Excerpt: The Tragedie of Cymbeline; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter two Gentlemen. Gent. You do not meet a man but Frownes. Our bloods no more obey the Heavens Then our Courtiers: Still seeme, as do?s the Kings. Gent. But what?s the matter? His daughter, and the heire of?s kingdome (whom He purpos?d to his wiues sole Sonne, a Widdow That late he married) hath referr?d her selfe Unto a poore, but worthy Gentleman. She?s wedded, Her Husband banish?d; she imprison?d, all Is outward sorrow, though I thinke the King Be touch?d at very heart. None but the King? He that hath lost her too: so is the Queene, That most desir?d the Match. But not a Courtier, Although they weare their faces to the bent Of the Kings lookes, hath a heart that is not Glad at the thing they scowle at. And why so? He that hath miss?d the Princesse, is a thing Too bad, for bad report: and he that hath her, (I meane, that married her, alacke good man, And therefore banish?d) is a Creature, such, As to seeke through the Regions of the Earth For one, his like; there would be something failing In him, that should compare. I do not thinke, So faire an Outward, and s...

Table of Contents: The Tragedie of Cymbeline, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 3 -- Scena Tertia., 6 -- Scena Quarta., 7 -- Scena Quinta., 8 -- Scena Sexta., 12 -- Scena Septima., 14 -- Actus Secundus. Scena Prima., 20 -- Scena Secunda., 21 -- Scena Tertia., 22 -- Scena Quarta., 26 -- Actus Tertius. Scena Prima., 32 -- Scena Secunda., 34 -- Scena Tertia., 36 -- Scena Quarta., 38 -- Scena Quinta., 43 -- Scena Sexta., 47 -- Scena Septima., 48 -- Scena Octaua., 50 -- Actus Quartus. Scena Prima., 51 -- Scena Secunda., 51 -- Scena Tertia., 62 -- Scena Quarta., 63 -- Actus Quintus. Scena Prima., 65 -- Scena Secunda., 66 -- Scena Tertia., 67 -- Scena Quarta., 69 -- Scena Quinta., 74...

Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt at tragedy – intense and domestic, with surprising depth of characterisation. It was adapted into an opera by the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky in 1917. La Sainte Courtisane, or The Woman Covered in Jewels explores one of Wilde’s great idées fixes: the paradox of religious hedonism, pagan piety. Both plays, Wildean to their core, revel in the profound sadness that is the fruit of the conflict between fidelity and forbidden love. Written towards the end of his tragic life, these fragments give us a glimpse of a genius at his best: visceral, passionate, personal, poetic. (Summary by Simon Larois)...

Play

volunteers bring you 16 different recordings of Sympathy , by Paul Laurence Dunbar in honor of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Day Martin Luther King Day . Listeners will recognize a line from this poem as being the title of Maya Angelou's 1969 novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . This was the weekly poetry project for the week of January 14th, 2007....

Poetry

Hardy claimed poetry as his first love, and published collections until his death in 1928. Although not as well received by his contemporaries as his novels, Hardy's poetry has been applauded considerably in recent years. Most of his poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering. (Summary from Wikipedia)....

Poetry

Excerpt: It was sitting by the fire, in a mysterious and magnificent retreat,--now a thing of the past but surviving in our memory,--whence our eyes commanded a view of Paris from the heights of Belleville to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the triumphal Arc de l?Etoile, that one morning, refreshed by tea, amid the myriad suggestions that shoot up and die like rockets from your sparkling flow of talk, lavish of ideas, you tossed to my pen a figure worthy of Hoffmann,--that casket of unrecognized gems, that pilgrim seated at the gate of Paradise with ears to hear the songs of the angels but no longer a tongue to repeat them, playing on the ivory keys with fingers crippled by the stress of divine inspiration, believing that he is expressing celestial music to his bewildered listeners....

Harry Wethermill, the brilliant young scientist, a graduate of Oxford and Munich, has made a fortune from his inventions, and is taking a vacation at Aix-les-Bains. There he meets, and immediately falls in love with, the young and beautiful Celia Harland, who serves as companion to the aging but warm-hearted Madam Dauvray of Paris. All this is observed by Julius Ricardo, a retired financier from the City of London, who spends every August at Aix, expecting there to find a pleasant and peaceful life. Imagine his consternation when he learns that Mme. Dauvray has been brutally murdered, and imagine Harry Wethermill's consternation when he learns that every finger of suspicion is pointed at the now vanished Celia Harland. Implored to do so by Wethermill, Ricardo asks his friend Inspector Hanaud, the great detective of the Paris Sûreté (who is also vacationing in Aix) to involve himself in the case so that the truth may come out. Hanaud agrees to do so (with the permission of the Aix police, of course), and goes to work. Will he be up to the job? And will Harry Wethermill ultimately be glad that he called in the great man? We can only w...

