In "Men I'm Not Married To," Dorothy Parker offers a sharp, witty collection of essays and character sketches that explore the complexities of love, desire, and disillusionment through her incisive lens. Known for her acerbic humor and keen observations of the societal norms of her time, Parker employs a conversational yet poignant literary style, weaving personal anecdotes with broader social critiques. This work emerges from the early 20th century, a pivotal era in American literature marked by a burgeoning feminism and shifting gender dynamics, which Parker critiques with a blend of irony and authenticity. Dorothy Parker, a prominent member of the Algonquin Round Table, was known for her biting wit and advocacy for women's rights, often reflecting her personal experiences with romance and disappointment. Her own tumultuous relationships and her struggles within the patriarchal society profoundly influenced her writing. Parker's work not only illuminates her individual concerns but also resonates with the broader existential questions of her generation, establishing her as a significant voice in American literature. "Men I'm Not Married To" is an essential read for those who appreciate humor laced with wisdom. Parker's insightful commentary on relationships remains relevant, inviting readers to reflect on the intricacies of human connections, making this collection a timeless exploration of love's transient nature.

"The virtuoso performances of a sophisticated stylist ... compact, skilful, and hilarious." - Randall Reid American modernist Nathanael West's first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell, is an anti-künstleroman; it's a portrait of a young artist discovering his powerlessness. The title character, a lyric poet, takes a nightmare tour through the bowels of the Trojan Horse, meeting a series of failed and frustrated writers along the way. Each surrealistic episode underscores the futility of the literary vocation and gleefully mocks the pipe dreams of amateurs who aspire to wealth and immortality. It was first published in 1931 in an edition of only 500 copies. "West's aesthetic sensibilities transform ugly material into a beautiful composition ... that, by its very artistry, celebrates that which it wishes to destroy" - Deborah Wyrick "[Balso] undertakes not just a disavowal of high modernism and the idealism of its art-for-art's sake aestheticism, but a critique of nothing less than the grand tradition of Western culture upon which it depends. That critique results in a thorough housecleaning, an operation that will dispense with everything from Plato to Picasso" - Jonathan Veitch 'Beneath this gloom that [West] was pouring at you, there was a streak of the most diabolical humor, you couldn't imagine ...' - John Fante "Scenes of extraordinary power ... vividly drawn grotesques." - F. Scott Fitzgerald "By applying the magpie aesthetics of Surrealism and T.S. Eliot to the 'American Grain, ' by delving into the popular culture and emerging not with surrender or refusal but a razor-cool critique, West became the great precursor to Heller, Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, George Saunders, and so much else." -Jonathan Lethem "[West's] novels say more about the way we live now - and the things that brought us to our present pass - than any other work of fiction I can think of." - The New Yorker "Nathanael West's stunning four novels are American tales, rooted in our transmogrifying soil. Morality plays they are, classified as comedies. They are indeed often funny. Funny as a crutch." - Elizabeth Hardwick, The New York Review of Books About the author Nathanael West published four novels during the thirty-six years of his life. The first, The Dream Life of Balso Snell, an experimental work written in the 1920s, was well-received but sales were poor. The second, the brilliant Miss Lonelyhearts, was published in 1933, a few months before his publisher went bankrupt. The third, A Cool Million, vanished into the depths of the Depression. It was at this point that West went to Hollywood to earn his living as a scriptwriter. From his Hollywood experience came The Day of the Locust. Publishing in 1939, the novel received very little recognition. The following year, on December 22nd, the day after his neighbour F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack, Nathanael West and his wife were killed in a California highway accident. When West died, at the age of thirty-seven, his originality and brilliance were little known outside an intensely admiring circle of fellow writers: William Carlos Williams, Edmund Wilson, S. J. Perelman, and others. Not until West's four novels were reissued in the late 1950s was he acknowledged as one of the most gifted writers of his generation. His masterpieces blend manic farce and despairing compassion, and their vision of an America awash in its own mass-produced fantasies, read like a prophecy of much that was to come in American literature and life.

