Steerforth Press: 389 books

A Life is the gruelling tale of the frustrated existence of a bank clerk with a poetic soul. The artistic aspirations of the protagonist and the emptiness of his daily life become tragic in the great divide between what he wants and what he actually has and gets. Alfonso the bank clerk wants to be...

"One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's, without having to live it to the end." A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he...

Montpellier in 1566 is one of the greatest seats of learning of the age, a cradle of Renaissance humanism. But even this proud city of philosophers is not safe from the menaces that endanger the peace of France--the city militia are struggling to contend with the lawlessness and religious hatred that...

1572: Returning from his studies in Montpellier, Pierre de Siorac is ambushed by a jealous Périgord nobleman. A duel ensues, and Pierre must subsequently travel to Paris, to seek his pardon from the King. The capital city and the royal court are a disorienting new environment for Pierre: a world...

From the moment he arrives at an elegant seaside hotel with his lover, Allan unsettles and obsesses the other guests. Elusive, equivocal, beautiful, he lives, gambles, swims and dances with a strange fierceness that they find intoxicating. Soon he even haunts their dreams. One by one, each guest is...

Here is a story of self-discovery, of entering adulthood and of freeing oneself. The tone is sarcastic, lucid, cruel yet realistic. On a background of R&B and funky electronic music, Nicolas argues gives us an impressive and subtle account of relations between the sexes and of examining the choices one has made in the past.

While staying with her aunt at a fashionable spa, Else receives an unexpected telegram from her mother, begging her to save her father from debtor's jail. The only way out, it seems, is to approach an elderly acquaintance in order to borrow money from him. Through this telegram, Else is forced into...

The deliciously cosmopolitan story of the restaurant from eighteenth-century Paris to El Bulli What does eating out tell us about who we are? The restaurant is where we go to celebrate, to experience pleasure, to see and be seen - or, sometimes, just because we're hungry. But these temples...

A book passionately defending balloon flight for human beings, celebrating the 175th anniversary of The London Library. The first balloon flight with passengers (a sheep, a duck, and a rooster) took place on 19th September 1783. On 4th October 1863, Nadar's giant balloon "Le Géant"...

A book of exploration and discovery, celebrating the 175th anniversary of The London Library. From young men seeking outdoor adventure to intrepid ladies of a certain age discovering other cultures, Victorian explorers were starting to develop a more personal kind of travelogue. In A Woman's...

Fat seemed to be getting fatter under Queen Victoria: Tweedledum and Tweedledee; Joe "the fat boy" in The Pickwick Papers; even the first known report of childhood obesity in 1859. But for the short, corpulent (and extremely success- ful) undertaker William Banting, the overweight life was...

One of Germany's greatest writers, Schiller is best known for his influential dramatic works. The Man Who Sees Ghosts, his only novel, was first published in 1789 and proved to be his most popular work, mainly owing to its masterful treatment of the then fashionable theme of the occult. While in Venice,...

Leaving the home of his foster mother to begin his working life, young Victor stops to visit his uncle, who long ago sealed himself away from the world, on a island in a lake, high in the Austrian alps. The old man, who has never known love, lives barricaded in a former monastery, surrounded by an...

Two brilliant, multi-layered stories from the winner of the Kenzaburo Oe Prize: part of our Japanese novella series, showcasing the best contemporary Japanese writing. On the eve of the Iraq War, a man and a woman meet in a nightclub in Tokyo. They go to a love hotel, and spend the next five...