The Ramsey family, with house guests, visit the Isle of Skye at least twice. The plot is not at all the point though, as this is a book about how people think and feel and relate. There’s insight into the world of childhood thought and emotion, and a variety of views of adult care and perceptions. I hope this doesn’t make it sound ‘difficult’, it doesn’t need to be – just let the sentences flow and make your own sense of the words. It’s perhaps as close as a novel can come to the highly individual experience of looking at a painting. Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in using stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement. Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work.

To The Lighthouse

“It’s better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” "I am the most terrible animal that's ever existed." "Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday." "It's good to trust others but, not to do so is much better." “I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral guidance." (Mussolini) Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, born on July 29, 1883, who went by the nickname “Il Duce” (“the Leader”), was a deeply unbalanced tyrannical Italian dictator who created the dreaded Fascist Party in 1919. Eventually, he held all power in Italy as the country’s prime minister from 1922 to 1943. An ardent socialist as a youth, Mussolini followed in his father's political footsteps but was expelled by the party for his overt support of World War I. As an evil dictator during World War II (even murdering his own son by lethal injection) he greatly overextended his forces and was eventually killed by his own people in Mezzegra, Italy. Here, for the first time, are the words of the great dictator himself in his twisted manifesto on the political movement he started and is still so feared to this very day.

Benito Mussolini

An outbreak of plague in London forces a gentleman, Lovewit, to flee temporarily to the country, leaving his house under the sole charge of his butler, Jeremy. Jeremy uses the opportunity given to him to use the house as the headquarters for fraudulent acts. He transforms himself into 'Captain Face', and enlists the aid of Subtle, a fellow conman and Dol Common, a prostitute. In The Alchemist, Jonson unashamedly satirizes the follies, vanities and vices of mankind, most notably greed-induced credulity. People of all social classes are subject to Jonson's ruthless, satirical wit. He mocks human weakness and gullibility to advertising and to "miracle cures" with the character of Sir Epicure Mammon, who dreams of drinking the elixir of youth and enjoying fantastic sexual conquests. The Alchemist focuses on what happens when one human being seeks advantage over another. In a big city like London, this process of advantage-seeking is rife. The trio of con-artists - Subtle, Face and Dol - are self-deluding small-timers, ultimately undone by the same human weaknesses they exploit in their victims. Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy.

The Alchemist

'Thoughts On Art and Life' by Leonardo Da Vinci is a fascinating collection of writings from the great polymath of the Italian Renaissance. There are sections covering the great man's thoughts on life, art, and science. The translator, Maurice Baring trawled the available manuscripts to distil da Vinci's writings on these subjects into a single, accessible tome, which will be of interest to students of da Vinci, the Renaissance, and the history of both art and science. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal

Thoughts on Art and Life

Marx started work on this book in January 1847, as can be judged from Engel's letter to Marx on January 15, 1847. By the beginning of April 1847, Marx's work was completed in the main and had gone to the press. On June 15, 1847, he wrote a short foreword. Published in Paris and Brussels in 1847, the book was not republished in full during Marx's lifetime. Excerpts from section five of Chapter Two appeared in different years, mostly between 1872 - 1875 in papers such as La Emancipacion, Der Volksstaat, Social-Demokrat, and others. In 1880 Marx attempted to publish the Poverty of Philosophy in the French socialist newspaper L'Égalité, the organ of the French Workers' Party, but only the foreword and section one of Chapter One were published. This translation is from the original 1847 French edition. It has been updated to also include the changes/corrections Marx made in the copy of the book he presented to N. Utina in 1876, as well as the corrections made by Frederick Engels in the second French edition and the German editions of 1885 and 1892. The first English edition of this work was published in 1900 by Twentieth Century Press.

