The first book in this Elizabethan epic poem follows the adventures of the chivalrous Redcrosse Knight and his virtuous love Lady Una. Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene ushered in a new sensibility in English literature as the reunited country entered the seventeenth century. In his distinctive verse form-which came to be known as the Spenserian stanza-Spenser inspired his countrymen with tales of noble adventure, romance, and chivalry. This first...

Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916) is a poetry collection by Amy Lowell. Published at the beginning of her career as an influential imagist devoted to classical poetic themes and forms, Men, Women, and Ghosts is an agile and promising work from a pioneering poet of the early twentieth century.

Troilus and Criseyde (c.1385) is an epic poem written by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in Middle English, Troilus and Criseyde is the story of two lovers forced apart by the Greek siege of Troy. Often considered Chaucer's finest work for its structural consistency and completeness, the poem adapts Homer's Iliad and other ancient sources which expand on its tradition to tell a Christian moral tale about the importance of faith and the sacred...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

In 1928, there were three lesbian novels published in England: Viriginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, Compton Mackenzie's Extraordinary Women, and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. Between them, each book offered then-revolutionary ideas about love, sexuality, and gender; but only one has been banned, welcomed praise, and garnered controversy for almost a century. Stephen Gordon has always been different. Firstly, she was born a girl against...

In 1872, Isabella Bird, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement. The letters that make up this volume were first published in 1879. They tell of magnificent, unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife, of encounters with rattlesnakes,...

This complete study edition of William Shakespeare's classic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream includes background on Shakespeare's life and Renaissance theater, questions, writing ideas, and projects.

The Aeneid, by Vergil, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, uses his skill at controlling natural forces to cause the shipwreck of his old opponents, forcing them to seek refuge on the island where he and his daughter Miranda have been living in exile, and setting the stage for Miranda to fall in love with Ferdinand, the prince of Naples. Includes explanatory notes, plot summaries, critical essay, and illustrations.

First performed in 1882, "Ghosts" is the controversial and tragic play by the famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is the story of Helen Alving, a wealthy widow who was unhappily married to her unfaithful husband. Helen has tried to shelter her son, Oswald, from the corrupting influence of his father's immoral behavior and has sent him away only to discover that he is suffering from syphilis inherited from his father. Oswald has also unfortunately...