her first experience of Europe. She rejects two eligible suitors in her fervent commitment to liberty and independence, declaring that she will never marry. Thanks to the generosity of her devoted cousin Ralph, she is...

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought...but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands. When Machiavelli's brief treatise on Renaissance statecraft and princely power was posthumously published in 1532, it generated a debate that has raged unabated until the present day. Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience...

'The problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color-line.' Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic study of race, culture, and education at the turn of the twentieth century. With its singular combination of essays, memoir, and fiction, this book vaulted W. E. B. Du Bois to the forefront of American political commentary...

"I never can resist a touch of the dramatic." The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is now best remembered for its concluding story in which the great detective appears to plunge to his death into the waters at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in a struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. However, the collection also brings the reader back...

I am not an angel nor a genie nor a ghost...I am Erik! A mysterious Phantom haunts the depths of the Paris Opera House where he has fallen passionately in love with the beautiful singer Christine Daaé. Under his guidance, her singing rises to new heights and she is triumphantly acclaimed. But Christine is also loved by Raoul de Chagny,...

In this vigorous and fast-moving novel of post-Napoleonic France, Julien Sorel's plans to reach the higher echelons of society through the priesthood are deflected by his realisation that the attainment of happiness is of greater consequence than the pursuit of ambition. Subtitled A Chronicle of 1830, Stendhal's depiction of a nation of smug hypocrites scandalised contemporary readers, who recognised themselves...

Thérèse Raquin is a clinically observed, sinister tale of adultery and murder among the lower orders in nineteenth-century Paris. Zola's dispassionate dissection of the motivations of his characters, mere human beasts who kill in order to satisfy their lust, is much more than an atmospheric Second Empire period-piece. Many readers were scandalised by an approach to character-drawing which seemed to...

The Swann Way is the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. The work is a portal to Proust's novel and an introduction to its unforgettable first-person narrator-protagonist. Immersed in themes of time, memory, identity, art, sensation, love, and jealousy, the narrator embarks on the story...

Look, my lord! See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions! The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the...

"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) proclaims that it is "A Trivial Play for Serious People." In fact, collected here alongside Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), Salome (1891, 1894), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and An Ideal Husband (1895), Earnest shows that the questions...

'All his powers were in decline; the only thing growing stronger in him was the conviction that all this could not last much longer, that his demise was imminent.' The Buddenbrooks (1900) was Thomas Mann's first major success. It draws on his own family history and on his vivid memories of growing up in the commercial town of Lübeck in...

'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world... Sing heavenly muse' From almost the moment of its first publication in 1667, Paradise Lost was considered a classic. It is difficult now to appreciate both how audacious an undertaking it represents, and how astonishing its immediate and continued success was....

This is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. It is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money. The detailed descriptions of both affluence and squalor in the Paris of 1819 are an integral part of the drama...

"He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention." Pride and Prejudice, one of the most famous love stories of all time, has also proven itself as a treasured mainstay of the English literary canon. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters are...

'Pray, pray be composed,' cried Elinor, 'and do not betray what you feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet.' For Elinor Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither...

Romeo and Juliet opens with a haunting line: 'A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life'. This edition offers a clear and accessible introduction to Shakespeare's enduring tale of ill-fated lovers. Hannah August provides insightful analysis, focusing particularly on the dramatic function of the famous prologue and the significance of the play's ending. She explores ways of reading the play...

The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers. - A new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from all existing printings - Extensive introduction gives full attention to the play's bold treatment of racial themes, gender, and social relations - Detailed...

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Can one life be measured against another? Can a woman's body be measured against a man's life? Can consensual sex be measured against rape? Measure for Measure explores these questions through a series of substitutions: Angelo deputises for the Duke, who disguises himself to spy on his subjects; corrupt Angelo demands...

Can we doubt ... that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? In On the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin challenged many of the most deeply held beliefs of the Western world. His insistence on the immense length of the past and on the abundance of life-forms,...

I feel the need of an escapade after these serious poetic experimental books...I want to kick up my heels & be off. Orlando tells the tale of an extraordinary individual who lives through centuries of English history, first as a man, then as a woman. The story spans encounters with queens, kings, novelists, playwrights, and poets, and explores a struggle...

