The magnificent title story of this collection of fairy tales for adults describes the strange and uncanny relationship between its extravagantly intelligent heroine--a world renowned scholar of the art of story-telling--and the marvelous being that lives in a mysterious bottle, found in a dusty shop in an Istanbul bazaar. As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable. The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor. "A dreamy treat.... It is not merely strange, it is wondrous." --Boston Globe "Alternatingly erudite and earthy, direct and playful.... If Scheherazade ever needs a break, Byatt can step in, indefinitely." --Chicago Tribune "Byatt's writing is crystalline and splendidly imaginative.... These [are] perfectly formed tales." --Washington Post Book World

Here is a tale set on the Path of the Heart, a beautifully written mystical adventure wherein a modern-day Sufi Master sends seven companions on a perilous quest for the greatest treasure of the ancient world - King Solomon's ring. The legendary seal ring is said to control the Jinn, those terrifying demons of living fire, and in seeking it the companions discover not only the truth of the Jinn, but also the path of Love and the infinite mercy of God.

First published in Germany in 1929, The End and the Beginning is a lively personal memoir of a vanished world and of a rebellious, high-spirited young woman's struggle to achieve independence. Born in 1883 into a distinguished and wealthy aristocratic family of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hermynia Zur Muhlen spent much of her childhood travelling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. After five years on her German husband's estate in czarist Russia she broke with both her family and her husband and set out on a precarious career as a professional writer committed to socialism. Besides translating many leading contemporary authors, notably Upton Sinclair, into German, she herself published an impressive number of politically engaged novels, detective stories, short stories, and children's fairy tales. Because of her outspoken opposition to National Socialism, she had to flee her native Austria in 1938 and seek refuge in England, where she died, virtually penniless, in 1951. This revised and corrected translation of Zur Muhlen's memoir - with extensive notes and an essay on the author by Lionel Gossman - will appeal especially to readers interested in women's history, the Central European aristocratic world that came to an end with the First World War, and the culture and politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Balthazar, book thief and bon vivant, arrives in Alexandria to steal from the famous library. But once inside, he becomes obsessed with the youngest librarian, Shireen, who was born in the library and is herself more than half book.

Begin a voyage through Persia and Afghanistan with renowned explorer Robert Byron in 'The Road to Oxiana'.This travelog recounts Byron's ten-month adventure, immersing readers in the rich tapestry of the Middle East, from Venice to Peshawar. As Byron travels through vibrant landscapes and encounters diverse cultures, he showcases his extensive knowledge of the region's architectural wonders. From the awe-inspiring Mosque of Sheikh Lutfullah to the majestic ruins of Persepolis, his vivid descriptions transport readers to these timeless sites.

Born into a distinguished aristocratic family of the old Habsburg Empire, Hermynia Zur Mühlen spent much of her childhood and early youth travelling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. Never comfortable with the traditional roles women were expected to play, she broke as a young adult both with her family and, after five years on his estate in the old Czarist Russia, with her German Junker husband, and set out as an independent, free-thinking individual, earning a precarious living as a writer. She translated over 70 books from English, French and Russian into German, notably the novels of Upton Sinclair, which she turned into best-sellers in Germany; produced a series of detective novels under a pseudonym; wrote seven engaging and thought-provoking novels of her own, six of which were translated into English; contributed countless insightful short stories and articles to newspapers and magazines; and, having become a committed socialist, achieved international renown in the 1920s with her Fairy Tales for Workers' Children, which were widely translated including into Chinese and Japanese. Because of her fervent and outspoken opposition to National Socialism, she and her life-long Jewish partner, Stefan Klein, had to flee first Germany, where they had settled, and then, in 1938, her native Austria. They found refuge in England, where Zur Mühlen died, forgotten and virtually penniless, in 1951. This new, expanded edition contains: Zur Mühlen's autobiographical memoir, The End and the Beginning; The editor's detailed notes on the persons and events mentioned in the autobiography; A selection of Zur Mühlen's short stories and two fairy tales; A synopsis of Zur Mühlen's untranslated novel Our Daughters the Nazi Girls; An essay by the Editor on Zur Mühlen's life and work; A bibliography of Zur Mühlen's novels in English translation; A portfolio of selected illustrations of her work by George Grosz and Heinrich Vogeler; A free online supplement with additional original material.

Family, obsession, and privilege boiled down by the icy-hot Swiss-Italian master stylist Fleur Jaeggy Even among Fleur Jaeggy’s singular and intricate works, The Water Statues is a shiningly peculiar book. Concerned with loneliness and wealth’s odd emotional poverty, this early novel is in part structured as a play: the dramatis personae include the various relatives, friends, and servants of a man named Beeklam, a wealthy recluse who keeps statues in his villa’s flooded basement, where memories shiver in uncertain light and the waters run off to the sea. Dedicated to Ingeborg Bachmann and fleshed out with Jaeggy’s austere yet voluptuous style, The Water Statues—with its band of deracinated, loosely related souls (milling about as often in the distant past as in the mansion’s garden full of intoxicated snails)—delivers like a slap an indelible picture of the swampiness of family life.