'[A] triumph of mature observation and art.' - Daily Telegraph'A winter's tale of light and laughter.' - Sunday Times'What is especially enjoyable is the rough-edged tenderness and kindness of Mr Wain's concern ... probably his most substantial achievement to date.' - Robert Nye, Saturday Times Review'[S]ubstantial and serious ... sustains a vigorous narrative line - he has always been an excellent storyteller.' - Times Literary Supplement'[A] love affair be...

"A great fund of comic invention." - Times Literary Supplement"Written with great spirit . . . very funny . . . fresh, unhackneyed and excellently observed." - Listener"[A] bustling kaleidoscope of a book, by an author fertile in expedient, keenly observant and occasionally probing the heart of darkness." - Sunday TimesCharles Lumley feels that he has been born in captivity - the captivity of his smugly conventional bourgeois upbringing. Now he has just graduated fr...

These plays cover one thousand years of the ancient world from the golden age of Athens to 5th century Alexandria. The protagonists are Anaxagoras, Archimedes and Hypatia, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers. All three of them came into conflict with the prevalent views of the time. Anaxagoras maintained that the sun was a big burning rock of the size of the Peleponnesus. He was condemned to death on the charge of impiety. Archimedes, the first example of the efficacy of technology co...

First published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms the integrity of ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces the sisters' lives from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves fro...

Salmonella remains a major cause of economic loss in domestic livestock and human food poisoning worldwide. In the last 10 years there have been major advances in understanding the salmonella organism, meaning a compiled source of the new research is urgently needed. With fully updated chapters and new coverage of genome structure, virulence, vaccine development, molecular methods for epidemiology and exotics, this second edition is an invaluable resource for researchers of animal and huma...

She’s trying to tell you—if only you’d listen…About to break the news to his wife, Diane, that he’s infertile, criminology expert Harper Penn gets a call to say she’s been rushed to hospital with a miscarriage. Five days later, when Diane fails to return from the village shop, police think she must have taken off with a secret lover, but Harper is convinced the online messages are not from her.In the same Hampshire village, plucky seven-year-old Clara has retreated into a m...

This edition of Dark Place to Hide is enhanced with a musical soundtrack from Booktrack for an immersive listening experience!She’s trying to tell you—if only you’d listen…About to break the news to his wife, Diane, that he’s infertile, criminology expert Harper Penn gets a call to say she’s been rushed to hospital with a miscarriage. Five days later, when Diane fails to return from the village shop, police think she must have taken off with a secret lover, but Har...

The Card is a short comic novel written by Arnold Bennett in 1911 (titled Denry the Audacious in the American edition). It was later made into a 1952 movie starring Alec Guinness and Petula Clark. Like much of Bennett's best work, it is set in the Potteries District of Staffordshire. It chronicles the rise of Edward Henry ("Denry") Machin from washerwoman's son to Mayor of Bursley (a fictitious town based on Burslem). This is accomplished through luck, initiative and a fair bit of chutzpah...

Arnold Bennett gives us an unfogettable portrait of a miser and his wife. Henry Earlforward is a second-hand bookseller with a passion for money. He marries Violet Arb, a widow with a fortune of her own, yet he is eaten up by fear and greed. Set against the dark forces of avarice is the Earlford's maid, Elsie, whose love of life, generosity of spirit and warm humanity give Riceyman Steps a fine balance between hopelessness and optimism.

Sherwood Anderson’s most famous work, “Winesburg, Ohio” is a cycle of short stories set in the fictional town of Winesburg, loosely based on the author’s own home town of Clyde, Ohio. A picture of small town America during the first part of the 20th century, the series of short stories revolves around the life George Willard, from youth, through his yearning for independence, to his eventually departure from the town. Each story tells the tale of a distinct member of the town as related to...

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the essay as a literary form. In 1572, Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading and reflection. There he wrote his constantly expanding 'essays', inspired by the ideas he found in books from his library and his own experience. He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, lov...

Recently orphaned 17-year-old David leaves his home on the Scottish countryside to seek out a rich uncle he has never met. The uncle, as it turns out, is paranoid and unpleasant, and before David can claim his inheritance he is knocked out and taken to sea to be sold as a slave in America. So begins Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure novel, Kidnapped (1886), a breathlessly exciting story for fans of action and suspense, and a story about two very different types of Scotsmen.