Unavailable for more than 70 years, this early but important work is published for the first time with Tolkien's 'Corrigan' poems and other supporting material, including a prefatory note by Christopher Tolkien. Set 'In Britain's land beyond the seas' during the Age of Chivalry, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun tells of a childless Breton Lord and Lady ('Aotrou' and 'Itroun') and the tragedy that befalls them when Aotrou seeks to remedy their situation with the aid of a magic potion obtained from a corrigan, or malevolent fairy. When the potion succeeds and Itroun bears twins, the corrigan returns seeking her fee, and Aotrou is forced to choose between betraying his marriage and losing his life. Coming from the darker side of J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination, The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, together with the two shorter 'Corrigan' poems that lead up to it and are also included here, was the outcome of a comparatively short but intense period in Tolkien's life when he was deeply engaged with Celtic, and particularly Breton, myth and legend. Written in 1930, this early but seminal work is an important addition to the non-Middle-earth portion of his canon alongside Tolkien's other retellings of myth and legend, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, The Fall of Arthur and The Story of Kullervo, a small but important corpus of his ventures into 'real-world' mythologies, each of which would be a formative influence on his own legendarium.

Courtney looked at her small, drab room and sighed. Her dolls sat in a corner along with her warrior princess outfit, sword, and shield. She spent countless hours playing with these toys, one moment giving tea to her dolls and the next fighting her friends as the warrior princess. While her real world life had become a much better place since she had visited Elysia every night, she still missed her earlier childhood when she and both her parents spent so much time together. She lived in a happy world then, one filled with family parties, trips to the movies and parks, and just time spent quietly together. Then, the anger and the darkness came. Her father and mother, suddenly lost their jobs, and the arguments started soon after. Her mom found work at another company, but her dad did not find a new job. Then one day after a long argument the police came and took her dad away. Courtney had seen him only once from afar since that terrible day. In her mind, she journeyed back to this time. Courtney, lay in her bed, waiting for sleep to come. Just a few months ago, Courtney had been able to fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. When sleep finally came this night, Courtney found herself in front of an elaborate wrought-iron gate with a large sign reading "Elysia" set amid the swirling pieces of iron. The sun shone very brightly, birds sang happily, and sweet flower smells escaped from the spaces between the iron bars of the fence. The place looked very much like illustrations in her books, but instead of being pictures on a page or the more fuzzy parts of the dreams she remembered, this place seemed very real to her, as real as the life she ordinarily led. Even in her eleven-year-old mind, Courtney knew this place could not exist, but nonetheless she stood here.

The first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic adventure THE LORD OF THE RINGS In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing that prevents the Dark Lord Sauron's evil dominion. Thus begins J. R. R. Tolkien's classic tale of adventure, which continues in The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

As we turn over these volumes we feel that the pieces that spring most directly from his fancy, constitute, as I have said (putting his four novels aside), his most substantial claim to our attention. It would be a mistake to insist too much upon them; Hawthorne was himself the first to recognize that. . . . the valuable element in these things was not what Hawthorne put into them consciously, but what passed into them without his being able to measure it -- the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination. This is the real charm of Hawthorne's writing -- this purity and spontaneity and naturalness of fancy. -- Henry James

Embrace the power of the divine in this beginner's guide to some of mythology's fiercest females and most legendary ladies Across thousands of years and countless civilizations, goddesses have been a powerful presence. Whether as leaders, mothers, warriors or lovers, these indomitable divinities have always been able to fascinate and seduce us. This pocket guide offers readers an engaging and accessible introduction to a selection of the most powerful and influential goddesses throughout ancient and modern history, retelling their stories and celebrating their awesome abilities. Each profile includes a concise history of the goddess and her origins, a summary of her main powers, a look at the goddess in myth and popular culture and an exploration of her best attributes. Learn about the Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war; Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of pleasure and protection; the beautiful Freyja, the Norse goddess of love, and many others. Let yourself be inspired and empowered by tales of feminine power, strength and wisdom in this pocketbook of dazzling deities.

FEATURED ON BARACK OBAMA'S 2019 READING LIST SHORTLISTED FOR THE SWANSEA UNIVERSITY DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 'SPECTACULAR' Guardian 'A WONDER' Daily Mail 'SPARKLING' The Times 'EXQUISITE' Observer 'MAGNIFICENT' TLS 'EPIC' Entertainment Weekly 'A TRIUMPH' LitHub 'INFECTIOUS' Financial Times 'A MASTERPIECE' Sunday Express Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life, biding her time with her youngest son - who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home - and her husband's seventeen-year-old cousin, who communes with spirits. Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Tea Obreht's talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely - and unforgettably - her own. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Guardian, Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, The New York Public Library 'Should have been on the Booker longlist' Claire Lowdon, Sunday Times 'Magnificent... Brings to mind Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or Toni Morrison's Beloved' Times Literary Supplement 'Exquisite ... The historical detail is immaculate, the landscape exquisitely drawn; the prose is hard, muscular, more convincingly Cormac McCarthy than McCarthy himself' Alex Preston, Observer

The three goat brothers brave the terrible troll in a colorful version of the classic tale.

