Program Books

Descartes' ideas not only changed the course of Western philosophy but also led to or transformed the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, physics and mathematics, political theory and ethics, psychoanalysis, and literature and the arts. This book reprints Descartes' major works, Discourse on Method and Meditations, and presents essays by leading scholars that explore his contributions in each of those fields and place his ideas in the context of his time and our own. There are chapters by David Weissman on metaphysics and psychoanalysis, John Post on epistemology, Lou Massa on physics and mathematics, William T. Bluhm on politics and ethics, and Thomas Pavel on literature and art. These essays are accompanied by others by David Weissman and by Stephen Toulmin that introduce the idea of intellectual lineages, discuss the period in which Descartes wrote, and reexamine the premises of his philosophy in light of contemporary philosophical, political, and social thinking.

This is an English translation of Descartes' seminal discourse, with an original essay by Richard Kennington. This text is designed to provide the student with a close translation, notes, and a glossary of key terms, facilitating access to ideas as they originally were presented and helping to make the translator's work transparent.

Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Decartes' immediate audience.

The Focus Philosophical Library publishes clear, faithful editions enabling access for modern students to the essential ideas and wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers.

'About things that are within our power and those that are not.'

Epictetus' Discourses have been the most widely read and influential of all writings of Stoic philosophy, from antiquity onwards. They set out the core ethical principles of Stoicism in a form designed to help people put them into practice and to use them as a basis for leading a good human life. Epictetus was a teacher, and a freed slave, whose discourses have a vivid informality, animated by anecdotes and dialogue. Forceful, direct, and challenging, their central message is that the basis of happiness is up to us, and that we all have the capacity, through sustained reflection and hard work, of achieving this goal. They still speak eloquently to modern readers seeking meaning in their own lives.

This is the only complete modern translation of the Discourses, together with the Handbook or manual of key themes, and surviving fragments. Robin Hard's accurate and accessible translation is accompanied by Christopher Gill's full introduction and comprehensive notes.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This is the complete orchestral and vocal score of Mozart's Don Giovanni, considered by many to be the greatest opera ever written. This edition contains all the music Mozart wrote for Don Giovanni, both for the original version performed in Prague (1787) and the alterations―Don Ottavio's aria "Dalla sua pace," Elvira's aria (and its transposition to D Major) "Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata," Zerlina and Leporello's duet "Per queste tue manine," the cut in the finale ― made for the first Viennese performance six months later, as well as the concert ending of the overture.
The editors, Georg Schünemann and Kurt Soldan, worked directly from Mozart's autograph manuscript and from early copies made under Mozart's supervision, correcting many errors that had persisted since Mozart's time. An extensive commentary lists all vague or controversial elements the editors encountered in the score. In addition the complete Italian libretto and stage directions by Lorenzo Da Ponte and a German translation of the vocal text by Georg Schünemann have also been included.
Do not confuse this with a piano rendering; it is the full orchestral score. In addition to its obvious uses for study, this score is also an indispensable associate for anyone listening to the music. In no other manner can the listener or student keep full awareness of the many elements that make up this opera.

Nominada por los estadounidenses como una de las 100 mejores novelas en la serie de PBS The Great American Read

La RAE, la ASALE y Alfaguara reeditan la edición conmemorativa del Quijote con prólogo inédito de Darío Villanueva

EDICION LIMITADA

Hace diez años, las academias de la lengua española pensaron un Quijote para todos. Hoy se reedita --en edición limitada-- para conmemorar los cuatrocientos años de la muerte de Cervantes.

En los años 2015 y 2016 confluyen dos aniversarios cervantinos. A la celebración del IV Centenario de la Publicación de la Segunda Parte del Quijote (2015), le seguirá, en 2016, la conmemoración del IV Centenario de la Muerte de Miguel de Cervantes. Como ocurrió hace más de una década, las academias de la lengua española y la editorial Alfaguara se unen a esta celebración con una reedición de este clásico universal dirigida a todo el ámbito hispanohablante.

