Best of
19th-Century

1845

Canti


Giacomo Leopardi - 1845
    A great classical scholar and patriot, he explored metaphysical loneliness in entirely original ways. Though he died young, his influence was enormous, and it is no exaggeration to say that all modern poetry, not only in Italian, derives in some way from his work.Leopardi's poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, and he has been less well known to English-language readers than his central significance for his own culture might suggest. Now Jonathan Galassi, whose translations of Eugenio Montale have been widely acclaimed, has produced a strong, fresh, direct version of this great poet that offers English-language readers a new approach to Leopardi. Galassi has contributed an informative introduction and notes that provide a sense of Leopardi's sources and ideas. This is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the roots of modern lyric poetry.

Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois


Alexandre Dumas - 1845
    Massacres, conspiracies, clandestine trysts, secret alliances, daring escapes, sumptuous feasts, and duels of wit propel the action in this delightful story of French royalty during the 16th century. Advertising with movie.

The Raven and Other Favorite Poems


Edgar Allan Poe - 1845
    1845 edition of the New York Evening Mirror. It brought Edgar Allan Poe, then in his mid-thirties and a well-known poet, critic and short story writer, his first taste of celebrity on a grand scale. The Raven remains Poe's best-known work, yet it is only one of the dazzling series of poems and stories that won him an enduring place in world literature. This volume contains The Raven and 40 others of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable poems.To ----("I saw thee on thy bridal day") --Dreams --Spirits of the dead --Evening star --A dream within a dream --Stanzas --A dream --The happiest day, the happiest hour --The lake : to ----Sonnet : to Science --Romance --To --("The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see") --To the River ----To --("I heed not that my earthly lot") --Fairy-land --To Helen ("Helen, thy beauty is to me") --Israfel --The city in the sea --The sleeper --Lenore --The valley of unrest --The Coliseum --To one in paradise --To F----Sonnet : to Zante --The haunted palace --Sonnet : silence --The conqueror worm --Dream-land --The raven --Eulalie : a song --To M.L. S----Ulalume --To ----("Not long ago, the writer of these lines") --To Helen ("I saw thee once, once only, years ago") --Eldorado --For Annie --To my mother --Annabel Lee --The bells --Alone.

The Condition of the Working Class in England


Friedrich Engels - 1845
    It was also Engels's first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. The fluency of his writing, the personal nature of his insights, and his talent for mordant satire combine to make this account of the life of the victims of early industrial change into a classic - a historical study that parallels and complements the fictional works of the time by such writers as Gaskell and Dickens. What Cobbett had done for agricultural poverty in his Rural Rides, Engels did - and more - in this work on the plight of the industrial workers in the England of the early 1840s. This edition includes the prefaces to the English and American editions, and a map of Manchester c.1845.

Rosa of Linden Castle


Christoph von Schmid - 1845
    Through difficult trials, Rosa learns what

The Mysteries of London, Vol. I


George W.M. Reynolds - 1845
    Rival authors like Charles Dickens, whom he outsold, despised him. The literary establishment did its best to write him out of literary history. But when George W.M. Reynolds, journalist, political reformer, Socialist, and novelist, died in 1879, even his critics were forced to acknowledge the truth of his obituary, which declared that he was the most popular writer of his time. And The Mysteries of London, which was published in 1844 in the "penny dreadful" format of weekly installments sold for a penny each, was his masterpiece and greatest success, selling 50,000 copies a week and over a million more when published in volume form. The Mysteries of London is a sprawling tableau, seeking to depict life as Reynolds saw it in mid-Victorian London and expose what he viewed as gross injustice toward the poor. Some of the notable storylines involve Richard Markham and Eliza Sydney, two virtuous but ingenuous youths inveigled into the fraudulent schemes of rogues; George Montague, a libertine who appears literally out of nowhere and nearly overnight becomes one of the richest and most powerful men in London; Anthony Tidkins, the "Resurrection Man," a ruthless murderer and body-snatcher; and Ellen Monroe, an impoverished girl forced to submit to the worst degradations to earn money to feed her elderly father. The story takes us from royal drawing rooms, offices of cabinet ministers, and chambers of Parliament to the bowels of Newgate prison, the workhouse, and the lowest of taverns and gambling dens as Reynolds unfolds his thrilling plot, which never flags for an instant over the course of nearly 1,200 pages. This edition, the first in over 100 years, includes the unabridged text of the complete first series of The Mysteries, including its illustrations, more than fifty in all, and features a new foreword by Victorian scholar Louis James and annotations by Dr. Dick Collins.

Cecil; or, The adventures of a coxcomb, a novel


Catherine Gore - 1845