Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. Romeo and Juliet is the world's most famous drama of tragic young love. Defying the feud which divides their families, Romeo and Juliet enjoy the fleeting rapture of courtship, marriage and sexual fulfilment; but a combination of old animosities and new coincidences brings them to suicidal deaths. This play offers a rich mixture of romantic lyricism, bawdy comedy, intimate harmony and sudden violence. Long successful in the theatre, it has also generated numerous operas, ballets and films; and these have helped to make Romeo and Juliet perennially topical.

A play set in contemporary London where the Feigel family harbours an asylum-seeker and grapples with the morality of the law and protecting ones’ family.

Rosa and Ben Feigel are a cosmopolitan progressive, dynamic, inter-racial North London couple. Rosa is the daughter of black South African exiles, Ben is of Jewish decent - the son of a man who escaped to the UK on Kindertransport. Their adored teenage son Oliver - full of political conviction, which his parents have encouraged - has hidden his closest friend, Imran, an asylum-seeking teenager from an unnamed country, in their home. When Ben and Rosa find out, they realise they are faced with just two options: turn the child over to the authorities knowing that he will be sent back to a dangerous country, or help him to hide and endanger themselves.

A bitter argument erupts between the Feigels about the morality of the law, the limits of empathy, what we will do to protect those we love, and what we might sacrifice for strangers. Hold Still is a vivid, deeply aff ecting portrait of a long-term marriage, and a family shaped by intergenerational trauma.

Naelstring belig die problematiek van transformasie in ’n nuwe Suid-Afrika en die soms fanatieke eise van swart bemagtiging. Die drama sentreer rondom ’n moeder wat weier om haar pasgebore baba se naelstring te knip. Die baba is egter nie bereid om die absurde situasie gelate te aanvaar nie en neem sy gehoor op ’n reis van swart komedie en deernisvolle maar pynlike interaksie. Pieter Fourie, dramaturg en dramaveteraan, is waarskynlik die enigste Suid-Afrikaanse kunstenaar wat diep spore as toneelspeler, regisseur, artistieke direkteur en skrywer getrap het. Met Naelstring deurbreek die bekroonde dramaturg Pieter Fourie opnuut die grense van sy oeuvre.

Over the course of two decades and six books, Peter Markus has been making fiction out of a lexicon shaped by the words brother and fish and mud. In an essay on Markus's work, Brian Evenson writes, ""If it's not clear by now, Markus's use of English is quite unique. It is instead a sort of ritual speech, an almost religious invocation in which words themselves, through repetition, acquire a magic or power that revives the simpler, blunter world of childhood."" Now, in his debut book of poems, When Our Fathers Return to Us as Birds, Markus tunes his eye and ear toward a new world, a world where father is the new brother, a world where the father's slow dying and eventual death leads Markus, the son, to take a walk outside to ""meet my shadow in the deepening shade."" In this collection, a son is simultaneously caring for his father, losing his father, and finding his dead father in the trees and the water and the sky. He finds solace in the birds and in the river that runs between his house and his parents' house, with its view of the shut-down steel mill on the river's other side, now in the process of being torn down. The book is steadily punctuated by this recurring sentence that the son wakes up to each day: My father is dying in a house across the river. The rhythmic and recursive nature to these poems places the reader right alongside the son as he navigates his journey of mourning. These are poems written in conversation with the poems of Jack Gilbert, Linda Gregg, Jim Harrison, Jane Kenyon, Raymond Carver, Theodore Roethke too-poets whose poems at times taught Markus how to speak. ""In a dark time . . .,"" we often hear it said, ""there are no words."" But the truth is, there are always words. Sometimes our words are all we have to hold onto, to help us see through the darkened woods and muddy waters, times when the ear begins to listen, the eye begins to see, and the mouth, the body, and the heart, in chorus, begin to speak. Fans of Markus's work and all of those who are caring for dying parents or grieving their loss will find comfort, kinship, and appreciation in this honest and beautiful collection.