The Poverty of Philosophy

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born September 29, 1547, was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first modern novel and one of the pinnacles of world literature. Much of his life was spent in poverty and obscurity, many of its details are disputed or unknown, and the bulk of his surviving work was produced in the three years preceding his death. Despite this, his influence and literary contribution are reflected by the fact that Spanish is often referred to as "the language of Cervantes".[12] An incident in the story of Don Quixote (1870), by English painter Robert Hillingford, depicts a scene from Cervantes' magnum opus. In 1569, Cervantes was forced to leave Spain and moved to Rome, where he worked in the household of a cardinal. In 1570, he enlisted in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and was badly wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571. He served as a soldier until 1575 when he was captured by Barbary pirates; after five years in captivity, he was ransomed and returned to Madrid. His first significant novel, titled La Galatea, was published in 1585, but he continued to work as a purchasing agent, then later a government tax collector. Part One of Don Quixote was published in 1605, Part Two in 1615. Other works include the 12 Exemplary Novels a long poem, Journey to Parnassus); and Eight Plays and Eight Entr'actes. The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda, was published posthumously in 1616.

Don Quixote

Lincoln's connection to black history may go much further than his role in slavery. In the 2001 book 'Black People and Their Place in History', historian Leroy Vaughn, alleges that Lincoln’s father was African American and his mother had Ethiopian ethnicity, both of which may have explained his “very dark skin and coarse hair.” The fact is his rivals campaigned using propaganda that depicted Lincoln as “Abraham Africanus the First,” an African man. It is claimed that Abraham Lincoln, who became America’s 16th President in 1860, was a Melungeon; a person of European, African-American and Native American ancestry. But beyond even that thoughtful historical proposition the late scholar Lerone Bennet Jr. sees America's most beloved president in a very different light to how he has been portrayed throughout time. Bennet hit a nerve in his research and writing on Lincoln. His book, 'Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream', questions Lincoln's role as the "Great Emancipator". The work was described by one reviewer as a "flawed mirror." It was further criticized by historians of the Civil War period as faulty. In his introduction, Bennett wrote: "The idea of the book is simple: Everything you think you know about Lincoln and race is wrong. Every schoolchild, for example, knows the story of "the great emancipator" who freed Negroes with a stroke of the pen out of the goodness of his heart. The real Lincoln ... was a conservative politician who said repeatedly that he believed in white supremacy. Not only that: He opposed the basic principle of the Emancipation Proclamation until his death and was literally forced – Count Adam Gurowski said he was literally whipped – "into the glory of having issued the Emancipation Proclamation," which Lincoln drafted in such a way that it did not in and of itself free a single slave."

Abraham Lincoln

This classic work, written by Theosophist, W. Scott-Elliot, this book goes into detail about the lost city of Atlantis. The information came from C. W. Leadbeater, who said he received his information from astral clairvoyance. Scott-Elliot provides info on the people of Atlantis, such as their religion, races, different periods money, education, and much more. Atlantis, is a legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean, lying west of the Strait of Gibraltar. The principal sources for the legend are two of Plato’s dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. In the former, Plato describes how Egyptian priests, in conversation with the Athenian lawgiver Solon, described Atlantis as an island larger than Asia Minor and Libya combined and situated just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar). About 9,000 years before the birth of Solon, the priests said, Atlantis was a rich island whose powerful princes conquered many of the lands of the Mediterranean until they were finally defeated by the Athenians and the latter’s allies. The Atlantians eventually became wicked and impious, and their island was swallowed up by the sea as a result of earthquakes. In the Critias, Plato supplied a history of the ideal commonwealth of the Atlantians. Medieval European writers who received the tale from Arab geographers believed the stories to be true, and later writers tried to identify it with an actual country. After the Renaissance, for example, attempts were made to identify Atlantis with America, Scandinavia, and the Canary Islands. The story of Atlantis, if Plato did not invent it, may in fact reflect ancient Egyptian records of a volcanic eruption on the island of Thera about 1500 BCE. This eruption, one of the most stupendous of historical times, was accompanied by a series of earthquakes and tsunamis that shattered civilization on Crete, thereby perhaps giving rise to the legend of Atlantis.

