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The Marvelous Land of Oz - The Original Classic Edition

Although he was never to enjoy the success he had with his first Oz book, Baum sure tried hard with this one (the second in the series). Most like this far better than the first, more famous The Wizard of Oz work. It starts off with Tip living in a cottage deep in a forest in Oz. The witch who keeps him is set on turning him into stone, so Tip must escape. This sets up a whole series of wonderful adventures and interesting characters. The Pumpkinhead character is a favorite. If only someone like Tim Burton would get a hold of this and turn it into a film, then maybe the whole Baum Oz series would get as much recognition as say the Potter series has been getting. Baum wrote 14 Oz books in the early 1900s. The movie was made from the first in the series. The [Marvelous] Land of OZ is the 2nd in the series, and possibly the best. The short chapter from page 71-81 reaches a level of perfection attained only rarely in the history of literature, and is equal to the best passages of Mark Twain or James Thurber. You cant read that passage without going into a fit of laughing yourself to tears. We have all grown up with the Wizard of Oz movie, book one, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is basically the same story as the movie with some slight differences. Marvelous Land of Oz, the second book of the series is the one that will reel you in and have you wanting to read more. You will love it, especially the surprise ending which I wont spoil for you. Jack Pumpkinhead, the Woggle Bug and a mean witch named Mombi are all new characters, even more colorful than some of those from book one.

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, by Richard F. Burton - The Original Classic Edition

Burton Richard

Richard Burtons translation of The Arabian Nights is one of the oldest in existence and some people have a problem with this version; its too old, antiquated, etc.; but for this reviewer, the very fact that its an early translation lends the tales much of their charm; it underscores the fact that The Arabian Nights go back for hundreds of years, all the way back to once upon a time. Richard Burton introduces us to Sharazad, that seductive storyteller who took the bull by the horns and dared to marry the sultan Shariyar who had been driven mad by the infidelity of his former wife and tried to exorcise the demons of her adultery by marrying a new wife every morning and slaying her that same night. Sharazad knows that a good tale can tame the savage beast much in the way music can, and she keeps the Sultan enchanted night after night with the tales that still enchant us in our own time. We all know about Aladdin and his magic lamp, and Ali Baba and the forty thieves, but there are loads of other treasures in this collection; my personal favorites, aside from Ali Baba, are the story of Ali the Persian (short, succinct, and very funny), and The Lady and Her Five Suitors, a hilarious tale of a woman who lures five men into a trap and then runs off with her boyfriend. And Sharazad, smart lady that she is, took care to insure her own future; not only does she regale her sultan with a thousand and one tales in as many nights, she also presents him with three children during that time, wins the heart of the sultan, and, we suppose, lives happily ever after. No one knows where the tales originated. Burton suggests that the earliest may date from they 8th century A.D., and the latest may have been as recent as the 16th century, only 200 years before Antoine de Galland translated the tales into French and unfolded them like a magic carpet before the astonished and delighted eyes of his European readers. Burton translated them into English into English in 1885 and they have been weaving their own spell of enchantment for us ever since. When we open The Arabian Nights we step onto our own magic carpet and were off on a ride of fun and fantasy that lasts until the last page when we close the book and come back down, reluctantly, to earth.

Apology - The Original Classic Edition

Plato Plato

Apology is Platos least philosophical and most unrepresentative work but arguably his most important and is among many readers favorites, including mine. However, the fact that it is widely anthologized – e.g., in The Trial and Death of Socrates – makes it hard to justify a standalone, but some may be taken by the translation. The work purports to be Socrates self-defense at his trial. It is historically priceless if so, as it gives his last public statements and some background about his life and the lead up to the trial. Even if not, it is of immense worth as a passionate, sound defense of individualism and free speech; its timeless evocation of these all-important concepts is forever associated with Socrates and the main reason he has been immortalized. The work also piercingly examines the often vast law/conscience gap and is thus an early higher law document. Finally, it is a sort of mini-dialogue in itself touching on and in several ways tying up classic Socrates/Plato themes like the nature of piety and goodness, responsibility toward the gods and the state, interpersonal relations, and life vs. death issues. It sums up Socrates and perhaps Plato better than any other work. The ever-important translation issue must also be kept in mind. It goes without saying that anyone who cares about intellectual issues, especially applied ones, must know Plato, as should anyone who wants to be even basically well-read. However, this is far easier said than done for most; he is so different from what now passes for literature, to say nothing of pop culture, that he is virtually inaccessible to general readers. Yet the importance of persevering cannot be overemphasized; the payoff is well worth the effort. As nearly always in such cases, reading him becomes far easier after the initial difficulty; no attentive reader will ever think Plato easy reading, but he is utterly absorbing once we get used to his style. He has a near-poetic beauty that all agree has never even been remotely approached in philosophy, and such mesmerizing prose is rare in any genre. His dialogues are an incredible form at once intellectually and aesthetically pleasing – an inspired combination that has perhaps never been bettered; many have appropriated it, but none have matched it. All this means that picking the right translation is probably more important with Plato than any other writer. For the average reader, the more recent, the better is generally true, but older translations like W. H. D. Rouses and Benjamin Jowetts are still very accessible. The important thing is to read Plato in some form, and those who happen on a translation that does not work for them should keep trying until their mind opens in a truly new way – and once done, it will never close again.

