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Today, French writer Honore de Balzac is best remembered for The Human Comedy, a sprawling story cycle in which he attempted -- and some would argue, succeeded -- to capture the ebb and flow of everyday life in nineteenth-century Europe. But Balzac was an intrepid literary experimenter, and his prolific output encompassed every form and genre. The Resources of Quinola is a drama set in the Spanish Inquisition.

In the almost-novella-length short story'The Death of the Lion,'literary giant Henry James pokes sardonic fun at the vagaries of literary fame. The author at the center of the tale, one Neil Paraday, is gushingly praised by the newspapers and journals -- but very few of his admirers seem to have actually read his work. It's a thought-provoking look at the celebrity culture of the turn of the twentieth century.

This comes to you courtesy of Miniature Masterpieces who have an excellent range of quality short stories from the masters of the craft. Do search for Miniature Masterpieces at any digital store for further information.This audiobook is also duplicated in print as an ebook. Same title, same words. Perhaps a different experience but with Amazon's whispersync you can pick up and put down on any device. Start on audio, continue in print and any which way after that. This, and these are, Miniature Masterpieces. Join us for the journey.J.M. BARRIE – AN INTRODUCTIONSir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus on 9th May, 1860.Barrie knew from an early age that he wished to be an author. His family wished otherwise. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. in April, 1882.His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette'liked that Scotch thing'in Barrie's work and he wrote several stories for them and later several novels based on his mother's early life.Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre. His first plays achieved little attention but in 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton.The character of ‘Peter Pan'first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904.Peter Pan would overshadow all his other works. But his short stories cannot be overlooked. Indeed, from today's vantage point they are excellent gems of social manners, of class and the way characters, sometimes in the most mundane of circumstances, react in the most surprising of ways.

Sax Rohmer was born on February 15th, 1883 as Arthur Henry Sarsfield in Birmingham to working class parents.Rohmer started his career as a civil servant but soon had ambitions to write full time.Not content with just fiction he wrote poetry, songs as well as comedy sketches for music hall performers. From these varied beginnings he reinvented himself as Sax Rohmer.He first published in 1903, age 20, with the short story ‘The Mysterious Mummy'which was published in the magazine Pearson's Weekly.Rohmer published his first book Pause! anonymously in 1910 and followed this, in 1911, with a stint as ghost-writer on the autobiography of Little Tich, the famous music hall entertainer.The serialization of his first Fu Manchu novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, from October 1912 to June 1913 brought him instant success.The first three Fu Manchu books were published in the four years 1913–1917. Rohmer then put the character on hiatus whilst he attended to other works and characters. It was only after a 14-year absence in 1931 that Rohmer added a fourth to the series with The Daughter of Fu Manchu.The incredible commercial success of Fu Manchu had brought Rohmer both fame and fortune and he wanted to use both to allow him to explore and create other characters as well as other interests.Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen, which has been described as Rohmer's masterpiece.Unfortunately, despite his ability to generate income, Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth and made several very poor business decisions that hobbled him throughout his career.His final success came with a series of novels featuring a female variation on Fu Manchu, Sumuru. This series would run to five novels.After World War II, Rohmer and his wife moved to New York, only returning to London shortly before his death. Sax Rohmer died on June 1st, 1959, due to an outbreak of influenza, ironically named'Asian Flu'.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Madame Bovary scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857. And the story itself remains as fresh today as when it was first written, a work that remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society. It tells the tragic story of the romantic but empty-headed Emma Rouault. When Emma marries Charles Bovary, she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is an ordinary country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, Rodolphe, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair. And Flaubert captures every step of this catastrophe with sharp-eyed detail and a wonderfully subtle understanding of human emotions.

The great author of Vanity Fair and The Luck Of Barry Lyndon was born in India in 1811. At age 5 his father died and his mother sent him back to England. His education was of the best but he himself seemed unable to apply his talents to a rigorous work ethic. However, once he harnessed his talents the works flowed in novels, articles, short stories, sketches and lectures. Sadly, his personal life was rather more difficult. After a few years of marriage his wife began to suffer from depression and over the years became detached from reality. Thackeray himself suffered from ill health later in his life and the one pursuit that kept him moving forward was that of writing. In his life time, he was placed second only to Dickens. High praise indeed.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Willa Sibert Cather was born on 7th December, 1873 on her grandmother's farm in the Back Creek Valley near Winchester, Virginia. After several years and moves the family eventually settled in Red Cloud, Nebraska and for the first time Cather could now attend school. In Red Cloud Cather had her earliest writings published in the local Red Cloud Chief newspaper. Her time in the mid-West created a vivid tranche of experiences for the young woman. It was still, for the most part, the frontier; a landscape of dramatic environment and weather, the vastness of the Nebraska prairie, as well as the many diverse cultures of the local families. Attending the University of Nebraska she published a well received essay on Thomas Carlyle in the Nebraska State Journal and thereafter became a regular contributor to its offerings. After being hired to write for the Home Monthly, in 1896, Cather moved to Pittsburgh. Within a year she became a telegraph editor and drama critic for the Pittsburgh Leader as well as contributing poetry and short fiction to The Library, another local publication. Her first collection of short stories,'The Troll Garden', was published in 1905 and contains several of her most famous including'A Wagner Matinee,''The Sculptor's Funeral,'and'Paul's Case.'As a writer Cather was now taking immense strides forward. By 1912 she had finished her first novel'Alexander's Bridge'which was serialized in McClure's to favourable reviews. Cather now began her Prairie Trilogy:'O Pioneers!'(1913),'The Song of the Lark'(1915), and'My Ántonia'(1918). All three were popular and critical successes nationwide. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Cather continued to establish herself as a major American writer and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for her novel'One of Ours'. A determinedly private person, Cather destroyed many old drafts, personal papers, and letters. Her will would also restrict the ability of scholars to quote from personal papers that remained. In 1932, Cather published her final collection of short stories,'Obscure Destinies'which contained the highly regarded'Neighbour Rosicky.'She now began work on'Lucy Gayheart', a novel that was rather darker than those before it. With her career settled as one of America's greatest writers honours began to flow. In 1943 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The following year, 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. However time was about to settle scores with her. On April 24th, 1947, Willa Siebert Cather died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her home at 570 Park Avenue in Manhattan. She was 73.

The Trial (German: Der Process) is a novel by Franz Kafka about a character named Josef K., who awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested and prosecuted for an unspecified crime. According to Kafka's friend Max Brod, the author never finished the novel and wrote in his will that it was to be destroyed. After his death, Brod went against Kafka's wishes and edited The Trial into what he felt was a coherent novel and had it published in 1925.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on 11th November 1821.He was introduced to literature very early. At age three, it was heroic sagas, fairy tales and legends. At four his mother used the Bible to teach him to read and write. His immersion in literature was wide and varied. His imagination, he later recalled, was brought to life by his parents'nightly readings.On 27th September 1837 tragedy struck. Dostoyevsky's mother died of tuberculosis.Dostoyevsky and his brother were now enrolled at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, their academic studies abandoned for military careers. Dostoyevsky disliked the academy, his interests were drawing and architecture.His father died on 16th June 1839 and perhaps triggered Dostoyevsky's epilepsy. However, he continued his studies, passed his exams and obtained the rank of engineer cadet.Dostoyevsky's first completed work was a translation of Honoré de Balzac's novel Eugénie Grandet, published in 1843. It was not successful. He believed his financial difficulties could be overcome by writing his own novel. The result was ‘Poor Folk', published in 1846, and a commercial success.His next novel, ‘The Double', appeared in January 1846. Dostoyevsky now became immersed in socialism. However, ‘The Double'received bad reviews and he now had more frequent seizures. With debts mounting he joined the utopian socialist Betekov circle, which helped him to survive. When that dissolved he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, which proposed social reforms. The Petrashevsky Circle was then denounced and Dostoyevsky accused of reading and distributing banned works. Arrests took place in late April 1849 and its members sentenced to death by firing squad. The Tsar commuted the sentence to four years of exile with hard labour in Siberia.His writings on these prison experiences, ‘The House of the Dead'were published in 1861.In Saint Petersburg that September he promised his editor he would deliver ‘The Gambler', a novella on gambling addiction, by November, although work had yet to begin. It was completed in a mere 26 days.Other works followed but a different approach helped immensely. In 1873 ‘Demons'was published by the'Dostoyevsky Publishing Company'. Only payment in cash was accepted and the bookshop was the family apartment. It sold around 3,000 copies.However, Dostoyevsky's health continued to decline, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures. In August 1879 he was diagnosed with early-stage pulmonary emphysema. He was told it could be managed, but not cured.On 26th January 1881 Dostoyevsky suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage. After the second the doctors gave a poor prognosis. A third haemorrhage followed shortly afterwards.Fyodor Dostoyevsky died on 9th February, 1881.

