LITMIR.BIZ

First printed in 1476, this collection of stories, or «little flowers,» chronicles Saint Francis of Assisi's journeys, activities, and miracles. Told in brief anecdotes of charming simplicity, the stories include Saint Francis' sermon to the birds, his taming of the savage wolf of Gubbio, his conversion of the Sultan of Babylon, and his miraculous healing of a leper. Picturesque and poetic, The Little Flowers of Saint Francis transports readers to the Middle Ages for an inspiring portrait of the saint and his earliest disciples. One of the world's most popular and widely read religious classics, its universal appeal extends to people of all faiths and every intellectual level.

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One of the great Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth is a dark and bloody drama of ambition, murder, guilt, and revenge. Prompted by the prophecies of three mysterious witches and goaded by his ambitious wife, the Scottish thane Macbeth murders Duncan, King of Scotland, in order to succeed him on the throne. This foul deed soon entangles the conscience-stricken nobleman in a web of treachery, deceit, and more murders, which ultimately spells his doom. Set amid the gloomy castles and lonely heaths of medieval Scotland, Macbeth paints a striking dramatic portrait of a man of honor and integrity destroyed by a fatal character flaw and the tortures of a guilty imagination.A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

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First published in 1888, Looking Backward was one of the most popular novels of its day. Translated into more than 20 languages, its utopian fantasy influenced such thinkers as John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, Eugene V. Debs, and Norman Thomas. Writing from a 19th century perspective and poignantly critical of his own time, Bellamy advanced a remarkable vision of the future, including such daring predictions as the existence of radio, television, motion pictures, credit cards, and covered pedestrian malls.On the surface, the novel is the story of time-traveler Julian West, a young Bostonian who is put into a hypnotic sleep in the late 19th century, and awakens in the year 2000 in a socialist utopia. In conversations with the doctor who awakened him, he discovers a brilliantly realized vision of an ideal future, one that seemed unthinkable in his own century. Crime, war, personal animosity, and want are nonexistent. Equality of the sexes is a fact of life. In short, a messianic state of brotherly love is in effect.Entertaining, stimulating, and thought-provoking, Looking Backward, with its ingenious plot and appealing socialism, is a provocative study of human society as it is and as it might be.

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A forerunner of psychological fiction, and considered a landmark work for its innovative use of narrative devices, Tristram Shandy was both celebrated and vilified when first published in 1759. While the narrative's endless digressions drew criticism, the novel's bawdy humor made it a cause for celebration in eighteenth-century London. Originally released in nine separate volumes, it is literature's famed «cock and bull» story, reveling in parody and satire.Laurence Sterne's topsy-turvy masterpiece is, in effect, a novel about writing a novel—producing a fictional world that is as strange and wonderful as the process of its creation. Impulsive, addictive, and absurd, it begins at the moment of Tristram Shandy's conception and shifts relentlessly into a hilarious series of disconnected episodes starring the hero's family, friends, and neighbors. The memorable cast of characters wanders in and out of the playful web of Sterne's deliberately visual text treatment, which includes endless dashes and asterisks, one-sentence chapters, unusual graphic renderings, and blank pages that invite the reader to interact with the book. Impossible to categorize—and absorbing and surprising even today—Tristram Shandy is a rare celebration of the art of fiction. It remains a beguiling milestone in the history of literature.

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Before she wrote The Awakening — a powerful novel that has illuminated generations of readers with its strikingly honest and controversial themes of female sexuality and miscegenation–Kate Chopin penned many well-received short stories of Creole and Acadian life. Infused with «local color,» these tales are filled with fascinating characters, idiosyncratic customs, and sometimes shocking details.Reflecting the influences of the French writers Guy de Maupassant and George Sand, «Lilacs» is a heartfelt and simple tale of love, life, and devotion. The compelling work is accompanied by 23 other distinctive tales of southern life, among them «A No-Account Creole» and «Love on the Bon-Dieu,» from Bayou Folk, and «A Matter of Prejudice,» «The Lilies,» and «Dead Men's Shoes» from A Night in Acadie.