'My dad said he jumped buses. Horseboxes. Jumped an aqueduct once. He was gonna jump Stonehenge but the council put a stop to it.' On St George's Day, the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron, local waster and modern day Pied Piper, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his children want their dad to take them to the fair, Troy Whitworth wants to give him a serious kicking and a motley crew of mates want his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. Jez Butterworth's new play is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. His previous plays for the Royal Court include "The Winterling", "The Night Heron" and "Mojo". "The key British theatre work of the last decade." Time Out 2012. An Instant Modern Classic. A comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land. BEST PLAY Evening Standard Awards BEST PLAY Critics Circle Awards.

In Kinderlê kom verse oor die kwesbaarheid van kinders, swangerskapsverlies, genderkwessies, die liefde en erotiek, en geestesgesondheid aan die bod. Die titel is die naam van ’n monument by Steinkopf in die Noord-Kaap ter herinnering aan ’n kinderuitwissing wat daar plaasgevind het – ’n historiese gegewe wat nie wyd bekend is nie.

’n Afdeling in die bundel word aan verse gewy wat dié verhaal vertel. In ander afdelings word narratiewe verse gebruik om te vertel van die ontstellende belewenis van opname in ’n psigiatriese instelling, en van ’n miskraam. Laasgenoemde tema is nog weinig in Afrikaanse digkuns ondersoek. Voorts word erotiese ervarings treffend, evokatief en met ’n tikkie humor verwoord. Julius tree dikwels in gesprek met haar literêre voorgangers en betrek dan die huidige sosiopolitiek.

Soos met Uit die kroes, haar bekroonde debuutbundel, verruim sy Afrikaans met die gebruik van Gariepafrikaans en Nama-woordeskat in haar jongste bundel.

André le Roux se tweede digbundel verskyn 47 jaar ná sy debuut, Struisbaai-blues, wat kort ná publikasie in 1977 verbied is. Nou skryf hy met selfs skerper eerlikheid oor die liefde, begeerte, verlange en vreugde. Meer nog: oor die afslyt van die liggaam en die insig wat leefervaring bring. Hy tree in gesprek met mededigters soos Krog, Breytenbach, Bukowski, Van Wyk Louw, Cohen, cummings en Neruda, en steek kers op by die Oosterse meesters.

Le Roux se verse spreek van universele menslikheid en deernis, met bytende humor en selfspot. Hy verken ’n landskap van verval en vervreemding – nie sonder verset nie.

Jaco Barnard-Naudé se digdebuut betrek ’n wye verskeidenheid temas: queer identiteit, die trauma van kinderjare, en die verhouding tussen ouers en seun. Deurgaans vloei die digterlike geheue soos ’n leitmotiv deur die verse. Die bundel getuig van ’n soepel en gespierde taalaanvoeling, en tree dikwels in gesprek met ander digters, filosowe en musici. ’n Diep-gelade emosionele bewussyn vibreer regdeur die bundel – getuienis van ’n uitsonderlike nuwe digter-denker ter plaatse.

