Books by Helen Small
The Eustace Diamonds (Oxford World's Classics)
by Anthony Trollope, Helen Small
The third in Trollope's six-volume Palliser series, The Eustace Diamonds boasts an extraordinary heroine in Lizzie Eustace, a lying schemer in the mould of Thackeray's Becky Sharp. A pompous Under-Secretary of State, an exploitative and acquisitive American and her unhappy "niece," a shady radical peer, and a brutal aristocrat are only some of the characters in this, one of Trollope's most engaging novels: part sensation fiction, part detective story, part political satire, and part ironic romance. It is also a highly revealing study of Victorian Britain, its colonial activities in Ireland and India, its veneration of wealth, and its pervasive dishonesty. In her introduction, Helen Small explores the central themes of lying and truth-telling, placing the novel within contemporary political and social debates. An invaluable appendix outlines the political context of the Palliser novels and establishes the internal chronology of the series and the relationship between fictional and actual political events, providing a unique understanding of the series as a linked narrative. In addition, the book includes a compact biography of Trollope and a wealth of explanatory notes.
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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The Eustace Diamonds (Oxford World's Classics)
by Anthony Trollope, Helen Small
Lizzie Eustace is young, beautiful, and widowed. Her determination to hold on to a fabulous necklace in the face of legal harassment by her brother-in-law's solicitor entangles her in a series of crimes - apparent and real - and contrived love-affairs. Her cousin, Frank Greystock, loyally assists her, much to the distress of his fiancée, Lucy Morris. A pompous Under-Secretary, a neurotic American society belle, a brutal knight, and a shady Scottish radical peer are only some of Trollope's engaging and revealing characters in this melange of detective story, political novel, and ironic romance. The Eustace Diamonds (1873) is the third in the Palliser series. Though often considered the least political of the six, it is a highly revealing study of Victoran Britain, its colonial activities in Ireland, India, and Australia, and its veneration of wealth.
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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The Long Life
by Helen Small
The Long Life invites the reader to range widely from the writings of Plato through to recent philosophical work by Derek Parfit, Bernard Williams, and others, and from Shakespeare's King Lear through works by Thomas Mann, Balzac, Dickens, Beckett, Stevie Smith, Philip Larkin, to more recent writing by Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and J. M. Coetzee.
Helen Small argues that if we want to understand old age, we have to think more fundamentally about what it means to be a person, to have a life, to have (or lead) a good life, to be part of a just society. What did Plato mean when he suggested that old age was the best place from which to practice philosophy - or Thomas Mann when he defined old age as the best time to be a writer - and were they right? If we think, as Aristotle did, that a good life requires the active pursuit of virtue, how will our view of later life be affected? If we think that lives and persons are unified, much as stories are said to be unified, how will our thinking about old age differ from that of someone who thinks that lives and/or persons can be strongly discontinuous? In a just society, what constitutes a fair distribution of limited resources between the young and the old? How, if at all, should recent developments in the theory of evolutionary senescence alter our thinking about what it means to grow old?
This is a groundbreaking book, deep as well as broad, and likely to alter the way in which we talk about one of the great social concerns of our time - the growing numbers of those living to be old, and the growing proportion of the old to the young.
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The Practice and Representation of Reading in England
by James Raven, Helen Small, Naomi Tadmor
How did people read in the past? Where, when, and why did they read? And what did they think readers and reading were for? Drawing on fields as diverse as medieval pedagogy, textual bibliography, history of science, social and literary history, this collection of essays highlights the cultural conventions involved in reading, and explores personal reading experiences. The Practice and Representation of Reading in England constitutes a major addition to our understanding of the history of readers and reading.
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