Classic Books

Among many accounts, Shakespeare’s was the most ambitious, dramatically innovative and radical. The Second Part of King Henry VI is concerned with the nature of history, the role of conscience and the relation between law and equity. It contains a complex reading of a popular uprising, led by Jack Cade.

King Midas A Romance was first published under the title Springtime and Harvest. “I find a fine current of feeling through the pages. They are touched throughout with the hues of poetry and the noblest ideals of life.”–Edwin Markham. Upton Sinclair was a Pulitzer Prize-winning who wrote over 90 books, best known for his muckraking novel, The Jungle.

King Solomon’s Mines’ was published in 1885. It is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It is about a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party. It is the first English adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered to be the genesis of the Lost World literary genre.

We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to the marrow of his bones) began as follows:

I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to me in the ‘thirties … forty years ago as you see. I will be brief–and don’t you interrupt me.

I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the University. My brother was a lieutenant in the horse-guard artillery. His battery was stationed at Krasnoe Selo–it was summer time. My brother lodged not at Krasnoe Selo itself but in one of the neighbouring villages; I stayed with him more than once and made the acquaintance of all his comrades. He was living in a fairly decent cottage, together with another officer of his battery, whose name was Ilya Stepanitch Tyeglev. I became particularly friendly with him.

La Grenadiere is a little house on the right bank of the Loire as you go down stream, about a mile below the bridge of Tours. At this point the river, broad as a lake, and covered with scattered green islands, flows between two lines of cliff, where country houses built uniformly of white stone stand among their gardens and vineyards. The finest fruit in the world ripens there with a southern exposure. The patient toil of many generations has cut terraces in the cliff, so that the face of the rock reflects the rays of the sun, and the produce of hot climates may be grown out of doors in an artificially high temperature.

Lysimachus, the son of Aristides the Just, and Melesias, the son of the elder Thucydides, two aged men who live together, are desirous of educating their sons in the best manner. Their own education, as often happens with the sons of great men, has been neglected; and they are resolved that their children shall have more care taken of them, than they received themselves at the hands of their fathers.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
This was more or less Constance Chatterley’s position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

First published in 1871, the present book ‘Lady Susan’ by celebrated English novelist Jane Austen is about Lady Susan Vernon, a beautiful and charming recent widow, who visits her brother- and sister-in-law, Charles and Catherine Vernon, with little advance notice at Churchill, their country residence. Catherine is far from pleased, as Lady Susan had tried to prevent her marriage to Charles and her unwanted guest has been described to her as “the most accomplished coquette in England”. Among Lady Susan’s conquests in London is the married Mr. Mainwaring.

Lady Windermere’s Fan’ is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman. She confronts him with it but although he denies it, he invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to his wife’s birthday ball. Angered by her husband’s supposed unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere decides to leave her husband for another lover. After discovering what has transpired, Mrs Erlynne follows Lady Windermere and attempts to persuade her to return to her husband and in the course of this, Mrs Erlynne is discovered in a compromising position. It is then revealed Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother, who abandoned her family twenty years before the time the play is set. Mrs Erlynne sacrifices herself and her reputation to save her daughter’s marriage. The best-known line of the play sums up the central theme: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. — Lord Darlington (courtesy: Wikipedia)

‘Where is Lamia?’
The inquiry is one not infrequently made; for, while most of us can vanish without being missed, some favoured individuals there are whose disappearance at once excites a sense of loss; and Lamia is one of these. The question, I need scarcely say, was put by Veronica; since the Poet maintains a fine irresponsible attitude respecting others as well as about himself, and, however anxious I may be to keep sight of Lamia, I am hardly so simple as to betray my desire. But, responding with sincere alacrity to Veronica’s question, I protested I had not the faintest notion where she was, but would at once go in search of her. -an excerpt

This is the penultimate novel in the series and the last to be published during Burrough’s lifetime. Unlike most of the other books in the Pellucidar series, this novel was never serially published in any magazine because it was rejected by all of Burroughs’s usual publishers. The novel tells the adventures of David Innes on his return from Lo-Har to Sari in the wake of the events of Back to the Stone Age.

