books tagged “great books”

books tagged “great books”

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  • Aristophanes: The Acharnians
    The Acharnians
    by Aristophanes
    ISBN 0140442871 (0-14-044287-1)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
    by Mark Twain
    ISBN 0140366733 (0-14-036673-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Evoking life in a small Mississippi River town, Tom Sawyer is Twain's hymn to the secure and fantastic world of boyhood and adventure. [via]

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  • The Aeneid
    by Virgil, William F. Knight
    ISBN 0140440518 (0-14-044051-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    In Aeneas, Virgil created the most powerful figure in Latin literature, the dutiful yet fallible Trojan prince who overcomes war, suffering and countless setbacks to lay the foundations of the Roman race. [via]

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  • Aesop's Fables
    by Heidi Holder, Aesop
    ISBN 0140548726 (0-14-054872-6)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)

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    Book summary:

    "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse," "The Fox and the Grapes," "The Hare and the Tortoise"--these and other well-loved fables are ilustrated with intricately detailed paintings that provide a perfect counterpoint. "(A) magnificent volume . . . illustrated with elegant paintings in opulent colors."--Publishers Weekly. Full color. [via]

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  • Anna Karenina
    by Leo Tolstoy
    ISBN 0140440410 (0-14-044041-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    A magnificent drama of vengeance, infidelity, and retribution, "Anna Karenina" is the moving story of people whose emotions conflict with the dominant social mores of their time. Tolstoy's masterful novel is one of the greatest works of world literature...it is a novel of social realism that perfectly bares the Russian soul, set against the fascinating panorama of life in nineteenth-century Russia.
    With a full-cast and stirring music, this compelling story of one woman's fate is brought to life in this powerful BBC production. [via]

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  • As You Like It
    by William Shakespeare, Ralph Sargeant
    ISBN 0140714170 (0-14-071417-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)

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    Book summary:

    This wisely funny comedy, which contains some of Shakespeare's loveliest poetry, contrasts a country's world of envy and rivalry with a forest's world of compassion and harmony. In the Forest of Arden, the banished young heroine, Rosalind, disguised as a gentleman farmer, encounters an extraordinary assemblage of characters, including a fool, a malcontent traveler, her own banished father, and the banished young man she loves. Romantic happiness triumphs, even as we laugh at the excesses of love, at the ways of court and countryside, indeed, at everything, in this masterpiece of comic writing, [via]

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  • Beowulf
    by Michael Alexander
    ISBN 0140449310 (0-14-044931-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    A translation of the first epic poem in the English language. [via]

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  • Beowulf
    by David Wright
    ISBN 0140440704 (0-14-044070-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Beowulf stands at the head of English literature; a poem of historical interest and epic scope. Although the first manuscript of Beowulf dates from around the year 1000 CE, it is thought that the poem existed in its present form from the year 850. Beowulf's adventures themselves stand in front of the wide historical canvas of 5th and 6th century Scandinavia. Against this heroic background of feuding and feasting, Beowulf first kills the monster Grendel and her mother, and later defends his people against a dragon in a battle that leaves them both mortally wounded.


    @Eazy-B Uh oh. Grendel's mom showed up. She is really pissed. Wait. Monsters have feelings?

    From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

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  • The Black Tulip
    by Alexandre Dumas, Robin Buss
    ISBN 0140448926 (0-14-044892-6)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Cornelius von Baerle lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But when his powerful godfather is assassinated, the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in a deadly political intrigue. Falsely accused of high treason by a bitter rival, Cornelius is condemned to life in prison. His only comfort is Rosa, the jailer's beautiful daughter, who helps him concoct a plan to grow the black tulip in secret. As Robin Buss explains in his informative introduction, Dumas infuses his story with elements from the history of the Dutch Republic (including two brutal murders) and Holland's seventeenth-century "tulipmania" phenomenon.

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  • The Complete Pelican Shakespeare
    by Alfred Harbage
    ISBN 0140714499 (0-14-071449-9)
    Hardcover, Penguin USA

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    Book summary:


    THE CLASSIC ONE-VOLUME SHAKESPEARE,
    INCLUDING ALL THE PLAYS AND POEMS,
    NOW COMPLETELY REVISED AND UPDATED

    The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series has sold five million copies. Now Penguin is proud to offer this fully revised new hardcover edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare.

    Since the series debuted more than forty years ago, developments in scholarship have revolutionized our understanding of William Shakespeare, his time, and his works. With new editors who have incorporated the most up-to-date research and debate, this revised edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare will be the premier choice for students, professors, and general readers for decades to come.

    The general editors of the series-world-renowned Shakespeareans Stephen Orgel of Stanford University and A. R. Braunmuller of UCLA - devoted seven years to preparing introductions and notes with a team of eminent scholars to the forty volumes of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Now, the new series is complete and available in one lavish and complete edition.

