volunteers bring you 20 recordings of Simplex Munditiis by Ben Jonson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 26, 2012. Ben Jonson was an English poet and playwright. He had a huge influence on both the theatre of his day and that which came after. Much of his poetry was inspired by the classical world of Ancient Greece and Rome. He also wrote a lot of satirical poetry on everyday topics, of which this poem is one such example. (Summary by Lucy Perry)...

Philosophy, Romance, Poetry

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Ballade of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 20, 2012. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the prince of paradox. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out. For example, Chesterton wrote Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

Poetry, Humor, Philosophy

The Journal of Submarine Commander Von Forstner is a graphic account of WWI submarine warfare. Forstner was the commander of German U-boat U-28. His journal, first published 1916, gives a gritty picture of daily life inside a submarine and details several torpedo attacks on Allied shipping. The 1917 translation of Forstner’s journal into English was unquestionably intended to bolster the Allied war effort. In the foreword, the translator states: “Nothing at the present day has aroused such fear as this invisible enemy, nor has anything outraged the civilized world like the tragedies caused by the German submarines.” This audio read of Forstner’s journal was prompted by a tour of a captured WWII German U-505 submarine, which is a prime draw at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The sub’s interior is not for claustrophobics--a hunkered maze of pipes and valves, banks of engines and batteries that leave very little room for humans. Particularly arresting are the sleeping quarters--bunks cozy’d up with the 15 foot long torpedoes. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)...

Adventure, History, Memoirs, Sea stories, War stories

The Milky Way - F. Tennyson Jesse's first novel - began life as a 1913 magazine serial called The Adventures of Viv. In it, poor-but-plucky Cornish painter/model Vivian Lovel recounts events of her twenty-first year: en route from Penzance to London by steamer, she catches a baby dropped over the side of a sinking ship - and decides to keep it. Penniless, however, she platonically pairs up with pan-like fellow passenger Peter Whymperis, an actor and aspiring writer, and together they find work with a fifth-rate repertory troupe. Soon sacked, they nevertheless leave with money enough to buy milk for the baby. They then spend a night locked in a wax museum devoted to notorious murders and later trace a fugitive from justice to his lair. At a costume party, Viv rescues her beautiful friend Chloe from a cruel seducer, by taking her place (and his car). Viv then flits to Cornwall for a stint of modeling at an artists' colony. She's tempted to put down roots, but Peter appears, and they dance away as faun and nymph into the night. Back again in London, a publisher, whose home they invade, commissions Peter to write and Viv to illustrate a...

Adventure, Fiction

Excerpt: Welcome to the second volume of the Best of Four. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. The primary purpose of Best of Four is to bring the best writing produced in English 004 to the widest possible audience. Our students have important stories to tell and powerful voices waiting to be harnessed. The students who read these essays will learn that they too have permission to state what is important to them in a public voice....

Contents 5 ............................................................................................... How to Use This Magazine 6 .................................................................................................... What Is College Writing? 7 ........................................................................................................... The Writing Process 8 ............................................................................................................. Writing for a Public 10 .............................................................................. Boston?s Treasure by Julio Rodriguez 11 ..................................................................................... Life is a Beach by Gerard Delisio 13 ................................................................................................ Dreamland by Mat Ciprich 14 ............................................................................... The Central Hotel by Jacob Gerhard 15 ....................................................................... My Hero, Uncle Bob by Deirdre Haubert 16 .............................

Little Lord Fauntleroy is a sentimental children's novel by American (English-born) author Frances Hodgson Burnett, serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1885. It was a runaway hit for the magazine and was separately published in 1886. The book was a commercial success for its author, and its illustrations by Reginal Birch set fashion trends. Little Lord Fauntleroy also set a precedent in copyright law in 1888 when its author won a lawsuit over the rights to theatrical adaptations of the work. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Children, Teen/Young adult

Excerpt: War and Peace: Book Ten by Leo Tolstoy.

Background: By the mid 1980s the Macintosh, and to some extent the PC, had made desktop publishing a mainstay in the world of publishing professional quality documents. At this point a significant shift occurred in the production of published materials. A key element in this production moved from the hands of the printer to the editor. Simply put, editors no longer needed to rely on printers to create their documents. Production began to move from the printing houses to the editor's desktop. Layout, typesetting, and image control are now fully available to the editor. As a result, it is important that those who traditionally were involved in the creation of print (and now digital) information be introduced to the tools that make this possible....

