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Excerpt: War and Peace: Twelve by Leo Tolstoy.

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Excerpt: DEDICATION. The word lorette is a euphemism invented to describe the status of a personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its fortune is assured; the word lorette has passed into the language of every class of society, even where the lorette herself will never gain an entrance. It was only invented in 1840, and derived beyond a doubt from the agglomeration of such swallows? nests about the Church of Our Lady of Loretto. This information is for etymoligists only. Those gentlemen would not be so often in a quandary if mediaeval writers had only taken such pains with details of contemporary manners as we take in these days of analysis and description....

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Conan the Cimmerian pursues the beautiful and deadly pirate Valeria after she kills a Stygian only to find himself cornered by a dragon. Apparently this dragon doesn’t know who he’s messing with. The pair then encounters the city of Xuchotl with its warring factions and ancient secrets. Swordplay and sorcery ensue. – Red Nails is Howard’s final Conan story and was published in the July, August, September and October 1936 issues of Weird Tales magazine (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Adventure, Fantasy, Myths/Legends

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Excerpt: I have made for you a song, And it may be right or wrong, But only you can tell me if it?s true; I have tried for to explain Both your pleasure and your pain, And, Thomas, here?s my best respects to you!...

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Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Danny Deever ................................................................................................................................... 6 Tommy ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Fuzzy-Wuzzy ................................................................................................................................... 10 Soldier, Soldier................................................................................................................................ 13 Screw-Guns ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Cells ................................................................................................................................................. 18 Gunga Din .......................................................................................

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Excerpt: The Ethics. Part IV -- Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions by Benedict de Spinoza, translated by R.H.M. Elwes.

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Excerpt: Two Poets by Honore de Balzac, translated by Ellen Marriage.

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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....

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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 .............................

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Excerpt: The Book of Ruth, the Eighth Book of the King James Version of the Bible.

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If you don't like Christmas stories, don't read this one! And if you don't like dogs I don't know just what to advise you to do! For I warn you perfectly frankly that I am distinctly pro-dog and distinctly pro-Christmas, and would like to bring to this little story whatever whiff of fir-balsam I can cajole from the make-believe forest in my typewriter, and every glitter of tinsel, smudge of toy candle, crackle of wrapping paper, that my particular brand of brain and ink can conjure up on a single keyboard! And very large-sized dogs shall romp through every page! And the mercury shiver perpetually in the vicinity of zero! And every foot of earth be crusty-brown and bare with no white snow at all till the very last moment when you'd just about given up hope! And all the heart of the story is very,—oh very young! For purposes of propriety and general historical authenticity there are of course parents in the story. And one or two other oldish persons. But they all go away just as early in the narrative as I can manage it.—Are obliged to go away! Yet lest you find in this general combination of circumstances some sinister threat of auda...

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Holiday, Children, Animals

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Nei 12 volumi delle Favole (1669 - 1693) Jean de La Fontaine rinnovò la tradizione esopica, rappresentando la commedia umana. Quest'opera dimostrò il suo amore per la vita rurale e attraverso animali simbolici ironizzò sulla vita della società dell'epoca. In the 12 volumes/books of Favole (1669 - 1693) Jean de La Fontaine renewed Aesop's tradition, representing the human comedy. This demonstrated his love for country life and by symbolic animals he ironized about his current years society's life. (Summary by Paolo Fedi)...

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Children, Short stories

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The Broken Vase and Other Stories; for Children and Youth, Compiled by a Teacher FITCHBURG: PUBLISHED BY S. & C. SHEPLEY. 1847. WM. J. MERRIAM, PRINTER, FITCHBURG. (Summary from the Frontspiece)...

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Adventure, Advice, Children, Fiction, Instruction, War stories

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War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Voyna i mir; in original orthography: Война и миръ, Voyna i mir) is an epic novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russki Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy's two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world's greatest novels. War and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, age and marriage. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics of Tolstoy's time did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense. Note: The novel is split in 15 books. This is the recording of book one, which covers the events in the year 1805. The recording of the next book is in progress. The project thread can be found here: /forum/viewtopic.php?t=7275...

