In The Tragedy of King Richard III, Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of one of history’s most repellent, and the theater’s most mesmerizing, figures. This Norton Critical Edition of Richard III is based on the First Quarto (1597) edition of the play with interpolations from the First Folio (1623). The play is accompanied by a preface, explanatory annotations, A Note on the Text, a list of Textual Variants, and eighteen illustrations of seminal scenes from major dramatic productions and film versions of the play. “Contexts” provides readers with the sources and analogues that informed Shakespeare’s composition of Richard III. These include excerpts from Robert Fabyan’s New Chronicles of England and France, Thomas More’s The History of King Richard III, Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The True Tragedy of Richard III. A selection from Colley Cibber’s eighteenth-century adaptation records the compr
He is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest,handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity --and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Nowthe press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget havecaught up with Ben Tyson. His family, his career, and his personalsense of honor hang in the balance. And only one woman can revealthe truth of his past -- and set him free.
According to Mohammed, the one true religion was revealed to five great prophets before him - Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. But each time their message was ignored and people chose to worship false gods instead. As the last and greatest prophet of the one and only God, it was his task to abolish all idolatry. For many years his mission seemed hopeless. As long as he remained in Mecca, he made few converts and had to endure dangers and persecution. But when the city of Medina offered him sanctuary, his small band of followers rapidly multiplied. Mohammed now led his armies out to do battle in the desert, spreading his religion at the point of the sword. This later part of his life, as told by Washington Irving, is as much about military conquest as spiritual teaching. For us today, the consequences are still unfolding: reason to reflect on the extraordinary career of one individual who joined conviction, resoluteness, courage and self-mastery in the pursuit of a religious vision.
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-warbooks. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, BillyPilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of ourown fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraidto know.
Deep in the jungles of Peru the contest of the century is underway.It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol-one carved out of a strange kind of stone.But a stone which,in the present age,could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon. The US Army wants this prize at any cost.But they are not alone... The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-bld maun*.Which introduces Professor William Race,a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist,who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document taht could lead the US team to the idol itself. So begins the mission that will lead Race and his armed companions to a mysterious stone temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes.This is a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers.But it is not until the silence of the temple is breched that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule...
Germinal (1885) is the thirteenth in ?‰mile Zola's cycle oftwenty novels about the Rougon-Macquart dynasty. It tells the storyof ?‰tienne Lantier, from the illegitimate Macquart branch of thefamily, who arrives in the mining settlement of Montsou, andwitnesses at first hand the appalling conditions in which minerslive and work. Gradually becoming embroiled in a bitter disputebetween the miners and their employers, he eventually leads thestrike which is the centrepiece of the novel. But this is more thanthe struggle of labour against capital. It is also the struggle ofthe hungry against the well-fed, against the passivity andresignation passed down over generations of starving people, andultimately against hunger itself, represented by the fantasticaldevouring monster of the mine, which swallows up men, just as thebeast of the modern industrial economy relentlessly swallows upcapital. This apparent pessimism about society is offset by thepossibility of rebirth and regeneration. For all the inheritedmisery
"I do not say there is no character as well drawn inShakespeare [as D'Artagnan]. I do say there is none that I love sowholly." "The lasting and universal popularity of The Three Musketeersshows that Dumas, by artlessly expressing his own nature in thepersons of his heroes, was responding to that craving for action,strength and generosity which is a fact in all periods and allplaces."
Hugely admired by Tolstoy, David Copperfield is the novel thatdraws most closely from Charles Dickens's own life. Its eponymoushero, orphaned as a boy, grows up to discover love and happiness,heartbreak and sorrow amid a cast of eccentrics, innocents, andvillains. Praising Dickens's power of invention, Somerset Maughamwrote: andquot; There were never such people as the Micawbers,Peggotty and Barkis, Traddles, Betsey Trotwood and Mr. Dick, UriahHeep and his mother. They are fantastic inventions of Dickens'sexultant imagination...you can never quite forget them.andquot;This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes a newIntroduction by Pulitzer Prize finalist David Gates, in addition tonew explanatory notes.
Meet Sterling Brooks.His was not an absorbed to think about anyone else of make a commitment to the woman he loved,Bus his actual miseeds were few-his were sins of omission,not commission. It is a few day before Christmas,For forry-six years Sterling has been awatiting his summons iton Heaven.Will he be deemed fit for entrance into heaven this year?At last the day comes and the Heavenly Council settles on a test for Sterling-he will be sent back to earth and given an opporunity to prove his worthiness by helping somone else. 作者简介： Mary Higgins Clark,America's queen of suspense,and her daughter,bestselling author Carol Higgins Clark,have followed last year's bestselling Deck the Halls with a heartwarming tale that combines the charm of the classic movie it's Wonderfrl Life with unexpected menace.
These controversial epic poems demonstrate Milton's genius forfusing sense and sound, classicism and innovation, narrative anddrama in profound explorations of the moral problems of God'sjustice-and what it truly means to be human.
