Dover Thrift Editions
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The King of Elfland's Daughter
by Lord Dunsany
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
One of the most influential and acclaimed works in all of fantasy literature, this captivating tale is the forerunner of modern sword and sorcery novels. It tells of a young lord's quest through a supernatural world in search of a fairy princess bride, recounting the lovers' romance, separation, and reunion. Rich in metaphor, vivid in imagery, the lyrical storytelling evokes a sense of innocent wonder. Its fans range from W. B. Yeats, who wrote that Dunsany "had transfigured with beauty the common sights of the world," to Arthur C. Clarke, who felt that the novel helped elevate the author to "one of the greatest writers of this century."
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Droll Stories
Selected Tales
by Honoré De Balzac
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
These choice selections from Honoré de Balzac's Droll Stories offer a lively and lusty portrait of sixteenth-century French life and manners. Told in the tradition of Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Rabelais, they allegedly originated in manuscripts from the abbeys of Touraine. Originally published in three sets of ten tales in the 1830s, the stories abound in episodes of good-humored licentiousness that scandalized Balzac's contemporaries and continue to delight modern readers. French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a founder of realism in European literature. An inspiration to Proust, Dickens, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and countless others, Balzac wrote works that were hailed for their multifaceted characters and exquisite attention to detail. This edition's excellent translation was the first to make his Contes Drolatiques available to English-speaking readers.
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Suspiria de Profundis
by Thomas De Quincey
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A legal and readily available painkiller in the nineteenth century, laudanum was a source of both pleasure and pain for author Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859). After achieving overnight success with Confessions of an English Opium Eater, an impassioned account of his struggles with addiction, the author wrote the hypnotic prose poems of Suspiria de Profundis ("Sighs from the Depths"). Like Confessions, these short essays combined drug-induced visions with thought-provoking reflections on the nature of dreams, memory, and imagination.
With these books, De Quincey inaugurated the genre of addiction literature, a tradition furthered by Charles Baudelaire, William S. Burroughs, and a growing number of modern writers. Suspiria de Profundis continues to influence contemporary artists with the best known of its psychological fantasies, "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow," which centers on myths related to the Roman goddess of childbirth and was the source for the classic 1977 horror film Suspiria and its 2018 remake.
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Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies
by Rainer Maria Rilke
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During three feverish weeks in 1922, Rainer Maria Rilke composed the 55 sonnets that constitute Sonnets to Orpheus. Inspired by the death of a friend's daughter, the poet felt that he was being compelled to write by the girl's ghost. At about the same time he also completed Duino Elegies, which he had begun ten years earlier. Intimately connected to the Sonnets in themes and sensibilities, the Elegies offer meditations on love, death, God, and life's meaning that express Rilke's irresolvable conflict between a longing for solitude and a painful loneliness.
Although his poetry was recognized and admired by leading European artists, the Austro-Bohemian poet was virtually unknown during his lifetime, achieving international acclaim only with these final masterpieces. This edition presents translations by Jessie Lemont, praised by London's Times Literary Supplement for their presentation of Rilke as "a writer of short individual lyrics, often of incomparable, impressionist vividness, plastic vitality and symbolic suggestiveness."
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Female Abolitionists
by Various Authors
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A Dover Original, this collection of essays, letters, poems, and speeches by the bold women who joined the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century will educate and inspire all who are interested in this era of American history. The collection includes the work of 26 remarkable women whose efforts, at great risk to their own safety, became instrumental in fighting slavery, including Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Mary Prince, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lydia Maria Child, Harriet Tubman, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, and more.
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The State and Revolution
by Vladimir Lenin
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Among the most influential political and social forces of the twentieth century, modern communism rests firmly on philosophical, political, and economic underpinnings developed by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later known as Lenin. The State and Revolution is Lenin's most significant work, in which he totally rejects the institutions of Western democracy and presents his vision of the final perfection of Communism. For anyone who seeks to understand the twentieth century, capitalism, the Russian revolution, and the role of Communism in the tumultuous political and social movements that have shaped the modern world, this book offers unparalleled insight and understanding.
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Master Humphrey's Clock
by Charles Dickens
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A lonely old man in early nineteenth-century London hits upon the idea of inviting acquaintances over to read their manuscripts together. The friends gather one night a week between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., and with the formation of their fictional literary club, Charles Dickens launched Master Humphrey's Clock, a weekly periodical that he published from 1840 to 1841.
Recounted with the author's customary flair for humor and pathos, the tales range from the confessions of a child murderer and an account of a rebel's secret burial to lighthearted exchanges between a pair of talking statues. This collection marked Dickens' establishment of characters from his forthcoming novels The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge. He also reintroduced popular personalities from The Pickwick Papers, adding Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Mr. Weller to the narrators. Generations of readers have delighted in the warmth and humanity of these lesser-known tales by a master storyteller.
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Six Great Dialogues
Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, The Republic
by Plato
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Plato's brilliant dialogues, written in the fourth century B.C., rank among Western civilization's most important philosophical works. Presented as a series of probing conversations between Socrates and his students and fellow citizens, they form a magnificent dialectical quest that examines enduring political, ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological issues. Here, in one inexpensive edition, are six of Plato's remarkable and revelatory dialogues, each translated by distinguished classical scholar Benjamin Jowett. Apology defends the integrity of Socrates' teachings. Crito discusses respect for the law. Phaedo considers death and the immortality of the soul. Phaedrus explores the psychology of love. Symposium reflects on the ultimate manifestation of the love that controls the world, and The Republic ponders society and the philosopher's role within it. Stimulating, dramatic, and always relevant, these dialogues have profoundly influenced the history of intellectual thought, and offer crucial insight into mystical, aesthetic, and other aspects of Platonic doctrine.
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The Anti-Federalist Papers
by Patrick Henry
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Between the first proposals of a federal Constitution in 1787 and the document's 1789 ratification, an intense debate raged among the nation's founding fathers. The Federalist Papers - authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay - favored the adoption of the Constitution, but other early statesmen opposed its ratification. The latter group, writing under pseudonyms, amassed a substantial number of influential essays, speeches, and letters that warned of the dangers inherent in a powerful central government. Although never collected in as definitive a form as The Federalist Papers, these statements of opposition appeared in various publications and eventually became known as The Anti-Federalist Papers. Some of their arguments were incorporated into the first ten amendments to the Constitution - the Bill of Rights - but others remained unaddressed. The persuasive and well-argued statements encompassed by this volume continue to provide a valuable and timely perspective on the necessary limits of power.
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Shakespeare
A Book of Quotations
by William Shakespeare
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With over 500 offerings from the most quoted writer in the English language, this modestly priced volume provides a luxurious assortment of memorable and profound thoughts. Conveniently arranged by topic, the source of each quote is fully identified for subjects ranging from love and marriage to truth, beauty, death, music, and more. An ideal resource for writers, speakers, students of literature, and any lover of Shakespeare's works.
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She Stoops to Conquer
by Oliver Goldsmith
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Charming satire of the sentimental comedies of the day has entertained audiences since 1773. A young lady poses as a serving girl to win the heart of a young gentleman too shy to court ladies of his own class. Many delightful deceits, hilarious turns of plot must be played out before the play concludes happily. Notes.
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Sentimental Education
by Gustave Flaubert
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"I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation-or, more accurately, the history of their feelings," declared Gustave Flaubert, who envisioned "a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays-that is to say, inactive." First published in 1869, this novel fulfills Flaubert's conception with a realistic, ironic portrait of bourgeois lives played out against France's tumultuous revolution of 1848 and the founding of its Second Empire. Frédéric Moreau, a law student in Paris, dreams of achieving success in art, business, journalism, and politics. His aspirations take a romantic turn upon a chance encounter with a married woman, who inspires a lifelong obsession. Frédéric befriends his idol's husband, an influential art dealer, and quickly finds himself seduced by society life-and bedeviled by financial problems, ideological conflicts, and betrayals of trust. Blending romance, historical authenticity, and satire, Flaubert's Sentimental Education ranks among the nineteenth century's great novels.
