Translator William Cowper
Publisher: e-artnow
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems by Homer. It is one of the oldest works of literature still read by contemporary audiences. The story tells of the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War.
"The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium, by a coalition of Greek States, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege" (Summary from Wikipedia)Show book
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore. His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre. This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12. Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals. These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day. He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity. Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’. Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature. His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed. In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post. With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera. In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. Gogol had a profound and enduring impact on literature which can be evidenced from his masterpiece, ‘The Cloak’, more popularly although wrongly translated as ‘The Overcoat’ published in 1841. A hundred years later Vladamir Nabokov called it ‘The greatest Russian short story ever written.’Show book
The fables of Aesop have become one of the most enduring traditions of European culture, ever since they were first written down nearly two millennia ago. Aesop was reputedly a tongue-tied slave who miraculously received the power of speech; from his legendary storytelling came the collections of prose and verse fables scattered throughout Greek and Roman literature. First published in English by Caxton in 1484, the fables and their morals continue to charm modern readers: who does not know the story of the tortoise and the hare, or the boy who cried wolf?Show book
Chesterton portrays Father Brown as a short, stumpy Roman Catholic priest, with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, and an uncanny insight into human evil. "How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?" -- "Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets." Not long after he published Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton moved from London to Beaconsfield, and met Father O'Connor. O'Connor had a shrewd insight to the darker side of man's nature and a mild appearance to go with it--and together those came together to become Chesterton's unassuming Father Brown. Chesterton loved the character, and the magazines he wrote for loved the stories. The Innocence of Father Brown was the first collection of them, and it's a great lot of fun.Show book
The conclusion to the centuries-old Chinese epic in a translation that’s “a joy to read . . . [a] fantastic tale of adventure” (Nathan Slavin, University of Pennsylvania). A monk contends with demons, spirits, and other troubles as he travels to India in search of Buddhist scriptures in this classic Chinese fantasy adventure. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West is a remarkable historical saga that follows the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his four supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canon is by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy. Anthony C. Yu’s translation, initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic saga in its entirety for the first time. In this new edition of one of the great works of Chinese literature, Yu has made his translations even more accurate and accessible with new explanatory notes, additions to the introduction, and modernized transliterations using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Volume 4 of 4 “A complete, faithful, and fully delightful translation of China’s most beloved novel.” —The Hudson Review “Does full justice to the adventure, lyricism and buffoonery [yet] is completely sensitive to the spiritual content of the text as well.” —The New York Times Book Review “Beautiful . . . A monumental achievement that takes the reader to the heart of one of the most important narratives in the Chinese tradition. The introduction is a model of erudition and incisive analysis. It is also the most thorough and insightful discussion of the sources and interpretations of The Journey to the West to date. Readers will enjoy the elucidation of allegorical possibilities and scholarly arguments both in the introduction and in the annotations. The adoption of Pinyin romanization will make this much more convenient for classroom use as a teaching edition.” —Waiyee Li, Harvard University “One of the great works of world religious literature.” —Robert Company, Vanderbilt UniversityShow book
The Mysterious Stranger was published posthumously in 1916. At the time of writing, Twain had suffered a series of physical, economic, and emotional losses. In this chilling tale, a stranger named Satan visits an old Austrian town to convince the religious faithful that there is no God, and “nothing exists; all is a dream.”Show book
