Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time"It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham," wrote Gore Vidal. "He was always so entirely there."Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sen...

D. H. Lawrence’s great autobiographical novel paints a provocative portrait of an artist torn between affection for his mother and desire for two beautiful women. Set in the Nottinghamshire coalfields of Lawrence’s own boyhood, the story follows young Paul Morel’s growth into manhood in a British working-class family.Gertrude Morel, Paul’s puritanical mother, concentrates all her love and attention on Paul, nurturing his talents as a painter. When she muses that he might marry some...

In this era of political correctness, it is often impossible to say things as one would like. Indeed, certain ways of feeling and talking that were once acceptable are now, in effect, forbidden. Of course, taboos extend further than speech. Social and sexual inhibitions are also evident. Benjamin DeMott argues that the very least a society should do is to try to understand the meaning of its own inhibitions. As he writes in this new edition of You Don't Say, "a supple awareness of...

Supergrow is a collection of fifteen essays that appeared between 1966 and 1969 in publications such as the American Scholar, the New York Times, Antioch Review, Esquire, and the Saturday Review. Author Benjamin DeMott discusses everything under the sun--music, improving one's sex life, violence in Mississippi, theater, student revolts--but a single theme unifies the material: people ought to use their imaginations more. The book starts from the assumption that our troubles stem from failu...

Over 40 years ago the historic Kerner Commission Report declared that America was undergoing an urban crisis whose effects were disproportionately felt by underclass populations. In America's Urban Crisis and the Advent of Color-blind Politics, Curtis Ivery and Joshua Bassett explore the persistence of this crisis today, despite public beliefs that America has become a "post-racial" nation after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency.Ivery and Bassett combine their...

"An analytical study of sexual depravity" and "an epic of vice" were two of the critical expressions which greeted the publication of "Women in Love". Yet Lawrence regarded this novel as his best book and F. R. Leavis considered it Lawrence's supreme masterpiece. The novel tells of the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, who live in a Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls in love with Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself...

Are the ghosts real—or just in her mind? The Turn of the Screw is Henry James' iconic novella of psychological horror, ambiguity, and creeping dread. A young governess is hired to care for two orphaned children in a remote country estate. But when she begins to see ghostly apparitions, the line between reality and madness begins to blur. Is she protecting the children—or projecting her own fears onto them? With masterful prose and unsettling atmosphere, James crafts a tale that has fascina...

Dive into Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey like never before with this beautifully annotated and illustrated edition, designed to enhance your reading experience. The annotations offer valuable insights into the Regency-era society, explaining historical details, social customs, and the witty satire that Austen uses to parody the popular Gothic novels of her time. You'll gain a deeper understanding of Catherine Morland's journey from a naïve, imagin...

At a country fair near Casterbridge, Wessex, Michael Henchard, drunk on rum, sells his wife and baby daughter to the highest bidder. So begins Henchard's quest to lead a dignified -- and sober -- life. Years later his past catches up to him in the most unexpected of ways. A brilliant character study, Hardy's novel was memorably adapted for film in 2003 -- starring Ciaran Hinds.Sayre Street Books offers the world's greatest literature in easy to navigate, beautifully designed digita...

Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516 in Latin. His Utopia is a fictional island, whose society, religion and politics he explores. Critics do not believe that the island depicted More's idea of the perfect society, but rather that he hoped to throw the politics of his own time into a new light by contrasting them with his imagined island society. The work references Plato's Republic.

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked."What's happened t...

This book contains now several HTML tables of contents that will make reading a real pleasure! This collection of Japanese fairy tales is the outcome of a suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from the modern version written by Sadanami Sanjin. These stories are not literal translations, and though the Japanese story and all quaint Japanese expressions have been faithfully preserved, they have been told more with the view to interes...