In a folksy narration peppered with sailor's jargon, the amiable, altogether down-to-earth merchant marine describes a series of amusingly disconcerting revelations about the next world.Sitting on a cloud strumming a harp all day turns out to be insufferably boring; being eternally youthful also has its drawbacks when the captain finds himself not mixing well with a crowd of insipid teenagers; and Native Americans so outnumber whites in the North American district of Paradise that the average white Anglo-Saxon male has trouble finding someone to talk to. In fact the outlandish dimensions and characteristics of heaven utterly explode every human conception.This funny, satirical spoof on human pretensions about the importance of our species in the grand scheme of things was the last published work by Mark Twain. The main character and plot were inspired by the dream of an actual sea captain whom Twain had known. Published at the beginning of the 20th century, when astronomy had just begun to reveal the huge expanse of outer space and traditional religious concepts of our place in the universe had become inadequate, Twain's humorous vision of the afterlife seems to reflect the new scientific awareness of the awesome cosmos that confronts us and the feelings of insignificance that this discovery produced.Two years after publication of this "extract," originally planned as a six-chapter book, Twain himself shipped off to follow in Captain Stormfield's wake.

    Presents an introduction to Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet Othello, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and Pericles.

    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

    James library, together with fifteen other pieces

    He is viewed as one of the first writers of the Edwardian era; challenging in his works some of the ideals of society depicted in the preceeding literature of Victorian England. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906-1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. From the Four Winds was Galsworthy's first published work in 1897, a collection of short stories. These, and several subsequent works, were published under the pen name John Sinjohn and it would not be until The Island Pharisees (1904) that he would begin publishing under his own name. His first play, The Silver Box (1906) became a success, and he followed it up with The Man of Property (1906), the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Along with other writers of the time such as Shaw his plays addressed the class system and social issues, two of the best known being Strife (1909) and The Skin Game (1920).

    His father had been disinherited and has left Scotland leaving his son penniless. After a brief apprenticeship to a surgeon, the innocent Roderick travels to London where he encounters various rogues.

    Among these guests are figures recognizable to Peacock's contemporaries, including characters based on Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Mr. Glowry's son Scythrop (also modeled on a famous Romantic, Peacock's friend Percy Bysshe Shelley) locks himself up in a tower where he reads German tragedies and transcendental philosophy and develops a "passion for reforming the world." Disappointed in love, a sorrowful Scythrop decides the only thing to do is to commit suicide, but circumstances persuade him to instead follow his father in a love of misanthropy and Madeira. In addition to satire and comic romance, Nightmare Abbey presents a biting critique of the texts we view as central to British romanticism.

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

    Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. Try as he might, he cannot avoid life's embarrassing mishaps. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing figure of Pooter, the Grossmiths created an immortal comic character and a superb satire on the snobberies of middle-class suburbia - one which also sends up late Victorian crazes for spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody.

    Their uneventful but always interesting everyday life is the main subject of a novel that evokes the charmingly contented and timeless while managing to be both funny and profound about human relations.

    And few episodes in postwar literature have the legendary stature of Hughes's romance with, and marriage to, the great American poet Sylvia Plath.The poems in Birthday Letters are addressed (with just two exceptions) to Plath, and were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Some are love letters, others haunted recollections and ruminations. In them, Hughes recalls his and Plath's time together, drawing on the powerful imagery of his work--animal, vegetable, mythological--as well as on Plath's famous verse.Countless books have discussed the subject of this intense relationship from a necessary distance, but this volume--at last--offers us Hughes's own account. Moreover, it's a truly remarkable collection of poems in its own right.

    In the dim light the effect was distinctly pleasing. The camel's face was a study in pessimism, decorated with numerous abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in that state of general negligence peculiar to camels--in fact, he needed to be cleaned and pressed--but distinctive he certainly was. He was majestic. He would have attracted attention in any gathering, if only by his melancholy cast of feature and the look of hunger lurking round his shadowy eyes.

    Written in 1886, the play's production was forbidden to be produced in Russia until 1902, mainly through the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev. In spite of the ban, the play was unofficially produced and read numerous times.

    The tale unfolds amid a fanciful version of Japanese society, in which a wandering minstrel has the misfortune to fall in love with the beautiful ward of the Lord High Executioner of Titipu.The sparkling lyrics and witty dialogue of this comic masterpiece are as much a delight to read as they are to hear with musical accompaniment. The complete libretto is reprinted in this edition from the standard performance text of The Mikado, complete with nine charming illustrations drawn by W. S. Gilbert himself.

    Formerly a governess, she has landed on the occupation of prestidigitator, and thanks to her overwhelming beauty—and to a lesser extent her professional talents—she takes the town by storm, gaining admittance to her grandfather's college. It is there, at the institution inspired by Beerbohm's own alma mater, that she falls in love with the Duke of Dorset, who duly adores her in return. Ever aware of appearances, however, Zuleika breaks the Duke's heart when she decides that she must abandon the match. The epidemic of heartache that proceeds to overcome the academic town makes for some of the best comic writing in the history of English literature.