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Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

Plain Tales from the Hills conjures up an intimate, evocative, often funny portrait of India. These unabridged observations of the British in India and Indian life were originally commissioned for The Civil and Military Gazette where Kipling worked as a journalist in the 1880s. Incredibly...

‘It is easy to do justice - very hard to do right.’ When he is accused of stealing a five-shilling postal order, fourteen-year-old Ronnie Winslow is expelled from naval college. But his father believes his claim of innocence and, determined to clear his name, engages the most famous...

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning King of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers.

From his much publicized childhood on Cotchford Farm to his war experiences, his marriage, and his proprietorship of a successful bookshop in a small English town, the life of the famous author’s son was one of much joy and some pain. It was also one of deep introspection. This book illuminates the shy, quiet man who was a thoughtful observer of the natural world and a gentle commentator on humankind’s relationship to it.

Initially banned in France by King Louis, Molière's celebrated social satire Tartuffe exposes false piety and hypocrisy in the Catholic Church. When a pious fraud worms his way into a wealthy family and manipulates the patriarch into giving up his fortune, it’s up to his family to expose the truth before they end up in the poorhouse!

“If a woman really believes herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in subjection….If not, let her show her power of choosing something better.” This is the challenge thrown down to George Eliot’s heroine, Esther Lyon, who dreams of marrying into a life of...

The St. Charles Players present a unique telling of H.G. Wells' classic futuristic adventure, in a new multi-cast dramatization performed in exciting Radio Theatre style.

Oscar Wilde war ein irischer Schriftsteller, der sich nach Schulzeit und Studium in Dublin und Oxford in London niederließ. Als Lyriker, Romanautor, Dramatiker und Kritiker wurde er zu einem der bekanntesten und gleichzeitig umstrittensten Schriftsteller im viktorianischen Großbritannien.

The articles collected in George Orwell’s Essays illuminate the life and work of one of the most individual writers of this century—a man who elevated political writing to an art. This outstanding collection brings together Orwell’s longer, major essays and a fine selection of shorter...

These are strange times for the English aristocracy. When hard-up William Fitz William Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish—otherwise known as Bill—sets off for America to make a fortune, he does not expect to be left one by an American millionaire with whom he strikes up a passing acquaintance...

Born in Trinidad of Indian descent, a resident of England for his entire adult life, and a prodigious traveler, V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting one civilization to another." Here, he takes us into his sometimes inadvertent process of creative and intellectual...

A handsome recluse, plagued by indecision and hypochondria, Kafka nonetheless exhibited an extraordinary strength. He developed the uncanny ability to observe himself with cool objectivity, and he cultivated this ability in his writing, where it appeared in increasingly original metaphorical...

Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, this beautifully written character study is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive. The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane, who marries for money rather than love. When her husband, a quiet...

From a young age, James Joyce showed a precocious, original intellect and a confidence in his own artistic destiny. He would indeed go on to transform the nature of modern literature, employing a unique stream-of-consciousness technique rich in symbolism and wordplay. Through his art, the Dublin...

The first novel written by Charlotte Bronte, The Professor follows a young man named William Crimsworth on his teaching career in Brussels as well as the relationships he forms while residing there. At the behest of the headmistress, Zoraide Reuter, William tutors fellow teacher Frances Henri in English and finds himself falling in love with her. Jealousy drives Zoraide to dismiss Frances from the school as well as refusing to assist William in discovering her whereabouts.

Dedicated to the memory of two wrestling coaches and two writer friends, The Imaginary Girlfriend is John Irving's candid memoir of his twin careers in writing and wrestling. The award-winning author of best-selling novels from The World According to Garp to In One Person, Irving began writing when he was 14, the same age at which he began to wrestle at Exeter. He competed as a wrestler for 20 years, was certified as a referee at 24, and coached the sport until he was 47.

How different would the world have looked had the Nazis been the first to build an atomic bomb? Werner Heisenberg, one of Hitler's lead nuclear scientists, famously and mysteriously met in Copenhagen with his colleague and mentor, Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the Manhattan Project. Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning drama imagines their reunion. Joined by Niels' wife, Margrethe, these three brilliant minds converge for an encounter of atomic proportions.

Devilishly attractive Lord Illingworth is notorious for his skill as a seducer. But he is still invited to all the "best" houses, while his female conquests must hide their shame in seclusion. In this devastating drawing-room comedy, Oscar Wilde uses his celebrated wit to expose English society's narrow view of everything from sexual mores to Americans.

It's the middle of the high-flying, go-getting 80s in Maggie Thatcher's England, and Marlene has something to celebrate: she has just been made managing director of the Top Girls Employment Agency. But with no friends to speak of, and a past she'd just as soon forget, the guests at Marlene's party are a collection of famous women from history. Soon Marlene discovers that life above the glass ceiling is not all it's cracked up to be. This is a bold, searing comedy from an Olivier Award-winning playwright.