    * Authoritative and meticulously researched texts
    * Illuminating new introductions and notes by distinguished authors
    * Essays on Shakespeare's life, the theatrical world of his time, and the selection of texts
    * A handsome new design inside and out * Deluxe packaging, including a full-linen case, ribbon marker, Smyth-sewn binding, printed endpapers, acid-free paper, and illustrations throughout
    * Photos and drawings reflecting Shakespeare's theatrical legacy
    * Line numbers marking every tenth line and footnote references
    * Both glossorial and explanatory notes appearing conveniently at the foot of the page

    [via]

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  • The Complete Pelican Shakespeare
    by William Shakespeare, Stephen Orgel
    ISBN 0141000589 (0-14-100058-9)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:


    THE CLASSIC ONE-VOLUME SHAKESPEARE,
    INCLUDING ALL THE PLAYS AND POEMS,
    NOW COMPLETELY REVISED AND UPDATED

    The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series has sold five million copies. Now Penguin is proud to offer this fully revised new hardcover edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare.

    Since the series debuted more than forty years ago, developments in scholarship have revolutionized our understanding of William Shakespeare, his time, and his works. With new editors who have incorporated the most up-to-date research and debate, this revised edition of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare will be the premier choice for students, professors, and general readers for decades to come.

    The general editors of the series-world-renowned Shakespeareans Stephen Orgel of Stanford University and A. R. Braunmuller of UCLA - devoted seven years to preparing introductions and notes with a team of eminent scholars to the forty volumes of Shakespeare's plays and poems. Now, the new series is complete and available in one lavish and complete edition.

    * Authoritative and meticulously researched texts
    * Illuminating new introductions and notes by distinguished authors
    * Essays on Shakespeare's life, the theatrical world of his time, and the selection of texts
    * A handsome new design inside and out * Deluxe packaging, including a full-linen case, ribbon marker, Smyth-sewn binding, printed endpapers, acid-free paper, and illustrations throughout
    * Photos and drawings reflecting Shakespeare's theatrical legacy
    * Line numbers marking every tenth line and footnote references
    * Both glossorial and explanatory notes appearing conveniently at the foot of the page

    [via]

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  • The Consolation of Philosophy
    by Boethius
    ISBN 0140442081 (0-14-044208-1)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Book summary:

    An eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, Boethius was also an exceptional Greek scholar, and it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned when he fell from favor and was imprisoned in Pavia. Written in the period leading up to his brutal execution, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his "nurse", Philosophy, whose instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment.

    The clarity of Boethius's thought and his breadth of vision made this work hugely popular throughout medieval Europe, and his ideas suffused the thought of Chaucer and Dante. This translation makes it accessible to the modern reader while losing nothing of Boethius's poetic artistry and philosophical brilliance. [via]

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  • Watts, V. E.: The Consolation of Philosophy
    The Consolation of Philosophy
    by V. E. Watts, Boethius
    ISBN 0140447806 (0-14-044780-6)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • Jacobs, Jane: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    The Death and Life of Great American Cities
    by Jane Jacobs
    ISBN 0140551417 (0-14-055141-7)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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  • Decameron
    by Giovanni Boccaccio, G.H. McWilliam
    ISBN 0140449302 (0-14-044930-2)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    A new translation of the fourteenth-century tales recounted by young citizens of Florence who have fled the city to escape the plague. [via]

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  • Democracy in America
    by Alexis De Tocqueville, Isaac Kramnick, Gerald E. Bevan
    ISBN 0140447601 (0-14-044760-1)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority on democracy.
     
    This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida.

    [via]

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  • The Descent of Man
    by Charles Darwin, Adrian Desmond, James Moore
    ISBN 0140436316 (0-14-043631-6)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin refused to discuss human evolution, believing the subject too surrounded with prejudices. He had been reworking his notes since the 1830s, but only with trepidation did he finally publish The Descent of Man in 1871. The book notoriously put apes in our family tree and made the races one family, diversified by sexual selectionDarwins provocative theory that female choice among competing males leads to diverging racial characteristics. Though less well known than The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man continues to shape the way we think about what it is that makes us uniquely human.

    • First time in Penguin Classics
    • Edited by the coauthors of the acclaimed biography Darwin
    • Includes Introduction, suggestions for further reading, chronology, biographical register, and index
    • Reproduces the book's original illustrations and Darwin's own notes
    [via]

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  • Electra and Other Plays
    by E.F. Watling, Sophocles
    ISBN 0140440283 (0-14-044028-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    All three of the great tragic poets of ancient greece produced plays about the electra myth. If sophocles (496-406 b.c.) lacks the archaic grandeur of aeschylus or the neurotic intensity of euripides, his version is supreme for its power and humanity [via]

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  • Emma
    by Jane Austen, Ronald Blythe
    ISBN 0140430105 (0-14-043010-5)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense--but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so imperfect. Austen only completed six novels in her lifetime, of which five feature young women whose chances for making a good marriage depend greatly on financial issues, and whose prospects if they fail are rather grim. Emma is the exception: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." One may be tempted to wonder what Austen could possibly find to say about so fortunate a character. The answer is, quite a lot.