Excerpt: The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne?s time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am, Your obliged friend and servant....

Contents PREFACE. ........................................................................................................................................ 6 BOOK I THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.....................................................................................11 CHAPTER I AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL ..................................... 14 CHAPTER II RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLEWOOD........................... 19 CHAPTER III WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS PAGE TO ISABELLA ............................................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER IV I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT RELIGION.?VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD .................................................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER V MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II. ...... 42 CH...

Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest is a narration of his life story by Abel, a Venezuelan, to a comrade. Once a wealthy young man, he meddled in politics to the extent of provoking a revolution... which failed. Escaping into the tropical forests of Guyana Abel takes up gold hunting, then journal-writing, and fails at both. Now with no aim for his life, he drifts until he takes up residence with a remote Indian tribe. Soon he learns of a wood the Indians avoid, as it is inhabited by a dangerous Daughter of the Didi, who, they say, slew one of them with magic. The fellow was in fact hit with a poisoned dart by accident, but his dying belief that she had caught the dart and hurled it at him survived him. Intrigued, Abel visits the wood repeatedly, and eventually encounters Rima. She indeed is something magical. She seems to have a pact with nature: animals don't molest her, she speaks in a melodious birdsong (as well as Spanish), and she even makes her garments of spider silk. When Abel is bitten by a venomous snake that acts protective of her, she and her grandfather Nuflo nurse Abel back to health. Both Abel and Rima ar...

Romance

The Charles Dickens 200th Anniversary Collection comprises short works previously unrecorded for - fiction, essays, poetry, letters, magazine articles and speeches - and each volume will be a pot pourri of all genres and periods of his writing. This first volume is released on Dickens' 200th birthday, February 7th 2012. Further volumes will follow during the anniversary year. Volume 1 includes short stories including, amongst others, The Holly Tree , the first part of Holiday Romance and three pieces from Mugby Junction . Some items requiring a little further explanation are Prince Bull , written as a fairy tale, but in reality a scathing attack on the Government's handling of supplies to the troops in the Crimean War; Old Lamps for New Ones in which Dickens makes clear his low opinion of the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting; and Frauds on the Fairies , a polemic against George Cruikshank's bowdlerisation of fairy tales for moralistic purposes, and the interesting revelation that 'product placement' is by no means a new phenomenon. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)...

Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, Short stories, Art, Politics

Excerpt: Advertisement. The story of ?Catherine,? which appeared in Fraser?s Magazine in 1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons, Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal....

Excerpt: THE PREFACE; If ever the story of any private Man?s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish?d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. The Wonders of this Man?s Life exceed all that (he thinks)is to be found extant; the Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apply them (viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks, because all such things are dispatch?d, that the Improvement of it, as well to the Diversion, as to the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without father Compliment to the World, he does them a great Service in the Publication....

Table of Contents: THE PREFACE, 1 -- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c., 2 -- THE JOURNAL., 51

Excerpt: It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, mong the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary dis course that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again....

Excerpt: Preface By Way Of Criticism. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in MacMillan?s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy....

Contents PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER I ? VICTOR HUGO?S ROMANCES ........................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II ? SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.......................................................... 34 CHAPTER III ? WALT WHITMAN............................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER IV ? HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS........... 84 CHAPTER V ? YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO..................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER VI ? FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.........117 CHAPTER VII ? CHARLES OF ORLEANS ............................................................................ 141 CHAPTER VIII ? SAMUEL PEPYS .......................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER IX ? JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN .................................. 190...

Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

Excerpt: Welcome to the fifth volume of Best of Four. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. The purpose of Best of Four is to bring the best writing produced in English 004 each fall semester to the widest audience possible. Our students have important stories to tell and powerful voices to be heard. The students who read these essays will learn that they too have permission to state what is important to them in a public voice....

Contents How to Use This Magazine .............................................................................................................. 3 High School to College Andrew Makhoul ........................................................................................ 4 Ignoring Problems Creates More! Ashley Morris................................................................................ 5 Hang in There Brad Hart ................................................................................................................. 6 Nate Brandi Saveri ........................................................................................................................... 7 The Best Birthday Is the Sixteenth Brent Heimbach ......................................................................... 9 Sharing the Bread of Angels Christa Sist ......................................................................................... 10 Tragedy in the Night Danielle Gehman .......................................................................................... 11 My Grandfather David Smith ..............................................

Introduction: Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the ?New England Courant.? To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor....