Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson issued a call for a great poet to capture and immortalize the unique American experience.In 1855, an answer came with Leaves of Grass.Today, this masterful collection remains not only a seminal event in American literature but also the incomparable achievement of one of America’s greatest poets—an exuberant, passionate man who loved his country and wrote of it as no other has ever done. Walt Whitman was a singer, thinker, visionary, and citizen extraordi...

A classic Dickens story; with a story within a story; a Uriah Heap character; with death; deliverance; anger; and revenge afoot.

The bard's sonnets read by a leading actor of stage and screen Simon Callow.Savor the most celebrated love poems in the English language. Written almost 400 years ago, the sonnets of William Shakespeare are passionate and exalted, rich in imagery and alliteration, and full of mystery and intrigue.This selection presents all 154 sonnets composed from 1593-1601. In words and rhyme, he reveals his infatuation with the "Dark Lady," his relationship with a rival poet, and his pr...

First published in March 1722, 57 years after the event that struck more than 100,000 people, Journal of the Plague Year is a compelling portrait of life during London’s horrific bubonic plague. Through the eyes of H.F. (speculated to be Defoe’s uncle, Henry Foe, from whose journals the book was supposedly adapted) we witness great grief, depravity and despair: crazed sufferers roam the streets, unearthly screams resound across the city, death carts dump their grisly loads into mass graves...

In perhaps his most important literary feat, Norman Mailer fashions an unprecedented portrait of one of the great villains—and enigmas—in United States history. Here is Lee Harvey Oswald—his family background, troubled marriage, controversial journey to Russia, and return to an “America [waiting] for him like an angry relative whose eyes glare in the heat.” Based on KGB and FBI transcripts, government reports, letters and diaries, and Mailer’s own international research, this is an epic ac...

Some race to win. Others race to survive. It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn't giv...

A true 20th-century classic from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Sound and the Fury: the famed harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother.As I Lay Dying is one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama. Narrated in turn by each of the family members, including Addie herself as well as others, the novel ranges in mood from da...

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin. • The definitive corrected text, including Faulkner's AppendixOne of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsThe Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in li...

Lemuel Gulliver travels on four distinct journeys to exotic strange locations. Some of which include to a place where tiny people live, another of which someone is 72 feet tall. In each of the places he visits he has encounters inhabitants that exhibit some depravity and some good in the nature of their personalities. This audio classic novel has been carefully abridged and adapted into 10 short, easy to understand chapters. This format enables listeners of all ages and English language ab...

The Time Machine is the fascinating oral diary of the Time Traveler-the first man to journey beyond the conventional limits of time. As the first of H.G. Wells' visionary novels, it created the science fiction genre by giving us a tantalizing glimpse at the future. When the Time Traveler crash-lands in the year 802,701, he is surrounded by lush landscapes and a small, gentle people named Eloi. Amazed by their apparent bliss, he wishes to bring their secrets back to his troubled time. As th...

The complete box set of T.H. White’s magnificent retelling of the Arthurian legend. The novel is made up of five parts: The Sword in the Stone, The Witch in the Wood, The Ill-Made Knight, The Candle in the Wind, and The Book of Merlyn. Humane, warmly funny and deeply touching, White’s epic fantasy novel is a true classic.