Esta edición cuenta con un nuevo prólogo, escrito por Darío Villanueva, director de la Real Academia Española (RAE) y presidente de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), especialmente para la ocasión. Se completa con un glosario formado por siete mil palabras, locuciones, frases proverbiales y refranes, explicados según el significado preciso que tienen en el texto cervantino.

La primera edición de este Quijote se convirtió en un gran éxito de ventas, sin precedentes en una obra clásica. Más de tres millones de ejemplares, distribuidos en España y América, la convirtieron en la más difundida de la historia. A conseguir su carácter divulgativo y su orientación hacia un público diverso y no especializado, contribuyen especialmente las notas contextualizadoras de la obra, preparadas por Francisco Rico. También se incluyen una serie de estudios complementarios, escritos por algunos de los principales expertos en el gran libro cervantino.

Así, Mario Vargas Llosa analiza la modernidad del Quijote en «Una novela para el siglo xxi»; Francisco Ayala reflexiona sobre la construcción de los personajes de la novela en «La invención del Quijote», y Martín de Riquer analiza la obra en el contexto biográfico del autor en «Cervantes y el Quijote». Por su parte, José Manuel Blecua («El Quijote en la historia de la lengua española»), Guillermo Rojo («Cervantes como modelo lingüístico»), José Antonio Pascual («Los registros lingüísticos del Quijote: la distancia irónica de la realidad»), Margit Frenk («Oralidad, escritura, lectura») y Claudio Guillén («Cauces de la novela cervantina: perspectivas y diálogos») abordan distintos aspectos relacionados con la lengua española en la obra cervantina.

A todos ellos se une en esta ocasión el actual director de la RAE, Darío Villanueva, que ha querido «aprovechar la oportunidad de oro que me ofrece hoy la nueva salida de esta edición [...] para dar una explicación --mi explicación-- de algunos de los porqués del tan alto reconocimiento que el Quijote ha obtenido desde la fecha de su publicación hasta hoy, así como su palmaria modernidad», antes de recordar que el Quijote fue la obra elegida, en 2002, como la mejor novela de todos los tiempos, por delante de En busca del tiempo perdido, de Proust, y de Guerra y paz, de Tolstoi, en una encuesta realizada por la Asociación de Escritores de Suecia entre cien autores de todo el mundo.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

Ten years ago, the Academies of the Spanish Language conceived of a Don Quixote for everyone. Now, it is being re-released--in a limited edition--to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Cervantes's death.

2015 and 2016 bring with them two special Cervantes anniversaries. The celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the Publication of the Second Part of Don Quixote in 2015 will be followed in 2016 by the Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes's Death. As they did more than a decade ago, the Academies of the Spanish Language and Alfaguara unite for this celebration with a re-edition of the universal classic directed at the whole Spanish-speaking world.

This edition boasts a new prologue written specially for the occasion by Darío Villanueva, the director of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española (RAE) (RAE) and president of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE). It is complemented by a glossary made up of seven thousand words, expressions, phrases and proverbs, each explained according to its precise meaning in Cervantes's text.

The first edition of this Quixote became a huge sales success, unprecedented for a classic work. More than three million copies, distributed in Spain and the Americas, made it the most widespread in history. The contextualizing notes about the work, prepared by Francisco Rico, contribute to its educational character and its orientation toward a diverse and non-specialized public. It also includes a series of complementary studies, written by some of the primary experts in Cervantes's consummate book.

As such, Mario Vargas Llosa analyzes the modernity of Don Quixote in "A Novel for the 21st Century;" Francisco Ayala reflects upon the construction of the novel's characters in "The Invention of the Quixote;" and Martín de Riquer analyzes the work in the biographical context of the author in "Cervantes and Quixote."

For their part, José Manuel Blecua ("Don Quixote in the History of the Spanish Language"), Guillermo Rojo ("Cervantes as a Linguistic Model"), José Antonio Pascual ("The Linguistic Registers of Don Quixote: The Ironic Distance from Reality"), Margit Frenk ("Orality, Writing, Reading"), and Claudio Guillén ("The Course of Cervantes's novel: Perspectives and Dialogues") deal with different aspects related to the Spanish language in Cervantes's work.

