The Story of an African Farm


Olive Schreiner - 1883
    The first of the great South African novels chronicles the adventures of three childhood friends who defy societal repression. The novel's unorthodox views on religion and marriage aroused widespread controversy upon its 1883 publication, and the work retains in power more than a century later. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

From the Earth to the Moon and 'Round the Moon


Jules Verne - 1869
    showed that the projectile has passed the atmospheric strata, for the diffused light spread in the air would have been reflected on the metal walls, which reflection was wanting. This light would have lit the window, and the window was dark. Doubt was no longer possible; the travelers had left the earth. "I have lost," said Nicholl. "I congratulate you," replied Ardan. "Here are the nine thousand dollars," said the captain, drawing a roll of paper dollars from his pocket. "Will you have a receipt for it?" asked Barbicane, taking the sum. "If you do not mind," answered Nicholl; "it is more business-like." This is the legendary novel of technological speculation and social satire that launched an entire genre of adventure fiction: Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and 'Round the Moon is the first story of space exploration and remains a beloved work of daring exploits-and surprisingly accurate scientific conjecture. When the members of the Baltimore Gun Club-bored Civil War veterans-decide to fill their time by embarking on a project to shoot themselves to the moon, the race is on to raise money, overcome engineering challenges, and convince detractors that they're anything but "Lunatics." With this work, Verne inspired the first science fiction film, 1902's Le Voyage dans la lune, and accurately predicted that that ideal location for a spacebase is in Florida. First published in France in 1865, this replica 1918 edition includes the sequel, 1870's Round the Moon. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon OF INTEREST TO: science fiction fans, readers of 19th-century literature French author JULES GABRIEL VERNE (1828-1905) is considered the father of modern science fiction. Among his many groundbreaking books are Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872).

Selected Poems


William Blake - 1970
    An alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.Features 104 of Blake's poems: "A Song of Liberty," "The Argument," "Proverbs of Hell," "The Mental Traveller," "The Land of Dreams," "To the Evening Star" and many more.

Oz: The Complete Collection


L. Frank Baum - 1900
    Frank Baum has been captivating the hearts of the young, and not so young, for over a hundred years.This delightful compilation includes all fifteen books written by L. Frank Baum:The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Marvelous Land of OzOzma of OzDorothy and the Wizard in OzThe Road to OzThe Emerald City of OzThe Patchwork Girl Of OzLittle Wizard Stories of OzTik-Tok of OzThe Scarecrow Of OzRinkitink In OzThe Lost Princess Of OzThe Tin Woodman Of OzThe Magic of OzGlinda Of OzPerhaps there is no better, or fitting, introduction one could give to this compilation than the author's note that Baum himself writes in his very first book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Here he reveals the true intention of his work. Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

50 Great Short Stories


Milton CraneEdmund Wilson - 1952
    The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O'Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common—the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world's fiction.Garden party / Katherine Mansfield --Three-day blow / Ernest Hemingway --Standard of living / Dorothy Parker --Saint / V.S. Pritchett --Other side of the hedge / E.M. Forster --Brooksmith / Henry James --Jockey / Carson McCullers --Courting of Dinah Shadd / Rudyard Kipling --Shot / Alexander Poushkin, translated by T. Keane --Graven Image / John O'Hara --Putois / Anatole France, translated by Frederic Chapman --Only the dead know Brooklyn / Thomas Wolfe --A.V. Laider / Max Beerbohm --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Masque of the Red Death / Edgar Allan Poe --Looking back / Guy de Maupassant, translated by H.N.P. Sloman --Man higher up / O. Henry --Summer of the beautiful white horse / William Saroyan --Other two / Edith Wharton --Theft / Katherine Anne Porter --Good man is hard to find / Flannery O'Connor --Man of the house / Frank O'Connor --Man who shot snapping turtles / Edmund Wilson --Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley --Curfew tolls / Stephen Vincent Benet --Father wakes up the village / Clarence Day --Ivy Day in the committee room / James Joyce --Chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck --Door / E.B. White --Upheaval / Anton Chekhov --How beautiful with shoes / Wilbur Daniel Steele --Haunted house / Virginia Woolf --Catbird seat / James Thurber --Schartz-Metterklume method / H.H. Munro --Death of a Bachelor / Arthur Schnitzler --Apostate / George Milburn --Phoenix / Sylvia Townsend Warner --That evening sun / William Faulkner --Law / Robert M. Coates --Tale / Joseph Conrad --Girl from Red Lion, PA / H.L. Mencken --Main currents of American thought / Irwin Shaw --Ghosts / Lord Dunsany --Minister's black veil / Nathaniel Hawthorne --String of beads / W. Somerset Maugham --Golden honeymoon / Ring Lardner --Man who could work miracles / H.G. Wells --Foreigner / Francis Steegmuller --Thrawn Janet / Robert Louis Stevenson --Chaser / John Collier