Born in 1857 in Poland, Joseph Conrad became a British citizen just before he turned 30. In the intervening years he lost both parents; as an orphan aged 11 he was therefore raised by an uncle, who at 16 let the boy go to Marseille to work on merchant ships where the colourful life of the sea was further enhanced by stints gun running and intriguingly political conspiracy. At age 36 his life turned from one of ships to one of literary pursuit. In doing so Conrad brought to English Literature a further layer of style and a deeper examination of the human psyche in a wealth of work.He wrote many novels, rightly regarded today, as some of the finest in English literature. Among their canon are Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Shadow Line and, of course, Heart Of Darkness. For this volume we dwell among his numerous short stories. In these condensed, narrative structures much is said in beautiful language.His characters may be brave, comic, serious, trapped by their own constraints, but are always fully formed and true to his word.This comes to you courtesy of Miniature Masterpieces who have an excellent range of quality short stories from the masters of the craft. Do search for Miniature Masterpieces at any digital store for further information.This audiobook is also duplicated in print as an ebook. Same title, same words. Perhaps a different experience but with Amazon's whispersync you can pick up and put down on any device. Start on audio, continue in print and any which way after that. This, and these are, Miniature Masterpieces. Join us for the journey.

George Robert Gissing was born on November 22nd, 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire.He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent. By the age of ten he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero.In 1872 Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876. On release he decided to start over. In September 1876 he travelled to the United States. Here he wrote short stories for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. On his return home he was ready for novels. Gissing self-published his first novel but it failed to sell. His second was acquired but never published. His writing career was static. Something had to change. And it did. By 1884 The Unclassed was published. Now everything he wrote was published. Both Isabel Clarendon and Demos appeared in 1886. He mined the lives of the working class as diligently as any capitalist. In 1889 Gissing used the proceeds from the sale of The Nether World to go to Italy. This trip formed the basis for his 1890 work The Emancipated. Gissing's works began to command higher payments. New Grub Street (1891) brought a fee of £250. Short stories followed and in 1895, three novellas were published; Eve's Ransom, The Paying Guest and Sleeping Fires. Gissing was careful to keep up with the changing attitudes of his audience. Unfortunately, he was also diagnosed as suffering from emphysema. The last years of his life were spent as a semi-invalid in France but he continued to write. 1899; The Crown of Life. Our Friend the Charlatan appeared in 1901, followed two years later by The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. George Robert Gissing died aged 46 on December 28th, 1903 after catching a chill on a winter walk.

The final novel in Cooper's epic, The Prairie depicts Natty Bumppo at the end of his life, still displaying his indomitable strength and dignity.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

'Hear and attend and listen...'Rudyard Kipling is a supreme master of the short story in English and a poet of brilliant gifts. His energy and inventiveness poured themselves into every kind of tale, from the bleakest of fables to the richest of comedies, and he illuminated every aspect of human behaviour, of which he was a fascinated (and sometimes appalled) observer. This generous selection of stories and poems, first published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series, covers the full range of Kipling's career from the youthful volumes that brought him fame as the chronicler of British India, to the bittersweet fruits of age and bereavement in the aftermath of the First World War. It includes stories such as'The Man who would be King','Mrs Bathurst', and'Mary Postgate', and poems from Barrack-Room Ballads and other collections. In his introduction and notes Daniel Karlin addresses the controversial political engagement of Kipling's art, and the sources of its imaginative power.

Though best remembered for her contributions to juvenile literature as the creator of the beloved Pollyanna novels, author Eleanor H. Porter also wrote a number of novels intended for general audiences. Her gift for creating memorable characters is on full display in Oh, Money! Money!, in which an idiosyncratic aristocrat decides to determine which of his relatives is worthy of being bequeathed his vast fortune by giving them each a large sum of money and observing their subsequent actions, choices, and behaviors.

