Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book contains chapters focused on Don Quixote, Works inspired by Don Quixote, and Characters in Don Quixote. More info: (;, see spelling and pronunciation below), fully titled The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes created a fictional origin for the story by inventing a Moorish chronicler for Don Quixote named Cide Hamete Benengeli. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.

    

    

    R. R. Tolkien... Free BONUS Inside! J. R. R. Tolkien, an orphan in love with words, spent most of his life as an unassuming Professor of Literature at Oxford studying and teaching old languages. During his time there, he created his very own languages and a mythological world, Middle-earth. Middle-earth was inhabited by Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, and other fascinating creatures. It was a world that became almost more real to Tolkien than the one he lived in. Tolkien’s two masterpieces, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have set the standard in mythological literature. Translated into more than 70 languages, the books and their battles of good and evil are as relevant today as they were when Tolkien first wrote them. Discover a plethora of topics such as From South Africa to the English Countryside Tolkien’s Forbidden Love Tolkien during World War I Years at Oxford The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Late Life and Death And much more! So if you want a concise and informative book on J. R. R. Tolkien, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access!

    A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.The books in the series will all follow the same structure: a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences, and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas; a summary of how the novel was received upon publication; a summary of how the novel has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations, literary prizes, etc.; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites and discussion forums; and a list of questions for reading groups to discuss.

    As Stanley Wells suggests: "To see Shakespeare as one among a great company is only to enhance our sense of what made him unique.”Wells explores Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, both behind the scenes and in front of the curtain. He examines how the great actors of the time influenced Shakespeare's work. He writes about the lives and works of the other major writers of Shakespeare’s day and discusses Shakespeare’s relationships—sometimes collaborative—with each of them. And throughout, Wells shares his vast knowledge of the period, re-creating and celebrating the sheer richness and variety of Shakespeare's social and cultural milieus.Shakespeare and Co. gives us a new understanding of how the Bard achieved unparalleled singularity as the greatest writer in the language.

    The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (from Amazon)

    Bate opens by taking up questions of authorship, asking, for example, Who was Shakespeare, based on the little documentary evidence we have? Which works really are attributable to him? And how extensive was the influence of Christopher Marlowe? Bate goes on to trace Shakespeare's canonization and near- deification, examining not only the uniqueness of his status among English-speaking readers but also his effect on literate cultures across the globe. Ambitious, wide-ranging, and historically rich, this book shapes a provocative inquiry into the nature of genius as it ponders the legacy of a talent unequalled in English letters. A bold and meticulous work of scholarship, The Genius of Shakespeare is also lively and accessibly written and will appeal to any reader who has marveled at the Bard and the enduring power of his work.

    The lifetime work of Professor Alexander Schmidt of Königsberg, this book has long been the indispensable companion for every person seriously interested in Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry and prose of any sort, or English literature. It is really two important books in one.Schmidt’s set contains every single word that Shakespeare used, not simply words that have changed their meaning since the seventeenth century, but every word in all the accepted plays and the poems. Covering both quartos and folios, it carefully distinguishes between shades of meaning for each word and provides exact definitions, plus governing phrases and locations, down to the numbered line of the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. There is no other word dictionary comparable to this work.Even more useful to the general reader, however, is the incredible wealth of exact quotations. Arranged under the words of the quotation itself (hence no need to consult confusing subject classifications) are more than 50,000 exact quotations. Each is precisely located, so that you can easily refer back to the plays or poems themselves, if you wish context.Other features helpful to the scholar are appendixes on basic grammatical observations, a glossary of provincialisms, a list of words and sentences taken from foreign languages, a list of words that form the latter part of word-combinations. This third edition features a supplement with new findings.

    Written by two leading scholars.Assumes no prior knowledge of British history.Text is broken up with maps, illustrations, and genealogies; includes glossary.Focuses on what political, religious, and constitutional developments meant to ordinary people.Covers relevant events in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.Places the Tudor-Stuart period in the context of what happened before and after.Accompanied by the student sourcebook Sources and Debates in English History, 1485-1714 - see http: //www.blackwellpublishing.com/0631213910 For more information visit http: //www.blackwellpublishing.com/earlymode...

    It was a time of uncertainty and incessant warfare, a time during which the crown was constantly contested, alliances were made and broken, and peasants and townsmen alike arose in revolt. This was the raw material of Shakespeare's dramas, and Norwich holds up his work to the light of history to ask: Who was the real Falstaff? How accurate a historian was the playwright? Shakespeare's Kings is a marvelous study of the Bard's method of spinning history into art, and a captivating portrait of the Middle Ages.

    These stories have been around since the dawn of human civilization. They were tales that were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition that spanned hundreds of years. They have since been written down, translated and have traveled the world, encompassing many languages and cultures over the millennia.These 60 stories can be read and enjoyed by all ages, all religions and all cultures.

    The aged, abused monarch—a man in his eighties, like Harold Bloom himself—is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare’s most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Emma Bovary or Hamlet when we are seventeen and another when we are forty, Bloom writes about his shifting understanding—over the course of his own lifetime—of Lear, so that this book also explores an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity. Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare’s characters make. He delivers that kind of exhilarating intimacy, pathos, and clarity in Lear.

    It focuses on the tumultuous lives of two Afghan women and how their lives cross each other, spanning from the 1960s to 2003. The book was released on May 22, 2007, and received favorable prepublication reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, as well as reaching #2 on Amazon.com's bestseller list before its release. Time magazine's Lev Grossman placed it at number three in the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, and praised it as a "dense, rich, pressure-packed guide to enduring the unendurable." Jonathan Yardley said in the Washington Post "Book World": "Just in case you're wondering whether Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better."

    During his lifetime, Buffalo Bill was the most famous person in the world. Eratosthenes created geography. Martin Luther King was jailed 29 times. George Washington is the only person to serve in war while being the US president. Gandhi refused to educate his children and disowned two of them. Alexander the Great claimed to have seen a UFO. Michael Jackson wanted to play Peter Pan in the film, Hook. Bob Marley suffered from seizures. Archimedes was the first person to calculate pi. Isaac Newton believed in Atlantis. Anaximander figured out that the Earth is round. Joseph Stalin was covered in scars due to suffering smallpox. Aristotle believed eels were made of mud. Leonardo Da Vinci was the first person who could explain why the Moon was crescent-shaped. Pythagoras was so good at mathematics, people thought he was a sorcerer. Napoleon was terrified of open doors. King Arthur’s real name was Ambrosius Aurelianus. Saddam Hussein was obsessed with Doritos. Socrates thought the concept of books was stupid. Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use iPads. Mark Zuckerberg went through a time where he would eat animals that he killed.