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This masterpiece of eighteenth-century English poetry tells the epic tale of a sailor who endures a fate worse than death for killing an albatross.
After callously shooting an albatross with his crossbow, a sailor is doomed to a nightmarish voyage from the Antarctic to the Equator before returning home as the sole survivor of the journey. When the haunting figure Life-in-Death wins his soul in a game of dice, the sailor is doomed to forever roam the...
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818) is a book length poem by British Romantic Lord Byron. Published in cantos, the narrative poem is arranged in four parts, each following the journey of Harold, a character based on Byron himself. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage established Byron's reputation as a leading poet of his era, laying the foundation for many of the elements of Romantic poetry-melancholy, sublime and beautiful landscapes, and a wandering hero-that...
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Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion...
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Classic Books Library presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare's play, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare. In "Pericles", a father loses his wife, who dies at sea during childbirth. Upon land, Pericles entrusts his new-born daughter, Marina, to the Governor of Tarsus and his wife. Fourteen years later, Marina escapes a deadly plan, devised by the jealous Governor's...
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Gerald Arbuthnot receives a promotion from Lord Illingworth, a worldly politician who has a sordid history of women, one of whom is Gerald's widowed mother. When their connection is revealed, the young man questions his past, present and future aspirations.
A Woman of No Importance opens with a high-class party featuring a group of society's most illustrious citizens. In the midst of the event, Gerald Arbuthnot enters and announces his new position...
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The Taming of the Shrew (1592) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. Written between 1590 and 1592, The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's earliest works. Frequently critiqued by scholars for its demeaning portrayal of Katherina and for Petruchio's violence, the play has also been considered as an ironic treatment of the inequality experienced by women in marriage. The Taming of the Shrew has served as source material for countless film and...
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First published in 1932, this fantastic volume contains a large collection of letters written by famous English author Jane Austen. Although on the surface a series of discussions about silk stockings, dinner menus and attending dances, and other trivial matters, these letters offer the reader unique insights in the life and mind of this great author. "The Letters of Jane Austen" is not to be missed by those who have read and enjoyed her works and...
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Unlock the world of Shakespeare, one enchanting tale at a time.
Journey through timeless stories of love, loss, and laughter in this captivating collection of Shakespeare's plays retold for young readers. Siblings Charles and Mary Lamb masterfully weave the Bard's magic into accessible prose, preserving the essence of his characters and conflicts while making them readily digestible for curious minds.
Experience the thrilling adventures...
29) An Ideal Husband
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First performed in 1895, "An Ideal Husband" is Oscar Wilde's classic and much-loved comedic drama. The play tells the story of an up-and-coming politician, Sir Robert Chiltern, who tries to hide his secret past from his judgmental wife and the blackmail scheme he is forced to participate in to keep that secret quiet. Lady Chiltern has a very particular idea of what makes the "ideal husband" which leaves her with little tolerance for Sir Robert's all...
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Geoffrey Chaucer's fourteenth-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales is such a rollicking good read that you'll forget many critics and scholars also regard it as one of the most important literary works in English. A group of pilgrims are traveling together to visit a holy shrine at the Canterbury Cathedral. Along the way, they decide to hold a storytelling contest to pass the time, with the winner to be awarded a lavish feast on the
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Jack Worthington is an upstanding gentleman in Victorian society. He just has one secret-he tells everyone that he has a brother named Earnest, when, in reality, Earnest is his alter ego. This allows him a certain duality; he can go out and party as Earnest, but have a sterling reputation as Jack. However, he must merge the two when Jack discovers that his lover, Gwendolyn, will only marry a man named Earnest. Meanwhile, Algernon, a family friend,...
32) Candida
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"Candida" is the story of its title character, a woman who is married to the Reverend Morell. Candida is a woman of many talents and her husband has his wife to thank for much of his success. When a young man by the name of Marchbanks professes his love for Candida, Morell must reexamine his relationship with his wife and ultimately discovers a side to her that he never knew existed. "Candida" is a play written during a time of great empowerment of...
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First staged in 1906, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his limited remedy, for the husband of a woman he is in love with can pay, but his kind yet poverty-stricken colleague Dr. Blenkinsop cannot. Shaw's drama...
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The Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans together with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and Caesar and Cleopatra. Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary...
35) Rapture: Poems
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Winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize, "essential reading for the broken-hearted of all ages" (The Guardian)
The effortless virtuosity, drama, and humanity of Carol Ann Duffy's verse have made her much admired among contemporary poets. Rapture is a book-length love poem and a moving act of personal testimony. But what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subject is Duffy's refusal to simplify the contradictions of love and read its transformations-infatuation,...
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Hailed by T. S. Eliot as "a dramatic delight," George Bernard Shaw's only tragedy traces the life of the peasant girl who led French troops to victory over the English in the Hundred Years' War. An avid socialist, Shaw regarded his writing as a vehicle for promoting his political and humanitarian views and exposing hypocrisy. With Saint Joan, he reached the height of his fame, and it was this play that led to his Nobel Prize in Literature for 1925....
37) Man and Superman
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As suggested by the reference to Nietzsche's "Übermensch" in the title of the play, George Bernard Shaw intended Man and Superman to be not only a light romantic comedy but also a deeply philosophical work. In this highly entertaining play, he lays out his perspective on life and the cosmos with unsurpassable wit and verve.
Upon the death of her father, Ann Whitefield is left in the care of two guardians, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Tanner,...
38) King John
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First published in the "First Folio" in 1623 and likely written in the 1590s, "King John" is one of William Shakespeare's best historical plays. It centers on the events of King John's reign of England during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. King John, son of Henry I of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, inherits the throne after the death of his older brother, King Richard I. John's claim to the throne is challenged by the King of...
40) Reflections
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My book Reflections is a small book of poems which I wrote after thinking back to some of my situations, and of other people who I have known.
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