Books in Wordsworth Classics series

Introduction and Notes by Ian F.A. Bell. Professor of English Literature. University of Keele Washington Square marks the culmination of James's apprentice period as a novelist. With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870s, a period of great change in the life of the city. This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s, similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion. Through the relationships between Austin Sloper, a celebrated physician, and his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and Catherine's suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression.

Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex In the hope of saving her brother's life, should a woman submit to rape? Should the law be respected when its administrator is corrupt? How powerful in the state should religion become? Although Measure for Measure ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The drama shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation. These problems remain topical, and, in Measure for Measure, they are given immediacy by vivid character-conflicts and memorably intense poetry. This is one of Shakespeare's most probing and powerful works.

Anna Sewell's Black Beauty was an immediate success on its publication in 1877, and has gone on to sell an estimated 50 million copies.Black Beauty is a horse with a fine black coat, a white foot and a silver star on his forehead. Seen through his eyes, the story tells of his idyllic upbringing and the hardship and cruelty he suffers subsequently, before finding security and happiness in a new home.Black Beauty is one of the most popular children's books ever written.

Mary Lennox was horrid. Selfish and spoilt, she was sent to stay with her hunchback uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the way into a secret garden and begins to tend it, a change comes over her and her life.She meets and befriends a local boy, the talented Dickon, and comes across her sickly cousin Colin who had been kept hidden from her. Between them, the three children work astonishing magic in themselves and those around them.The Secret Garden is one of the best-loved stories of all time.

'Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!' Treasure Island is a tale of pirates and villains, maps, treasure and shipwreck, and is perhaps the best adventure story ever written.When young Jim Hawkins finds a packet in Captain Flint's sea chest, he could not know that the map inside it would lead him to unimaginable treasure. Shipping as cabin boy on the Hispaniola, he sails with Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett, Dr Livesey, the sinister Long John Silver and a frightening crew to Treasure Island. There, mutiny, murder and mayhem lead to a thrilling climax.

Molly is desperately disappointed when, instead of the longed-for silver bangle, her Aunt Phoebe sends her a small, grey, pumpkin-shaped pincushion for her birthday. But at night, when the full moon shines, the pumpkin turns out to be a magical one. It leads Molly and her twin brother Jack into a strange land and an extraordinary quest which is by turns thrilling, chilling and hair-raising. This eerie tale of high adventure has an enduring appeal to all who love to have their blood deliciously curdled.

In the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a huge cyclone transports the orphan Dorothy and her little dog Toto from Kansas to the Land of Oz, and she fears that she will never see Aunt Em and Uncle Henry ever again. But she meets the Munchkins, and they tell her to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City where the Wonderful Wizard of Oz will grant any wish. On the way, she meets the brainless Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. The four friends set off to seek their heart's desires, and in a series of action packed adventures they encounter a deadly poppy field, fierce animals, flying monkeys, a wicked witch, a good witch, and the Mighty Oz himself. In Glinda of Oz, the last of the original Oz books, Dorothy and Princess Ozma seek the help of Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, when they find themselves in peril on the Magic Isle of the Skeezers.

Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie, the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief. He runs away, and, hot and bothered, he slips into a cooling stream, falls asleep, and becomes a Water Baby. In his new life, he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures, including an engaging old lobster, other water babies, and at last reaches St Branden's Isle where he encounters the fierce Mrs Bedonebyeasyoudid and the motherly Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby. After a long and arduous quest to the Other-end-of-Nowhere young Tom achieves his heart's desire.

Heidi is the heart-warming tale of a small girl's power for good, and it has remained a firm favourite since it was published over 100 years ago. It tells of the orphan Heidi and her idyllic existence with her gruff grandfather in the mountains. When she is sent to live in a city, comic chaos ensues, and eventually it is arranged that Heidi should return to the mountains. Together she and her friend Peter, the goat-herd, achieve wondrous changes in the community in which they live.

'Hello, I'm Raggedy Ann. Welcome to my world. I'm going to tell you about myself and this book. Some grown-ups think I'm just another rag doll with floppy arms and legs who has been nibbled by the mice but they are wrong. When the other toys and I are left alone we get up to all sorts of games and adventures. Once I nearly got boiled to bits in the washing machine. Then I had fun with the kittens and the puppy. But best of all, one day Marcella's daddy brought home a package with another rag doll in it. They called him Raggedy Andy. What jolly times we have! What funny games we play! He is now my "best friend". I'm sure you will enjoy reading this book full of stories about us.'

The two American classics here together in one volume, "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys", are worthy sequels to "Little Women", one of the best-loved children's stories of all time, and its continuation, "Good Wives". In "Little Men", Louisa May Alcott takes up the story of the everyday dramas and exploits of the naughty but easy-going boys at Plumfield, now a boarding-school run by Professor Bhaer and his lovable madcap wife Jo, the most fiery and free-spirited of the four March sisters. "Jo's Boys" revisits the one-time members of that 'wilderness of boys' ten years later when they are making their ways in the world with varying degrees of triumph and disaster.

ANTHONY HOPEWhile on holiday in Ruritania, Rudolf Rassendyll finds that his extraordinary resemblance to the King leads him into a realm of wild adventure. The sinister Rupert of Hentzau enmeshes him in a plot to depose the King, he encounters die lovely Princess Flavia, finds his honour at stake and his life in deadly peril.All who read this enduring tale of high adventure will understand why the fictional kingdom of Ruritania has entered into the popular imagination.