Best of
19th-Century

1889

Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ


Friedrich Nietzsche - 1889
    It also prepares the way for The Anti-Christ, a final assault on institutional Christianity. Yet although Nietzsche makes a compelling case for the 'Dionysian' artist and celebrates magnificently two of his great heroes, Goethe and Cesare Borgia, he also gives a moving, almost ecstatic portrait of his only worthy opponent: Christ. Both works show Nietsche lashing out at self-deception, astounded at how often morality is based on vengefulness and resentment. Both combine utterly unfair attacks on individuals with amazingly acute surveys of the whole contemporary cultural scene. Both reveal a profound understanding of human mean-spiritedness which still cannot destroy the underlying optimism of Nietzsche, the supreme affirmer among the great philosophers.

The Bet


Anton Chekhov - 1889
    A banker and a young lawyer make a bet with each other about whether the death penalty is better or worse than life in prison.

Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel


Jerome K. Jerome - 1889
    and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks - not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and proved so popular that Jerome reunited his now older - but not necessarily wiser - heroes in Three Men on the Bummel, for a picaresque bicycle tour of Germany. With their benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian 'clerking classes', both novels hilariously capture the spirit of their age.

A Pen Warmed-Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest.


Mark Twain - 1889
    Historian Norman Cantor explains how and why common law developed out of Roman law, in response to the needs and assumptions of English society and culture from 1000 to 1780, and how it became the basis of the American legal system. Professor Cantor shows that many of the current debates about the jury trial, the adversarial model and other parts of our legal system stem from this history. He highlights the minds and personalities of prominent judicial leaders, from Cicero and Justinian in the ancient world, through Glanville and Bracton in the Middle Ages, to Coke, Blackstone and Bentham in later centuries. A concluding chapter relates the social and cultural history of common law to the American system of Supreme Court Justices John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes and to the legal profession in the United States today."Imagining the Law" is authoritatively based on the extensive amount of recent research and writing in the field of legal history, and on Professor Cantor's reading of thousands of court cases. It is the first book to examine legal history in a cultural and sociological context and thus illuminates one of our most important institutions in a whole new way.

Ես և նա


Նար-Դոս - 1889
    One of the most beautiful and inspiring stories penned by Nar-Dos.

The Decay Of Lying


Oscar Wilde - 1889
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories


Leo Tolstoy - 1889
    "The Kreutzer Sonata" (1891) is a penetrating study of jealousy as well as a splenetic complaint about the way in which society educates young men and women in matters of sex. In "The Death of Ivan Ilych" (1886), a symbolic Everyman discovers the inner light of faith and love only when confronted by death. "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886) is a simple, didactic story of peasant life, written by Tolstoy in the wake of a spiritual crisis. All three tales offer readers a splendid introduction to Tolstoy's work as well as the focused delights of the short story form brought to a pinnacle in the hands of a master.

The Devil and Other Stories


Leo Tolstoy - 1889
    While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as The Snowstorm, Lucerne, The Diary of a Madman and The Devil are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious thought that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy. Strider and Father Sergy, as well as reflecting Tolstoy's own experiences, also reveal profound psychological insights. These stories range over much of the nineteenth-century Russian world, from the nobility to the peasantry, the military to the clergy, from merchants and cobblers to a horse and a tree. Together they present a fascinating picture of Tolstoy's skill and artistry.The snowstorm --Lucerne --Three deaths --Polikushka --Strider : the story of a horse --God sees the truth, but waits --The notes of a madman --Where love is, God is --The devil --Father Sergy --After the ball.

Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals


Ednah Dow Cheney - 1889
    Originally published just a year after Louisa May Alcott's death at the age of 55, this unparalleled collection of Alcott's surviving personal letters and journal entries and the additional biographical commentary from family friend Cheney serve to paint a picture of Alcott's "true and frank nature" and "how faithfully and fully she performed whatever duties circumstances laid upon her." This important work gives the reader insight into Alcott's life, and portrays how her experiences informed her timeless and much-loved classics.

Life, Letters and Journals


Louisa May Alcott - 1889
    This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1889 edition by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London.

Mephistophela


Catulle Mendès - 1889
    Telling the story of Baronne Sophor d’Hermelinge, a woman as thoroughly martyrized by her creator as any other heroine in the history of fiction, in spite of the enormous competition for that title established by countless writers, male and female, it is one of the archetypal novels of the Decadent Movement, and one of the most striking, precisely because is it such a discomfiting piece of writing, the deliberately controversial nature of which has been further enhanced as its surrounding social context has changed over time. Highly influential, especially on the works of such writers as Jean Lorrain and Renée Vivien, Mephistophela, in placing lesbian amour in the foreground of the story, deals forthrightly and intensively with a literary theme that had previously only been treated with delicacy and indecision, mostly in poetry. It is essentially a horror story about demonic possession, about contrived and cruel damnation, devoid even of a Faustian pact, which merely employs obsessive lesbian desire as an instrument of damnation.

Dreams and Dream Stories


Anna Kingsford - 1889
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.