Catalog Search Results
21) Flame and shadow
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Flame and Shadow (1920) is a poetry collection by Sara Teasdale. The poet's fifth collection, published two years after she won the 1918 Pulitzer Prize, is a masterful collection of lyric poems meditating on life, death, and the natural world. Somber and celebratory, symbolic and grounded in experience, Flame and Shadow revels in the mystery of existence itself. "What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, / That my songs do not show...
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A poet lives for more than three centuries, becomes a woman, and ages only twenty years in this classic fantastical work by the author of Mrs. Dalloway.
Orlando begins their story as a melancholy sixteen-year-old nobleman and poet who spends their days in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, who takes a shine to them. Love, passion, and heartbreak guide Orlando's life through two more kings. In their thirties, Orlando becomes an ambassador to Turkey...
23) Utopia
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"In his most famous and controversial book, Utopia, Thomas More imagines a perfect island nation where thousands live in peace and harmony, men and women are both educated, and all property is communal. Through dialogue and correspondence between the protagonist Raphael Hythloday and his friends and contemporaries, More explores the theories behind war, political disagreements, social quarrels, and wealth distribution and imagines the day-to-day lives...
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In 1905, after suffering a relapse and spending a few months at The Hartford Retreat, Clifford Whittingham Beers elected to write a book about his experiences living with mental illness and being subject to cruel treatment and physical abuse while being institutionalized.
Titled, A Mind That Found Itself, the 1908 autobiography told the story of a young man who had suffered a life full of personal tragedy, leading to feelings of intense anxiety, paranoia...
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An Enemy of the People addresses the irrational tendencies of the masses, and the hypocritical and corrupt nature of the political system that they support. It is the story of one brave man's struggle to do the right thing and speak the truth in the face of extreme social inttolerance.
26) The Aeneid
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"This new translation brings Virgil's masterpiece newly to life for English-language readers. It's the first in centuries crafted by a translator who is first and foremost a poet, and it is a glorious thing. David Ferry has long been known as perhaps our greatest contemporary translator of Latin poetry, his translations of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics having established themselves as much-admired standards. He brings to the Aeneid the same genius,...
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Troilus and Criseyde (c.1385) is an epic poem written by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in Middle English, Troilus and Criseyde is the story of two lovers forced apart by the Greek siege of Troy. Often considered Chaucer's finest work for its structural consistency and completeness, the poem adapts Homer's Iliad and other ancient sources which expand on its tradition to tell a Christian moral tale about the importance of faith and the sacred...
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Presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.
"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his "Final (and Right) Plan"...
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The Montessori method is characterized by an emphasis on self-directed activity on the part of the child and clinical observation on the part of the teacher. It stresses the importance of adapting the child's learning environment to his or her developmental level, and of the role of physical activity in absorbing abstract concepts and practical skills. The Montessori method teaches reading via phonics and whole language, the comparative benefits of...
30) Romeo and Juliet
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Romeo and Juliet was the first drama in English to confer full tragic dignity on the agonies of youthful love. The lyricism that enshrines their death-marked devotion has made the lovers legendary in every language that possesses a literature.
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Tremendous Trifles is comprised of 39 chapters, each functioning as their own essay or story. With whimsical, light-hearted prose, vivid figurative language, and unparalleled insight, Chesterton covers a variety of philosophical principles of everyday life. Chesterton often used ordinary events and objects to explain deeper matters. Using relatable and accessible examples, Tremendous Trifles also test biases and preconceived ideas, specifically in...
32) The road
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During the catastrophic economic depression of the 1890s, young Jack London found himself in the same situation as many others-homeless and unemployed. After a failed American investment and crop failure, the nation found itself in a panic. As London recounts these times, he tells stories of hopping on freight trains, consequently being forcefully removed. While living as a hobo, London often had to beg for food and money, and frequently found himself...
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The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives,...
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Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) is the first book of poetry published by an African American author. Written while Wheatley was a slave in Boston, the collection was published in England. Regarded for her mastery of classical poetic form, Phillis Wheatley earned praise from Voltaire and George Washington. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral has long been the subject of scholarly work on the history of African American...
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Three Sisters (1900) is a drama in four acts by Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a philosophizing artillery officer in love with middle Prozorov sister Masha. Reviews were mixed at first, but as the play continued to run, Three Sisters became a popular success,...
36) The waste land
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The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot. It is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central text in Modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruelest month", "I will...
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Gerald Arbuthnot receives a promotion from Lord Illingworth, a worldly politician who has a sordid history of women, one of whom is Gerald's widowed mother. When their connection is revealed, the young man questions his past, present and future aspirations.
A Woman of No Importance opens with a high-class party featuring a group of society's most illustrious citizens. In the midst of the event, Gerald Arbuthnot enters and announces his new position...
38) Passing
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Clare Kendry, a beautiful light-skinned African American woman married to a white man who is unaware of her heritage, long ago cut all ties to her past, but a reunion with a childhood friend forces her to confront her lies.
39) Stray birds
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A collection of poems.
1
STRAY birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.
2
O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words.
3
THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.
It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.
4
IT is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom....
40) The Prince
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With a mix of both respectable and immoral advice, The Prince is a frank analysis on political power. Separated into four sections, The Prince is both a guide to obtain power and an explanation on the aspects that affect it. The first section discusses the types of principalities. According to Machiavelli, there are four different types-hereditary, mixed, new and ecclesiastical. While defining each type, Machiavelli also discusses the implications...