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Composed in a golden age of Celtic storytelling in the thirteenth century or earlier, this collection of 12 Welsh prose tales is a masterpiece of European literature. Though written down in the Middle Ages, these stories are thought by scholars to be probably much older, perhaps going back to the dawn of Celtic civilization.They fall naturally into several groups: the Mabinogion (stories) proper, composed of the four tales of Pwyll, Branwen, Manawyddan, and Math; the two short pieces The Dream of Maxen Wledig and Lludd and Llevelys; the incomparable Kilhwch and Olwen, one of the earliest Arthurian tales in Welsh; The Dream of Rhonabwy, a romantic look back to the heroic age of Britain; and the three Arthurian romances proper: The Lady of the Fountain, Peredur the Son of Evrawc, and Geraint the Son of Erbin, with their abundant evidence of Norman-French influences. Also included is Lady Guest's translation of Taliesin, the story of the famous bard. Destiny, magic, chance, knightly feats of arms, love, and betrayal — all are here in these ancient, beautifully crafted stories, sure to delight scholars, students, general readers, and any lover of myth and legend.

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He was Sam Clemens, steamboat pilot, before he was Mark Twain, famous author. His better-known name originated with the lingo of navigation, and much of his writing was informed by his shipboard adventures on one of the world's great rivers. In this classic of American literature, Twain offers lively recollections ranging from his salad days as a novice pilot to views from the passenger deck in the twilight of the river culture’s heyday. Under the tutelage of the most celebrated pilot on the Mississippi, young Twain acquires the skills to navigate a constantly changing riverscape, avoiding potential collisions with other boats and traversing winding channels in the dead of night. The vivid and ever-engaging narrative encompasses tales of riverside town feuds, the professional vicissitudes of a riverboat gambler, dramatic accounts of life in Vicksburg as the city lay under siege during the Civil War, and many other scenes from a now-vanished way of life. These antebellum visions take on a bittersweet cast with the author's postwar return to the region, when railroad competition has largely doomed the commercial steamboat and the old ways of life are passing into history. A testimonial to Twain's repute as the most popular humorist of his day, these reminiscences crackle with comic anecdotes and energetic witticisms. Engrossing and entertaining, this volume will captivate devotees of Twain, steamboat buffs, lovers of Americana, and students of American literature.

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Set in 18th-century Scotland, this brooding historical romance unfolds amid the Jacobite Rebellion. A struggle between good and evil begins in the old Scottish castle of Durrisdeer &#8212; the ancestral home of the Durie clan &#8212; where James Durie, Master of Ballantrae, persists in his lifelong rivalry with his younger brother as well as his relentless quest for the family fortune.<BR>From Durrisdeer, the fast-paced adventure shifts to sea voyages and encounters with pirates, intrigue at the French court and in India, and an attempt to recover buried treasure in New York's Adirondack Mountains &#8212; all leading to a shocking climax in the American wilderness. An engrossing tale played out against the backdrop of three continents, <I>The Master of Ballantrae</I> stands among the most vivid and exciting of Robert Louis Stevenson' tales.

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Carefully chosen collection contains 34 of Carroll's most appealing verses &#8212; nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques, more &#8212; including such unforgettable pieces as «The Walrus and the Carpenter,» «The Mock Turtle's Song,» and «Father William,» as well as such lesser-known gems as «My Fancy,» «A Sea Dirge,» «Brother and Sister,» «Hiawatha's Photographing,» «The Mad Gardener's Song,» «What Tottles Meant,» «Poeta Fit, non Nascitur,» «The Little Man That Had a Little Gun,» and many others.

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One of the major works of fiction written during the twentieth century, D. H. Lawrence's last novel is an erotic celebration of life. Described by <I>The</I>&nbsp;<I>New York Times</I> as «our time's most significant romance,» the controversial book was banned, burned, and the subject of a landmark obscenity trial. Printed privately in Florence in 1928, it was not published in Great Britain until 1960, after having long scandalized society with its sexually explicit descriptions of lovemaking, its bold use of four-letter words that were considered vulgar, and a storyline in which the lovers were of different social stations.<BR>Lawrence's classic tale of love and discovery pits the paralyzed and callous Clifford Chatterley against two major characters: Constance, his wife &#8212; a lonely, indecisive woman trapped in a sterile marriage &#8212; and her persuasive lover, Oliver Mellors, the robust and blunt-spoken gamekeeper of her husband's estate. The lyrical tale of their passionate, adulterous love affair has transported generations of readers into a world filled with natural beauty and seething with human emotion. A masterfully written opus, this extraordinary love story is essential reading for any study of twentieth-century literature.

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