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Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This man hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang’d love-tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy

“Filth,” grunted Trent—“ugh! I tell you what it is, my venerable friend—I have seen some dirty cabins in the west of Ireland and some vile holes in East London. I’ve been in some places which I can’t think of even now without feeling sick. I’m not a particular chap, wasn’t brought up to it—no, nor squeamish either, but this is a bit thicker than anything I’ve ever knocked up against. If Francis doesn’t hurry we’ll have to chuck it! We shall never stand it out, Monty!”

The older man, gaunt, blear-eyed, ragged, turned over on his side. His appearance was little short of repulsive. His voice when he spoke was, curiously enough, the voice of a gentleman, thick and a trifle rough though it sounded.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

A Modern Utopia is a 1905 novel by H. G. Wells. Because of the complexity and sophistication of its narrative structure, A Modern Utopia has been called “not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia.”

A Modest Proposal’ is a 1729 Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

“The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor’s defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when “Tristram Shandy” appeared. “A most unclerical clergyman,” the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of York.” -Introduction by Laurence Sterne

In front of the open window of a handsome house, in one of the outlying streets of O * * * the capital of a Government, sat two women; one fifty years of age, the other seventy years old, and already aged.

First published in the year 1873, ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes’ by Thomas Hardy describes the love triangle of a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the respectable, established, older man who represents London society. Although the two are friends, Knight is not aware of Smith’s previous liaison with Elfride.

First published in the year 1912, the present book titled ‘A Personal Record’ was written by one of the famous British, colonial fiction writer Joseph Conrad. This book is his autobiographical work.

A young girl, brown-haired, blue-eyed, with a sweet seriousness that was neither joy nor sorrow upon her fair pale face, leaned against the mast on the Mayflower’s deck watching the bustle of the final preparations for setting sail westward. A boy somewhat older than she stood beside her whittling an arrow from a bit of beechwood, whistling through his teeth, his tongue pressed against them, a livelier air than a pilgrim boy from Leyden was supposed to know, and sullenly scorning to betray interest in the excitement ashore and aboard. A little girl clung to the pretty young girl’s skirt; the unlikeness between them, though they were sisters, was explained by their being but half sisters.

Twenty-four years earlier, in South Africa, where he was then living, his satyagraha had forced the government to repeal the law forcing Indians in the Transvaal to register themselves and carry certificates bearing their finger prints to prove that they had the right to live in that country.
In India, he was applying the same tactics of defying the authority of the alien British Government in a peaceful, non-violent way and refusing to co-operate with it.
The British had come to India 330 years earlier, landing at the port of Surat, hardly 50 Kilometers from Dandi, where Gandhiji and his followers stood on April 5, 1930, ready to begin the struggle against them.

The present book ‘A Plea for Captain John Brown’ was written by famous American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian – Henry David Thoreau. It is an essay which is based on a speech Thoreau first delivered to an audience at Concord, Massachusetts on October 30, 1859, two weeks after John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, and repeated several times before Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859. It was first published in the year 1859.

The growing enthusiasm amongst the Welsh to become more aware of the English language is one of the hopeful signs of the times. For every one of us who had an understanding of English in the beginning of this century, it’s like no doubt that there are twenties if hundreds do not understand it now. From the other side, there are more than a few of the English people who visit us and our country during the summer months are making a small effort to learn Welsh.

First published in the year 1759, the present novel ‘A Political Romance’ by famous novelist Laurence Sterne can be considered a mock-epic allegory that describes a provincial squabble between a church-lawyer, an archbishop and a Dean, i.e. a “Lilliputian” satire on ecclesiastical politics in Sterne’s York. (courtesy: wikipedia)

“Ingred! Ingred, old girl! I say, Ingred! Wherever have you taken yourself off to?” shouted a boyish voice, as its owner, jumping an obstructing gooseberry bush, tore around the corner of the house from the kitchen garden on to the strip of rough lawn that faced the windows. “Hullo! Cuckoo! Coo-ee! In-gred!”

First published in the year 1916 at the turn of the 20th century and a laid foundation of modern novel in Europe, James Joyce’s first novel ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

Marriott walked into the senior day-room, and, finding no one there, hurled his portmanteau down on the table with a bang. The noise brought William into the room. William was attached to Leicester’s House, Beckford College, as a mixture of butler and bootboy. He carried a pail of water in his hand. He had been engaged in cleaning up the House against the conclusion of the summer holidays, of which this was the last evening, by the simple process of transferring all dust, dirt, and other foreign substances from the floor to his own person.

A Princess of Mars’, a science fantasy by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is story of John Carter, a confederate veteran of American Civil War, who after the war mysteriously gets transferred to Mars. On Mars, he falls in love with the princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris, and fights her enemies. He also restores the planet’s functionality and then succumbs to asphyxiation, only to awaken back on Earth, left to wonder what has become of Barsoom and his beloved.