Fast's epic novel, about one man's family tree stretching through history from the Revolutionary War, portrays the best and worst of the American experiment Broken and sick, a young Revolutionary War soldier from New York is taken in by an innkeeper's family and nursed to health. The soldier, John Preswick, falls in love with the innkeeper's daughter, even as his wife Inez waits back home. Through five generations, the two families he starts share an intertwined fate. The Preswicks take part in some of the country's most significant episodes, from the Civil War to the California Gold Rush, with fortunes discovered, lost, and made on the backs of others. A tenacious chronicler of American history, Howard Fast was one of the most prolific historical novelists of the twentieth century. Strange Yesterday is perhaps his most sweeping, ambitious novel. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author's estate.

The unforgettable stories of three women, told with poignancy and compassion by one of the most important writers of our century3 Lives consists of three character studies of women;'The Good Anna'–a kind but domineering German servingwoman;'Melanctha'–an uneducated but sensitive black girl;'The Gentle Lena'–a young German maid.

Neighbors on a New York City street struggle to achieve their dreams during the Great Depression—from the New York Times–bestselling author of Spartacus. On Apple Place, John Edwards aspires to poetry and love, while his neighbor Claus Silverman dreams of a life of music. Meyer runs a cigar stand, saving each penny to build a better future for his family, while Mary sells herself on the corner to provide for her children. Ground down by poverty during some of the city's bleakest years, the characters that mix and mingle in Place in the City all yearn for more, striving constantly for the American Dream lying just beyond their reach. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author's estate.

Virginia Woolf's intention to publish her best short stories was posthumously carried out in this volume shortly after her death, this collection making available Virginia Woolf's most representative short works of fiction.

A classic historical novel of a young doctor and the Erie Canal, which brought with it to Western New York not only progress and prosperity but unforeseen upheavals. “[An] elaborate, colorful, and affectionate portrait of a canal town in its growing pains. Obviously [Samuel Hopkins] Adams has not only gone back to the sources but has lived with them for a long time before writing his account of a young doctor setting up his practice.”—The Atlantic “Mr. Adams knows his Erie lore so well and has boned up so thoroughly on American medical history in the early part of the [eighteenth] century that nobody who reads the book can fail to learn a great deal about what life was like in general and the practice of medicine in particular was like in a boom town.”—The New Yorker “His villains are strongly delineated and actuated by very human motives, his minor figures are picturesque and drawn with gusto, even his sympathetic characters come alive with personal crochets and idiosyncrasies.”—Carl Carmer, Saturday Review of Literature

First time in the New Canadian Library“Northwest of Montreal, through a valley always in sight of the low mountains of the Laurentian Shield, the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec. It comes down broad and ale-coloured and joins the Saint Lawrence, the two streams embrace the pan of Montreal Island, the Ottawa merges and loses itself, and the main-stream moves northeastward a thousand miles to sea.”With these words Hugh MacLennan begins his powerful saga of Athanase Tallard, the son of an aristo-cratic French-Canadian tradition, of Kathleen, his beautiful Irish wife, and of their son Paul, who struggles to establish a balance in himself and in the country he calls home.First published in 1945, and set mostly in the time of the First World War, Two Solitudes is a classic novel of individuals working out the latest stage in their embroiled history.

The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers's classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small- format trade paperback for the first time. Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother's wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin — not to mention her own unbridled imagination — Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself. “A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence” (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.

In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him “the most important author since Shakespeare.”

A pious young woman grapples with a loss of memory—and of faith—in this sharp, witty novel by the author of 1984 and Animal Farm. Dorothy is the daughter of the Reverend Charles Hare, rector of St. Athelstan's in Depression-era Suffolk, England. She serves as a dutiful housekeeper, performs good works, cultivates good thoughts—and pricks her arm with a pin when a bad thought arises. But even as she toils away making costumes for the church school play, she is haunted by thoughts about the poverty that surrounds her and the debts she can't afford to pay. Then, suddenly, she finds herself in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket, and cannot remember her own name... This novel of a woman thrust into a strange journey, struck by amnesia and grappling with questions of faith and identity in a world of unemployment and hunger, is a masterful work of satire by one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.” Innovative and deeply poetic, The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece. It begins with six children—three boys and three girls—playing in a garden by the sea, and follows their lives as they grow up, experience friendship and love, and grapple with the death of their beloved friend Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Woolf draws her characters from the inside, revealing their inner lives: their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation.

