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Mary Amelia St. Clair was born on the 24th August 1863 in Rock Ferry, Cheshire. Her father was a Liverpool shipowner who, after being made bankrupt, became an alcoholic and died whilst May was still a child. The family then moved to Ilford, just outside London and, after a solitary year of education, May was required to stay home and help look after her older brothers, four of whom were suffering from fatal congenital heart disease.Despite this difficult start May was determined to pursue a literary career. From 1896 May wrote professionally to support herself and her mother. By the turn of the century she was producing not only poetry volumes but short stories, novels and some non-fiction. She was an active feminist and supporter of the Suffrage Movement, her literary talents help to shred ideas that the suffragists were driven by sexual frustration because of the shortage of men. Her 1913 novel ‘The Combined Maze', the story of a London clerk and the two women he loves, was highly praised by many, including George Orwell, while Agatha Christie considered it one of the greatest English novels of its time.In 1914, she volunteered to join the Munro Ambulance Corps on the Western Front in Flanders. Although her time there was short-lived the experience was later reflected in both prose and poetry.She published several poetry volumes as well as writing early criticism on Imagism and several poets of the movement. Her novels were now also influenced by modernist techniques and her supernatural short stories are increasingly seen as valuable additions to the genre. From the late 1920s, she suffered from the onset of Parkinson's disease, and her writing career was effectively over.May Sinclair died on the 14th November 1946. She was 83 and buried at St John-at-Hampstead's churchyard, London.

Moll Flanders raconte l'histoire d'une jeune femme née et abandonnée dans la prison de Newgate, une prison célèbre de Londres au XVIIIe siècle. Elle est forcée de se débrouiller seule pour survivre. Pour y parvenir, elle se mariera cinq fois, dans le but d'acquérir à chaque mariage la sécurité économique qui lui permettra de s'installer dans la colonie britannique de Virginie, en Amérique. Par un malheureux hasard, elle découvre qu'elle s'est mariée à son propre frère. Elle va donc revenir en Angleterre, où elle commence une vie de voleuse des bas-fonds de Londres du XVIIIe siècle. Elle finit dans la prison de Newgate, et échappe de peu à la peine capitale. Elle se retrouve déportée dans la colonie britannique de Virginie, où elle reconstruit sa vie repentie et prospère, aidée par son fils issu de sa relation incestueuse.À PROPOS DE L'AUTEURDaniel Defoe, de son vrai nom Daniel Foe, est un aventurier, commerçant, agent politique et écrivain anglais, né vers 1660 à Londres et mort le 24 avril 1731 dans la Cité de Londres. Il est notamment connu pour être l'auteur de Robinson Crusoé et de Heurs et malheurs de la fameuse Moll Flanders. Il est probablement né sur Fore Street à Londres, dans la paroisse de St. Giles du borough Cripplegate. La famille de Daniel Defoe est originaire des Flandres. Son père, James, qui tient une boutique de chandelles dans le quartier populaire de Cripplegate, est un protestant, membre d'une église puritaine, les Presbytériens. En 1673, il confie l'éducation de son fils au révérend Charles Morton, qui dirige près de Londres une institution privée à Newington Green, académie dissidente qui le prépare à la carrière de ministre presbytérien. Entrepreneur à partir de 1682, Daniel Defoe s'occupe de diverses affaires pendant vingt ans : commerce (bonneterie de gros, tuilerie), spéculation, politique. Il fait faillite à plusieurs reprises, ce qui lui vaut plusieurs séjours en prison. Dégoûté de la politique, il ne s'occupa plus que de littérature.

Born in Newgate prison and abandoned six months later, Moll's drive to find and hold on to a secure place in society propels her through incest, adultery, bigamy, prostitution and a resourceful career as a thief ('the greatest Artist of my time') before she is apprehended and returned to Newgate. If Moll Flanders is on one level a Puritan's tale of sin and repentance, through self-made, self-reliant Moll its rich subtext conveys all the paradoxes and amoralities of the struggle for property and power in Defoe's newly individualistic society.

