Best of
Classics

1951

The Caine Mutiny


Herman Wouk - 1951
    In the intervening half century, The Caine Mutiny has become a perennial favorite of readers young and old, has sold millions of copies throughout the world, and has achieved the status of a modern classic.

Memoirs of Hadrian


Marguerite Yourcenar - 1951
    In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world, writing with the imaginative insight of a great writer of the twentieth century while crafting a prose style as elegant and precise as those of the Latin stylists of Hadrian's own era.

All-of-a-Kind Family


Sydney Taylor - 1951
    Follow along as they search for hidden buttons while dusting Mama's front parlor, or explore the basement warehouse of Papa's peddler's shop on rainy days. The five girls enjoy doing everything together, especially when it involves holidays and surprises. But no one could have prepared them for the biggest surprise of all!

Collected Short Stories: Volume 1


W. Somerset Maugham - 1951
    The collection contains thirty stories that take us from the islands of the Pacific Ocean to England, France and Spain. They all reveal Maugham's acute and often sardonic observation of human foibles and his particular genius for exposing the bitter reality of human relationships.Somerset Maugham learnt his craft from Maupassant, and these stories display the remarkable talent that made him an unsurpassed storyteller.

Foundation


Isaac Asimov - 1951
    Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire -- both scientists and scholars -- and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun -- or fight them and be destroyed.

The Sojourner


Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - 1951
    The Sojourner is the story of a good man: of the influence of his steady, quiet strength upon others, especially the members of his immediate family, and of what they--characters less strong and less stable--do to him throughout the course of a long life.

The Illustrated Man


Ray Bradbury - 1951
    Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley WiaterContents:· Prologue: The Illustrated Man · ss * · The Veldt [“The World the Children Made”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 23 ’50 · Kaleidoscope · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49 · The Other Foot · ss New Story Magazine Mar ’51 · The Highway [as by Leonard Spalding] · ss Copy Spr ’50 · The Man · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’49 · The Long Rain [“Death-by-Rain”] · ss Planet Stories Sum ’50 · The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 ’51 · The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”] · ss Imagination Apr ’51 · The Last Night of the World · ss Esquire Feb ’51 · The Exiles [“The Mad Wizards of Mars”] · ss Maclean’s Sep 15 ’49; F&SF Win ’50 · No Particular Night or Morning · ss * · The Fox and the Forest [“To the Future”] · ss Colliers May 13 ’50 · The Visitor · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48 · The Concrete Mixer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49 · Marionettes, Inc. [Marionettes, Inc.] · ss Startling Stories Mar ’49 · The City [“Purpose”] · ss Startling Stories Jul ’50 · Zero Hour · ss Planet Stories Fll ’47 · The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50 · Epilogue · aw *

Désirée


Annemarie Selinko - 1951
    Désirée is enchanted by the young officer, and he asks her to marry him. But he must leave for Paris, where he meets his eventual wife Josephine. A heartbroken Désirée is unsure she'll ever find anyone again. A love story, but so much more, Désirée is the tale of a simple merchant's daughter who ends up with a kind of royalty she never expected: an unforgettable story just waiting to be reborn.

A Sound of Thunder


Ray Bradbury - 1951
    Free online fiction.The short story, A Sound of Thunder, involves a Time Travel Safari where rich businessmen pay to travel back to prehistoric times and hunt real live dinosaurs.

Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1951
    This volume includes Silver Blaze, The Speckled Band, The Sign of Four, A Scandal of Bohemia, The Naval Treaty, The Blue Carbuncle, The Greek Interpreter, The Red-Headed League, The Empty House, The Missing Three-Quarter, and His Last Bow.

The Snow Goose and The Small Miracle


Paul Gallico - 1951
    

Molloy


Samuel Beckett - 1951
    Few works of contemporary literature have been so universally acclaimed as central to their time and to our understanding of the human experience.

Selected Poetry and Prose


Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1951
    But he was also the most radical writer in the English literary tradition of his day, a fiery political visionary committed to social change and progress. The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context.The Wordsworth Poetry Library comprises the works of the greatest English-speaking poets, as well as many lesser-known poets. Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.