“Two men sat by the sea waves.
“Well, I know I’m not handsome,” said one gloomily. He was poking holes in the sand with a discontented cane.
The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right.
Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line. “To be sure you are not,” he cried vehemently. “You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must assure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of white wall paper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like a little wooden plate. and your figure—heavens!”
For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.” -an excerpt

The remarks which Emily had made regarding the share Laura Middleton had had in opening up her ideas on the subject of the mysteries in which she had now been fully initiated had not escaped my observation. It so happened that at that very time I was under an engagement to pay a visit to the Middletons, who were very distant relations of my mother. It of course occurred to me that it was possible I might be able to turn the information I had thus acquired to some account. Laura and I were old friends. She was about two years older than I, a very handsome, fine-looking girl but, as I had then fancied, upon rather a larger scale than quite suited my taste. We had always been on very good terms as children, but she had a sort of haughty, imperious air which, joined to the difference in our ages, had operated in a manner that would have prevented me from thinking of taking any liberties with her; and she was about the last person in the world I should have been disposed to imagine addicted to the amusements in which Emily had participated with her.

THE Morte D’Arthur was finished, as the epilogue tells us, in the ninth year of Edward IV., i.e. between March 4, 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus, fitly enough, the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country, and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton’s story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book, but to some extent its editor also, dividing Malory’s work into twenty-one books, splitting up the books into chapters, by no means skilfully, and supplying the “Rubrish” or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton’s preface contains, moreover, a brief criticism which, on the points on which it touches, is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written.

Permettez-moi, monsieur, d’inscrire en tête de ce petit livre le nom cher et honoré d’un homme qui a consacré toute sa vie à la cause du progrès, d’un père qui a offert ses deux fils à la délivrance de l’Italie, d’un ami qui est venu entre les premiers me donner une preuve de sympathie le lendemain de «Gaëtana».

TABLE DES MATIÈRES
1. LE NEZ D’UN NOTAIRE
2. A M. ALEXANDRE BIXIO
3. I L’ORIENT ET L’OCCIDENT SONT AUX PRISES: LE SANG COULE
4. II LA CHASSE AU CHAT
5. III OÙ LE NOTAIRE DÉFEND SA PEAU AVEC PLUS DE SUCCÈS
6. IV CHÉBACHTIEN ROMAGNÉ
7. V GRANDEUR ET DÉCADENCE
8. VI HISTOIRE D’UNE PAIRE DE LUNETTES ET CONSÉQUENCES D’UN RHUME DE CERVEAU

First published in the year 1855, the present book ‘Leaves of Grass’ is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each representing Whitman’s celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, ‘Leaves of Grass’ exalted the body and the material world.

First published in the year 1914, Margaret Bird Steinmetz’s book ‘Leaves of Life, for Daily Inspiration’ offers wisdom and insight for applying Biblical truths to the ups and downs of everyday life.

After his memorable work in the West, Swami Vivekananda landed at Colombo on the afternoon of January 15, 1897, and was given a right royal reception by the Hindu community there.

First published in the year 1818, th epresent book ‘LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS’ is a copilation of a lecture series delivered by WILLIAM HAZLITT on the subject of European poetry from Chaucer and Spencer to the poets of the early 19th century.

This book is a collection of a series of lectures delivered at Oxford and London, In April and May, 1884 published in book form in the same year. The author was a distinguished French Protestant theologian and a prolific writer on the comparative history of world religions.

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts. We have not used OCR, as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc. We have endeavored to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. We feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Leonardo Da Vinci, the many-sided genius of the Italian Renaissance, was born, as his name implies, at the little town of Vinci, which is about six miles from Empoli and twenty miles west of Florence.

“This book is about Leonardo the scientist, and to fully write of his many accomplishments would require an encyclopedic mind. My intent has been to extract the essence of his story in the hopes that it would arouse the enthusiasm of a reader to further his interest in those other, more fully documented books—and, above all, in the notebooks that Leonardo himself wrote.” -Author’s Note

First published in the year 1910, ‘Leonardo da Vinci: A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence’ is an essay by famous psychologist and father of psychoanalysis theories, Sigmund Freud. This essay is psychoanalytical study of Leonardo da Vinci’s childhood through his paintings.