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War stories, Romance

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This delightful novel begins when a family of five children moves from London to the English countryside. While playing in a gravel pit soon after the move, they discover an ancient and rather grumpy sand-fairy known as the Psammead, who agrees to grant one wish of theirs per day. The children’s wishes send them on adventure after adventure, but rarely turn out as expected. (Summary by Kara)...

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Adventure, Children, Fantasy, Fiction

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Chief Inspector Strock gets the tough cases. When a volcano suddenly appears to threaten mountain towns of North Carolina amid the non-volcanic Blue Ridge Mountains, Strock is posted to determine the danger. When an automobile race in Wisconsin is interrupted by the unexpected appearance of a vehicle traveling at multiples of the top speed of the entrants, Strock is consulted. When an odd-shaped boat is sighted moving at impossible speeds off the New England coast, Stock and his boss begin to wonder if the incidents are related. And when Strock gets a hand-lettered note warning him to abandon his investigation, on pain of death, he is intrigued rather than deterred. Set in a period when gasoline engines were in their infancy and automobiles were rare, and when even Chief Inspectors had to engage a carriage and horses to move about, the appearance of a vehicle that can move at astounding speeds on land, on water - and as later revealed, underwater and through the air - marks a technological advance far beyond the reach of nations. It is technology invented by and for the sole benefit of a man who styles himself (with some justificati...

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Science fiction, Adventure, Mystery

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The Sea-Wolf is a novel written in 1904 by American author Jack London. An immediate bestseller, the first printing of forty thousand copies was sold out before publication. Of it, Ambrose Bierce wrote The great thing—and it is among the greatest of things—is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen... the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime....

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Sea stories, Romance, Adventure, Fiction

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This historical novel is set in Rome in the early 4th century AD, during the time of the cruel persecution of Christians under the Emperor Diocletian The heroine of the book is Fabiola, a young pagan beauty from a noble Roman family. Fabiola seems to have everything, including a superior education in the philosophers, yet under the surface, she is not content with her life. One day, in a fit of rage, she attacks and wounds her slave girl Syra, who is a secret Christian. The proud, spoiled Roman girl is humbled by Syra's humility, maturity and devotion to her in this situation, and a slow transformation begins. Woven into this fictitious story are a number of martyrdom accounts of real-life Christian saints, including Saint Agnes, Saint Tarcisius and Saint Sebastian. Cardinal Wiseman wrote Fabiola in part as an answer to the vigorously anti-Catholic book Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. The novel was mainly aimed at the embattled Catholic minority in England, who had recently emerged from a half-illegal status. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia)...

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Historical Fiction, Religion

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These lesser known stories were penned by Conan Doyle during the period between killing off Sherlock Holmes in 1893 and reluctantly resurrecting him some ten years later. The swashbuckling, eponymous hero, Etienne Gerard, is one of Napoleon's gallant French Hussars, who considers himself the finest of them all. Through these Boys Own Adventures, Conan Doyle pokes gentle fun at both the French and the English. This is the second volume containing eight adventures. (Summary by Phil)...

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Adventure, Historical Fiction, Humor, Literature, War stories

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When Christopher Mason walked into Mr. Wicker's antique shop, he had no idea he would soon be embarking on a marvellous journey to China to find a wonderful tree made of jewels. He had no idea that Mr. Wicker was a magician and could travel through time. And that the tree was sought by others, not least among them the murderous Claggett Chew, a merchant in port and a pirate on the high seas, who also had knowledge of magic. But before Chris succeeded in quest, he would know of all these things and more. And of Mr. Wicker's friends, the sailor Ned Cilley, Becky Boozer, and the African boy Amos, changed from wood to flesh. And Christopher Mason would never be same, after. (Introduction by Arthur Piantadosi)...

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Children, Historical Fiction

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Excerpt: Mrs. Warren?s Profession by George Bernard Shaw.