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  On Generation and Corruption

  Aristotle

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  On Generation and Corruption (Latin: De Generatione et Corruptione, also known as On Coming to Be and Passing Away) is a treatise by Aristotle. Like many of his texts, it is both scientific and philosophic (although not necessarily scientific in the modern sense). The philosophy, though, is essentially empirical; as in all Aristotle's works, the deductions made about the unexperienced and unobservable are based on observations and real experiences. The question raised at the beginning of the text builds on an idea from Aristotle's earlier work The Physics. Namely, whether things come into being through causes, through some prime material, or whether everything is generated purely through "alteration." From this important work Aristotle gives us two of his most remembered contributions. First, the Four Causes and also the Four Elements (earth, wind, fire and water). (Summary Adapted from Wikipedia)

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  Champagne

  Anton Chekhov

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  Champagne is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, written in 1887.
  The story is written in the first person. The young head of a remote railway stop lived with his wife and without children in solitude, amusing himself with vodka and watching passing trains.
  Life was boring. One day before celebrating the New Year, he sat with his wife at the festive table, drank enough and thought about boredom. We waited for the clock to show the arrival of the New Year. At five minutes to twelve he uncorked the bottle, the cork flew out, and the bottle slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor. The wife greeted Happy New Year with frightened eyes. She knew that the falling bottle was a bad omen and meant that something bad would happen in the new year.
  After arguing with his wife, the narrator left the house thinking that this had already happened to them, that the worst could not happen. He remembered his dead parents, how he was kicked out of the gymnasium, how he wandered around with nothing to do and friends. He did not love his wife; he married when he was still a boy.
  Returning home, he saw his wife cheerful - "good aunt" Natalya Petrovna, the wife of the hero's wife's uncle, a woman of free behavior, came to them for three days. At dinner, "aunt" and "nephew" drank well, they became dizzy, and their romance began (a terrible, mad whirlwind). In this whirlwind, the hero loses his wife, mistress, and job. He asks "what else bad could happen to me?"

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  The Secret Power

  Marie Corelli

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  Marie Corelli's "The Secret Power" unravels a scientific prophecy where Morgana, a visionary with golden hair, crafts an airship propelled by fantastical machinery. Alongside her, Roger Seaton unlocks the potential of radioactivity, a force capable of immense destruction. The narrative interweaves technological marvels and ethical dilemmas, exploring the boundaries between progress and peril. Set against a backdrop of innovation and moral reckoning, the novel invites readers to contemplate the consequences of unchecked scientific ambition and the delicate balance between creation and catastrophe.

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  The Written World and the...

  Italo Calvino

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  A rich collection of essays offering an extraordinary global view of Calvino’s approach to writing, reading, and interpreting literature. 
   
  An extraordinary collection of essays, forewords, articles, and interviews, The Written World and the Unwritten World displays the remarkable intelligence and razor-sharp wit of prolific Italian writer Italo Calvino as he explores the meaning of literature in a rapidly changing world. From classics to  
  contemporary literature, from tradition to the avant-garde, Calvino masterfully explores reading, writing, and translating through careful and illuminating discussion of the works of Bakhtin, Brecht, Cortázar, Thomas Mann, Octavio Paz, Georges Perec, Salman Rushdie, Gore Vidal, and more. Drawn  
  from Mondo scritto e mondo non scritto (2002), Sulla fiaba (1988), and other uncollected essays, this volume of previously untranslated work—now rendered in English by acclaimed translator Ann Goldstein—is a major statement in literary criticism.

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  Since I Died - From their pens...