    For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into a flirtation with Frank Churchill, the newly arrived son of family friends, and thoughtlessly starts a rumor about poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax, the beloved niece of two genteelly impoverished elderly ladies in the village. As Emma's fantastically misguided schemes threaten to surge out of control, the voice of reason is provided by Mr. Knightly, the Woodhouse's longtime friend and neighbor. Though Austen herself described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," she endowed her creation with enough charm to see her through her most egregious behavior, and the saving grace of being able to learn from her mistakes. By the end of the novel Harriet, Frank, and Jane are all properly accounted for, Emma is wiser (though certainly not sadder), and the reader has had the satisfaction of enjoying Jane Austen at the height of her powers. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings
    by Edgar Allan Poe, David Galloway
    ISBN 0140432914 (0-14-043291-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Poe, unquestioned master of the 'Grotesque and Arabesque," is fully represented here, but the volume also includes generous selections from his poetry and critical writings. Together they amount to a portrait of a complex personality, that of a conscious aesthete, the most exotic of American writers, who had at the same time engaged in an astonishing variety of interests. Nor are the 'Grotesque' tales the simple manipulations of terror that they seem; David Galloway's introduction reveals their author as a profoundly serious writer, whose investigations of extreme states of consciousness have a particular relevance for our time. [via]

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  • Fear and Trembling
    by Soren Kierkegaard
    ISBN 0140444491 (0-14-044449-1)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:


    The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped our world. Regarded as the father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard transformed philosophy with his conviction that we must all create our own nature; in this great work of religious anxiety, he argues that a true understanding of God can only be attained by making a personal "leap of faith."
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  • Gorgias
    by Plato, C.J. Emlyn-Jones, Chris Emlyn-Jones
    ISBN 0140449043 (0-14-044904-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, GORGIAS debates perennial questions about the nature of government and those who aspire to public office.

    Are high moral standards essential or should we give our preference to the pragmatist who gets things done or negotiates successfully? Should individuals be motivated by a desire for personal power and prestige, or genuine concern for the moral betterment of the citizens?

    These questions go to the heart of Athenian democratic principles and are more relevant than ever in today's political climate.

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  • The Heart of Darkness
    by Joseph Conrad
    ISBN 0140431683 (0-14-043168-3)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' is widely regarded as one of the most significant works of English literature and part of the Western canon. The story was the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'. This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary. The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company. Although the river is never specifically named, readers may assume it is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization in a cover up. [via]

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  • The Iliad
    by Homer, Robert Fagles
    ISBN 0140445927 (0-14-044592-7)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Newly updated by D. C. H. Rieu, son of E. V. Rieu One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode of the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his conflict with his leader Agamemnon. Interwoven in the tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, the besieged city of Ilium, the feud between the gods, and the fate of mortals. @RageAgainstTheAchaean Pissed. I am so, so very pissed. First I have to go to this beach. Then I have to kill all these dudes. And NOW - now! This prick stole my biscuit. Who does that? Am I right? Can't resolve this problem on my own - calling Mom! From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less [via]

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  • Jane Eyre
    by Charlotte Bronte
    ISBN 0140366784 (0-14-036678-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    As an orphan, Jane Eyre is far from happy. She endures the hatred of her aunt and cousins, but finally begins to find some pleasure as a teacher. When she becomes a governess working for Mr Rochester, Jane hopes she might at last have found love and kindness. [via]

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  • Galati, Frank: John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath
    John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath
    by Frank Galati
    ISBN 0140482326 (0-14-048232-6)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • King Solomon's Mines
    by Henry Rider Haggard, Alan Langford
    ISBN 0140366873 (0-14-036687-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Three men trek to the remote African interior in search of a lost friend - and reach, at the end of a perilous journey, an unknown land cut off from the world, where terrible dangers threaten anyone who ventures near the spectacular diamond mines of King Solomon. [via]

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  • La Vita Nuova: (Poems Of Youth)
    by Alighieri Dante, Barbara Reynolds
    ISBN 0140449477 (0-14-044947-7)
    Softcover, Penguin Classics

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    Book summary:

    La Vita Nuova marked a turning point in European literature, introducing personal experience into the strict formalism of medieval love poetry. The sequence of poems tells the story of Dante?s passion for Beatrice, the beautiful sister of one of his closest friends, transformed through his writing into a symbol of love that was both spiritual and romantic. From unrequited passion to the profound grief he experiences at the loss of his love, this work intersperses exquisite verse with Dante?s own commentary on the structure and origins of each poem, offering a unique insight into the poet?s art and skill. Barbara Reynolds?s translation, acclaimed for its lucidity and faithfulness to the original, is now enhanced with a new introduction and other material.

