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Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff discover the perils of love, assumed identities, and telling the truth in Oscar Wilde's classic play. (Summary by Toby Paradis)...

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Play, Comedy

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Play

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Guido Ferranti, a young man, travels to Padua with his friend Ascanio after receiving a mysterious letter from a stranger, claiming to know the true secret of Guido's birth. His plan of revenge goes awry, however, when he falls in love with his enemy's beautiful wife, the Duchess of Padua. (Summary by Wikipedia and wildemoose)...

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Play, Romance, Tragedy

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This collection of ten one-act dramas features plays by James M. Barrie, Hereward Carrington, Marjory Benton Cooke, Alice Gerstenberg, Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook, St. John Hankin, George Middleton, David Pinski, Frederik Pohl, and an unknown Japanese author. The plays were coordinated by Arielle Lipshaw, Availle, Chuck Williamson, Todd, Peter Yearsley, Caprisha Page, Charlotte Duckett, and Amanda Friday. (Summary by Arielle Lipshaw)...

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Play

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Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, published in 1893. As in some of his other comedies, Wilde satirizes the morals of Victorian society, and attitudes between the sexes. The action centres around a fan given to Lady Windermere as a present by her husband, and the ball held that evening to celebrate her 21st birthday. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

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Comedy, Mystery, Satire

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While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace. What is more, many believe that reading Sundara Kãnda or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Well miracles apart, it's in the nature of Sundara Kãnda to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in one and all. After all, isn't it a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds! Again, won't it portray how Seetha, on the verge of self-immolation, overcomes despair to see life in a new light? Besides, how Hanuman's Odyssey paves the way for Rama to rescue his kidnapped wife! One is bound to be charmed by the rhythm of the verse and the flow of the narrative in this sloka to sloka transcreation of Valmiki's adi kavya - the foremost poetical composition in the world. After all, it was the saga of Rama that inspired Valmiki the barbarian to spiritualize the same as Ramayana in classical Sanskrit! ...

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Canto 20 - Womanizer at Work To fair Seetha he confined Spoke then Ravan in disdain. With thy pair of lovely hands Why block sight of thy bosom Hope it’s not the fear of me Prompts thee squat in like fashion. Is a beauty like thine ever And a lover than me better! What to fear in this Lanka Lost whose Lord his heart to thee. Fair it’s not for thee to blame Granted when it’s to our ilk Force we might all women we fond Never mind ever their state of mind. Crave as I for thine embrace Wait I though for thy consent. Fill thy heart with love for me Let not fear ever grip thy mind. Having known my love for thee Don’t thou know that it’s not fair That thee should fail thy upkeep And thus make me sad for thee. From heaven I fetch garments such To make thee best dressed dame on earth. For thy wear I get jewels Not even by angels worn. Thou being the crown jewel Of the feminine world at large How come then thou shun jewels! Knowing as well youth is like River that courses to the seas Why not grant me thy favour And thus make the best of life. Since there none to rival t...

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This audio rendition of the encounter between Ravan and Seetha, whom he kidnapped to Lanka. as depicted in Cantos 20 thru 22 of Sundara Kãnda: Hanuman’s Odyssey. ...

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First released in 1893, Coffee And Repartee is a collection of breakfast chats at a gentlemans boarding house run by a Mrs. Smithers. Here these fellows repeatedly face questions and proclaimations of an inhabitant they call The Idiot. The discussions sound friendly under pretense, but are really sly battles of ribald wit and cunning charm, as well as rather offensive remarks during a time period considered by many to favour a height of refined etiquette. The Idiot spars well, but will the other residents get the better of him? (Summary by Morlock)...

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Fiction, Humor

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Excerpt: Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens).

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Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин (1799 - 1837) — русский поэт , драматург и прозаик . Александр Сергеевич Пушкин имеет репутацию великого или величайшего русского поэта. В филологии Пушкин рассматривается как создатель современного русского литературного языка. (Википедия)...

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Poetry

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Excerpt: This is a publication of The Pennsylvania State University

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Excerpt: On Being Human by Woodrow Wilson.

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Excerpt: Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics....

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Excerpt: An Old Monastery. ?COME, deputy of the Centre, forward! Quick step! march! if we want to be in time to dine with the others. Jump, marquis! there, that?s right! why, you can skip across a stubble-field like a deer!?...

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While aimed at youths, this series of tales of the just-opening West makes a rollicking good story for adults, too. Three teen-age boys, trained as telegraphers, manage to get themselves in and out of a wide variety of harrowing circumstances. Using their knowledge of Morse code, the science of telegraphs, and the operation of railroads, the boys stir in native resourcefulness, quick-thinking, and when the occasion demands it, raw courage - to effect rescues, thwart thieves, and solve mysteries. If Tom Swift had lived in the nineteenth century, he could not have had more exciting escapades! (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

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Teen/Young adult, Fiction, Adventure

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Excerpt: I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father?s name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much,--and went out of it too. They wouldn?t have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him....

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”The Fisherman and his Soul” is a fairy tale first published in November of 1891 in Wilde’s “A House of Pomegranates”. It tells of a fisherman who nets and falls in love with a mermaid. But to be with her he must shed his soul, which goes off to have adventures of its own. Will forbidden love endure? -- This reader has also recorded the three other tales in “A House of Pomegranates” which can be found in the Short Story Collections, volumes 37, 38, and 39. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Fairy tales

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Excerpt: How Sir Gawaine was nigh weary of the quest of the Sangreal, and of his marvellous dream. When Sir Gawaine was departed from his fellow ship he rode long without any adventure. For he found not the tenth part of adventure as he was wont to do. For Sir Gawaine rode from Whitsuntide until Michaelmas and found none adventure that pleased him. So on a day it befell Gawaine met with Sir Ector de Maris, and either made great joy of other that it were marvel to tell....

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Excerpt: Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad.

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Excerpt: Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: George Silverman?s Explanation by Charles Dickens.