"In the heat of renaissance Italy two houses are at war. One son and one daughter from the opposing families break this bitter conflict by falling in love. Yet, in this whirlwind of enmity, Romeo and Juliet's passion agitates rather than unites the clashing houses, causing a trail of destruction. Locked in a burning embrace, the two young lovers are tragically doomed to live or die together."-- "For the first time, the world-renowned Arden Shakespeare...

The Countess of Albany (1886) is a biography by Vernon Lee. Published at the height of her career as a leading proponent of Aestheticism and scholar of the Italian Renaissance, The Countess of Albany is a biography of Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern, whose unhappy marriage to Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, often obscured her reputation as an independent and interesting woman in her own right. A principled feminist and...

"This book presents a historical overview of The Tempest in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with three leading directors - Peter Brook, Sam Mendes and Rupert Goold - so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible, a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after...

From the author of the esteemed epic poem, Paradise Lost, comes one history's most influential arguments against censorship. John Milton was known for his linguistic genius and political activity, often writing to support his views. During the height of the English Civil War, Milton published Areopagitica. Structured like an oral speech but delivered by pamphlets that Milton illegally printed and distributed, Areopagitica argues against censorship...

Featuring twelve simple yet profound essays, Jerome K. Jerome's Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is a humorous and clever collection. Each essay is crafted around a timeless and relatable issue, such as the unfortunately common inability to make decisions. On the Art of Making Up One's Mind observes this to be a common practice. Beginning with the story of a young woman who cannot decide what color of garment to buy, this essay takes notice of the...

Written when London arrived in England at the age of 25, this book gives a firsthand account of the poor, the menial workers, the homeless, and the perpetually unemployed among whom he lived in the slums of London's East End at the turn of the 20th century. It is a sensitive portrayal of daily life on the margins of society that culminates in a searing indictment of modern industrialism's mistreatment of workers and the poverty-stricken and its propensity...

During the catastrophic economic depression of the 1890s, young Jack London found himself in the same situation as many others-homeless and unemployed. After a failed American investment and crop failure, the nation found itself in a panic. As London recounts these times, he tells stories of hopping on freight trains, consequently being forcefully removed. While living as a hobo, London often had to beg for food and money, and frequently found himself...

Benvenuto Cellini started getting onto trouble at a young age. By age sixteen, he had already been exiled from his hometown for six months due to a public assault of another citizen. As a man with endless talents- sculpting, drafting, writing, music, Cellini enjoyed dabbling in many different art forms, a career that enabled him to travel to various major cities. After apprenticing for a goldsmith, Cellini moved to Rome at age nineteen. There, Pope...

When W.B. Yeats discovered Rabindranath Tagore's work in translation, he felt an intense kinship with a man, whose work was similarly grounded in spirituality and opposition to the British Empire. For the Irish poet, Tagore's poems were at once deeply personal and essentially universal, like a secret kept by all and shared regardless: "I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the...

In April 1907 Jack London set out to sail around the world in the 45-foot ship The Snark, accompanied by his wife and a small crew. Although suffering from seasickness and tropical disease, London wrote prolifically, including a series of entertaining sketches of the voyage itself. These were later collected as The Cruise of the Snark, a remarkable record of adventure and love among the islands of the South Pacific. - Publisher.