The Ark
1) Mortal Coils
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Mortal Coils Aldous Huxley - Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1921.
As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney.
In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S....
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A masterpiece of stories by H. G. Wells, masterfully tied together by time and place. First, a shop owner named Mr. Cave, enraptured by a crystal egg, struggles to find a way to keep his magical possession... Then we are, taken to a time when cave people struggled to find their place on the planet and keep their lives. The forward to the far future where, in the place the cave people once camped, a young couple's back are, bowed beneath the tyranny...
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The Riddle of the Sands is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television. The novel "owes a lot to the wonderful adventure novels of writers like Rider Haggard, that were a staple of Victorian Britain". It was a...
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An angel comes to Earth in this fantastical tale by H. G. Wells When a fallen angel appears in the skies of southern England, the vicar of a small town mistakes the winged being's dazzling plumage for that of a bird and shoots him down. This is only the first misfortune to befall "Mr. Angel," as he comes to be known. "Neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief," this celestial visitor quickly draws the ire of the village...
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The History of Mr. Polly is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. The protagonist of The History of Mr. Polly is an antihero inspired by H. G. Wells's early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a timid and directionless young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet",...
6) Cape Cod
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Robert Pinsky is Professor of English at Boston University and an editor of the weekly online magazine Slate. He is the author of many books of poetry and literary criticism. He served two terms as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1997-2000.
This new paperback edition of Henry D. Thoreau's compelling account of Cape Cod contains the complete, definitive text of the original. Introduced by American poet...
7) Ann Veronica
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Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter...
8) Chance
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Young Flora de Barral, is the daughter of a man whose sudden bankruptcy and conviction, have forced her to face a harsh and uncertain reality. Chance is a clever examination of risk and the impact of unforeseen circumstance.
Chance features Conrad's signature narration as it describes the experiences of major and minor characters, including Flora de Barral. She is a young woman who has suffered the consequences of her father's many misdeeds. This...
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Written in 1884 and first performed in 1885, "The Wild Duck", by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, is the first modern tragicomedy to be embraced by critics and audiences alike. The play, titled "Vilanden" in its original Norwegian, is widely considered one of Ibsen's most well-written plays. The story centers around the secrets and dramas of the Ekdal family, who live a dysfunctional life in purposeful denial of the many skeletons that lurk in their...
10) Peer Gynt
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Born in Skien, Norway in 1828, Henrik Ibsen has often been referred to as the founder of modern drama and modernism in theatre. Ibsen was widely known as an atheist and political radical, and channeled some of those sentiments into his works. "Peer Gynt" captures humankind's unsure, imperfect and opportunistic nature in many memorable scenes: a portrait so intimate and accurate that the play has become a classic in Norwegian literature. This five...
11) The Antichrist
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The Antichrist is Friedrich Nietzsche's great masterpiece, wherein Nietzsche attacks Christianity as a blight on humanity. This classic is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Nietzsche and his place within the history of philosophy. Nietzsche claimed that to understand this philosophy, the reader should be above politics and nationalism. Also, the usefulness or harmfulness of truth should not be a concern.
About the Author:
Friedrich...
12) Nightmare Abbey
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First published in 1818, "Nightmare Abbey" Is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock and his third long work of fiction. It is a Gothic satirical tale that follows Christopher Glowry, Esquire, a melancholic widower who lives with his only son Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey, a run-down mansion that has been in his family for generations. It explores in a comical way the romantic movement in contemporary English literature and its preoccupation with morbidity,...
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This antiquarian volume contains an essay by Arnold Bennett on the subject of mental efficiency. This text is typical of the numerous self-improvement essays and books that Bennett wrote alongside his famous fiction work, and it is a text that, although old, still contains much that will amuse and edify the modern reader. A must-have for fans and collectors of Bennett's work, this book would make for a worthy addition to any collection. The chapters...
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Widely believed to be among Melville's most popular works, "Redburn, His First Voyage" follows the young Wellingborough Redburn on his first journey at sea. A boy just on the verge of manhood, Redburn's decision to become a sailor is apparently at odds with his gentle upbringing, which has made him in many ways unprepared for the hardships of his chosen profession. He is unmercifully initiated into the life of a sailor by his fellow crewmen, a trying...
20) Passing
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"Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to 'pass' as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision to engage in racial...