Modern Classics

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.

This inspirational audiobook encapsulates African American history and invites conversations at all levels. Carole Boston Weatherford’s riveting text is an informative reminder of yesterday, a hopeful image for today, and an aspirational dream of tomorrow. Starting from 1619 and stretching more than four hundred years, this audiobook features such pivotal moments in history as the arrival of enslaved people in Jamestown, Virginia; Nat Turner's rebellion; the integration of the US military; and more.

Una nueva y veloz visitante ha llegado a un bosque desconocido. Nadie se atreve a competir con la liebre. ¿Nadie? No exactamente. La más inesperada corredora intentará ganarle una carrera. En esta fábula en verso moderno, los niños revisitarán el clásico relato de La liebre y la tortuga y aprenderán valores como la constancia, la superación y la confianza en sí mismos.

Ebenezer Krow is a relentless man who charges through life, holding himself and everyone else to the letter of the law. Krow’s nephew, his employees, his business associates - even mankind in general - all feel the castigating burn of Krow’s glare. One night, on Christmas Eve, Krow is visited by his long-dead business partner, Marley Chastain. The ghost warns Krow that three spirits, one of them a devil, will assail him throughout the night. But will the harrowing experience be enough to tear the scab from his sin-scarred soul?

A collection of short stories from such favorites as Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rudyard Kipling are joined by others written anonymously in this anthology which will have you scratching your head and listening just a bit longer to discover the key to the mysteries.

The author, a prolific writer and a member of the Theosophical Society, describes his personal journey through the Masonic fraternity, as a co-mason. He explains his shock with the familiarity of the lodge room, as he recalled it exactly from a past life in ancient Egypt. He proceeds to compares the modern masonic ritual with ancient Egyptian mysteries, which he clearly remembers. He explains that the fraternity purposely pretended to be operative masons, to avoid persecution from the Church.

A Modern Lover was written by D H Lawrence in 1909. A young man returns home to his first love to declare his feelings for her but the moment is lost when the girl will not give herself sexually. This theme was to be explored fully in Lawrence’s novel, Sons and Lovers.

When a US expedition is attacked, three survivors—a professor, her student and a soldier—are saved by a mysterious vessel, the Naumtsev. The enigmatic Captain Nikto elects to keep the captives aboard, requiring each of their skills for his daring pursuits. But as evidence of a rogue submarine alerts the world's navies, the captives must work together to avoid annihilation.

What if the remarkable story of Ebenezer Scrooge was true? What if the account was relayed to Dickens, and he turned it into A Christmas Carol? What if the ghostly visitations did not begin or end with Scrooge, but the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and yet to come visit one misanthropic soul in need of reclamation every Christmas Eve? This modern-day sequel to the Charles Dickens classic assumes all of the above. And this time, the spiritual trio’s attentions have been directed to a not-so-nice woman in Philadelphia.

Orphaned at a young age. Rejected by her stepfamily. Shipped off to boarding school. Has Jane finally found her fairy tale as a live-in tutor for the daughter of the infamously moody yet strangely compelling rap artist Edward Richmond, aka “E.R.”? Maybe Beauty and the Beast. Except she’s no beauty - just plain Jane. And his rock-and-roll lifestyle disturbs and even endangers her. It’s safer following her principles than passion. Yet Jane finds herself simultaneously attracted and repelled by this reputed “bad boy” who seems oddly determined to win her approval.

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.

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).

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.

This anthology, first published in 1919, is very much a record of its time. Many of the poems deal with the cataclysmic trauma of World War One and the emergence of a new world order after the fading of the Edwardian era. Among the authors of the 151 poems can be found the names of Rupert Brooke and Ivor Gurney, best known as war poets, as well as James Joyce and the mystic philosopher Evelyn Underhill.

Il mito eterno del mostro, della creatura che viene strappata alla morte dalla scienza torna a vivere...

Rainer Maria Rilke und Joachim Ringelnatz sind wohl zwei der bekanntesten Vertreter ihrer Stilepochen. Sie schreiben von der Liebe zur und Unterdrückung der Natur durch die fortschreitende Modernisierung und Urbanisierung. Kaum ein anderer Lyriker als diese zwei stellt den Epochenumschwung von Naturalismus zur Moderne derart meisterlich dar.