Classic Literature Anthology

Qui est cet inconnu capable d'en remontrer au grand Czentovic, le champion mondial des échecs, véritable prodige aussi fruste qu'antipathique ? Peut-on croire, comme il l'affirme, qu'il n'a pas joué depuis plus de vingt ans ? Les circonstances dans lesquelles l'homme a acquis sa science du jeu sont terribles. Elles renvoient aux expérimentations nazies sur les effets de l'isolement absolu, lorsque, aux frontières de la folie, le cerveau humain parvient à déployer ses facultés les plus étranges.

This highly entertaining anthology of verse is the comic, tragic, tender, and telling story of life's seven ages, from childhood to old age. Within the framework of Shakespeare's speech, "The Seven Ages of Man," performed by Sir Ian McKellen, are 150 great poems from all ages, from Chaucer to Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman and many others. The poem are presented by the finest cast ever assembled on one recording and includes Ralph Fiennes, Dame Judi Dench, John Cleese, Michael Caine, and more.

Charles Dickens was a major contributor to the romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in the Victorian era. With their heart, humor and good morals, Dickens' Christmas stories have made the author's name synonymous with the season. Here we present four charming novellas to complete his series that began with "A Christmas Carol", with echoes of sleigh bells throughout. The stories include "The Chimes", "The Cricket on the Hearth", "The Battle of Life", and "The Haunted Man" - the perfect companion for the yearly celebrations.

CONTENTS: A Suspicious Gift [Algernon Blackwood], Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp [Algernon Blackwood], The Wood of the Dead [Algernon Blackwood], A Baby Tramp [Ambrose Bierce], The Damned Thing [Ambrose Bierce], Dagon [H.P Lovecraft], The Horror of the Heights [Arthur Conan Doyle], The Descendant [H.P Lovecraft], The Cats of Ulthar [H.P Lovecraft], The Evil Clergyman [H.P Lovecraft], He [H.P Lovecraft], The Book [H.P Lovecraft], In the Vault [H.P Lovecraft], Nyarlathotep [H.P Lovecraft], Death and the Woman [Gertrude Atherton], The Striding Place [Gertrude Atherton].

Imagine you are hunting an enemy who happens to be your neighbor, and suppose that your neighbor is hunting you. What makes people who should be friends become fierce enemies? Who is the loser in this deadly fight? The answer may shock you.

Hoffmann, among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics, is renowned for his humorous and sometimes horrifying tales of supernatural beings. This selection, while stressing the variety of his work, focuses on those stories in which the real and the supernatural are brought into contact and conflict. This new translation includes The Golden Pot, The Sandman, Princess Brambilla, Master Flea, and My Cousin's Corner Window.

Bachelor John Marcher is haunted by the premonition that something terrible lies in store for him, like a "beast in the jungle" lying in wait. So he spends his life in idleness, unable to carry out his dreams or desires, while his friend May Bartram, curious to see how this spectacular fate will manifest, helps watch out for the arrival of the beast.

"The Great Wall of China" is a short story by Franz Kafka. While written in 1917, it was not published until 1930, seven years after his death. Its first publication occurred in Der Morgen, a German literary magazine. A year later, Max Brod included it in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer, the first posthumous collection of short stories by Franz Kafka. Contained within the story is a parable that was separately published as "A Message from the Emperor" ("Eine kaiserliche Botschaft") in 1919 in the collection Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor).

An old man recounts the story of a death he witnessed as a young boy working in the theater: His boss, Mr. Haliday, had married a pretty young lady from the theater, much to the chagrin of the other women working in the company. It was a marriage of convenience, but in the beginning they got along well enough. After a handsome younger man, Henry Mortimer, joins the theater company, Mrs. Haliday and Mortimer start up a romance that everyone but Mr. Haliday seem to notice.

Young Prince Zaphir, son of King Mago, was a kind young man much beloved by his people and all the animals around the kingdom. He is also quite taken with a young princess, the Princess Bluebell, who feels the same way for him. When a giant descends on the land and the army and other brave men who volunteer to fight him are defeated, Zaphir decides to face the Giant one on one, before more men risk their lives.

The Gombeen Man is an evil moneylender who several peasants owe money to. When the peasants find themselves unable to repay the wicked man on time, he is quick with his desire to take their land from them, refusing to take the payment from them in the future if they should be able to come up with it. The poor peasants are then forced to come up with a plan to keep their land from the evil Gombeen Man. This short story is actually a chapter from Stoker’s novel The Snake’s Pass, about a romance between an English tourist and an Irish peasant.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.

Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest and of the captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. Captain MacWhirr was an ordinary man. However, when his steamer Nan-Shan blunders into a hurricane, he and his crew must pull together to survive. The steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate becomes a partnership vital to human survival as they are challenged from without by the elements, and from within by human doubts and fears.

Welcome to Travers Corners, a dusty Montana town, where nothing much has happened since Herbert Hoover stopped for gas. Travers Corners, like most small towns, has no newspaper, no radio station; but here, large trout - no better than large trout, fictitious trout - await the angler. And apart from spreading gossip outside the McCraken’s General Store, the residents of Travers Corners love nothing more than fly fishing. Scott Waldie’s delightful cast of characters breathes life into this tiny, out-of-the-way town.

Every parent wants two things for their children: One is to have a rich, imaginative life; the other is to have everything they need to be physically healthy. Well, as far as colorful lives and staying healthy are concerned, Short Stories or Kids by Kids Club is just the thing! Using the most famous children's stories—including Aesop's Fables, The Three Little Pigs, Hansel and Gretel, and many more—this book will help your child enrich their life through the magic of storytelling and provide a wonderful, gadget-free sleep routine to help them recover from long, hectic days!

From best-selling authors Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, and Jeanne C. Stein comes an anthology of four all-new novellas featuring powerful women who know how to handle a hex or two. In "Double Hexed" from Allyson James, a novella of the Stormwalker series, Janet and her friends find themselves locked in her hotel, victims of a hex cast by a very powerful sorcerer.

The Last Hieroglyph is the fifth of the five-volume Collected Fantasies series. Editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger have compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's notes and letters, in order to prepare a definitive set of texts. The Last Hieroglyph includes, in chronological order, all of Clark Ashton Smith's stories from "The Dark Age" to "The Dart of Rasasfa".

"My father was in the hospital and every night when I visited him, I read aloud to him. James Thurber. And one night he said, 'You really should do that on your show,' and I said, 'Dad, it’s a television newscast. I’d love to, but how could it possibly fit?' And he said, 'How often have I ever suggested anything for your shows?' And I remembered that he never had. But I also reminded him that there were things like copyrights and bills, to which he said, 'Try it. You never know.'"

He went searching for a fresh start. He didn’t expect to find unusual friends, fierce enemies, and primal powers. Jason thought that it was the end of his life after being hunted and attacked by a band of ruthless thugs. Instead, he tapped into the source of creation and emerged from his death experience with magical powers. As a new mage, Jason finds himself part of a wonderful - and dangerous - new supernatural world.

A masterly new recording by Ralph Fiennes. Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in 20th-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author.