With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. James Joyce's astonishing masterpiece, Ulysses, tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16 June 1904, during which Bloom's voluptuous wife, Molly, commits adultery. Initially deemed obscene in England and the USA, this richly-allusive novel, revolutionary in its Modernistic experimentalism, was hailed as a work of genius by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway. Scandalously frank, wittily erudite, mercurially eloquent, resourcefully comic and generously humane, Ulysses offers the reader a life-changing experience.

A Christmas Carol is the most famous, heart-warming and chilling festive story of them all. In these pages we meet Ebenezer Scrooge, whose name is synonymous with greed and parsimony: 'Every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart'. This attitude is soon challenged when the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, returns from the grave to haunt him on Christmas Eve. Scrooge is then visited in turn by three spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future, each one revealing the error of his ways and gradually melting the frozen heart of this old miser, leading him towards his redemption. On the journey we take with Scrooge we encounter a rich array of Dickensian characters including the poor Cratchit family with the ailing Tiny Tim and the generous and jolly Fezziwig. When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 he fashioned an enduring gift to the world, capturing the essence of the love, kindness and generosity of the Christmas season. It is a timeless classic and the story's uplifting magic remains as potent today as when it was first published.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its inaugral volumes, 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. Othello has long been recognised as one of the most powerful of Shakespeare's tragedies. This is an intense drama of love, deception, jealousy and destruction. Desdemona's love for Othello, the Moor, transcends racial prejudice; but the envious Iago conspires to devastate their lives. In its vivid rendering of racism, sexism, contested identities, and the savagery lurking within civilisation, Othello is arguably the most topical and accessible tragedy from Shakespeare's major phase as a dramatist. Productions on stage and screen regularly renew its power to engross, impress and trouble the imagination.

Few novels have caused more of a stir than Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In England, the Duchess of Abercorn stated that she divided her dinner-guests according to their view of Tess. If they deemed her "a little harlot", she put them in one group; if they said "Poor wronged innocent!", she put them in another. It is a telling illustration of the novel's word-of-mouth success. The Daily News wittily claimed that "pessimism (we had almost said Tessimism) is popular and fashionable". Fan-mail arrived: Hardy said that his mail from readers even included confessional letters from various wives who, like Tess, had gained premarital sexual experience but, unlike her, had not told their husbands of it. Hardy's fame was now so great that he was a frequent guest at fashionable dinner parties. In 1892 he recorded that Tess's fame had spread round the world and that translations were multiplying, "its publication in Russia exciting great interest". Controversy generated publicity. Publicity generated prosperity. Sales of Tess far surpassed those of any of Hardy's previous works, and between 1900 and 1930 was reprinted "some forty times in England alone". In addition to making Hardy famous and rich, the scandalous Tess attracted, and has continued to attract, an extraordinary range of critical opinion. Victorian reviewers, humanists, neo-Marxists, deconstructionists, cultural materialists, new historicists: everyone has had something to say about the novel. This book, drawing on the best of these critics, shows why, for all its faults, it has such power, and explains the angry and uncompromising vision of the world contained within its pages.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of the greatest tragic dramas the world has known. Macbeth himself, a brave warrior, is fatally impelled by supernatural forces, by his proud wife, and by his own burgeoning ambition. As he embarks on his murderous course to gain and retain the crown of Scotland, we see the appalling emotional and psychological effects on both Lady Macbeth and himself. The cruel ironies of their destiny are conveyed in poetry of unsurpassed power. In the theatre, this tragedy remains perennially engrossing.

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. King Lear has been widely acclaimed as Shakespeare's most powerful tragedy. Elemental and passionate, it encompasses the horrific and the heart-rending. Love and hate, loyalty and treachery, cruelty and self-sacrifice: all these contend in a tempestuous drama which has become an enduring classic of the world's literature. In the theatre and on screen King Lear continues to challenge and enthral. This Wordsworth edition of King Lear provides a comprehensive, integrated text of the play.

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.

