Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

'Psychologically, the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did.'

George Orwell

A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes.

A summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella.

The sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor.

These form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman.

Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers thetrue nature of his 'great expectations'!

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812. He enjoyed his first commercial success with The Pickwick Papers in 1836, swiftly followed by the serialization of Oliver Twist a year later. By the publication of The Old Curiosity Shop in 1841, Dickens was internationally famous. Great Expectations was first published in serial form in All the Year Round magazine between 1860 and 1861. His novels, many now adapted for TV and film, continue to entertain readers all over the world.

In December the BBC will show a major new adaptation, forming part of their celebration of Dickens and the bicentenary of his birth in 2012.

The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus (Penguin Classics) translated by Michael Grant

'Nero was already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural.’

The Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus to the death of Nero in AD 68.

With clarity and vivid intensity Tacitus describes the reign of terror under the corrupt Tiberius, the great fire of Rome during the time of Nero and the wars, poisonings, scandals, conspiracies and murders that were part of imperial life.

Despite his claim that the Annals were written objectively, Tacitus’ account is sharply critical of the emperors’ excesses and fearful for the future of imperial Rome, while also filled with a longing for its past glories.

About the Authors

Tacitus studied rhetoric in Rome and rose to eminence as a pleader at the Roman Bar. In 77 he married the daughter of Agricola, conqueror of Britain, of whom he later wrote a biography. His other works includethe Germania and the Historiae.

Michael Grant’s fine translation captures the moral tone, astringent wit and stylish vigour of the original. His introduction discusses the life and works of Tacitus and the historical context of the Annals. This edition also contains a key to place names and technical terms, maps, tables and suggestions for further reading.

The Iliad by Homer (Penguin Classics) translated by E V Rieu.

‘Look at me. I am the son of a great man. A goddess was my mother. Yet death and inexorable destiny are waiting for me.’

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War.

At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon.

But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge - although knowing this will ensure his own early death.

Interwoven with this tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, of the domestic world inside Troy's besieged city of Ilium, and of the conflicts between the Gods on Olympus as they argue over the fate of mortals.

About the Authors

Homer is thought to have lived c.750-700 BC in Ionia and is believed to be the author of the earliest works of Western Literature: The Odyssey and The Iliad.
E V Rieu was a celebrated translator from Latin and Greek, and editor of Penguin Classics from 1944-64. His son, D C H Rieu, has revised his work.
Peter Jones is former lecturer in Classics at Newcastle. He co-founded the 'Friends of Classics' society and is the editor of their journal and a columnist for The Spectator.

Greek Tragedy: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Euripides' Medea

‘Man must suffer to be wise.’

The fifth century BC saw the fullest flowering of art, literature and philosophy in ancient Athens, and this major new selection brings the masterpieces of the great tragedians of that era – Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides – together in one volume.

Powerful and devastating, they depict complex characters locked in brutal conflict both with others and themselves in situations that offer no simple solutions.

Through the revenge-murder in Agamemnon, the hideous family secret revealed in Oedipus Rex, and a mother’s slaughter of her children in Medea, we see the wrenching dilemmas of humans living in a morally uncertain world.

This volume also includes extracts from Aristophanes’ comedy The Frogs – a comic satire on tragic playwrights – and a selection from Aristotle’s masterful Poetics, which presents a philosophical discussion of Greek tragedy.

Simon Goldhill’s introduction illuminates the plays’ cultural background and place in ritual ceremony, and illustrates their lasting effect on the Western imagination. This edition includes a preface, chronology, further reading and detailed notes on each work, while genealogical tables clarify the complex legends behind each tragedy.

About the Authors

Aeschylus (525-456 bc) wrote more than seventy plays, of which seven have survived.
Euripides (c. 484-406 bc) is believed to have written ninety-two dramas, fewer than twenty of which have survived.
Sophocles (496-406 bc) wrote more than one hundred plays for the Athenian theater.

Shomit Dutta (Editor) was educated at University College Oxford, and King's College London and teaches at Alleyn's School.
Simon Goodhill (Foreward) is a professor of Greek at Cambridge University and a fellow of King's College where he is director of studies in Classics.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 1921

Set in 1870's New York, Age of Innocence follows the courtship of an upperclass couple and how a beautiful woman surrounded by scandal threatens their happiness.

Newland Archer has made a highly desirable engagement to May Welland but when he meets her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska who has left her Polish husband, he begins to doubt his choice of bride.

Countess Olenska shocks staid New York society with her unconventional views about how to conduct her life (especially her decision to divorce her husband).

Newland begins to question the hypocrisy of his life in a gilded cage and falls in love with Ellen.


About the Author

Edith Wharton once said, about critics and biographers: "After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others." It seems that there is an abundance of blatantly wrong or just slightly incorrect information about Wharton's life and literature; it also seems that this problem was one Wharton herself faced.

Born Edith Jones, January 24, 1862, she went on to become the first woman to ever win the Pulitzer prize for her novel The Age of Innocence, in 1921. You can read Wharton's own impressions of her life in the autobiography A Backward Glance. Her life story is as interesting as those of the women in her novels, and her biography is an excellent source of history, entertainment and context.

To find out more about Edith Wharton's life, click on the link below

http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/wharton/index.html

Here's the trailer for the 1993 Martin Scorcese film starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary is one of the most important French novels of the 19th century.


Written in 1856, it is Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece.

Madame Bovary is the story of Emma Bovary, an unhappily married woman who seeks escape through forbidden relationships with other men. 

The book could be viewed as an expose of the situation of women in the 19th century; women who had not yet been emancipated and were expected to obey their husbands, to stay in their homes while the men went to work, or left for months on end to fight in wars.

Emma Bovary also serves as a voice for Flaubert, who patterned the character's personality after his own. Emma Bovary's "rebellious" attitude against the accepted ideas of the day, reflects Flaubert's views of the bourgeoisie.

Ultimately, Madame Bovary's indiscretions and her obsession with Romance lead to her downfall, which not only appeases the guardians of morality, but shows us Flaubert's view of the world wasn't one of naive optimism.

The novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between October 1 and December 15, 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made the story notorious. Flaubert was acquitted in 1857 and the book became a bestseller and remains one of the most influential books ever written.

To read A.S. Byatt's review of Madame Bovary, click on the link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/27/classics.asbyatthttp://

To find out more about Gustave Flaubert's life, click on the link below:

http://www.madamebovary.com/default.htm

Here's the opening scene of the 2000 BBC version that I think is rather good...