Ancient Classics

Alexander Kuprin prefaced his novel The Pit about the lives of early 20th century Russian prostitutes as follows, "I know many people will find this novel amoral and inappropriate, but nevertheless I dedicated it from the bottom of my heart to mothers and young people" Indeed, the novel's publication was followed by an explosion of outrage. The "good" society accused Kuprin of slander and forever exiled him from its sitting rooms, charity auctions, and holiday balls. Progressive intellecutals winced and shuddered, but could not help admitting Kuprin had a point.

"Abandon all hope you who enter here." Dante's Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism.

The extraordinary and best-selling journeys of one woman throughout time... An enormous vortex spiralled above the Earth, out beyond the orbit of the moon. Its centre was expanding to form a huge glowing corridor through the fabric of space. This brilliant mass shot forth thousands of glowing balls of light that proceeded to descend toward our planet.

Originally meant to be heard rather than read, this great epic returns to the oral form for today's listeners.

Primo capolavoro della letteratura occidentale, scritto probabilmente intorno all'VIII secolo a.C., l'Iliade è, insieme con l'Odissea, uno dei pilastri di tutta la cultura occidentale. Nel poema si narrano i 51 giorni della guerra di Troia, dall'ira di Achille ai funerali di Ettore, densi di battaglie ed imprese nelle quali si intrecciano continuamente i destini di dèi ed eroi.

On Christmas Eve, a traveler finds himself waiting out a snowstorm at the Holly Tree Inn. While passing the hours waiting for the weather to pass so his coach can continue its journey, the warm hearth of the inn brings his mind to roam to pass recollections, both happy and grave. He also ponders the true meaning of his current journey and reason for his melancholy: the woman he planned on marrying is, instead, going to marry his best friend. However, the delay at the inn is about to bring him a miraculous discovery.

Narrated in Middle English by J.B. Bessinger, Jr.

En este sorprendente debut, la historiadora Violet Moller rastrea los caminos que tomaron las ideas de tres de los más grandes científicos de la Antigüedad -Euclides, Galeno y Ptolomeo- a lo largo de más de mil años y a través de siete ciudades, centros de conocimiento excepcionales, donde una serie de personajes curiosos y eruditos, apoyados por un puñado de jefes de Estado ilustrados, rescataron y difundieron sus obras.

Among the ancient artifacts concealed in a London Victorian mansion lies an ornate human-sized sarcophagus which houses the body of an ancient Egyptian sorceress dead for centuries...or is she?

Thomas Bulfinch, as one reviewer put it, "Created an anthology of mythology." This audiobook contains the first 14 chapters of The Age of Fable, the first of three volumes, comprising Bulfinch's complete work. The Age of Fable recounts stories of Greek Gods, Demigods and the best known characters in mythology. In our times, many references are made to these stories and characters in the arts, especially in the fine arts, theatre, and literature.

Versión en prosa de uno de los clásicos absolutos de la literatura universal: "La Ilíada" de Homero, que narra el rapto de Helena de Troya a manos de Paris y la posterior guerra entre aqueos y troyanos por recuperarla, con la intervención de las diferentes fuerzas de la naturaleza encarnadas por dioses y semidioses. Una lectura capital para todos aquellos aficionados a la Grecia clásica y a la buena literatura.

The Rise of Western Lawlessness: Second Edition is an expansion of Volume 1 and includes a foreword by Douglas W. Krieger. Many images have been added to better illustrate the the philosophies of man and the spiritual systems of wickedness that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of Christ. Steinle takes the reader on a journey through 3,000 years of western history exposing the deceptive spirits of humanism and deism rooted in ancient philosophy- the same ungodly influences that were reintroduced to western thought during the Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment. Along the way, ...

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning king of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers, from Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops, and the seductive Sirens, to the love of Calypso on her all-too-comfortable isle.

Most of the great Greek stories and epic tales are initiated over women, which is exactly what happens in the very beginning of The Iliad by Homer. The Trojan War has been waging for nearly a decade, and really erupted when Helen, the wife to Menelaos, was kidnapped and thus launched the "thousand ships" in pursuit of her. This is the reason that the Achaians and the Trojans have been fighting each other for so long. Achilles, who has become hero to the Greeks, is given the present of a slave girl for his excellence in battle.

Sappho was a female poet who was well known in ancient Greece and Rome for her lyrical poetry. She was most famous for her poems involving women who loved women, and it is from her name that sapphic, a term referring to sexual relations between women, originated. This is a compendium of her surviving work, a collection of 54 fragments translated by Henry de Vere Stacpoole.

Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.

"The Theogony" (“Birth of the Gods”) is a poem by Hesiod which describes the origin, position and relationships of the gods of the Greek pantheon. Hesiod created a synthesis of the diverse Greek traditions concerning the gods, in the form of a hymn invoking Zeus and the Muses. The Theogony is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony. However, it should not be considered as the authoritative source of Greek mythology, but rather as a portrait of a dynamic tradition that was recorded around 700 BCE.

In The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey tells the little-known - and deeply shocking - story of how a militant religion deliberately tried to extinguish the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in unquestioning adherence to the 'one true faith'. The Roman Empire had been generous in embracing and absorbing new creeds. But with the coming of Christianity, everything changed. This new faith, despite preaching peace, was violent, ruthless and intolerant. And once it became the religion of empire, its zealous adherents set about the destruction of the old gods.

The Phaedrus by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. It was probably written around 370 BC, at about the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium. Ostensibly about love, the discussion in the dialogue focuses on the art of rhetoric and how it ought to be practiced. The dialogue appears in the direct words of Socrates and Phaedrus, without an introduction.

Join "The Knave" and Sir Walter on a wild tale of mistaken identity, kidnapping, bowling, and a rug that, in faith, really tied the room together - in a sidesplitting Shakespearean comedy of errors and ninepins, told in five glorious acts of iambic pentameter and impeccable period prose.