The basis of our nation's law and government, the Constitution is America's most important political and social document. This convenient and inexpensive reference contains not only the Constitution's main text and amendments but also a wealth of background information.Supplements include selected «Federalist Papers,» consisting of memoranda by James Madison, the «Father of the Constitution,» as well as speeches by John Jay and Patrick Henry and remarks by Alexander Hamilton. Highlights from the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia include spirited debates on suffrage, executive power, slavery, and other subjects vital to the founding of a nation. In addition, correspondence between the Founding Fathers — including letters from Madison to George Washington and from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson — offers a glimpse at the personalities behind the historic events. Includes 2 selections from the Common Core State Standards Initiative: The United States Bill of Rights and The Preamble and First Amendment to the Unites States Constitution.
In an effort to provide unemployed writers with work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States Government, through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), funded the Federal Writers' Project. One of the group's most noteworthy and enduring achievements was the Slave Narrative Collection, consisting of more than 2,000 transcripts of interviews with former slaves, who, in blunt, simple words, provided often-startling first-person accounts of their lives in bondage. This book reprints some of the most detailed and engrossing life histories in the collection. Each narrative is complete.Thirty-four gripping testimonies are included, with all slave occupations represented — from field hand and cook to French tutor and seamstress. Personal treatment reported by these individuals also encompassed a wide range — from the most harsh and exploitative to living and working conditions that were intimate and benevolent.An illuminating and unique source of information about life in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, these memoirs, most importantly, preserve the opinions and perspective of those who were enslaved. Invaluable to students, teachers, and specialists in Southern history, this compelling book will intrigue anyone interested in the African-American experience.
"I know only two tunes," said Ulysses S. Grant. «One of them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't.» Jimmy Carter observed: «Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.» And Warren Harding complained: «The White House is a prison. I can't get away from the men who dog my footsteps. I am in jail.»This entertaining, handy little book includes over 400 other memorable quotes, expressed by America's chief executives over the past two centuries, among them Chester Arthur's blunt, «I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damn business,» Calvin Coolidge's terse «The chief business of America is business,» Dwight Eisenhower's «Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from a cornfield,» and George Herbert Walker Bush's «Read my lips, no new taxes.»From George Washington to Barack Obama, these presidential declarations will not only provide public speakers and students of American history with a wealth of useful material, they'll also delight general readers.
"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact," said Mary Ann Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot. «In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels,» opined Jane Austen. «When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one,» observed Helen Rowland. These are just a few of more than 400 memorable quotes in this volume, expressed over the past 2,500 years by female poets, novelists, historical figures, celebrities, entertainers, and others.Covering a broad range of topics — men, women, love and romance, marriage, family, human nature, aging, the quest for gender equality, work and occupations, joy and sorrow, nature, the environment, and more — the quotations are divided into subject categories and arranged chronologically by the author's date of birth. Where possible, sources and dates are cited for each quote.Browse through these pages and immerse yourself in snippets of worldly wisdom from the poignant («The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend» — Toni Morrison) to the despairing («Old age is woman's hell» — Ninon de Lenclos) to the politically astute («Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested» — Queen Elizabeth I) to the humorous («Flops are a part of life's menu, and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses» — Rosalind Russell).You'll also find food for thought from Sappho, Madame de Stael, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Erma Bombeck, Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, among others. Brimming with timeless observations, humor, and wisdom, this practical and entertaining little volume will be indispensable to public speakers and a delight to general readers.
Ironically, the horrors of World War One produced a splendid flowering of British verse as young poets, many of them combatants, confronted their own morality, the death of dear friends, the loss of innocence, the failure of civilization, and the madness of war itself.This volume contains a rich selection of poems from that time by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and others known especially for their war poetry — as well as poems by such major poets as Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Robert Bridges, and Rudyard Kipling.Included among a wealth of memorable verses are Rupert Brooke's «The Soldier,» Wilfred Owen's «Anthem for Doomed Youth,» «In the Pink» by Siegfried Sassoon, «In Flanders Fields» by Lieut. Col. McCrae, Robert Bridges' «To the United States of America,» Thomas Hardy's «In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations,'» as well as works by Walter de la Mare, May Wedderburn Cannan, Ivor Gurney, Alice Meynell, and Edward Thomas.Moving and powerful, this carefully chosen collection offers today's readers an excellent overview of the brutal range of verse produced as poets responded to the carnage on the fields of Belgium and France.
