Excerpt Details
Preface: As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known, and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has been made....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Second Part of Henry the Fourth Containing his Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- INDUCTION. Enter Rumour. Open your Eares: For which of you will stop The vent of Hearing, when loud Rumor speakes? I, from the Orient, to the drooping West (Making the winde my Post- horse) still unfold The Acts commenced on this Ball of Earth. Upon my Tongue, continuall Slanders ride, The which, in every Language, I pronounce, Stuffing the Eares of them with false Reports: I speake of Peace, while covert Enmitie (Under the smile of Safety) wounds the World: And who but Rumour, who but onely I Make fearfull Musters, and prepar?d Defence, Whil?st the bigge yeare, swolne with some other griefes, Is thought with childe, by the sterne Tyrant, Warre, And no such matter? Rumour, is a Pipe Blowne by Surmises, Ielousies, Conjectures; And of so easie, and so plaine a stop, That the blunt Monster, with uncounted heads, The still discordant, wavering Multitude, Can play upon it. But what neede I thus My well- knowne Body to Anathomize Among my houshold? Why is Rumour heere? I run before King Harries vict...

Table of Contents Details
Table of Contents: The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 2 -- Scena Tertia., 7 -- Scena Quarta., 12 -- Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima., 14 -- Scena Secunda., 18 -- Scena Tertia., 22 -- Scaena Quarta., 24 -- Actus Tertius. Scena Prima., 32 -- Scena Secunda., 35 -- Actus Quartus. Scena Prima., 42 -- Scena Secunda., 53 -- Actus Quintus. Scoena Prima., 62 -- Scena Secunda., 64 -- Scena Tertia., 68 -- Scena Quarta., 71 -- Scena Quinta., 72 -- EPILOGVE., 74...

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The increase of the towns of Manhattan, as, for the sake of convenience, we shall term New York and her adjuncts, in all that contributes to the importance of a great commercial mart, renders them one of the most remarkable places of the present age. Within the distinct recollections of living men, they have grown from a city of the fifth or sixth class to be near the head of all the purely trading places of the known world. That there are sufficient causes for this unparalleled prosperity, will appear in the analysis of the natural advantages of the port, in its position, security, accessories, and scale....

Description Details
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans , often shortened to Romans , is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul, to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is by far the longest of the Pauline epistles, and is considered his most important theological legacy....

Excerpt Details
Religion

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting men give the grandiose name of ?German Ocean.? And through the wide windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the eyes....

Description Details
The narrative poems in this collection are written by Sir Walter Scott - the well-known English poet and novelist. Each of these five poems are based loosely upon German ballads: rewritten in flowing English meter. * The Chase - a.k.a. The Wild Huntsman - A profligate, noble-born keeper of the royal forest - avidly addicted to the pleasures of the hunt - cruelly uses and mistreats his fellow-men. One day God's messengers come to test him: executing sentence immediately in just proportion to the huntsman's responses * William & Helen - William - long thought dead - unexpectedly returns at midnight from the crusades to marry his betrothed. Helen - relieved at his return - joyfully agree,s after initial misgivings: follows him on horseback into the night. Approaching the church in which they will celebrate their wedding: it is clear to Helen that all is not what it seems. But, with their mutual love strong enough to transcend death itself - what can possibly go wrong? * The Fire King - Count Albert never returns from crusade: having being imprisoned by Saracens. Rosalie, his betrothed, swears to leave at once for Lebanon to find him. R...

Excerpt Details
Poetry

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The malady of the age. On a fine evening in the month of September, 1836, a man about thirty years of age was leaning on the parapet of that quay from which a spectator can look up the Seine from the Jardin des Plantes to Notre-Dame, and down, along the vast perspective of the river, to the Louvre. There is not another point of view to compare with it in the capital of ideas. We feel ourselves on the quarter-deck, as it were, of a gigantic vessel. We dream of Paris from the days of the Romans to those of the Franks, from the Normans to the Burgundians, the Middle-Ages, the Valois, Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon, and Louis-Philippe. Vestiges are before us of all those sovereignties, in monuments that recall their memory....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Volsunga Saga translated by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (1888).

Table of Contents Details
Contents INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................5 TRANSLATORS? PREFACE.......................................................................23 THE STORY OF THE VOLSUNGS AND NIBLUNGS.............................26 APPENDIX:.................................................................................................132 EXCERPTS FROM THE POETIC EDDA.............................................................................................................. 132 PART OF THE LAY OF SIGRDRIFA (1)................................................................................................................. 139 THE LAY CALLED .................................................................................................................................................. 142 THE SHORT LAY OF SIGURD.............................................................................................................................. 142 THE HELL-RIDE OF BRYNHILD ............................................................................................................................

