At the opening of this late Shakespearean drama, Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, has been the longtime guest of Leontes and Hermione, the king and queen of Sicily. When the time comes for Polixenes to leave, Leontes urges him to stay longer. At first, Polixenes refuses, but soon he yields to the ent...
When bodies go missing from the cemetery, Lincoln and the Ministry of Curiosities investigate. But not Charlie. As a housemaid at Lichfield Towers, she doesn't get involved in ministry business. Instead, she conducts investigations of her own. She searches for details about her real mother and makes...
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) was a prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). These two short works, "The Big Trip Up Yonder" and "...
A tale of betrayal, revenge, loyalty and redemption, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a true classic. Hester Prynne settles in a little town in Puritan-era Massachusetts while awaiting her husband's arrival from England. Hester becomes pregnant, exposing her sin in the eyes of the townsf...
Stories of the old West were filled with bad men who lived by the speed of their gun hands. Well, meet Buck Tarrant, who could outdraw them all. His secret: He didn't even have to reach for his weapon. This original blend of the Western tale with a story of the uncanny, "The Draw" was written by Jer...
Shakespeare's King Lear ranks with Sophocles' Oedipus as a tragic hero destroyed by his own good intentions. From the moment when Lear unfolds his darker purpose, we are drawn into an ineluctable chain of events that leads through betrayal, deceit, destructive family conflict, reconciliation, despai...
Gogol's phantasmagorical tale about a man whose nose decides to abscond and begin living a life of its own is one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of absurdist literature. Apart from its recondite humor, it is remarkable for Gogol's skill in characterization and his ability to paint a pi...
This Victorian farcical comedy was Oscar Wilde's final play, published from exile in Paris. Wilde has his characters adopt false identities to escape their social obligations. The witty dialogue throughout this production's dry approach to the material make for entertaining high farce. Audible • i...
Tales of Troy and Greece by classicist and gifted storyteller Andrew Lang is an ideal introduction to the The Iliad and The Odyssey, recounting the Homeric legend of the wars between the Greeks and the Trojans. Paris, Achilles, the lovely Helen of Troy, Penelope, Hector, Ulysses, the Amazons, and th...
In the introduction, anthologist Douglas Sladen stated that the purpose of this collection was "to lay before the English public a selection of poems inspired by life and scenery in Australia". He further comments, "This volume is essentially the work of people who have meditated in the open air and...