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? Dark and violent, Macbeth is a restless, haunting exploration of the human costs of violence and power. One of the most theatrically spectacular of Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth has endured as a psychologically and supernaturally sinister work. Emma Smith's introduction considers the historical and contemporary contexts of the play,...

Julius Caesar 'Cry "havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war' Set against the backdrop of a nation breaking out into civil war, Julius Caesar raises questions of governance, power, tyranny, and enslavement. This New Oxford Shakespeare edition situates these questions within the historical framework of the play's early history in theatre and print, as well as within its long...

'I spring from the pages into your arms' Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman stands as one of the most influential and innovative literary works of the last two hundred years. Widely credited as the originator of free verse in English, Whitman put forward a radical new language of the body, the nation, and same-sex love. After the book's initial...

Hamlet's combination of violence and introspection is unusual among Shakespeare's tragedies. It is also full of curious riddles and fascinating paradoxes, making it one of his most widely discussed plays. Professor Hibbard's illuminating and original introduction explains the process by which variant texts were fused together in the eighteenth century to create the most commonly used text of today. Drawing...

'There's an east wind coming... such a wind as never blew on England yet.' Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow features a selection of Sherlock Holmes stories written at a time of growing tensions in Europe. First published as a collection in 1917, against the backdrop of the First World War, the volume covers tales that deviate from the pattern...

It was at the time when I was wandering around hungry in Kristiania, that strange city no one leaves before it has set its mark on them... Hunger is the first-person story of a young man desperately trying to establish himself in the city as a writer, living in shabby lodgings where he can seldom afford to pay the rent,...

Discourses on Livy (1531) is as essential to an understanding of Machiavelli as his famous treatise, The Prince. Equally controversial, it reveals his fundamental preference for a republican state. Comparing the practice of the ancient Romans with that of his contemporaries provided Machiavelli with a consistent point of view in all his works. Machiavelli's close analysis of Livy's history of...

By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened... Frankenstein is the most celebrated horror story ever written....

"I shall do one thing in this life - one thing for certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die." Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and respectable, middle-aged...

Devils, also known in English as The Possessed and The Demons, was first published in 1871-72. The third of Dostoevsky's five major novels, it is at once a powerful political tract and a profound study of atheism, depicting the disarray which follows the appearance of a band of modish radicals in a small provincial town. Dostoevsky compares infectious radicalism to...

We that are true lovers run into strange capers. Four centuries after its publication in the Folio, As You Like It's capacity to entertain and instruct remains evergreen. This edition provides a friendly yet authoritative introduction to the play, upholding it as a crowning expression of the Elizabethan Renaissance while underscoring its appeal to twenty-first century readers as Shakespeare's most...

'His rise testifies to the decline of a whole society.' Jean-Paul Sartre Maupassant's second novel, Bel-Ami (1885), is the story of a ruthlessly ambitious young man, Georges Duroy, christened 'Bel-Ami' by his female admirers, making it to the top in fin-de-siècle Paris. It is a novel about money, sex, and power, set against the background of the politics of the...

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. Always provocative, the Friedrich Nietzsche of Beyond Good and Evil (1886) is at once a sceptical psychologist and philosopher-seer, passionately unmasking European society with his piercing insights and uncanny prescience. This masterpiece of his maturity considers quintessential Nietzschean topics such as the origins and nature of Judeo-Christian...

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts. The greatest 'state of the nation' novel in English, Middlemarch addresses ordinary life at a moment of great social change, in the years leading to the Reform Act of 1832. Through her portrait of a Midlands town, George Eliot addresses gender relations and class, self-knowledge and self-delusion, community...

The pen would smoothly write the things it knew But when it came to love it split in two, A donkey stuck in mud is logic's fate - Love's nature only love can demonstrate. Rumi's Masnavi is widely recognised as the greatest Sufi poem ever written, and has been called 'the Koran in Persian'. The thirteenth-century Muslim mystic Rumi composed...

War is merely the continuation of policy by other means. On War is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of war. Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against the French during the Napoleonic Wars, sought to understand and analyse the phenomenon of war so that future leaders could conduct and win conflicts more effectively. He...