‘Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n …’

In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties – blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution – Paradise Lost’s apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, or exposes the cruelty of Christianity.

John Leonard’s revised edition of Paradise Lost contains full notes, elucidating Milton’s biblical, classical and historical allusions and discussing his vivid, highly original use of language and blank verse.

Dit was nog nie behoorlik dag nie toe Kaatjie Danster, haastig op pad Halte toe, die kind van die weemoed in die voetpaadjie voor haar gewaar. Tjoepstil het hy gestaan en luister na die wind. Sy het dadelik geweet: Druppeltjie du Pisanie, kind van Waterwyser du Pisanie en KensTillie Moolman, het die lewe vir die dood verruil. Maar hoe Druppeltjie onder in die boorgat beland het, dit weet niemand nie. En die af-arm magistraat wat nou, veertien maande later, kom ondersoek instel na die oorsaak van sy dood, torring verniet aan dinge wat verby is. Want Toorberg se mense – die lewendes en die dooies – ken van geheime wegbere. Net oor een ding het magistraat van der Ligt dit reg: hoe meer getuies daar is, hoe verder wyk die waarheid.

"Prepare to fall in love with Binti." --Neil Gaiman

Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself -- but first she has to make it there, alive.

A masterly story of myth, rebellion, love, friendship and betrayal from one of Africa's great writers, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat includes an introduction by Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of By the Sea, in Penguin Modern Classics. It is 1963 and Kenya is on the verge of Uhuru - Independence Day. The mighty british government has been toppled, and in the lull between the fighting and the new world, colonized and colonizer alike reflect on what they have gained and lost. In the village of Thabai, the men and women who live there have been transformed irrevocably by the uprising. Kihika, legendary rebel leader, was fatally betrayed to the whiteman. Gikonyo's marriage to the beautiful Mumbi was destroyed when he was imprisoned, while her life has been shattered in other ways. And Mugo, brave survivor of the camps and now a village hero, harbours a terrible secret. As events unfold, compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed and loves are tested. Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of Weep Not Child (1964), The River Between (1965), and Petals of Blood (1977). Ngugi was chair of the Department of Literature at the University of Nairobi from 1972 to 1977. He left Kenya in 1982 and taught at various universities in the United States before he became professor of comparative literature and performance studies at New York University in 1992. If you enjoyed A Grain of Wheat, you might like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'With Ngugi history is a living tissue ... this book adds cubits to his already considerable stature' Guardian

A white South African boy becomes aware of the meaning of racialism. Set in a tearoom in Port Elizabeth in the 1950s.

My Life is based on the diaries of five South African girls who were growing into womanhood in 1994. The perspective of each young woman on her country and her people is conveyed with a mixture of naivety, exuberance, warmth and humour. A small Karoo town provides the setting for Valley Song, which explores the theme of youth in search of itself, and provides a lyrical metaphor for the new South Africa in which it was set, and has been termed one of Fugard’s most endearing plays.

The second edition of the well-known title Achiever's Handbook is a workbook designed to bridge the gap between school and post-school educational institutions, with the aim to help students attain academic readiness and language fluency. Only a receptive and finely disciplined mind can effectively comprehend, formulate and communicate ideas. Therefore, academic and entrepreneurial success relies largely on reading, thinking and writing skills.

The workbook can be used equally for self-study and classroom purposes, and will be of particular benefit to students for whom English is a second language.

This edition of the Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary offers essential coverage of Latin words and grammar, as well as extra information on Roman history and culture. It takes account of the latest research into Latin, and is designed specifically to fit the needs of today's student. It covers over 45,000 words and phrases, including additions from the writings of Plautus and Terence, and from the study of Silver Latin. Common irregular verb parts are given as headwords for greater clarity, and boxed notes provide help with language usage, and with difficult words and constructions. There are appendices on historical, mythological, and geographical names; money, dates, times, weights and measures; plus poetic metre and medieval Latin. With a timeline of important dates, and biographies on Roman writers, this edition is packed with interesting and essential information on Roman history and culture. Also with pronunciation help and a guide to Latin grammar, this compact and affordable dictionary is a necessity for all students and adult learners of Latin.