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights


N.J. Dawood - 1775
    Dawood in Penguin Classics.The tales told by Scheherazade over a thousand and one nights to delay her execution by the vengeful King Shahryar have become among the most popular in both Eastern and Western literature. From the epic adventures of 'Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp' to the farcical 'Young Woman and her Five Lovers' and the social criticism of 'The Tale of the Hunchback', the stories depict a fabulous world of all-powerful sorcerers, jinns imprisoned in bottles and enchanting princesses. But despite their imaginative extravagance, the Tales are also anchored to everyday life by their bawdiness and realism, providing a full and intimate record of medieval Eastern world.In this selection, N.J. Dawood presents the reader with an unexpurgated translation of the finest and best-known tales, preserving their spirited narrative style in lively modern English. In his introduction, he discusses their origins in the East and their differences from Classical Arabic literature, and examines English translations of the tales since the eighteenth century.If you enjoyed Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, you might like Snorri Sturlson's The Prose Edda, also available in Penguin Classics.

Classic Fairy Tales


Hans Christian Andersen - 1835
    Readers the world over know his poignant tale of "The Little Mermaid," who sacrifices everything for love, and "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," whose affection for a paper ballerina is symbolized by his transformation into a small tin heart. Several of Andersen's stories are so well known—among them "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling"—that their titles alone have become meaningful figures of speech. Hans Christian Andersen: Classic Fairy Tales collects 100 of Andersen's incomparable fairy tales and stories, among them "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," "The Princess and the Pea," "The Red Shoes," "The Wild Swans," and his fantasy masterpiece, "The Snow-Queen." The book is abundantly illustrated with more than 100 hundred drawings and color plates by Dugald Stewart Walker and Hans Tegner, two of Andersen's best-known illustrators.

Caleb Williams


William Godwin - 1794
    But as he digs deeper into Falkland's past and finally unearths the guilty truth, the results of his curiosity prove calamitous when - even though Caleb has loyally sworn never to disclose what he has discovered - the Squire enacts a cruel revenge. A tale of gripping suspense and psychological power, William Godwin's novel creates a searing depiction of the intolerable persecution meted out to a good man in pursuit of justice and equality. Written to expose the political oppression and corrupt hierarchies its author saw in the world around him, Caleb Williams (1794) makes a radical call to end the tyrannical misuses of power.

The Adventures of Robin Hood: An English Legend


Paul Creswick - 1902
    Recounts the life and adventures of Robin Hood, who, with his band of followers, lived as an outlaw in Sherwood Forest dedicated to fight against tyranny.

Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands


Mary Seacole - 1857
    In her long and varied life, she was to travel in Central America, Russia and Europe, find work as a inn-keeper and as a doctress during the Crimean War, and become a famed heroine, the author of her own biography, in Britain. As this autobiography shows, Mary Seacole had a sharp instinct for hypocrisy as well as a ripe taste for sarcasm. Frequently we see her joyfully rise to mock the limitations artificially imposed on her as a black woman. She emerges from her writings as an individual with a most un-Victorian zest for travel, adventure and independence.

The Fall of Icarus


Ovid
    . .’ Enduring myths of vengeful gods and tragically flawed mortals from ancient Rome’s great poet. Ovid tells the tales of Theseus and the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, the Calydonian Boar-Hunt, and many other famous myths.(Taken from Books VIII and IX of Mary M. Innes’s translation of Metamorphoses.)[ Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) 43 BC–17 AD ]Little Black Classics celebrates Penguin’s 80th birthday, introducing 80 works from the classics.