  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

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  Mary Gray Phelps was born on 31st August 1844 in Boston, Massachusetts. 
  Her mother, who wrote the Kitty Brown children’s book series, died when she was only 8.  The young girl asked to be renamed in honor of her mother. 
  Two years later her father married her mother's sister, Mary Stuart, also a writer, but she died of tuberculosis only 18 months later. A mere six months later he married for a third time to Mary Ann Johnson, and they had two sons. 
  Phelps received an upper-class education through her attendance at the Abbot Academy and Mrs. Edwards' School for Young Ladies. She had a natural gift for story-telling and at 13 she had a story published in Youth's Companion and other stories in various Sunday School publications. 
  In most of her writings she used her mother's name ‘Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ as a pseudonym, even after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist (and later co-author with her) 17 years her junior. Such was her talent that she gained a wide audience from her first publications.  
  At age 19 she sent her Civil War story ‘A Sacrifice Consumed’ to Harper's Magazine. A generous payment was made together with a request for more works to be sent for publication.  
  During the 1860s she wrote her first books for children, the ‘Tiny’ series and followed up with the 4-volume ‘Gypsy Breynton’ series.   
  In 1868, three years after the Civil War, came ‘The Gates Ajar’, a controversial but best-selling Spiritualist work which told of an afterlife replete with home comforts and reunited families, and their pets, for eternity.  Its success led her to write two more books to complete the trilogy and she was wont to use the word ‘Gates’ in later book titles to allude to this success. She stated that she wrote ‘The Gates Ajar’ to comfort a generation of women devastated by the loss of their loved ones who found no comfort in traditional religion.  
  Phelps became a determined advocate through her lectures and other work for social reform, temperance, women's emancipation, and even clothing reform for women, and in 1874, urging them to burn their corsets. 
  Her deteriorating health was now restricting some of her activities and kept her contributions to mostly literary in nature rather than public appearances. 
  In 1876 Phelps was the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University. Her presentations, ‘Representative Modern Fiction’, analyzed the works of George Eliot. 
  In 1877 she published ‘The Story of Avis’. The work focuses on many of the era’s early feminist issues, portraying a woman's struggle to balance her married life and domestic responsibilities with her longing to become a painter.  At no time did she attempt to hide, either in real life or her stories, her contempt of the inequities of the then class structure and gender disparities. Her work, ‘Mary Elizabeth’ depicts a homeless girl's choices between theft and begging as a means of survival. ‘One Way to Get An Education’ tells of a child laborer's desire for a better life than mill work offers and sees self-injuring as a way to a better education. Her work often depicted women succeeding in non-traditional careers such as physicians, ministers, and artists. 
  In 1884 came her well-regarded poetry collection ‘Songs of the Silent World’ 
  Along with her husband she wrote two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, ‘Chapters from a Life’ was serialized and then published in book form in 1896.  
  Phelps continued to write short stories and novels up to her death and over her life authored 57 volumes of fiction, poetry and essays.  
  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps died 28th January 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts. She was 66.

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  Hamlet

  William Shakespeare

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  Hamlet by William Shakespeare is one of the most profound and influential tragedies ever written—a haunting exploration of revenge, madness, mortality, and the complexities of the human soul. Set in the royal court of Denmark, this timeless drama follows Prince Hamlet as he grapples with grief, betrayal, and a moral dilemma that will shape his destiny.
  
  The story begins with the sudden death of Hamlet's father, the King, and the swift remarriage of his mother, Queen Gertrude, to his uncle Claudius. When the ghost of the deceased king appears, revealing that he was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet is thrust into a storm of anguish and uncertainty. Charged with avenging his father's death, he struggles to reconcile his duty with his conscience, questioning not only the truth of the apparition but also the righteousness of revenge itself.
  
  Hamlet's internal conflict lies at the heart of the play. Intelligent, reflective, and deeply sensitive, he wrestles with existential questions about life, death, and the nature of action. His famous soliloquies—most notably the meditation on whether "to be or not to be"—reveal a mind torn between decisive action and paralyzing doubt. As he feigns madness to uncover the truth, the line between performance and reality begins to blur, leading to tragic consequences for those around him.
  
  Shakespeare surrounds Hamlet with richly drawn characters, each contributing to the unfolding tragedy. Ophelia, caught between loyalty and love, becomes a poignant symbol of innocence shattered by corruption. Polonius, Laertes, and Horatio each reflect different responses to honor and loss. Meanwhile, Claudius emerges as a complex antagonist—ambitious and calculating, yet burdened by guilt.
  
  Through poetic language and psychological depth, Hamlet examines themes of betrayal, loyalty, appearance versus reality, moral corruption, and the inevitability of death. The play delves into the fragility of human existence and the struggle to find meaning in a world marked by uncertainty and decay.
  
  Both intimate and epic, philosophical and dramatic, Hamlet continues to resonate with readers and audiences across centuries. Its exploration of conscience, identity, and the consequences of hesitation ensures its place as a cornerstone of world literature—a tragedy that confronts the darkest questions of the human condition with unmatched intensity and artistry.

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