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Infamous Speeches
From Robespierre to Osama bin Laden
by Bob Blaisdell
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This anthology comprises some of history's most hateful public addresses, consisting of speeches invoking racism, genocide, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and other extreme views. Selections range from an oration by Robespierre during the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution to Osama bin Laden's threats related to the terrorist actions of 9/11. Additional speeches include Andrew Jackson's Seventh Annual Message to Congress in 1835, promoting the Indian Removal Act; Jefferson Davis' 1861 announcement of Southern secession; and Joseph R. McCarthy's "Wheeling" speech of 1950, in which the senator claimed knowledge of Communist loyalists within the U. S. government. Other speakers include Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, and Stalin. Each speech features a brief introduction that places it in historical context.
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Selected Poems
by John Dryden
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The leading English literary figure of the latter half of the 17th century, John Dryden (1631-1700) wrote dramas and critical works, but his reputation stands on his mastery of verse, in particular the heroic couplet. Encompassing political, religious, philosophic, and artistic issues, Dryden's poetry offers rich evidence of his social consciousness. "Annus Mirabilis," a celebration of the tumultuous events of 1666, casts the catastrophic effects of war, plague, and London's Great Fire as a providential gesture, from which the nation would arise, phoenix-like, to greater heights. Other selections in this volume include his great satires "Absalom and Achitophel" and "Mac Flecknoe," along with "Song from Marriage à la Mode," "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham," "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," "Epigram on Milton," and "Alexander's Feast." Dover original selection of poems from standard texts. New Publisher's Note.
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Sons and Lovers
by David Herbert 'D. H.' Lawrence
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Torn between his passion for two women and his abiding attachment to his mother, young Paul Morel struggles with his desire to please everyone ― particularly himself. Lawrence's highly autobiographical novel unfolds against the backdrop of his native Nottinghamshire coal fields, amidst a working-class family dominated by a brutish father and a loving but overbearing mother. Lushly descriptive passages range from celebrations of natural beauty and sensual pleasures to searing indictments of the social blight engendered by industrialism. Essential reading for any study of 20th-century literature. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1913 edition.
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Slave Narratives of the Underground Railroad
by Christine Rudisel
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During the 1850s and 1860s more than 100,000 people escaped slavery in the American South by following the Underground Railroad, a complex network of secret routes and safe houses. This inexpensive compilation of firsthand accounts offers authentic insights into the Civil War era and African-American history with compelling narratives by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and lesser-known refugees. Thirty selections include the story of Eliza Harris, "The Slave Woman Who Crossed the Ohio River on the Drifting Ice with Her Child in Her Arms," whose experience inspired a memorable scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Other accounts include that of Henry "Box" Brown, who hid in a crate mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists; Theophilus Collins's escape after "A Desperate, Bloody Struggle-Gun, Knife and Fire Shovel, Used by Infuriated Master"; excerpts from Harriet Jacobs's 1861 narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and the remarkable flight of William and Ellen Craft, "Female Slave in Male Attire, Fleeing as a Planter, with Her Husband as Her Body Servant."
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Selected Poems
by Claude McKay
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Jamaican-American poet Claude McKay (1889–1948) came to the U.S. in 1912 and became an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. This inexpensive edition includes a representative sample of his Jamaican dialect verse, but concentrates on poems from Harlem Shadows (1922) and uncollected verse. Edited and with an introduction by Joan R. Sherman.
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Short Story Masterpieces by American Women Writers
by Clarence C. Strowbridge
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Fourteen short works of fiction by noteworthy American women authors offer entrancing tales of redemption, betrayal, tradition, and rebellion. Dating from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, these narratives range in mood from "Heat," Joyce Carol Oates's chilling tale of murder, to "Why I Live at the P.O.," Eudora Welty's comic monologue in the Southern Gothic tradition. Other contributors include Flannery O'Connor, Kate Chopin, and Edna Ferber as well as lesser-known, newly rediscovered writers. Edith Wharton examines the issue of divorce and remarriage in "The Other Two," and Willa Cather explores life among Greenwich Village artists at the turn of the twentieth century in "Coming, Aphrodite!" Stories with modern settings include Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," an insightful look at the role of heritage in African-American culture, and Louise Erdrich's "The Shawl," a meditation on memory and the transformation of old stories into new ones. Together, the tales offer a revealing panorama of perspectives on women's ongoing struggles for dignity and self-sufficiency.
