On the Origin of Species: Charles Darwin. On the Nature of the Universe: Paperback: Lucretius. Peter Pan and Other Plays: Paperback: J. M. Barrie. The Adventures of Pinocchio: Carlo Collodi. The story of the wooden puppet who learns goodness and becomes a real boy is famous the world over, and has been familiar in English for over a century. From the moment Joseph the carpenter carves a puppet that can walk and talk, this wildly inventive fantasy takes Pinocchio through countless adventures, in the course of which his nose grows whenever he tells a lie, he is turned into a donkey, and is swallowed by a dogfish, before he gains real happiness. This new translation does full justice to the vibrancy and wit of Collodi's original. Far more sophisticated, funny, and hard-hitting than the many abridged versions (and the sentimentalized film) of the story would suggest, Ann Lawson Lucas's translation captures the complexity of Collodi's word-play, slapstick humour, and immediacy of dialogue.
An adult reader will recognize social and political satire, and the invaluable introduction and notes illuminate the cultural traditions on which Collodi drew. Autobiography and Other Writings: Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin's writings represent a long career of literary, scientific, and political efforts over a lifetime which extended nearly the entire eighteenth century. Franklin's achievements range from inventing the lightning rod to publishing Poor Richard's Almanack to signing the Declaration of Independence.
In his own lifetime he knew prominence not only in America but in Britain and France as well. This volume includes Franklin's reflections on such diverse questions as philosophy and religion, social status, electricity, American national characteristics, war, and the status of women. Nearly sixty years separate the earliest writings from the latest, an interval during which Franklin was continually balancing between the puritan values of his upbringing and the modern American world to which his career served as prologue. This edition provides a new text of the Autobiography, established with close reference to Franklin's original manuscript. Pensées and Other Writings: Blaise Pascal. The Birth of Tragedy: Friedrich Nietzsche. 'Yes, what is Dionysian?
- This book provides an answer - "a man who knows" speaks in it, the initiate and disciple of his god.' The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Readership: Undergraduate philosophy and general humanities courses; students of literature. Scenes of Clerical Life: George Eliot. When Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot's first novel, was published anonymously in 1857, it was immediately recognized, in the words of Saturday Review, as `the production of a peculiar and remarkable writer'. The three stories that make up the Scenes, `The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', `Mr Gilfil's Love Story', and `Janet's Repentance', intriguingly foreshadow George Eliot's later work. The first readers, including Dickens and Thackeray, were struck by the humorous irony, the truthfulness of the presentation of the lives of ordinary people, and the compassionate acceptance of human weakness which characterize Eliot's writing.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Readership: General; English Literature students. Selected Poetry: John Donne. Includes a wide selection from both his secular and divine poems, such as `Air and Angels', `The Flea', the `Holy Sonnets', and `The Progress of the Soul'.John Donne (1572-1631) is perhaps the most important poet of the seventeenth century. In his day it seemed to his admirers that Donne had changed the literary universe, and he is now widely regarded as the founder of the metaphysical `school'. Donne's poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of rhythms, images, forms, and personae, from irresistible seducer to devout believer.
His greatness stems from the subtleties and ambivalences of tone that convey his remarkably modern awareness of the instability of the self. This collection of Donne's verse is chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition of his major works. Readership: Lovers of English poetry and literature, students at A-level and undergraduate level. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales: Robert Louis. Physics: Aristotle. For many centuries, Aristotle's Physics was the essential starting point for anyone who wished to study the natural sciences This book begins with an analysis of change, which introduces us to Aristotle's central concepts of matter and form, before moving on to an account of explanation in the sciences and a defence of teleological explanation.
Aristotle then turns to detailed, important, and often ingenious discussions of notions such as infinity, place, void, time, and conintuity. He ends with an argument designed to show that the changes we experience in the world demand as their cause a single unchanging cause of all change, namely God. This is the first complete translation of Physics into English since 1930. It presents Aristotle's thought accurately, while at the same time simplifying and expanding the often crabbed and elliptical style of the original, so that it is very much easier to read. Symposium: Plato. Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs: Soren Kierkegaard. Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism: John Stu. This volume unites, for the first time, Books IV and V of Mill's great treatise on political economy with his fragmentary chapters on socialism.
It shows him applying his classical economic theory to policy questions of abiding concern, particularly the desirability of sustained growth of national wealth and population versus a stationary state, the merits of capitalism versus socialism, and the expedient scope of government intervention in the competitive market economy. His answers to those questions have considerable relevance today, and they serve to illustrate the enduring power and imagination of his distinctive liberal utilitarian philosophy. In his introduction, Jonathan Riley clarifies Mill's approach, considers what constitutes the Millian Utopia, and shows how examination of such an ideal society provides valuable insights into the structure of his philosophy.
