Best of
Literature

1867

Collected Poems and Translations


Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1867
    Collected Poems and Translations gathers both published and unpublished work - poems left in manuscript at his death and hitherto available only in drastically edited or specialized scholarly versions - to offer all readers for the first time the full range of Emerson's poetry.

The Claverings


Anthony Trollope - 1867
    The Claverings is filled with contemporary detail and shows, as Trollope often does, the weakness of men and the emotional strength of women.

The House of the Dead & The Gambler


Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1867
    In graphic detail he describes the suffering of the convicts - their squalor and degradation, their terror and resignation, from the rampages of a pyschopath to the brief serenity of Christmas Day. Amid the horror of labour in the sub-zero work camp, we hear the stories of the prisoners, and live through the freezing isolation and pain of day after day of misery. We see a young intellectual forced to live, eat and sleep with men from a background of cruelty, coarseness and brutality.Alternate edition of ISBN-10: 1840226293 / ISBN-13: 9781840226294

Dover Beach and Other Poems


Matthew Arnold - 1867
    In addition to the title poem, it includes such masterpieces as "The Scholar Gipsy," "Thyrsis," "The Forsaken Merman," "Memorial Verses," and "Rugby Chapel."Although as a literary critic, Arnold championed the serene poise and impersonal grandeur of the classics, his own poems were often more romantic than classical in nature — intimate, personal, sentimental, even nostalgic. Yet it is these engaging qualities, together with his poems' lyrical inspiration and lofty meditative character, that continue to endear Matthew Arnold to lovers of poetry.

Anne Hereford


Mrs. Henry Wood - 1867
    Its setting and viewpoint have led to natural comparisons with Jane Eyre, but it is Jane Eyre shot through with scandal and sensation -- the kind of book that might have appealed to the first Mrs. Rochester. Despite its antiquated wills, inheritances, shotguns, and other paraphernalia, the novel is almost entirely accessible by modern readers -- with perhaps one exception. The reader should keep in mind that the phrase "make love to" denoted harmless flirting or praise in Victorian parlance. Thus when Selina urges, "Anne, come forward, and let Mr. Heneage make love to you. It is a pastime he favors," nothing sinister is implied. --Martha Bayless

Fighting the Flames: A Tale of the London Fire Brigade


R.M. Ballantyne - 1867
    No one is more proud of his accomplishments than his younger brother, Willie. As Frank battles the flames, Willie learns what the heart of a hero is made of. Through daring rescues, valiant hard work, plots of arson, attempted murder and winning the worthy hearts of virtuous young women, the best and worst of mid-19th century London is exposed. Fighting the Flames: A Tale of the London Fire Brigade is a masterpiece of fiction; a beautiful tapestry woven of adventure, heroism and the broad spectrum of human nature. R.M. Ballantyne expertly maneuvers his extensive and intricate cast of characters through a series of crossed paths, creating lively interplay between the wide varieties of human personalities and foibles that create the diversity of city life--all in the shadow of the great nightly battle with the flames.

Smoke


Ivan Turgenev - 1867
    It is an exquisite study of politics and society and an enduringly poignant love story. Smoke, with its European setting, barbed wit, and visionary call for Russia to look west, became the center of a famous philosophical breach between Turgenev and Dostoevsky.