Publisher: Classica Libris
The Reverberator is a graceful comedy that depicts the complications that result when malicious, yet true stories about a Parisian family find their way into an American newspaper’s scandal sheet, after which the novel is named.
Ben-Hur is a story of two very different heroes. Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of Jerusalem, is involved in an accident to the Roman procurator which is taken to be intentional. He is seized and sent to the fleet as a galley-slave, while his family is imprisoned and the family goods confiscated. When Ben-Hur saves the fleet captain from drowning after his ship is sunk in a fight with pirates, that officer adopts him as son and heir. With Roman training, Ben-Hur distinguishes himself in the arena and the palistrae and appears to be on the way to high military command. With the help of a faithful family retainer and a generous Arab sheik, Ben-Hur is enabled to take part in a widely touted chariot race, where one of the other charioteers is the boyhood friend who connived to punish him for the accident and split his estate. That rival is crippled, financially and bodily, in a no-holds-barred race (memorable from the 1959 movie with Charlton Heston). Ben-Hur turns his attention to the prophesied King of the Jews, when through the sheik he meets Balthasar, one of the Three Wise Men, and hears of the child born years ago. Will Ben-Hur be the general who brings victories to the King, and finally liberates Israel from the oppressive Roman yoke? In his quest for the answer, Ben-Hur seeks out the Nazarene, now rumored to be The Messiah. THAT hero needs no introduction. Curious about the lack of kingly trappings and ambitions about this man, Ben-Hur begins to suspect that his kingdom is not of this world. And with him, we receive a gut-wrenching eye-witness view of Jesus’ arrest, humiliation, and crucifixion. Lewis Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of the New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, and author from Indiana.Show book
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is widely recognized as Germany's greatest poet and writer. His early works are rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which was also the early phase of German Romanticism.Entitled simply Story, this short novella belongs firmly in this early period and is characteristic of Goethe's early work. His hallmark fascination with nature and the point where it fuses with man-made art to create something more beautiful still is magnificently displayed here in his description of the wonderful overgrown ruined castle. His sense of the dramatic, vividly conjured up in lyrical prose is reflected in the market fire and the escape of the showman's tiger and lion. Story is the narrative of a princess, whose husband has gone out hunting. She is inspired by her uncle showing her paintings of a nearby ruined castle which has become overgrown with trees to ask him to take her there on their afternoon ride. On the way, they pass through the busy market and see that there is a showman exhibiting a range of wild beasts. When they reach the base of the castle, they have a fine view back towards their own castle and the town beneath it, but they quickly spot that something is wrong. A fire has broken out in the marketplace. The uncle sets off with all haste to see if he can help out. Meanwhile, the princess returns more slowly...but suddenly finds herself face to face with a tiger which has escaped from the menagerie in the confusion of the fire. From this follows an extraordinary and astounding set of events.Show book
"From Beyond" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1920 and was first published in The Fantasy Fan in June 1934 (Vol. 1, No. 10).The story is told from the first-person perspective of an unnamed narrator and details his experiences with a scientist named Crawford Tillinghast. Tillinghast creates an electronic device that emits a resonance wave, which stimulates an affected person's pineal gland, thereby allowing them to perceive planes of existence outside the scope of accepted reality.Show book
In The Aspern Papers, a cold and ruthless literary biographer travels to Venice on the trail of personal letters belonging to the deceased American poet Jeffrey Aspern. His journey takes him to a dilapidated, rambling house belonging to an elderly woman, named Juliana Bordereau, and her lonely niece, Miss Tina. Just how far will he go to get what he wants? Will morality confront his personal ambition and literary curiosity?Show book
On one level Melville’s tale is an historical adventure story telling of life aboard ship shortly after the mutiny at Spithead in 1797. Billy is taken from a homeward bound merchantman to serve on the ‘Seventy Four’ HMS Indomitable. He falls foul of Claggart, the ‘Master at Arms’, and the final confrontation results in death. Billy becomes an unwilling martyr - what passes for justice must be implemented because of the rebellious climate of the time. However, below the surface lie some of Melville’s thematic obsessions: the aristocratic savage placed against an inhumanity born of service in time of war, innocence overtaken by fate and the worthy encompassed by the inevitable. The natures of evil and conscience are explored and ‘Billy Budd’ is the author’s “last word upon the strange mystery of himself and human destiny”. Melville is regarded by many as the finest author America has produced.Show book
Dive into the chilling world of Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray.' Handsome Dorian Gray remains untouched by age or vice, while his hidden portrait grotesquely ages and decays. His sinister secret? His sins are etched not on him, but his portrait. A thrilling exploration of vanity and corruption, Wilde's masterpiece questions the price we're willing to pay for eternal beauty. Are you ready to face the hidden ugliness within the human soul?Show book
