brooke hitching edward the madman s library the greatest curiosities of literature
Brooke-Hitching Edward The Madman's Library. The Greatest Curiosities of Literature
From the author of the critically acclaimed and globally successful The Phantom Atlas, The Golden Atlas and The Sky Atlas comes a stunning new work. The Madman's Library is a unique, beautifully illustrated journey through the entire history of literature, delving into its darkest territories to hunt down the very strangest books ever written, and uncover the fascinating stories behind their creation. This is a madman's library of eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered... and a few others that are just plain weird. From the 605-page Qur'an written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for every book-lover.
5364 Руб.
Brooke-Hitching E. The Madmans Library. The Greatest Curiosities of Literature
From the author of the critically acclaimed and globally successful The Phantom Atlas, The Golden Atlas and The Sky Atlas comes a stunning new work. The Madmans Library is a unique, beautifully illustrated journey through the entire history of literature, delving into its darkest territories to hunt down the very strangest books ever written, and uncover the fascinating stories behind their creation. This is a madmans library of eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered... and a few others that are just plain weird. From the 605-page Quran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for every book-lover.
2805 Руб.
Brooke-Hitching E. The Madmans Library. The Greatest Curiosities of Literature
From the author of the critically acclaimed and globally successful The Phantom Atlas, The Golden Atlas and The Sky Atlas comes a stunning new work. The Madmans Library is a unique, beautifully illustrated journey through the entire history of literature, delving into its darkest territories to hunt down the very strangest books ever written, and uncover the fascinating stories behind their creation. This is a madmans library of eccentric and extraordinary volumes from around the world, many of which have been completely forgotten. Books written in blood and books that kill, books of the insane and books that hoaxed the globe, books invisible to the naked eye and books so long they could destroy the Universe, books worn into battle, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered... and a few others that are just plain weird. From the 605-page Quran written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, through the gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed and bound together for a unique and richly illustrated collection ideal for every book-lover.
2805 Руб.
Brooke-Hitching Edward The Sky Atlas. The Greatest Maps, Myths and Discoveries of the Universe
After the enormous international success of The Phantom Atlas and The Golden Atlas, Edward Brooke-Hitching's brilliant book unveils some of the most beautiful maps and charts ever created during mankind's quest to map the skies above us. This richly illustrated treasury showcases the finest examples of celestial cartography - a glorious genre of map-making often overlooked by modern map books - as well as medieval manuscripts, masterpiece paintings, ancient star catalogues, antique instruments and other appealing curiosities. This is the sky as it has never been presented before: the realm of stars and planets, but also of gods, devils, weather wizards, flying sailors, medieval aliens, mythological animals and rampaging spirits. The reader is taken on a tour of star-obsessed cultures around the world, learning about Tibetan sky burials, star-covered Inuit dancing coats, Mongolian astral prophets and Sir William Herschel's 1781 discovery of Uranus, the first planet to be found since antiquity. Even stranger are the forgotten stories from European history, like the English belief of the Middle Ages in ships that sailed a sea above the clouds, 16th-century German UFO sightings and the Edwardian aristocrat who mistakenly mapped alien-made canals on the surface of Mars. As the intricacies of our universe are today being revealed with unprecedented clarity, there has never been a better time for a highly readable book as beautiful as the night sky to contextualise the scale of these achievements for the general reader.
6317 Руб.
Lu Xun The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China. The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun
Lu Xun (Lu Hsun) is arguably the greatest writer of modern China, and is considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun's stories both indict outdated Chinese traditions and embrace China's cultural richness and individuality. This volume presents brand-new translations by Julia Lovell of all of Lu Xun's stories, including 'The Real Story of Ah-Q', 'Diary of a Madman', 'A Comedy of Ducks', 'The Divorce' and 'A Public Example', among others. With an afterword by Yiyun Li.
3388 Руб.
Eliot George Middlemarch
Middlemarch is a monumental novel, and as much a delight to read today as it has ever been. George Eliot's immortal creations, the saintly and beautiful Dorothea Brooke, the dry-as-dust Edward Casaubon and the anguished progressive Tertius Lydgate, shine forth as some of the most exquisitely drawn characters in all of English literature. Eliot was at first criticised for the 'inartistic' realism of her story, which she subtitled 'A Study of Provincial Life' as if to claim it as a scholarly contribution to the new science of sociology. But what she had really written was an eternal masterpiece of candid observation, emotional insight and transcending humour.
480 Руб.
Gibbon Edward The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Volume I
Edward Gibbon's six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is among the most magnificent and ambitious narratives in European literature. Its subject is the fate of one of the world's greatest civilizations over thirteen centuries - its rulers, wars and society, and the events that led to its disastrous collapse. Here, in volumes one and two, Gibbon charts the vast extent and constitution of the Empire from the reign of Augustus to 395 ad. And in a controversial critique, he examines the early Church, with fascinating accounts of the first Christian and last pagan emperors, Constantine and Julian.
5215 Руб.
