Journals and Letters


Frances Burney - 1841
    From her youth in London high society to a period in the court of Queen Charlotte and her years interned in France with her husband Alexandre d'Arblay during the Napoleonic Wars, she captured the changing times around her, creating brilliantly comic and candid portraits of those she encountered - including the 'mad' King George, Samuel Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and a charismatic Napoleon Bonaparte. She also describes, in her most moving piece, undergoing a mastectomy at fifty-nine without anaesthetic. Whether a carefree young girl or a mature woman, Fanny Burney's forthright, intimate and wickedly perceptive voice brings her world powerfully to life.

Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels


Deirdre Le Faye - 2002
    Austen scholar Deirdre Le Faye first gives an overview of the period, from foreign affairs to social ranks, from fashion to sanitation. She goes on to consider each novel individually.

The Worldly Philosophers


Robert L. Heilbroner - 1953
    In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The theme is the common focus of their highly varied ideas—namely, the search to understand how a capitalist society works. It is a focus never more needed than in this age of confusing economic headlines.In a bold new concluding chapter entitled “The End of the Worldly Philosophy?” Heilbroner reminds us that the word “end” refers to both the purpose and limits of economics. This chapter conveys a concern that today’s increasingly “scientific” economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics. Thus, unlike its predecessors, this new edition provides not just an indispensable illumination of our past but a call to action for our future. (amazon.com)

Apologia Pro Vita Sua (A Defense of One's Life)


John Henry Newman - 1864
    Mary's, Oxford, to join the Roman Catholic church. Perhaps no one took greater offense than Protestant clergyman Charles Kingsley, whose scathing attacks against Newman's faith and honor inspired this brilliant response. Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman's spiritual autobiography, explores the depths and nature of Christianity with flowing prose and a conversational style that has ensured its status as a classic."False ideas may be refuted by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. I will vanquish," Newman promised, "not my accuser, but my judges." His honest and passionate defense consists of a personal history of his religious convictions, from earliest memory through the Oxford movement and his ultimate conversion. His concluding point-by-point refutation of Kingsley's charges features thought-provoking contentions that strike at the very roots of the principles underlying Protestantism. Newman won respect and admiration with his Apologia, a work that has helped clarify perceptions of Roman Catholicism among readers of every faith.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys


Samuel Pepys - 1669
    As well as recording public and historical events, Pepys paints a vivid picture of his personal life, from his socializing and amorous entanglements, to his theatre-going and his work at the Navy Board. Unequaled for its frankness, high spirits and sharp observations, the diary is both a literary masterpiece and a marvelous portrait of seventeenth-century life.Previously published as The Shorter Pepys, this edition is edited and abridged by Robert Latham, Fellow and Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

The Complete Plays


Aristophanes
    But as Moses Hadas writes in his introduction to this volume, 'His true claim upon our attention is as the most brilliant and artistic and thoughtful wit our world has known.' Includes The Acharnians, The Birds, The Clouds, Ecclesiazusae, The Frogs, The Knights, Lysistrata, Peace, Plutus, Thesmophoriazusae, and The Wasps.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1879
    This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Journalist and the Murderer


Janet Malcolm - 1990
    She delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject.

I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers


Tim Madigan - 2006
    This fortuitous interview sparked a magnificent friendship between the two, one that would see both men through periods of grief as well as the hope of new beginnings. I’m Proud of You is the story of this friendship and of the enduring legacy left to us all by Fred Rogers. Tim’s career as a journalist was flourishing when he met Fred Rogers, but his personal life was a shambles. As Rogers welcomed Tim into his family, his church, and his life, Tim found an advisor who imparted a gentle but powerful perspective on spirituality, marriage, depression, and the nature of true friendship. With the television icon’s loving and patient guidance, Tim eventually came to understand that his emotional troubles were rooted in a deep fear that his father had never truly been proud of him. Hence the mantra of the friendship between the two, the phrase Rogers used to conclude dozens of letters and e-mail messages to Tim: “I’m Proud of You.” Tim’s friendship with Rogers helped him to mend his relationship with his father and become a better husband and father himself, all the while marveling at how many simple pleasures he had overlooked throughout his life.

Albert Camus: A Biography: A Biography


Herbert R. Lottman - 1979
    John Leonard, New York Times: What emerges from Mr. Lottman's tireless devotions is a portrait of the artist, the outsider, the humanist and skeptic, that breaks the heart. John Sturrock, The New York Times Book Review: Herbert Lottman's life (of Camus) is the first to be written, either in French or English, and it is exhaustive, a labor of love and of wonderful industry.This new edition includes a specially written preface by the author revealing the challenges of a biographer, of some of the problems that had to be dealt with while writing the book and after it appeared.

The Civil War


Gaius Julius Caesar
    The Civil War is a tense and gripping depiction of his struggle with Pompey over the leadership of Republican Rome - a conflict that spanned the entire Roman world, from Gaul and Spain to Asia and Africa. Where Caesar's own account leaves off in 48 BC, his lieutenants take up the history, describing the vital battles of Munda, Spain and Thapsus, and the installation of Cleopatra, later Caesar's mistress, as Queen of Egypt. Together these narratives paint a full picture of the events that brought Caesar supreme power - and paved the way for his assassination only months later.

Shakespeare After All


Marjorie Garber - 2004
    Drawing on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years, Marjorie Garber offers passionate and revealing readings of the plays in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. Supremely readable and engaging, and complete with a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare's life and times and an extensive bibliography, this magisterial work is an ever-replenishing fount of insight on the most celebrated writer of all time.

Prospero's Cell


Lawrence Durrell - 1945
    Prospero's Cell is his magical evocation of the blazing Aegean landscape, brimming with memories of the places and people that changed him forever.'Some writers reinvent their language; others the world. Durrell did both.' Andr� Aciman'Invades the reader's every sense ... Remarkable.' Victoria Hislop'These days I am admiring and re-admiring Lawrence Durrell.' Elif Shafak'Our last great garlicky master of the vanishing Mediterranean.' Richard Holmes'Corfu could not have found a fitter chronicler.' Daily Telegraph'A charming idyll ... Delightful.' Sunday Times

Brother to a Dragonfly


Will D. Campbell - 1977
    One is of his youth in rural Mississippi and his devotion to his brother whose life ended in seeming tragedy. The other tells of his ordination at age 17 and gradual realization that civil rightsfor blacks, for women, for gays was an essential part of a ministry that has not yet ended.

Ecclesiastical History of the English People


Bede
    It begins with Julius Caesar's invasion in the first century BC and goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to develop government and convert the people to Christianity during these crucial formative years. Relating the deeds of great men and women but also describing landscape, customs and ordinary lives, this is a rich, vivid portrait of an emerging church and nation by the 'Father of English History'.Leo Sherley-Price's translation from the Latin brings us an accurate and readable version of Bede's History. This edition includes Bede's Letter to Egbert, denouncing false monasteries; and The Death of Bede, an admirable eye-witness account by Cuthbert, monk and later Abbot of Jarrow, both translated by D. H. Farmer.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.