Modern Classics Literature

Each of the best-selling writers represented in these selections from Legends II returns to the fantasy universe he or she made famous throughout the world. Whether set before or after events already recounted elsewhere, whether featuring beloved characters or compelling new creations, these masterful short novels are both mesmerizing standalones - perfect introductions to the work of their authors - and indispensable additions to the epics on which they are based.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals, such as the Clarion, Labour Leader, and Social Democrat. Based on familiar genres, these stories were meant to entertain readers of all ages - and some challenged the conventional values promoted in children’s literature for the middle class. Acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen brings together more than 40 of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beautiful volume.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

Vier moderne Klassiker in einer Box - über 37 Stunden Hörvergnügen! Klaus Mann: Mephisto. Franz Kafka: Der Process. Joseph Roth: Hiob. Heinrich Mann: Professor Unrat. In MEPHISTO wird die Geschichte des Schauspielers Hendrik Höfgen von 1926 bis 1936 erzählt. Höfgen, der sich erst spät während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus mit den Machthabern arrangiert und so zum Intendanten am Berliner Staatstheater ernannt wurde, flüchtet zunächst vor seinen zukünftigen Freunden nach Paris. Aufgrund seiner "kulturbolschewistischen" Vergangenheit hat er Angst vor einer Verfolgung.

Faith Hope lost both her first and middle names in a terrible fire, leaving her in physical and emotional pain. An angel of mercy disguised as a caregiver helps her recover them both. Faith Didn’t Die is a simple allegorical tale about finding one’s faith in hard times.

This is a modern adaptation of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. The story and characters remain the same; the text has been completely rewritten in modern language.

A Modern Cinderella is a collection of four short stories by Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. Like her more famous novels, Alcott tells stories of young women interacting with people and events from the late 1800s. Louisa May Alcott bestows a truly amusing and thoroughly modern retelling of The Brothers Grimm's Cinderella. Alcott pokes fun throughout, describing a "cool blonde" as "having many cares those happy little housewives never know."

Featuring 12 short stories where each one takes a well-known fairy tale and propels them into uncharted territories, creating surprising perspectives that challenge the very essence of the original tales.

Reducing the original text by almost forty pages, this abridged version of Frankenstein also updates the language of the original novel for modern listeners. Sentence by sentence, we have replaced outdated vocabulary and convoluted paragraphs in a way that is true to the original text but easier to follow. This version also provides careful edits of overly long and redundant scenes so that the main story moves along at a faster pace.

Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger and more powerful than the average man. Frankenstein rejects the creature, and lives to regret his desire to create life, after it kills his brother William. Frankenstein is a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer", the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Mary Shelley, aged 18, and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn.

Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Includes introduction and commentary by Mary Shelley. Required reading for any fan of science fiction and horror genres. A classic.

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of narratives written between 1387 and 1400, tells of a group of 30 people from all layers of society who pass the time along their pilgrimage to Canterbury by telling stories to one another, their interaction mediated (at times) by the affable host - Chaucer himself. Naxos AudioBooks’ third volume presents the tales of six people, here in an unabridged modern verse translation (by Frank Ernest Hill, 1935).

Jane Addams was an American activist, philosopher, sociologist, and Nobel Prize winner. Addams’ speech The Modern Lear was delivered in 1894 at the Chicago Women’s Club and the 20th Century Club of Boston before appearing in print in 1912. In the address, Addams discusses the Pullman Railroad Strike in the Summer of 1894 in addition to other labor, union, and ethics issues of the day, using the titular character from William Shakespeare’s King Lear, who was betrayed by his two daughters, as a potent analogy.

Ernest Belfort Bax (1854-1926) was an English barrister, journalist, philosopher, rights advocate, and historian. In this essay, after dismissing St. Simonism, Fourierism, Owenism, and “Continental Nihilists”, Bax attempts to explain what modern socialism, taken broadly, really means. He outlines the three bases of modern socialism as the direction of industry by a democratic state instead of by private capitalists; as a universal Federal Republic to take the place of the present nationalist system; and in religion, a human ideal to take the place of theological cults.

This rediscovered classic from the 1930s tells nine imaginative stories about trains, cars, and other machinery with human personalities. All nine stories are featured and children will delight in these tales of a lazy automobile, a runaway elevator, a hungry steam shovel, and other endearing machines.

This is a story from the "Great Ghost Stories" collection.

The story concerns a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who conducts a great experiment to see if he can create a living being from the body parts of corpses. Only whe the experiment is successful does he begin to think of the ethics and consequences of what he has done. The creature he created becomes embittered when he finds that no one will love him becuase of his appearance.

As the result of Victor Frankenstein's creation of a monster out of the remains of human corpses, a series of horrifying events occur. But who is responsible: the creature or his creator?

Few creatures of horror have seized imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and listeners and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense.