Description Details
Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his famous short horror stories; however, horror is not the only genre in which he wrote. How To Write a Blackwood Article and its companion piece A Predicament are satirical works exploring the pieces of the formula generally seen in short horror stories (articles) found in the Scottish periodical Blackwood's Magazine and the successful misapplication of said formula by - horrors! - a woman author! - respectively. Originally paired together as The Psyche Zenobia and The Scythe of Time, Poe first published these pieces in the American Museum based in Baltimore, Maryland in November 1838. The names of the works as we currently know them were attached when they were published in Poe's collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque and in the fourth volume of his Collected Works. (Summary by Catharine Eastman and Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Humor, Horror/Ghost stories

Description Details
Paradise Regained is a poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes. Based on the Gospel of Luke's version of the Temptation of Christ, Paradise Regained is more thoughtful in writing style, and thrives upon the imagery of Jesus' perfection in contrast to the shame of Satan. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry, Religion, Literature

Description Details
“When Captain Carey went on his long journey into the unknown and uncharted land, the rest of the Careys tried in vain for a few months to be still a family, and did not succeed at all. They clung as closely to one another as ever they could, but there was always a gap in the circle where father had been….. The only thing to do was to remember father's pride and justify it, to recall his care for mother and take his place so far as might be; the only thing for all, as the months went on, was to be what mother called the three Bs -- brave, bright, and busy. From the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, this book tells the story of a widow and her four children, forced to leave their home due to financial difficulties, and move to the “Yellow House” in turn of the century Beulah, Maine. The Disney movie “Summer Magic” starring Hayley Mills was loosely based on this book. (Summary by Maria Therese – with quotes from the book)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Fiction, Teen/Young adult

Description Details
The Family Kitchen Gardener contains plain and accurate descriptions (ca 1847) of all the different species and varieties of specifically American culinary vegetables, fruit, and herbs in alphabetical order. It includes the best mode of cultivating, propagating, and managing them in the garden or under glass, and a description of the best implements used in maintaining such gardens.(Summary by BellonaTimes)...

Description Details
“Thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty Opium!” Though apparently presenting the reader with a collage of poignant memories, temporal digressions and random anecdotes, the Confessions is a work of immense sophistication and certainly one of the most impressive and influential of all autobiographies. The work is of great appeal to the contemporary reader, displaying a nervous (postmodern?) self-awareness, a spiralling obsession with the enigmas of its own composition and significance. De Quincey may be said to scrutinise his life, somewhat feverishly, in an effort to fix his own identity. The title seems to promise a graphic exposure of horrors; these passages do not make up a large part of the whole. The circumstances of its hasty composition sets up the work as a lucrative piece of sensational journalism, albeit published in a more intellectually respectable organ – the London Magazine – than are today’s tawdry exercises in tabloid self-exposure. What makes the book technically remarkable is its use of a majestic neoclassical style applied to a very romantic species of confessional writing - self-reflexive but a...

Excerpt Details
Memoirs

Description Details
A classic of early literary modernism, Lord Jim tells the story of a young simple and sensitive character who loses his honor in a display of cowardice at sea -- and of his expiation of that sin against his own shadowy ideal of conduct on the remote island of Patusan. The novel, written by Conrad for magazine serialization during an intense and chaotic ten months in 1899 and 1900, has, in the words of Thomas C. Moser, the rare distinction of being a masterpiece in two separate genres. It is at once an exotic adventure story of the Eastern seas in the popular tradition of Kipling and Stevenson and a complexly wrought 'art novel' in the tradition of Flaubert and James. (summary by Stewart Wills)...

Excerpt Details
Adventure

Description Details
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. Wilde later revised this edition, making several alterations, and adding new chapters; the amended version was published by Ward, Lock, and Company in April 1891. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, plunging him into debauched acts. The portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each ...

Excerpt Details
Fantasy, Fiction

Description Details
volunteers bring you 7 recordings of New Year Greeting by Louise R. Waite . This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 21st, 2010., The 21st of March is the ancient Persian festival of Naw-Rúz, also spelled Noruz (New Day) which is the Iranian and Zoroastrian New Year's Day. Naw-Rúz is also a Bahá'í holy day and the Baha'i New Year. Louise R. Waite (nee Spencer) was a Bahá'í poet and song writer. She wrote this poem, entitled “New Year Greeting”, for Naw-Rúz, which appeared in the Bahai Bulletin, Vol. 1. January-February-March, 1909, No. 5. According to an article which appeared in the same issue of the Bahai Bulletin: “Each Prophet or Manifestation of God, when he comes to the world, founds a new dispensation, a new time, for his followers…. To-day those who believe in Baha’u’llah, are establishing the Bahai time. It establishes a new method of reckoning… The New Year begins on the twenty-first of March, in accord with the teachings of our Revelator…” Referring to one of Waite’s poems in 1902, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote: “All poems shall be forgotten in the course of time save those that are extraordinary. Thy poems shall be chanted with...