    [via]

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  • The Last Days of Socrates
    by Plato, Hugh Tredennick
    ISBN 0140449280 (0-14-044928-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The Last Days of Socrates, written by legendary author Plato, is widely considered to be one of the greatest classic texts of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, The Last Days of Socrates is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Plato is highly recommended. Published by Classic Books International and beautifully produced, The Last Days of Socrates would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library. [via]

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  • Les Miserables
    by Norman Denny, Victor Hugo
    ISBN 0140444300 (0-14-044430-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    He was no longer Jean Valjean, but No. 24601

    Victor Hugos tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged policeman Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty. A compelling and compassionate view of the victims of early nineteenth-century French society, Les Misérables is a novel on an epic scale, moving inexorably from the eve of the battle of Waterloo to the July Revolution of 1830.

    Norman Dennys introduction to his lively English translation discusses Hugos political and artistic aims in writing Les Misérables.

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  • Letters of Abelard and Heloise
    by Michael Clanchy, Betty Radice, Peter Abelard, Heloise
    ISBN 0140448993 (0-14-044899-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    Abelard and Heloise are nearly as famous a pair of tragic lovers as the fictional Romeo and Juliet; their shared passion for knowledge, religious faith, and one another sealed their destiny. Abelard was a well-respected, 12th-century Parisian scholar and teacher, and Heloise was his talented young student. The two relate their story through a set of letters to one another and intimate acquaintances. Their ardor is unmistakable; as Abelard writes to his love, "So intense were the fires of lust which bound me to you that I set those wretched, obscene pleasures, which we blush even to name, above God as above myself..." This forbidden lust resulted in a pregnancy and secret marriage, and when their union could no longer withstand the challenges in its path, each lover sought refuge in the church--Abelard became a monk and Heloise an abbess. Their correspondence continued as both achieved success in their new careers but continued to struggle with their feelings for one another; the set of letters powerfully articulates the wide range of emotions they experienced. So timeless is their love story that--after eight centuries--their passion, their devotion, and their struggle still resonate with readers. [via]

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  • The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
    by Pierre Abailard
    ISBN 0140442979 (0-14-044297-9)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Abelard and Heloise are nearly as famous a pair of tragic lovers as the fictional Romeo and Juliet; their shared passion for knowledge, religious faith, and one another sealed their destiny. Abelard was a well-respected, 12th-century Parisian scholar and teacher, and Heloise was his talented young student. The two relate their story through a set of letters to one another and intimate acquaintances. Their ardor is unmistakable; as Abelard writes to his love, "So intense were the fires of lust which bound me to you that I set those wretched, obscene pleasures, which we blush even to name, above God as above myself..." This forbidden lust resulted in a pregnancy and secret marriage, and when their union could no longer withstand the challenges in its path, each lover sought refuge in the church--Abelard became a monk and Heloise an abbess. Their correspondence continued as both achieved success in their new careers but continued to struggle with their feelings for one another; the set of letters powerfully articulates the wide range of emotions they experienced. So timeless is their love story that--after eight centuries--their passion, their devotion, and their struggle still resonate with readers. [via]

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  • Leviathan
    by Thomas Hobbes, C. B. MacPherson
    ISBN 0140431950 (0-14-043195-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Your most worthy Brother Mr SIDNEY GODOLPHIN, when he lived, was pleas'd to think my studies something, and otherwise to oblige me, as you know, with reall testimonies of his good opinion, great in themselves, and the greater for the worthinesse of his person. For there is not any vertue that disposeth a man, either to the service of God, or to the service of his Country, to Civill Society, or private Friendship, that did not manifestly appear in his conversation, not as acquired by necessity, or affected upon occasion, but inhaerent, and shining in a generous constitution of his nature. Therefore in honour and gratitude to him, and with devotion to your selfe, I humbly Dedicate unto you this my discourse of Common-wealth. I know not how the world will receive it, nor how it may reflect on those that shall seem to favour it. For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, 'tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded. But yet, me thinks, the endeavour to advance the Civill Power, should not be by the Civill Power condemned; nor private men, by reprehending it, declare they think that Power too great. Besides, I speak not of the men, but (in the Abstract) of the Seat of Power, (like to those simple and unpartiall creatures in the Roman Capitol, that with their noyse defended those within it, not because they were they, but there) offending none, I think, but those without, or such within (if there be any such) as favour them. That which perhaps may most offend, are certain Texts of Holy Scripture, alledged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others. But I have done it with due submission, and also (in order to my Subject) necessarily; for they are the Outworks of the Enemy, from whence they impugne the Civill Power. If notwithstanding this, you find my labour generally decryed, you may be pleased to excuse your selfe, and say that I am a man that love my own opinions, and think all true I say, that I honoured your Brother, and honour you, and have presum'd on that, to assume the Title (without your knowledge) of being, as I am,


