Böcker i Oxford World's Classics-serien

In these four dialogues Plato considers virtue and its definition. Charmides, Laches, and Lysis investigate the specific virtues of self-control, courage, and friendship; the laterMeno discusses the concept of virtue as a whole, and whether it is something that can be taught.

Schopenhauer's two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morals form his complete system of ethics. Their doctrines are here presented in more accessible, self-contained form than in his larger work, and in a new translation, introduced by Christopher Janaway, that preserves Schopenhauer's style in modern English.

Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. In this revised and updated version of the definitive and highly acclaimed Maude translation, Tolstoy's genius and the power of his prose are made newly available to the contemporary reader.

This translation brings together ancient classical texts derived from Eratosthenes' handbook of astral mythology, Hyginus' guide to astronomy, and Aratus's astronomical poem Phaenomena to provide a complete collection of Greek astral myths.

Phineas Finn, the handsome Irishman, is intent on making a career in government. His love life marches hand in hand with his political career, and in both he must decide whether to stay true to his principles. The second ofTrollope's Palliser novels, Phineas Finn paints a vivid picture of some very topical dilemmas.

Tibullus was one of the great Roman elegists, alongside Ovid and Propertius. His poems of love, addressed to his mistresses Delia and Nemesis and the boy Marathus portray idealism, anguish, and betrayal, newly translated into stylish English by A. M. Juster, with parallel Latin text, introduction, and notes by Tibullus scholar Robert Maltby.

This unique edition of the Book of Common Prayer includes the texts of three different versions, 1549, 1559, and 1662, to provide a panorama of the history of ritual in England from the Reformation to the present day. The first edition for the common reader, with full notes and introduction, this is one of the seminal texts of human experience.

The first of Trollope's six Palliser novels, Can You Forgive Her? explores the dilemma of Alice Vavasor, torn between two suitors, and the choices faced by two other independent women. The tensions within Victorian society highlighted by the plot are illuminated in the introduction and notes to this new edition.

Young immigrant Karl Rossmann has a series of adventures in a vision of an ultra-modern America that is both fantasy and social satire. Full of incident, and blackly humorous, Kafka's first novel is newly translated by Ritchie Robertson in an edition that includes a full introduction and notes.

This groundbreaking investigation into the lives of London's underclass was undertaken by Henry Mayhew in the 1850s. His interviews with street traders, beggars, and thieves results in a work as vivid as a Victorian novel. This new selection includes original illustrations and an illluminating introduction and notes.

Drawing on his own unhappy experiences, Goethe's account of Werther's passionate love for Lotte, who is promised to another, is one of the first great Romantic tragic novels. David Constantine's new translation captures the novel's lyric intensity, and is accompanied by an introduction and notes that illuminate Goethe's achievement.

Drawing on psychology, philosophy, and literature, William James's classic survey of religious belief gathers testimony from a huge range of diverse sources to construct a defence of the individual religious experience. It speaks powerfully to the modern debate on atheism and faith, in the most critically up-to-date edition available.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Suspiria de Profundis, and 'The English Mail-Coach' are De Quincey's finest essays in autobiography, published here with three appendices containing a wealth of related manuscript material and a comprehensive introduction and notes.

In A Hero of Our Time, the first great Russian novel, a young officer, passionate and world-weary, is posted to the Caucasus and becomes involved in a series of adventures. A dazzlingly original work of fiction, the novel is newly translated together with Pushkin's travel narrative, A Journey to Arzrum, with introduction and notes.

Pirandello is a seminal figure in modern drama. This is the only one-volume edition of his two most famous plays, Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV, and his last unfinished masterpiece The Mountain Giants, in lively and performable new translations that remain faithful to the letter and spirit of the originals.

An ambitious and unscrupulous priest arrives in the provincial town of Plassans, intent on conquering its political and social life. His arrival has profound consequences for the Mouret family, whose lives are turned upside down. This is the fourth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, and the first modern translation for more than fifty years.

In these six late stories Tolstoy explores human relationships and moral choices, raising profound questions about life in gripping fictional form. 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' is an existential masterpiece, a harrowing tale of the final illness and death of a bourgeois lawyer. Newly translated, and with a wide-ranging Introduction.

The Compleat Angler is the most famous work in the literature of sport and a unique celebration of the English countryside. This new edition highlights its celebration of natural history, the environment, conservation, and the power of friendship.

Cicero (106-43 BC) was the greatest orator of the ancient world and a leading politician of the closing era of the Roman republic. These three dialogues here are among the most accessible of Cicero's philosophical works.

Arthur Machen is a significant figure in supernatural and horror literature, in the genre of 'weird fiction'. This collection brings together his best horror tales with a full contextual introduction and which helps to illuminate Machen's place in the literary and cultural milieu of 1890s Britain.

When Pauline Quenu is taken to the seaside to live with her relatives, her love of life contrasts with the pessimism which infects the family. This is the twelfth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, remarkable for it's depictions of intense emotions and physical and mental suffering.

Crime and Punishment is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. It is the story of a murder committed on principle, of a killer who wishes to set himself outside and above society. It is marked by Dostoevsky's own harrowing experience in penal servitude, and yet contains moments of wild humour.

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written

This selection of more than 600 epigrams in verse is the first major translation from the Greek Anthology in nearly a century. Each of the Anthology's books of epigrams is represented here, in manuscript order, and with extensive notes on the history and myth that lie behind them.

The first of Chekhov's works to be published in a serious literary journal, `The Steppe', with its masterly account of a spectacular thunderstorm, signifies his maturation as a writer of short stories. While the majority of his tales focus on the privileged classes, this selection shows that Chekhov never forgot his origins as the son of a failed provincial grocer, and characters as varied as the brutal soldier in `Gusev', the downtrodden old constable in `OnOfficial Business', and the bemused peasants in `New Villa' testify to the power and flexibility of his art.

Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier, to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea-captain faces a succession of crises on his first command, for which he feels himself responsible. The novel is a work full of 'sudden passions', as well as a penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood.

The tales with which Sheherazade nightly postpones the murderous intent of the Sultan Schahriar have entered our language and our lives like no other collection before or since. This, the only edition to include the complete text of the earliest English translation of the Nights, also offers extensive textual apparatus such as explanatory notes and plot summaries to help readers follow the complex and interwoven stories.

For many centuries, Aristotle's Physics was the essential starting point for anyone who wished to study the natural sciences. Now, in the first translation into English since 1930, Aristotle's thought is presented accurately, with a lucid introduction and extensive notes to explain the general structure of eac section of the book, and shed light on particular problems. It simplifies and expands the style of the original, making for easier reading and better comprehension.