Pioneering female writer Christine de Pizan's spirited defence of her sex against medieval misogyny and literary stereotypes is now recognized as one of the most important books in the history of feminism, and offers a telling insight into the role of women in a man's world.
Written by Europe s first professional woman writer, The Treasure of the City of Ladies offers advice and guidance to women of all ages and from all levels of medieval society, from royal courtiers to prostitutes.
The Cistercian Order was born in Burgundy at the start of the twelfth century as a movement of radical renewal - an Order that survives to this day with the greater part of its written heritage preserved.
Not simply an investigation into melancholy, these unique essays form part of a panoramic celebration of human behaviour from the time of the ancients to the Renaissance.
Visionary English Socialist and pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris argued that all work should be a source of pride and satisfaction, and that everyone should be entitled to beautiful surroundings no matter what their class.
Francis Bacon's landmark writings on subjects ranging from anger and ambition, marriage and money to envy and empire established him as the founding father of modern scientific thinking, with his rejection of superstition and his emphasis on proof and experiment, rational enquiry and reasoned argument.
'A peculiar genius with no modern equivalent, except possibly Kafka' - Jonathan MillerRegarded as a central part of Kapuscinski's work, these vivid portraits of life in the depths of Poland embody the young writer's mastery of literary reportageWhen the great Ryszard Kapuscinski was a young journalist in the early 1960s, he was sent to the farthest reaches of his native Poland between foreign assignments.
Dampier's (1651-1715) adventures and writing inspired both Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, but in his own right he was a remarkable, observant and enjoyable writer - whether on a woefully mishandled pirate raid in Spanish America or on a desperate journey to Sumatra in an open boat or on the habits of manatees or bats.
One of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists but also a marvellous writer, Bates' (1825-1892) account of his years in the upper reaches of the Amazon is almost too good to be true - a great monument to human inquisitiveness as he battles great hoards of malevolent reptiles and insects in his quest for ever more obscure specimens on ever more narrow and creeper-choked tributaries.
Endlessly restless and endlessly curious, Isabella Bird (1831-1904) travelled the world looking for new experiences, but never more delightfully than in her pony-bound adventures in the Colorado Territory at a time when it was only notionally under the control of the American authorities.
Created by the seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician Pascal, the essays contained in Human Happiness are a curiously optimistic look at whether humans can ever find satisfaction and real joy in life or whether a belief in God is a wise gamble at best.
In these inspiring essays about why we read, Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.
The works collected in this volume provide an illuminating introduction to George Eliot's incisive views on religion, art and science, and the nature and purpose of fiction.
In 'The Decay of Lying' Oscar Wilde uses his decadent ideology in an attempt to reverse and therefore reject his audiences' 'normal' conceptualizations of nature, art and morality.
This is one of the few records published by Gurdjieff in which he offers guidance to his 'community of seekers', the pupils from many countries who joined him in Paris and New York.
Describing the silliness and 'feminine fatuity' of many popular books by lady novelists, George Eliot perfectly skewers the formulaic yet bestselling works that dominated her time, with their loveably flawed heroines.
An irresistible invitation to reject the work ethic and enjoy life's simple pleasures (such as laughing, drinking and lying in the open air), Robert Louis Stevenson's witty and seminal essay on the joys of idleness is accompanied here by his writings on, among other things, growing old, visiting unpleasant places and the overwhelming experience of falling in love.
Charles Dickens describes in Night Walks his time as an insomniac, when he decided to cure himself by walking through London in the small hours, and discovered homelessness, drunkenness and vice on the streets.
Both Flesh and Not is an collection of essays and writing from the virtuosic genius David Foster WallaceBeloved for his brilliantly discerning eye, his verbal elasticity and his uniquely generous imagination, David Foster Wallace was heralded by critics and fans as the voice of a generation.
Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills Goethe was probably the last true Renaissance Man .
Collected in this volume are powerful dramas and psychological fiction by the nineteenth-century iconoclast now recognized as a major figure of world literature.
One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich H lderlin (1770-1843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception.
'A landmark of feminist thought and a rhetorical masterpiece' GuardianRanging from the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted imaginary sister to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bront and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity, A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given by Woolf at Girton College, Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics.
A far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time'Alarmingly good' Metro'Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent' Independent'Supremely good.
Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth.