An Old-Fashioned Girl - The Original Classic Edition

Alcott Louisa

A country girl named Polly is visiting city friends and comes to realize that this world is quite different than which she has left. Here people are judged according to their dress and manner of speech rather than for their honesty and hardwork. Yet all who meet Polly cannot help but be enamored of her; her sweet simplicity is unlike any that they have ever seen, and soon everyone comes to realize that Polly is not someone to be laughed at and ridiculed, but someone to put upon a pedistal for failing to become willing prey to the cynicism of the times. Polly is the most understanding and genuine character I have ever read about. Her love for others and her unwillingness to lower her standards and morals for popularity are an inspiration to people of all ages and prove that nothing is wrong with being an old fashioned girl. Do you ever feel like you are tied up in our times? Worrying too much about cell phones, fashions, and the latest whatevers? This book can set you straight. It gives you a peace of mind and fills you with simple pleasures. The stories main character, Polly, we meet at the age of 14. She has come to stay with rich friends for a while. They do everything so differently from she. The family has two daughters. One that is two years older than Polly called Fan, who cares for fashion, balls, and beaus. The author daughter is six and she is fixed onoo having her own way about everything. THe young man in the family Tom is a trouble maker, who no matter how hard he tries cant seem to stay out of trouble very long. Polly is a gentle, kind, loving, caring, selfless, practical, and sensible girl. SHe becomes a great service to this family, touching each of them in a special way. She moves in the same town six years later and gives piano lessons. The family needs her more than ever and she helps them all in the end. This book has heart, romance, and realness to it that we can all relate to, rich or poor, young or old. It will make you feel warm fuzzies. Read on a rainy day underneath a flanel blanket!

The History of Caliph Vathek - The Original Classic Edition

Beckford William

Vathek, the ninth Caliph of the Abassides, is a majestic figure, terrible in anger and addicted to the pleasures of the flesh. He is also insatiable for knowledge, inviting scholars to converse with him. If he fails to convince the scholar of his points of view, he attempts a bribe; if this does not work, he sends the scholar to prison. But for all his powers, Vathek wants even more. Renouncing Islam, he engages in a series of licentious and deplorable activities designed to gain him supernatural powers. When a hideous stranger arrives in town, claiming to be a merchant from India selling precious goods, Vathek buys glowing swords with letters on them from the merchant, setting in motion a series of terrible and terrifying events that will forever change Vatheks world. A tale told with rich vision and sly humor, The History of the Caliph Vathek is replete with ghosts, spirits and supernatural deeds that will surprise and entertain discerning readers! This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: There is thirst: for at one part of the dream, when Vathek?s mother, his wives, and some eunuchs ?assiduously employed themselves in filling bowls of rock crystal, and emulously presented them to him, it frequently happened that his avidity exceeded their zeal, insomuch that he would prostrate himself upon the ground to lap up the water, of which he could never have enough.? …The Caliph submitted to the reasons of his mother, and sending for Morakanabad, his prime vizir, said: ?Let the common criers proclaim, not only in Samarah, but throughout every city in my empire, that whosoever will repair hither, and decipher certain characters which appear to be inexplicable, shall experience the liberality for which I am renowned; but that all who fail upon trial shall have their beards burnt off to the last hair. …He failed not, however, though in so reduced a condition, to be often carried to his tower, as he flattered himself that he might there read in the stars which he went to consult something more congenial to his wishes: but in this his hopes were deluded, for his eyes, dimmed by the vapours of his head, began to subserve his curiosity so ill, that he beheld nothing but a thick dun cloud, which he took for the most direful of omens. …His attendants were his mother, his wives, and some eunuchs, who assiduously employed themselves in filling capacious bowls of rock crystal, and emulously presenting them to him; but it frequently happened that his avidity exceeded their zeal, insomuch that he would prostrate himself upon the ground to lap up the water, of which he could never have enough. …Vathek, to whom the insolent airs of the stranger became every moment less supportable, intimated to his vizir by a wink of acquiescence that he would adopt his advice, and at once turning towards the Indian, said: ?Get up and declare in full Divan of what drugs the liquor was compounded you enjoined me to take, for it is suspected to be poison; add also the explanation I have so earnestly desired concerning the sabres you sold me, and thus show your gratitude for the favours heaped on you.?

Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom - The Original Classic Edition

Allies T

This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. Introduction by the author: In truth, the relation between Church and State leads perhaps more directly than any other to the heart of Christendom; for Christendom, both in word and idea, means not only one and the same Church subsisting in all civil governments, but also a community of Christian governments, having a common belief and common principles of action, grounded upon the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Redemption wrought thereby. For this reason, the Formation of Christendom can hardly be described, unless the relation which ought by the institution of God to subsist between the two great Powers, the Spiritual and Civil, appointed to rule human society, is first clearly established. In this volume, therefore, I treat first of the relation of these two Powers before the coming of Christ. Secondly, of their relation as it was affected by that coming, in order to show what position the Church of Christ originally took up in regard to the Civil Power, and what the behaviour of the Civil Power towards the Church was. And, thirdly, the question of principles being thus laid down, the remainder of the volume is occupied with the historical exhibition of the subject during the first three centuries; that is, from the Day of Pentecost to the Nicene Council. The supreme importance of that period will appear to all who reflect that the Church from the beginning, and in the first centuries of her existence, must be the same in principles with the Church of the nineteenth and every succeeding century. And this volume is, in fact, a prelude to the treatment of the same subject in the last three centuries, down to the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. The subject which I am treating is, then, strictly historical, being the action of a King in the establishment of a kingdom; the action of a Lawgiver in the legislation which He gave to that kingdom; the action of a Priest in founding a hierarchy, whereby that kingdom consists; but, moreover, which is something much more?the action of One who is Priest, Lawgiver, and King at once and always, and therefore whose work is at once one and triple, and indivisible in its unity and triplicity, and issuing in the forming of a people which is simply the creation of its King.

A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River - The Original Classic Edition

Cumberland Barlow

This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: Fort Niagara, whose large central stone castle, built in 1726, still remains, passed from the French under Pouchot, to the British under Sir William Johnson; a great flotilla of canoes conveying the Indian warriors under Ligneris to the aid of the Fort, had come down from the Upper Lakes, to the Niagara River, but upon it being proved to them that they were too late, for the Fort had fallen, they re-entered their canoes and re-traced their way up the rivers back to their Western homes. …In this same year H.R.H. the Duke of Kent [afterwards father of Her Majesty Queen Victoria] is reported as having proceeded from Kingston up Lake Ontario to Navy Hall on the Niagara River in the Kings ship Mohawk commanded by Commodore Bouchette. …These vessels seem to have sailed somewhat intermittently, but regular connection on every other day with the Niagara River was established by The Duke of Richmond packet, a sloop of one hundred tons built at York in 1820, under Commander Edward Oates. …No name is given of the steamer, nor the date of the launch, but this item has been considered to have referred to the steamer named Ontario, built at Sacketts Harbor and in consequence of its having apparently been launched first, precedence has been claimed for the United States vessel. …Further information of the American steamer is given in an application for incorporation of the Lake Ontario Steam Boat Co. made in December, 1816, by Charles Smyth and others, of Sacketts Harbor, who stated in their petition that they had lately constructed a steam boat at Sacketts Harbor?the Navy Department of the United States have generously delivered a sufficiency of timber for the construction of the vessel for a reasonable sum of money?the boat is now built?the cost so far exceeds the means which mercantile men can generally command that they are unable to build any further?the English in the Province of Upper Canada have constructed a steam boat of seven hundred tons burthen avowedly for the purpose of engrossing the business on both sides of the lake.