Marcel Schwob (18671905) was one of the key symbolist writers, standing in French literature alongside such names as Stphane Mallarm, Octave Mirbeau, Andr Gide, Lon Bloy, Jules Renard, Rmy de Gourmont, and Alfred Jarry. His best-known works are Double Heart (1891), The King In The Gold Mask (1892), and Imaginary Lives (1896). Imaginary Lives contains twenty-two mythopoeic literary portraits of figures from ancient history, art history, and the history of crime and punishment. From demi-gods, sorcerers, incendiaries, wantons and philosophers of the ancient world, to the "poet of hate" Cecco Angiolieri and the painter Paolo Uccello, through to the pirates William Kidd and Major Stede-Bonnet, and finally Burke and Hare, the serial killers; Schwob presents a vivid array of characters who display all that is macabre, deviant and magnificently terrifying in human beings and in life. In Imaginary Lives, Schwob has created a "secret" masterpiece that joins other biographical glossaries such as Jorge Luis Borges' A Universal History Of Infamy and Alfonso Reyes' Real And Imagined Portraits in the pantheon of classic speculative fiction, of which Schwob's book is the dark progenitor. Livid with decadent imagery, Imaginary Lives resonates loudly today with its themes of temporality, myth, violence and sexuality, and stands as a major work of the fin-de-si]cle. Solar Nocturnal presents classic literature and art by key forerunners of modernism.

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library.

Elisa - orphaned as a child, raised by a 'fallen woman', fed by fairy tales - has lived in an outlandish imaginary world for years. When her guardian dies, she feels compelled to confront her family's tortured and dramatic past, weaving the tale of her mother and grandmother through a history of intrigue, treachery, deception and desire. But as her saga of three generations of Sicilian women proceeds, it becomes something else entirely, taking in a whole legacy of oppression and injustice. By turns flamboyant and intense, raging and funny, Lies and Sorcery is a celebration of the female imagination, and the power of storytelling itself. First published in 1948, Elsa Morante's debut novel won the Viareggio Prize and earned her the lasting admiration of generations of writers from Italo Calvino and Natalia Ginzburg to Elena Ferrante. Translated by Jenny McPhee

Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth; and was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her finger-nails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son? It is a great risk to take with one's book-children. These stories make no such promises. They stop just short of the phrase of the old story writers, and end truthfully, thus: And so they lived. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

This collection of 37 stories by a master of the form features tales that are sometimes funny, sometimes violent, and sometimes weird and nightmarish: in short, it is quintessential Gerald Kersh. Kersh (1911-1968) published more than thirty books, including the noir classic Night and the City (1938) and Fowlers End (1957), which Anthony Burgess called "one of the great comic novels of the century," as well as hundreds of short stories which were once ubiquitous in British and American magazines. But though he has been championed by Angela Carter, Harlan Ellison, Ian Fleming, Michael Moorcock and others, Kersh has undeservedly fallen into neglect since his death. This is the first-ever reprint of Neither Man Nor Dog (1946), one of the author's scarcest volumes. Kersh's novels Fowlers End and The Great Wash and the short story collections Nightshade and Damnations , On an Odd Note , and Clock Without Hands are also available from Valancourt. "[B]rutal but highly talented ... at least one [story] is ... a little masterpiece, and all of them possess the virtue of being highly readable." - J.D. Beresford, The Guardian "[E]xplosive with violence . . . The best of them are very good. The unfailing fertility of his imagination is indeed to be wondered at . . . For entertainment of a strong kind, Mr. Kersh would be hard to beat." - Times Literary Supplement "Kersh tells a story, as such, rather better than anybody else." - Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph

Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915-February 4, 1958) was a science fiction author born in Los Angeles, California. As a young man he worked for a literaryagency before selling his first story, "The Graveyard Rats", to Weird Tales in 1936. Kuttner was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. They met through their association with the "Lovecraft Circle", a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft. Their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s andmost of the work was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell.

