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In the most seminal slave narrative ever written, Frederick Douglass writes, "From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom." Reading this narrative is to witness...
2) Roughing it
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Originally published over one hundred years ago, "Roughing It" tells the (almost) true story of Mark Twain's rollicking adventures across the United States. A hilarious account of how the author tried finding wealth in the rocks of Nevada, it was published before his most famous works and shows why he would grow to become one of the most beloved American writers of all time. The story follows many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to...
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The Oregon Trail is the gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a horseback journey that would ultimately take him over two thousand miles. His detailed description of the journey, set against the vast majesty of the Great Plains, has emerged through the generations as...
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"Over one hundred and fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French nobleman and an astute political scientist, came to the United States to evaluate the meaning and actual functioning of democracy. Democracy in America is the classic treatise on the American way of life that he wrote as a result of his visit." "Tocqueville discusses the advantages and dangers of the majority rule -- which he thought could be as tyrannical as the rule of...
8) The Republic
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"The Republic is Plato's masterwork. It was written 2,400 years ago and remains one of the most widely read books in the world, famous for both the richness of its ideas and the virtuosity of its writing. Presented as a dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and various interlocutors, it is an exhortation to study philosophy, inviting its readers to reflect on the choices we must make if we are to live the best life available to us. This complex,...
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King Lear is a prosperous but older man who plans to distribute his wealth among his three daughters in accordance to their declarations of love. Two shower him with compliments while the other is unable to participate in a false display of affection.
King Lear decides to step down from the throne and gift his daughters with the spoils of his kingdom. As a test, the size of their inheritance will correlate with how well they flatter him. The two...
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A retelling of the medieval poem about a group of travelers on a pilgrimage to Canterbury and the tales they tell each other. With their astonishing diversity of tone and subject matter, The Canterbury Tales have become one of the touchstones of medieval literature. Translated here into modern English, these tales of a motley crowd of pilgrims drawn from all walks of life-from knight to nun, miller to monk-reveal a picture of English life in the fourteenth...
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Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. He also invented bifocals, a stove that is still manufactured, a water-harmonica, and the lightning rod. Franklin's extraordinary range of interests and accomplishments...
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First published in Great Britain in 1881 and subsequently revised nine times between then and 1910, The Gun and Its Development traces the fascinating history of weaponry: the obscure, ancient origins of the slingshot and the bow, the invention of the crossbow, possibly around 1000 AD; the introduction of gunpowder into Europe in the fourteenth century; the development of sporting and military guns over the centuries thereafter; and the rise of modern,...
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When veteran award-winning radio theater producer Joe Bevilacqua was a student in his final semester at Kean College in 1982, he produced and directed a radio version of Hamlet.
Casting Kean faculty and students, and portraying the melancholy Danish prince himself, Bevilacqua not only completed his nearly four-hour radio adaption of Shakespeare's greatest work, he did so while carrying a double major, producing, acting in, and sometimes writing radio...
16) The Odyssey
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Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the "complicated"...
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Shakespeare's comedy of mistaken romance, in which a shipwrecked woman disguises herself as a man in order to help woo a lover for a Duke, but with unexpected results. This edition includes a selection from Shakespeare's original source, dramatic criticism from past and present, and a comprehensive stage and screen history of notable actors, directors, and productions of the play.
19) The Iliad
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When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017--revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)--critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other...