This novel is set in the Free State town of Excelsior from the 1970s to the time of political liberation in the 1990s. In the 1970s Excelsior was notorious for a series of across-the-colour-bar sex scandals involving white men - many of them pillars of the conservative Afrikaner establishment - and black women, some of whom bore mixed-race children as a result. Mda roots his story in this period and carries it through to the social and political revolution of the 1990s. Often lyrical and sensual, and sometimes bleak and shocking, the novel is always an acute and authentic reflector of small-town South Africa and its extraordinary mix of people in the years of high apartheid and in its untidy aftermath.

Penguin publishes forty-five of the nation’s top 100 favourite titles. If you haven’t read them yet, then now’s your chance to enjoy some of the nation’s favourite reads in our special 3-for-2 offer.

Choose any three titles from The Big Read promotion and get the cheapest one FREE.

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'I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature, and I do not think I ever shall'

Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work. 

This edition includes a new chronology, additional suggestions for further reading, and the original Penguin Classics introduction by Tony Tanner.

Working with Texts is a well established textbook that introduces students to the main principles of language analysis, through contemporary text examples. Covering a wide range of language areas, the book uses an interactive, activity-based approach to support students' understanding of language structure and variety.

The third edition includes: new material on analyzing sound; an updated range of texts, including literary extracts, advertisements, newspaper articles, comic book strips, excerpts from popular comedy sketches, political speeches, telephone discourse, and internet chat; new extension work to support student-directed study; detailed suggestions after each unit for further reading within the Intertext series as a whole; and an updated list of URLs.

The Map is a practical guidebook introducing the basics of research in translation studies for students doing their first major research project in the field. Depending on where they are studying, this may be at advanced undergraduate (BA) or at postgraduate (MA/PHD) level. The book consists of ten chapters. Chapter 1 offers an overview of 12 research areas in translation studies in order to help students identify a topic and establish some of the current research questions relating to it. Chapter 2 is designed to assist students in planning their research project and covers topics such as refining the initial idea, determining the scope of the project, checking out resources, reading critically, keeping complete bibliographic records, and working with a supervisor. Chapters 3 to 7 provide some of the conceptual and methodological tools needed in this area of research, with detailed discussion of such topics as theoretical models of translation, types of research, asking questions, making claims, formulating hypotheses, establishing relations between variables, and selecting and analyzing data. Chapters 8 and 9 are about presenting one's research, in writing as well as orally. Finally, chapter 10 deals with some of the criteria commonly used in research assessment, especially in the assessment of theses. The authors provide detailed guidance on further reading throughout. This is an essential reference work for research students and lecturers involved in supervising research projects and degrees.

How To Analyse Texts is the essential introductory textbook and toolkit for language analysis.

This book shows the reader how to undertake detailed, language-focussed, contextually sensitive analyses of a wide range of texts – spoken, written and multimodal. The book constitutes a flexible resource which can be used in different ways across a range of courses and at different levels.

This textbook includes:

• three parts covering research and study skills, language structure and use, and how texts operate in sociocultural contexts
• a wide range of international real-life texts, including items from South China Morning Post, art’otel Berlin and Metro Sweden, which cover digital and print media, advertising, recipes and much more
• objectives and skill review for each section, activities, commentaries, suggestions for independent assignments, and an analysis checklist for students to follow
• a combined glossary and index and a comprehensive further reading section
• a companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/goddard with further links and exercises for students

Written by two experienced teachers of English Language, How To Analyse Texts is key reading for all students of English language and linguistics.

The New Cambridge Shakespeare appeals to students worldwide for its up-to-date scholarship and emphasis on performance. The series features line-by-line commentaries and textual notes on the plays and poems. Introductions are regularly refreshed with accounts of new critical, stage and screen interpretations. This second edition of Macbeth provides a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. In his introduction, A. R. Braunmuller explores Macbeth's immediate theatrical and political contexts, particularly the Gunpowder Plot, and addresses such celebrated questions as: do the Witches compel Macbeth to murder; is Lady Macbeth herself in some sense a witch; is Macduff morally culpable? A new and well-illustrated account of the play in performance examines several cinematic versions, such as those by Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, as well as other dramatic adaptations. Several possible new sources are suggested and the presence of Thomas Middleton's writing in the play is also proposed.

