Books published by publisher The Macmillan Co

The following narrative is not so much a story as a biography. My hero is not an imaginary one; he was a real flesh and blood man who reigned as King of Norway just nine centuries ago. The main facts of his adventurous career--his boyhood of slavery in Esthonia, his life at the court of King Valdemar, his wanderings as a viking, the many battles he fought, his conversion to Christianity in England, and his ultimate return to his native land--are set forth in the various Icelandic sagas dealing with the period in which he lived.

Martin Eden (1909) is a novel by American author Jack London, about a struggling young writer. This book is a favorite among writers, who relate to Martin Eden's speculation that when he mailed off a manuscript, 'there was no human editor at the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to another and stuck on the stamps,' returning it automatically with a rejection slip. While some readers believe there is some resemblance between them, an important difference between Jack London and Martin Eden is that Martin Eden rejects socialism (attacking it as 'slave morality'), and relies on a Nietzschean individualism. In a note to Upton Sinclair, Jack London wrote, "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled, for not a single reviewer has discovered it.

Review By A Customer Format:HardcoverPerelandra is quite the most hauntingly beautiful book this reviewer has ever read. From the moment Ransom, the principal character, enters Venus, we are treated to descriptive passages that have the ability to place in your mind an unforgettably beautiful world. Lewis' sweeping prose creates a remarkable vision of an Eden that knows no pain, and the book as a whole leaves the reader with a deep sense of joy and an appreciation of the loveliness of human life. Lewis is quite deliberately retelling the Christian story of temptation, and the theology espoused in the arguments between Ransom and the devil's advocate, Weston, watched with some confusion by Venus' "Eve", show a deep and profound grasp of the methods of evil, and the twisting, roundabout attempts to persuade her to disobey God. Within this story, Lewis disputes and gives an answer to the still prevalent assumptions of much of science fiction - that man must survive at all costs and extend his seed to the ends of the universe. The physical fight with Weston, told around more stunning descriptions of the natural beauty of Venus, suggest that evil is not all-powerful, and Ransom himself recognises the smallness of his actions against the great dance of life, which is the theme of the fast, moving conclusion to the work. Of the three novels that make up this sequence, Perelandra is by far the most thought-provoking, lucid, beautiful and complete. Lewis himself felt that this stand-alone novel was one of his best, and this reviewer encourages anyone who wishes to sample his adult fiction to get this book.

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Forty-second thousand. With Forty-Two Illustrations by John Tenniel including tissue guarded frontispiece. 192pp + publisher's advertisements. Light foxing to initial leaves and tissue guard + between pages 61 and 73, few grubby marks throughout. Discreet ink inscription to front free endpaper, with neat pencil inscription to verso. Small bookshop sticker to front endpaper. Cracked to hinge in several places, with last few pages almost loose but still holding. Binding shaken. Beautifully bound in bright gilt ruled, lettered and illustrated burgundy cloth, featuring triple gilt framed vignette of Alice and the pig to upper board and Cheshire Cat to lower, gently rubbed to edges and corners and a little grubby, spine scuffed and rubbed but gold gilt still shining through. All edges gilt. The red coloured cloth was chosen by Alice Liddell, for and to whom the Alice story was first composed and told to allay boredom during a summer boating trip down the stretch of Thames which runs through Oxford.