Reflections on the Revolution in France: Edmund Burke. Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings: Thomas P. `An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot . . . it will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.' Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution; his Rights of Man (1791-2) was the most famous defence of the French Revolution and sent out a clarion call for revolution throughout the world. He paid the price for his principles: he was outlawed in Britain, narrowly escaped execution in France, and was villified as an atheist and a Jacobin on his return to America. Paine loathed the unnatural inequalities fostered by the hereditary and monarchical systems. Readership: Undergraduates and postgraduates studying politics, revolution, 18th-century history, courses on democracy, and the Enlightenment.
The Communist Manifesto: Karl Marx. Outlines of the Philosophy of Right: G. W. F. Hegel. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Ada. Selected Essays: David Hume. In his writings, David Hume set out to bridge the gap between the learned world of the academy and the marketplace of polite society. This collection, drawing largely on his Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1776 edition), which was even more popular than his famous Treatise of Human Nature, comprehensively shows how far he succeeded. From `Of Essay Writing' to `Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences' Hume embraces a staggering range of social, cultural, political, demographic, and historical concerns. With the scope typical of the Scottish Enlightenment, he charts the state of civil society, manners, morals, and taste, and the development of political economy in the mid-eighteenth century.
These essays represent not only those areas where Hume's arguments are revealingly typical of his day, but also where he is strikingly innovative in a period already famous for its great thinkers. Phaedrus: Plato. 'Some of our greatest blessings come from madness Phaedrus is widely recognized as one of Plato's most profound and beautiful works. It takes the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus and its ostensible subject is love, especially homoerotic love. Socrates reveals it to be a kind of divine madness that can allow our souls to grow wings and soar to their greatest heights. Then the conversation changes direction and turns to a discussion of rhetoric, which must be based on truth passionately sought, thus allying it to philosophy. The dialogue closes by denigrating the value of the written word in any context, compared to the living teaching of a Socratic philosopher.
The shifts of topic and register have given rise to doubts about the unity of the dialogue, doubts which are addressed in the introduction to this volume. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Selected Myths: Plato. This is the only selection of Plato's myths currently available.
It brings together ten of the most celebrated Platonic myths from Plato's dialogues to make a perfect introduction to Plato's philosophy for new readers.The general introduction gives a brief account of the philosophical theories to which the myths refer and Plato's use of myth. The myths are self-contained stories and each one is prefaced by a short description of its setting and a summary of its philosophical meaning.The translations come from established OWC editions of the dialogues from which the myths are taken, together with useful explanatory notes, with three new translations by Robin Waterfield.Includes diagrammatic maps and an index of names.'Once upon a time there were just the gods; mortal beings did not yet exist.' We are used to thinking of myths as stories, and modern myths as made up and fictitious. Protagoras: Plato. 'You are going to entrust your soul to the care of a sophist. But I should be surprised if you even know what a sophist is.' In the fifth century BC professional educators, the sophists, travelled the Greek world claiming to teach success in public and private life.
In this dialogue Plato shows the pretensions of the leading sophist, Protagoras, challenged by the critical arguments of Socrates. From criticism of the educational aims and methods of the sophists the dialogue broadens out to consider the nature of the good life, and the role of pleasure and intellect in the context of that life. The dialogue combines subtlety of argument with intricacy of dramatic construction and brilliant characterization. This translation achieves both precision and colloquial naturalness while the notes and introduction set the arguments in their historical and philosophical context. Readership: readers and students of ancient philosophy, Plato, classical civilization.
Republic: Paperback: Plato. Oxford World's Classics - General Series - Series - Academic, Professional, & General. Selected Writings: Galileo. The first entirely new translation of Galileo's major writings for more than fifty years.Includes selections from all Galileo's important writings on science and his astronomical discoveries: a virtually complete text of his first bestseller, A Sidereal Message, a substantial part of his masterpiece, the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, and extracts from the Letters on the Sunspots, The Assayer, and the Two New Sciences.All Galileo's contributions to the debate on science and religion, including the letters to Benedetto Castelli and the Grand Duchess Christina, and Galileo's notes which were unpublished in his lifetime.The key documents from Galileo's trial before the Inquisition in 1633.Mark Davie's new translations capture both the clarity and attractive vigour of Galileo's prose.Galileo scholar William R.
Galileo's astronomical discoveries changed the way we look at the world, and our place in the universe. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Edward FitzGerald. Sayings of the Buddha: