"Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales brings together an unforgettable group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, pilgrims who came from all ranks of society, from the crusading Knight and burly Miller to the worldly Monk and the famously lusty Wife of Bath. Their tales are as various as the tellers, including romance, bawdy comedy, beast fable, learned debate, parable, and Eastern adventure. The resulting collection gives us a set of characters so vivid...

"Together with A Lover's Complaint' and little-known alternative versions of four of the sonnets. Edited with an introduction by John Hollander. ... the most beautifully printed text available.'"-- Provided by publisher.

From the author responsible for the satirical work of genius, A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub is an allegorical work that follows three brothers after the event of their father's death. When their father, who meant to be God, dies, the three brothers, Peter, Martin and Jack, inherit his will and each receive a decorative coat. Their father also leaves them instruction not to alter these coats in any way because doing so would be...

"Before there was Winnie-the-Pooh, there was Mr. Edward Bear, a rotund teddy bear who was proud of his stature. Meet him and many other lovable characters in this verse collection that launched A. A. Milne's career as a children's author and led to the creation of his novels about Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin. Full of whimsy, humor, and imagination, these children's poems tell of visits to the zoo and Buckingham Palace, the romance between...

One of Shakespeare's early comedies and most ornately intellectual plays, "Love's Labour's Lost" is a mental adventure in hilarity and wit. First published in 1598, the play is filled with lexical puns, literary allusions, and shifting poetic forms, a rich example of the Bard's linguistic mastery. The play opens with King Phillip of Naverre announcing that the men of his court will devote the coming years to ascetic studies and to reduce distractions,...

In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sit Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen and her tutor, Septimus Hodge. Through the window may be seen some of the 500 acres inclusive of lake where Capability Brown's idealized landscape is about to give way to the picturesque Gothic style: everything but vampires, as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later. Bernard has...

Master of gibberish Lewis Carroll brings his inventive style of writing to life once more in the collection "Jabberwocky and Other Poems." Though most famous for his creation of Wonderland and Alice's fall into the uncanny world of the nonsensical, Carroll used his wordsmithing ability to form inventive rhymes and lexicons in this collection. Words like "bandersnatch," "chortled," "tulgey," and even "Jabberwocky" are inventions of Carroll's mind....

The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories. The introduction situates the writing of these stories in Conrad's career and discusses their sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes identify literary and historical references...

A collection of over 100 limericks with the author's original illustrations.

This collection of poems by famous English Romantic poet William Blake comprises two volumes in one. Self-published by Blake, the first collection entitled "Songs of Innocence", first appeared in 1789. This volume focuses on the pastoral and innocent perfection of childhood. The tone is beautiful and often delicately romantic. However, there is also a dark side to the naivety of childhood. Blake explores the vulnerability of the poor and the young...