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One for the Trouble: Book Slam, Volume One is the first release from the UK’s premier literary event. Eighteen Book Slam alumni, from household names like Irvine Welsh and William Boyd to newcomers like Kate Tempest and Sophie Woolley, were approached to take a song title for inspiration for a new short story or poem. Some took this literally (Jon McGregor’s moving reimagining of A House’s 'Endless Art', for example); others suggestively....

Mansfield Park is the third published and perhaps most subtle of Jane Austen's novels. It tells the story of Fanny Price, who, at the age of 10, is sent from her impoverished household to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle and be raised alongside her cousins. Fanny grows up as a misfit, not truly a member of the Bertram family, but too genteel to feel comfortable with her parents.

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's classic comic romance, in which the five Bennet sisters try to find that most elusive creature: a single man in possession of a large fortune. Sparks fly when sweet, pretty Jane meets their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley, but her sister Elizabeth is offended by his haughty friend, Mr. Darcy. This is Jane Austen at the height of her powers, complete with ironic narration, hilariously drawn supporting characters, and romantic suspense.

The so-called "Bad Quarto" of Shakespeare's Hamlet is the first known version of this world-famous tragedy. Published in 1603, this text is significantly shorter, has some divergent character names, and contains different renditions of some of the play's most famous lines. Some scholars believe that the Bad Quarto is a pirated edition, written down by one or more of the company actors, while others think that it is Shakespeare's first attempt that he later revised and expanded.

New South Wales struggled as a new British penal colony, facing drought, famine, social incoherence, and the development of an intransigent military cartel which did not lose any opportunity to exploit the circumstances. Together with an entrepreneurial landowner society led by John Macarthur, they made the task of the Governor, William Bligh (of The Bounty) very difficult.

These six plays are Japanese classics from the 14th century and are presented in the order of a traditional Nō programme. Nō, the Japanese word for "skill", is a form of Japanese musical drama that originated in the eighth century, and is the oldest major theatre art that still survives today. Alongside Nō plays were kyōgen plays, which were short works typically inserted as a comedic interlude of sorts between the more classical Nō performances.

Persuasion has certain similarities with Emma, another late novel by Jane Austen. In both stories, the heroine is a young woman who lives with her widowed father, and who has an enduring attachment to her eventual spouse from the opening of the action. Persuasion also incorporates certain elements common to Austen's earlier novels, such as characters from the military, visits to Bath and calculating and cynical suitors. In the end, Anne Elliot successfully combats the destructive vanity of her father and the machinations of her villainous cousin William.

Dorian Gray has a portrait in oil done by Basil Hallward, an artist impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian's beauty is responsible for the new mood in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry and soon falls into his hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life.