The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald


F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1951
    Early SuccessThe Diamond as Big as the RitzBernice Bobs Her HairThe Ice PalaceMay DayWinter Dreams"The Sensible Thing"AbsolutionII. Glamour and DisillusionmentThe Rich BoyThe Baby PartyMagnetismThe Last of the BellesThe Rough CrossingThe Bridal PartyTwo WrongsIII. Retrospective: Basil and JosephineThe Scandal DetectivesThe Freshest BoyThe Captured ShadowA Woman with a PastIV. Last Act and EpilogueBabylon RevisitedCrazy SundayFamily in the WindAn Alcoholic CaseThe Long Way OutFinancing FinneganPat Hobby Himself A Patriotic Short Two Old TimersThree Hours Between PlanesThe Lost Decade

Tempest-Tost


Robertson Davies - 1951
    Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows that she has plans of her own, Hector despairs and tries to commit suicide on the play's opening night.

The Day of the Triffids


John Wyndham - 1951
    Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere twenty-four hours before is gone forever.But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk, and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, fifty years before their realization, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia.

Six Plays: Peer Gynt / A Doll's House / Ghosts / The Wild Duck / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder


Henrik Ibsen - 1951
    After writing historical plays and imaginative epic dramas in verse, such as Peer Gynt, Ibsen turned away from history and romanticism to focus instead on the problems of the individual and modern society. The plays of his middle period—A Doll’s House, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, and his most popular play, Hedda Gabler—are masterpieces of stark psychological realism. In his final plays, including The Master Builder, Ibsen mixed realism and symbolism to enrich his examination of our subconscious drives and urges. Ibsen was criticized and denounced during his lifetime for expanding the boundaries of what is acceptable fare for the stage. Audiences were shocked when he wrote of feminist yearnings, venereal disease, and the deep emotions that underlie the sadness involved in being human. James Joyce put the criticism in perspective: “Henrik Ibsen is one of the world’s great men before whom criticism can make but feeble show. . . . When the art of a dramatist is perfect the critic is superfluous.” Ibsen has since come to be considered one of our greatest playwrights. Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: •New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars •Biographies of the authors •Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events •Footnotes and endnotes •Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work •Comments by other famous authors •Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations •Bibliographies for further reading •Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

The Complete Short Stories Of Robert Louis Stevenson: With A Selection Of The Best Short Novels


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1951
    The editor has collected in convenient form Stevenson's short fiction, including the complete New Arabian Nights and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as ghost stories, medieval romances, farces, horror stories, and the South Sea Tales. This volume amply illustrates Stephenson’s wide range and enduring appeal.Lodging for the night --Suicide Club: Story of the young man with the cream tarts / Story of the physician and the Saratoga trunk / Adventure of the Hansom cab --Rajah's Diamond: Story of the bandbox / Story of the young man in Holy Orders / Story of the house with the green blinds / Adventure of Prince Florizel and a detective --Providence and the guitar --Sire de Maletroit's door --Will o' the mill --Story of a lie --Thrawn Janet --Merry men --Body-snatcher --Markheim --Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde --Bottle imp --Beach of Falesa --Isle of Voices.

The Jungle Book


Classics Illustrated - 1951
    Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:83-83362

Main Stream of Mathematics


Edna E. Kramer - 1951
    A special feature of the work is the wealth of historical and legendary material showing the evolution of science and its often surprising sources. Also of special interest is the author's path-breaking chapter on the contributions of women mathematicians.

The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1


W. Somerset Maugham - 1951
    The first of three volumes of 'The Complete Short Stories'.

Natural History, Volume VI: Books 20-23


Pliny the Elder - 1951
    Topics included are the mathematics and metrology of the universe; world geography and ethnography; human anthropology and physiology; zoology; botany, agriculture, and horticulture; medicine; minerals, fine arts, and gemstones.

More Guys and Dolls


Damon Runyon - 1951
    You won't be, for here in More Guys and Dolls are many hours of reading pleasure.More Guys and Dolls reintroduces to the American public Damon Runyon at his best. This large collection contains thirty-four priceless tales, six of which have never before been published in book form. Here you will meet Chesty Charles, Spider McCoy, Dawn Astra, Wingy Smung, Mike the mugger, and many another "sweet pea of a character." Meet also the heroine of the year, Miss Sarah Brown, whose story inspired the Broadway success "Guys and Dolls." The bookies, the babes, and the touts are all here and better than ever.

My Cousin Rachel


Daphne du Maurier - 1951
    Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, a man who will love his grand home as much as he does himself. But the cosy world the two construct is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. There he falls in love and marries - and there he dies suddenly. Jealous of his marriage, racked by suspicion at the hints in Ambrose's letters, and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart. Despite himself, Philip is drawn to this beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious Rachel like a moth to the flame. And yet... might she have had a hand in Ambrose's death?

