Auden's great, transformative anthology, assembled when his own work was at its most provocative and searching, is above all a rethinking of the history of poetry in English.

These essays do more than prove the permanent relevance of Homer's great poem. They analyze the logic of war itself, and explore how intoxicating violence defines the human condition.

A twisted pulp epic, in which the fantasy world of the Western is revealed as the perverse unconscious of American life.

The record of a brilliant and subtle mind in action, The Waste Books are above all a powerful testament to the necessity, and pleasure, of unfettered thought.

A classic coming-of-age story—a novel that combines keen insight and devastating wit to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.

Philosopher, novelist, playwright, biographer, journalist, and activist, Jean-Paul Sartre was also-and perhaps above all-a great essayist.

We Think the World of You is known for its extraordinary mixture of acute social realism and dark fantasy, and was described by J. R. Ackerley himself as "a fairy tale for adults.

A bittersweet comedy of "group therapy manners" about cracking up and putting the pieces back together from the writer John Ashbery called "America's greatest poet."

Wheat That Springeth Green, J. F. Powers's beautifully realized final work, is a comic foray into the commercialized wilderness of modern American life.

From the death of Louis XIV to the Revolution - in Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany; among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, great ladies, and artists - French was the universal language.