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  Piazza Tales The (Unabridged)

  Herman Melville

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  The Piazza Tales is a collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville, published by Dix & Edwards in the United States in May 1856 and in Britain in June. Except for the newly written title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly between 1853 and 1855. The collection includes what has long been regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands. (Billy Budd, arguably his greatest piece of short fiction, would remain unpublished in his lifetime.)Melville had originally intended to entitle the volume Benito Cereno and Other Sketches, but settled on the definitive title after he had written the introductory story. The book received largely favorable reviews, with reviewers especially praising "The Encantadas" but did not sell well enough to get Melville out of his financial straits, probably because short fiction for magazines had little appeal to bookbuyers. From after Melville's rediscovery to the end of the twentieth century, the short works that attracted the most critical attention were "Bartleby," "Benito Cereno" and "The Encantadas," with "The Piazza" a little behind those.

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  First and Last Things (Unabridged)

  H. G. Wells

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  First and Last Things is a 1908 work of philosophy by H. G. Wells setting forth his beliefs in four "books" entitled "Metaphysics," "Of Belief," "Of General Conduct," and "Some Personal Things." Parts of the book were published in the Independent Magazine in July and August 1908. Wells revised the book extensively in 1917, in response to his religious conversion, but later published a further revision in 1929 that restored much of the book to its earlier form. Its main intellectual influences are Darwinism and certain German thinkers Wells had read, such as August Weismann. The pragmatism of William James, who had become a friend of Wells, was also an influence.

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  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

  Lewis Carroll

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  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.

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  The Star-Child

  Oscar Wilde

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  Once upon a time two poor Woodcutters were making their way home through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them, as they passed: and when they came to the Mountain-Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for the Ice-King had kissed her. Read in English, unabridged.

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  Yellow Book The - Vol 3

  Ada Radford, Netta Syrett,...

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  During the Victorian era the publishing of magazines and periodicals accelerated at a phenomenal rate.  This really was mass market publishing to a hungry audience eager for literary sustenance.  Many of our greatest authors contributed and expanded their reach whilst many fledging authors also found a ready source for their nascent works and careers. 
   
  Amongst the very many was ‘The Yellow Book’.  Although titled as ‘An Illustrated Quarterly’ it was sold as a cloth-bound hardback and within were short stories, essays, poetry, illustrations and portraits.  It was edited by the American author Henry Harland, who also contributed, and its art editor was no less that the formidable Aubrey Beardsley, the enfant terrible of illustration. 
   
  Its yellow cover and name gave it an association with the risqué and erotic yellow covered works published in France.  It was a visual shorthand for ideas that would push many boundaries of Society to more open interpretations. Being complete in each volume and slightly aloof it stayed away from serialised fiction and advertisements.   
   
  Within each lavishly illustrated edition were literary offerings that included works by such luminaries as Henry James, H G Wells, W B Yeats, Edith Nesbit, George Gissing and many others from the ascetic and decadent movements of the time.   
   
  The other notable inclusion was women both as contributors and amongst its editing staff, which was at odds with the then patriarchal gender norms.   
   
  Although it only survived for 13 issues its reach and influence were second to none.   
  1 - The Yellow Book - An Introduction. Volume 3 
  2 - Scarlet Runners by James S Pyke-Nott 
  3 - The Love Germ by Constance Cotterell 
  4 - Chopin Op 47 by Stanley Victor Makower 
  5 - A Little Holiday by Oswald Sickert 
  6 - Alexander the Ratcatcher by Richard Garnett 
  7 - Far Above Rubies by Netta Syrett 
  8 - The Christ of Toro by Gabriela Cunninghame Graham 
  9 - The Runaway by Marion Hepworth-Dixon 
  10 - An Immortal by Sidney Benson Thorp 
  11 - A Melodrama - The Union by T Baron Russell 
  12 - Lucy Wren by Ada Radford

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  Percy Bysshe Shelley Renaissance...

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

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  Percy Bysshe Shelley was able to distill big themes into brilliant poems.   
   
  In this collection ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ captures the appalling terror of British troops killing and injuring their own people as they peacefully protest for the reform of Parliamentary representation at Peterloo in Manchester on 16th August, 1819.   
   
  ‘Adonais’ majestically captures his admiration and the deep tragic loss he felt for his friend and fellow Romantic poet John Keats.  
   
  In ‘Ode To Liberty’ Shelley makes a bold plea for the support of revolutionary causes and for the expression of individual freedom. 
   
  In these three pieces Shelley confirms that he did not limit himself in being part of the Romantic movement and was able to actively comment with conviction and passion on the social and political issues of his day.

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