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Herman Melville
by Herman Melville
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Despite the early success of his tales of adventure in the South Seas, Herman Melville (1819–1891) suffered a reversal of fortunes with the 1851 publication of Moby-Dick. The great epic, now recognized as a masterpiece, was scorned by an uncomprehending nineteenth-century audience. Melville's preoccupation with metaphysical and philosophical issues and his use of symbols and archetypes foreshadowed elements of latter-day literature, and modern readers rejoice in his groundbreaking explorations of timeless questions. Along with excerpts from Moby-Dick, this anthology presents the complete text of Melville's classic of travel and adventure literature, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life. Additional features include the short stories "Bartleby the Scrivener," "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids," and "The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles."
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Selected Poems
by Emily Dickinson
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Over 100 best-known, best-loved poems by one of America's foremost poets, reprinted from authoritative early editions. "The Snake," "Hope," "The Chariot," many more, display unflinching honesty, psychological penetration, and technical adventurousness that have delighted and impressed generations of poetry lovers. No comparable edition at this price. Index of first lines.
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Snake and Other Poems
by David Herbert 'D. H.' Lawrence
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Best known as the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Women In Love, D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) also wrote some of the twentieth century's finest poetry. Lawrence is noted for his use of words in a richly textured manner that produces vivid images and expresses deep emotion. This ample collection of his verse covers a wide thematic range, including love, marriage, family, class, art, and culture, all treated with extraordinary exuberance, intensity, sensitivity, and occasional humor. These selections originally appeared in Love Poems and Others (1913), Amores (1916), Look! We Have Come Through! (1917), Tortoises (1921), and such periodicals as The Dial and English Review. In addition to the celebrated title poem, individual works include "A Collier's Wife," "Monologue of a Mother," "Quite Forsaken," "Wedlock," "Fireflies in the Corn," "New Heaven and Earth," and many others.
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Songs for the Open Road
Poems of Travel and Adventure
by Various Authors
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Collection of more than 80 poems by 50 American and British masters celebrates travel, adventure and the many real and metaphorical journeys each of us take in the course of our lives. Works by Whitman, Byron, Millay, Sandburg, Service, Bliss Carman, Robert Louis Stevenson, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Shelley, Tennyson, Yeats, many others. Note.
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Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Famed series of 44 love poems written to the poet's husband, Robert Browning, plus a selection of poems dealing with religion, art, social problems and political events. These include "Consolation," "The Cry of the Human," "A Curse for a Nation," "The Forced Recruit," "To Flush, My Dog," and others. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.
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Selected Poems
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Dubbed the "Poet Laureate of the Negro race" by Booker T. Washington, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) is best known for his lively dialect poems. In addition to his dialect verse, however, Dunbar also wrote fine poems in standard English that captured many elements of the black experience in America. This volume contains a representative cross-section of both types of verse, including "Ode to Ethiopia," "Worn Out," "Not They Who Soar," "When Malindy Sings," "We Wear the Mask," "Little Brown Baby," "Dinah Kneading Dough," "The Haunted Oak," "Black Samson of Brandywine" and many more. A rich amalgam of lyrics encompassing patriotism, a celebration of rural life and homey pleasures, anger at the inequalities accorded his race, and faith in ultimate justice, this collection affords readers an excellent opportunity to enjoy the distinctive voice and poetic technique of one of the most beloved and widely read African-American poets.
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Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey
by Marcus Garvey
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A controversial figure in the history of race relations around the world, Marcus Garvey amazed his enemies as much as he dazzled his admirers. This anthology contains some of the African-American rights advocate's most noted writings and speeches, including "Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World" and "Africa for the Africans."