'A masterpiece.'— Walter Allen A moral fable about the narrow and starved existence that results from self-sacrifice, this novel traces a Victorian woman's suffocating and stunted life. More than a case history of an underdeveloped individual who chooses loyalty to a friendship over the lure of romance, the story criticizes the values of nineteenth-century middle-class society and the destructiveness that lurks beneath the façade of good manners. Less well known today than her contemporaries Virginia Woolf and Rebecca West, May Sinclair (1863–1946) was considered England's most distinguished female novelist in the years preceding World War I. Her other works include short stories, philosophical texts, a biography of the Brontë sisters, and several poetry collections. Combining stream of consciousness with a traditional narrative, Life and Death of Harriett Frean reflects its author's mastery of modernist techniques.'This small, perfect gem of a book … looks unsparingly at the moral degeneration of one woman as her heart hardens into a protective bitterness.'— Jonathan Coe

Women in Love examines the ill effects of industrialisation on the human psyche, resolving that individual and collective rebirth is possible only through human intensity and passion.

The story gives a fair account of the power, or lack of power, of the vast majority of women at the time in which it is set and, in the great Miss Driver herself, demonstrates how wealth and no husband were the one recipe for a woman to have control of her own life. Finally, it shows how a decent man could love such a woman and be, if not her lover, her loving friend. (Goodreads)

Daniel Defoe is most well-known for his classic novels Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. Born around 1660, he was also a journalist, a pamphleteer, a businessman, a spy. His life was long and colourful, and the breadth of his work, still highly regarded, is infused with similar vigour. It is said that only the bible has been printed in more languages than Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is also noted for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel. He was extremely prolific and a very versatile writer, producing several hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of economic journalism though was made bankrupt on more on one occasion and usually mired in debt. In later life Defoe was often most seen on Sundays when bailiffs and the like could legally make no move on him. Allegedly it was whilst hiding from creditors that he died on April 24th, 1731. He was interred in Bunhill Fields, London.

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arnold Bennett, ‘'Anna of the Five Towns'. Anna, a woman of reserve and integrity, lives with her tyrannical and selfish father. Courted for her money by the handsome and successful Henry Mynors, Anna defies her father's wrath--with tragic results. Set in the Potteries against a background of dour Wesleyan Methodism, Anna of the Five Towns is a brilliantly perceptive novel of provincial life in Victorian England. Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives'Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc. After a local education Bennett finished his education at the University of London and for a time was editor of Woman magazine. After 1900 he devoted himself entirely to writing; dramatic criticism was one of his foremost interests. Bennett is best known, however, for his novels, several of which were written during his residence in France. Bennett's infancy was spent in genteel poverty, which gave way to prosperity as his father succeeded as a solicitor. From this provincial background he became a novelist. His enduring fame is as a Chronicler of the Potteries towns, the setting and inspiration of some of his most famous and enduring literary work and the place where he grew up.

DH Lawrence was often at odds with the Establishment and more commonly thought of as a pornographer. Now he is admired as a great literary voice. Women In Love studies the nature of relationships between men and women through four very different characters, each of whom seeks fulfilment in their own way. Gudrun seeks an intellectual equal, while for Ursula, overwhelming love is all that will suffice; Gerald attempts to fill his emotional void with success and physicality, whereas Birkin desires total commitment from both his lover and his friend. Lawrence uses the foursome to form a complex emotional web, voicing his own views through the semi-autobiographical figure of Birkin.

She's back! When arch-snob Emmeline Lucas (known universally as Lucia) makes some money on the stockmarket, the wheels are set in motion for a new adventure - and this time, her ambitions are larger than ever. But eternal rival Elizabeth Mapp-Flint is determined to outshine Lucia and she's got royalty on her side. The much-loved Mapp and Lucia series takes a new turn as the two legendary protagonists travel to the continent to lock horns in an idyllic Italian setting. Can Mapp upstage Lucia on foreign soil so far from Tilling? What is Georgie's new valet up to? And will Lucia's financial speculation lead to rags or more riches?'Lucia On Holiday'is a new addition to the Mapp and Lucia canon, based on the immortal characters first created by E.F. Benson. Perfect reading for followers of Benson's original novels and sure to be equally loved by new fans, this is a pitch-perfect and deliciously enjoyable social satire of an England long gone but not forgotten.