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  • Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
    by Daniel Defoe, Angus Ross
    ISBN 0140430075 (0-14-043007-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    This classic story of a shipwrecked mariner on a deserted island is perhaps the greatest adventure in all of English literature. Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand... Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal. The first important English novel, "Robinson Crusoe" has taken its rightful place among the great myths of Western civilization. [via]

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  • Madame Bovary
    by Gustave Flaubert, Geoffrey Wall
    ISBN 0140449124 (0-14-044912-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    For this novel of French bourgeois life in all its inglorious banality, Flaubert invented a paradoxically original and wholly modern style. His heroine, Emma Bovary, a bored provincial housewife, abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a
    desperate love affair. A succès de scandale in its day, Madame Bovary remains a powerful and arousing novel.


    @TheRealDesperateHousewife My sadness is bothersome. He says I need to change scenery. That will help like a trip to Italy cures TB. What I need is a good poking.

    From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

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  • Mansfield Park
    by Jane Austen, Tony Tanner
    ISBN 0140430164 (0-14-043016-4)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Book summary:

    Though Jane Austen was writing at a time when Gothic potboilers such as Ann Ward Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto were all the rage, she never got carried away by romance in her own novels. In Austen's ordered world, the passions that ruled Gothic fiction would be horridly out of place; marriage was, first and foremost, a contract, the bedrock of polite society. Certain rules applied to who was eligible and who was not, how one courted and married and what one expected afterwards. To flout these rules was to tear at the basic fabric of society, and the consequences could be terrible. Each of the six novels she completed in her lifetime are, in effect, comic cautionary tales that end happily for those characters who play by the rules and badly for those who don't. In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen gives us Fanny Price, a poor young woman who has grown up in her wealthy relatives' household without ever being accepted as an equal. The only one who has truly been kind to Fanny is Edmund Bertram, the younger of the family's two sons.

    Into this Cinderella existence comes Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary, who are visiting relatives in the neighborhood. Soon Mansfield Park is given over to all kinds of gaiety, including a daring interlude spent dabbling in theatricals. Young Edmund is smitten with Mary, and Henry Crawford woos Fanny. Yet these two charming, gifted, and attractive siblings gradually reveal themselves to be lacking in one essential Austenian quality: principle. Without good principles to temper passion, the results can be disastrous, and indeed, Mansfield Park is rife with adultery, betrayal, social ruin, and ruptured friendships. But this is a comedy, after all, so there is also a requisite happy ending and plenty of Austen's patented gentle satire along the way. Describing the switch in Edmund's affections from Mary to Fanny, she writes: "I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that everyone may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people." What does not vary is the pleasure with which new generations come to Jane Austen. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • The Metamorphoses
    by Ovid
    ISBN 0140440585 (0-14-044058-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    The first English translation of one of the supreme masterpieces of Latin literature, "Golding's Metamorphoses" (1567) decisively influenced Shakespeare, Spenser and the character of English Renaissance writing. Ovid's deliciously witty and poignant epic starts with the creation of the world and brings together a series of ingeniously linked myths and legends in which men and women are transformed, often by love - into flowers, trees, stones and stars. This robustly vernacular version adds a Christian moral framework, clarifies obscurities and gives an English flavour to the rustic settings, thus making readily available to later writers a treasure-trove of comic, eerie and erotic tales. [via]

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  • Metamorphoses
    by Peter Forbes, David Raeburn, Denis Feeney
    ISBN 014044789X (0-14-044789-X)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Ovids sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome, including Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Pygmalion, Perseus and Andromeda, and the fall of Troy. Erudite but light-hearted, dramatic and yet playful, the Metamorphoses has influenced writers and artists throughout the centuries from Shakespeare and Titian to Picasso and Ted Hughes.

    • Includes introduction, a preface to each book, explanatory notes, and an index of people, gods, and places
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  • Middlemarch
    by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton
    ISBN 0140433880 (0-14-043388-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    In a panoramic sweep of the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, George Eliot explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamund Vincy, beautiful and egoistic; Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar; Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally flawed physician; the passionate artist, Will Ladislaw; and Fred Vincy and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's comic vein. [via]

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  • Northanger Abbey
    by Jane Austen, Anne Henry Ehrenpreis
    ISBN 0140430741 (0-14-043074-1)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

    Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • The Odyssey
    by Homer, Geraldine McCaughrean, Victor G. Ambrus
    ISBN 0140383093 (0-14-038309-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    The epic tale of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home after the Trojan War forms one of the earliest and greatest works of Western literature. @IthacaStateOfMind Uh oh. This cave is a giant's lair. He has a taste for cheese, and my companions. He also has only one eye. Trying to keep from laughing. Got him drunk. Put a hot poker in his ONE EYE when he blacked out. That will show him - if he could see. LOL. Time to leave. Damn. Poseidon pissed. How was I supposed to know One-Eye was his son? What Olympian whore did he sleep with to get an issue like that? From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less [via]

