'Oh grandmama, what great big teeth you have!' Charles Perrault's versions gave classic status to the humble fairy tale, and it is in his telling that the stories of Little Red Riding-Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and the rest have been passed down from the seventeenth century to the present day. Perrault's tales were enjoyed in the salons of Louis XIV as much as they were loved in the nursery, and it is their wit, humour, and lively detail that capture the im...

La Fontaine's verse fables turned the traditional folktales derived from Aesop and a range of Oriental sources into some of the greatest, and best-loved, poetic work in French. His versions of stories such as 'The Hare and the Tortoise' and 'The Wolf and the Lamb' are witty and sophisticated, satirizing human nature in miniature dramas in which the outcome is always unpredictable. The behaviour of both animals and humans is usually centred on deception and cooperation (or the lack of it), ...

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.

For the study of the great writers and thinkers of the past, historical imagination is the first necessity. Without mentally referring to the environment in which they lived, we cannot hope to penetrate below the inessential and temporary to the absolute and permanent value of their thought. Theory, no less than action, is subject to these necessities; the form in which men cast their speculations, no less than the ways in which they behave, are the result of the habits of thought and acti...

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman., by Laurence Sterne.

Collected here in a single volume for the first time, On Liberty, Utilitarianism, Considerations on Representative Government, and The Subjection of Women show Mill applying his liberal utilitarian philosophy to a range of issues that remain vital today - issues of the nature of ethics, the scope and limits of individual liberty, the merits of and costs of democratic government, and the place of women in society. In his Introduction John Gray describes these essays as applications of Mill'...

This collection was designed for optimal navigation on eReaders and other electronic devices. It is indexed alphabetically, chronologically and by category, making it easier to access individual books, plays and poems. This collection offers lower price, the convenience of a one-time download, and it reduces the clutter in your digital library. All books included in this collection feature a hyperlinked table of contents and footnotes. The collection is complimented by an author biography....

S. Baring-Gould's "The Book of Were-Wolves" is a seminal text in the study of lycanthropy and its cultural manifestations, weaving together folklore, history, and acute psychological insight. Written in the late 19th century, the book is characterized by a meticulous blend of empirical research and captivating narrative style, reflecting the era's burgeoning interest in the paranormal as well as the romantic ideals of the Gothic. Baring-Gould examines a plethora of werewolf legends from va...

Burke's seminal work was written during the early months of the French Revolution, and it predicted with uncanny accuracy many of its worst excesses, including the Reign of Terror. A scathing attack on the revolution's attitudes to existing institutions, property and religion, it makes a cogent case for upholding inherited rights and established customs, argues for piecemeal reform rather than revolutionary change - and deplores the influence Burke feared the revolution might have in Brita...

The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c. 1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour, while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world. Gargantua depicts a young giant, reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones and syphilitic professors, who is rescued and turned into a cultured Christian knight. And in Pantagruel and its three sequels, Rabel...

'L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard'Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, ...