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Büchner schildert in dieser Erzählung, wie der deutsche Schriftsteller Jakob Lenz dem Wahnsinn verfällt. Vor dem abwechselnd düsteren und grellen Hintergrund der elsässischen Landschaft im Winter, tritt die erschütternde Exaktheit in der Schilderung der unausweichlichen Leidensgewalt der Schizophrenie durch die geradezu überwältigende Einfühlungskraft des Autors umso eindrucksvoller hervor. (Summary by Rolf Kaiser)...

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Literature

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Excerpt: The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra; Actus Primus -- Scoena Prima -- Enter Demetrius and Philo. Philo. Nay, but this dotage of our Generals Ore- flowes the measure: those his goodly eyes That o?re the Files and Musters of the Warre, Have glow?d like plated Mars: Now bend, now turne The Office and Deuotion of their view Upon a Tawny Front. His Captaines heart, Which in the scuffles of great Fights hath burst The Buckles on his brest, reneages all temper, And is become the Bellowes and the Fan To coole a Gypsies Lust. Flourish. Enter Anthony, Cleopatra, her Ladies, the Traine, with Eunuchs fanning her. Looke where they come: Take but good note, and you shall see in him (The triple Pillar of the world) transform?d Into a Strumpets Foole. Behold and see. Cleo. If it be Love indeed, tell me how much. Ant. There?s beggery in the love that can be reckon?d Cleo. Ile set a bourne how farre to be belov?d. Ant. Then must thou needes finde out new Heaven, new Earth. Enter a Messenger. Mes. Newes (my good Lord) from Rome. Ant. Grates me, the summe. Cleo. Nay heare them Anthony. Fuluia perchance is angry: Or who knowes, If the scarse-...

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Table of Contents: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1

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Excerpt: Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence.

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Contents ITALIANS IN EXILE ......................................................................................4 THE RETURN JOURNEY ..............................................................................4 The Crucifix Across the Mountains ................................................................................................... 4 On the Lago di Garda ....................................................................................................................... 15 Italians in Exile.............................................................................................................................. 106 The Return Journey........................................................................................................................ 123...

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Excerpt: Areopagitica; A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England () -- THEY, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or, wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not little altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a preface....

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Table of Contents: Areopagitica, 1

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Written in the years 1840 to 1841, when Dickens was twenty-eight years old, this is a ‘Road’ tale in the very best tradition. Little Nell Trent and her Grandfather are the main characters, who secretly set off from their home under cover of night, to escape the wicked dwarf Quilp. Pursued across England, their adventures lead them through poverty stricken city areas where several destitute people offer them aid on their way, into the countryside where they meet the strange, colorful, and sometimes menacing characters for which Dickens is so well known. Grandfather’s mind begins to wander, and he leans even more for help on Nell, who herself is feeling ill and weak. Eventually they reach a safe pasture with a kind gentleman and think their troubles may be over, but heart-breaking tragedy strikes. (Summary by Mil Nicholson)...

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Fiction

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When a young lady approaches Sherlock Holmes looking for help in finding out what happened to her father when he disappeared 10 years earlier, both Holmes and Watson are sent on a mission involving stolen treasure, service in colonial India and a secret pact among four ex-convicts. (Summary by Robin Cotter)...

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Mystery

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Franklin wrote his autobiography in the form of an extended letter to his son. While recording the events of his life, he adds instructions for good living which makes this work America’s first “How to Succeed” book. (Summary by Gary)...

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Biography

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The novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up on the river Floss near the village of St. Oggs, evidently in the 1820’s, after the Napoleonic Wars but prior to the first Reform Bill (1832). The novel spans a period of 10-15 years, from Tom and Maggie’s childhood up until their deaths in a flood on the Floss. The book is fictional autobiography in part, reflecting the disgrace that George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) herself had while in a lengthy relationship with a married man, George Henry Lewes. Maggie Tulliver holds the central role in the book, as both her relationship with her older brother Tom, and her romantic relationships with Philip Wakem, a hunchbacked, but sensitive and intellectual, friend, and with Stephen Guest, a vivacious young socialite in St. Oggs and fiance of Maggie’s cousin Lucy Deane, constitute the most significant narrative threads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mill_on_the_Floss...

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Fiction, Literature

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Excerpt: The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Volume One.

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Contents PREFACE.......................................................................................................................................... 7 PREFACE BY MRS. SHELLEY TO FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, 1839. ......................... 16 POSTSCRIPT IN SECOND EDITION OF 1839. ........................................................................ 21 PREFACE BY MRS. SHELLEY. TO THE VOLUME OF POSTHUMOUS POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1824......................................................................................................................... 22 THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD. .............................................................................................. 26 ALASTOR: OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. .......................................................................... 39 NOTE ON ALASTOR, BY MRS. SHELLEY. ......................................................................................................... 54 THE REVOLT OF ISLAM. ............................................................................................................ 56 AUTHOR?S PREFACE................................................................

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Excerpt: One of Our Conquerors by George Meredith.

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This is a collection of 12 creepy stories by that master of creepiness, Poe. The Black Cat; The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven; The Tell Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, the Premature Burial and six others that are a shuddering delight to read and listen to. Turn off the lights, settle down and hear these stories read to you as only readers can perform them. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)...

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Horror/Ghost stories

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Excerpt: Scenes from a Courtesan?s Life by Honore de Balzac, translated by James Waring.

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Excerpt: ?Halloa! Below there!? When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all....

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Contents: The Signal-Man The Haunted-House The Trial For Murder

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Excerpt: Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new....

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Poetry

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Excerpt: Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be right; ?but that?s no rule,? as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad....

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Text of the speech given by Brewster Kahle, founder of the http://www.archive.org/ Internet Archive , at the launch of the http://openlibrary.org/ Open Library in October 2005. was invited to the launch, and produced audio recordings for An International Episode, and Old Christmas, two of the first books scanned into the Open Library collection. (Summary by Hugh)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction

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Excerpt: The Rue Du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, formerly one of the darkest and most tortuous of the streets about the Hotel de Ville, zigzagged round the little gardens of the Paris Prefecture, and ended at the Rue Martroi, exactly at the angle of an old wall now pulled down. Here stood the turnstile to which the street owed its name; it was not removed till 1823, when the Municipality built a ballroom on the garden plot adjoining the Hotel de Ville, for the fete given in honor of the Duc d?Angouleme on his return from Spain....

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The stories about Münchhausen were first collected and published by an anonymous author in 1781. An English version was published in London in 1785, by Rudolf Erich Raspe, as Baron Munchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia , also called The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen . It is not clear how much of the story material derives from the Baron himself; however, it is known that the majority of the stories are based on folktales that have been in circulation for many centuries before Münchhausen's birth....

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Fiction, Fantasy

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Excerpt: Strictly speaking, there were only six poor travelers; but, being a Traveler myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven. This word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door?...