A Scout of To-day - The Original Classic Edition

Hornibrook Isabel

This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: Colin Estey stretched his well-developed fourteen-year-old body among the tall feathery grasses of the broad salt-marsh whereon he lay, kicking his heels in the September sunshine, and gazed longingly off toward the grand expanse of New England woodland that bordered the marshes and, rising into tree-clad hills, stretched away much farther than the eye could reach in apparently illimitable majesty. …Yet though the unprobed mystery of the dense woods vexed him with the feeling of being immature and young?woodland distances look vaster at fourteen than at eighteen?it fascinated him, too, more than did any riddle of the salt-marshes or lunar enigma of the ebb and flow of tide in the silvery, brackish river formed by an arm of sea that coursed inland for many a mile to meet a freshwater stream near the town where Colin was born. …I want to go farther into those old woods than I?ve ever gone before?far enough to find Varney?s Paintpot and the Bear?s Den?and the coon?s hole that Toiney Leduc saw among the alders an? ledges near Big Swamp!? …I want to go far into the woods to-day,??his hands doubled and opened excitedly, as if grasping at something hitherto out of reach,??farther than I?ve ever been before,?far enough to see Varney?s Paintpot and the old Bear?s Den?and some of the other wonders that the men tell about!? …?It looks to me as if some lightfooted animal were in the habit of passing here that might carry the seeds along,? said the perpetrator of the prank presently, dropping upon his hands and knees to examine breathlessly the leaves and brambles pressed down into a trail so light that it seemed the mere shadow of a pathway leading off into the woods at right angles from where the boys stood.

The Great Illusion - The Original Classic Edition

Angell Norman

The Great Illusion is a book by Norman Angell, first published in Britain in 1909 under the title Europes Optical Illusion. According to John Keegan Europe in the summer of 1914 enjoyed a peaceful productivity so dependent on international exchange and co-operation that a belief in the impossibility of a general war seemed the most conventional of wisdoms. In 1910 an analysis of prevailing economic interdependence, The Great Illusion, had become a best-seller; its author Norman Angell had demonstrated, to the satisfaction of almost all informed opinion, that the disruption of international credit inevitably to be caused by war would either deter its outbreak or bring it speedily to an end. The Great Illusion of the title was the belief that there would soon be another major and destructive European war. At the time it was published, there was a naval arms race between Germany and the United Kingdom, and there had been a vogue in Britain for novels imagining a future German invasion (for example, Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands (1903) or William LeQueuxs The Invasion of 1910 (1906)). After Angells book appeared, the flood of invasion stories stopped[citation needed] (one of the last was P. G. Wodehouses 1909 parody The Swoop! or, How Clarence Saved England). In 1914, Angells theory was proved wrong by the outbreak of the Great War, which lasted for four years. However, the book was updated and a new edition was published in 1933. In this version, Angell changed his initial argument slightly, he no longer proposed that economics would stop a war, or prevent its happening, but instead challenged that waging a war for economic reasons was a futile struggle, that a nation cannot enrich itself by a conquest of its neighbors. This new thesis earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933, and the economic state of Europe in the interwar era, as well as the Post War era, seemed to bring a new validity to his work.

Woman and Artist - The Original Classic Edition

O'Rell Max

Max ORell was the pen name of Léon Paul Blouet (March 2, 1848 ? 25 May 1903), French author and journalist. He was born in Brittany. He served as a cavalry officer in the Franco-German War, was captured at Sedan, but was released in time to join the Versaillist army which overcame the Paris Commune, and was severely wounded during the second siege of Paris. In 1872 he went to England as correspondent of several French newspapers, and in 1876 became the very efficient French master at St Pauls School, London, retaining that post until 1884. What induced him to leave was the brilliant success of his first book, John Bull et son île (translated as John Bull and his Island), which in its French and English forms was so widely read as to make his pseudonym a household word in England and America. Several other volumes of a similar type dealing in a like spirit with Scotland, America and France followed. He married an Englishwoman, who translated his books. But the main work of the years between 1890 and 1900 was lecturing. Max ORell was a ready and amusing speaker, and his easy manner and his humorous gift made him very successful on the platform. He lectured often in the United Kingdom and still more often in America. He died in Paris, where he was acting as correspondent of the New York Journal, in May 1903. This book contains his following stories: French And English Homes, The House In Elm Avenue, The Portrait, Dora, The Dramatic Author And The Patron Of Arts, The Inventor, The New House, The House-Warming, The Confession, Belgravia, General Sabaroff, The Husband, The Wife, And The Other, A Cruel Ordeal, Eva, The Separation, Philip Returns To The Fold, Dora?s Studio, Lorimer?s