LITMIR.BIZ

In the pantheon of English poets, Shelley has long occupied a lofty place, his poems as admired for their profound thought and subtle perceptions as for the music and fervor of their language. His life as well as his poetry embraced the passions, ideals, and causes of Romanticism, whose emergence and early influences coincided with the dates of his own brief life (1792-1822). This selection of many of Shelley’s best-known and most representative poems will give readers an exciting encounter with one of the most original and stimulating figures in English poetry. Thirty-seven poems of varying lengths are included, among them such well-known verses as «Adonais,» «Ode to the West Wind,» «Ozymandias,» «The Cloud,» «To a Skylark» «Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,» and «Arethusa.»

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Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) called himself «an Aeolian harp strung to every wind of heaven.» His first volume of poems, entitled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, was published in 1786. An immediate success, it established Burns's poetic reputation, which has grown over two centuries to the point where he is not only the Scottish national poet but the object of a cult unique in British poetry. The present volume contains 43 of his finest poems and songs, reprinted unabridged from an authoritative tenth-century edition. Included are «The Twa Dogs,» a deft satire of the Scottish upper classes; «To a Mouse,» one of the poet's best known, most charming works; «Address to the Unco Guid,» an attack on Puritan hypocrisy; «Holy Willie's Prayer,» one of the great verse-satires of all times; as well as such favorites as «The Cotter's Saturday Night,» «To a Mountain Daisy,» «The Holy Fair,» «Address to the Deil,» «The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie,» and many more.In addition to his poetic undertakings, Burns almost single-handedly preserved and revived the traditional Scottish song, and this volume includes a rich selection of these works: «A Red, Red Rose,» «Auld Lang Syne,» «Comin' thro' the Rye,» «My Heart's in the Highlands,» «My Love, She's But a Lassie Yet,» and a host of others.

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Known for her vivid portrayals of Creole life in Louisiana, Kate Chopin (1851–1904) wrote, during her brief literary career, poignant and perceptive stories about the emotional lives of women. Bypassing many of the conventions of 19th-century realism, she won praise for her realistic portraits of the inhabitants of bayou and urban areas.This collection of nine stories contains one of her most famous works, «Désirée's Baby» — a haunting and ironic tale of miscegenation. Additional stories include «Madame Célestin's Divorce,» «A Gentleman of Bayou Téche» and «At the 'Cadian Ball,» from Bayou Folk; «A Respectable Woman,» «A Night in Acadie» and Azélie" from A Night in Acadie; «The Dream of an Hour» and the title story. Written with grace, delicate humor and a keen understanding of the human — especially the female — psyche, these stories are a superb introduction to an important American writer whose literary career was cut short by the harsh criticism directed at her novel The Awakening (1899).

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The lights of the Paris Opera House dim and a lovely singer holds the audience spellbound with her enchanting voice. Two men are rivals for her love: one of them the beloved friend of her childhood — and the other the terrifying «opera ghost» who haunts the theater and wields a strange power over the performer.This thrilling novel and its many adaptations have beguiled the imaginations of countless audiences throughout the twentieth century. A gripping tale of longing passion, fear, and violence, the mystery classic will hold readers captive as it weaves its way toward a shocking and tragic conclusion.

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Gogol's stories are admired for their skillful mingling of fantasy and reality, quiet good humor and use of mundane details — as Gogol put it — «to extract the extraordinary from the ordinary.» Imaginative and timeless, they remain as fresh and significant today as they were to readers generations ago.This rich selection of four short stories by the great 19th-century Russian author of Dead Souls includes «The Nose,» a savage satire of incompetent bureaucrats and the snobbery and complacency of the Russian upper classes; «Old-Fashioned Farmers,» a sketch depicting an elderly couple who live a happy but simple life in rustic seclusion; «The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich,» and of Gogol's most famous comic stories; and «The Overcoat,» an exceptionally moving tale — considered a masterpiece of the form — about a poor and much-ridiculed St. Petersburg official. Includes a selection from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: «The Nose.»