Mysteries Of Atlantis

"The government claimed they had recovered a UFO — they had a press release about it, No other government in the world has said 'We have a spacecraft,' and then the next day there's another press release that says, 'Never mind, it was just a weather balloon'," Ben Smith, former CIA operative In 1947, something crashed outside of Roswell, New Mexico and was brought to Roswell Army Air Field by Army officers. Since then, there have been many a discussion about what exactly the object was. That's because soon after the incident, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release announcing that they had recovered a "flying disc.. The military's initial press release was straightforward in its handling of the discovery of wreckage by rancher W.W. "Mac" Brazel. "The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County," the press release read. "The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters." The Roswell Daily Record headlined the story "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region," providing a historical artifact.

Alien Presence

Mysterious Phileas Fogg is a man of the most repetitious and punctual habit - with no apparent sense of adventure whatsoever - he gambles his considerable fortune that he can complete a journey around the world in just 80 days... immediately after a newspaper calculates the feat as just barely possible. With his excitable French manservant in tow, Fogg undertakes the exercise immediately, with no preparations, trusting that his traveling funds will make up for delays along the way. But unbeknownst to him, British police are desperately seeking to arrest him for the theft of a huge sum by someone who resembles him, and they will track him around the world, if necessary, to apprehend him. This is an adventure novel of the first water, with wholly unexpected perils, hair-breadth escapes, brilliant solutions to insoluble problems, and even a love story. And can this be? - That he returns to London just five minutes too late to win his wager and retain his fortune? Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels.

Jules Vern Around The World In 80 Days

Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is based on his ingenious and profound poems, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in poetry. Poe was also the principal forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in 19th-century literature. He demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe’s poetry greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature. Here, perhaps, is his most icon-lauded work. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States, and of American literature. A true audiobook treasure for Goth, Poe and horror fans everywhere!

Edgar Allan Poe His Best Works

An American frigate, tracking down a ship-sinking monster, faces not a living creature but an incredible invention — a fantastic submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. Suddenly a devastating explosion leaves just three survivors, who find themselves prisoners inside Nemo’s death ship on an underwater odyssey around the world from the pearl-laden waters of Ceylon to the icy dangers of the South Pole . . .as Captain Nemo, one of the greatest villains ever created, takes his revenge on all society. More than a marvelously thrilling drama, this classic novel, written in 1870, foretells with uncanny accuracy the inventions and advanced technology of the twentieth century and has become a literary stepping-stone for generations of science fiction writers. Jules Verne was born on February 8, 1828. In addition to his novels, he wrote numerous plays, short stories, autobiographical accounts, poetry, songs, and scientific, artistic, and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music, and video games.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in its time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman's own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality. Born in Huntington on Long Island, as a child and through much of his career, he resided in Brooklyn. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the death of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he wrote his well-known poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures. After a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at age 72, his funeral was a public event. Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe argued: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America.

The Wound Dresser

Emma, is a novel about youthful hubris and romantic misunderstandings. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners, and depicts issues of marriage, sex, age, and social status. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the first sentence, she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition... had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray. Emma, written after Austen's move to Chawton, was her last novel to be published during her lifetime, while Persuasion, the last complete novel Austen wrote, was published posthumously. The novel has been adapted for a number of films, television programmes and stage plays. Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.