Excerpt Details
Nature, Poetry, Religion

Description Details
The history of the judges of Israel. (Summary by Joy Chan)

Excerpt Details
Religion

Description Details
volunteers bring you 17 recordings of You Bid Me Try by Austin Dobson . This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 24, 2011. Henry Austin Dobson , commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. His official career was uneventful, but as a poet and biographer he was distinguished. Those who study his work are struck by its maturity. It was about 1864 that he turned his attention to writing original prose and verse, and some of his earliest work was his best. It was not until 1868 that the appearance of St Paul's, a magazine edited by Anthony Trollope, gave Harry Dobson an opportunity and an audience; and during the next six years he contributed some of his favourite poems, including Tu Quoque, A Gentleman of the Old School, A Dialogue from Plato, and Une Marquise. Many of his poems in their original form were illustrated—some, indeed, were written to support illustrations. (summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Humor, Romance, Poetry

Description Details
Bertram Wooster's manservant, Jeeves, is renown for his ability to apply his keen intellect to solve all problems domestic, and Bertie's friends and relatives flock to him for his counsel. But Wooster, jealous of Jeeves's fame, decides to step in and take over as the fixer of his pal's engagement, his aunt's gambling debts and old school-mate's desire to propose marriage. How far will Bertie sink them all in the soup? Will Jeeves come to the rescue? Right Ho, Jeeves features of course Bertie and Jeeves as well as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Tuppie Glossop, Aunt Dahlia and Anatole the high-strung French chef in this P.G. Wodehouse farce of England's upper crust. (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

Excerpt Details
Comedy

Description Details
volunteers bring you 20 recordings of Siberia by James Clarence Mangan. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for September 2, 2012. James Clarence Mangan wad born in Dublin. He was educated at a Jesuit school where he learned the rudiments of Latin, Spanish, French, and Italian. He attended three different schools until the age of fifteen. Obliged to find a job in order to support his family, he became a lawyer's clerk, and was later an employee of the Ordnance Survey and an assistant in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Poetry, Adventure, Nature, Tragedy

Description Details
volunteers bring you 20 recordings of Simplex Munditiis by Ben Jonson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 26, 2012. Ben Jonson was an English poet and playwright. He had a huge influence on both the theatre of his day and that which came after. Much of his poetry was inspired by the classical world of Ancient Greece and Rome. He also wrote a lot of satirical poetry on everyday topics, of which this poem is one such example. (Summary by Lucy Perry)...

Excerpt Details
Philosophy, Romance, Poetry

Description Details
volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Ballade of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 20, 2012. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the prince of paradox. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. For example, Chesterton wrote Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

Excerpt Details
Poetry, Humor, Philosophy

Description Details
The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.” This audio read of Forstner’s journal was prompted by a tour of a captured WWII German U-505 submarine, which is a prime draw at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The sub’s interior is not for claustrophobics--a hunkered maze of pipes and valves, banks of engines and batteries that leave very little room for humans. Particularly arresting are the sleeping quarters--bunks cozy’d up with the 15 foot long torpedoes. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)...

Excerpt Details
Adventure, History, Memoirs, Sea stories, War stories

Description Details
The Milky Way - F. Tennyson Jesse's first novel - began life as a 1913 magazine serial called The Adventures of Viv. In it, poor-but-plucky Cornish painter/model Vivian Lovel recounts events of her twenty-first year: en route from Penzance to London by steamer, she catches a baby dropped over the side of a sinking ship - and decides to keep it. Penniless, however, she platonically pairs up with pan-like fellow passenger Peter Whymperis, an actor and aspiring writer, and together they find work with a fifth-rate repertory troupe. Soon sacked, they nevertheless leave with money enough to buy milk for the baby. They then spend a night locked in a wax museum devoted to notorious murders and later trace a fugitive from justice to his lair. At a costume party, Viv rescues her beautiful friend Chloe from a cruel seducer, by taking her place (and his car). Viv then flits to Cornwall for a stint of modeling at an artists' colony. She's tempted to put down roots, but Peter appears, and they dance away as faun and nymph into the night. Back again in London, a publisher, whose home they invade, commissions Peter to write and Viv to illustrate a...

Excerpt Details
Adventure, Fiction

Description Details
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a sentimental children's novel by American (English-born) author Frances Hodgson Burnett, serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1885. It was a runaway hit for the magazine and was separately published in 1886. The book was a commercial success for its author, and its illustrations by Reginal Birch set fashion trends. Little Lord Fauntleroy also set a precedent in copyright law in 1888 when its author won a lawsuit over the rights to theatrical adaptations of the work. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Excerpt Details
Children, Teen/Young adult

Description Details
Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest is a narration of his life story by Abel, a Venezuelan, to a comrade. Once a wealthy young man, he meddled in politics to the extent of provoking a revolution... which failed. Escaping into the tropical forests of Guyana Abel takes up gold hunting, then journal-writing, and fails at both. Now with no aim for his life, he drifts until he takes up residence with a remote Indian tribe. Soon he learns of a wood the Indians avoid, as it is inhabited by a dangerous Daughter of the Didi, who, they say, slew one of them with magic. The fellow was in fact hit with a poisoned dart by accident, but his dying belief that she had caught the dart and hurled it at him survived him. Intrigued, Abel visits the wood repeatedly, and eventually encounters Rima. She indeed is something magical. She seems to have a pact with nature: animals don't molest her, she speaks in a melodious birdsong (as well as Spanish), and she even makes her garments of spider silk. When Abel is bitten by a venomous snake that acts protective of her, she and her grandfather Nuflo nurse Abel back to health. Both Abel and Rima ar...

Excerpt Details
Romance

Description Details
The Charles Dickens 200th Anniversary Collection comprises short works previously unrecorded for - fiction, essays, poetry, letters, magazine articles and speeches - and each volume will be a pot pourri of all genres and periods of his writing. This first volume is released on Dickens' 200th birthday, February 7th 2012. Further volumes will follow during the anniversary year. Volume 1 includes short stories including, amongst others, The Holly Tree , the first part of Holiday Romance and three pieces from Mugby Junction . Some items requiring a little further explanation are Prince Bull , written as a fairy tale, but in reality a scathing attack on the Government's handling of supplies to the troops in the Crimean War; Old Lamps for New Ones in which Dickens makes clear his low opinion of the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting; and Frauds on the Fairies , a polemic against George Cruikshank's bowdlerisation of fairy tales for moralistic purposes, and the interesting revelation that 'product placement' is by no means a new phenomenon. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

Excerpt Details
Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, Short stories, Art, Politics