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Selected Short Stories
by Anthony Trollope
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Popular and prolific, Anthony Trollope wrote 47 novels as well as dozens of short stories that provide fascinating insights into Victorian life, behavior, and morals. A careful observer of people and places, Trollope created realistic, unsentimental depictions of everyday life that offer enduring entertainment as well as vivid reflections of the attitudes of his era. These six stories originally appeared in periodicals, and Trollope may have drawn upon his experiences as an editor in writing "Mary Gresley," concerning a young woman with literary ambitions, and "The Spotted Dog," chronicling a harried scholar's attempts to work in peace. Christmas stories include "The Mistletoe Bough," a tale of a broken engagement, and "Not If I Know It," relating a family falling-out. Courtship and class distinctions receive wry treatments in "The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne," in which a well-to-do suitor receives his comeuppance, and "The Two Heroines of Plumplington," a tale of romance stymied by parental snobbery.
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An Enemy of the People
by Henrik Ibsen
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An Enemy of the People addresses the irrational tendencies of the masses, and the hypocritical and corrupt nature of the political system that they support. It is the story of one brave man's struggle to do the right thing and speak the truth in the face of extreme social intolerance.
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Saint Joan
A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue
by George Bernard Shaw
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Hailed by T. S. Eliot as "a dramatic delight," George Bernard Shaw's only tragedy traces the life of the peasant girl who led French troops to victory over the English in the Hundred Years' War. An avid socialist, Shaw regarded his writing as a vehicle for promoting his political and humanitarian views and exposing hypocrisy. With Saint Joan, he reached the height of his fame, and it was this play that led to his Nobel Prize in Literature for 1925.
In the six centuries since her martyrdom, Joan of Arc has inspired artists, musicians, and writers. Shaw's heroine is unlike any previous interpretation - not a witch, saint, or madwoman but a pre-feminist icon, possessed of innate intelligence and leadership qualities that challenge the authority of church and state. She is also a real human being, warm and sincere, whose flaws include an obstinacy that leads to her undoing. This edition includes a substantial, informative Preface by the author.
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The Professor
by Charlotte Brontë
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Orphaned in his boyhood, William Crimsworth was sent to Eton by aristocratic relatives who withdrew their support when he declined to become a clergyman. After a disastrous attempt to join his estranged brother's business, William trades his Yorkshire clerkship for a teaching position at a Belgian boarding school. His loneliness is brightened by a beguiling headmistress, but her sensuous appeal complicates his attraction to a penniless girl who is both a student and teacher.
Although published posthumously, The Professor was written before Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë's other novels. Readers may recognize the book's autobiographical elements, which - like Villette - center on a love-starved English teacher at a Brussels school. In this case, however, the protagonist is a man, many of whose problems - workplace drudgery, social and romantic isolation - are similar to those of middle-class Victorian women. Brontë's moving portrayal of a social outsider's perspective adds interest to this showcase of her developing style and talent.
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The Use and Abuse of History
by Friedrich Nietzsche
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"While life needs the services of history, it must just as clearly be comprehended that an excess measure of history will do harm to the living," declares Friedrich Nietzsche in this cautionary polemic. The iconoclastic philosopher warns us about the dangers of an uncritical devotion to the study of the past, which leads to destructive and limiting
results - particularly in cases where long-ago events are exploited for nationalistic purposes.
Nietzsche proposes three approaches to times gone by: the monumental, focusing on examples of human greatness; the antiquarian, involving immersion in a bygone period; and the critical, rejecting the old in favor of the new. He examines the pros and cons of each concept, favoring how the ancient Greeks looked at things, which balanced a consciousness of yesteryear with contemporary intellectual, cultural, and political sensibilities. Nietzsche's emphasis on history as a dynamic, living culture rather than the subject of detached scholarship is certain to resonate with modern readers.
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A Child's History of England
by Charles Dickens
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From the mysterious Druids and noble King Alfred to the notorious Henry VIII and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Charles Dickens traced his country's history for the benefit of young Victorians. Written with the beloved storyteller's customary panache, this series of historical vignettes reads like a fast-paced novel, rich in anecdotes and colorful stories. Dickens' unsparing, witty, and opinionated perspectives on the great pageant of English history also offer insights into his own political and religious attitudes.