The Journal of John Wesley


Percy Livingstone Parker - 1951
    Not only did his extensive evangelistic work in England and the United States have a very powerful effect, but his devotional meditations have become loved and cherished by Christians everywhere. John Wesley's complete journal, which he added to daily, encompasses twenty-six volumes describing his experiences and deep inner spiritual life and growth. During his lifetime, portions of this journal were published in four volumes. Here in this handy paperback are selections from this work, giving easy access to the ardent meditations and unique experiences of this man of God. A new understanding of John Wesley and his ministry will be gained from reading this journal, but more important, it offers a new understanding of the God he served.

The Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe


Edgar Allan Poe - 1951
    O. MabbottTamerlaneToPOEMS("I Saw on thy Bridal Day")A Dream Within a DreamA Dream"The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour"The Lake: ToAloneSonnet—To ScienceSongs from A1 Aaraaf("The BowersToTo the RiverRomanceTo — ("I heedFairylandTo HelenLenoreIsrafeiThe City in the SeaThe SleeperThe Valley of Unrest (first version)The Valley of Unrest (final version)The ColiseumTo One in Paradise (in The Assignation, p. 80)HymnSonnet to ZanteBridal BalladThe Haunted Palace (in The Fall of the House of Usher, p. 122)Sonnet—SilenceThe Conqueror Worm (in Ligeia, p. 107)DreamlandThe RavenEulalie—A SongTo M.L.S—-UlalumeTo HelenFor AnnieEldoradoTo MyAnnabel LeeThe BellsTALESMetzengersteinThe Duc L'OmeletteMS. Fmrnd in a BottleThe AssignationBereniceMorellaShadowSilence—A FableLigeiaThe Fail of the House of UsherWilliam WilsonThe Conversation of Eiros and CharmionThe Man of the CrowdThe Murders in the Rue MorgueThe Island of the FayA Descent into the MaelströmThree Sundays in a WeekEleonoraThe Oval PortraitThe Masque of the Red DeathThe Pit and the PendulumThe Tell-Tale HeartThe Gold-BugThe Black CatThe ElkThe Purloined LetterThe Imp of the PerverseThe Facts in the Case of M. ValdemarThe Cask of AmontilladoHop-FrogVon Kempelen and His DiscoveryThe Light-HouseWatkins TottleHyperionExordiumInstinct vs Reason—A Black CatR. W. EmersonHazlitt, The Characters of ShakspeareMilton, Prme WorksThe Philosophy of CompositionHawthorne, Tales, etc.The Poetic PrincipleMarginalia (extracts)NotesIndex of Titles of Poems

One Hundred Modern Poems


Selden Rodman - 1951
    

The Long, Long Trailer


Clinton Twiss - 1951
    It is about a couple who buy a new travel trailer home and spend a year traveling across the United States. The novel was made into a movie in 1954 starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

The Sun-Dog Trail And Other Stories


Jack London - 1951
    

Five Plays: Henry IV (Part One), Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest


William Shakespeare - 1951
    DownerTypography Design by Stefan SalterPrinted in the United States of America21917-0211"

The Accused


Alexander Weissberg - 1951
    during the Great Purge from the middle of 1936 to the end of 1938.It is the exploration of the systematic imprisonment, interrogation and extraction of false confessions from millions of people that is extraordinary. Weissberg explains how victims of the state police were forced to make confessions incriminating not only themselves but also co-conspirators. This practice was aimed at destroying the relations of trust between those who were responsible for the Russian revolution. Those who were not killed in camps in the Soviet Arctic were divided and conquered.Hence, the central thesis in the book is that the Russian revolution and communism in the Soviet Union were irrevocably destroyed and ended in the 1930s during the terror of the Stalinist purges.A remarkable and little known contribution to our understanding of the events in the Soviet Union.

The Smoking Mountain: Stories of Postwar Germany


Kay Boyle - 1951
    Both here, and in the stories, the ""true computation is fervently made"" that here, in the German people, is no realization of guilt, no knowledge of guilt. The stories are enormously effective, compassionate, bitter, sharpened by the understated, the unsaid,-and it is in the short story situation (rather than in the novel) that Kay Boyle is particularly gifted. There's the arson revenge of a German child against an American family; a take-off of the Amis in Cabaret, a touching tribute to a soldier, and the little boy he outfits, and a harsh scoring of the occupation's bigger brass; and The Lost and Adam's Tod give a powerful, tacit portrayal of the victims- young and old- of displacement and discrimination... If not keyed to the preferences of her more popular audience, this will carry to her earlier, discriminating following.

Plato, Selected Passages


R.W. Livingstone - 1951