Hesperus Press

It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not...Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan's earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. Already a huge bestseller across Europe, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared is a fun, feel-good book for all ages.

This brilliant, newly translated edition of Nietzsche displays Zweig's particular forte for creatively mapping the psychology of his subject and their historical significance. It is the compelling third part of Stefan Zweig's much overlooked 'Master Builders of the Spirit' series, entitled 'The Struggle with the Demon'. Zweig eschews traditional academic discussion and focuses on Nietzsche's habits, passions and obsessions. This work, concentrating on the man rather than the work, on the tragedy of his existence and his apartness from the world in which he moved in enforced isolation, is a brief tour de force and essential reading for anyone interested in Zweig or Nietzsche. One is drawn inexorably into Nietzsche's tragic trajectory. Illustrated with stunning new photographs relating to Nietzsche and his European locations, this superb translation by Will Stone is essential reading for anyone interested in Nietzsche, Zweig, first-class biographies and philosophy.

The astonishing memoir of a free man who was sold into slavery in Louisiana where he was kept for 12 years—a powerful, riveting condemnation of slavery, and a story soon to be introduced to a new audience through a major film. Tricked by two men offering him a job as a musician in New York state in 1841, Solomon Northup was instead drugged and kidnapped. Threatened with death, Northup was forced to assume a new name and fake past. Taken to Louisiana on a disease-ridden plague ship, he was initially sold to a cotton planter. In the 12 years that followed he was sold to many different owners who treated him with varying levels of savagery, including forced labor, scant food, and numerous beatings. Eventually Northup succeeded in contacting Samuel Bass, a white carpenter whom he knew to be sympathetic to the cause of black people. Bass contacted Northup's family and together they gained the necessary paperwork to travel to Louisiana to retrieve him. Northup pressed charges against his captors but in a triumph of irony the case was heard in Washington—meaning that as a black man he could not testify against the accused (in the end they were able to countersue him.) A true-life testament to tremendous courage and tenacity in the face of unfathomable injustice, Northup's account is also of extreme interest due to the meticulous recordings of slave life. Unique in its firsthand nature, the book became a runaway bestseller.

It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The Mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not - Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan's earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. The Swedish film, produced by Nice Entertainment and FLX Film and distributed by StudioCanal will release in the UK in early 2014.

After the end of the First World War, Gabriel Dan is released from a POW camp in Russia and begins making his way home to Austria. He comes to an industrial town in Poland, and checks in the ramshackle Hotel Savoy while awaiting financial aid from his family. Here he meets a kaleidoscope of characters, a microcosm of society in which rich and poor, itinerants, dissidents and malcontents live lives of hope, expectancy and despair in an atmosphere pregnant with revolutionary fervour.

Superstitions still have a firm hold in cultures all across the world and have inspired countless books and films across the ages. But where did so many of them come from and how do myths and beliefs differ from country to country?Publishing on Friday 13th, discover this 1899 gem full of interesting facts and packed with titbits. Find out why people throw salt over their shoulder, why you should never open a theatre on Friday in France and whether it is luckier to sneeze towards the left or the right. And why the number thirteen is considered so unlucky.Lawrence's fascinating work traces the origins of common superstitions through time and civilisations, tracking how they evolved. Why not dip in and out and see how many have endured to the present day...You will finally be able to answer important questions such as whether a horseshoe on the door can protect you from plague. Why do people say 'bless you' when you sneeze? Or find out what condition can apparently be cured by putting salt in the hems of a young boy's trousers and making him look up the chimney...Or you could even finally settle the question about whether black cats are good or bad luck!

The Wrong Box is a black comedy novel, co-written by Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne.Morris and John Finsbury stands to gain a lot of money if their Uncle Masterman dies, but none if Uncle Joseph dies first. So when Joseph seems to have come to an untimely end in a railway accident, a farcical sequence is set in motion. Determined to conceal the death, Morris hides the body in a barrel which he then ships to London. How will the situation resolve itself and how long can the deception continue for...? First published in 1889 and adapted several times for film and musical, The Wrong Box is Stevenson at his funniest. The farce moves at a tremendous pace with Stevenson rapidly piling up train crashes, missing uncles, cases of mistaken identity and surplus dead bodies.

A new short biography of the author of "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov," by a preeminent Russian scholar In this compelling new biography Anthony Briggs explores the effect of Dostoevsky's turbulent life on his literary genius. Described by one contemporary as "the Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum," Dostoevsky famously divided critics during his lifetime. His childhood and family life have been the subject of scrutiny, most famously in inspiring Freud's essay "Dostoevsky and Parricide." In later life his membership of the Petrashevsky Circle of liberal intellectuals resulted in his prosecution by the authorities: he was forced to attend a mock execution and then exiled for four years to a Siberian prison camp.

Born in central Russia in 1828, Tolstoy saw action as a soldier before becoming a writer. His two novels, "War and Peace "and "Anna""Karenina," are among the best loved in world literature. Anthony Briggs compares these works and describes many others. He also considers why such a strong character as Tolstoy welcomed into his life two appalling individuals whose malign influence changed him and his literary career forever.

As explicit in his prose as he was in his private life, the Marquis de Sade remains one of the most controversial writers of all time. This new biography, by the acclaimed translator and author David Carter, promises to shock as much as it informs. Arrested many times for sexual misdemeanors, the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, where he was writing "120 Days of Sodom" and "The Misfortunes of Virtue" at the time that it was stormed in 1789. After the French Revolution he was again imprisoned and sent to an asylum, where he wrote diaries and plays. This concise biography offers a fresh look at a relentlessly compelling figure with a fascinating life of scandal and imprisonment

Born to Jewish parents in mid-19th-century Austria, Sigmund Freud is a controversial figure needing no introduction, yet his reputation owes as much to myth as to the facts of his life and his work. Here, David Carter uncovers the man buried beneath the mythology, tracing the life of this inimitable figure from his origins as the gifted first born of eight children, through his stellar academic career and his relationships and rifts with famous figures such as Josef Breuer. Also explored is why, despite his groundbreaking work on psychoanalytic theories--including the functioning of the subconscious, the repression of trauma, and the psychological import of dreams--Freud has frequently been the subject of derision and ridicule.