This is the 10th Anniversary Edition of the critically acclaimed mythic fantasy classic "collage novel" DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE by two-time Nebula Award Nominee Vera Nazarian.

"The world is shaped by two things -- stories told and the memories they leave behind."

The Compass Rose universe -- an ancient milieu where places have no names, cities spring forth like bouquets in the desert, gods and dreams walk the scorching sands in the South, ice floats like mirror shards upon the Northern sea, islands that do not exist are found in the East, death chases a thief on the rooftops of a Western city, immortal love spans time, and directions are intertwined into one road we all travel....

"You come to this place when you wonder, and sometimes, only when you dream."

What is the nature of evil?

When a young warrior of a dark race finds himself bound in servitude to a beautiful cruel princess, his loyalty becomes entwined with something more horrifying and mysterious than endless night falling over the ancient desert.

When a courageous young servant reveals her hidden wisdom to the madman conqueror of the world, her fate is joined to a nightmare suspended beyond death and outside the universe.

Two souls from different times -- their destinies connected through hundreds of other lives and generations, through soft whispers of the wind, through ancient truths that lie buried in an island between worlds.

Both souls enslaved through dream and desire in an endless conflict between truth and illusion.

They can only be set free by the wonder of the Compass Rose.

"A clever concoction of vignettes and short stories knitted into a morality tale about the temptation of illusion and the price of truth... an exotic setting reminiscent of Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series.... The author's sumptuous language will resonate with Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith fans... Nazarian's vital themes and engaging characters are sure to entertain."
-Publishers Weekly

"The colorful strong writing style that Vera has worked on for years has come to full fruition."
-Marion Zimmer Bradley

"I love this book. Dreams of the Compass Rose is a story-cycle in which we keep coming back to the same characters, except from different viewpoints and different times in their lives. It's set in a land of desert empires that never was, though it could easily be our world-far in the future, or deep in the past. Some of the stories are brutal, some are like dreams. All of them are engaging and resonant, creating a new mythology that feels so right one might be forgiven for thinking that it's the cultural heritage of some forgotten country or people that have been lost to history. It reminded me of those wonderful, dream-laden story-cycles that Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany were writing around the turn of the last century. Dreams of the Compass Rose has a similar stately lyricism, a compelling and visionary voice that speaks to the heart of the reader."
-Charles de Lint

"Nazarian's story cycle treads the borderline between the episodic novel and the short-story collection... her imagery is rich, vivid, and memorable, not to mention being remarkable because she realizes it not in her native language, Russian, but in English.... this is a singularly appealing book by a new voice in fantasy."
-ALA Booklist

"An intricate multi-level story... a kind of Aesop's Fables... spoken with a voice from the Far East, hypnotic as the desert sands."
-Locus

This is a golden treasury of over one hundred English folktales captured in the form they were first collected in past centuries. Read these classic tales as they would have been told when storytelling was a living art - when the audience believed in boggarts and hobgoblins, local witches and will-o'-the-wisps, ghosts and giants, cunning foxes and royal frogs. Find "Jack the Giantkiller", "Tom Tit Tot" and other quintessentially English favourites, alongside interesting borrowings, such as an English version of the Grimms' "Little Snow White" - as well as bedtime frighteners, including "Captain Murderer", as told to Charles Dickens by his childhood nurse. Neil Philip has provided a full introduction and source notes on each story that illustrate each tale's journey from mouth to page, and what has happened to them on the way. These tales rank among the finest English short stories of all time in their richness of metaphor and plot and their great verbal dash and daring.

Introduced by Patricia Lockwood: Gothic tales from the mistress of the weird behind frogman-romance Mrs Caliban for fans of Shirley Jackson, Lucia Berlin and Patricia Highsmith. 'Wonderful.' Margaret Atwood 'Genius.' Patricia Lockwood 'Remarkable.' Joseph Heller 'Perfect.' Max Porter ''Immensely skillful'. Ursula K. Le Guin 'Tender, erotic, singular.' Carmen Maria Machado 'Still outpaces, out-weirds, and out-romances anything today.' Marlon James 'One of the greatest short story writers we have.' The Times 'You are in masterly hands as Ingalls lures you into a swamp of violence and magic.' Sunday Times After a one-night-stand with the Angel Gabriel, a monk is transformed into a pregnant woman. Lost in the fog, two visitors are lured into a ruined candlelit mansion. A wife confiscates her husband's homemade sex doll, only to demand her own. Great-aunts warn of the deadly skin of the pearlkillers. Rachel Ingalls' incomparable novellas are masterpieces: surrealist, subversive, tragicomic. Prepare to meet what lurks beneath . 'Macabre, fantastic and haunting . . . One of the most brilliant practitioners of American Gothic since Poe . . . Read her at your peril.' Independent 'Fables whose unadorned sentences belie their irreducible strangeness . . . In her vision of intimacy and interdependence, you're simply not safe until everybody else is dead . . . Brilliant.' New Yorker 'Resists definition . . . Her work combines subtlety and horror, magic and stark realism, Greek tragedy and happily-ever-afters . . . Rare and fine. ' Guardian 'Idiosyncratic, haunting, masterly . . . A modern fabulist making myths which explode into strangeness.' Observer