Few of the sacred texts of the world's great religions present their wisdom with the clear simplicity of the verses of the Buddhist Dhammapada, or Path to Virtue. Its direct style, clarity, and beauty place it at the forefront of Buddhist sacred literature, and its noble intent raises it to the highest level of humanity's spiritual guides. Easily accessible to any reader, the Dhammapada offers a wealth of wisdom for the novice, as well as the most ardent and experienced of spiritual seekers.Gathered by Buddhist masters into related groups — «On Earnestness,» «Flowers,» «The Fool,» «The Wise Man,» «Happiness,» «Pleasure» — these ancient texts transcend the limitations of time, tradition, and culture to express the ethical principle underlying all wise and compassionate philosophy and conduct. Here are the Four Truths that reveal the nature of the world and our lot in it; here also is the Eightfold Path, the way to enlightenment, incorporating the means to overcome the essential suffering revealed by the Four Truths as the essence of life. The Dhammapada serves as a coherent summation of the necessities for following the Eightfold Path as well as an encouraging and thought-provoking resource to consult along the way.Expressed with great beauty and translated with painstaking scholarship, this classic guide is certain to stimulate, challenge, and inspire students of religion and philosophy as well as all who thirst for enlightenment.
From high school drama students to community theater actors, performers everywhere are looking for inexpensive material to entertain audiences. This collection of a dozen royalty-free, one-act plays provides the perfect solution. Classic dramas include Aristophanes' The Birds, J. M. Synge's Riders to the Sea, and Eugene O'Neill's The Moon of the Caribbees. Other works include August Strindberg's The Stronger, Susan Glaspell's Trifles, Louise Saunders' The Knave of Hearts, and Oscar Wilde's A Florentine Tragedy, in addition to plays by Molière, Anton Chekhov, William Butler Yeats, James M. Barrie, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Poltergeists and banshees, spirit-filled houses, and deathbed scenes pervaded by specters fill this enchanting treasury of tales based on supernatural phenomenon. Compiled from Ireland’s abundant reserve of ghost stories, this richly varied collection of legendary and ancestral phantoms, uncanny forewarnings of death, and a host of other unearthly experiences relies on the memories of ordinary Irish folk scattered throughout the isle.The collection of entertaining tales was the offspring of a newspaper article in which authors St. John D. Seymour, a Church of England priest, and his colleague, Harry L. Neligan, asked contributors to send in their favorite ghost stories, which many happily did. Classified by geographical area, the simple yet compelling narratives—at once disarming, convincing, and illuminating—provide amazing descriptions of paranormal experiences. An entertaining, authentic glimpse of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ireland and the superstitious natures of its people, True Irish Ghost Stories is a delightful treasury of other-worldly happenings—to be shared by devotees of Irish lore, mystery lovers, and connoisseurs of the paranormal.
Most of us, at one time or another, have experienced wanderlust. For many, the desire to explore is almost irresistible. Now for devotees of poetry, and for those who long for the open road, this highly affordable collection contains a rich selection of poems about travel and adventure.You’ll find more than 90 poems by 50 American and British masters (mainly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), including Whitman, Byron, Millay, Sandburg, Service, Bliss Carman, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Masefield, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Shelley, Tennyson, Yeats, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Claude McKay, Christina Rossetti, and other fellow travelers. Their poems celebrate the real and metaphorical journeys each of us takes in the course of our lives towards love, discovery, loss, leaving the nest, and coming home.Whatever your mode of transportation, and wherever you are going, take this literary traveling companion with you for hours of reading enjoyment and insight into the road that lies ahead.
"A powerful rendition, an incomparable tale." — The New York Times"Definitely a book to preserve and cherish." — Chicago Sun"The first complete English edition, brilliantly translated. Throughout it retains the beauty and sense of fatality that have made it one of legendary literature's most fascinating tales." — TimeThis immortal tale from the Age of Chivalry concerns the doomed love between a knight and a princess — one of the great romances of medieval literature, along with that of Lancelot and Guinevere. The heroic Tristan, nephew and champion of King Mark of Cornwall, journeys to Ireland to bring home his uncle's betrothed, the fair Iseult. Their shipboard voyage takes a tumultuous turn with a misunderstanding and a magic potion, and the lovers quickly find that there's no turning back.An enduring theme in Western art, literature, and music, Tristan and Iseult's tragic tale was most famously interpreted by Richard Wagner in his popular opera. This edition features J. Bédier's seamless weaving of many medieval sources into a captivating narrative, complemented by Hilaire Belloc's eloquent translation.