"This collection of H.P. Lovecraft's most influential works presents several of his most famous stories, a sampling of his poetry and an abridgment of his monograph Supernatural Horror in Literature, with commentary providing background and context"--

Disappointed in friendship and love, and embittered by a false accusation, weaver Silas Marner retreats from the world with his loom, but soon finds his monastic existence forever changed by the arrival of an orphaned girl, whom he takes in and raises as his own daughter.

At Rome, upon the death of the Emperor, the succession is disputed by his two sons, Saturninus and Bassanius. When the old General, Titus Andronicus, returns from the wars bringing as captive Tamora the Queen and three of her sons, he causes Saturninus to be confirmed as Emperor. Titus allows his sons to sacrifice two of Tamora's sons, which enflames her to vengeance. Saturninus makes Tamora his Empress, but in secret she continues to enjoy the love...

Ivanov (1889) is a drama in four acts by Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Written in ten days, the play premiered in 1887 at Moscow's Korsh Theatre and was initially a failure due to its rushed composition, production issues, and significant changes made to Chekhov's script. Disappointed but far from discouraged, Chekhov reworked the play to his satisfaction, and the edited version premiered to rave reviews in St. Petersburg in 1889. The play follows...

Likely written around 1607 or 1608 and attributed at least in part to Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is an adventure-filled play that follows the extended sailing journeys of a young prince. Pericles, a young prince from Phoenicia, is forced to flee Antioch when he correctly guesses a riddle that reveals the incestuous activity of King Antiochus. Unable to stay at home in Tyre because of Antiochus' vengeance, he sails away and ends up shipwrecked...

Mikhail Lermontov's pioneering psychological novel, "A Hero of Our Time", is probably his most impactful work, one which influenced the works of other great Russian authors such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. The novel's narrative is the story of Pechorin a young officer in the army whose story is told in five non-chronological parts. Drawing upon his own experiences in the military, Lermontov creates a fascinating anti-hero in Pechorin, a man who is...

The Kite Runner has the distinction of being the first English-language fiction written about Afghanistan, by Khaled Hosseini, a former Afghan doctor who fled his native country in 1980 as it became immersed in civil war. The novel tells of the relationship of two boys who are born, live, and play side by side, yet there is no equality in their connection. Hosseini takes his story through three decades, which include communism and Soviet occupation,

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The advances made in Shakespearean scholarship within the last half-dozen years seem to justify the writing of another manual for school and college use. The studies of Wallace in the life-records, of Lounsbury in the history of editions, of Pollard and Greg in early quartos, of Lee upon the First Folio, of Albright and others upon the Elizabethan Theater, as well as valuable monographs on individual plays have all appeared since the last Shakespeare...

Owen Wister was an American writer whose stories helped to establish the cowboy as an archetypical, individualist hero. However, his works were not limited to the Western. "Lady Baltimore" is a novel about aristocratic Southerners in Charleston.

His beloved wife having died in childbirth Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his job as a poorhouse inspector dull and unsatisfying particularly after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament Back in England the Whigs are determined to overturn the Tory majority in the Parliament of the United Kingdom Since Finn had once been considered the most promising of the younger set he is encouraged to run for office again Bribery romance...