Marguerite Duras was one of the leading intellectuals and novelist of post-war France, but her wartime writings were not published in full until after her death. The Wartime Notebooks trace Duras's formative experiences - including her difficult childhood in Indochina and her harrowing wait for her husband's return from Nazi internment - revealing the personal history behind her bestselling novels. The Lover is the best known of these; set in pre-war...

A collection of narrative and short lyrical works by the poet favored by Queen Victoria includes "The Lady of Shalott," extracts from "Idylls of the King," and the complete text of "Ulysses."

English poetry, after the splendid summer sun of Chaucer had set, entered early into a rather wintry phase, in which a stirring of folk poetry and Skelton's odd 'flytings and vituperations' were almost the only relief. There were poets, of course, who looked back at the splendour, but their study windows were not opened until the great spring morning of the early sixteenth century when England became a land of song. It was a welcome renewal -- of...