Eliot George Middlemarch
Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition features an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan. Dorothea Brooke is a beautiful and idealistic young woman set on filling her life with good deeds. She pursues the pompous Edward Casuabon, convinced that he embodies these principles, and becomes trapped in an unhappy marriage. Then there is Tertius Lydgate, an anguished progressive whose determination to bring modern medicine to the provinces is muddied by unrequited love. They, and a multitude of other brilliantly drawn characters, reside in the town Middlemarch - the background to George Eliot's incomparable portrait of Victorian life. An eternal masterpiece of candid observation, emotional insight and transcending humour, Middlemarch is a truly monumental novel.
3067 Руб.
Brooke-Hitching Edward The Phantom Atlas. The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps
The Phantom Atlas is an atlas of the world not as it ever existed, but as it was thought to be. These marvellous and mysterious phantoms - non-existent islands, invented mountain ranges, mythical civilisations and other fictitious geography - were all at various times presented as facts on maps and atlases. This book is a collection of striking antique maps that display the most erroneous cartography, with each illustration accompanied by the story behind it. Exploration, map-making and mythology are all brought together to create a colourful tapestry of monsters, heroes and volcanoes; swindlers, mirages and murderers. Sometimes the stories are almost impossible to believe, and remarkably, some of the errors were still on display in maps published in the 21st century. Throughout much of the 19th century more than 40 different mapmakers included the Mountains of Kong, a huge range of peaks stretching across the entire continent of Africa, in their maps - but it was only in 1889 when Louis Gustave Binger revealed the whole thing to be a fake. For centuries, explorers who headed to Patagonia returned with tales of the giants they had met who lived there, some nine feet tall. Then there was Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish explorer who returned to London to sell shares in a land he had discovered in South America. He had been appointed the Cazique of Poyais, and bestowed with many honours by the local king of this unspoiled paradise. Now he was offering others the chance to join him and make their fortune there, too - once they had paid him a bargain fee for their passage... The Phantom Atlas is a beautifully produced volume, packed with stunning maps and drawingsof places and people that never existed. The remarkable stories behind them all are brilliantly told by Edward Brooke-Hitching in a book that will appeal to cartophiles everywhere.
7049 Руб.
Burke Edmund Reflections on the Revolution in France and Other Writings
Philosopher, statesman and founder of conservatism, Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the past three hundred years. He was one of the eighteenth century's golden generation, which included his friends Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson and Edward Gibbon; a dazzling orator and a visionary theorist who spent his long political career fighting the abuse of power against the backdrop of the the revolt of the American colonies, the expansion of the British empire, the collapse of Ireland and the French revolution. In this single volume Burke's greatest work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, is accompanied by a comprehensive selection if his other writings, including pamphlets, speeches, public letters, private correspondence and, for the first time, two important and previously unpublished early essays. Burke should be a core part of every civilised library, and this is an essential collection for students, for scholars, and for the general reader.
5390 Руб.
Boccaccio G. The Decameron
Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, Giovanni Boccaccios undisputed masterpiece recaptures both the tragedies and comedies of medieval life and is surely one of the greatest achievements in the history of literature.
335 Руб.
Boccaccio G. The Decameron
Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, Giovanni Boccaccios undisputed masterpiece recaptures both the tragedies and comedies of medieval life and is surely one of the greatest achievements in the history of literature.
335 Руб.
London Jack The Call of the Wild & White Fang
Extraordinary both for the vividness of their descriptions and the success with which they imagine life from a non-human perspective, these two classics of children’s literature are two of the greatest and most popular animal stories ever written. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This beautiful Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of The Call of the Wild & White Fang features an afterword by Sam Gilpin. The Call of the Wild tells the story of Buck, a domestic dog who is kidnapped from his home in California and forced to pull sleds in the Arctic wasteland. White Fang, by contrast, is the tale of a crossbreed who is three-quarters wolf and a quarter dog, and who must endure considerable suffering in the wilderness before being tamed by an American and taken to live in California.
3706 Руб.
Gogol Nikolai Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, & Selected Stories
Nikolai Gogol's short fiction, collected here as The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories, deeply influenced later Russian literature with powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty bureaucracy and base corruption. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Ronald Wilks, and an introduction by Robert A. Maguire. This volume includes a selection of Gogol's most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A hilarious and biting political satire, 'The Government Inspector' has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play ever written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include 'Diary of a Madman', an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; 'Nevsky Prospect', a depiction of an artist infatuated with a prostitute; and 'The Overcoat', a moving consideration of poverty. Edited and translated by Ronald Wilks, this new collection of Gogol's shorter writings skilfully captures the savage wit of the original works. Robert Maguire's introduction considers recurrent themes and explores Gogol's influence on realism. This edition also includes detailed notes, a publishing history for each story and a chronology. Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was born in the Ukraine. His experience of St Petersburg life informed a savagely satirical play, The Government Inspector, and a series of brilliant short stories including Nevsky Prospekt and Diary of a Madman. For over a decade, Gogol laboured on his comic epic Dead Souls - before renouncing literature and burning parts of the manuscript shortly before he died.
2346 Руб.
Lawrence David Herbert Selected Short Stories by D.H. Lawrence
Four stories written by one of the greatest writers of twentieth-century English literature.
1270 Руб.
Stevenson Robert Louis Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Penguin English Library Edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 'All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil' Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. This edition also includes Stevenson's chilling story 'The Bottle Imp'. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
2534 Руб.