If you were looking for the definitive Christmas anthology, consider yourself lucky, because you just found it! This book is everything you want Christmas to be — loving, warm and celebratory. Timeless and adorable, beautifully designed, "The Big Book of Christmas" is a great big stocky book — stuffed with novels, novellas, short stories, poems, carols and songs. Inside you'll find: · Novels, novellas and short stories from Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, O. He...

The Big Book of Ghost Stories: 140 Horror Novels & Short Story Collections maps the ghostly imagination across the Gothic, Romantic, Victorian, Edwardian, and modern traditions. Its capacious selection ranges from ancestral curses, haunted houses, doubles, revenants, and spectral revenge to psychologically ambiguous apparitions and folkloric visitations. Novels and short fiction mingle with fairy-tale, sensation, decadent, imperial, and supernatural-investigation modes, revealing how the g...

The medieval era of Japan was marked by a century of civil strife known as the Warring States period (1469-1573). The century prior had seen the sword replace the bow and arrow as the chief weapon of the samurai, thus setting the stage for this golden age of Japanese swordsmanship. Every man who called himself a warrior pledged his allegiance and life to a warlord and honed his martial skills to defend his patron to the death on the field of battle.One such warrior was Kami...

This is the true story of the eventful history of the famous Yagyū clan—a story that began during the early heady days of the Genkō Rebellion (1331–33), when emperor Go-Daigo sought to restore power to the throne with the support of the Yagyū and other loyal clans. It follows their campaigns on behalf of Go-Daigo's southern court during the Northern and Southern Courts period (1334–1392), and their long and hard struggle to retain their independence when the country rapidly descended into ...

Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1584-1645) is the most revered and celebrated swordsman in Japanese history; unfortunately, our modern portrait of this folk hero is derived mainly from popular books, comics, and film, with little heed paid to the early records by men who knew Musashi, practiced with Musashi, and went into battle with Musashi.Spanning a period of more than a decade, the author set out to translate all surviving records on Musashi. The result is a body of text ...

"An ambitious study, the fruit of sustained work over many years. Professor Carter's book deploys a stunning knowledge of Proust and places Carter among the first line of Proust scholars in the country."-Roger Shattuck,Boston UniversityThe Proustian Quest is the first full-length study that explores the influence of social change on Proust's vision. In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust describes how the machines of transportation and communication transform...

"The Big Book of Early Fantasy" is a magnificent literary compilation that offers readers a captivating journey into the world of ancient and timeless fantasy. This comprehensive anthology features classic tales and myths, including the "Epic of Gilgamesh," "Twenty-Two Goblins," "One Thousand and One Nights," "Myths and Legends of Troy," "King Arthur," and "The Story of the Volsungs." From the earliest recorded epic of "The Epic of Gilgamesh," a story of heroism and friendship, to the rich...

The American classic—as you’ve never experienced it before. This multimedia edition, edited by William Davies King, offers an interactive guide to O’Neill’s masterpiece. Hear rare archival recordings of Eugene O’Neill reading key scenes. Discover O’Neill’s creative process through the tiny pencil notes in his original manuscripts and outlines. Watch actors wrestle with the play in exclusive rehearsal footage. Experience clips from a full produc...

This theoretically innovative anthology investigates the problematic linkages between conserving cultural heritage, maintaining cultural diversity, defining and establishing cultural citizenship, and enforcing human rights.It is the first publication to address the notions of cultural diversity, cultural heritage and human rights in one volume. Heritage provides the basis of humanity’s rich cultural diversity. While there is a considerable literature dealing separately with cultura...

Shifting Baselines explores the real-world implications of a groundbreaking idea: we must understand the oceans of the past to protect the oceans of the future. In 1995, acclaimed marine biologist Daniel Pauly coined the term "shifting baselines" to describe a phenomenon of lowered expectations, in which each generation regards a progressively poorer natural world as normal. This seminal volume expands on Pauly's work, showing how skewed visions of the past have led to disastrous ...

The promise of opportunity drew twenty-seven-year-old Illinois schoolteacher William Winlock Miller west to the future Washington Territory in 1850. Like so many other Oregon Trail emigrants Miller arrived cash-poor and ambitious, but unlike most he fulfilled his grandest ambitions. By the time of his death in 1876, Miller had amassed one of the largest private fortunes in the territory and had used it creatively in developing the region’s assets, leaving a significant mark on the territor...

Covering the adventures of coastal and ocean explorers who made key discoveries and landmark observations from northern California up the coastline to Alaska during the mid-1700s to the early 1800s, this anthology of primary source journal entries, book excerpts, maps, and drawings enables readers to "discover" the Northwest Coast for themselves.More than 200 years ago, explorers traveled from Central America, Russia, and even Europe to explore the coastline of the...