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  Beowulf - The Original Manuscript

  Unknown Unknown

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  Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory. Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed later, in writing, by a Christian. Beowulf is written mostly in the West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.No definite sources or analogs of the poem can be proven, but many suggestions have been made, including the Icelandic Grettis saga, the Norse story of Hrolf Kraki and his bear-shapeshifting servant Bodvar Bjarki, the international folktale the Bear's Son Tale, and the Irish folktale of the Hand and the Child. Persistent attempts have been made to link Beowulf to tales from Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid. More definite are Biblical parallels, with clear allusions to the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel. 

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  The Permanent Stiletto

  W. C. Morrow

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  William Chambers Morrow (1854-1923) was an American author famed for his short stories of horror and suspense.'The Permanent Stiletto' is the story of a young man who has been stabbed close to the heart with a stiletto. The blade has pierced the aorta and come out the other side.To withdraw the blade would mean the man would bleed to death...but so long as the blade is in place, it is blocking off the wound. The only solution is to leave the blade in place...after which the young man will live his life on a knife edge. Any excitement, sudden movement or emotion could cause the blade to slip and kill him instantly.

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  The Time Machine The Lost...

  H.G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne. 
   
  During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering.  
   
  Wells's earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also an outspoken Socialist from a young age, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathizing with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of a journalist. Novels such as Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted a diagnosis of English society as a whole.

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  Taming of the Shrew

  William Shakespeare

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  Trevor Howard and Margaret Leighton lead a full cast performance of this popular Shakespeare comedy

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  Adventure of the Dancing Men The...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", a Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle published as The Return of Sherlock Holmes in 1905. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" third in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories. This is one of only two Sherlock Holmes short stories where Holmes' client dies after seeking his help. The other is "The Five Orange Pips", part of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The original title was "The Dancing Men, " when it was published as a short story in The Strand Magazine in December 1903. The story begins when Hilton Cubitt of Ridling Thorpe Manor in Norfolk visits Sherlock Holmes and gives him a piece of paper with the following mysterious sequence of stick figures. - Cubitt explains to Holmes and Dr. Watson that he has recently married an American woman named Elsie Patrick. Before the wedding, she had asked her husband-to-be never to ask about her past, as she had had some "very disagreeable associations" in her life, although she said that there was nothing that she was personally ashamed of. Their marriage had been a happy one until the messages began to arrive, first mailed from the United States and then appearing in the garden.

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  Letters of Peter (First and Second)

  Peter Simon

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  Letter's of Peter are two ancient letters written by Jesus right-hand man Peter Simon.  
  In Peter's first letter he tell his followers to live good lives and follow the law. He admits that it's a shame that their good deeds are not rewarded by God, but that the reward will come eventually, perhaps in the next life. 
  In Peter's second letter he suspects that he won't live much longer and he warn people against switching from Christianity to another religion as that's a one way ticket to hell.

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