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding: Volume Two, Containing Books IX through XVIII.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: PHILO: Nay, but this dotage of our general?s overflows the measure: those his goodly eyes, That o?er the files and musters of the war Have glow?d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn, The office and devotion of their view Upon a tawny front: his captain?s heart, Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper, And is become the bellows and the fan To cool a gipsy?s lust....

Description Details
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914?), satirist, critic, poet, short story writer and journalist. His fiction showed a clean economical style often sprinkled with subtle cynical comments on human behaviour. In the Devil's Dictionary, he let his sense of humour and his cynical outlook on life colour a collection of dictionary-like definitions. (Summary by Peter)...

Excerpt Details
Satire

Description Details
volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Feast of Lights by Emma Lazarus. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 18, 2011. Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, is the Jewish festival commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem during the 2nd century BCE. This poem celebrating Hanukkah was written by Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet. Emma Lazarus also wrote 'The New Colossus,' a sonnet which is inscribed on a plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty....

Excerpt Details
Ancient Texts, Holiday, Religion, Poetry

Description Details
The Epistle to the Romans is one of the letters of the New Testament canon of the Christian Bible. In the words of N.T. Wright, the Book of Romans is neither a systematic theology nor a summary of Paul's lifework, but it is by common consent his masterpiece. It dwarfs most of his other writings, an Alpine peak towering over hills and villages. Not all onlookers have viewed it in the same light or from the same angle, and their snapshots and paintings of it are sometimes remarkably unalike. Not all climbers have taken the same route up its sheer sides, and there is frequent disagreement on the best approach. What nobody doubts is that we are here dealing with a work of massive substance, presenting a formidable intellectual challenge while offering a breathtaking theological and spiritual vision. (Summary from Wikipedia)....

Excerpt Details
Religion

Description Details
Harry Harrison (1925 - ) is best known for his Stainless Steel Rat stories and the novel Make Room! Make Room! which was adapted for film as Soylent Green. Deathworld is the first in a series of novels begun in 1960 and originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. It’s the story of Jason dinAlt a professional gambler with psionic skills who finds himself on Pyrrus the deadliest planet to be colonized by humanity. Violent weather, active tectonics, heavy gravity, abundant predators, and a hostile splinter group of colonists is only the beginning of Jason’s quest to learn the truth about Pyrrus. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

Excerpt Details
Science fiction

Description Details
Kalimát-i-Maknúnih or The Hidden Words is a book written in Baghdad around 1857 by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. This work is written partly in Arabic and partly in Persian. The Hidden Words is written in the form of a collection of short utterances, 71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian, in which Bahá'u'lláh claims to have taken the basic essence of certain spiritual truths and written them in brief form. Bahá'ís are advised by `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of Bahá'u'lláh to read them every day and every night and to implement its latent wisdom into their daily lives. He also said that The Hidden Words is a treasury of divine mysteries and that when one ponders its contents, the doors of the mysteries will open. The text of the Hidden Words is divided up into two sections: one from Arabic, and another from Persian. Each consist of several short, numbered passages. The Arabic has 71 passages, and the Persian has 82. This audiobook only contains the Arabic section. Each passage begins with an invocation, many of which repeat. Some common invocations include O Son of Spirit, O Son of Man, and O Son of Being. Bahá'í prayers are writte...

Excerpt Details
Religion, Philosophy, Advice

Description Details
Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw that takes place in 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff is engaged to the gallant Sergius Saranoff, hero of the recent Bulgarian victory over the Serbs. But she is distracted by the abrupt arrival of Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who fought for the Serbian army. He takes refuge in her bedroom after the battle and although he is initially threatening, reveals that he carries chocolate creams instead of bullets. Will Raina marry the posturing Sergius or the chocolate cream soldier? Extra intrigue is provided by saucy servant girl Louka, her dour fiance Nicola, and Raina's hand-wringing parents. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

Excerpt Details
Comedy

Description Details
James Allen's inspirational and thought-provoking books have inspired millions. In The Mastery of Destiny , he instructs readers on developing self-control, willpower, concentration, and motivation. Through discipline and mindfulness, we can create a life of unending happiness, prosperity, and, most importantly, self-mastery. (Summary by Andrea Fiore)...

Excerpt Details
Advice, Psychology

Description Details
The classic story of how Rat, Mole, and the other river-bankers saved Toad from his excesses. This book has it all: excitement, sentiment, destruction of private property (plenty of that), paganism, and a happy ending. The prose is beautiful and occasionally requires the use of a dictionary - I had to look up “asperities.” Written as a children’s story, The Wind in the Willows is enjoyed by many grown-ups who relish Grahame’s ability to evoke the long summer days of childhood. (Summary by Adrian Praetzellis)...

Excerpt Details
Animals, Children, Adventure, Comedy

Description Details
A collection of short stories by famed Winnie the Pooh author, A.A. Milne. This charmingly humorous work from Milne's earlier writing period was first published in Punch magazine. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Adventure, Humor