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  The Autobiography of Benjamin...

  Benjamin Franklin

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  Franklin's Autobiography has received widespread praise, both for its historical value as a record of an important early American and for its literary style. It is often considered the first American book to be taken seriously by Europeans as literature."He was therefore, feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' said the Doctor."—Thomas Jefferson

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  Antony and Cleopatra

  William Shakespeare

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  Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around 1607; its first appearance in print was in the Folio of 1623.
  The plot is based on Thomas North's 1579 English translation of Plutarch's Lives (in Ancient Greek) and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt to Cleopatra's suicide during the Final War of the Roman Republic. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumvirs of the Second Triumvirate and the first emperor of the Roman Empire. The tragedy is mainly set in the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt and is characterized by swift shifts in geographical location and linguistic register as it alternates between sensual, imaginative Alexandria and a more pragmatic, austere Rome.
  Many consider Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom Enobarbus describes as having "infinite variety", as one of the most complex and fully developed female characters in the playwright's body of work. She is frequently vain and histrionic enough to provoke an audience almost to scorn; at the same time, Shakespeare invests her and Antony with tragic grandeur. These contradictory features have led to famously divided critical responses. It is difficult to classify Antony and Cleopatra as belonging to a single genre. It can be described as a history play (though it does not completely adhere to historical accounts), as a tragedy (though not completely in Aristotelian terms), as a comedy, as a romance, and according to some critics, such as McCarter, a problem play. All that can be said with certainty is that it is a Roman play, and perhaps even a sequel to another of Shakespeare's tragedies, Julius Caesar.
  Among the most significant works William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, Venus and Adonis, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale and many more.

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  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

  Washington Irving

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  The most beloved and oft-adapted work by Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow follows a love triangle in the New York countryside in 1790. Sleepy Hollow, a supposedly haunted glen on the outskirts of Tarry Town, is home to a particularly ghoulish fiend - the Headless Horseman - who is said to be the specter of a fallen soldier. Ichabod Crane, a schoolmaster from Connecticut, competes with local hero Abraham 'Brom Bones' Van Brunt for the affections of the young, beautiful, and wealthy Katrina Van Tassel. Crane, considered an outsider by the community, takes part in an annual harvest party in a bid to win Katrina's hand in marriage. His scheme fails, however, and Crane has a run-in with Sleepy Hollow's most infamous resident.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - Mens...

  Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain,...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  As the new nation gathered its strength it pushed into new territories, underwent a tumultuous civil war and tried to reconcile itself into a whole.  Its authors wrote stories of intense beauty and detailed witness.  Literature was engaging and persuasive and now a mass-market industry open to a far wider audience. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 -  The 19th Century - The American Men - An Introduction 
  2 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 
  3 - The Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain 
  4 - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes by Henry James 
  5 - The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving 
  6 - The Open Boat by Stephen Crane 
  7 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
  8 - The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte 
  9 - The Repairer of Reputations Part 1 by Robert W Chambers 
  10 - The Repairer of Reputations Part 2 by Robert W Chambers 
  11 - The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank Stockton 
  12 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Getting on in the World...

  Booker T. Washington

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  Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 - November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary black elite. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.GETTING ON IN THE WORLD: It is natural and praiseworthy for a person to be looking for a higher and better position than the one he occupies. So long as a man does his whole duty in what he is engaged in, he is not to be condemned for looking for something better to do. Now the question arises:-How are you going to put yourself in a condition to be in demand for these higher and more important positions?

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  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

  Honore de Balzac

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  This audiobook delves into the scandalous world of high society, love affairs, and social maneuvering in 19th-century Paris. The story revolves around Esther, a beautiful and ambitious courtesan, and her rise to power through relationships with wealthy and influential men. Balzac's vivid depiction of the character's motivations and manipulations exposes the underbelly of Parisian society, where desire, ambition, and greed drive the actions of the elite. With its incisive critique of societal values, "Scenes from a Courtesan's Life" remains a significant work within Balzac's panoramic exploration of French society. 
   
  Honoré de Balzac, a French novelist, and playwright, is renowned for his ambitious project "La Comédie Humaine," a vast collection of interconnected novels and stories depicting various aspects of French society in the early 19th century. Balzac's realistic portrayals of characters and society set a new standard for French literature and earned him a lasting place in literary history.

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