The 20th century 'War and Peace', a broad portrait of an age and a searing vision of Stalinist Russia, 'Life and Fate' is also the story of a family, the Shaposhnikovs, whose lives in the army, the gulag, a physics institute, a power station and a concentration camp are stunningly evoked, from their darkest to their most poetic moments. Judged so dangerous by the Soviet authorities that the manuscript was immediately confiscated when completed in 1960, Grossman's masterpiece was finally smuggled into the West and published in 1980.
The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.
‘I am hard on books. My shelves are full of tough Everymans from the 1920s onwards which I used and scribbled in as a student, teacher and writer from the 1950s to now. The new Everyman is so beautifully produced. They are tough as well as beautiful. They can take it. They are a form of civilsation.’ DAME ANTONIA BYATT
In his award-winning fantasy trilogy, HIS DARK MATERIALS, Philip Pullman invents a richly detailed and marvellously imagined world that is complex and thought-provoking enough to enthral readers of all ages.
Northern Lights introduces Lyra, an orphan, who lives in a parallel universe in which science, theology and magic are entwined. Lyra’s search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In The Subtle Knife she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in The Amber Spyglass. The epic story Pullman tells is not only a spellbinding adventure featuring armoured polar bears, magical devices, witches and daemons, it is also an audacious and profound re-imagining of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
An utterly entrancing blend of metaphysical speculation and bravura storytelling, HIS DARK MATERIALS is a monumental and enduring achievement.