"Jane Austen's brilliantly sophisticated teenage writings constitute her beginnings as a writer. We see in the works in this volume the sheer fun of her early sketches and their ridicule of human foibles, her parody of the absurdities of romance and sentimental fiction, her decision-making over choice of word and incident, her changing attitude towards character and style, and especially her earlu fascination with wordplay and hidden meanings that...

"Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Phillips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the twentieth century, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. This definitive collection reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical--and visionary--American writer"--

"The first career retrospective of terrifying stories by "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century" (Ray Bradbury), edited by award-winning author Victor LaValle. Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his sixteen Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950,...

Presents an anthology celebrating the art of the Japanese short story, from its origins in the nineteenth century to the remarkable practitioners writing today. Stories by writers already well known to English-language readers are included-like Tanizaki, Akutagawa, Murakami, Mishima, Kawabata, and Yoshimoto-as well as many surprising new finds. --From publisher description.

The vision of Guru Nanak, the fifteenth-century founder of the Sikh faith, celebrated the oneness of the Divine that both dwells within and transcends the endless diversity of life. Guru Nanak's immaculate vision inspired the rich and inclusive philosophy of Sikhism, which is reflected in this exquisite and highly acclaimed translation of poems from the religion's most sacred texts: the Guru Granth Sahib, the principal sacred text of the Sikh religion,...

"A Chinese Lord of the Rings and one of the all-time great fantasy novels--which Neil Gaiman has said "is in the DNA of 1.5 billion people"--now in a thrilling new one-volume translation A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. High-spirited and omni-talented, he amasses dazzling weapons and skills on his journey to immortality: a gold-hooped staff that...

This anthology contains twelve key stories from the first two years of Spider-Man's publication history (from 1962 to 1964). These influential adventures not only transformed the super hero fantasy into an allegory for the pain of adolescence but also brought a new ethical complexity to the genre--by insisting that with great power there must also come great responsibility.