Mystery

In the afterlife grizzled sea captain Eli Stormfield finds himself piloting a ship to heaven. Despite a detour and some navigation errors he arrives but finds the transition to heavenly bliss a little disconcerting. – Although first drafted in the late 1870’s this story did not see print until the December 1907 and January 1908 issues of “Harper’s Magazine”. The next year it was made available as a Christmas gift book and represents the last volume Mark Twain published in his lifetime. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

Fiction

This is the third book of the famous What Katy did series. (Summary by Elli)

Fiction, Children

When you dive into Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’) The Innocents Abroad, you have to be ready to learn more about the unadorned, ungilded reality of 19th century “touring” than you might think you want to learn. This is a tough, literary journey. It was tough for Twain and his fellow “pilgrims”, both religious and otherwise. They set out, on a June day in 1867, to visit major tourist sites in Europe and the near east, including Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, “the Holy Land”, and Egypt. What Twain records, in often humorous, sometimes grotesque but always fascinating detail, are the day-to-day ups and downs of discovering the truth about people and places. The truths they learn are often far different than their education and rumor have made them preconceive. This is a voyage of discovery. It’s long and, in places, tiresome. But it’s revelatory about so much. As with some of his other works, Twain includes popular prejudices of his time, which are today considered socially unacceptable. His references to “Indians”, “Negroes” and “infidels” come to mind. Beyond the lows, though, there are the highs of Twain’s cutting wit and insight a...

Adventure, Memoirs

A young untested ship captain finds a man named Leggatt clinging to the side of his ship. The Captain makes the unusual decision to hide Leggatt in his quarters. What is he thinking? Conrad will tell us. - The Secret Sharer was first published in the August and September 1910 issues of Harper’s Magazine (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

Fiction, Sea stories, Mystery

Edison's Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss, is one of the many science fiction novels published in the nineteenth century. Although science fiction was not at the time thought of as a distinct literary genre, it was a very popular literary form, with almost every fiction magazine regularly publishing science fiction stories and novels. Edison's Conquest of Mars was published in 1898 as an unauthorized sequel to H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, but did not achieve the fame of its predecessor. The book was endorsed by Thomas Edison, the hero of the book -- though not by Wells. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Fiction, Science fiction

In the autumn of 1913 John Reed was sent to Mexico by the Metropolitan Magazine to report the Mexican Revolution. He shared the perils of Pancho Villa's army for four months, present with Villa's Constitutional Army when it defeated Federal forces at Torreón, opening the way for its advance on Mexico City. Reed's time with the Villistas resulted in a series of outstanding magazine articles that brought Jack a national reputation as a war correspondent. Reed deeply sympathized with the plight of the peons and vehemently opposed American intervention, which came shortly after he left. Jack adored Villa, while Carranza left him cold. Jack's Mexican reports were later republished in book form as Insurgent Mexico , which appeared in 1914. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

History, War stories

East by West: a Journey in the Recess is an account of British journalist Henry Lucy's travels across America and on to the Far East during the parliamentary recess in 1883. Lucy was one of the most influential journalists of his day and, as Toby M.P., a noted humorist in Punch magazine. His acute powers of observation and light touch make this a most engaging book. It is a fascinating insight into the Englishman's travels abroad within two decades of the American Civil War and the end of Japanese isolationism. This is the first of two volumes covering his journey with his wife. This first volume includes his travels in America and in Japan, including the Atlantic and Pacific crossings by steamer. Volume II, which I hope to record later, continues his experiences in Japan and India, returning home via Aden and the Suez Canal. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

Travel, Memoirs, History

Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857) was the son of an actor manager. After some time in the Navy and as an apprentice printer he became a playwright and later a journalist. He was a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. As a journalist he worked for Punch magazine in which Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures were serialised, to be published in book form in 1846. Job Caudle, the 'hero' of the book is a Victorian shopkeeper whose wife finds she can only talk to him without interruption in bed. Caudle, who outlives his wife, finds he can no longer sleep easily because of his memory of these 'lectures' and resolves to exorcise his wife's memory by recording the lectures, it seems with a view to future publication for the edification of others. Jerrold's humour shines through this insight into Victorian middle class culture. Summary by Martin Clifton...

Comedy

Excerpt: Young people. Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not only inaccessible on that side, but from its donjon tower commanded a magnificent view, both of the expanse of waves, taking purple tints from the shadows of the clouds, with here and there a sail fleeting before the wind, and of the rugged headlands of the coast, point beyond point, the nearer distinct, and showing the green summits, and below, the tossing waves breaking white against the dark rocks, and the distance becoming more and more hazy, in spite of the bright sun which made a broken path of glory along the tossing, white-crested waters....

The idea was to write a whole novel in the month of November, based on the guidelines of the http://www.nanowrimo.org/ National Novel Writing Month . The twist is that there are up to 30 people writing together, instead of one toiling alone. Each writer signed up to do one section of 1,700+ words, in English. Plot and particulars were agreed before the start. Each writer also recorded his/her own chapter, which can be downloaded here. The resulting novel is in the public domain. (Summary by Gesine)...

Mystery, Science fiction, Comedy, Fantasy, Adventure, Spy stories

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)...

Adventure

National Geographic Magazine Volume 1 Number 2 published in 1889. Topics of articles are: Africa, its Past and Future Reports on: Geography of the Land Geography of the Sea Geography of the Air Geography of Life (Summary by Guero)...

Memoirs, Nature, Science

Sailing voyage from England to Portugal in the mid Eighteenth Century, by one of the premier humorists, satirists, novelists and playwrights of his age. It was to be his last work, as his failing health proved unable to persevere much longer after the voyage. ( Summary by JCarson )...

Adventure, Sea stories, Travel

Shakespeare's Sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. The poems were probably written over a period of several years. (Summary from wikipedia)...

Romance, Tragedy, Poetry