Books by Helen Constantine
The Wild Ass's Skin (Oxford World's Classics)
by Honore de Balzac, Helen Constantine, Patrick Coleman
The first new English translation for more than 35 years of Balzac's extraordinary The Wild Ass's Skin, it is also the first edition in English to include Balzac's original Preface of 1831. This novel has been freshly translated by Helen Constantine, who captures Balzac's stylistic energy and exuberance. Patrick Coleman's wide-ranging introduction considers the multiple perspectives of the novel, its conceptualization of historical change, and its satirical commentary on contemporary society. His extensive notes clarify Balzac's many allusions to the culture and society of his time. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography and helpful map of Paris in 1830.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum 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, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Paris Metro Tales (City Tales)
Following Helen Constantine's highly successful Paris Tales, Paris Metro Tales offers 22 remarkable short stories set throughout Paris--all connected by the underground tunnels of its famed Metro.
The journey begins at the Gare du Nord, stops at 20 underground stations along the way, and ends at Lamarck-Caulaincourt, each story corresponding to one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris. Readers are invited to find their way through the underground, changing trains when necessary and imaginatively emerging to read a story it its original setting. The stories range from the 15th-century account of the miraculous Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, through tales by favorite writers such as Zola, Simenon, Balzac, and Maupassant. Though connected by the metro, the subjects of these short stories vary widely: from Martine Delerm's gripping narrative of the last hours of Modigliani's mistress to Gérard de Nerval's rich evocation of the bustling market in Les Halles in the 1850s, Colette's unlikely involvement in a traffic accident near the Opéra, and Boulanger's fine description of a blackly funny experience in Père Lachaise. In addition to writers well known to the English-speaking world, this collection also includes French authors whose work deserves wider attention, including Frédéric Fajardie, Martine Delerm, Marie Desplechin, Paul Fournel, and Claude Dufresne. Each story is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph and the book includes a map and suggested itinerary through the metro system.
Perfect for fans of Paris Tales, connoisseurs of French fiction, and all short story enthusiasts, Paris Metro Tales offers rare glimpses of the darker side of the "City of Light."
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The Conquest of Plassans (Oxford World's Classics)
by Émile Zola, Helen Constantine, Patrick McGuinness
'Abbe Faujas has arrived!'
The arrival of Abbe Faujas in the provincial town of Plassans has profound consequences for the community, and for the family of François Mouret in particular. Faujas and his mother come to lodge with François, his wife Marthe, and their three children, and Marthe quickly falls under the influence of the priest. Ambitious and unscrupulous, Faujas gradually infiltrates into all quarters of the town, intent on political as well as religious conquest. Intrigue, slander, and insinuation tear the townsfolk apart, creating suspicion and distrust, and driving the Mourets to ever more extreme actions.
The fourth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart sequence, The Conquest of Plassans returns to the fictional Provençal town from which the family sprang in The Fortune of the Rougons. In one of the most psychological of his novels, Zola links small-town politics to the greater political and national dramas of the Second Empire.
The first modern translation for more than fifty years and the first critical edition, features a fascinating introduction and helpful notes by Man Booker Prize nominated novelist and poet Patrick McGuinness.
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.
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Warsaw Tales
Warsaw Tales is an anthology of short stories and non-fiction set in the Polish capital. Beginning in 1911 with Boleslaw Prus' Apparitions, the collected stories provide a chronological account of the city's tumultuous and dramatic history. Each story captures a phase of Warsaw's past, through the interwar period as a Polish republic, the Second World War and the city's Nazi occupation, the post-war city in ruins and its rebuilding under the communist regime, and its new status as the capital of an independent Poland in 1989. With each story set in a specific part of the city, the collection becomes a guidebook to Warsaw's temporal, spatial, and psychological geography.
This collection features a wide variety of authors including Boleslaw Prus, Maria Kuncewiczowa, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Ludwik Hering, Zofia Petersowa, Marek Hlasko, Kazimierz Orlos, Hanna Krall, Antoni Libera, Zbigniew Mentzel, Olga Tokarczuk, and Krzysztof Varga.
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