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. Hamlet is not only one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, but also the most fascinatingly problematical tragedy in world literature. First performed around 1600, this a gripping and exuberant drama of revenge, rich in contrasts and conflicts. Its violence alternates with introspection, its melancholy with humour, and its subtlety with spectacle. The Prince, Hamlet himself, is depicted as a complex, divided, introspective character. His reflections on death, morality and the very status of human beings make him 'the first modern man'. Countless stage productions and numerous adaptations for the cinema and television have demonstrated the continuing cultural relevance of this vivid, enigmatic, profound and engrossing drama.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Henry V as its inaugral volume, presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing endeavours to take account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. Henry V is the most famous and influential of Shakespeare's history plays. Its powerful patriotic rhetoric has resounded down the ages, gaining eloquent expression in Laurence Olivier's renowned film. Henry himself, astute and charismatic, who led his 'band of brothers' to victory in the Battle of Agincourt, could indeed seem to be 'this star of England'. In recent decades the play has attracted increasing critical attention and is now highly controversial. Kenneth Branagh's film-production reflected the changing valuation. Does this play have a sceptical sub-text which subverts its patriotism? Is Henry's achievement beset by irony? Has current scepticism distorted a predominantly and proudly nationalistic drama? Henry V demonstrates Shakespeare's acclaimed ability to bring new complexity to the material that he adapted, so that different eras may find within his work the familiar and the strange, the congenial and the harsh, the sustaining and the challenging.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Julius Caesar is among the best of Shakespeare's historical and political plays. Dealing with events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the drama vividly illustrates the ways in which power and corruption are linked. The cry 'Peace, freedom and liberty!' is used to exculpate brutal realities, while personal ambitions taint public actions. Rich in characterisation and replete with eloquent rhetoric, Julius Caesar remains engrossing and topical: a play for today.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare's 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. Variously melancholy, lyrical, joyous and farcical, Twelfth Night has long been a popular comedy with Shakespearian audiences. The main plot revolves around mistaken identities and unrequited love. Both Olivia and Orsino are attracted to Viola, who is disguised as a young man; and Viola's brother, Sebastian, finds that he is loved not only by Antonio but also by Olivia. Meanwhile, in the comic sub-plot, Sir Toby Belch and his companions outwit the vain Malvolio, who is ludicrously humiliated. While offering broad comedy, Twelfth Night teasingly probes gender-roles and sexual ambiguities.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. In a lucidly direct style, he provides unflinching realism and sceptical irony. He depicts the deceptions, hypocrisies and vanities at different levels of society. Prostitution is frankly described, while the harshness of war is deftly exposed. His tales have been televised and have influenced films, operas and rock music. Unillusioned but humane, Maupassant remains our contemporary.

With a new Introduction by Professor Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D. This selection of a hundred of O. Henry's succinct tales displays the range, humour and humanity of a perennially popular short-story writer. Here Henry gives a richly colourful and exuberantly entertaining panorama of social life, ranging from thieves to tycoons, from the streets of New York to the prairies of Texas. These stories are famed for their 'trick endings' or 'twists in the tail': repeatedly the plot twirls adroitly, compounding ironies. Indeed, O. Henry's cunning plots surpass those of the ingenious rogues he creates. His style is genial, lively and witty, displaying a virtuoso's command of language and allusion. This great collection offers delights for the mind, imagination and emotions.

When The Forsyte Saga was shown on television in 1967 it was hugely successful. The nation was gripped by the masterful visual telling of the Forsyte family's troubled story and adapted its activities to suit the next transmission. The Forsyte Saga, comprising The Man of Property, In Chancery and To Let is here produced by Wordsworth for the first time in a single volume. Initially, the narrative centres on Soames Forsyte - a successful solicitor living in London with his beautiful wife Irene. A pillar of the late Victorian upper middle class, materially wealthy, his appears to be a golden existence endowed with all the necessary possessions for a 'Man of Property', but beneath this very proper exterior lies a core of unhappiness and brutal relationships. The marriage of Soames and Irene disintegrates in bitter recrimination, creating a feud within the family that will have far-reaching consequences.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. Three Men in a Boat is a comic classic. When it first appeared in 1889 it became a best seller, and has remained popular ever since. This motley novel has not only been translated into many languages but has also been staged, filmed, televised and imitated. The adventures and misfortunes on the Thames of the three English friends and their pugnacious dog, Montmorency, provide rich humour, shrewd observations, lyrical reflections, and, predominantly, genially ironic perceptions of human fallibility. The sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, reunites the three friends for their 'Bummel' ('roaming or wandering') through Germany. The results vary from the seductively titillating to the outrageously farcical; and subsequent history has laden the narrative with ironies. COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare's 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. The Tempest is the most lyrical, profound and fascinating of Shakespeare's late comedies. Prospero, long exiled from Italy with his daughter Miranda, seeks to use his magical powers to defeat his former enemies. Eventually, having proved merciful, he divests himself of that magic, his 'art', and prepares to return to the mainland. The Tempest has often been regarded as Shakespeare's 'farewell to the stage' before his retirement. In the past, critics emphasised the romantically beautiful features of The Tempest, seeing it as an imaginative fantasia. In recent decades, however, The Tempest has also been treated as a potently political drama which offers controversial insights into colonialism and racism. Frequently staged and diversely filmed, the play has influenced numerous poets and novelists.

