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Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw that takes place in 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff is engaged to the gallant Sergius Saranoff, hero of the recent Bulgarian victory over the Serbs. But she is distracted by the abrupt arrival of Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who fought for the Serbian army. He takes refuge in her bedroom after the battle and although he is initially threatening, reveals that he carries chocolate creams instead of bullets. Will Raina marry the posturing Sergius or the chocolate cream soldier?

Antigone stood defiant in the face of tyranny. Best-selling and award winning author Colm Tóibín wrote this new dramatisation of the Greek tragedy especially to be performed by Irish actor Lisa Dwan. Pale Sister gives voice to Antigone’s sister, Ismene, who recounts her sister’s defiance of the king as pressures mount on her to act to vindicate her sister, or even follow her example. Pale Sister tells Antigone’s story through Ismene: the quiet person in the corner, bearing witness to everything.

Alexander Pope was celebrated for his command of classical Greek and produced seminal translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Prior to the preparation of these translations, Pope took advantage of his mastery of the classical style and also his waspish wit to compose a burlesque epic about the theft of a lock of hair. The incident that inspired Pope was related to him by his friend John Caryll. Lord Petre had cut off a lock of the hair of Arabella Fermor, whom he was courting at the time, without asking the lady's permission.

Each of us, even the most simple, is called to a journey. We may be asked to leave behind everything we have grown dependent on. And when this is the case, the tale of Frodo and his friends offers hope that we will be given the strength and the help we need to overcome every obstacle and defeat every foe. This book is meant to help you find the way.

Two archive BBC Radio programmes in which Judi Dench and Michael Williams, accompanied by friends John Moffatt and Alec McCowen, read a cornucopia of poetry and prose. In this enchanting pair of programmes from 1991 and 1996, Dame Judi Dench and husband Michael Williams shared an eclectic...

A merchant of Syracuse has twin sons and buys twin servants for them. His wife, with one twin and one servant, is soon separated from him by a shipwreck, and comes to live in Ephesus. When grown, the other son and his slave start out to find their brothers, and the father, some years later, starts out in turn to find them. Once in Ephesus, an amusing series of errors begins.

Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story, and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward and P. G. Wodehouse.

The Iliad of Homer is the earliest work of European literature that we have. Created in the eighth century BC it has continued to arouse interest for over 2000 years. The author intended it to be heard, as delivered by a bard or rhapsode who had made the presentation of Greek epic poetry his profession, and who had command of the vocal resources and the dramatic power to move his audience.

This audiobook contains grammar points with examples for learners. With many chapters on various grammatical theories, A Grammar of the English Tongue is the complete guide to the correct usage of English. A Grammar of the English Tongue can help you get the basic skills you need for a career and for further educational pursuits.

A brand new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a...

Three Men on the Bummel, also titled Three Men on Wheels, is a humorous novel by Jerome K. Jerome, published in 1900, 11 years after his best seller, Three Men in a Boat. This time, the three companions J, George, and Harris take a bicycle tour through the Black Forest in Germany. Besides the bicycling travelogue, humorous vignettes or "set pieces" are constructed by a gradual accumulation of detail, including commentary on German culture from the point of view of a British tourist, and sitcom-like scenarios of the interactions between the characters.

Christopher Marlowe wrote this spectacularly subversive play in 1589/1590. The setting is the island of Malta as a bone of contention between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in their struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean. The ghost of Machiavelli appropriately introduces this tale of murder and mayhem which unfolds in flamboyant episodes of blackmail, betrayal, revenge, scheming, theft, and poisoning on a breathtaking scale.

Molière wrote some of the most durable and penetrating comedies of all time. The Imaginary Cuckold and The School for Husbands are two of his grand farces of marriage and misunderstanding, one set in Paris and the other in the provinces. In The School for Husbands, a tyrannical husband-to-be seeks to isolate his ward, while unwittingly carrying her messages of devotion to her lover. In The Imaginary Cuckold, an enraged husband imagines his wife is unfaithful, but is reluctant to defend his honor.

Written at the start of the Great War, when his son Borys was at the Western Front, The Shadow-Line is Conrad's supreme effort to open man's eyes to the meaning of war through the stimulus of art. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, this masterpiece of his final period relates the story of a young and inexperienced sea captain whose first command finds him with a ship becalmed in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever.

Christopher Marlowe's play about a man who sells his soul to the devil is not only one of the first of many works to explore this theme but also one of the most startling. Eschewing the usual division of the drama into acts, it presents the story of Faustus' fall in a series of apparently disconnected scenes. However, the integrity of the drama is maintained by the remorseless unraveling of Faustus' fortunes as he approaches his inevitable damnation.

What is it like to be old? Diana Athill, born in 1917, made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs. In Somewhere Towards the End she reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age brings, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. This is a lively narrative of events, lovers and friendships: the people and experiences that have taight her to regret very little, to resist despondency and to question the beliefs and customs of her own generation.

"Le Portrait de Dorian Gray" a été rédigé en 1890, puis complété en 1891. Ce roman fantastique est à la fois un manifeste esthétique et un récit moral. Bien qu'Oscar Wilde y développe l'idée d'un art dégagé de toute éthique, le jeune Dorian Gray va faire face à sa conscience morale à travers son portrait qui porte à sa place les traces de sa perversité et la décadence que le temps inflige aux esprits les plus purs.

"Ich ging sogleich, die Stadt zu besehn, / Ich reise gern mit Nutzen." (aus "Ein Wintermärchen") Heinrich Heine war zeitlebens ein unruhiger Geist und häufig auf Reisen. Aus Reiseberichten, Zeitungsartikeln und Feuilletons schuf er künstlerische Kleinode wie "Die Harzreise" oder seine polemischen Reisebilder "Italien". Berührendstes Zeugnis seines poetischen Schaffens aber ist "Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen", angeregt durch eine Reise in sein Heimatland nach 13 Jahren im Pariser Exil.

Brilliantly manipulative and entirely amoral, the hero-villain Richard is one of Shakespeare's greatest roles. The Yorkists have emerged victorious from the civil wars and Edward IV wears the English crown. But Edward's misshapen brother Richard harbors kingly ambitions and will stop at nothing to achieve the throne. In a fatal battle on Bosworth Field, Richard meets the ghosts of all whom he has murdered and the Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. The Merry Wives of Windsor features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era...