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Twenty-Nine More Poems including Beatrice, The Void.

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To A Woman of Malabar Bertha’s Eyes ‘Je n’ai pas oublié, voisine de la ville,’ ‘La servante au grand coeur dont vous étiez jalouse,’ Landscape The Sun Sorrows of the Moon Don Juan in Hell On Tasso in Prison (Eugène Delacroix’s painting) Femmes Damnées Beauty The Jewels Beatrice Exotic Perfume A Phantom II: The Perfume Afternoon Song The Death of Lovers To A Red-headed Beggar-girl The Death of the Poor Lover’s Wine The Solitary’s Wine The Pipe The Ransom Clouded Sky The Living Torch Spleen Far Away from Here The Void The Moon, Offended Index by First Line...

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A classic of early literary modernism, Lord Jim tells the story of a young simple and sensitive character who loses his honor in a display of cowardice at sea -- and of his expiation of that sin against his own shadowy ideal of conduct on the remote island of Patusan. The novel, written by Conrad for magazine serialization during an intense and chaotic ten months in 1899 and 1900, has, in the words of Thomas C. Moser, the rare distinction of being a masterpiece in two separate genres. It is at once an exotic adventure story of the Eastern seas in the popular tradition of Kipling and Stevenson and a complexly wrought 'art novel' in the tradition of Flaubert and James. (summary by Stewart Wills)...

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Adventure

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The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. Wilde later revised this edition, making several alterations, and adding new chapters; the amended version was published by Ward, Lock, and Company in April 1891. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, plunging him into debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each ...

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Fantasy, Fiction

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A lecture on the art of fiction, given by the English critic Walter Besant on April 25, 1884, and an answer to the lecture by American writer Henry James in the same year. (Summary by Julie VW)...

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Literature

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Bored with his life as a wealthy businessman's only son, Travers Gladwin learns of a plot by a renowned art burglar to rob his house, so rather than thwart the planned burglary, he borrows a police uniform from a friend and decides to confront the robber by posing as an officer. When the burglar arrives at the house, he tries to pass himself off as Travers Gladwin. From there, things only get more complicated, including the arrival of the burglar's girlfriend who believes that her beau is the wealthy man's son. Comical and timely, the book was made into a movie multiple times, each hugely successful. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

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Fiction, Humor, Mystery

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Excerpt: The Taming of the Shrew; Actus Primus -- Scaena Prima -- Enter Begger and Hostes, Christophero Sly. Begger. Ile pheeze you infaith. Host. A paire of stockes you rogue. Beg. Y?are a baggage, the Slies are no Rogues. Looke in the Chronicles, we came in with Richard Conqueror: therefore Paucas pallabris, let the world slide: Sessa. Host. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst? Beg. No, not a deniere: go by S[aint]. Jeronimie, goe to thy cold bed, and warme thee. Host. I know my remedie, I must go fetch the Head- borough. Beg. Third, or fourth, or fifth Borough, Ile answere him by Law. Ile not budge an inch boy: Let him come, and kindly. Falles asleepe. Winde hornes. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his traine. Lo. Huntsman I charge thee, tender wel my hounds, Brach Meriman, the poore Curre is imbost, And couple Clowder with the deepe- mouth?d brach, Saw?st thou not boy how Silver made it good At the hedge corner, in the couldest fault, I would not loose the dogge for twentie pound. Hunts. Why Belman is as good as he my Lord, He cried upon it at the meerest losse, And twice to day pick?d out the dullest sent, Trust me, ...

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Table of Contents: The Taming of the Shrew, 1 -- Actus primus. Scaena Prima., 1 -- Actus Tertia., 29 -- Actus Quartus. Scena Prima., 44 -- Actus Quintus., 56...

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Gitanjali is a collection of 103 poems in English, largely translations by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. This volume became very famous in the West, and was widely translated into other languages. In England a slender volume was published in 1913, with an exhilarating preface by W. B. Yeats. In the same year, Rabindranath became the first non-European to win the Nobel prize. (summary by Hilara) On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands. Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness. I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers. 81, Gitanjali...

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Poetry

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The Compleat Angler is a celebration of the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse. Walton did not profess to be an expert with the fly, but in the use of the live worm, the grasshopper and the frog Piscator could speak as a master. There were originally only two interlocutors in the opening scene, Piscator and Viator; but in the second edition, as if in answer to an objection that Piscator had it too much in his own way in praise of angling, he introduced the falconer, Auceps, changed Viator into Venator and made the new companions each dilate on the joys of his favourite sport....

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Instruction

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This book is not written for professional musicians, but for untaught lovers of the art. It gives broad instruction on composers, styles, instruments, venues - and when to believe the critics. (Summary by Sarah Jennings)...

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Music, Instruction

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John Donne (1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries. Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, from which come the famous lines “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Religion, Poetry

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Among monuments of narrative poetry, The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind, by William Wordsworth, occupies a unique place. Wordsworth published the first version of the poem in 1798, but continued to work on it for the rest of his life. The final version, which is the subject of this recording, was published posthumously in 1850, by Wordworth’s widow, Mary.The Prelude is the first major narrative poem in European literature which deals solely with the spiritual journey of the author. In this respect the only predecessor to which it can be compared in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is similarly a journey from personal confusion to certitude, from ignorance to realization. However, Dante starts his journey at the age of 35, and, through a lengthy rite of passage, involving both moral and intellectual purification, arrives at a state of illumination that he is not really able to describe. In The Prelude, on the other hand, illumination appears as the background on which the story is inscribed. Wordsworth is really no wiser at the end of his journey than he was at the start, but appears more accepting of the inexorable and sometimes b...