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  • The Origin of Species: Library Edition
    by Charles Robert Darwin
    ISBN 0140432051 (0-14-043205-1)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    With his revolutionary work "The Origin of Species", Charles Darwin overthrew contemporary beliefs about Divine Providence and the beginnings of life on earth. Written for the general public of the 1850s, it is a rigorously documented but highly readable account of the scientific theory that now lies at the root of our present attitude to the universe. Challenging notions such as the fixity of species with the idea of natural selection, and setting forth the results of pioneering work on the ecology of animals and plants, it made a lasting contribution to philosophical and scientific thought. [via]

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  • The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggled for Life
    by Charles Robert Darwin
    ISBN 014040001X (0-14-040001-X)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • Othello
    by William Shakespeare, Bentley, Gerald E., Jr.
    ISBN 0140714103 (0-14-071410-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)

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    If anything, Othello has increased its stature as one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies ever since it was first written, between 1603 and 1604, due to the victimisation suffered by its tragic hero, Othello, as a result of his skin colour. Othello is a "noble Moor", a North African Muslim who has converted to Christianity and is deemed one of the Venetian state's most reliable soldiers. However, his ensign Iago harbours an obscure hatred against his general, and when Othello secretly marries the beautiful daughter of the Venetian senator Brabanzio, Iago begins his subtle campaign of vilification, which will inevitably lead to the deaths of more than just Othello and Desdemona.

    An extraordinary play, both for its dramatic economy and power as well as its remarkable language, from Othello's bombastic "traveller's history" to Desdemona's elegiac "willow song", the play raises uncomfortable questions about ongoing questions of not only racial identity but also sexuality, as Othello and Desdemona's sexual relationship becomes the voyeuristic site of Iago's attempt to destroy them. Particularly fascinated with the question of what it means to "see", Othello also contains one of the greatest tragic death scenes in all of Shakespeare, with Othello's final identification with "a malignant and a turbaned Turk". --Jerry Brotton [via]

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  • Plato: Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII
    Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII
    by Plato, Walter Hamilton
    ISBN 0140442758 (0-14-044275-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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  • The Picture of Dorian Grey
    by Oscar Wilde, Peter Ackroyd
    ISBN 014043187X (0-14-043187-X)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

    As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment." [via]

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  • Plato: Republic
    by Plato, Desmond Lee
    ISBN 0140440488 (0-14-044048-8)
    Softcover, Penguin USA

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    Book summary:

    The Republic is arguably the greatest of Plato's dialogues. Although its subject is the ideal state, it encompasses education, psychology, ethics and politics. In the Republic's central passage, Plato uses myth to explore the nature of reality, conveying a vision of the human predicament and the role of philosophy in setting us free. He imagines a cave whose inhabitants are chained from birth watching a shadow-play that they take for reality. The role of philosophy, and more specifically what Plato calls dialectic, is to turn us away from the shadow play and orient ourselves towards the real. This is the essence of the pursuit of wisdom without which an ideal state is impossible. Few modern readers will agree with everything that Plato says, yet his rigorous argument and poetic vision still have the power to stimulate and challenge. This enduring power has made The Republic one of the foundation stones of western culture. [via]

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  • Plato: Protagoras And Meno
    Protagoras and Meno
    by Plato, Lesley Brown, Adam Beresford
    ISBN 0140449035 (0-14-044903-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Classics

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    Plato, the most brilliant of Socrates The cover shows a detail from a Greek amphora in the Louvre [via]

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  • Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France
    Reflections on the Revolution in France
    by Edmund Burke
    ISBN 0140432043 (0-14-043204-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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  • The Republic
    by Plato, Desmond Lee
    ISBN 0140449140 (0-14-044914-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Plato's "Republic" is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge? "The Republic" also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as 'guardians' of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by 'philosopher kings'. [via]

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  • Robinson Crusoe
    by Daniel Defoe
    ISBN 0140367225 (0-14-036722-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    With 'Robinson Crusoe', Defoe became the author of one of the earliest English novels and created one of the most famous and resonant myths in literature. This gripping adventure story begins as Crusoe leaves the English coast for Africa and finds himself the sole survivor of a shipwreck. On the desert island he comes across another human footprint on the shore, encounters cannibals, and befriends a native he calls Friday. Crusoe's story is also an account of one man's physical survival and his psychological and spiritual development in an alienating and dangerous solitude. [via]

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  • Rose in Bloom
    by Louisa May Alcott
    ISBN 0140374515 (0-14-037451-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Six years before she wrote Little Women, and in financial straits, Louisa May Alcott entered "Pauline's Passion and Punishment, " a novelette, in a newspaper contest. Not only did it win the $100 prize, but, published anonymously, it marked the first of the series of "blood & thunder tales" that would provide her livelihood for years. For as she said, "They are easy to 'compoze' & are better paid than moral...works." The gruesome, passionate stories reveal a darker side of Alcott. Published anonymously or under the pseudonym of A. M. Barnard, they appeared in weeklies over a century ago. In their mastery of suspense and psychological drama, and in their embodiment of a startlingly intense - if oblique - feminism, they attest to the multifaceted genius of their creator. "Pauline's Passion and Punishment" features a woman who is scorned by her lover and left with her fury and her desire for revenge. The male hero of "The Mysterious Key" must unearth secrets hidden away in a family tomb if he is to realize true love. Mysterious pasts and all-too-present jealousies conflict for some surprising effects on the holiday mood in "The Abbot's Ghost." And "Behind a Mask" tells the chilling story of a woman thwarted by love, whose main motivation becomes her desire to dominate an entire family. [via]

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  • Sense And Sensibility
    by Jane Austen, Linda Jennings
    ISBN 0140378502 (0-14-037850-2)
    Softcover, Puffin

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    Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting on Edward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly," she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister:

    Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!
    Soon however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal: Mr. Willoughby, a new neighbor. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behavior begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her; meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. How each of the sisters reacts to their romantic misfortunes, and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired; a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure. --Alix Wilber [via]

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  • She
    by H. Rider Haggard, Patrick Brantlinger
    ISBN 0140437630 (0-14-043763-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Ayesha is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, a 2,000-year-old queen who rules a fabled lost city deep in a maze of African caverns. She has the occult wisdom of Isis, the eternal youth and beauty of Aphrodite, and the violent appetite of a lamia. Like A. Conan Doyle's Lost World, She is one of those magnificent Victorian yarns about an expedition to a far-off locale shadowed by magic, mystery, and death.

    Tim Stout writes, in Horror: 100 Best Books, "As the plot takes hold one has the fancy that [Ayesha] had always existed, in some dark dimension of the imagination, and that [H. Rider] Haggard was the fortunate author to whom she chose to reveal herself." Haggard did, in fact, write this book in a six-week burst of feverish inspiration: "It came faster than my poor aching hand could set it down," he later said.

    This edition of the 1887 classic features an introductory essay by literary critic Regina Barreca, who likens Ayesha to Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Tolstoy's Anna Karenina--"literally fantastic female figures who must be stopped before they love again." [via]

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  • A Tale of Two Cities
    by Charles Dickens, Linda Jennings
    ISBN 0140373365 (0-14-037336-5)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    One of Dickens's most haunting novels, A Tale of Two Cities has, since its first serial publication in 1859, continued to exert a grip on the popular imagination. The two cities of the title -- a lethal, vengeful Paris during the French Revolution and a leafy, tranquil London -- are only one of the novel's stark dichotomies, which are continued as Syndey Carton and Charles Darnay are drawn toward their separate destinies -- their lives touched by the same woman.

    In his absorbing Introduction, Richard Maxwell discusses the novel's intricate design, in which Dickens magnificently interweaves epic drama with personal tragedy. Comparing it to Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Maxwell argues that A Tale of Two Cities "stands as Dickens's most memorable effort to see a world in a very small space; a work short by its nature ... yet curiously at its ease among giants". [via]

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  • Tales from the Thousand and One Nights
    by N. J. Dawood
    ISBN 0140442898 (0-14-044289-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    The tales told by Shahrazad over a thousand and one nights to delay her execution by the vengeful King Shahriyar have become among the most popular in both Eastern and Western literature. From the epic adventures of "Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp" to the farcical "Young Woman and her Five Lovers" and the social criticism of "The Tale of the Hunchback", the stories depict a fabulous world of all-powerful sorcerers, jinns imprisoned in bottles and enchanting princesses. But despite their imaginative extravagance, the Tales are anchored to everyday life by their realism, providing a full and intimate record of medieval Islam. [via]

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  • Theban Plays
    by Sophocles, E.F. Watling
    ISBN 0140440038 (0-14-044003-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Small paperback [via]

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  • The Three Theban Plays
    by Robert Fagles, Sophocles, Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox
    ISBN 0140444254 (0-14-044425-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Aristotle called "Oedipus The King," the second-written of the three Theban plays written by Sophocles, the masterpiece of the whole of Greek theater. Today, nearly 2,500 years after Sophocles wrote, scholars and audiences still consider it one of the most powerful dramatic works ever made. Freud sure did. The three plays--"Antigone," "Oedipus the King," and "Oedipus at Colonus"--are not strictly a trilogy, but all are based on the Theban myths that were old even in Sophocles' time. This particular edition was rendered by Robert Fagles, perhaps the best translator of the Greek classics into English. [via]

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  • The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice
    by William Shakespeare, Russ McDonald
    ISBN 0140714634 (0-14-071463-4)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    "I feel that I have spent half my career with one or another Pelican Shakespeare in my back pocket. Convenience, however, is the least important aspect of the new Pelican Shakespeare series. Here is an elegant and clear text for either the study or the rehearsal room, notes where you need them and the distinguished scholarship of the general editors, Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller who understand that these are plays for performance as well as great texts for contemplation." (Patrick Stewart)

    The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare series, which has sold more than four million copies, is now completely revised and repackaged.