A struggling author's unexpected success sparks a family conflict in this New York Times–bestselling novel by the author of Gentleman's Agreement. For most of his career as a novelist, Gregory Johns has toiled in relative obscurity. His books have sold modestly, and he lives comfortably enough in the suburbs with his wife and daughter. He leaves the grand gestures and extravagant parties to his more expansive brother, Thornton, an insurance salesman who moonlights as Gregory's literary agent. When Gregory's latest book is unexpectedly selected for a notable prize, the brothers suddenly find themselves at the center of a publicity frenzy. With talk of a movie deal in the air, Gregory moves out to California—but it's Thorn who really rises to the occasion, thriving on and encouraging the attention, while Gregory toils away dutifully at scripts and rewrites. At last, Thorn feels he is in his element—but what happens when the brothers'fifteen minutes are up?

The Magnificent Century, the second volume of Costain's A History of the Plantagenets, covers Henry III's long and turbulent reign, from 1216 to 1272. During his lifetime Henry was frequently unpopular, unreliable and inconsistent. Yet his reign saw spectacular advancement in the arts, sciences and theology, as well as in government. Despite all, it was truly a magnificent century.'Combines a love of the subject with factual history...a great story.'—San Francisco ChronicleA History of the Plantagenets includes The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century, The Three Edwards and The Last Plantagenets.

One of the most distinguished American authors, Wright Morris (1910-1998) wrote thirty-three books including The Field of Vision, which won the National Book Award and The Home Place, both available from the University of Nebraska Press.

The latest release in the Christian Epic series is an exciting novel that takes place shortly after Christ's death and resurrection. Basil is called to design the case which will hold the silver cup that Christ and His disciples drank from at the Last Supper, and plans to sculpt their likenesses upon it. As he seeks out these followers of Christ, he encounters grave danger.

In the future, exceptional characteristics are regarded as undesirable, and the perfect human specimen is someone who is average in every possible way. Ellaby, a man who embodies middle-of-the-road mediocrity, sees a rare opportunity to seize power and makes the most of it.

This collection of short stories of the Mississippi Delta by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author is “a work of art” (The New York Times Book Review). Here in Morgana, Mississippi, the young dream of other places; the old can tell you every name on every stone in the cemetery on the town's edge; and cuckolded husbands and love-starved piano teachers share the same paths. It's also where one neighbor has disappeared on the horizon, slipping away into local legend. Black and white, lonely and the gregarious, sexually adventurous and repressed, vengeful and resigned, restless and settled, the vividly realized characters that make up this collection of interrelated stories, with elements drawn from ancient myth and transplanted to the American South, prove that this National Book Award–winning writer, as Katherine Anne Porter once wrote, had “an ear sharp, shrewd, and true as a tuning fork.” “I doubt that a better book about ‘the South'—one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life, and its special tone and pattern—has ever been written.” —The New Yorker

NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR • One of the most widely read novels of all time—from one of the best-known writers of all time—about a lawyer from Paris who brilliantly illuminates the human condition. Elegantly styled, Camus'profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.

'The novel sustains throughout its length something approaching poetry, and it is rich in understanding and insight. The translation, by Edwin McClellan, is extremely good.'—Anthony West, The New Yorker Kokoro, which means'the heart of things,'explores emotions familiar to everyone—love and hate, hope and despair, companionship and loneliness. Sensei, a man seen against the rich background of old Japan entering the modern era, is outwardly successful. He has position, wealth, a charming wife. But deep in the heart of things, he is harried with a profound sense of isolation whose cure lies only in'faith, madness, or death.'His long-hidden secret, divulged to a young friend who faces a similar dilemma, is told with mounting intensity. Sensei confesses the crime of his young manhood, a crime in which, with all the appearance of innocence, he destroyed his best friend, the woman he loved—and himself. The genius of Natsume Soseki, Japan's greatest modern novelist, lies in his ability to express universal emotions with the beautiful restraint of the Japanese spirit. Under his pen, themes which have become almost hackneyed take on new fascination and vigor.

Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first published novel, is set in London and Dublin, during the first decades of the Irish Republic. The title character loves Celia in a “striking case of love requited” but must first establish himself in London before his intended bride will make the journey from Ireland to join him. Beckett comically describes the various schemes that Murphy employs to stretch his meager resources and the pastimes that he uses to fill the hours of his days. Eventually Murphy lands a job as a nurse at Magdalen Mental Mercyseat hospital, where he is drawn into the mad world of the patients which ends in a fateful game of chess. While grounded in the comedy and absurdity of much of daily life, Beckett's work is also an early exploration of themes that recur throughout his entire body of work including sanity and insanity and the very meaning of life.

James Jones's saga of life in the American Midwest, newly revised five decades after it was first published and including a new foreword by his daughter, Kaylie Jones After the blockbuster international success of From Here to Eternity, James Jones retreated from public life, making his home at the Handy Writers'Colony in Illinois. His goal was to write something larger than a war novel, and the result, six years in the making, was Some Came Running, a stirring portrait of small-town life in the American Midwest at a time when our country and its people were striving to find their place in the new postwar world. Five decades later, it has been revised and reedited under the direction of the Jones estate to allow for a leaner, tighter read. The result is the masterpiece Jones intended: a tale whose brutal honesty is as shocking now as on the day it was first published. This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author's estate.

Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same kind of ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac's early classics, On The Road. Centering around the tempestuous breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox—two denizens of the 1950s San Francisco underground—The Subterraneans is a tale of dark alleys and smoky rooms, of artists, visionaries, and adventurers existing outside mainstream America's field of vision.

Three young and successful couples have come to the exotic shores of Rio, Brazil, to live and work in the late 50s. The new city offers them an escape—a private paradise where the pleasures and customs of a vibrant culture can ease the loneliness, pain, and stress from their former American lifestyles. But as they become swept up in the colorful madness of Carnival, their expatriate dreams quickly begin to disintegrate, and secrets from their past begin to resurface. Now, so far away from home and in a foreign land, they have become strangers to one another and have to find themselves once again. Sophisticated and expertly crafted, Away from Home is an engrossing read about rediscovering one's identity in unfamiliar cities and circumstances.

From the author of 1984, George Orwell narrates the journey of a writer among the down-and-out in two great cities in this sobering, truthful portrayal of poverty and society. Famous for its realistic and unsentimental description of poverty, Down and Out in London and Paris follows the adventures of a penniless British writer who finds himself rapidly descending into the seedy heart of two great European capitals. As a dishwasher in Paris, he describes in vivid detail the horrors of what goes on behind the scenes in the kitchens of posh French restaurants. In London, he encounters the disturbing world of the unhoused and charitable shelters. His adventures conniving landlords and negotiating with pawnshops as he searches for work, food, and lodging are told without self-pity and often with humor.

'Perhaps the best book by the foremost stylist of his generation'(New York Times), J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey collects two works of fiction about the Glass family originally published in The New Yorker.'Everything everybody does is so--I don't know--not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and--sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way.'A novel in two halves, Franny and Zooey brilliantly captures the emotional strains and traumas of entering adulthood. It is a gleaming example of the wit, precision, and poignancy that have made J. D. Salinger one of America's most beloved writers.

LILITH is a powerfully drawn portrait of innocence corrupted by evil—an evil so brilliant, so beautiful, so imaginatively conceived that even its violence and amorality have a fantastic splendor of their own. This is the evil of Lilith, a wildly deranged young woman who creates for herself a strange paradise of fantasy, poetry, and passion which she inhabits in preference to the real world. Her world has its own language, its own philosophy, its own music and art, all exquisitely constructed and richly sensual in their design. And it has its own religion, a religion which demands an insidious and dreadful form of human sacrifice. First published in 1961, LILITH instantly became a classic of American literature, with over one million copies in print and a 1964 film adaptation of the same name starring Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg.

Henry Miller's famously banned book is “a matter-of-fact celebration of chucking one's dreary life and following your heart to Paris” (Richard Price). Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller's masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller's famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, “one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century.”