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The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories. In this classic literary representation of gambling, Alexander Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. Hints of the occult and gothic alternate with scenes of St Petersburg high-society in the story of the passionate Hermann's quest to master chance and make his fortune at the card-table. Underlying the taut plot is an ironical treatment of the romantic dreamer and social outcast. This volume contains three other major works of Pushkin's fiction, moving from the witty parodies of sentimentalism and high melodrama in The Tales of Belkin to an early experiment with recreating the past in Peter the Great's Blackamoor. It concludes with the novel-length masterpiece The Captain's Daughter, which combines historical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the colour and devices of the Russian fairy-tale in a narrative of rebellion and romance. These new translations, as well as being meticulously faithful to the original, do full justice to the elegance and fluency of Pushkin's prose. The Introduction provides insightful readings of the stories and places them in their European literary context. A chronology of the Pugachov Uprising illuminates the events in The Captain's Daughter.

Whitman is today regarded as America's Homer or Dante, and his work the touchstone for literary originality in the New World. In Leaves of Grass, he abandoned the rules of traditional poetry - breaking the standard metered line, discarding the obligatory rhyming scheme, and using the vernacular. Emily Dickinson condemned his sexual and physiological allusions as `disgraceful', but Emerson saw the book as the `most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed'. A century later it is his judgment of this autobiographical vision of the vigor of the American nation that has proved the more enduring. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Here, Plutarch introduces the major figures and periods of classical Greece, detailing the lives of nine personages, including Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Cimon, Alexander, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Agesilaus. Oxford presents the most comprehensive selection available, superbly translated and accompanied by a lucid introduction, explanatory notes, bibliographies, maps, and indexes.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

For many centuries, Aristotle's Physics was the essential starting point for anyone who wished to study the natural sciences This book begins with an analysis of change, which introduces us to Aristotle's central concepts of matter and form, before moving on to an account of explanation in the sciences and a defence of teleological explanation. Aristotle then turns to detailed, important, and often ingenious discussions of notions such as infinity, place, void, time, and conintuity. He ends with an argument designed to show that the changes we experience in the world demand as their cause a single unchanging cause of all change, namely God. This is the first complete translation of Physics into English since 1930. It presents Aristotle's thought accurately, while at the same time simplifying and expanding the often crabbed and elliptical style of the original, so that it is very much easier to read. A lucid introduction and extensive notes explain the general structure of each section of the book and shed light on particular problems.

Written by an eccentric Anglican curate in Dublin, Melmoth Wanderer brought the terrors of the Gothic novel to a new pitch of claustrophobic intensity. Its tormented villain, a Faustian transgressor desperately seeking a victim to release him from his fatal bargain with the devil, regarded by Balzac as one of the great outcasts of modern literature.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Apuleius's Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel--the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the hero Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic results in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately returned to human shape by the kindness of the goddess Isis. Simultaneously a blend of romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal works of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, while reproducing all the exuberance of the original.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

An authoritative and wide-ranging new edition of A Dictionary of Weather containing almost 2,000 entries on all areas of the subject. Provides clear definitions and illustrative examples of terminology taken from meteorology, forecasting, and climatology. Revised and fully updated, this edition includes 300 new and revised entries, such as A-Train, Pineapple Express, and Watermelon snow, and added feature entries highlighting actual occurrences of extreme weather, including the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Generously illustrated, and containting recommended websites for further reading, this reference work is thoroughly comprehensible. Find out where and when the world's largest hailstone fell or where the highest temperature was recorded using the list of weather records, and check climate data for different weather types from around the world. Key terms from the related fields of oceanography, hydrology, and climatology are also covered as well as biographical information on important people in the development of meteorology.Arranged in A-Z format, it is a unique dictionary and an essential reference source for meteorology and geography students, whether at school or university, as well as for amateur meteorologists and the general reader.

The activities in Dominoes keep students engaged in the stories and help to reinforce their understanding of the key language. They can be completed at home or in class. The project activities in Dominoes build on the themes from the story and encourage s

A two-year course, starting with listening and speaking and introducing the written word in the second year.

New, interactive editions of the best-selling course for adult professional learners.