Letters Literature

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65), also known as Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist from the Silver Age of Latin literature. This edition of Seneca's Epistles includes all 124 of the letters in a single volume, with explanatory notes, an appendix, and an index of the names occurring in the text. The letters were written by Seneca during his retirement and sent to his friend Lucilius Junior, a procurator of Sicily.

Easily one of the most towering figures of Bengali literature of the 20th century, Buddhadeva Bose was as prolific as he was versatile. A poet of renown, Bose was also an accomplished playwright, novelist, essayist and short-story writer. His prose is marked by invention, refreshing modernity and an easy yet deep engagement with timeless themes: love, the nature of memory, and the complexity of the relationship between man and woman - qualities which keep Bose’s work enduringly relevant.

With its winding high street lined with a greengrocer, post office, pub and church, Melstead St Mary is the perfect English village. Neighbours look out for neighbours, and few things trouble the serene surface of the community. But when residents start to receive anonymous letters containing secret information about their pasts - secrets that no one else is meant to know - life in Melstead St Mary is about to change, possibly forever....

No one could have predicted even two years ago that an African American would take the oath of office as president of the United States in January of 2009. For many, the occasion marks the climax to the civil rights movement and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that Americans could be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This collection, with about 400 letters from Americans of all walks of life, is being created to stand as a symbol of this exciting moment in history.

When her sister falls gravely ill, 20-year-old Marlena Wenger takes on the responsibility of caring for her infant niece, Angel Rose. Worried that this turn of events portends a more complicated future than he is prepared for, her beau ends their relationship. Marlena is devastated but is determined to give Angel Rose the best care possible.

When crime novelist Phoebe opens the post and receives an invitation to her own funeral, she’s horrified. Not least because the date of her death is marked as tomorrow. Deciding it’s nothing more than a prank from an enemy from her past, she determines to put it to the back of her mind. But the next morning, when her completely infuriating postman (who likes to think himself her no.1 literary critic) rings her doorbell, a parcel of poisoned pen-nibs explodes in his face. Forced to confront the fact her correspondence is more RIP than RSVP, Phoebe realises someone must want her dead.

The Complete Jane Austen Collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters. Read by an incredible cast including Joanne Froggatt and Fenella Woolgar, this collection is the perfect opportunity to listen beyond your favourite novel and discover Jane Austen's complete writings.

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange - cut short by the soldier's evident interest in Betty - but Liz can't forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875-1926) Letters to a Young Poet has been treasured for nearly a century. Rilke’s personal reflections on the vocation of writing and the experience of living urge an aspiring poet to look inward, while also offering sage wisdom on further issues including gender, solitude, and romantic love. Barrows and Macy’s translation extends this compilation of timeless advice and wisdom to a fresh generation of readers and listeners.

World War I is in full swing, and Abigail Hudson is doing her best to keep the home fires burning while her husband, Jacob, fights for king and country. She tries to balance family life along with running The General Store in their village of Abbington Pickets. Abigail, expecting their first child, is adjusting well to her new role until something unforeseen happens. Writing to Jacob brings comfort to Abigail. His letters always lift her spirits. Then, his letters stop. What happened? Is he missing? Captured? Or worse?

Now in the pantheon of great thinkers, Simone Weil (1909–1943) lived largely in the shadows, searching for her spiritual home while bearing witness to the violence that devastated Europe twice in her brief lifetime. The letters she wrote to her parents and brother from childhood onward chart her intellectual range as well as her itinerancy and ever-shifting preoccupations, revealing the singular personality at the heart of her brilliant essays. The first complete collection of Weil's missives to her family, A Life in Letters offers new insight into her personal relationships and experiences.

In November 2021, Eve and Patrick grow uneasy when they read an article about the arrest of a strange, disoriented woman on the Lower East Side. Based on the descriptions of her clothing and behavior, Eve is sure the woman has time traveled. She convinces Patrick they must help the woman, as others had helped them during their time travel journeys.

Hester Prynne has been marked as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston for the sin of bearing a child out of wedlock. Her punishment? When she is released from jail, she must endure public shaming at the pillory with her baby. And then—worse yet—she is forced to spend the rest of her life wearing a red letter “A” on her breast, to mark her as an Adulterer. Although compelled by the puritanical town fathers to wear the scarlet letter, Hester refuses to name the baby’s father.

Arrested in 1962 as South Africa's apartheid regime intensified its brutal campaign against political opponents, 44-year-old lawyer and African National Congress activist Nelson Mandela had no idea that he would spend the next 27 years in jail. During his 10,052 days of incarceration, Mandela wrote hundreds of letters to unyielding prison authorities, fellow activists, government officials, and, most memorably, his courageous wife, Winnie, and his five children. Now, 255 of these letters, a majority of which were previously unpublished, provide the most intimate portrait of Mandela since Long Walk to Freedom.

The summer of 1956 starts out like any other summer for 15-year-old Henry Pederson: hot, long, and boring. That all changes when Jenny Sarsky, along with her guardian angel and her family, moves into the house three doors down.

Sound interesting? Listen to Secret Societies and Subversive Movements and learn about the author's views on politics, history, and the occult.

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance, an 1850 novel, is a work of historical fiction written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his "masterwork." Set in 17th-century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.

Claire arrives at her new job as researcher at a grand English country house, nursing a broken heart. But tucked into the back of a long-forgotten drawer she finds a letter written in an elegant hand. It tells of a wartime secret about the beautiful Lady Violet – whose passionate affair with an Italian prisoner of war scandalised the village and ended in tragedy. Captivated, Claire promises to find Violet’s daughter, Tabitha, and reunite her with a priceless piece of her mother’s jewellery. With only the name of an Italian bakery, Pasticceria Mancini, to guide her, and the help of her handsome neighbour Jim, Claire travels to Tabitha’s last known location – Florence.

After enduring years of her nobleman father's cruelty and abuse, Celestina Lunde is ready to take her own life rather than enter into an arranged marriage with an equally brutal man. But just when she is about to leap through the window of her tower bedroom, a brawny Highland warrior arrives at her home and changes everything.

A meditative and inspiring diary of Derek Jarman's famous garden at Dungeness. In 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness. Facing an uncertain future, he nevertheless found solace in nature, growing all manner of plants. While some perished beneath wind and sea-spray, others flourished, creating brilliant, unexpected beauty in the wilderness. Modern Nature is both a diary of the garden and a meditation by Jarman on his own life.