Emma

Arguably the greatest literary masterpiece, War and Peace is an amazing blend of philosophy, history, spirituality, and love told through two families, the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys. The Rostovs personify the Russian spirit. Count Rostov, a generous, kind spendthrift, can deny his family nothing. His countess is a warm, loving, overindulged woman. These characteristics are reflected in their children, while the austere Bolkonskys are duty-bound. As normal human beings do, the three main characters grow, expand, and change over the course of fifteen years (1805-1820) beginning when Natasha Rostov is a young girl. It is a joy to watch her evolve into a beautiful, mature woman who loves two men: Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, an elegant, aristocratic army officer, and his friend, Count Pierre Bezukhov, a bear of a man who seeks answers to life in Freemasonry, mysticism, and superstition, and finally finding them in the philosophy of Platon Karatayev, an illiterate peasant soldier. Andrey and Pierre argue the plight of the peasants, the rights of the aristocracy, and the merits of war, mirroring Tolstoy’s own reflections. The main focus is Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and his ignominious retreat.

War And Peace

Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw's adopted son, Heathcliff. It was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction. Wuthering Heights is now considered a classic of English literature, but contemporaneous reviews were polarized. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, and for its challenges to Victorian morality, and religious and societal values. Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature.

Wuthering Heights

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialized in 1897 by Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heinemann of London. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. The plot has been related to the invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears, and prejudices. Wells said that the plot arose from a discussion with his brother Frank about the catastrophic effect of the British on indigenous Tasmanians. What would happen, he wondered, if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the Tasmanians? At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It was most memorably dramatized in a 1938 radio program directed by and starring Orson Welles that allegedly caused public panic among listeners who did not know the Martian invasion was fictional. The novel has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert H. Goddard, who, inspired by the book, helped develop both the liquid-fuelled rocket and multistage rocket.

War Of The Worlds

“Their Ethiop wives—sleek wineskins of black silk, Jellied and huge from drinking asses’ milk Through years of tropical idleness, to pray For offspring (whom he ever sent away With prayers unanswered, lest their ebon race Might breed and blacken the earth’s comely face.” ? Aldous Huxley, Leda Though he gained recognition for his later essays and novels, Aldous Huxley started his writing career as a poet. Published in 1920, Leda is his fourth compilation of poetry. It begins with the passionate and slightly erotic poem "Leda", which recalls the love affair between Queen Leda, the mother of Helen of Troy, and her swan, Zeus in disguise. Some short poems follow. The book ends with two long sections. The first, "Beauty," is a short collection of vignettes where the author reflects on the concept of beauty through an ideal model of physical desire, Helen of Troy. The second, "Soles Occidere et Redire Possunt," or "Suns Can Set, and Suns Can Rise Again," is another long poem that reflects a day in the life of John Ridley, a deceased friend of Huxley's, who was mentally challenged throughout his entire life. Author Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly fifty books, both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. Huxley spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time.

Leda

Notes from Underground is an 1864 novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?. The second part of the book is called "Àpropos of the Wet Snow," and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. His literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as multiple of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.

Notes From The Underground

From humor to sentimentality, these stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald are set against a backdrop of jazz, flappers, and the changing mores of American society. In "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," wallflower Bernice is taken in hand by her more popular cousin, whose motives are not entirely altruistic. In "Benediction," a young woman visits her brother in the seminary. A camel goes to a party in "The Camel's Back." "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a poignant fantasy about a man who ages backward. Finally, tragedy befalls a young couple in "The Lees of Happiness." The stories in this collection are from the books Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. A true original audiobook treasure!

Classic Short Stories

“We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere" “It was long past midnight when at last Marguerite retired to rest" “Money and titles may be hereditary,” she would say, “but brains are not.” The story is set during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. The title is the nom de guerre of its hero and protagonist, a chivalrous Englishman who rescues aristocrats before they are sent to the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life: apparently nothing more than a wealthy fop but in reality a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking escape artist. The band of gentlemen who assist him are the only ones who know his secret identity. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower, the scarlet pimpernel. Opening at the New Theatre in London's West End on January 5, 1905, the play became a favorite of British audiences, eventually playing more than 2,000 performances. Baroness Emma Orczy, usually known as Baroness Orczy or to her family and friends as Emmuska Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. A true audiobook treasure!

