Malevolent, mysterious, vast, the ocean has always sparked our fascination and sense of adventure, giving rise to a remarkable vein of narrative deftly mined here by editor Tony Tanner. In the twenty-seven tales of The Oxford Book of the Sea, masters of the art tell of men on ships, grappling with themselves, their fellow sailors, and the trials of the sea: from hurricane winds to the frustrating calm, from swirling currents to rampaging whales. Here is the work of Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Stephen Crane, C.S. Forester, Ernest Hemingway, and of course Conrad. Along with the essential stories come unexpected gems by writers not known for their seafaring bent such as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.M. Forster, and Edgar Allan Poe. Some of the finest writers in the English language have been drawn to the subject of life at sea, with its dangers, loneliness, and triumphs. The Oxford Book of the Sea gathers together some of the best examples of the form, offering moving prose, fascinating insight into the human condition, and the simple pleasure of tales of high adventure.

Twenty-seven short stories. Authors Hemingway, Kipling, Masefield, E.M. Forster, Jack London and Herman Melville.

The Caribbean is the source of one of the richest, most accessible, and yet technically adventurous traditions of contemporary world literature. This collection extends beyond the realm of English-speaking writers, to include stories published in Spanish, French, and Dutch. It brings together contributions from major figures such as V. S. Naipaul, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and work from the exciting new generation of Caribbean writers represented by Edwidge Danticat, and Jamaica Kincaid.

An anthology of writings illustrating humans' changing vision of the sea features passages from the work of Melville, Conrad, Darwin, Dickens, E.B. White, Dickinson, and Woolf.

'So you won't sell me your soul?' said the Devil. 'Thank you,' replied the student, 'I had rather keep it myself, if it's all the same to you.' So begins this rich and intriguing collection of fantasy stories. Figures such as the devil, trolls and werewolves, sorcerers and dragons have long been part of the human psyche, and the authors of these marvellous tales draw upon this deep well of images, characters, and landscapes with great imagination and subtlety. With thirty-one tales by writers as diverse as John Buchan and Mervyn Peake, Angela Carter and Terry Pratchett, this is an anthology for the newcomer and dedicated fan alike.

Roslyn Jolly is Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She is the author of Henry James: History, Narrative, Fiction (OUP, 1993).

A collection of classic science fiction short stories features tales by H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clark, Frederik Pohl, Clifford Simak, Brian Aldiss, Ursala K. LeGuin, and many others. Edited by the author of The Road to Middle-Earth. 20,000 first printing.

This collection of French short stories in translation expands our idea of French writing by including new stories by women writers and by authors of Francophone origin. Spanning the centuries from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth, the collection opens with a rumbustious tale from the Marquis de Sade, takes in the masters of the nineteenth century, from Stendhal and Balzac to Maupassant, and reaches to Quebec, Africa, and the French Caribbean in the twentieth century. Women writers include relatively well known figures such as Renee Vivien, Colette, and Beauvoir, and newer writers such as Assia Djebar, Christiane Baroche, and Annie Saumont. The French short story is a rich and diverse medium, but all the stories selected share a common characteristic: they make exciting reading.

The field of detective fiction is vast, and The Oxford Book of Detective Stories brings together the best short fiction from around the world to show how different nationalities have imposed their own stamp on the genre. As well as English and American stories from acknowledged masters such as Ellery Queen, Dashiell Hammett, and Agatha Christie, the anthology includes stories by Simenon, Conan Doyle, Sarah Paretsky, and Ian Rankin, and roams across Europe and further afield to embrace Japan, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Argentina, Czechoslovakia, and other countries. Women detectives, police procedurals, the amateur sleuth, locked-room mysteries are all here, and in her introduction Patricia Craig examines the figure of the detective in international literature.

'Review from previous edition A rich fabric of dreaming... from Latin poets to Louis MacNiece and Yeats... A truly remarkable assembly' -Elizabeth Jennings, Spectator'a splendid collection... Stephen Brook could hardly have done the job better' -Rosemary Dinnage, TLS'an ideal companion for the bedside' -Time'Anthologies which transcend themselves and can stand as organic books making serious statements about life [are] very rare, but Stephen Brook's Oxford Book of Dreams is of their number.' -Paul Binding, New Statesman