The diary of Antera Duke is one of the earliest and most extensive surviving documents written by an African residing in coastal West Africa predating the arrival of British missionaries and officials in the mid-19th century. Antera Duke (ca.1735-ca.1809) was a leader and merchant in late eighteenth-century Old Calabar, a cluster of Efik-speaking communities in the Cross River region. He resided in Duke Town, forty miles from the Atlantic Ocean in modern-day southeast Nigeria. His diary, written in trade English from 18 January 1785 to 31 January 1788, is a candid account of daily life in an African community during a period of great historical interest. Written by a major African merchant at the height of Calabar's overseas commerce, it provides valuable information on Old Calabar's economic activity both with other African businessmen and with European ship captains who arrived to trade for slaves, produce and provisions. It is also unique in chronicling the day-to-day social and cultural life of a vibrant African community. Antera Duke's diary is much more than a historical curiosity; it is the voice of a leading African-Atlantic merchant who lived during an age of expanding cross-cultural trade. The book reproduces the original diary of Antera Duke, as transcribed by a Scottish missionary, Arthur W. Wilkie, ca. 1907 and published by OUP in 1956. A new rendering of the diary into standard English appears on facing pages, and the editors have advanced the annotation completed by anthropologist Donald Simmons in 1954 by editing 71 and adding 158 footnotes. The updated reference information incorporates new primary and secondary source material on Old Calabar, and notes where their editorial decisions differ from those made by Wilkie and Simmons. Chapters 1 and 2 detail the eighteenth-century Calabar slave and produce trades, emphasizing how personal relationships between British and Efik merchants formed the nexus of trade at Old Calabar. To build a picture of Old Calabar's regional trading networks, Chapter 3 draws upon information contained in Antera Duke's diary, other contemporary sources, and shipping records from the 1820s. Chapter 4 places information in Antera Duke's diary in the context of eighteenth-century Old Calabar political, social and religious history, charting how Duke Town eclipsed Old Town and Creek Town through military power, lineage strength and commercial acumen.

Die bundel bestaan uit ses afdelings met die son as deurlopende tema. In die eerste afdeling kom die Suid-Afrikaanse seelewe, plante, diere en voels aan die bod. Die digter tref dikwels amusante vergelykings tussen natuur- en sosiale verskynsels, soos die vergelyking van 'n jellievis met 'n straatvrou in die reeks "Kwal". In die derde, omvangryke afdeling "Songod", word die aanbidding van die son in antieke Egipte en argeologiese opgrawings tematies ontgin. 'n Boeiende tema in die vierde afdeling, "Soveel onder die son", is die herdigting van verhale en legendes uit die noordweste van Suid-Afrika. Die digter se belangstelling in die skepping van kunswerke lei tot boeiende gedigte oor kunstenaars soos Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer en Suid-Afrikaanse skilders soos Cecily Sash. Dit is egter bowenal die groter skepping wat herhaaldelik deur die digter ondersoek word, van die nietigste plantjie tot die grootse hemelruim. Die bundel begin nie verniet met die afdeling "Sonbesie" en eindig met die gedig "Liewenheersbesie" nie – tussenin word die lewe op aarde in sy wye verskeidenheid ter sprake gebring.

The most-trusted anthology for complete works, balanced selections and helpful editorial apparatus, The Norton Anthology of American Literature features a cover-to-cover revision. The ninth edition introduces new General Editor Robert Levine and three new-generation editors who have reenergised the volume across the centuries. Fresh scholarship, new authors-with an emphasis on contemporary writers-new topical clusters, and a new ebook make the Norton Anthology an even better teaching tool and an unmatched value for students.

Joan Didion’s savage masterpiece, which, since first publication in 1968, has been acknowledged as an unparalleled report on the state of America during the upheaval of the Sixties Revolution.

In her non-fiction work, Joan Didion not only describes the subject at hand – her younger self loving and leaving New York, the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion – but also offers a broader vision of the world, one that is both terrifying and tender, ominous and uniquely her own.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED DEBUT BOOK OF POETRY FROM LANA DEL REY, VIOLET BENT BACKWARDS OVER THE GRASS 'Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I'm proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic. Lana Del Rey Lana's breathtaking first book solidifies her further as 'the essential writer of her times' (The Atlantic). The collection features more than thirty poems, many exclusive to the book: Never to Heaven, The Land of 1,000 Fires, Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving, LA Who Am I to Love You?, Tessa DiPietro, Happy, Paradise Is Very Fragile, Bare Feet on Linoleum and many more. This beautiful hardcover edition showcases Lana's typewritten manuscript pages alongside her original photography. The result is an extraordinary poetic landscape that reflects the unguarded spirit of its creator. Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is also brought to life in an unprecedented spoken word audiobook which features Lana Del Rey reading fourteen select poems from the book accompanied by music from Grammy Award-winning musician Jack Antonoff.