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Understand the country and its people with this culture guide that gives a real insight into what it means to live in Britain today.

The finest of all Conrad's tales, Heart of Darkness is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr. Kurtz. What he sees on his journey, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at his most intense and sophisticated. The other three tales in this volume depict corruption and obsession, and question racial assumptions. Set in the exotic surroundings of Africa, Malaysia, and the east, they variously appraise the glamour, folly, and rapacity of imperial adventure. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.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.

This is a three-level course with a higher vocabulary load and more reading than most primary courses.

a book I prize next to the Bible' Robert Burns Mackenzie's hugely popular novel of 1771 is the foremost work of the sentimental movement, in which sentiment and sensibility were allied with true virtue, and sensitivity is the mark of the man of feeli ng. The hero, Harley, is followed in a series of episodes demonstrating his benevolence in an uncaring world: he assists the down-trodden, loses his love, and fails to achieve worldly success. The novel asks a series of vital questions: what morality is possible in a complex commercial world? Does trying to maintain it make you a saint or a fool? Is sentiment merely a luxury for the leisured classes? This edition reprints Brian Vickers's authoritative text, with a new introduction that discusses the novel in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment and European sentimentalism.

"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 wit h 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 Rome led him to advance his most original and outspoken view of politics - the belief that a healthy body politic was characterized by social friction and conflict rather than by rigid stability. His discussion of conspiracies in "Discourses on Livy" is one of the most sophisticated treatments of archetypal political upheaval every written. In an a ge of increasing political absolutism, Machiavelli's theories became a dangerous ideology. This new translation is richly annotated, providing the contemporary reader with sufficient historical, linguistic, and political information to understand and interpret the revolutionary affirmations Machiavelli made, based on the historical evidence he found in Livy.

´Who is going to marry Eugénie Grandet?´ This is the question that fills the minds of the inhabitants of Saumur, the setting for Eugénie Grandet (1833), one of the the earliest and most famous novels in Balzac´s Comédie humaine. The Grandet household, opp

Ladies and Gentlemen...I have to state that Mrs Lovett's pies are made of human flesh!' This shocking announcement provides the stunning denouement to a narrative first published over a period of four months in the winter of 1846-7. The revelation marked only the beginning, however, of the notorious career of Sweeney Todd, soon known to legend as the 'Demon Barber' of London's Fleet Street. The story of Todd's entrepreneurial partnership with neighbouring pie-maker Margery Lovett - at once inconceivably unpalatable and undeniably compelling - has subsequently provided the substance for a seemingly endless series of successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs and ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, and musicals. Both gleeful and ghoulish, the original tale of Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String of Pearls, is an early classic of British horror writing. It combines the story of Todd's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victims with a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London's dark and unsavoury streets. This edition provides an authoritative text of the first version of the story ever to be published, as well as a lively introduction to its history and reputation.

Based on Hawthorne's own experience of a Utopian socialist community outside Boston, The Blithedale Romance tells of the attempts of a like-minded group to begin reforming a dissipated America. However, rather than dropping bad habits and changing th e world, Coverdale the prurient bachelor, Hollingsworth the furious philanthropist, Zenobia the voluptuous feminist, and Priscilla the vulnerable seamstress soon find themselves pursuing egotistical paths which must lead ultimately to tragedy. Evokin g a bright rural idyll which fails to survive the ravages of lust and power, Hawthorne cynically undermines the fatuities of nineteenth-century American idealism.

Tom Walsh had a lot to learn about life. He liked travelling, and he was in no hurry. He liked meeting people, anyone and everyone. He liked the two American girls on the train. They were nice and very friendly. They knew a lot of places. Tom thought they were fun. Tom certainly had a lot to learn about life. This is a collection of short stories about adventures on trains. Strange, wonderful, and frightening things can happen on trains - and all of them happen here.

Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next?

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection of her short fiction ever printed. In addition to her pioneering masterpiece

The Audio CD Pack contains a copy of the book along with an audio CD with a recording of the complete text in both British and American English. Listen and read to discover all about wonders of the past, all around the world ...Where is Chichen Itza? What is the Taj Mahal? Word count 1,724

Chief Inspector Morse is drinking a pint of beer. He is thinking about an attractive woman who lives not far away. The woman he is thinking of is hanging, dead, from the ceiling of her kitchen. On the floor lies a chair, almost two metres away from the woman's feet. Chief Inspector Morse finishes his pint, and orders another. Perhaps he will visit Anne, after all. But he is in no particular hurry. Meanwhile, Anne is still hanging in her kitchen, waiting for the police to come and cut her down. She is in no hurry, either.

A two-level English course for children aged 6-8 that takes an aural/oral approach to learning English. The language arises naturally from the original chants, songs, and stories. Games, puzzles, cutting and pasting activities, and mini-projects are presented in a lively and colourful way. The action centres around a family, the children's imaginary friend, their teddy, and their dog.

A five-level course for 10-15 year olds, based on the highly popular and innovative Project English, incorporating a new structure and design, complete revision of the original material, plus substantial new material.

Daniel Defoe's enthralling story-telling and imaginatively detailed descriptions have ensured that his fiction masquerading as fact remains one of the most famous stories in English literature. On one level a simple adventure story, the novel also raises profound questions about moral and spiritual values, society, and man's abiding acquisitiveness. This new edition includes a scintillating Introduction and notes that illuminate the historical context.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.