'Beautiful and deep ... a sumptuous treat for any book lover' The Independent 'Food for short story lovers everywhere' Irish Times *A major celebration of the French short story and Spectator Book of the Year* The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. The first volume spans four hundred years, taking the reader from the sixteenth century to the 'golden age' of the fin de siècle. Its pages are populated by lovers, phantoms, cardinals, labourers, enchanted statues, gentleman burglars, retired bureaucrats, panthers and parrots, in a cacophony of styles and voices. From the affairs of Madame de Lafayette to the polemic realism of Victor Hugo, the supernatural mystery of Guy de Maupassant to the dark sensuality of Rachilde, this is the place to start for lovers of French literature, new and old. Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness, academic, writer and translator.

In less than a century, German forces poured into France on no fewer than three occasions. This is the story of the Peniel family, and how they coped with troops invading their Flanders homeland.

A brilliant modern translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs. This is the best translation of the novel available in English, as recommended by David Bellos in The Novel of the Century. Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, and by the relentless investigations of the dogged policeman Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty. 'A magnificent achievement. It reads easily, sometimes racily, and Hugo's narrative power is never let down ... An almost flawless translation, which brings the full flavour of one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century to new readers in the twenty-first' - William Doyle, Times Literary Supplement 'The year's most interesting publication from Penguin Classics was [...] a new translation by Christine Donougher of the novel we all know as Les Miserables. You may think that 1,300 pages is a huge investment of time when the story is so familiar, but no adaptation can convey the addictive pleasure afforded by Victor Hugo's narrative voice: by turns chatty, crotchety, buoyant and savagely ironical, it's made to seem so contemporary and fresh in Donougher's rendering that the book has all the resonance of the most topical state-of-the-nation novel' - Telegraph 'Christine Donougher's seamless and very modern translation of Les Miserables has an astonishing effect in that it reminds readers that Hugo was going further than any Dickensian lament about social conditions [...]The Wretched touches the soul' - Herald Scotland

Magnus is a deeply moving and enigmatic novel about the Holocaust. Magnus is a man searching for his own identity, attempting to piece together the complex puzzle of his life. But his true story turns out to be closer to a painting by Edward Munch than the romantic tale of family heroism and self-sacrifice on which he was nurtured by the woman he believed was his mother. In Magnus, Sylvie Germain uses imagination and intuition to unlock the enigma of human life and confer on history the power of myth and fable.

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 'Beautiful and deep ... a sumptuous treat for any book lover' The Independent 'There is so much to discover in these stories - both history and food for short story lovers everywhere' Irish Times A major new celebration of the French short story The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. Here are decadent tales, 'bloody tales', fairy tales, detective stories and war stories. They are stories about the self and the other, husbands, wives and lovers, country and city, rich and poor. The first volume spans four hundred years, taking the reader from the sixteenth century to the 'golden age' of the fin de siecle. Its pages are populated by lovers, phantoms, cardinals, labourers, enchanted statues, gentleman burglars, retired bureaucrats, panthers and parrots, in a cacophony of styles and voices. From the affairs of Madame de Lafayette to the polemic realism of Victor Hugo, the supernatural mystery of Guy de Maupassant to the dark sensuality of Rachilde, this is the place to start for lovers of French literature, new and old. Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness, academic, writer and translator.

Boito's stories combined decadence, the macabre, the demonic and depraved female heroines. They were an immediate and popular success in fin de siecle Italy. Visconti's film of Senso brought Boito's work international recognition. This selection includes his most celebrated novelle, including A Corpse, the bizarre tale of rivalry between an artist and a student of anatomy for the beautiful body of Carlotta, theartist's dead mistress

When tragedy strikes and Theodore Lebon is robbed of his adored wife, or rather, his wife's head, for it is only her headless body that returns home after a riding accident, we are once again in that strange world that Sylvie Germain has made her own. It is a world where certainties dissolve and the confines of reality shift to embrace the unexpected and the improbable, the absurd, the grotesque, even the miraculous. Nothing is too weird or wonderful to find a place in her richly imaginative fiction.

Where there is love, there is hope. Accompanying a 6-part series on BBC One from the makers of War and Peace, and starring Dominic West, Lily Collins, David Oyelowo and Olivia Coleman, this edition of Les Miserables also has a foreword from screenwriter Andrew Davies (War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice). Les Miserables is Victor Hugo's classic tale of injustice, heroism and love following the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. Those attempts are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, and by the relentless investigations of the dogged policeman Javert. A compelling and compassionate view of the victims of early nineteenth-century French society, this is a novel on an epic scale, moving from the Battle of Waterloo to the the June rebellion of 1832. With striking intensity and relevance to us today, it is testimony to the struggles of France's underclass.