Publisher: Project Gutenberg
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer. The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home following the fall of Troy.
"The Picture of Dorian Gray", Oscar Wilde's only novel, was first published on both sides of the Atlantic by the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Review on 20th June 1890. Not only did this text provoke a heated debate in the British press in the same year, it also became notorious for its being quoted and examined in court in Wilde's three trials in the spring of 1895. As a story, the novel shows how a young man in a Faustian situation wishes for his portrait to age rather than himself. Steeped in sin, which, however, is alluded to rather than spelt out, "Dorian Gray" for Wilde's critics and enemies became an image of the author's own behaviour. - Going back to the typescript of the novel, the editor has restored passages to the text that had been excised or censored by Wilde himself and the editorial committee in America. Danny Morrison has provided a preface placing Wilde in the Irish political context of his own day and beyond.Show book
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, first published in 1915, is a feminist utopian novel that describes an isolated society composed entirely of women-a progressive, environmentally conscious land where peace and rationality reign and poverty is unknown. Told from the perspective of Vandyk Jennings, a male sociology student who sets out with his two friends to determine whether Herland really exists, the novel ironically and pointedly critiques the arbitrary nature of many gender norms as it highlights the irrational features of the men's society and asserts women's fundamental capacity for reason and cooperation. Herland is a landmark work of feminist thought whose themes are as vital today as they were in the early twentieth century.Show book
The extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful. The texts are taken from his recent omnibus, The Early Stories, 1953-1975. In describing how he wrote these stories in a small, rented, smoke-filled office in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, he says, ""I felt that I was packaging something as delicately pervasive as smoke, one box after another, in that room, where my only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me -- to give the mundane its beautiful due.""Show book
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter is a dramatic story. The plot progresses through a series of theatrical set pieces, such as the three incidents on the scaffold, Hester Prynne’s confrontation with the Governor and her liaison with Mr Dimmesdale in the forest glade. The author’s vivid, descriptive writing creates strong images of his protagonists in the minds of his readers, and this powerful visual impact heightens the sense of conflict within, and between the characters.Show book
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a world of violence and generational conflict in which two young people fall in love and die because of that love. The story is rather extraordinary in that the normal problems faced by young lovers are here so very large. It is not simply that the families of Romeo and Juliet disapprove of the lover's affection for each other; rather, the Montagues and the Capulets are on opposite sides in a blood feud and are trying to kill each other on the streets of Verona. Every time a member of one of the two families dies in the fight, his relatives demand the blood of his killer. Because of the feud, if Romeo is discovered with Juliet by her family, he will be killed. Once Romeo is banished, the only way that Juliet can avoid being married to someone else is to take a potion that apparently kills her, so that she is burried with the bodies of her slain relatives. In this violent, death-filled world, the movement of the story from love at first sight to the union of the lovers in death seems almost inevitable.Show book
The starved wolfpack was hot on his trail. It was the biggest pack that Wabi had ever seen. He calculated there were at least fifty animals in it, possibly even more. Nearer and nearer they came, until the first were scarcely two hundred feet away. Close enough for Wabi to see this was a hungry, determined pack. Then, with a shout, the Indian leaped and dashed fearlessly toward them. This unexpected move stopped the foremost wolves and Wabi fired two of his three remaining bullets. The trees were eighty yards away...Show book
