Modern Classics Literature

An experimental novella reimagining the main figure of TS Eliot's classic poem of memory, hopelessness, and loss in a contemporary setting. "No one wants to hear a lonely middle aged man talk about cities or memory. No one wants to know that the world exists in a kaleidoscope of colors. For one man, indigo is life, and he does not have time for the man for whom yellow is."

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He's engaged to be married and the employment market in Britain in 1937 is pretty slim. So when his fiancée points out the position with an English armaments manufacturer in Italy, he jumps at the chance. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth about his predecessor's departure and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realises that it's not so simple just to do the job he's paid for - not in fascist Italy, on the eve of a world war.

Pilgrim’s Progress: A Contemporary Journey of Faith Embark on a timeless adventure in this fresh, narrative retelling of Pilgrim’s Progress, now brought to life in contemporary English for today’s readers! Follow Christian, burdened by the weight of his doubts and fears, as he sets out from the City of Destruction toward the Celestial City. Along the way, he faces pressures such as traversing the Slough of Despond, standing firm in the face of Apollyon, and navigating the dazzling snares of Vanity Fair, all which threaten to pull him from the path of following Christ. With each step, ...

Tom Ripley is quietly living in luxury at his chateau at Villeperce. He has a past, however, that would not bear too much close scrutiny. He is certain that he has covered his tracks where murder and forgery are concerned. But when a certain American couple move in next door, he soon realises his every move is being shadowed. Ripley fears his secrets may be discovered, and he will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening.

Detective stories existed for centuries before the concept of the detective itself—amateur or professional— was fully formulated, and tales of mystery and intrigue have been thrilling readers since ancient times. The Lock and Key Library is the classic overview of the history of the mystery genre, at once a rousing listen for fans of the unsolved and unknown as well as an essential literary resource for those seeking to understand the roots of modern pulp fiction. This volume is sure to delight and enthrall armchair detectives and fans of classic mysteries alike.

Millions of pounds have gone missing, and the Department have sent agent Bernard Samson to Washington to track them down. But this mission is just the start of something far deeper and darker. It will take him from the English suburbs to Berlin, the South of France to Los Angeles and the heart of a maelstrom. In the first part of the Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy, friends become enemies, pursuer becomes victim and no one - not even Bernard himself - is above suspicion.

It is 1940 and Mr Graham, a quietly spoken engineer and arms expert, has just finished high-level talks with the Turkish government. And now somebody wants him dead. The previous night three shots were fired at him as he stepped into his hotel room, so, terrified, he escapes in secret on a passenger steamer from Istanbul. As he journeys home, he enters a nightmarish world where friend and foe are indistinguishable. Graham can try to run, but he may not be able to hide for much longer.

When a troubled young runaway arrives on Tom Ripley's French estate, he is drawn into a world he thought he'd left behind: the seedy underworld of Berlin, involving kidnapping plots, lies and deception. Ripley becomes the boy's protector as friendship develops between the young man with a guilty conscience and the older one with no conscience at all.

Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, or simply Three Dialogues, is a 1713 book on metaphysics and idealism by George Berkeley. The book was written as a response to the criticism of his work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Berkeley faced opposition from many philosophers who held to the Platonic view. He argues that sensible qualities like color, sound, temperature and even shape are not inherent in matter, but are ascribed and understood by the mind.

"Frankenstein o El moderno Prometeo, o simplemente Frankenstein, es una obra literaria de la escritora inglesa Mary Shelley. Publicado el 1 de enero de 1818 y enmarcado en la tradición de la novela gótica, el texto aborda temas como la moral científica, la creación y destrucción de vida, y el atrevimiento de la humanidad en su relación con Dios. De ahí el subtítulo de la obra: el protagonista intenta rivalizar en poder con Dios, como una suerte de Prometeo moderno que arrebata el fuego sagrado de la vida a la divinidad.

Over Faust en zijn duivelspact zijn talrijke werken geschreven: de Faust-gestalte behelst een mythe van de moderne mens. Wie was deze omstreden geleerde? En welke voorstellingen zijn er op hem geprojecteerd? In zijn hoorcollege neemt Michiel Hagdorn de luisteraar mee op een zoektocht naar Faust langs beroemde Faust-werken: van het oude volksboek Historia von Doctor Johann Fausten uit 1587 tot het meest recente Faust-drama van Tom Lanoye Oustfaust uit 2022.

We never forget the stories we were told as children. Even when they are not on the top of our mind, they lurk like palm prints on the drying cement foundations of our understanding of the world. We absorb the pluck of children in the face of adult perfidy, cheering the heroism of Hansel and Gretel or Beauty and the Beast. Counterpoised by the wickedness and cruelty of parents, stepmothers, and wolves in sheep's clothing, children's wiliness usually leaves them unharmed, if not heroic. As adults, we keep returning to them again and again in film, in theater, and in books.

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

Ease the hearts and minds of children who have recently moved with this delightful modern twist on the classic Christmas story, which teaches kids that true joy doesn't come from getting gifts.

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another.

"Kafka erscheint uns rätselhaft, dabei schreibt er doch eigentlich in einer schlichten Prosa, seine Schilderungen sind präzise, seine Personen reden in einfachen Worten und es wird weder um das, was sie tun, noch um das, das sie reden, noch um das, was ihnen zustößt, ein großes Gewese gemacht. Aber wir verstehen nicht. Oder glauben, nicht zu verstehen. Oder wir verstehen, können aber nicht sagen, was eigentlich. Wir glauben immer etwas anderes, Drittes ausmachen zu müssen, das mit dem, was dort passiert, eigentlich bezeichnet wird, wir versuchen, das Rätsel zu lösen.

Driven mad by three years of endless telegrams, phonecalls, mail, reporters and snoopers in the wake of his hugely successful novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 'King of the Beats', needs peace, quiet and sobriety: surrounded and outnumbered he has to 'get away to solitude again or die'. Amidst the wild beauty of the Californian landscape, Kerouac struggles to come to terms with his own myth and its malign impact upon his life.

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.

Robert Benjamin Lewis (1802 - 1858) was an African American and Native American author, inventor, and entrepreneur. In the ethnological work Light and Truth, Lewis claims that Adam and Eve were people of color, as were the Egyptians and many great figures of the ancient world, including Julius Caesar and Plato. Denouncing notions of white superiority, he asserts that all humans have a common origin, and pointed to a shared cultural history between Africans and Native Americans.

An accomplished poet and the author of Canadian Hungarian Literature (1897 - 2017), Frank Veszely brings to the English listener the rich treasure-house of folk, classical, and modern Hungarian poetry (1000 - 2020).