Renaissance Fiction

This book compiles both the first (1855) and final (1892) versions of Walt Whitman's masterpiece Song of Myself in one volume, making it unique and valuable for students of American literature.

Scotland, 1567. A pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots is dragged out of her palace by rebel lords and imprisoned in the isolated Lochleven Castle, an ancient fortress surrounded by a vast lake. Her infant son and heir, James, has been captured by her enemies. Accompanying Mary are two inconspicuous serving women: observant, ambitious Jane and romantic, quick-tempered Cuckoo, who endeavor to keep their mercurial mistress company while sharing the space of a claustrophobic room over the course of their eleven-month forced stay. Their hosts want them dead. They'll settle for Mary's abdication.

How to Be Both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life's givens get given a second chance.

Acompaña a Lucy Honeychurch, una joven inglesa de espíritu libre, en su viaje a Florencia junto a su conservadora prima, Charlotte Bartlett. En medio del esplendor renacentista, los ojos de Lucy se abren a un mundo más allá de los estrictos límites de la Inglaterra victoriana. Guiada por el enigmático George Emerson, se enfrenta a las normas sociales y se embarca en una búsqueda de la verdad personal y la libertad. E.M. Forster teje magistralmente una historia rica en profundidad emocional, explorando las complejidades del amor, las presiones sociales y la búsqueda de la autenticidad.

It’s the fifteenth century and only heretics are curious about the universe. Germany, 1494. Born under a rare alignment of the stars, Johann Georg Gerlach, "the lucky one" to his mother - is fated for greatness. But Johann’s studies and wonder at the sky have made him suspect. Especially in wake of the child disappearances that have left the God-fearing locals trembling and his one true love trapped in terrified catatonia. Her only words: "I have seen the devil..."

A secret past can destroy the future. It all begins when Wade Kaplan receives a strange, coded email from his uncle Henry, shortly before the old man's sudden and suspicious death. He sets off for Germany to attend the funeral with his father, Roald, and his three friends Darrell, Lily, and Becca, only to discover that Uncle Henry left them yet another baffling message that they suspect is the key to figuring out how and why he died. The message leads to a clue, which sends them to a dark and creepy family tomb.

Hassan Clarke is a self-proclaimed ladies' man with his eyes set on the prize. With his jovial ways and gift for gab, he has managed to weasel his way into the lives of two women - his wife, Destiny, and his mistress, Imani. His mistress is a gold-digging, self-serving side chick determined to be with her married lover even if it means losing everything, including her soul, to get to him. However, after putting years of hard work and her hard-earned money into building her husband's firm, Destiny doesn't plan to forgo all the benefits without a fight.

Claude McKay’s first novel, Home to Harlem, was published in 1928 during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. McKay portrays Harlem post-WWI through two Black migrants to New York: Jake, a Southern-born African American longshoreman who deserts the U.S. army and returns to his home in Harlem; and Ray, an educated Haitian immigrant. With his innovative use of Black dialects, McKay portrays a complex world of Black people, both native-born and immigrant, who navigate a dynamic society in the midst of radical change.

Florence, 1500. Fresco painter Jacopo Torni longs to make his mark in the world. But while his peers enjoy prestigious commissions, his meager painting jobs are all earmarked to pay down gambling debts. When Jacopo hears of a competition to create Florence's greatest sculpture, he pins all his hopes on a collaboration with his boyhood companion, Michelangelo Buonarroti. But will the frustrated artist ever emerge from the shadow of his singularly gifted friend?

Milano, 1496. Leonardo da Vinci ha atteso con ansia quel primo incontro con frate Luca Pacioli, allievo di Piero della Francesca e illustre matematico. Entrato nella cella del frate nel monastero che lo ospita, nell'attesa che questi arrivi, Leonardo si sofferma su un dipinto che ritrae lo studioso. Un insieme di allegorie e di richiami alla geometria euclidea che lo colpisce infinitamente: di certo è stato il frate a scegliere ogni dettaglio.

Florence, 1497 - Bûcher des vanités. Ce matin, des bandes d'enfants ont terrorisé la rue pour confisquer tous les objets incarnant la richesse ou le plaisir. Savonarole peut compter sur son "armée des anges". Le feu qui consumera tout à l'heure le paganisme et l'impiété sera son triomphe. Songeur, Sandro Botticelli observe l'une de ses plus belles œuvres se faire dévorer par les flammes, quand une main se pose sur son épaule. Léonard de Vinci, son vieil ami, son plus grand ami est revenu en terre florentine !Mais l'artiste apporte une triste nouvelle : sa mère, Caterina, est morte, lui laissant pour tout héritage une étrange lettre indéchiffrable.

Shakespeare's plays have been beloved for so many years that his characters and words have shaped our world today. This collection has adapted these works adapted for younger listeners, introducing them to iconic characters such as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt.

Beatrice is the convent's librarian. For years, she has shunned the company of her sisters, finding solace only with her manuscripts. Then, one carnival night, two women, bleeding and stricken, are abandoned outside the convent's walls. Moments from death, one of them presses something into Beatrice's hands: a bewitching book whose pages have a dangerous life of their own.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of the most iconic masterpieces of the Renaissance. Here, in Raphael, Painter in Rome, Storey tells of its creation as never before: through the eyes of Michelangelo's fiercest rival - the young, beautiful, brilliant painter of perfection, Raphael. Orphaned at age 11, Raphael is determined to keep the deathbed promise he made to his father: become the greatest artist in history. But to be the best, he must beat the best, the legendary sculptor of the David, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

A passionate story of forbidden love set in Renaissance Florence.

May 1536: Queen Anne Boleyn has fallen and Jane Seymour is about to become Queen, yet the King's new love is troubled not only by the fall and execution of his last wife and Queen, but by the creeping feeling that she knows not the man she has promised to marry. As Jane steps into the palaces of the King, emerging quietly as England's Queen, she finds herself haunted by thoughts of Anne Boleyn, Katherine of Aragon and what the past means for her own fate. And Jane is not the only one troubled by the actions of King Henry VIII.

During the sweltering Roman summer of 1492, Rodrigo Borgia has risen to power as pope. Rodrigo’s eldest son Cesare, forced to follow his father into the church and newly made the Archbishop of Valencia, chafes at his ecclesiastical role and fumes with jealousy and resentment at the way that his foolish brother has been chosen for the military greatness he desired. Maddalena Moretti comes from the countryside, where she has seen how the whims of powerful men wreak havoc on the lives of ordinary people. But now, employed as a servant in the Vatican Palace, she cannot help but be entranced by Cesare Borgia.

A riveting love story with a captivating mystery at its heart, Mistress of the Sun resurrects a fascinating female figure from the shadows of history, and illuminates both the power of true and perfect love and the rash actions we take to capture and tame it.

Literature Professor Dr. Addie Cox is living a happy, if sheltered, life in her ivory tower when Harris Lang, the famously eccentric billionaire tech genius, offers her an unusual job. He wants her to guide a mercenary strike team sent to infiltrate his island retreat off the northwest coast of the United States. Addie is puzzled by her role on the mission until she understands what Lang has built: Insula Mirabilis, an isolated resort where tourists will one day pay big bucks for a convincing, high-tech-powered fantasy-world experience, complete with dragons, unicorns, and magic.

After the kaiju attack of Kaw City, Police Chief Brannigan Novak, and his friends attempt to return to a sense of normalcy. But while denizens of Kaw City struggle with the past, there is a whisper of a new threat—a drug-fueled, primordial alligator creature!