Anni Venti. Una banda variopinta di esemplari della jeunesse dorée inglese, che il ricchissimo e affascinante Max ha invitato a sue spese a una partita di piacere in Francia, si è data appuntamento alla stazione. Un topos classico della narrativa: ma "questo libro non somiglia a nessun altro" avverte Tim Parks nel saggio che lo accompagna. Una fitta nebbia gravita sulla stazione e sulla storia; una materia grigia che pervade tutto in modo subdolo, provocando scompiglio e disorientamento. Henry Green, "maestro del sottinteso" oltre che "santo del mondano", coglie le sfumature del parlato perforando, nelle quattro ore in cui si svolge la vicenda, le pareti della coscienza, anche quella di classe, così peculiare della società britannica.

A collection of three novels from Henry Green, whom W.H. Auden called 'the finest living English novelist'.

In 1938 Henry Green, then thirty-three, dreaded the coming war and decided to "put down what comes to mind before one is killed." Pack My Bag was published in England in 1940. When he wrote it, Green had already published three of his nine novels and his style"a gathering web of insinuations"was fully developed.

Pack My Bag is a marvelously quirky, clear-eyed memoir: a mother who shot at mangle wurzels (turnips) bowled across the lawn for her by the servants; the stately home packed with wounded World War I soldiers; the miseries of Eton, oddities of Oxford, and work in the family factory-the making of a brilliantly original novelist. "We have inherited the greatest orchestra, the English language, to conduct," Green once wrote. "The means are there; things are going on in life all the time around us." His use of language and his account of things that went on in his life inform this delightful and idiosyncratic autobiography, which begins: "I was born a mouthbreather with a silver spoon."

Concluding tells the story of the strange events that occur in a single day at a State-run school for girls.
Retired scientist Mr. Rock, "an old man in love with his goose," lives in a cottage with his adult granddaughter Elizabeth. Bordering the grounds of the school, the cottage - which the State has given Rock for the duration of his life in gratitude for his scientific contributions - is coveted by the school's two spinsterish governesses, Misses Edge and Baker.
As the story opens, two students are missing. The resultant search for their whereabouts raises numerous fears and questions: have they been harmed? have they left on their own, alone? or have they perhaps been persuaded by the school's only male instructor, Sebastian Birt? how will the governesses keep the news from parents and State authorities until the girls have been found and an "acceptable" story contrived? will Rock report them for negligence? Meanwhile, as rumors and versions of the girls' disappearance spread through the school, and the governesses attempt to conceal their alarm by preparing for the school's tenth annual Founders Day Ball, the seemingly innocent proceedings take on an air of mystery, intrigue, and impending doom.

The new fourth edition retains the original purpose which has made this book such a large success through every one of its previous editions: to effectively help its readers solve a wide array of mathematical problems specifically related to mechanical work. Aside from its unique compilation of mathematical problems, this book is renowned for its ability to duplicate, as far as possible, personal instruction. Its usefulness as a self-learning guide for the mathematics of mechanical problems is therefore unexcelled.

Class distinction is the common theme: between masters and servants in an Irish castle, owners and workers in a foundry, and the wealthy and working class in a railway station