Un clásico de la literatura femenina. La elegante pluma de Rosamunde Pilcher recrea un microcosmos de sentimientos enmarcados en unas complejas relaciones familiares. Penelope Stern, protagonista de esta historia, es hija de un cotizado pintor de fama internacional. Su estabilidad afectiva depende de una serie de hechos ocurridos en el pasado. Ha convivido dolorosamente con sus secuelas, pero ahora está dispuesta a unir todos los cabos sueltos. Y no cejará en su empeño hasta conseguir comprenderse a sí misma y a los miembros de su familia... Reseñas: «Una gran saga acogedora. Una historia profundamente satisfactoria escrita con amor.» The New York Times Book Review «Magníficamente ejecutada. Una historia de familias que, al terminarla, te deja con tristeza, la tristeza de haberla acabado.» Boston Herald «Una novela cálida y suave sobre la vida de una mujer.» El País Los lectores dicen: «Uno de los libros que todo el mundo debería leer.» «Me emocionó continuamente.» «El mejor libro de Rosamunde Pilcher.» «Lo he releído después de muchos años y ha vuelto a fascinarme como la primera vez.»

Life is unbearable for young and beautiful Lizzie Baines when her cruel stepfather sells her to Captain Preston, and she runs away when she knows he is drunk. She seeks safety and sanctuary with Miss Jane Gibson—a wealthy older woman who has taught her in Sunday school. When they hear the story of the hapless Lizzie, Miss Gibson and Miss Bradbury her companion, take her to England and enroll her at the Hanbury Academy for the Daughters of Gentlefolk. It has given the two women great pleasure to educate her and after two years she is offered the job of being the paid companion to Lady Gascoine who is the sister of Miss Gibson. Now everything looks rosy. But she meets the two sons of Lady Gascoine and they are very different. That is when Lizzie's trouble begins. She must face much unhappiness before she can find the man of her dreams.

From the author of The Shoe Queen comes a jazz-age tale of love set in the world of London's high society.London, 1927. Diamond Sharp writes a racy newspaper column, using a fake name to conceal her identity. When she meets two charismatic American men who are bitter enemies, her life is turned upside down. She is drawn to both of them but isn't sure whom she can trust. As she becomes increasingly involved with both, Diamond begins to uncover a nest of secrets that puts both her heart and her reputation at risk.Blending the rich historical detail of Philippa Gregory's novels with the sophisticated glamour of Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic books, The Jewel Box is romantic historical fiction at its finest.

La española inglesa de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra se publicó en 1613. Es parte del conjunto de doce relatos que el autor escribió, entre 1590 y 1612, que componen las Novelas ejemplares. Aparecieron inicialmente bajo el título general de Novelas ejemplares de honestísimo entretenimiento. La española inglesa responde a los cánones de la obra bizantina. E s unánimemente vista por la crítica como la más cercana a Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismundo, historia setentrional (1617). Obra que Cervantes consideró su mejor novela. En ambas historias una pareja de enamorados recorre un largo camino de encuentros y desencuentros. Así el relato se convierte, pues, en un laberinto de tiempos y espacios, a veces paralelos y otras coincidentes. La obra narra la vida de Isabela, una niña de siete años que es raptada por un capitán inglés en la toma de Cádiz. Y las dificultades que pasa su relación con Ricaredo, el hijo del capitán. La novela contiene los ingredientes novelescos que atraen a los lectores de todos los tiempos: intrigas, aventuras, peligros, encuentros y desencuentros que viven los personajes… Sin embargo, también es una novela de amor y superación. Estos son valores que, para Cervantes, tienen el poder de unir a las personas por encima de los conflictos políticos o religiosos que puedan enfrentarlos. Isabela, la protagonista, encarna estos ideales sentimentales y éticos.

With elegance, sympathy, and nuance, Her Infinite Variety celebrates the women in William Shakespeare's world. These lyrical stories move from Elizabethan London, where Shakespeare is drawn to the plight of the young wife of a wealthy friend, to a wintry Denmark, where Ophelia struggles to understand her love for Hamlet, and to Shakespeare's Stratford home, where his daughter Judith deliberately enters into a shameful marriage. At the center of this remarkable book is Shakespeare's enduring love for Anne Hathaway, his beautiful, passionate, illiterate wife. Together, the masterfully interwoven stories of Her Infinite Variety bring to life a Shakespeare who was formed by the women he loved -- and who loved him.

Originally issued in series: World's classics.