The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, the novel depicts narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. A youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922 inspired the novel. Following a move to the French Riviera, he completed a rough draft in 1924. He submitted the draft to editor Maxwell Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After his revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title and considered several alternatives. After its publication by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews, although some literary critics believed it did not hold up to Fitzgerald's previous efforts and signaled the end of the author's literary achievements. Despite the warm critical reception, Gatsby was a commercial failure. The book sold fewer than 20,000 copies by October, and Fitzgerald's hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized. When the author died in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. After his death, the novel faced a critical and scholarly re-examination amid World War II, and it soon became a core part of most American high school curricula and a focus of American popular culture. Numerous stage and film adaptations followed in the subsequent decades. Gatsby continues to attract popular and scholarly attention. The novel was most recently adapted to film in 2013 by director Baz Luhrmann, while contemporary scholars emphasize the novel's treatment of social class, inherited wealth compared to those who are self-made, race, environmentalism, and its cynical attitude towards the American dream.

The Great Gatsby

Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first was published in the spring of 1837, and the second in 1842. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. Hawthorne was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821 and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel Fanshawe; he later tried to suppress it, feeling it was not equal to the standard of his later work.[He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children.

Twice Told Tales

A brief biographical sketch of Franklin's life, followed by a collection (published in 1899) of 670 aphorisms, apothegms, or proverbs - short, pithy, instructive sayings - that were scattered throughout the pages of his Poor Richard's Almanack over its 25 years of once-a-year publication (1732-1758). Many of these sayings are familiar to all . . . "a penny saved is a penny earned" . . . "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" . . . but there are many more for you to laugh at, ponder over and learn from! Most were not invented by him, but these little gems of wisdom Franklin gleaned from all over the world are what made his Almanack so wildly popular, and himself a wealthy man. Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher.

Poor Richards Almanac

Britain won the Moon Race! Decades before Neal Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind" two intrepid adventurers from Lympne, England, journeyed there using not a rocket, but an antigravity coating. Mr. Bedford, who narrates the tale, tells of how he fell in with eccentric inventor Mr. Cavor, grew to believe in his research, helped him build a sphere for traveling in space, and then partnered with him in an expedition to the Moon. What they found was fantastic! There was not only air and water but the Moon was honeycombed with caverns and tunnels in which lived an advanced civilization of insect-like beings. While Bedford is frightened by them and bolts home, Cavor stays and is treated with great respect. So why didn't Armstrong and later astronauts find the evidence of all this? Well, according to broadcasts by Cavor over the newly-discovered radio technology, he told the Selenites too much about mankind, and apparently, they removed the welcome mat! Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography.

The First Men in The Moon

Crome Yellow, first novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1921. The book is a social satire of the British literati in the period following World War I. The book revolves around the hapless love affair of Denis Stone, a sensitive poet, and Anne Wimbush. Anne’s uncle, Henry Wimbush, hosts a party at his country estate, Crome, that brings together a humorous coterie of characters. Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books—both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature

Crome Yellow

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory. Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed later, in writing, by a Christian. Beowulf is written mostly in the West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.No definite sources or analogs of the poem can be proven, but many suggestions have been made, including the Icelandic Grettis saga, the Norse story of Hrolf Kraki and his bear-shapeshifting servant Bodvar Bjarki, the international folktale the Bear's Son Tale, and the Irish folktale of the Hand and the Child. Persistent attempts have been made to link Beowulf to tales from Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid. More definite are Biblical parallels, with clear allusions to the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel.

Beowulf

“I cannot live without books.” “Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” “I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” ? Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams and as the first United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration of Independence. As a Virginia legislator, he drafted a state law for religious freedom. He served as the second Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. In 1785, Jefferson was appointed the United States Minister to France, and subsequently, the nation's first secretary of state under President George Washington from 1790 to 1793. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System. With Madison, he anonymously wrote the provocative Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 and 1799, which sought to strengthen states' rights by nullifying the federal Alien and Sedition Acts.

