Originally curated by Harvard President Charles W. Eliot as a complete liberal education in fifty volumes, the Harvard Classics gathers philosophy, science, literature, and history into a single indispensable library. Plato's dialogues and Marcus Aurelius's meditations sit alongside Dante's Divine Comedy, Francis Bacon's essays, Charles Darwin's scientific writing, and Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, tracing the foundations of Western thought from ancient Greece to the modern age. Homer...

Hallblithe's betrothed is carried off by sea-raiders, and he follows her to the Glittering Plain — a land where nobody dies, nobody ages, and nobody is permitted to leave. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today and printed this at his own Kelmscott Press in 1891, the first book he made there; the immortality on offer is the thing the hero has to refuse.

The narrator dreams himself into Kent in 1381, the night before the Peasants' Revolt, and hears John Ball preach at the cross — then sits with him in the church afterwards and tells him what the next five hundred years will do to everything he is about to die for. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today and was a socialist; this is the argument of his life, put as a conversation between two men who cannot help each other.

A socialist falls asleep after a meeting in Hammersmith and wakes in a Thames valley with no money, no prisons, no factories and no London — only workshops, gardens and people who find work a pleasure. Morris wrote it in answer to Bellamy's regimented utopia, which he detested; his wallpapers are still in production, and his politics are still an argument.

Golden Walter, fleeing a bad marriage, sails away and comes to a land beyond the world's edge, where a Lady, a Maid and a Dwarf live in a house in a wood — and the Maid tells him at once that the Lady will destroy him. Morris designed the wallpapers still in production today, printed this at his own Kelmscott Press in 1894, and with it began modern fantasy: Tolkien and Lewis both read it early.

Ralph of Upmeads, youngest son of a small king, rides out for the Well at the World's End, whose water grants long life and a kind of grace — and the road there passes through war, slavery and a woman who has drunk from it already. Morris invented the modern fantasy quest here: Tolkien and Lewis both read it closely, and the wandering, the maps and the invented country all begin in this book.

Spanning centuries, 'The Greats of Sci-Fi: H.G. Wells Edition' emerges as a seminal anthology that traverses the varied terrains of science fiction. The works selected for this collection not only showcase the inventive richness that characterizes the genre but also illuminate the essential themes of exploration, societal critique, and technological speculation. From the haunting depths of psychological manipulation to the exhilarating realms of interstellar travel, the literary styles var...

Child Christopher, a king's son raised in ignorance of it, and Goldilind, a queen kept prisoner in her own castle by the man who governs for her — they meet in a wood, as outlaws. Morris took the plot from the medieval romance of Havelok the Dane and rewrote it in his late deliberate English; his wallpapers are still in production, and this romance, printed at his own Kelmscott Press, was made to be beautiful as an object first.

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 Water of the Wondrous Isles is a landmark in fantasy fiction. First published a year after Morris's death in 1897 by Kelmscott Press-Morris's own printing company-the novel follows Birdalone, a young girl who is stolen as a baby by a witch who takes her to serve in the woods of Evilshaw.After she encounters a wood fairy that helps her escape the witch's clutches, Birdalone embarks on a series of adventures across the titular Wondrous Isles. These isles are used by Morr...

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Young Osberne seems destined for greatness. As a fearless boy, he shows a willingness to fight. He's helped at key times in his life by a mysterious friend who appears briefly to give aid or to provide magical gifts. One day Osberne discovers a girl, Elfhild, who lives on the other side of the Sundering Flood, a stron...

Follow Ralph of Upmeads on a quest that takes him through the "Wall of the World" to the lands beyond, searching for the wellspring of immortality. The narrative is a prototypical fantasy journey, moving through a carefully mapped secondary world filled with tyrants, hermits, and strange magic. It balances the physical adventure with a deeper allegory about the renewal of the spirit and the healing of the earth. This work is a direct ancestor of the modern fantasy genre, influencing the st...