Joining all this is the current director of the Real Academia de la Lengua Española (RAE), Darío Villanueva, who wants to "take advantage of the golden opportunity that the release of this new edition offers [...] to give an explanation--my explanation--of some of the reasons for the high recognition that Don Quixote has gained from the date of its publication until today, as well as its clear modernity," before reminding us that Don Quixote was the work chosen in 2002 as the best novel of all time, even ahead of In Search of Lost Time by Proust and War and Peace by Tolstoy, in a survey conducted by the Swiss Writers' Association of 100 authors from around the world.

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

Don Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray--he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants--Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together-and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.

With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been generally recognized as the first modern novel. This Penguin Classics edition, with its beautiful new cover design, includes John Rutherford's masterly translation, which does full justice to the energy and wit of Cervantes's prose, as well as a brilliant critical introduction by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarriá.

"Dubliners" was completed in 1905, but a series of British and Irish publishers and printers found it offensive and immoral, and it was suppressed. The book finally came out in London in 1914, just as Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" began to appear in the journal "Egoist" under the auspices of Ezra Pound. The first three stories in "Dubliners" might be incidents from a draft of "Portrait of the Artist," and many of the characters who figure in "Ulysses" have their first appearance here, but this is not a book of interest only because of its relationship to Joyce's life and mature work. It is one of the greatest story collections in the English language--an unflinching, brilliant, often tragic portrait of early twentieth-century Dublin. The book, which begins and ends with a death, moves from "stories of my childhood" through tales of public life. Its larger purpose, Joyce said, was as a moral history of Ireland.

For the centennial of its original publication, an irresistible Deluxe Edition of one of the most beloved books of the 20th century--featuring a foreword by Colum McCann, the bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic

Perhaps the greatest short story collection in the English language, James Joyce's Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of "dear dirty Dublin" at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as "Araby," "Grace," and "The Dead," delve into the heart of the city of Joyce's birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners' speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and most profound, and this edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author's original wishes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

With stylistic brilliance and historical imagination, the first five books of Livy's monumental history of Rome record events from the foundation of Rome through the history of the seven kings, the establishment of the Republic and its internal struggles, up to Rome's recovery after the fierce Gallic invasion of the fourth century B.C. Livy vividly depicts the great characters, legends, and tales, including the story of Romulus and Remus. Reprinting Robert Ogilvie's lucid 1971 introduction, this highly regarded edition now boasts a new preface, examining the text in light of recent Livy scholarship, informative maps, bibliography, and an index.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

This 1748 treatise by David Hume offers an accessible account of his unprecedented and challenging notions about the limitations of the human mind. It expounds the most influential theory of causality in modern times -- one that prompted Kant to create an entirely new school of thought. Highly controversial in the 18th century, this work remains provocative in its discussions of the appeal of skepticism, the logical coexistence of free will and determinism, and the deficiencies of religious doctrine.

A splendid edition. Schneewind's illuminating introduction succinctly situates the Enquiry in its historical context, clarifying its relationship to Calvinism, to Newtonian science, and to earlier moral philosophers, and providing a persuasive account of Hume's ethical naturalism. --Martha C. Nussbaum, Brown University

Written sometime between 1330 and 1332, the Essays in Idleness, with their timeless relevance and charm, hardly mirror the turbulent times in which they were born. Despite the struggle between the Emperor Go-Daigo and the usurping Hojo family that rocked Japan during these years, the Buddhist priest Kenko found himself "with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head." The resulting essays, none of them more than a few pages in length and some consisting of but two or three sentences, treat a great variety of subjects in a congenial, anecdotal style. Kenko clung to tradition, Buddhism, and the pleasures of solitude, and the themes he treats are all suffused with an unspoken acceptance of Buddhist beliefs. Above all, Kenko gives voice to a distinctively Japanese aesthetic principle: that beauty is bound to perishability.