Thomas Jefferson An Autobiography

W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Earlier, Du Bois had risen to national prominence as a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the Talented Tenth, a concept under the umbrella of racial uplift, and believed that African Americans needed the chance for advanced education to develop their leadership.

The Souls Of Black Folk

“Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere with others.” “The object of education ought not to be to make all men think alike, but to make each think in the way which is the fullest expression of his own.” “You may kill an artist or a thinker, but you cannot acquire his art or his thought. You may put a man do death because he loves his fellow men, but you will not by so doing acquire the love which made his happiness.” ? Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals 'Political Ideals' was written during the upheaval of World War One. It is, in many ways, a statement, of Russell's beliefs, a declaration of the ideas that influenced his thinking on the major events of the 20th century. In this sense, it is essential reading for every student of this great philosopher.

Political Ideals

Abraham Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of additional lands to slavery. He reentered politics in 1854, becoming a leader in the Republican Party, and reached a national audience in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North in victory. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States fired on Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in the South, and Lincoln called up forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union. Lincoln, a moderate Republican, had to navigate an array of factions with friends and opponents from both the Democratic and Republican parties. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people. His Gettysburg Address appealed to nationalistic, republican, egalitarian, libertarian, and democratic sentiments. Lincoln scrutinized the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland, and he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair.

Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. After the success of A Christmas Carol in 1843 Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining what he called "the Carol philosophy" to "strike a sledgehammer blow" for the poor, uneducated, and repressed. In typical fashion he drove his message home with a mixture of humor and good cheer. Although subsequent Christmas books sold well at the time of their initial release, they have not enjoyed the staying power of A Christmas Carol. The Christmas books, particularly The Chimes, the Cricket, and the Carol, were the centerpiece of Dickens' public reading tours in the 1850s and 60s with A Christmas Carol far and away the most popular with audiences. Dickens discontinued the Christmas books after The Haunted Man, devoting his time to the publication of weekly magazines, Household Words (1850-1858) and All the Year Round (1859-1867), in which he included annual Christmas stories. Henceforth Dickens was forever linked with the celebration of Christmas. We present them here as a special Icon classic five audiobook collection.

A Dickens Christmas

"What’s done cannot be undone." The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish Play". The play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

The Tragedy Of Macbeth

The Narrow Corner is a novel by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, published by William Heinemann in 1932. A quote from Meditations, iii 10, by Marcus Aurelius, introduces the work: "Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells." In the story, set "a good many years ago" in what is now Indonesia, a young Australian, cruising the islands after his involvement in a murder in Sydney, has a passionate affair on an island which causes a further tragedy. William Somerset Maugham was an English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. Both Maugham's parents died before he was 10, and the orphaned boy was raised in Whitstable, Kent by a paternal uncle, who was emotionally cold. He did not want to become a lawyer like other men in his family, so he trained and qualified as a physician. His first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897) sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time. In 1915 he wrote Of Human Bondage, widely considered his masterpiece. During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service. He worked for the service in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire. During and after the war, he traveled in India, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He drew from those experiences in his later short stories and novels.

Of Human Bondage

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social, familial, and religious constraints to live a life devoted to the art of writing. As a young boy, Stephen's Catholic faith and Irish nationality heavily influence him. He attends a strict religious boarding school called Clongowes Wood College. At first, Stephen is lonely and homesick at school, but as time passes he finds his place among the other boys. He enjoys his visits home, even though family tensions run high after the death of the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell. This sensitive subject becomes the topic of a furious, politically charged argument over the family's Christmas dinner. This is James Joyce's first novel, the semi-autobiographical story of a young Irish boy who struggles with family, country, and religion to become an artist and a man. Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an important character in Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses.

