Alma Classics – The Bell Bookshop

The Complete Poems

Emma — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Famous for seminal poems such as ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’, ‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’ and ‘A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London’, Dylan Thomas was the author of a substantial body of poetry, which he began writing as a teenager and continued to expand until the end of his short and troubled life.

This is the most complete edition ever published of Dylan Thomas’s poetry. The texts are based on the first published editions of the poems or on manuscript notebook versions. All of his Swansea Grammar School poems are here reproduced, many of them reprinted for the first time since their original appearance in the student magazine. The book contains over a thousand notes, with textual variants.

ABOUT ALMA CLASSICS: Alma Classics is committed to making available a wide range of literature from around the globe. Most of the titles are enriched by an extensive critical apparatus, notes and extra reading material, as well as a selection of photographs. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition and edited using a fresh, accessible editorial approach. With an emphasis on production, editorial and typographical values, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading classics.

The complete nonsense books

Emma — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This volume, which collects the four books of “nonsense” published by Lear during his lifetime, contains all of his most celebrated verse and prose productions, from his first collection of limericks, A Book of Nonsense, to his Nonsense Songs and Stories – which includes ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’, long considered one of the nation’s favourite poems, as well as many lesser-known pieces composed in the same waywardly imaginative vein.

Embodying his passion for the absurd, Lear’s limericks, stories, alphabets and botanical sketches, each accompanied by one of the author’s beguiling original illustrations, are fun, lyrical, lively and hilarious, and have enchanted children and adults since their first appearance in print.

The Peter Rabbit stories

Emma — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This collection brings together in a single volume the four books that feature the famous young rabbit with the blue jacket and a penchant for mischief and disobedience: The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and The Tale of Mr Tod.From Peter’s early adventures in the kitchen garden of Mr McGregor to his late exploits in the rescue of his cousin Benjamin’s baby bunnies, these stories show why Beatrix Potter remains one of the most beloved children’s authors this country has ever produced.

Gone With the Wind

Emma — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The pampered daughter of a wealthy Georgian plantation owner of Irish descent, sixteen-year-old Scarlett O’Hara soon realizes that young men can’t resist her charms, despite her forthright manners and her refusal to embrace her mother’s ladylike ways. Her romantic intrigues lead her to an early marriage, but when the war between the Union and the Southern States breaks out and she is left a young widow, Scarlett’s life is turned upside down, and she finds herself embroiled, together with the world surrounding her, in a long struggle for survival. Both a coming-of-age tale and a historical epic, Gone with the Wind is regarded as one of the great American novels, and is perhaps one of the most popular stories in the Western canon. Famously inspiring the iconic 1939 Oscar-winning film starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as the rakish but cynical Rhett Butler, it is Margaret Mitchell’s only published novel, and a living testament to the irrepressible resilience of the American spirit.

The Adventures of Pipì the Pink Monkey

Emma — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

PipÃ isn’t like his four brothers or the other young monkeys living in the forest of Hullabaloo: he has bright-pink fur, a mischievous character and a rebellious streak that lands him into all sorts of scrapes. In this story, an expanded version of Collodi’s original tale, we see him lose his tail to an ancient crocodile, end up as a valet to a young master, fall into the hands of flying bandits and become emperor of a tribe of apes.

Collodi wrote this story immediately after Pinocchio, and the little monkey’s adventures present clear similarities, both in terms of themes and characters, with his more celebrated masterpiece. This rediscovered gem of Italian literature, beautifully illustrated by Axel Scheffler and preserving all of Collodi’s trademark wit and linguistic crispness, will delight and enthral a new generation of children.

The story of the treasure seekers

Emma — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel and Horace Octavius (“H.O.”) Bastable are desperate to help their widowed father to restore the family’s fortunes after his business fails.Their moneymaking schemes, from digging for treasure in their South-London garden to becoming highwaymen on Blackheath, mainly lead to a good deal of trouble, until one adventure promises to change everything?

The Prophet

Emma — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gibran's protagonist, called 'the Prophet', delivers spiritual, yet practical, homilies on a wide variety of topics central to daily life: love, marriage and children; work and play; possessions, beauty, truth, joy and sorrow, death and more.

Kim

Emma — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

“Kimball O’Hara, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, spends his childhood on the bustling streets of Lahore, begging and running errands in order to survive. One day he meets an old Tibetan lama, and he decides to accompany him on his travels across the Indian Subcontinent. After falling into the hands of his father’s old regiment, however, Kim is separated from the lama and sent away to school. There, his natural flair for espionage is spotted, and he soon finds himself among the majestic peaks of the Himalayas, playing a crucial part in the secret service’s confrontation withRussia known as the “Great Game”.With its peerless evocation of the teeming cities, breathtaking landscapes and diverse cultures of late-nineteenth-century India, Kim is widely considered to be Kipling’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels written in the English language.”

Selected Plays

Emma — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Between 1892 and 1895, Oscar Wilde’s drawing-room comedies Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest made his name as a playwright who fearlessly mocked the hypocrisy and snobbery of Victorian society and took gleeful delight in appearing to trivialize its most sacred institutions. With its premiere on Valentine’s Day 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest – a hilarious comedy of mistaken identities and coruscating language – was a phenomenal success, but its run was cut short prematurely by Wilde’s court case and subsequent incarceration, and the play was not published until 1899, after Wilde had been released from prison.Also including the powerful Salome, originally written in French and banned by the British censor, this collection displays Wilde at his provocative and witty best, and demonstrates why he was a playwright who delighted audiences and infuriated critics in equal measure.