This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's finest romantic comedies, variously lyrical, melancholy, satiric, comic and absurd. Its boldly implausible plot generates a profusion of love-lorn men, a resourceful heroine in disguise, sexual ambiguity, sceptical philosophising, and finally a multiplicity of marriages. The ironic medley of pastoral artifice, romantic ardour and quizzical reflection has helped to make As You Like It perennially popular in the theatre. A recent production was deemed 'fresh, funny, sexy and, when it matters, deeply touching'. As You Like It is part of the Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, used in the workshops of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Every volume in the series has been newly edited by Cedric Watts, described by Edward Said as 'a man for whom the enjoyment and enrichment of friends and students is the main consideration in what he does'.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Kim is Rudyard Kipling's finest work. Now controversial, this novel is a memorably vivid evocation of the life and landscapes of India in the late nineteenth century. Kim himself is a resourceful lad who befriends a lama, an ageing priest; and both embark on a combined quest. Whereas Kim has an insatiable interest in the varied activities around him, the lama seeks redemption from the 'Wheel of Life'. Kim becomes involved in the 'Great Game':, undertaking espionage for the British rulers. This engrossing and moving novel, with its diversity of memorable characters, offers many insights into political, religious and social tensions.

Edited, Introduced and Annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series, with Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and The Merchant of Venice as its inaugural volumes, 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. Its lyricism, comedy (both broad and subtle) and magical transformations have long made A Midsummer Night's Dream one of the most popular of Shakespeare's works. The supernatural and the mundane, the illusory and the substantial, are all shimmeringly blended. Love is treated as tragic, poignant, absurd and farcical. 'Lord, what fools these mortals be!', jeers Robin Goodfellow; but the joke may be on him and on his master Oberon when Bottom the weaver, his head transformed into that of an ass, is embraced by the voluptuously amorous Titania. Recent stage-productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream have emphasised the enchanting, spectacular, ambiguous and erotically joyous aspects of this magical drama which culminates in a multiple celebration of marriage.

HEART OF DARKNESS * AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS * KARAIN * YOUTH The finest of all Conrad's tales, 'Heart of Darkness' is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr Kurtz. What he sees on his journey, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at his most intense and sophisticated. The other three tales in this volume depict corruption and obsession, and question racial assumptions. Set in the exotic surroundings of Africa, Malaysia. and the east, they variously appraise the glamour, folly, and rapacity of imperial adventure. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Locating Conrad's work in the context of the writer's life and cultural milieu, Professor Watts's study examines the main phase in Conrad's literary development. Drawing out the distinctive thematic preoccupations and technical devices in Conrad's writing, Watts explores Conrad's importance and influence as a moral, social and political commentator. He focuses in particular on Almayer's Folly, The Nigger of the "Narcissus", Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo and Chance. The critical discussions address recent controversial developments in the evaluation of this magisterial, vivid, yet complex and problematic author.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. In the hope of saving her brother's life, should a woman submit to rape? Should the law be respected when its administrator is corrupt? How powerful in the state should religion become? Although Measure for Measure ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The drama shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation. These problems remain topical, and, in Measure for Measure, they are given immediacy by vivid character-conflicts and memorably intense poetry. This is one of Shakespeare's most probing and powerful works.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare's 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. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most famous and controversial of Shakespeare's comedies. The central relationship, in which Petruchio boisterously 'tames' a rebellious Kate, has often appeared problematic. In the theatre, it has been treated in a diversity of ways, so that Kate's apparent capitulation varies between the ironic and the sincere. Feminists have been divided in their responses. The provocative vitality of this comedy has been transmitted by numerous adaptations for stage and screen, notably the film directed by Franco Zeffirelli and the Cole Porter musical, Kiss Me, Kate.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. In Henry IV, Part 1, the King is in a doubly ironic position. His rebellion against Richard II was successful, but now he himself is beset by rebels, led by the charismatic Harry Hotspur. The King's son, Prince Hal, seems to be more concerned with the pleasures of the tavern world and the company of the fat rogue, Falstaff, than with concerns of state. Eventually, however, Hal proves a courageous foe of the rebels. This history play is lively in its interplay of political intrigue and boisterous comedy, subtle in the connections between high statecraft and low craftiness, exuberant in its range of vivid characters, and memorable in its thematic concern with honour, loyalty and the quest for power. In Henry IV, Part 2, the King is ailing, Falstaff is ageing, and the kingdom itself, where rebellion is still rife, seems diseased or debilitated. The comedy has a melancholy undertone, and the politics verge on the Machiavellian. Eventually, the resourceful Hal, inheriting the crown as Henry V, must prove that he can uphold justice in the realm. Here Shakespeare demonstrates a mastery of thematic complexity and subtlety, and shows the price in human terms that may be exacted by political success.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a huge literary paradox, for it is both a novel and an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour and generous sentiments, it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. As an anti-novel, it is a deliberately tantalising and exuberantly egoistic work, ostentatiously digressive, involving the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. This mercurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism and postmodernism. Vibrant and bizarre, Tristram Shandy provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne 'the most liberated spirit of all time'.