A Portrait of the Artist

This inspired audiobook tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who conceives a child while her husband is missing at sea. The Puritan Elders of the New England settlement of Boston, where she lives, condemn her to wear a scarlet letter A to signify her adultery. She refuses to name her lover, and he too keeps his silence, but with a terrible cost. The tale is prefaced with an account of the Salem Custom-house where Nathaniel Hawthorne was working when he began writing The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town.

The Scarlet Letter

Crime and Punishment is the second of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia, and is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. The novel focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov, in an attempt to defend his actions, argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime while ridding the world of a vermin, and to test a theory of his that some people are naturally superior and have the right to commit crimes if it is in pursuit of a higher purpose.

Crime and Punishment

First published in 1850, David Copperfield begins with avid the tragedy of David's brother dying when David is just a boy. After this episode, he is sent by his step-father to work in London for a wine merchant. When conditions worsen he decides to run away and embarks on a journey by foot from London to Dover. On his arrival, he finds his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood who becomes his new guardian. Being witness to the formation of David's character is quite fascinating. David begins as a strong child whose only aspiration is a better life. On the way to his adulthood, David sees how people enter and leave his life. Romanticism takes its place in David’s life as he gets married to Dora Spenlow who is not long for this world. Will David ever find stability and happiness? And what of his wife? Dickens proves to be a master in creating an autobiographical work that is a captivating page-turner.

David Copperfield

Alceste, the misanthrope, hates everyone including himself. But unlike in many pure farces with their cliche stock characters, the characters here are much more well-rounded, and who knows - Alceste might actually grow and change throughout the play. "Those who admired noble thoughts, select language, accurate delineations of character, and a perfect and entertaining style, placed this comedy from the very beginning where it is generally put, with the common consent of all students of sound literature, in the foremost rank of the good comedies of Moliere.

The Misanthrope

Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution is one of the most important of Lenin's early writings. It was written in June and July 1905, while the Russian Revolution of 1905 was taking place. Lenin's preface poses these questions: "in educating and organizing the working class;...where should we place the main political emphasis in this work of education and organization? On the trade unions and legally existing associations, or on an insurrection, on the work of creating a revolutionary army and a revolutionary government?" The history of social democracy stretches back to the 19th-century socialist movement. It came to advocate an evolutionary and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism, using established political processes, in contrast to the revolutionary socialist approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. In the early post-war era in Western Europe, social democratic parties rejected the Stalinist political and economic model then-current in the Soviet Union, committing themselves either to an alternative path to socialism or to a compromise between capitalism and socialism. In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. Social democrats promoted Keynesian economics, state interventionism, and the welfare state while placing less emphasis on the goal of replacing the capitalist system (factor markets, private property, and wage labor) with a qualitatively different socialist economic system.

Two Tactics of Social-Democracy In The Democratic Revolution

“The Iliad“ is an epic poem by the ancient Greek poet Homer, which recounts some of the significant events of the final weeks of the Trojan War and the Greek siege of the city of Troy (which was also known as Ilion, Ilios or Ilium in ancient times). Written in the mid-8th Century BCE, “The Iliad" is usually considered to be the earliest work in the whole Western literary tradition, and one of the best known and loved stories of all time. Through its portrayal of the epic subject matter of the Trojan War, the stirring scenes of bloody battle, the wrath of Achilles, and the constant interventions of the gods, it explores themes of glory, wrath, homecoming, and fate, and has provided subjects and stories for many other later Greek, Roman and Renaissance writings. Homer is the legendary author to whom the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey is attributed. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time.

Iliad

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me the truth. " "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be." "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." Walden was published in 1854 by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, a social experiment, a voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. A true audiobook treasure!

Walden

Moby-Dick or The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, the work's genre classifications range from late Romantic to early Symbolist. Its reputation as a "Great American Novel" was established only in the 20th century, after the centennial of its author's birth.

Moby Dick

When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Keller mounted a tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan. Here is one of the greatest stories of human courage ever committed to paper. In this classic autobiography, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when she recognized the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid on her hands. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes and other notables, her education at Radcliffe, and extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan.

