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  The Tragedy Of Macbeth - The...

  William Shakespeare

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  "What’s done cannot be undone." 
   
  The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. 
   
  A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. 
   
  Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. 
   
  In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". The play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

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  Our School (Unabridged)

  Charles Dickens

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  Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
  OUR SCHOOL: We went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and found that the Railway had cut it up root and branch. A great trunk-line had swallowed the playground, sliced away the schoolroom, and pared off the corner of the house: which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented itself, in a green stage of stucco, profilewise towards the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on end.

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  The Red Badge Of Courage

  Stephen Crane

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  Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage" is a classic novel of American literature that offers a candid portrayal of the experiences and emotions of a young soldier during the American Civil War. Centered around Henry Fleming, a young and naive Union soldier, the novel delves into his internal struggles with fear, courage, and the harsh realities of warfare. Crane's work stands out for its vivid descriptions and its profound psychological depth, which offers a stark contrast to the romanticized depictions of war. The novel paints a raw, unvarnished picture of the battlefield and the metamorphosis of its protagonist, making it one of the most realistic war novels of its time.

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  Summer

  Edith Wharton

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  Rescued from a poverty-stricken mountain life, Charity Royall lives as ward to Lawyer Royall in the New England town of North Dormer. However, Charity is bored by her job at the local library–until a young man Lucius Harney plucks her from the drabness of North Dormer life.  A young architect and sophisticated man about town, Herney’s good looks and refinement awaken Charity’s passionate nature. Meanwhile, Charity contends with unwanted matrimonial advances from Lawyer Royall.   
  Summer is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story regarded by Wharton as one of her best works.

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  New Accelerator The (Unabridged)

  H. G. Wells

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  The New Accelerator features a fascinating depiction of the invention of what sounds a lot like an amphetamine (though technically they had already been invented a dozen years earlier). It will also remind Star Trek fans of the episode called Wink of an Eye.

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  De Profundis (Unabridged)

  Oscar Wilde

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  De Profundis is a 50,000 word letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, his lover. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." He also felt redemption and fulfillment in his ordeal, realizing that his hardship had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.

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