The blind energies and defiant acts that bring an ambitiousmanto power can also destroy him. This is the theme thatThomas Hardyexplores through his greatest and mosttragic hero: MichaelHenchard, the driven grain merchant of Casterbridge. From hisdrunken sale of his wife and baby at a county fair to hissubjugation of a farming village, Henchard's life is an epicattempt to bring the world to heel as he hides, even from himself,all vestiges of emotionalvulnerability. Combining the suspense of amystery with the poetry of the most powerful English novels, TheMavyor of Casterbridge is a masterpiece of psychological insightand profound tragedy.

The series of which this title forms a part examines the wayin which all the major editions of Shakespeare's plays have beeninterpolated by a series of editors who have been systematicallychanging Shakespeare's texts from the 18th century onwards. Thistext looks at "Measure for Measure". --This text refers to anout of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Nine tales showcase Twain's wit as he skewers greed andhypocrisy--and makes a memorable, tormenting statement on evil.This newly repackaged edition includes a new Afterword.Reissue.

Folger Shakespeare Library The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play Scene-by-scene plot summaries A key to famous lines and phrases An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language An essay by leading Shakespeare scholar, William C. Carroll, providing a modern perspective on the play Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs.

In this powerful book we enter the world of Jurgis Rudkus, ayoung Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America fired with dreamsof wealth, freedom, and opportunity. And we discover, with him, theastonishing truth about "packingtown," the busy, flourishing,filthy Chicago stockyards, where new world visions perish in ajungle of human suffering. Upton Sinclair, master of the"muckraking" novel, here explores the workingman's lot at the turnof the century: the backbreaking labor, the injustices of"wage-slavery," the bewildering chaos of urban life. The Jungle, astory so shocking that it launched a government investigation,recreates this startling chapter if our history in unflinchingdetail. Always a vigorous champion on political reform, Sinclair isalso a gripping storyteller, and his 1906 novel stands as one ofthe most important -- and moving -- works in the literature ofsocial change. --This text refers to an alternate Mass MarketPaperback edition.

The Boynton/Cook editions of four of Shakespeare's most popularplays have been reissued with attractive new cover designs andprinted on more opaque, easy-to-read paper. This series isspecifically designed for high school classes. Students will be able to see each play as a whole. In theirintroduction to each of the plays, editors Mack and Boynton suggestways of approaching the text that allow the reader a broad range ofimaginative involvement. Their observations are intended to helpstudents read and experience the play, not to discourage them withcritical jargon or peripheral historical information. Students will be reading the best text both in terms of visualexcellence and quality of scholarship. They'll immediatelyappreciate the large page format and highly readable typography.Each volume is consistent with the most authoritative early editionof each play. The glosses are full and clear but don't belabor theobvious or clutter the text. Background information includes the editors' detailed analysis ofthe

The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating collection of stories featuring detectives, criminal agents and debonair crooks from the golden age of crime fiction: a time when Sherlock Holmes was esconsced in his rooms at 221B Baker Street and London was permanently wreathed in a sinister fog. These gripping tales of mystery, suspense and clever puzzles are wonderfully entertaining and in them you will meet The Crime Doctor, Professor Augustus S.F.X.Van Dusen - The Thinking Machine, Max Carrados - the incredible blind detective, the repulsive but brilliant Skin o' My Teeth, and the natty, ingenious French sleuth Eugene Valmont. On the other side of the law, there are gentleman crooks Raffles and Simon Carn - the Prince of Swindlers. The stories include: The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, The Stolen Cigar Case by Bret Harte, The Swedish Match by Anton Chekhov, Nine Points of the Law by E.W. Hornung, The Ghost at Massingham Mansions by Ernest Bramah and The Great Pearl Mystery by Baroness Orczy.

Translated by Edward Fitzgerald This edition presents the classic free translation by Edward Fitzgerald of the great Persian poem by the 12th century astronomer and poet - Omar Khayy m. Fitzgerald's masterful translation was first published as an anonymous pamphlet in 1859. Its colourful, exotic and remote imagery greatly appealed to the Victorian age's fascination with the Orient, while its luxurious sensual warmth acted as a striking counterpoint to the growth of scientific determinism, industrialisation and the soulless Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest. Greatly praised by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne, Ruskin and William Morris, the romantic melancholy of the poem anticipates the poetry of Matthew Arnold and Thomas Hardy, while its epicurean motifs link it to the Aesthetic Movement.

Countess Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of Newland Archer, engaged to be married to May Welland. Edith Wharton (1862-1937).American novelist,noted for her sharp depiction of New York society during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries,she is best rememberedfor classics such as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth.

With an Introduction by Graham Handley Who was the Countessand why does she selfishly ingratiate herself into the poorhousehold of Reverend Amos Barton, curate of Shepperton? The effecton his wife and family, and the responses of his congregation areshown in this, the first of George Eliot's works of fiction, andone of three short stories, which comprise Scenes of Clerical Life.The Reverend Maynard Gilfil, humble chaplain at Cheverel Manor, wasquietly in love with Caterina, a young beauty of Italian extractionliving at the manor. But she loved the heir to the estate, CaptainWybrow. Why does she prowl round the grounds at night with a daggerin her pocket? All is revealed in 'Mr Gilfil's Love Story', thesecond of the 'Scenes'. Why is the town of Milby so upset by theprospect of lectures from a young evangelical clergyman, EdgarTryan? What is the connection with the influential lawyer, RobertDempster? Beneath the respectable surface Dempster is a violentdrunk who abuses his wife Janet, already herself str