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Biography, Poetry

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Excerpt: Across the Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Contents CHAPTER I - ACROSS THE PLAIN........................3 CHAPTER II - THE OLD PACIFIC CAPITAL........38 CHAPTER III - FONTAINEBLEAU VILLAGE COMMUNITIES OF PAINTERS...............................52 CHAPTER IV - EPILOGUE TO ?AN INLAND VOYAGE?................................................................. 68 CHAPTER V - RANDOM MEMORIES.................79 CHAPTER VI - RANDOM MEMORIES................89 CHAPTER VII - THE LANTERN-BEARERS........97 CHAPTER VIII - A CHAPTER ON DREAMS......107 CHAPTER IX - BEGGARS...................................118 CHAPTER X - LETTER TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO PROPOSES TO EMBRACE THE CAREER OF ART............................................127 CHAPTER XII - A CHRISTMAS SERMON.........140...

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Compiled around 1763, 'Three Hundred Tang Poems' is the standard collection of the poetic art of the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907). Volume Four has poems in the style 七言律詩 'Seven character regular verse' (poems 170 to 223). Chinese summary: 《唐诗三百首》的编选者蘅塘退士(1711～1778)，编选这本书是有感于《千家诗》选诗标准不严，体裁不备，体例不一，希望以新的选本取而代之，成为合适的、流传不废的家塾课本。他们的选诗标准是“因专就唐诗中脍炙人口之作，择其尤要者”。既好又易诵，以体裁为经，以时间为纬。七言律诗简称七律，是近体诗的一种，格律要求与五律相同。七律源于七言古体，在初唐时期渐成规模，至杜甫臻至炉火纯青。有唐一代，七律圣手有王维、杜甫、李商隐、杜牧、罗隐等，风华绝代，辉映古今。 Summarized by: Vivian Chan...

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Poetry

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. ?Won?t you stay a little longer?? the hostess asked while she held the girl?s hand and smiled. ?It?s too early for every one to go--it?s too absurd.? Mrs. Churchley inclined her head to one side and looked gracious; she flourished about her face, in a vaguely protecting sheltering way, an enormous fan of red feathers. Everything in her composition, for Adela Chart, was enormous. She had big eyes, big teeth, big shoulders, big hands, big rings and bracelets, big jewels of every sort and many of them. The train of her crimson dress was longer than any other; her house was huge; her drawing-room, especially now that the company had left it, looked vast, and it offered to the girl?s eyes a collection of the largest sofas and chairs, pictures, mirrors, clocks, that she had ever beheld. Was Mrs. Churchley?s fortune also large, to account for so many immensities? Of this Adela could know nothing, but it struck her, while she smiled sweetly back at their entertainer, that she had better try to find out. Mrs. Churchley had at least a high-hung carriage drawn by the tallest horses, and in the Row she was to be seen perched...

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Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza. Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practises the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes. But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison... The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house. (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

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Fiction

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Liber Amoris is unlike anything Hazlitt wrote and probably like nothing you've come across before. On the face of it it tells the story of Hazlitt's infatuation with his landlords daughter. Hazlitt was middle aged and she young and pretty, a bit of a coquette from the sound of it. It turned out badly for Hazlitt and the book tells the story of this doomed love. Critics have always been divided about the merit of the piece. Even those who see its merit often feel more comfortable with his polished literary works, and perhaps rightly so. This is not a work to make you feel comfortable. I'd like to propose though that there is more to this as a work of art. It was the beginning of the era of the auto-biography that was arguably started by Rousseau in his Confessions. Going beyond Rousseau's mild self criticism, Hazlitt gives a ruthless self portrait (as well as an unsparing portrait of the object of his affections) of the weakness and mental turmoil that he experienced during the love affair. In this it is much closer to the theatre of cruelty of Antonin Artaud in which a pure artisitc truth is revealed through 'shattering a false real...

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Poetry, Romance

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This special poetry collection was assembled to celebrate the first anniversary of the creation of . volunteers bring you 38 different recordings of Art and Heart, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. This poem, originally suggested by Betsie Bush, was chosen for this special collection due to a general concensus that the message of the poem corresponds with the spirit of . The poem asserts that, “It is not art, but heart, that wins the wide world over.” And so it is with : it is not only the books, the poetry, the literature that make what it is; but it is also the people, the diversity of voices, and all of the different lives and experiences that affect the way a person reads a piece of text. The art is the foundation of , but the many hearts behind it are the true essence and spirit of . For more information on the the first anniversary of , and to hear a one hour special audio program featuring interviews, bloopers, and samplers, please visit the Anniversary homepage: / -anniversary-2006/...

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Poetry

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Manuel du Droit Commercial, à l'usage des gens ruinés, des solliciteurs, des surnumérateurs, des employés réformés et de tous les consommateurs sans argent. Par feu mon oncle, Professeur Emérite. Précédé d'une notice biographique sur l'auteur. Le tout publié par son neveu.

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Humor

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Inspired by Jane Eyre, Dinah Maria Craik's 1850 novel, Olive, was one of the first to feature a disabled central character. 'Slightly deformed' from birth, Olive believes that she will never be able to marry like other women, so she devotes her life to her art, her mother, and above all, her religion. It takes a dark secret from the past and a new, fascinating acquaintance, to make her realize what her life could be. (Summary by Arielle Lipshaw)...

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Fiction, Literature

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The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian expresses his desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, plunging him into debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging. This reading uses the 20-chapter 1891 version of Wilde's novel....

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Fantasy, Fiction, Horror/Ghost stories, Literature