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First published in 1818, Persuasion was Jane Austen's last work. Its mellow character and autumnal tone have long made it a favorite with Austen readers. Set in Somersetshire and Bath, the novel revolves around the lives and love affair of Sir Walter Elliot, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and various in-laws, friends, suitors, and other characters, In Anne Elliot, the author created perhaps her sweetest, most appealing heroine.At the center of the novel is Anne's thwarted romance with Captain Frederick Wentworth, a navy man Anne met and fell in love with when she was 19. At the time, Wentworth was deemed an unsuitable match and Anne was forced to break off the relationship. Eight years later, however, they meet again. By this time Captain Wentworth has made his fortune in the navy and is an attractive «catch.» However, Anne is now uncertain about his feelings for her. But after various twists and turns of fortune, the novel ends on a happy note.In Persuasion, as in such novels as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, Austen limned the plight of young women who could escape the constraints of family life only by marrying, and suggest the foolishness of women who believed they were free and not dependent on the financial and social resources of men. At the same time, Persuasion offers an ironic and subtle paean to the true love that enables one woman to rise above straitened economic circumstances and the stifling social conventions that restricted women to narrowly circumscribed lives in the common sitting room.Sure to appeal to admirers of Jane Austen, Persuasion will delight any reader with its finely drawn characters, gentle satire, and charming re-creation of the genteel world of the 19th-century English countryside.

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Milton's great 17th-century epic draws upon Bible stories and classical mythology to explore the meaning of existence, as understood by people of the Western world. Its roots lie in the Genesis account of the world's creation and the first humans; its focus is a poetic interpretation «Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe / With loss of Eden.»In sublime poetry of extraordinary beauty, Milton's poem references tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid. But one need not be a classical scholar to appreciate Paradise Lost. In addition to its imaginative use of language, the poem features a powerful and sympathetic portrait of Lucifer, the rebel angel who frequently outshines his moral superiors. With Milton's deft use of irony, the devil makes evil appear good, just as satanic practices may seem attractive at first glance.Paradise Lost has exercised enormous influence on generations of artists and their works, ranging from the Romantic poets William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley to Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

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In this spirited comedy of manners Catherine Morland, a plain, unspoiled small-town girl on holiday in Bath, meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, a handsome young clergyman. Henry's father, believing Catherine to be wealthy, invites her to be a guest at Northanger Abby, the family's country estate. Catherine, who has read too many Gothic romances and who is possessed of too vivid an imagination, views the abbey as a house of nightmarish horror — an aspect of the book that gleefully parodies the fantastic Gothic romances by Ann Radcliffe and other popular writers of the period. An amusing assortment of misunderstandings and plot twists result in the satisfying romantic conclusion characteristic of the author’s works.First written in 1789-99, when Austen was in her early twenties, this novel, like Persuasion, did not see publication till 1818, in the winter after the author's death. Distinguished by its satirical wit, brilliant comedy, and complex but subtle views of human nature and morality, the book also presents a fine background picture of middle-class life in nineteenth-century England, with particularly good scenes in Bath, the fashionable watering place to which Austen's father, a clergyman himself, had retired. Northanger Abbey is a must-read for all Austen fans and students of English literature.

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The Victorian poet Robert Browning (1812 –1889) is perhaps most admired today for his inspired development of the dramatic monologue. In this compelling poetic form, he sought to reveal his subjects' true natures in their own, often self-justifying, accounts of their lives and affairs. A number of these vivid monologues, including the famed «Fra Lippo Lippi,» «How It Strikes a Contemporary,» and «The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church,» are included in this selection of forty-two poems.Here, too, are the famous «My Last Duchess,» dramatic lyrics such as «Memorabilia» and «Love among the Ruins,» and well-known shorter works: «The Pied Piper of Hamelin,» «Home-Thoughts, from Abroad,» «Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister,» and more. Together these poems reveal Browning's rare gifts as both a lyric poet and a monologist of rare psychological insight and dramatic flair.

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He was an ordained minister, renowned orator, and beloved author and poet whose ideas on nature, philosophy, and religion influenced authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. Through his writings, Emerson ardently professed the importance of being an individual, resisting the comfort of conformity, and creating an art of living in harmony with nature. This soul-satisfying anthology of twelve favorite essays is a treasure.In the title essay, Emerson writes about the extraordinary power of nature as a way of bringing the divine into our lives. In «Gifts,» he reminds us that flowers and gold may be acceptable to those we love, but «the only gift is a portion of thyself.» «Spiritual Laws» points out that because a higher law than our own rules the world, there is no need for struggle. Other essays include «Character,» «Prudence,» «Intellect,» «Love,» «Beauty,» «The American Scholar» address and others. Readers of all ages will want to keep this volume on hand to inspire and refresh the spirit

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