This superb new translation of "Death in Venice" and six otherstories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, sure to establish itselfas the definitive text for English-speaking readers. The sevenstories in this collection represent the early part of Mann'sliterary career, beginning with work he produced in 1896 at the ageof 21, and culminating in his most celebrated novella, "Death inVenice" (1912). Although Mann continued working until the end ofhis life in 1955, he despaired of ever matching the quality of hisearly writing. In these stories, Mann began to grapple with themesthat were to recur throughout his work. In the first piece, "LittleHerr Friedemann," as in "Death in Venice," a character's carefullystructured way of life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened bysexual passion. In "Gladius Dei," puritanical intellect clasheswith beauty. In "Tristan," Mann presents an ironic and comicalaccount of tension between an artist and bourgeois society. Allseven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but

Belonging in the company of the works of Homer and Virgil, The Inferno is a moving human drama, a journey through thetorment of Hell, an expression of the Middle Ages, and a protestagainst the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan.

Picking up where Henry IV, Part One left off after theBattle of Shrewsbury, Henry IV, Part Two is the story ofEngland's King Henry IV during his final months of life, hisreconciliation with his wayward heir, and his eventual death.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access towww.million-books.com where you can read more than a million booksfor free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IllSTEVE TREATS It was for several minutes, I suppose, that I stooddrawing these silent morals. No man occupied himself with me. Quietvoices, and games of chance, and glasses lifted to drink, continuedto be the peaceful order of the night. And into my thoughts brokethe voice of that card-dealer who had already spoken so sagely. Healso took his turn at moralizing. "What did I tell you?" heremarked to the man for whom he continued to deal, and whocontinued to lose money to him. "Tell me when?" " Didn't I tell youhe'd not shoot ? " the dealer pursued with complacence. " You gotready to dodge. You had no call to be concerned. He's not the kinda man need feel anxious about." The player looked over at theVirginian, doubtfully. " Well," he said, " I don't know what youfolks call a dangerous man." " Not him " exclaimed the dealer withadmi

The Winter's Tale was one of the very last plays Shakespeare wrote, a moving romance whose themes are sin, forgiveness, death, rebirth, and the power of Time and Nature to heal all wounds. Based on a novella by Shakespeare's enemy and arch rival Robert Greene, The Winter's Tale introduces Perdita, perhaps the Bard's most richly symbolic character. At times tragic, at times humorous, but always entertaining and instructive, The Winters Tale is a complex and rewarding work by the greatest dramatist of all time.

Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However human joy is not excluded thanks to 'Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown. Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its 'sullen socialism',but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R.Leavis have praised this book in the highest terms,while readers the world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from what is both Dickens' shorted completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society.

本研究成果以艾略特一生的经历、观点和作品(包括诗歌、戏剧和文学批评)为基础，对诗人作了一个综合性的研究。全书从艾略特的个人经历出发，阐述他的诗歌和戏剧的特殊意义。本书适合英美文学研究者参考学习。

In her lifetime, Marian Evans (1819-80) was celebrated under her pen name of George Eliot as England's greatest living novelist. Today, she is known primarily as the bane of school kids who, having SILAS MARNER thrust down their throats, learn to despise the written word. Dove seeks to make palatable this dreaded tome, about an idealistic orphan who discovers his Jewish heritage in the course of rescuing a Jewish singer and giving succor to the beautiful Gwendolen, who is trapped in a bad marriage. Like Beacham, Bron negotiates the author's difficult locutions with comprehension and aplomb. Unfortunately her Masterpiece Theaterish delivery loses some of Eliot's personality. However, she so masterfully and assuredly puts across the text and so insightfully presents the characters that we can forgive her the lapse into the prevailing fashion. If you're a former school kid wondering just what the heck makes this novel living literature, you may find out by picking up this audiobook.

In this classic collision of the New World with Old Europe,James weaves a fable of thwarted desire that shifts between comedy,tragedy, romance, and melodrama.

A mix of writers historical and modern, male and female, thisanthology includes works by such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin,Martin Luther King, Jr., Erma Bombeck, Sandra Cisneros, AlbertEinstein, Abigail Adams, Mark Twain, Eudora Welty, and John F.Kennedy.

A beautiful and hearty farm girl, Tess Durbeyfield is about tohave her life tragically changed by forces outside her control:lust, poverty, and hypocrisy. This controversial Victorian tale hascome to be recognized as a triumph of literary art.

In this, his final adventure, Buchan's hero Richard Hannay becomes embroiled in one of the most hazardous escapades of his life. Two men are honour bound to help the tormented Valdemar Haraldsen, and a third decides to mastermind the whole affair out o-f sheer love of adventure and a dislike of villains. In the final event, the fate of Haraldsen and his three redoubtable defenders rests on the undaunted bravery of two children. Buchan is one of the best-loved story-tellers of histime, and this thriller reflects a fundamental faith in the magnanimity of human nature that is both inspiring and refreshing.

The epic tale of Don Quixote and his faithful squire, SanchoPanza, and their picaresque adventures in the world of seventeenthcentury Spain, form the basis of one of the great treasures ofWestern literature - a book that is both a hilarious satire of thechivalric code and a biting portrayal of an age in which nobilitycan be a form of madness. This brand-new, thoroughly moderntranslation, and the extensive introduction and footnotes, makeCervantes' masterpiece more delightful and accessible to Englishreaders than ever before.