Pride And Prejudice (dover Thrift Editions)

A perennial favorite in the Norton Critical Editions series, Pride and Prejudice is based on the 1813 first edition text, which has been thoroughly annotated for undergraduate readers. "Backgrounds and Sources" includes biographical portraits of Austen by members of her family and by acclaimed biographers Claire Tomalin and David Nokes. Seventeen of Austen's letters—eight of them new to the Third Edition—allow readers to glimpse the close-knit society that was Austen's world, both in life and in her writing. "Criticism" features eighteen assessments of the novel by nineteenth- and twentieth-century commentators, six of them new to the Third Edition. Also included are a Note on Money, a Chronology of Austen's life and work—new to the Third Edition—and an updated Selected Bibliography.

Despite its modern-day connotations of hedonism, "Epicureanism" has more to do with living a mindful, uncomplicated life. Epicurus — who was born at Samos, Greece, in 341 BC and died at Athens in 270 BC — founded a school of philosophy that focused on maximizing simple pleasures and minimizing pain, such as the irrational fear of death. "Death is nothing to us," declared Epicurus, "since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."

In between is a grand cavalcade of superbly crafted fiction by Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Djuna Barnes, Susan Glaspell and Edith Wharton. Brief biographies of each of the writers are included.

The father of the detective novel and an innovator in American Gothic fiction, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) made his living as America's first great literary critic. Today he is best remembered for his short stories and poems, haunting works of horror and mystery that remain popular around the world.

Translations of 8 masterpieces by writers who defined the modern German short story, including Arthur Schnitzler's "Lieutenant Gustl," Heinrich von Kleist's "Earthquake in Chile," as well as important works by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Clemens Brentano.