One of the most important and popular American poets of the 20th century, e. e. cummings is best known for his brilliant and innovative verse and its distinctive lack of uppercase letters and conventional grammar. He was also a Cubist painter and a World War I veteran. At the age of 23, he abandoned his artistic pursuits for voluntary service as an ambulance driver in France. His military career culminated in a comedy of errors leading to his ar ...
Critic, author, and debunker extraordinaire, G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) delighted in probing the ambiguities of Christian theology. A number of his most successful attempts at combining first-rate fiction with acute social observation appear in this original selection from his best detective stories featuring the priest-sleuth Father Brown.A Chestertonian version of Sherlock Holmes, this little cleric from Essex — with «a f ...
A stranger arrives in a Russian backwater community with a bizarre proposition for the local landowners: cash for their «dead souls,» the serfs who have died in their service and for whom they must continue to pay taxes until the next census. The landowner receives a payment and a relief of his tax burden, and the stranger receives — what? Gogol's comic masterpiece offers the answer in a vast and satirical painting of the Russian ...
Rich, varied collection of 14 extraordinary Victorian and Edwardian crime stories, many never before published in book form: Kipling's «The Return of Imray»; «The Tragedy of the Life Raft» by Jacques Futrelle; «The Copper Beeches» by Arthur Conan Doyle; plus hard-to-find tales by G. K. Chesterton, Catherine L. Pirkis, Silas K. Hocking, others. ...
Hailed by Nabokov as «the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced,» Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) left his mark as a playwright, novelist, and writer of short stories. Gogol's works remain popular with both writers and readers, who prize his originality, imaginative gifts, and sheer exuberance.This collection offers an excellent introduction to the author's works. Opening a door to his bizarre world of broad comedy, fantasy, and socia ...
"All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?"Generations of readers have recognized the impassioned cry that introduces the young narrator of Demian, and embraced this tale of a troubled young man's struggle toward self-awareness. Initially published in Berlin in 1919, the novel met with instant critical acclaim, as well as great popular success among peo ...
When her former governess finds happiness as the bride of a local widower, the brilliant and beautiful Emma Woodhouse — one of Jane Austen's immortal creations — flatters herself that she alone has secured the marriage and that she possesses a special talent for bringing lovers together. The young heiress next busies herself with finding a suitable husband for her friend and protégé, Harriet Smith, sett ...
When Rose Campbell, a shy orphan, arrives at «The Aunt Hill» to live with her six aunts and seven boisterous male cousins, she is quite overwhelmed. How could such a delicate young lady, used to the quiet hallways of a girls' boarding school, exist in such a spirited home? It is the arrival of Uncle Alec that changes everything. Much to the horror of her aunts, Rose's forward-thinking uncle insists that the child get out of the parlor ...
During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds himself at the center of a series of horrifying incidents. Jonathan Harker is attacked by three phantom women, observes the Count's transformation from human to bat form, and discovers puncture wounds on his own neck that seem to have been made by teeth. Harker returns home upon his escape from Dracula's grim fortress, but a friend&a ...