This lively narrative was dedicated by the author to his children, in hopes of whetting their appetites for more substantial works of history. The book was included in the curricula of British schoolchildren well into the twentieth century, and it remains a treat for all ages. Alice Munro remembered it fondly as "the first glimpse I ever had of history, before I knew what history was ... the whole story has the charm and recklessness and exaggeration of a spellbinding fairy tale."
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Bulfinch's Medieval Mythology
by Thomas Bulfinch
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Here, in a dazzling panoply, are the legendary figures from the age of chivalry: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood, Richard the Lionhearted and his crusaders, and a host of other famous and lesser-known characters. This collection includes tales from Camelot, dramatic narratives from The Mabinogion, and stories of the noble warriors of English history. Bulfinch's skillful storytelling not only relates these ancient myths and legends but also discusses their roles in literature and art, with numerous allusions to poetry and paintings. Generations of children and adults have thrilled to these timeless tales, and young readers can find no better introduction to the enchantment of medieval myths and legends.
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A John Brown Reader
by John Brown
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This original collection gathers a remarkably diverse body of literature about John Brown, the strident anti-slavery leader. Besides a selection of letters by the abolitionist himself, the book includes a significant excerpt from W. E. B. Du Bois's biography, John Brown, addresses by Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, poetry by Louisa May Alcott and Herman Melville, and much more.
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The Professor's House
by Willa Cather
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This bittersweet tale begins when the successful Professor Godfrey St. Peter and his wife move into a comfortable new house. On the eve of the move, Godfrey analyzes his life, family, and friends: his two daughters' marriages have removed them from the home, and the loss of his most outstanding student (and once son-in-law to be) leaves him feeling without purpose. His desire to stay in his old study and cling to what used to be sparks deep introspection in a story that explores a mid-life crisis and family life in a 1920s Midwestern college town.
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My Inventions and Other Writing and Lectures
by Nikola Tesla
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This volume presents one of the richest and most comprehensive collections of writings by Nikolai Tesla, a founding figure of the modern electrical power industry and long-time rival of Thomas Edison. Included is Tesla's autobiography, My Inventions, and the lengthy philosophical essay "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy: With Special Reference to the Harnessing of the Sun's Energy," as well as a series of lectures: "A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers," "On Electricity," and more.
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Tom Jones
by Henry Fielding
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When Squire Allworthy returns from London to discover a sleeping baby of unknown parentage in his bed, Tom Jones makes its rollicking start toward a picaresque journey across eighteenth-century England. Its foundling hero, having grown to young manhood and developed a passion for the girl next door, finds himself banished from the squire's country estate by the contrivance of a romantic rival. Lusty, good-hearted Tom is thus compelled to seek his fortune far from home and, ultimately, in the company of soldiers, thieves, whores, and other vividly drawn characters.
One of the first and most influential novels, Tom Jones was an instant sensation upon its publication in 1749. Henry Fielding's masterpiece of wit, written in a mock-epic style that parallels Tom's adventures with episodes from classical mythology, offers an exuberant panorama of eighteenth-century life. Beloved for its bawdy humor and adroit social commentary, the novel has been adapted many times for stage and screen and ranks among English literature's greatest comedies.
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Selected Letters
by Jane Austen
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One of England's most popular novelists, Jane Austen wrote about life amid the gentry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In her fiction, Austen analyzed and satirized her world, particularly the expectations and duties of women in an unequal society. She was also a prolific correspondent, and her intimate, gossipy letters to family and friends offer unique insights into her life and work.
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Zadig and Other Stories
by Voltaire
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Best known as the author of the satirical novel Candide, Voltaire also wrote other highly regarded works of philosophical fiction. With the title tale of this original collection of short stories, the author addresses the social and political problems of his own day in an ancient Babylonian setting. First published in 1747, "Zadig" makes no attempt at historical accuracy. Instead, its thinly veiled references to contemporary issues challenge eighteenth-century religious orthodoxy by portraying life's vicissitudes as the product of destiny rather than individual choices.
