Orlando, a biography par Virginia Woolf

Virginia, Woolf

Literature & Fiction

Penguin Modern Classics

Valmouth and other Novels

Ronald Firbank

Froth on the Daydream

VIAN, BORIS

The Cowards

Škvorecký, Josef

The Other Side tells of a dream kingdom which becomes a nightmare, of a journey to Pearl, a mysterious city created deep in Asia, which is also a journey to the depths of the subconcious, or as Kubin himself called it, 'a sort of Baedeker for those lands which are half known to us'.Written in 1908, and more or less half way between Meyrink and Kafka, it was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the artists and writers of the Expressionist generation.  ' Expressionist illustrator Kubin wrote this fascinating curio, his only literary work in 1908. A town named Pearl, assembled and presided over by the aptly named Patera, is the setting for his hallucinatory vision of a society founded on instinct over reason. Culminating apocalyptically - plagues of insects, mountains of corpses and orgies in the street - it is worth reading for its dizzying surrealism alone. Though ostensibly a gothic macabre fantasy, it is tempting to read The Other Side as a satire on the reactionary, idealist utopianism evident in German thought in the early twentieth century, highly prescient in its gloom, given later developments. The language often suggests Nietsche. The inevitable collapse of Patera's creation is lent added horror by hindsight. Kubin's depiction of absurd bureaucracy is strongly reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial, and his flawed utopia, situated next to a settlement of supposed savages, brings to mind Huxley's Brave New World; it precedes both novels, and this superb new translation could demonstrate its influence on subsequent modern literature.'Kieron Pim in Time OutIt will appeal to fans of Mervyn Peake and readers who like the darkly decadent, the fantastic and the grotesque in their reading.

The Other Side

Alfred Kubin

Literary

Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored."  Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books.There are now 65,000  titles available  (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such as  Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon.Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website.

The Princess Casamassima

JAMES,HENRY

Chris Guthrie, torn between her love of the land and her desire to escape the narrow horizons of a peasant culture, is the thread that links these three works. In them, Gibbon interweaves the personal joys and sorrows of Chris' life with the greater historical and political events of the time.Sunset Song, the first and most celebrated book of the trilogy, covers the early years of the twentieth century, including the First World War. Chris survives, with her son Ewan, but the tragedy has struck and her wild spirit subdued. In Cloud Howe, as the minister's wife, Chris learns to love again, and we witness the cruel gossip and high comedy of small village life until, once again, Chris suffers a terrible loss. Grey Granite focuses on her son Ewan and his passionate involvement with justice for the common man. For Chris, with her intuitive strength, nothing lasts - only the land endures.

Modern Classics Scots Quair: Sunset Song Cloud Howe Grey Granite

LEWIS GRASSIC GIBBON

Ending Up

At Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage in the English countryside, five elderly people live together in rancorous disharmony. Adela Bastable bosses the house, as her brother Bernard passes his days thinking up malicious schemes against the baby-talking Marigold and secret drinker Shorty, while kindly George lies bedridden upstairs. The mismatched quintet keep their spirits alive by bickering and waiting for grandchildren to visit at Christmas. But the festive season does not herald goodwill to all at Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage. Disaster and chaos, it seems, are just around the corner ...Told with Amis's piercing wit and humanity, Ending Up (1974) is a wickedly funny black comedy of the indignities of old age.

AMIS, Kingsley

Genre Fiction

I want it now

I Want It Now (Penguin Modern Classics)

Brimming with gluttony, booze and lust, Roger Micheldene is loose in America. Supposedly visiting Budweiser University to make deals for his publishing firm in England, Roger instead sets out to offend all he meets and to seduce every woman he encounters. But his American hosts seem made of sterner stuff. Who will be Roger's undoing? Irving Macher, the young author of an annoyingly brilliant first novel? Father Colgate, the priest who suggests that Roger's soul is in torment? Or will it be his married ex-lover Helene? One thing is certain - Roger is heading for a terrible fall.  Outrageously funny and irreverent, One Fat Englishman (1963) is a devastating satire on Anglo-American relations.

One Fat Englishman

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