Revenge: A Tale of Old Jamaica (1919) is a novel by H. G. de Lisser. Born and raised in Jamaica, H. G. de Lisser was one of the leading Caribbean writers of the early twentieth century. Concerned with issues of race, urban life, and modernization, de Lisser dedicated his career to representing the lives and concerns of poor and middle-class Jamaicans. In Revenge: A Tale of Old Jamaica , de Lisser portrays the deadly Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, a protest by poor black laborers unsatisfied with the economic and political establishment and the widespread lack of opportunity for freedmen in Jamaica. In response to a period of scarcity brought on by drought and disease, as well as to acts of police brutality against peaceful protestors, a group of several hundred Jamaicans led by Paul Bogle took to the streets in an effort to fight for their rights. In de Lisser's fictionalized version of events, he explores the experiences of white and black Jamaicans in the days leading up to the violence. As signs of unrest grow impossible to ignore, those in power prove more than willing to reject the pleas of the oppressed, writing their anger off as nothing more than a passing phase. Seated on their veranda overlooking the mountains of the Jamaican countryside, the Carlton family observes a series of fires growing in the nearby hills. While the women see them as a sign of violence to come, the men seem entirely unphased by the threat of an uprising. In response to his mother's fears, Dick Carlton attempts to calm her: "'Our people are just now passing through one of their periodical fits of depression, and you will probably hear them expressing fears of negro uprisings and all that sort of thing [...] and you may be frightened. Don't allow yourself to be. The danger is purely imaginary.'" As night falls with no end to the fires, however, and as the songs and cries of the oppressed grow closer, his sense of security will prove a foolish thing indeed. This edition of H. G. de Lisser's Revenge: A Tale of Old Jamaica is a classic of Jamaican literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Step into the halcyon world of pre-war England through the eyes of George Sherston, the fictionalized alter ego of poet and war hero Siegfried Sassoon. In "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man", Sassoon masterfully captures the innocence of youth, the thrill of the hunt, and the deep, abiding connection to a countryside untouched by the horrors of the Great War. Through Sherston’s adventures—on horseback and off—readers are immersed in the gentle rhythms of country life, the camaraderie of the hunting field, and the quiet introspections of a young man coming of age. Yet beneath the light-hearted tales and sporting escapades lies an undercurrent of change, as the encroaching reality of war looms over this idyllic existence. Sassoon’s prose is at once nostalgic and sharply observant, offering a portrait of an era and a generation on the cusp of irrevocable transformation. Whether you are a lover of classic literature, historical fiction, or poignant coming-of-age stories, this evocative narrative offers both a window into a vanished world and a powerful commentary on the innocence lost to war.

Dreamers of the Ghetto (1892) is a collection of stories by Israel Zangwill. Raised in London by parents from Latvia and Poland, Zangwill understood the plight of the city's Jewish community firsthand. Having risen through poverty to become an educator and author, he dedicated his career to the voiceless, the oppressed, and the needy, advocating for their rights and bearing witness to their suffering in some of the most powerful novels and stories of the Victorian era. "This is a Chronicle of Dreamers, who have arisen in the Ghetto from its establishment in the sixteenth century to its slow breaking-up in our own day. Some have become historic in Jewry, others have penetrated to the ken of the greater world and afforded models to illustrious artists in letters..." As a Jewish immigrant who grew up in poverty in London, Israel Zangwill knows that the condition of life in the ghetto changes not just lives, but mentalities. In the third installment of his Ghetto series, Zangwill imagines the lives of such historical Jewish figures as Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, German poet Heinrich Heine, and Prussian lawyer and political activist Ferdinand Lasalle. The tales of Jewish life in Dreamers of the Ghetto earned Zangwill comparisons to Dickens upon publication, and helped to establish him as an author with a gift for intensive character study and a passion for political themes. This edition of Israel Zangwill's Dreamers of the Ghetto is a classic of British literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

'Brilliant study of neo-Nazi anti-Semitism ... Gillian Freeman is among the finest contemporary novelists.' - Brigid Brophy, New Statesman 'Undoubtedly the best of her novels ... an exact and finely observed account of the lunatic right-wing fringe in Britain. I recommend this very strongly.' - Oxford Mail 'Gillian Freeman's perception of psychological and sociological drives is combined with an ability to communicate them in suspenseful entertainments.... The implications grip the imagination.' - Kirkus Reviews 'Horrifying reconstruction of how a new Hitler might arise.' - Times Literary Supplement Vincent Wright is a failure. Now in his mid-thirties, he's stuck in a dead-end job as a bank clerk and still lives with his mother. But he knows who is to blame for the shortcomings in his life: blacks, Jews, and immigrants, who are responsible for most of what's wrong with Britain today. After meeting a retired army officer who shares his passion for collecting Nazi paraphernalia, Vincent has a brilliant idea: the nation needs a new leader to rescue it from its decline - why not him? As he travels the country, giving speeches and using his charisma and oratorical gifts to recruit like-minded followers to his new Britain First party, we watch in horror while Vincent begins his terrifying and seemingly inexorable rise to power.... With the recent surge in popularity of far-right political parties across Europe, Gillian Freeman's sixth novel, The Leader (1965), remains as chillingly relevant today as when first published. This edition, the first in more than 40 years, includes a new introduction by Alwyn W. Turner. Freeman's classics The Liberty Man (1955) and The Leather Boys (1961) are also available from Valancourt Books.

