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Macbeth: A Tragedy
by William ShakespeareMacbeth dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.
Measure for Measure
by William ShakespeareWhen the Duke of Vienna leaves the city under the governance of Angelo, a strict judge, Claudio and Juliet find themselves in violation of Vienna's severe morality laws. With Claudio's life at risk, Isabella, his sister and a novice nun, agrees to plead the case before Angelo. The duke, disguised as a friar, helps Isabella when it becomes apparent Angelo will only help if she compromises herself, and her beliefs. One of Shakespeare's more complex comedies, Measure for Measure examines ethical and moral issues that still resonate today.
Much Ado About Nothing
by William ShakespeareTwo couples—Benedick and Beatrice, and Hero and Claudio—must overcome deception, gossip, and, occasionally, their own misplaced pride if their love is to persevere.
Helium: The Disappearing Element (SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences #2)
by Wheeler M. "Bo" Sears, Jr.The subject of the book is helium, the element, and its use in myriad applications including MRI machines, particle accelerators, space telescopes, and of course balloons and blimps. It was at the birth of our Universe, or the Big Bang, where the majority of cosmic helium was created; and stellar helium production continues. Although helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe, it is actually quite rare here on Earth and only exists because of radioactive elements deep within the Earth. This book includes a detailed history of the discovery of helium, of the commercial industry built around it, how the helium we actually encounter is produced within the Earth, and the state of the helium industry today. The gas that most people associate with birthday party balloons is running out. “Who cares?” you might ask. Well, without helium, MRI machines could not function, rockets could not go into space, particle accelerators such as those used by CERN could not operate, fiber optic cables would not exist, and semiconductor chips could not be made…the list goes on and on.
Far from the Madding Crowd: Revised Edition Of Original Version (Classics To Go)
by Thomas HardyGabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep-farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough, and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Gabriel's blunt protestations only serve to drive her to haughtiness. After a few days, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off. When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheep dog drives Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts, but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a work fair in the town of Casterbridge, (a fictionalised version of Dochester). When he finds none, he heads to another fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On the way, he happens upon a dangerous fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited the estate of her uncle and is now a wealthy woman. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she hires him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when – her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance – she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words "Marry me". Boldwood, not realising the valentine was a jest, becomes obsessed with Bathsheba, and soon proposes marriage. Although she does not love him, she toys with the idea of accepting his offer; he is, after all, the most eligible bachelor in the district. However, she postpones giving him a definite answer. When Gabriel rebukes her for her thoughtlessness, she fires him. When her sheep begin dying from bloat, she discovers to her chagrin that Gabriel is the only man who knows how to cure them. Her pride delays the inevitable, but finally she is forced to beg him for help. Afterwards, she offers him back his job and their friendship is restored... (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
War and Peace: A Historical Novel, Volume 1... (Classics To Go)
by Leo TolstoyThe standard Russian text of "War and Peace" is divided into four books (fifteen parts) and an epilogue in two parts. "War and Peace" has a large cast of characters, the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. Some are actual historical figures, such as Napoleon and Alexander I. While the scope of the novel is vast, it is centred around five aristocratic families. The plot and the interactions of the characters take place in the era surrounding the 1812 French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas HardyPowerful and controversial from its 1895 publication to the present, Jude the Obscure scandalized Victorian critics, who condemned it as decadent, indecent, and degenerate. Between its frank portrayals of sexuality and its indictments of marriage, religion, and England's class system, the novel offended a broad swath of readers. Its heated reception led the embittered author to renounce fiction, turning his considerable talents ever afterward to writing poetry.Hardy's last novel depicts a changing world, where a poor stonemason can aspire to a university education and a higher place in society--but where in reality such dreams remain unattainable. Thwarted at every turn, Jude Hawley abandons his hopes, is trapped into an unwise marriage, and pursues a doomed relationship with his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. The lovers find themselves equally incapable of living within the conventions of their era and of transcending its legal and moral strictures. Hailed by modern critics as a pioneering work of feminism and socialist thought, Hardy's tragic parable continues to resonate with readers.