My Life

Written over a century and a half ago, Madame Bovary is still an extraordinarily fresh, exciting and shockingly frank novel, at once an acute psychological study of a woman drawn into adultery through circumstances we can partly understand, and a sharply-observed comedy that offers a fascinating glimpse of the social and cultural divisions running through French provincial society in the mid nineteenth century. This translation is by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, a prominent social activist and literary translator. She was the youngest daughter of Karl Marx. Gustave Flaubert was a highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality".He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert. On the occasion of Flaubert's 198th birthday (12 December 2019), a group of researchers at CNRS published a neural language model under his name.

Madame Bovary

Originally written as a series of newspaper articles in 1847, Wage-Labor and Capital were intended to give an overview of Marx’s central theories regarding the economic relationships between workers and capitalists. These theories outlined include the Marxian form of the Labour Theory of Value, which distinguishes “labor” from “labor-power”, and the Theory of Concentration of Capital, which states that capitalism tends towards the creation of monopolies and the disenfranchisement of the middle and working classes. These theories were later elaborated in Volume 1 of Capital, published in 1867. Karl Heinrich Marx FRSA was a German philosopher, a critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the four-volume Das Kapital.

Wage Labor And Capital

"You can be woke without waking to the news." Madam Blavatsky Astral projection is a term used in esotericism to describe an intentional out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of a soul called an "astral body" that is separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it throughout the universe. Here is the definitive classical Theosophical audiobook on a subject which has enthralled humankind since near the beginning of time. The author, Madam Helena Blavatsky was a Russian philosopher and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of this stirring faith. Here is everything you need to know about the ability of a person's spirit to travel to distant places - including a step-by-step guide of how to do it. Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of some thirty-two international best-selling biographies on the Beatles and other iconic rock groups of the 1960s. He is also a well know Hollywood screenwriter, the voice on over five hundred popular audiobooks as well as an in-demand character actor in some twenty-five classic films.

Astral Projection

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war itself, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crewmates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage. The Odyssey was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship of the poem was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, and the stories themselves formed as part of a long oral tradition. Scholars still reflect on the narrative significance of certain groups in the poem, such as women and slaves, who have a more prominent role in the epic than in many other works of ancient literature. This focus is especially remarkable when considered beside the Iliad, which centers on the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War. The Odyssey is regarded as one of the most significant works in the Western canon. The first English translation of the Odyssey was in the 16th century. Adaptations and re-imaginings continue to be produced across a wide variety of mediums. In 2018, when BBC Culture polled experts around the world to find literature's most enduring narrative, the Odyssey topped the list. Here is the great tale as an exciting extended Icon Audiobook!

The Odyssey

Two love stories are set against the backdrop of high society in Tsarist Russia. Anna awakens from a loveless marriage to find herself drawn irresistibly to the dashing cavalry officer, Count Vronsky. Levin struggles with self-esteem, and even flees to the country, before gaining the courage to return and offer himself to the beautiful and pure Kitty. Through troubled courtships, reconciliations, marriage and the birth of each one’s first child, Anna and Levin experience joy and despair as they each struggle to find their place in the world and meaning for their lives. Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.

Anna Karenina

First published in 1850, David Copperfield begins with avid the tragedy of David's brother dying when David is just a boy. After this episode, he is sent by his step-father to work in London for a wine merchant. When conditions worsen he decides to run away and embarks on a journey by foot from London to Dover. On his arrival, he finds his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood who becomes his new guardian. Being witness to the formation of David's character is quite fascinating. David begins as a strong child whose only aspiration is a better life. On the way to his adulthood, David sees how people enter and leave his life. Romanticism takes its place in David’s life as he gets married to Dora Spenlow who is not long for this world. Will David ever find stability and happiness? And what of his wife? Dickens proves to be a master in creating an autobiographical work that is a captivating page-turner. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

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