DescriptionA curious, unusual, puzzling type of book. The story of the awakening of a London financier who, after long years spent in the amassing of a fortune, reverts to his early dream of becoming a great philanthropist

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre.

Take the Plums, and cut the stalk off, and wipe them then take the just weight of them in Sugar, then put them in a skillet of water, and let them stand in and scald, being close covered till they be tender, they must not seeth, when they be soft lay them in a Dish, and cover them with a cloth, and stew some of the the Sugar in the glass bottom, and put in the Plums, strewing the sugar over till all be in, then let them stand all night, the next day put them in a pan, and let them boil a pace, keeping them clean scummed, & when your Plums look clear, your syrup will gelly, and they are enough. If your Plums be ripe, peel off the skins before you put them in the glass; they will be the better and clearer a great deal to dry, if you will take the Plums white; if green, do them with the rinds on.

A Road to Self Knowledge takes an extensive look into how to achieve greater self-knowledge, and is highly recommended for inclusion on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the subject. Contains eight meditations.

The scene, if I may ask you to follow me, was now changed. The leaves were still falling, but in London now, not Oxbridge; and I must ask you to imagine a room, like many thousands, with a window looking across people’s hats and vans and motor–cars to other windows, and on the table inside the room a blank sheet of paper on which was written in large letters WOMEN AND FICTION, but no more. The inevitable sequel to lunching and dining at Oxbridge seemed, unfortunately, to be a visit to the British Museum.

E. M. Forster’s 1908 novel ‘A Room with A View’ narrates the story of a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century.

“A Scandal in Bohemia” is the first short story, and the third overall work, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with the discovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wise and necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has been made to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States; to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the account of the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years, and to confine it to the narration of such events as are really necessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.

“The blunders of Germany constitute a spectacle of very much more than passing interest. The questions they raise are by no means academic. The logic of them is as inexorable as Death. They are of vital interest to every freeman, and to every state and nation that sincerely undertakes to conserve the rights of its people. To unhappy Austria, shoved into the war by Germany, they are of life or death interest. A correct view of Germany is now absolutely essential to the future freedom of man!” -an excerpt

First published in the year 1768, the present novel ‘A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy’ was written by Laurence Sterne. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view.

The series of lessons designed to enlighten regarding the nature of the real self, and to instruct in the secret knowledge the consciousness and realization of the real self.

William Walker Atkinson was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement.

“The six stories in this volume are the result of some three or four years of occasional work. The dates of their writing are far apart, their origins are various. None of them are connected directly with personal experiences. In all of them the facts are inherently true, by which I mean that they are not only possible but that they have actually happened.” -Author’s Note

The primary aim of this book is to give as much information about English authors, including under this designation American and Colonial writers, as the prescribed limits will admit of. At the same time an attempt has been made, where materials exist for it, to enhance the interest by introducing such details as tend to illustrate the characters and circumstances of the respective writers and the manner in which they passed through the world; and in the case of the more important, to give some indication of the relative place which they hold and the leading features of their work.

A Short History of the World is a period-piece non-fictional historic work by H. G. Wells. The book was largely inspired by Wells’s earlier 1919 work ‘The Outline of History’. The book summarises the scientific knowledge of the time regarding the history of Earth and life. It starts with its origins, goes on to explain the development of the Earth and life on Earth, reaching primitive thought and the development of humankind from the Cradle of Civilisation. The book ends with the outcome of the First World War, the Russian famine of 1921, and the League of Nations in 1922.

First published in the year 1896, the present book ‘A Shropshire Lad’ is a collection of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman. After a slow beginning, it rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems less than ten years after its first appearance. Many parodies have also been written that satirise Housman’s themes and stylistic characteristics.

For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress–although the latter was by no means an agreeable person. Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house.

“A Simple Heart”, also called Un coeur simple or Le perroquet in French, is a story .

A book that gives a wanderer’s descriptions of his exploration of the tribes and scenery beauty of the forests and people of Assam. The main objective of this book is to make Assam better known, to remove some prejudices which exist against it, and preserve the memory of many remarkable scenes.

“The restless spirit of adventure which prompted the author, Mr George Manington, to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, at a later date called him post haste from London, and thus caused us, his friends, to promise to see the manuscript of “A Soldier of the Legion” through the press. Though well under forty years of age, he had been a student in France and Germany, a prospective doctor in Paris, a soldier in Algeria and Tonquin, a man of commerce in Indo-China, an interpreter, traveller, and journalist in South China, besides a participator in more fleeting occupations in many lands, including Japan and the Philippines. It was in the restful periods between these various enterprises that this book was written.” -Preface

Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall, is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields, and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of pine-wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on holidays he wears boots.

Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with me. It is glorious weather; there is a tender blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of the willows glisten as though they had been polished; the wide even road is all covered with that delicate grass with the little reddish stalk that the sheep are so fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long sloping hillsides, the green rye is softly waving; the shadows of small clouds glide in thin long streaks over it. In the distance is the dark mass of forests, the glitter of ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches us.