The Woman in White: A Novel (part Two) And Short Stories: The Dead Alive; The Fatal Cradle; Fatal Fortune; Blow Up With The Brig (Classics To Go #Vol. 1)
by Wilkie CollinsWilliam Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are “The Woman in White”, “The Moonstone”, “Armadale”, and “No Name”. “The Woman in White” is Wilkie Collins' fifth published novel, written in 1859. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of "sensation novels". The story is sometimes considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narrators draws on Collins's legal training, and as he points out in his Preamble: "the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness". In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed The Woman in White number 23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 77 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
You Never Can Tell: A Pleasant Play (Classics To Go)
by George Bernard ShawYou Never Can Tell is an 1897 four-act play by George Bernard Shaw that debuted at the Royalty Theatre. It was published as part of a volume of Shaw's plays entitled Plays Pleasant. In June 2011, the play was revived at the Coliseum Theatre in Aberystwyth, Wales, where it had been performed exactly one century earlier. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets: With Prefaces (Classics To Go)
by George ShawThe Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a 1910 short comedy by George Bernard Shaw in which William Shakespeare, intending to meet the "Dark Lady", accidentally encounters Queen Elizabeth I and attempts to persuade her to create a national theatre. The play was written as part of a campaign to create a "Shakespeare National Theatre" by 1916. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
The Count of Monte Cristo: In English Translation (Classics To Go)
by Alexandre DumasThe book is considered a literary classic today. According to Luc Sante, "The Count of Monte Cristo has become a fixture of Western civilisation's literature, as inescapable and immediately identifiable as Mickey Mouse, Noah's flood, and the story of Little Red Riding Hood. (Wikipedia)
The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems: With Other Poems Of Chaucer And Spenser; Edited For Popular Perusal, With Current Illustrative And Explanatory Notes (classic Reprint) (Classics To Go)
by Geoffrey ChaucerThe Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work. It was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. (Wikipedia)
Captain Singleton: The Life, Adventures, And Piracies Of Captain Singleton (Classics To Go)
by Daniel DefoeThe book tells the story of Bob Singleton, who had been kidnapped as a boy from a good home and grew up with no real home. He came aboard a ship and eventually ended up being cast on an island with other crewmen. They managed to get to Africa and about the first half of the novel deals with the company's travel through Africa until they found a port from which they could get back to Europe. After their return there Singleton became member of another ships' crew and after a mutiny they led the lives of pirates with Singleton as their captain, which mostly covers the last half of the book, finishing in Singleton and a friend being repentant, leaving of their (successful) lives as pirates and returning home in disguise to find a peaceful life. (Excerpt from Goodreads)
Fast in the Ice Adventures in the Polar Regions: Or Adventures In The Polar Regions (1870) (Classics To Go)
by R. M. BallantyneOne day, many years ago, a brig cast off from her moorings, and sailed from a British port for the Polar Seas. That brig never came back. Many a hearty cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the vessel left Old England, and steered her course into the unknown regions of the far north. (Goodreads)
Famous Men of Ancient Times: By The Author Of Peter Parley's Tales (Classics To Go)
by Samuel GoodrichExcerpt: "Confucius - From Famous Men of Ancient Times by S. G. Goodrich.... This greatest of Chinese philosophers was born in the petty kingdom of Lu, now the province of Shantung, in the year 549 B. C.-the same year that Cyrus became king of the Medes and Persians. The Chinese, in their embellishments of his history, tell us that his birth was attended with heavenly music, filling the air; that two dragons were seen winding over the roof; that five old men appeared at the door, and after consulting together, suddenly vanished; and that a unicorn brought to his mother a tablet in his mouth. It is also related that when he was born, five characters were seen on his breast, declaring him to be "the maker of a rule for settling the world." These and other marvels are a part of the established biography of the philosopher, as received by the Chinese...."
Vikram And The vampire: Or, Tales Of Hindu Devilry
by Sir Richard F. Burton‘O King Vikram, listen to the true story which I am about to tell thee…’ Thus begins Vikram and the Vampire, British Orientalist Richard F. Burton’s classic retelling of the Sanskrit Vetala Panchavimshati (Twenty-five Tales of the Betal), the ever-popular tales about the legendary king Vikramaditya and the vampire, or Betal, who vexes the king with stories that pose searching questions about the morals of life in ancient India. Although based on earlier oral traditions, one of the stories’ first retelling is found in the eleventh-century Kathasaritsagara (Ocean of the Stream of Stories). Gods and demons, ghouls and kings, abound in these stories that capture mythic India at its best and bring to life an ancient world. An intrepid explorer and traveller, and an anthropologist with avid curiosity about far-flung cultures and peoples, Burton travelled to India in 1842, just as the first Afghan war came to an end. His interest in the region took him on journeys across the Indian subcontinent, often disguised as a Muslim man. An Indophile, he was at home with the Indian classics, and this retelling provided some of the first insights into these texts to Westerners. This new reissue of Burton’s adaptation of the classic tales, along with the 34 original black-and-white illustrations by Ernest Griset that accompanied the first edition, includes his original notes on the text and his introduction to the volume.