Classic Fiction Collection

This is a summary of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Meditations is essentially a scrapbook of thoughts written over a 19-year period; it’s not ordered and it repeats itself frequently as ideas reoccurred to the author at different times. For this reason, it can be hard for a casual reader to extract the myriad messages contained within. This summary helps in that by interpreting Meditations and reducing it from around 50,000 words down to 4,400. While it has been interpreted, the author has done his best not to embellish it.

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. In December 1899, in McClure’s Magazine, he published a short story as O. Henry.

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

"What is your favorite story?" is the question children across the country often ask professional storyteller Pleasant DeSpain. As he attempts to answer, his list grows longer and longer, until he confesses he likes them all. An untiring researcher of oral traditions, DeSpain is known for his concise versions of world folktales specifically crafted for retelling.

Dive into the immersive world of Jules Verne with The Classic Collection, featuring five iconic novels. Around the World in 80 Days follows the enigmatic Phileas Fogg and his adventurous journey to circumnavigate the globe in record time, encountering obstacles and excitement at every turn. In Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, readers plunge into the depths of the ocean aboard the remarkable submarine, the Nautilus, with the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Journey to the Center of the Earth takes readers on a daring expedition into the Earth's core, where incredible discoveries await beneath the surface.

El señor Wonka, dueño de la magnífica fábrica de chocolate, ha escondido cinco billetes de oro en sus chocolatinas. Quienes los encuentren serán los elegidos para visitar la fábrica. Charlie tiene la fortuna de encontrar uno de esos billetes y, a partir de ese momento, su vida cambiará para siempre.

"The Most Dangerous Game" features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who becomes shipwrecked on an isolated island in the Caribbean, and is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.

A collection of seven of Shakespeare's best-loved plays adapted for children in plain English with additional commentary. Performed in plain English by a full cast.

The book is one of the most influential ethical treatises of all time. Written in 350 BC, it identifies happiness as life's goal. How do we achieve this goal? Not through the satisfactions that come from pleasure, wealth, or fame. According to Aristotle, the true path to happiness lies in contemplation of philosophic truth. This is the only action through which humans can exercise their distinctively unique trait: the ability to reason.

Presenting a delightful collection of children's favorite Mother Goose rhymes by Tomie dePaola. Young listeners and their parents will enjoy meeting up with familiar friends, including Old King Cole, Little Bo-Peep, Jack and Jill, and many more in an audiobook that is sure to be a story-hour favorite.

Aleksander Głowacki, who wrote under the nom de plume Boleslaw Prus, was born on 20th August 1847 at Hrubieszów in the Kingdom of Poland, at that time, controlled by the Russian Empire. It seems he had doubts as to the scale of his talents and early on adopted the name ‘Boleslaw Prus’, for both his journalistic and literary offerings. His work as a short-story writer met with much acclaim. He wrote several dozen of them, originally published in newspapers and ranging in length from micro-story to novella. His keen observation of everyday life and sense of humor are evident in them.

A collection of classic erotic poetry including "The Kiss", "A Woman Waits for Me", and "Between Your Sheets".

Unique to this title is: A historical introduction and a study of the themes present in A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol and The Chimes. Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He was born in 1812 in Portsmouth. When his father was sent to jail because of unsettled debt, Dickens had to leave school and get a job in a factory. Dickens is believed to be the best novelist of the Victorian era and he became very popular during his lifetime. His novels are still widely read and translated.

From the author of The Scarlet Letter comes a landmark of American literature, an embodiment of the greed which can compel people to treacherous actions. Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables is a study of guilt and renewal from generation to generation. At the time of the Salem witch trials, the patriarch of the Pyncheon family finds himself so covetous of his neighbor’s property that he is led to sinister deeds, turning the community against his neighbor who is ultimately hanged for witchcraft. Though his plot to acquire the land is successful, the dying man's curse on the Pyncheon family comes true generation upon generation. That is, until six generations later when the long-hidden truth is revealed…. This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

This audiobook features the classic A Christmas Carol, narrated by actor and performer Sam Goodyear, and ten more of Dickens' most famous and best-loved Christmas stories to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth. Dickens was the man who almost literally created the spirit of Christmas as we know it today.

Matthew Arnold praised the Iliad for its "nobility", as has everyone ever since - but ancient critics praised it for its enargeia, its "bright unbearable reality" (the word used when gods come to earth, not in disguise but as themselves). To retrieve the poem's energy, Alice Oswald has stripped away its story, and her account focuses by turns on Homer's extended similes and on the brief 'biographies' of the minor war-dead, most of whom are little more than names, but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably - and unforgotten - in the copiousness of Homer's glance.

Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" took a meandering course toward publication. Originally written in 1803 as a satire of the popular Gothic novels of the day, the book was not published until after Austen's death in 1817. The story concerns seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland, who has lived her entire life in the small village of Fullerton with her parents and nine siblings. This sedate (and frankly boring) life is upended when Catherine receives an invitation to visit the resort city of Bath and thus break out of her humdrum existence.

A coleção Contos Clássicos Era Uma Vez traz as mais populares histórias da literatura infantil. A cada volume, uma narrativa diferente é apresentada de forma simples e encantadora para os pequenos leitores.

While he is most famous for his didactic fable, The Prophet, the works of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) address a wide range of philosophical and social issues. The overriding theme of his narratives is not the religious universalism that he is supposed to represent, but rather the inevitable conflict between human aspirations and the remorseless machinations of fate.

This Audiobook contains The Complete Christmas Collections of Charles Dickens: "A Christmas Carol" Start at Chapters 1, "A Message From The Sea" Start at Chapters 7, "Doctor Marigold" Start at Chapters 15, "Going Into Society" Start at Chapters 17, "Mrs Lirripers Legacy" Start at Chapters 18, "Mugby Junction" Start at Chapters 21, "No Thoroughfare" Start at Chapters 25, "A Christmas tree" Start at Chapters 38, "Nobody's Story" Start at Chapters 39, "The Child's Story" Start at Chapters 40, "The Poor Relation's Story" Start at Chapters 41, "The Schoolboy's Story" Start at Chapters 42.