The Bet is an 1889 short story by Anton Chekhov about a banker and a young lawyer who make a bet with each other about whether the death penalty is better or worse than life in prison.

    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.

    What is the good King to do? How will his selfish Prince ever learn to rule the kingdom well? His most trusted friend, Sir Malcolm, has a plan. Prince Hubert is swept away to a land where he is simply known as Hugh, a peasant boy. His silks are replaced with rough work clothes, his castle dwelling with a humble cottage. It is here that Hugh learns valuable life lessons from the widow of the forest.Hugh is a sturdy, likable boy who will undoubtedly take a favorite place in the line of lovable Lamplighter characters.

    Here in one attractive paperbound volume - with enlarged print - are Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltzkin, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, Trusty John, Jack and the Giantkiller, Goldilocks, and many other favorites that have become an indispensable part of our culture heritage.All in all, this collection contains 37 stories, all arranged in the clear, lively prose for which Lang was famous. Not only are Lang's generally conceded to be the best English versions of standard stories, his collections are the richest and widest in range. His position as one of England's foremost folklorists as well as his first-rate literary abilities makes his collection invaluable in the English language.

    From the Barnes and Noble Classic Leather Bound edition of 'Fairy Tales from Around the World' and originally published 'The Blue Fairy Book' by Andrew Lang.

    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.

    Brown, Samuel Holt Monk, Allan Bloom, Nigel Dennis, Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr., A. E. Dyson, William Frost, C. J. Rawson, Kathleen Williams, Martin Price, Robert M. Adams, and Jay Arnold Levine An Annotated Bibliography guides the reader to important works for further study.

    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.

    ILIGEIA 22THE MAN OF THE CROWD 39WILLIAM WILSON 49THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH . . . • 71THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 78ELEONORA 86THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM 93LANDOR'S COTTAGE HOMS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE I23A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM . . . . I35THE ASSIGNATION 153SHADOW.— A PARABLE 166THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA . . . 169THE GOLD-BUG 179THE PURLOINED LETTER 217ESSAYS, REVIEWS, and MARGINALIA—PAGETHE POETIC PRINCIPLE 239THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION . . .262NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE'S "TWICE-TOLD TALES'* . 275HAWTHORNE'S ESSAYS 283ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING AND SHELLEY . 284THEORIES OF POETRY: COLERIDGE AND WORDS-WpRTQ 287THEORIES pF PQETRY : LONGFELLOW'S BALLADS . 290TENNYSON . . . . , 297TOM MOORE : FANCY AND IMAGINATION . . .299HOOD'S POEMS 301DICKENS'S "OLD CURIOSITY SHOP" . , . . 302LORD LYTTON 3^4SUE'S "MYSTERIES OF PARIS" Z'^R. H. HORNE 307BOLINGBRQKE . 3o8EUREKA: dedication and conclusion ... 309

    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.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Driven to grief by a sacrificial choice he has secluded himself from those around him. But little Myrtle and her sister reach out to him and through love and compassion help him to realize he is not alone. His heart thaws through their loving kindness and just in time, for spring is about to bring new surprises and unimaginable joy. A reminder that sometimes when things seem unbearably dark God is orchestrating events for our good in ways we cannot imagine.

    The difficulty of the language is one which makes it well nigh impossible for the unaided foreigner to do anything like justice to the stories. We laboured together often till dawn to make the translation as literal as possible, that the reader might have as true a rendering of the Magyar story-teller's method and manner as so different a tongue as English would permit.Whilst engaged on the Finnish stories we received the greatest help from Finnish friends, especially Mr. A. Nieminen, Dr. Fagerlund, Dr. Krohn, Dr. Rancken, Professor Freudenthal, Mr. Halleen, and Mr. Walter von Bonsdorff. In the Lapp stories Professor Friis of Christiania has ever been a true helper. Amongst numerous kindly helpers we tender thanks to Dr. Retzius, Stockholm; Professor Gittée, Charleroi; the Rev. Henry Jebb, of Firbeck Hall; Mr. Quigstad, of Troms; Mr. Nordlander; Mr. O. P. Petersson, Hernösand; Mr. Lindholm; Dr. R. Köhler; Baron Nordenskjöld; and the Rev. Walter H. James, rector of Fleet.We regret that we cannot do more than acknowledge the courtesy of the late Dr. Greguss (Buda Pest), whose lamented death removed a scholar and friend to Englishmen.If this collection adds a mite to the knowledge of man, our labours will not have been in vain.[1]W. H. J. , L. L. K.[1] Mr. Kropf desires it to be stated, that he is not responsible for the Introduction and Notes beyond supplying certain portions of the material for their compilation.INTRODUCTION.Before the arrival of the Magyars, Hungary was the "cock-pit of eastern Europe;" its history one incessant struggle between nation and nation, which either perished or was driven out by some more powerful neighbour. First we hear of the subjection of what was known as Pannonia, by the Romans; then, when that great power began to wane, a motley horde under the great Attila swept down and founded a kingdom. "Attila died in Pannonia in 453. Almost immediately afterwards the empire he had amassed rather than consolidated fell to pieces. His too-numerous sons began to quarrel about their inheritance; while Ardaric, the King of the Gepidae, placed himself at the head of a general revolt of the dependent nations. The inevitable struggle came to a crisis near the river Netad, in Pannonia, in a battle in which 30,000 of the Huns and their confederates, including Ellak,[1] Attila's eldest son, were slain. The nation thus broken rapidly dispersed. One horde settled under Roman protection in Little Scythia (the Dobrudsha); others in Dacia Ripensis (on the confines of Servia and Bulgaria), or on the southern borders of Pannonia."[2] A tradition asserts that the Magyars are descendants of those Huns, who, after their defeat, returned to their homes in Asia. On the other hand, one of their most learned men says, we cannot "form an accurate idea as to the part the Hungarians took in the irruption of the Huns, with which event they are associated in national tradition." But yet he adds, "we fairly claim that the ancestors of the Hungarians took part in the great devastating campaigns which Attila carried on against Rome and the Christian West, as far as France." Legend carries us still further back, saying that the giant Nimrod had two sons named Hunyor and Magyar, from whom the Huns and Magyars descended.[3] Leaving legend, in history we find that the Magyars appeared in Europe about 884, first on the Ural, later on the banks of the middle Volga; and then, marching westward, passed over the Danube and the Bug, crossing the Carpathians between 888 and 900, under Álmos, the father of Árpád,[4] the founder of modern Hungary, who is said to have cla