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Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics
by William L. Riordon
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This classic work presents the candid wit and wisdom of George Washington Plunkitt (1842—1924), a longtime state senator from New York who represented the Fifteenth Assembly District and was especially powerful in New York City. Plunkitt was part of the city's Tammany Hall organization and a cynical practitioner of what today is generally known as "machine politics," a patronage-based system in which politicians openly exercise power for personal gain.
Plunkitt defined "dishonest graft" as working solely for one's own interests, as opposed to "honest graft," which involves the interests of one's party and state as well as individual benefits. An enthusiastic party man, he believed in appointments, patronage, spoils, and all the corrupt practices that were curtailed by the civil service law, regarding them as both the rewards and cause of patriotism. Modern readers will find his strikingly modern-sounding motivations and justifications both entertaining and instructive.
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A Diary From Dixie
A Journal of the Confederacy, 1860-1865
by Mary Chesnut
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Born into Southern aristocracy, Mary Boykin Chesnut (1823—86) married a rising star of the political scene who ultimately served as an aide to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. As a prominent hostess and popular guest in the highest circles of Confederate society, Chesnut possessed an insider's perspective on many of the Civil War's major events, which she recorded in vivid journal entries. Her diary recounts the social life that struggled to continue in the midst of war, the grim economic conditions that resulted from blockaded ports as well as how people's spirits rose and fell with each victory and defeat.
Hailed by William Styron as "a great epic drama of our greatest national tragedy," Chesnut's annotated diary won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982 and served as a primary source for Ken Burns's celebrated Civil War documentary. This edition of the compelling narrative features photos and engravings from the original publication.
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The Poems of Rupert Brooke
by Rupert Brooke
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The poetry of Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) remains memorable for its charming lyrical quality and the way in which his sonnets perfectly recapture the mood of England at the start of World War I. This volume reprints his complete oeuvre, from the early lyric poems to those written shortly before his premature death: "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," "Tiare Tahiti," "The Great Lover," "The Dead," "The Soldier," and many others.
Brooke enlisted in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the war in 1914 and entered the literary scene early the following year, when two of his sonnets ("The Dead" and "The Soldier") appeared in London's Times Literary Supplement.
The 27-year-old poet died shortly afterward aboard a ship bound for Gallipoli. His 1914 and Other Poems was published immediately afterward to wide acclaim. Brooke remains among Britain's best-loved cultural figures, and his works evoke the tranquility of prewar life and the ideals of heroic self-sacrifice.
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The Logic of the Moral Sciences
by John Stuart Mill
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
John Stuart Mill (1806—73) was the most influential English philosopher of the nineteenth century. His vast intellectual output covered a range of subjects - traditional philosophy and logic, economics, political science - and included this work, a founding document in the area now known as social science.
In The Logic of the Moral Sciences, Mill applied his considerable talents to examining how the study of human behavior, society, and history could be established on a rational, philosophical basis. The philosopher maintains that casual empiricism and direct experiment are not applicable to the study of complex social phenomena. Instead, "empirical laws," drawn from historical generalizations, must be derivable from a deductive science of human nature. Mills' insights and approaches have remained relevant in the century and a half since this treatise's publication. This volume will prove of vital interest to historians of philosophy and the social sciences as well as to undergraduate social science majors.
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Off on a Comet!
by Jules Verne
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Nearly a century before space travel captured the imaginations of science-fiction writers and readers, Jules Verne envisioned an incident in which a comet impact in the vicinity of Gibraltar sends a piece of the Earth on a two-year trip around the solar system. Thirty-six unsuspecting individuals of various nationalities are swept away by the collision. The tension builds as they struggle to understand what has happened and to cope with their new environment. The involuntary travelers are forced to put aside their differences to survive in an increasingly frigid atmosphere and to try to find their way home.
