Literature

With an Introduction and Notes by R.T.Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. The novel follows the life of its eponymous heroine, Moll Flanders, through its many vicissitudes, which include her early seduction, careers in crime and prostitution, conviction for theft and transportation to the plantations of Virginia, and her ultimate redemption and prosperity in the New World. Moll Flanders was one of the first social novels to be published in English and draws heavily on Defoe's experience of the topography and social conditions prevailing in the London of the late 17th century.

With Sancho Panza, a deposed Communist mayor, his faithful Rocinate, an antiquated motorcar, Monsignor Quixote roams through modern-day Spain in a brilliant picaresque fable. Like Cervantes' classic, Monsignor Quixote offers enduring insights into our life and times.

Paddy's exuberant letters contain glimpses of the great and the good: a chance conversation with the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, when Paddy opens the wrong door, or a glass of ouzo under the pine trees with Harold Macmillan. They describe encounters with such varied figures as Jackie Onassis, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Oswald Mosley and Peter Mandelson, while also relating adventures with the humble: a 'pick-nick' with the stonemasons at Kardamyli, or a drunken celebration in the Cretan mountains with his old comrades from the Resistance, most of them simple shepherds and goatherds. Paddy was at ease in any company - unfailingly charming, boyish, gentle and fun.

Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die ofHeartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to benear his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from "bliss to breakdown." Imagining that a settled existence will end his anguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood of new torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involving his unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out why gifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves "knee-deep in the garbage of a personal life."

Georgios Vizyenos (1849-1896) is one of Greece’s best-loved writers. “Moskov Selim” is set in Thrace, a corner of Europe where Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria meet. Selim is a Muslim name, yet “Moskov” implies that he is a Russian. Vizyenos’ fascinating and moving story is set during a time of constant wars between Russians and Turks whose outcome would decide the future of south-east Europe: Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria were becoming independent of the Ottoman empire, while Greece was to gain huge territories at the empire’s expense. Although Istanbul would remain in Turkey, it would no longer be the seat of the Ottoman Sultan, who, as caliph, was the leader of the world’s Muslims. Vizyenos’ story evokes a time when Greeks and Turks could share each other’s joys and pains despite the hostile relations between their governments. Listening to the protagonist’s life story, the narrator of “Moskov Selim” discovers that this Turk is a kindred spirit, despite the gulf of nationality and religion that separates them.

In this chronicle of the European Thirty Years War and taking place between the years 1624 and 1636, Mother Courage follows the armies back and forth across Europe, selling provisions and liquor from her canteen wagon to whomever she can. One by one she loses her children to the war but will not part with her livelihood - the wagon. The Berlin production of 1949, with Helene Weigel as Mother Courage, marked the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble. Considered by many to be one of the greatest anti-war plays ever written and Brecht's masterpiece, the play is a powerful example of Epic Theatre and Brecht's use of alienation effect to focus attention not on individual characters but on the issues of the play. This edition published in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series offers a full introduction as well as Brecht's own notes and textual variants, setting it apart from all other editions available in the English language. The play is presented in John Willett's trusted translation. 'One of the greatest poets and dramatists of our century' (Observer).

A nice book this about the mother city. It consists of pieces written by Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis. Most modern Greek writer, most distinctly Greek, Pentzikis assembles his pieces so that, beginning in alienation, with the recalcitrance and transience of things, the casual cruelties of space and time, they reach out, through the luminous orthodox immanences of the past, the reverberations of hisotrical memory, towards an inclusive desity of present experience. And the wonder lies, the beauty, in the way that the sense, looming in the endlessly modulatig density of style, the orthodox presence of the city.

The charming and witty prequel to Cranford, Mr Harrison's Confessions is a neglected Gaskell classic with all the period detail, brilliantly drawn characters and a well-knitted plot associated with Gaskell's works. Enjoying the comforts of his well-kept home in middle age, country doctor William Harrison is prevailed upon by his longtime friend Charles, a bachelor, to dispense some advice on the 'wooing and winning' of women's affections. So begin the fascinating and varied recollections of one of Gaskell's best-loved characters.

Newly arrived from China, Mr Ma and his son Ma Wei run an antiques shop nestled by St Paul's Cathedral, where they try to make a living amid the smog and bustle of 1920s London. As they struggle with money, misunderstandings and the ways of the English - from the overbearing patronage of missionary Reverend Ely to their well-meaning landlady Mrs Weddeburn and her carefree daughter - can understanding, even love, blossom? Both a moving story of the Chinese immigrant experience and a bitingly funny satire on the English, Mr Ma and Son delicately portrays the dreams and disappointments of those seeking a new life in a distant land.