    Each volume features:
    * Authoritative, reliable texts
    * High quality introductions and notes
    * New, more readable trade trim size
    * An essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare and essays on Shakespeare's life and the selection of texts
    [via]

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  • The Twelve Caesars
    by Michael Grant, Suetonius, Robert Graves
    ISBN 0140440720 (0-14-044072-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Born in 60 A.D., Suetonius served for several years as secretary to the Roman emperor Hadrian. His years in the palaces and halls of imperial government served him well when he set out to write this oftentimes eye-popping, tell-all account of the doings of the first 12 emperors, from Julius to Domitian, who make the good fellas of Mafia renown seem tame by comparison. From Suetonius we learn that Augustus was afraid of lightning and thunder and carried a piece of seal skin as protection against them; that Caligula slept with his mother and his sister; and that Nero outlawed mimes in Rome--which may mean that he wasn't such a bad man after all. Suetonius doesn't hesitate to say when he's reporting gossip that he has not personally verified, but what gossip it is! This translation, by the noted classicist Robert Graves, serves the ancient chronicler very well indeed. [via]

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  • The Twelve Caesars
    by Suetonius, Robert Graves, Michael Grant
    ISBN 0140449213 (0-14-044921-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    › Find signed collectible books: 'The Twelve Caesars'
    Book summary:

    Born in 60 A.D., Suetonius served for several years as secretary to the Roman emperor Hadrian. His years in the palaces and halls of imperial government served him well when he set out to write this oftentimes eye-popping, tell-all account of the doings of the first 12 emperors, from Julius to Domitian, who make the good fellas of Mafia renown seem tame by comparison. From Suetonius we learn that Augustus was afraid of lightning and thunder and carried a piece of seal skin as protection against them; that Caligula slept with his mother and his sister; and that Nero outlawed mimes in Rome--which may mean that he wasn't such a bad man after all. Suetonius doesn't hesitate to say when he's reporting gossip that he has not personally verified, but what gossip it is! This translation, by the noted classicist Robert Graves, serves the ancient chronicler very well indeed. [via]

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  • Uncle Tom's Cabin
    by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ann Douglas
    ISBN 0140390030 (0-14-039003-0)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Product Details Paperback Publisher: Penguin Books; Later Printing edition (1986) Language: English ISBN-10: 0140390030 ISBN-13: 978-0140390032 ASIN: B000KIVCLI Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches Shipping Weight: 1 pounds [via]

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  • Utopia
    by Paul Turner, Thomas More
    ISBN 0140449108 (0-14-044910-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    Sir Thomas More's entertaining description of Utopia, an island supporting a perfectly organized and happy people, was a best-seller when it first appeared in Latin in 1516. This work of a Catholic martyr has later been seen as the source of Ana-baptism, Mormonism, and even communism. Utopia revolutionized Plato's classical blueprint of the perfect republic, mainly by its realism. Locating his island in the (then) New World, More endowed it with a language and poetry, and detailed the length of the working day and even the divorce laws. Such precision gives a disturbing and exciting impact to Utopia, which still remains a book of the future. [via]

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  • Virgil's Aeneid
    by Frederick M. Keener, Publio Maron Virgilio, John Dryden
    ISBN 0140446273 (0-14-044627-3)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Virgil's epic vividly recounts Aeneas's tortuous journey after the Trojan War and the struggles he faced as he lay the foundations for the greatest continental empire. Rendered into a vigorous and refined English by the most important man of letters of the seventeenth century, this translation of the Aeneid "set a new, august standard so influential as to be epochal." For his version, John Dryden drew on the deep understanding of political unrest he had acquired during the Civil Wars of 1642-51 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.


    @TranslatioStud Got a gift of a huge wooden horse today, here in Troy. Just appeared outside the city gate. BTW: War going poorly.

    Surprise. Soldiers inside the horse. We didnt start the fire! Hectors Ghost says to GTFO  take Dad and the kid with me.

    Im on a boat. Three generations of Aenean men on a sea-journey of epic proportions. Hmm. Sounds familiar&

    From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

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  • Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
    by Walt Whitman, Malcolm Cowley
    ISBN 0140421998 (0-14-042199-8)
    Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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    Book summary:

    This is the original and complete 1855 edition of one of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, including Whitman's own introduction to the work. [via]

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