Verne's passion for travel and his interest in space exploration are reflected in this rollicking adventure, which is further elevated by his gift for creating a dramatic narrative and realistic personalities. This edition of Off on a Comet! features illustrations from the original French publication that complement the author's droll observations of his contemporaries' superstitions and foibles.
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Lady Susan, Sanditon and The Watsons
by Jane Austen
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
This volume presents three of Jane Austen's smaller works, treating readers to the author's timeless observations on life and love in nineteenth-century England. In Lady Susan, a beautiful and flirtatious widow seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match. Through a series of crafty maneuvers, Susan pursues her schemes by filling her calendar with invitations for extended visits with unsuspecting relatives and acquaintances. Characters are revealed and suspense builds as the plot unfolds through a series of letters.
The beloved author also left behind two tantalizing unfinished novels. The Watsons takes place in a familiar domestic milieu, in which a spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities narrowed by poverty and pride. Sanditon ventures into new territory amid hypochondriacs and speculators at a seaside resort. More than literary curiosities, these stories are worthy of reading for pleasure as well as for study.
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Great Speeches by Frederick Douglass
by Frederick Douglass
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Author, abolitionist, political activist, and philosopher, Frederick Douglass was a pivotal figure in the decades of struggle leading up to the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. This inexpensive compilation of his speeches adds vital detail to the portrait of a great historical figure.
Featured addresses include "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" which was delivered on July 5, 1852, more than ten years before the Emancipation Proclamation. "Had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke," Douglass assured his listeners, "For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake." Other eloquent and dramatic orations include "Self-Made Men," first delivered in 1859, which defines the principles behind individual success, and "The Church and Prejudice," delivered at the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society in 1841.
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Tulips & Chimneys
by E. E. Cummings
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Edward Estlin Cummings (1894–1962), a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Harvard University graduate, is best known for his rejection of traditional poetic forms. As e. e. cummings, he conducted radical experiments with spelling, syntax, and punctuation that inspired a revolution in twentieth-century literary expression and excited the admiration and affection of poetry lovers of all ages. With his 1923 debut, Tulips & Chimneys, the 25-year-old poet rattled the conservative literary scene, directing his avant-garde approach to the traditional subjects of love, life, time, and beauty. His playful treatment of punctuation and language adds enduring zest to such popular and oft-anthologized poems as "All in green went my love riding," "in Just-," "Tumbling-hair," "O sweet spontaneous," "Buffalo Bill's," and "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls." This edition presents complete and textually accurate editions of Cummings's work, in keeping with the original manuscripts and the poet's intentions.
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The Popol Vuh
by Lewis Spence
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Transcribed from the original Mayan hieroglyphs, the Popol Vuh relates the mythology and history of the Kiché people of the Guatemalan Highlands of Central America. As is often the case with ancient texts, the Popol Vuh's significance lies in the scarcity of early accounts of Mesoamerican cultures, largely due to the purging of documents by the Spanish conquistadors. Today there remains no document of greater importance to the study of pre-Columbian mythology.
This text of the Popol Vuh - which is translated variously as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or, more literally, "Book of the People" - begins as pure mythology and gradually develops into pure history, progressing from heroic legends to the deeds of authentic historical figures. It tells of the gods who created mankind, as well as a great flood and other stories with intriguing parallels to the myths of different cultures. This edition features the classic translation by the distinguished folklorist Lewis Spence.
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The Power of Darkness
A Drama in Five Acts
by Leo Tolstoy
Part of the Dover Thrift Editions series
Best known today as the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Count Leo Tolstoy also is acknowledged as a skilled playwright. His five-act drama The Power of Darkness offers a cold and unsparing look at Russian peasant life that illustrates the costs of pursuing personal desires rather than the dictates of morality. The grimly realistic tragedy is based on a real incident, centering on a peasant's confession to a party of wedding guests of his participation in a series of horrific crimes that range from adultery and murder to infanticide. Tolstoy's moving portrait of a class enslaved by poverty and ignorance was written in 1886, but its performance was suppressed by Russian authorities until 1902. A 1904 version, performed in New York in Yiddish, marked the first successful production of a play by Tolstoy in the United States.