"How easy Mr. Kersh makes it all seem! How admirably he sets the scene, the atmosphere . . . very neatly done." - The Observer "Three short, rough novels, hard-hitting, battering the emotions without compunction . . . Kersh tells a story, as such, rather better than anybody else." - Pamela Hansford Johnson, Daily Telegraph Best known for his gritty novels of London life and his weird and often horrific short fiction, in Clock Without Hands (1949) Gerald Kersh delivers three novellas, each very different but all showcasing the virtuosity of his storytelling. Clock Without Hands relates the unexpected and macabre impact of a sordid murder on the mild-mannered neighbour who witnesses the crime. In Flight to the World's End , a desperate boy flees his cruel life at an orphanage, only to discover a harsh truth about the world outside. And in Fairy Gold , a clerk plays a malicious practical joke on his impoverished co-worker, with unpredictable and startling consequences. Gerald Kersh (1911-1968) published more than thirty books, including the noir classic Night and the City (1938) and Fowlers End (1957), which Anthony Burgess called "one of the great comic novels of the century," as well as hundreds of short stories which were once ubiquitous in British and American magazines. But though he has been championed by Angela Carter, Harlan Ellison, Ian Fleming, Michael Moorcock and others, Kersh has undeservedly fallen into neglect since his death. This edition of one of his lesser-known books is the first-ever reprint and includes a new introduction by Thomas Pluck.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pine woods into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped whistling, put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away some wild flowers he had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed the severe demeanor of his profession and his mature age which was at least twenty. Not that he usually felt this an assumption; it was a firm conviction of his serious nature that he impressed others, as he did himself, with the blended austerity and ennui of deep and exhausted experience

Stefan Zweig's The Invisible Collection still manages to strike the reader with its ability to masterfully sketch the contours of collecting obsession. Illustrated by paintings Daumier dedicated to collectors, this second book in the Dédale series is opened by Pedro Corrêa do Lago's preface, which is followed by Guillaume Glorieux's introduction. First published in 1925, Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's short story The Invisible Collection still manages to strike the reader with its ability to masterfully sketch the contours of collecting obsession. Deeply fascinated by the innovations that enriched European thought in the 1920s, first and foremost psychoanalysis, which also echoes among these pages, Zweig constructs a story that, despite being deeply anchored in time and space, is still relevant and full of humanity. In addition to the engravings by Dürer and Rembrandt mentioned in the story, this second book in the Dédale series is illustrated by the paintings that the French painter Honoré Daumier. It is opened by a preface by Brazilian writer Pedro Corrêa do Lago, who shares with Zweig a collecting passion for letters and autograph manuscripts by well-known authors, which is followed by an introduction by Guillaume Glorieux, who focuses on the relationship between collection and wealth, as well as the importance of collecting and the joy of sharing.

Reproduction of the original: My Double Life by Sarah Bernhardt

"Gillian Freeman is among the finest contemporary novelists." - Brigid Brophy, New Statesman "It is altogether an astonishing novel for a young woman to have written. The story describes, convincingly and touchingly, the brief, sensual affair ... between a sailor on leave and a young schoolteacher ... their frank sexual attraction for each other is given a warm and compelling context ... a novel that has the ring of truth." - Times Literary Supplement "This novel is successful in an honest and unpretentious way." - The Guardian When Freda Mackenzie, an eminently respectable young schoolteacher with a stockbroker father and a background of tennis, riding and university, meets Derek Smith, a big blond sailor from the East End of London, she tells herself that she sees him only as a challenge, that she simply enjoys watching his reactions as she introduces him to good food, good films, good music. But their friendship develops into something more: Derek awakens in Freda a latent sensuality, a passionate joy in the act of love she has never before experienced or even imagined. As their affair becomes more intense, Freda and Derek find themselves torn between their feelings for each other and their very different social backgrounds-and they have only three short weeks in which to make their choice . . . Critically acclaimed on its initial publication and later recognized by critic Mary Cadogan as "considerably in advance of its time", Gillian Freeman's first novel, The Liberty Man (1955), returns to print for the first time in almost 40 years. This edition features a new introduction by Edward Thorpe and a reproduction of the original jacket art.

First published in 1933, Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein contains three prose pieces written in the stream-of-consciousness style that Stein was famous for. A modernist classic not to be missed by fans and collectors of Stein's seminal work. Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was an American poet, novelist, art collector, and playwright who famously hosted a Paris salon frequented by the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway. Before she was a patron to "The Lost Generation" artists, Stein was an esteemed author who influenced many 20th-century writers with her innovative and experimental prose. Other notable works by this author include: Three Lives (1909), White Wines (1913), and An Exercise in Analysis (1917). Featuring an introduction by Sherwood Anderson, this volume is an essential read for fans of Gertrude Stein's work and those with an interest in Jazz Age literature.