Hesperus Press Ltd – förlag

"Those who philosophize correctly practice dying and death." - Socrates, Phaedo How does a philosopher face the end of life? In this elegant portrait of Immanuel Kant's final years, Thomas De Quincey reveals the man behind the monumental ideas. Beyond the philosopher's works, we encounter his daily routines, conversations, habits, friendships, and his gradual decline in the face of illness. Both intimate and profound, Last Days of Immanuel Kant is a meditation on mortality and a rare glimpse into the private life of the greatest figure of the German Enlightenment.

Working in a post office in Mayfair, a young woman is exposed to the cryptic but alluring correspondence of the social elite, and in particular, to lines written by the dashing Captain Everard. As she memorises the messages he telegraphs, she becomes increasingly attracted to the life described to her, fixated by scandal and gossip a world away from her more ordinary existence...

A civil servant stands accused of not understanding the rules of punctuation. He begins to go through the correct use of commas and semicolons before arriving at the exclamation mark, which, he realizes, in 40 years of writing, he has never used. From here he develops a bizarre and paranoid fantasy in which everyday objects transform into malevolent exclamation marks. Written when Chekhov was on the verge of becoming a literary celebrity, this is an enlightening new selection that reveals the author’ s often neglected comic talents.

Set in the 18th century, sisters Henrietta and Lucie live with their widowed mother in an isolated mansion in Balgowrie, Scotland. Inexperienced in life and love, the two sheltered sisters become separated from each other and their quiet lives."The Green Graves of Balgowrie", Jane Helen Findlater's first novel, was a great success when it was first published in 1896. This classic tale has been out of print for more than a century and is being reprinted for the first time by Hesperus Press.

Stendhal wrote in “ Life of Rossini” : “ It is necessary to have loved as implacably as the Portuguese Nun, and with all the unquenchable ardour of which she has left us so vivid an echo in her immortal Letters” First published in 1668 by then small Parisian bookseller Claude Barbin, the Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (known in French as “ Portuguese Letters translated into French” or “ Portuguese Letters” ) witnessed immediate success.It is one of the first fictional epistolary novels that inspired many to come in French literature, such as Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and Julie by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.The Love Letters comprise of five love letters written by a Portuguese nun cloistered in the Franciscan convent of Beja to the French officer who went to Portugal to support the Portuguese in their war of independence against the Spanish and had loved her and left her.The letters showcase a remarkable depth of psychological insight into the inner workings of a woman in love, bearing witness to a gradual yet pivotal development of self-awareness and an elegantly controlled depiction of passion.

A party on the Highland Tour, taking a scenic break from their journey come upon a miserable hut hid away among some cliffs; the ladies, upon enquiring what lies before them, hear the wretched tale of Elspat MacTavish, the Highland Widow, condemned forever to live penitent and alone. Condemned by her love for her husband and her only son. Full of honourable intentions, after the suppression of the Highland clans, to join the coalition on its campaign against the French into America, the unfortunate Hamish alas finds himself tricked by his own mother. The ensuing events lead to a tragic ending, made all the more pathetic by the unquenchable passion of a once-proud nation beating still in the breast of one woman.