This is a revised second edition of A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language first published in 1962. It is based on and replaces Thatcher's Arabic Grammar and has a vocabulary of over 4,000 words, almost twice as many as in the old Thatcher, while the number of chapters has been increased from forty-nine to fifty-two. The Supplement contains a number of new features. Apart from selections from the Qur'an, fables, stories, newspaper extracts, advertisements and letters, additional material in the form of extracts from classical and modern Arabic writings and proverbs is included. Appendix A provides a useful introduction to the main colloquial Arabic dialects, Appendix B, a useful reading guide, and Appendix C, further grammatical information not supplied in the first edition. This book will serve as a basis for a further and deeper study of the classical language and literature and at the same time form a good foundation for those who wish to concentrate on the modern written language of literature and the daily press. The authors have been careful to indicate which usages are current in modern Arabic, and which are antique or antiquated. The vocabulary also is both classical and modern. This is above all a practical grammar, not an advanced reference grammar like Wright's. It is meant for the beginner who is not familiar with the peculiarities of Semitic languages. Nevertheless it is comprehensive enough, the authors believe, for most students' needs in the first two or three years of their study.

A thoroughly updated edition of this prize-winning, readable introduction to the main theories of first and second language acquisition.
This book introduces you to some of the language acquisition research that will help you not just to evaluate existing materials, but also to adapt and use them in a way that fits what we currently understand about how languages are learned.
-Content including new research and new areas in pedagogy to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of research in the field.
-Chapter Preview s and Summaries with round-up questions.
-Companion website with vodcasts, content updates, and shared user content.
-Also available as an e-book.

A systematic survey of archaic Greek society and culture which introduces the reader to a wide range of new approaches to the period. * The first comprehensive and accessible survey of developments in the study of archaic Greece * Places Greek society of c.750-480 BCE in its chronological and geographical context * Gives equal emphasis to established topics such as tyranny and political reform and newer subjects like gender and ethnicity * Combines accounts of historical developments with regional surveys of archaeological evidence and in-depth treatments of selected themes * Explores the impact of Eastern and other non-Greek cultures in the development of Greece * Uses archaeological and literary evidence to reconstruct broad patterns of social and cultural development

This "Companion" provides a comprehensive introduction to key topics in the study of ancient history.
Examines the forms of evidence, problems, approaches, and major themes in the study of ancient history
Comprises more than 40 essays, written by leading international scholars
Moves beyond the primary focus on Greece and Rome with coverage of the various cultures within the ancient Mediterranean
Draws on the latest research in the field
Provides an essential resource for any student of ancient history

Loeloeraai, wat oorspronklik in 1923 uitgegee is, is heel moontlik die eerste Afrikaanse verhaal in die wetenskapsfiksie-genre. Die meeste van die kleurvolle karakters in die boek is ou bekendes uit Langenhoven se ander verhale, soos Kerneels, Vroutjie, hul dogter Engela, oom Stoffel, swaer Watwo, Herrie, Kerneels se mak olifant en Jakhals, Kerneels se hond. Die ander hoofkarakter is Loeloeraai, 'n onverwagse besoeker van Venus wat een aand met sy ruimtetuig op Kerneels se werf land. Eers is Kerneels-hulle baie agterdogtig oor die wyse vreemdeling vanuit die buitenste ruim, maar gaandeweg leer hulle dat hy in vrede gekom het. Maar ander mense leer gou-gou van Loeloeraai se bestaan en die gereg wil hom in die tronk stop omdat hy die land onwettig binnegekom het... Buiten Langenhoven se humor wat die verhaal kenmerk, kan ons sien watter kennis van die wetenskap en die buitenste ruim reeds in daardie tyd bestaan het en kan ons ook agterkom watter kennis tekortgeskiet het. Loeloeraai se besoek is om meer van die aarde te leer en ook leer hy die mensheid meer van homself en hoe kenmerke soos gierigheid, selfsug en wreedheid die mens se vooruitgang belemmer.

Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students.

Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries and key readings – all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible ‘two-dimensional’ structure is built around four sections – introduction, development, exploration and extension – which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can also be read across these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained.

Introducing English Language:

• is the foundational book in the Routledge English Language Introductions series, providing an accessible introduction to the English language
• contains newly expanded coverage of morphology, updated and revised exercises, and an extended Further Reading section
• comprehensively covers key disciplines of linguistics such as historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as core areas in language study including acquisition, standardisation and the globalisation of English
• uses a wide variety of real texts and images from around the world, including a Monty Python sketch, excerpts from novels such as Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and news items from Metro and the BBC
• provides updated classic readings by the key names in the discipline, including Guy Cook, Andy Kirkpatrick and Zoltán Dörnyei
• is accompanied by a website with extra activities, project ideas for each unit, suggestions for further reading, links to essential English language resources, and course templates for lecturers

Written by two experienced teachers and authors, this accessible textbook is an essential resource for all students of the English language and linguistics.

In the final moments of the Spanish Civil War, fifty prominent Nationalist prisoners are executed by firing squad. Among them is the writer and fascist Rafael Sanchez Mazas. As the guns fire, he escapes into the forest, and can hear a search party and their dogs hunting him down. The branches move and he finds himself looking into the eyes of a militiaman, and faces death for the second time that day. But the unknown soldier simply turns and walks away. Sanchez Mazas becomes a national hero and the soldier disappears into history. As Cercas sifts the evidence to establish what happened, he realises that the true hero may not be Sanchez Mazas at all, but the soldier who chose not to shoot him. Who was he? Why did he spare him? And might he still be alive?

‘There stood up in the assembly the hero son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, in deep anger: fury filled his dark heart full’

The Iliad is the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization. The story centres on the critical events in four days of the tenth and final year of the war between the Greek and Trojans. It describes how the quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilleus sets in motion a tragic sequence of events, which leads to Achilleus’ killing of Hektor and determines the ultimate fate of Troy. But Homer’s theme is not simply war or heroism. With compassion and humanity he presents a universal and tragic view of the world, of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death, set against a vast and largely unpitying divine background. The Iliad is the first of the world’s great tragedies.

Martin Hammond’s acclaimed translation is accompanied by a full introduction and a comprehensive index.

Triomf, originally written and published in Afrikaans, immediately captured the public imagination and proved to be a runaway success. It was awarded the CNA Literary Award and the M-Net Prize, in 1995, and the Mona Award for African Literature.
This is the story of the four inhabitants of 127 Martha Street in the white suburb of Triomf, built over the ruins of old Sophiatown, once the vibrant and notorious centre of black city life in Johannesburg.
Through their eyes the novel probes Afrikaner history and the politics of the old South Africa, in order to reveal the bizarre and tragic effects of apartheid on the white lower classes who should have been its main beneficiaries.

'… deeply disturbing … tender … hilarious. It would be difficult to exaggerate the astonishing power of this book.'
- Jane Rosenthal, Mail & Guardian

In 'n paar opsigte verskil hierdie digbundel van Antjie Krog se vorige werk: vir die eerste keer beweeg die verse ook buite Suid-Afrika - elders in Afrika en ook Europa. Die verse staan in die teken van 'n soeke na identiteit op die kontinent en die vind van 'n plek binne die Afrika-bestel. Soos in haar vorige bundels hanteer Krog ook in hierdie bundel die persoonlike, die politiese en die land(skap).

A hundred years ago, a small settlement sprang up in theNorthern Cape. A rich diversity of people moved in, as the children were born, Vatmaar became a village. A. H. M. Scholtz tells of Oom Chai, who in turn tells of a Vuurmaak, who in turn introduces someone else. Thus a chain of stories is created interlinking the fates of unforgettable characters like Lance-Corporal George Lewis and his Tswana wife, Rush, Sis Bet, Old Chetty, Hendruk, January, Tant Vonnie and her daughters as they recount tales of the Anglo-Boer War, the diamond diggings, court cases and stokvels: the tricksters and the tricked, marriages and funerals, love and betrayal. A Place Called Vatmaar is a panoramic novel: compelling, wise and humane.