LITMIR.BIZ

Like his novel A Room with a View, E. M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread focuses on a group of English men and women living and traveling in Italy. A young Englishman journeys to Tuscany to rescue his late brother's wife from what appears to be an unsuitable romance with an Italian of little fortune. In the events surrounding that match and its fateful consequences, Forster weaves an exciting and eventful tale that intriguingly contrasts English and Italian lives and sensibilities. As in Forster novels, among them Howards End and A Passage to India, Where Angels Fear to Tread reveals the author's deep fascination with all of human experience—sexual, moral, spiritual, imaginative, material. Acutely observant of the ways of the English middle class, he is as critical here of its snobbishness, greed, and cultural insensitivity as he is respectful of its decency and kindness, common sense, and goodwill. This splendid novel reveals the great breadth of his gifts as both storyteller and humanist—attributes that continue to make him one of the twentieth century's most admired novelists.

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"O delivery my heart from this fearful gloom and loneliness," prays the passionate Eustacia Vye, who detests her life amid the dreary environs of Egdon Heath. With the return of Clym Yeobright from Paris, her escape for the heath and its brooding isolation appears to be at hand. Clym finds in Eustacia the same dark mystery of his native heath, and his irresistible attraction to them both leads to a clash of idealism and realism.Thomas Hardy's timeless tale of a romantic misalliance embodies his view of character as fate and underscores the tragic nature of ordinary human lives. Despite his grim outlook Hardy charms readers with the warmth and vitality of his characters, his loving portraits of the English countryside, and his realistic re-creations of local dialect. Shakespearean in its intricate plotting and deft irony, The Return of the Native ranks among the author's greatest works.

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One of the most successful poets in America and a fascinating literary figure of the early twentieth century, Edna St. Vincent Millay found her voice in a national poetry contest at the age of twenty. Her poems received critical praise and became the first step toward receiving the Pulitzer Award years later. An acclaimed poet of the Jazz Age, this liberated, often rebellious, woman enchanted us with her beautiful sonnets and lyrics, even as she surprised us with her unconventional personal life. This vibrant volume includes the complete selection of poems from Millay's first three books. Each gem reflects a different facet of the author's versatility.Renascence and Other Poems was Millay's first collection of poetry, a literary sensation when it was published in 1912. Acclaimed by critics for its remarkable use of compelling language and imagery, it is a deeply personal work that reflects the poet's spiritual awakening, using the themes of death and resurrection. In contrast, the poetry in A Few Figs from Thistles represents a cynical stage, a time of rebellion, and a search for personal freedom, as depicted in her famous line, «My candle burns at both ends.» Part beauty, part despair, the free verse and heartfelt sonnets of Second April are an expression of Millay's feelings about love and disillusionment. Eloquent, daring, and sometimes bittersweet, these masterful lyrics exemplify the best work of a complex, passionate, and gifted poet. Includes a selection from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: «Afternoon on a Hill.»

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One of the world's first bestsellers, this tragic masterpiece attained an instant and lasting success upon its 1774 publication, catapulting the author to the forefront of the German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang. A burst of parodies, operas, poems, and plays based on The Sorrows of Young Werther rapidly ensued, along with the cultlike following of young romantics across Europe who affected the manner of the novel's passionate and self-destructive hero.Young Werther bares his soul to readers in the form of alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. His story marks the initial great achievement of what has since been termed «confessional» literature; Goethe, who based the story in part on his own unhappy love affair, acknowledged a sense of freedom upon completing the work. A sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist, the tale addresses age-old questions — the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemption — in the exuberant language of youth. «Werther appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear,» observed the Victorian sage Thomas Carlyle. Indeed, Goethe's portrayal of Zerrissenheit, "the state of being torn apart, in which a character struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world, proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers, and The Sorrows of Young Werther continues to speak to modern readers.

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What is the relationship of the individual to the state? What is the ideal state, and how can it bring about the most desirable life for its citizens? What sort of education should it provide? What is the purpose of amassing wealth? These are some of the questions Aristotle attempts to answer in one of the most intellectually stimulating works.Both heavily influenced by and critical of Plato's Republic and Laws, Politics represents the distillation of a lifetime of thought and observation. «Encyclopaedic knowledge has never, before or since, gone hand in hand with a logic so masculine or with speculation so profound,» says H. W. C. Davis in his introduction. Students, teachers, and scholars will welcome this inexpensive new edition of the Benjamin Jowett translation, as will all readers interested in Greek thought, political theory, and depictions of the ideal state.

