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Description The Cream of the Jest is a later entry in James Branch Cabell’s Dom Manuel series. The series as a whole is a fantasy series, and this entry takes a philosophical turn: after the first few chapters of standard high-fantasy fare, the narrative pulls out to reveal the point of view of the narrative’s author, Felix Kennaston. Kennaston life slowly starts to blur with his fantasy world. He finds himself constantly dreaming of Etarre, a mysterious, Beatrice-like figure; but every time he
Description The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850; it was one of the first books to be mass-produced in America, which helped ensure its immediate popularity and ubiquitous presence on contemporary shelves. Its first printing of 2,500 books sold out in ten days. The novel is set in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony between the years 1642 and 1649. Hester Prynne has had a child out of wedlock, and its father is a mystery. For her sin, she is made to wear an embroidered scarlet A on her
Description The Beetle was published in 1897, the same year as Dracula —and outsold it six to one that year. Like Dracula, the novel is steeped in the evil mysteries of an ancient horror: in this case, a mysterious ancient Egyptian creature bent on revenge. The story is told through the sequential points of view of a group of middle-class Victorians who find themselves enmeshed in the creature’s plot. The creature, in the guise of an Egyptian man, appears in London seeking revenge against a
Description The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come was written in 1678 by John Bunyan, a Puritan and a dissenter from the Church of England. It is an allegory of the journey to redemption of the faithful, through many snares and difficulties. Cast in the form of a dream, the first part of the work deals with a man called Christian, who sets off carrying a great burden. He meets many helpers and many adversaries on this journey. The second part of the work deals with
Description These brief biographies of more than eighty philosophers of ancient Greece were assembled by Diogenes Laërtius in the early third century. He based these on a variety of sources that have since been lost. Because of this, his biographies have become an invaluable source of information on the development of ancient Greek philosophy, and on ancient Greek culture in general. Most of what we know about the lives and otherwise lost doctrines of Zeno the Stoic and Diogenes the Cynic, for
Description Robert Frost published New Hampshire, his fourth book of poetry, in 1923. The centerpiece is the long poem “New Hampshire,” an ode to the state. Endnotes on its lines point to shorter poems in the “Notes” section, and the book is capped with “Grace Notes,” a series of short lyrics—some of which are among Frost’s most famous works. The poems are each a meditative brushstroke of Americana, presented in Frost’s trademark plain-spoken but carefully-considered verse. The collection went