Renowned for his witty dialogue and macabre humor, Saki skewered the pretensions and follies of the Edwardian age. This 1911 collection of well-plotted, acerbic short stories showcases his mastery of comic repartee. The tales recount the escapades of an irreverent socialite, Clovis Sangrail—a forerunner to the aristocratic Bertie Wooster of Jeeves fame. Saki's satires remain remarkably contemporary, offering paradoxical combinatio ...
The distinguished American civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois first published these fiery essays, sketches, and poems individually nearly 80 years ago in the Atlantic, the Journal of Race Development, and other periodicals. Reflecting the author's ideas as a politician, historian, and artist, this volume has long moved and inspired readers with its militant cry for social, political, and economic reforms for black Americans. Essential re ...
Philosopher, naturalist, poet and rugged individualist, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) has inspired generations of readers to think for themselves, to follow the dictates of their own conscience and to make an art of their lives. This representative sampling of his thought includes five of his most frequently cited and read essays: «Civil Disobedience,» his most powerful and influential political essay, exalts the law of conscience ov ...
"In America, black is a country," declared Amiri Baraka, who insisted that the lives and destinies of the nation's white and black citizens are inseparably intertwined. His statement, like many others in this compilation of quotations, reflects the black experience in America and touches upon the role of racial identity. Other citations voice a broader perspective, including Maya Angelou's remark, «Life is not measured by the numb ...
The first French translation of <I>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</I> (there have been no less than seventeen others) was supervised by Lewis Carroll himself. In the opinion of many experts, and countless older and younger French readers, it is still the best. It has a remarkable freshness and originality, and admirably renders the English puns and parodies with French equivalents. «How Doth the Little Crocodile?» for instance ...
The 126 poems in this superb collection of 19th and 20th century British and American verse range from the impassioned «Renascence» of Edna St. Vincent Millay to Edward Lear's whimsical «The Owl and the Pussycat» and James Whitcomb Riley’s homespun «When the Frost Is on the Punkin.» Famous poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Whitman, and Frost are well-represented, as are less well-known poets such as John McCrae («In Flanders Fie ...
In this excellent English translation of The Analects, or Sayings, of Confucius, readers will find a rich distillation of the timeless precepts of one of history's most influential teachers and social theorists. A Chinese philosopher who lived c. 551 to c. 479 B.C., Confucius originated and taught an ethical, socially oriented philosophy that stressed proper behavior and a sympathetic, mutually supportive attitude among individuals, their f ...
Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. He also invented bifocals, a stove that is still manufactured, a water-harmonica, and the lightning rod. Franklin's extraordinary range of interests an ...
This compact anthology contains many of the best works of 59 poets writing in English—from the complex rhyme schemes of Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser and lovely sonnets of the preeminent English poet and playwright William Shakespeare to William Blake's visionary works and John Keats' profound insights into the nature of beauty, art, and mortality.Here also are beloved poems by Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, William Words ...