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"We must have peace, not only in Atlanta, but in all America," declared General Sherman to the civic leaders who protested against the evacuation and burning of their city. «We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or anything you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.»Sherman's impassioned but well-reasoned reply to the city fathers is but one of the many key documents, memorable speeches, and moving letters and reports in this collection of historic statements from the American Civil War. Even the most dedicated of buffs is likely to find something new in this compendium, which ranges from familiar items such as the Gettysburg Address to private reflections, including Stonewall Jackson's message to his wife after the Battle of First Manassas, and excerpts from the diary of a Confederate soldier at the siege of Vicksburg.Other highlights include «The War and How to End It,» a lecture by Frederick Douglass; Robert E. Lee's farewell to the Army of Northern Virginia; an eyewitness account of the clash between the Monitor and Merrimack; and reports by commanding officers from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line–Ulysses S. Grant on the battle at Shiloh, Joseph Hooker's account of Antietam, and James Longstreet's Wilderness Campaign report.

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Considered the preeminent verse satirist in English, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) brought wide learning, devastating wit and masterly technique to his poems. Models of clarity and control, they exemplified the classical poetics of the Augustan age.This volume contains a rich selection of Pope's work, including such well-known poems as the title selection — a philosophical meditation on the nature of the universe and man's place in it — and «The Rape of the Lock,» a mock-epic of rare charm and skill. Also included are «Ode on Solitude,» «The Dying Christian to His Soul,» «Elegy  to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady,» «An Essay on Criticism,» «Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog,» «Epistle [IV] to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington: Of the Use of Riches,» «Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot; or, Prologue to the Satires» and more.Taken together, these poems offer an excellent sampling of Pope's imaginative genius and the felicitous blending of word, idea and image that earned him a place among the leading lights of 18th-century literature.

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This collection of thirteen captivating tales by Irish authors illustrates both traditional and modern approaches to the Celtic art of storytelling. Spanning two centuries, it features stories by Maria Edgeworth and William Carleton from the beginning of Irish prose fiction in English; retellings of traditional tales by Lady Gregory and Standish O'Grady from the great age of the Irish Literary Revival; and contributions from many of the 20th century's most significant writers, including William Butler Yeats, James Stephens, James Joyce, Seumas O'Kelly, and Liam O'Flaherty.

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From one of the 20th century's preeminent novelists and poets comes this passionate tale of romance amid the chaos of modern life. D. H. Lawrence's compelling account of two couples' search for romantic fulfillment is steeped in an edgy eroticism bordering on violence. The literary world reacted with shock upon its 1921 publication: nearly a century later, the novel's psychological penetration continues to captivate readers.Women in Love reintroduces two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, who initially appeared in Lawrence's previous novel, The Rainbow (1915). Ursula's relationship with Rupert Birkin, an introspective and misanthropic school inspector, is contrasted with that of Gudrun and Gerald Crich, an overbearing industrialist. Set in a coal-mining town in the English Midlands, their stories explore the disastrous effects of industrialization on the psyche and suggest that rebirth can be achieved only through emotional intensity.Composed at the height of the author's powers, Women in Love is the novel that Lawrence considered his masterpiece (the characters of Rupert and Ursula are widely regarded as Lawrence's depiction of himself and his wife, Frieda). Rich in symbolism and lyric prose, it offers a complex meditation on the meaning of love in a changing world.

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In the masterly cadences of T. S. Eliot's verse, the 20th century found its definitive poetic voice, an incredible «image of its accelerated grimace,» in the words of Eliot's friend and mentor, Ezra Pound. This volume is a rich collection of much of Eliot's greatest work.The title poem, The Waste Land (1922), ranks among the most influential poetic works of the century. An exploration of the psychic stages of a despairing soul caught in a struggle for redemption, the poem contrasts the spiritual stagnation of the modern world with the ennobling myths of the past. Other selections include the complete contents of Prufrock (1971), including «The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,» «Portrait of a Lady,» «Rhapsody on a Windy Night,» «Mr. Apollinax,» and «Morning at the Window.» From Poems (1920) there are «Gerontion,» «The Hippopotamus,» «Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service,» «Sweeney Among the Nightingales,» and more.An indispensable resource for all poetry lovers, this modestly priced edition is also an ideal text for English literature courses from high school to college. Includes «The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.»

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