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  The Aeneid - Revised and...

  Vergil

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  A powerful and poignant translation of Vergil’s epic poem, newly equipped with introduction and notes 
   
  "Ruden set the bar for Aeneid translations in 2008, and has raised it now with this revision. I am confident it will be a long time before a translator exceeds the standard that she has set."—A.M. Juster, Athenaeum Review 
   
  This is a substantial revision of Sarah Ruden’s celebrated 2008 translation of Vergil’s Aeneid, which was acclaimed by Garry Wills as “the first translation since Dryden’s that can be read as a great English poem in itself.” Ruden’s line-for-line translation in iambic pentameter is an astonishing feat, unique among modern translations. Her revisions to the translation render the poetry more spare and muscular than her previous version and capture even more closely the essence of Vergil’s poem, which pits national destiny against the fates of individuals, and which resonates deeply in our own time. 
   
  This distinguished translation, now equipped with introduction, notes, and glossary by leading Vergil scholar Susanna Braund, allows modern readers to experience for themselves the timeless power of Vergil’s masterpiece. 
   
  Praise for the First Edition: 
   
  “Fast, clean, and clear, sometimes terribly clever, and often strikingly beautiful. . . . Many human achievements deserve our praise, and this excellent translation is certainly one of them.”—Richard Garner, The New Criterion 
   
  “Toning down the magniloquence, Sarah Ruden gives us an Aeneid more intimate in tone and soberer in measure than we are used to—a gift for which many will be grateful.”—J. M. Coetzee 
   
  “An intimate rendering of great emotional force and purity. . . . The immediacy, beauty, and timelessness of the original Latin masterpiece lift off these pages with gem-like originality.”—Choice

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  A Desperate Adventure

  Max Adeler

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  Max Adeler was the nom de plume of the American writer and humorist Charles Heber Clark (1841 - 1915). His tale A Desperate Adventure begins thus: "WANTED, four persons who are bent upon committing suicide, to engage in a hazardous adventure. Apply etc. to Captain Cowgill, No. 1, Blank Street after nine o'clock in the morning." From the applicants, Captain Cowgill selects three men and one young lady for a most unusual and bizarre quest...which ends in quite a different way to how any of the participants imagine.

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  Ivanhoe (Argo Classics)

  Walter Scott

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  William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first time. 
  Set in the time of Richard the Lion Heart, Ivanhoe bursts with unforgettable characters and nail-biting adventures, as the heroic Ivanhoe battles to defend his king. 
  Crossing from England to the Holy Lands and back again, Ivanhoe goes on a wild and dangerous journey, one full of sieges, jousting and chivalry, as he fights to defeat the king’s evil brother John and win the forbidden hand of lady Rowena. 
  Tim Piggott-Smith, best known for his leading role in The Jewel and the Crown, brings the world to thrilling and vivid life. 
  For fans of Robert Louis Stevenson (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror), Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), George Eliot (Middlemarch), and Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels).

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  Heart of Darkness

  Joseph Conrad

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  Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon. The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the myth behind colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters--the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the European's cruel treatment of the natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. 
  Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story.

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  Before Adam (Unabridged)

  Jack London

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  Written in 1906, Before Adam is a bit of a departure from London's other novels. Still an adventure novel, this one revolves around the dreams of a young boy, dreams that involve racial memories and the knowledge of his prior existence as a man-like creature named Big Tooth living in prehistoric times. "These are our ancestors, and their history is our history. Remember that as surely as we one day swung down out of the trees and walked upright, just as surely, on a far earlier day, did we crawl up out of the sea and achieve our first adventure on land."

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  The Pit and the Pendulum

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  This short story is about a man who is brought in front of the Spanish Inquisition and judgment passed upon him to suffer the horrors of the Pit in Toledo. Toledo, Spain is located just south of Madrid and was the center of the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition was originally intended to ensure the belief and practices of those who converted from Judaism and Islam, but the methods used for those who were judged to be heretics was torture. His torture involved being thrown into a pit, being drugged and strapped to a table where a large pendulum blade is slowly lowered directly over his awaiting body. Poe brings a real sense of fear during an intense episode of this single prisoner.

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