Description
Stanley Weinbaum was an influential science fiction writer who died at an early age. His short story “A Martian Odyssey,” included in this collection, was praised by science fiction luminaries like Isaac Asimov, who said the story “had the effect on the field of an exploding grenade. With this single story, Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world’s best living science fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him.”
This collection includes all of Weinbaum’s short stories that are believed to be in the public domain.
Description
Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and Percy Bysshe Shelley were visiting their friend Lord Byron in Geneva one rainy summer. With the weather against them, they decided to spend their time writing ghost stories for each other. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s submission to their contest, later published anonymously in 1818.
Victor Frankenstein, a strange but brilliant scientist, discovers a method of imparting life to inanimate matter. The Monster is thus born: a hideous, 8-foot-tall creature of muscle, speed, and intellect. Frankenstein’s rejection of his appalling creation sends it into a spiral of despair, and Frankenstein’s life is never the same.
Considered by many to be the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein is a powerful narrative that explores complex themes of belonging, morality, and the consequences of the power over life and death.
Description
Omar Khayyám was a medieval Iranian mathematician, philosopher, scholar, and poet. He was thought to have composed over 1,000 rubáiyát, or quatrains, in his lifetime. Many different scholars have translated selections of Khayyám’s quatrains, but Edward FitzGerald’s translation remains the most beloved.
FitzGerald’s translation is interesting in that it isn’t a literal translation—rather, FitzGerald took significant artistic license in his interpretation. Thus it’s tough to say if we should call this a translation of the Rubáiyát, or poems by FitzGerald based on or inspired by Khayyám’s quatrains.
Whatever we call it, this translation is a bright and lyrical celebration of the joys and beauties of everyday life. FitzGerald’s work has remained popular for hundreds of years precisely because of its uplifting and wondrous quality.
This ebook is based on the fifth edition, which is very similar to the fourth edition, the last edition to be published in FitzGerald’s lifetime. The fifth edition was published posthumously based on FitzGerald’s notes.
Description
North of Boston is Robert Frost’s second collection of poetry. It includes some of his more famous poems, like “Mending Wall,” “Home Burial,” and “After Apple-Picking.”
Description
Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and his friend and contemporary Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A hugely influential work, Lyrical Ballads is generally acknowledged to have started the Romantic movement in English literature—a period marked by a departure from the stiff and unapproachable poetry of earlier times, and by a focus on readable, relatable verse written in everyday language. Many of Wordsworth’s poems focus on the natural world and the down-to-earth people of the country, another far departure from the rational and dry literature of old. Romanticism was one of the largest sea changes in modern English literature, and Lyrical Ballads was its catalyst.
This ebook edition is based on the 1805 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and features the famous poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Tintern Abbey,” “Expostulation and Reply,” “Lucy Gray,” and many others.
Description
White Fang is Jack London’s companion novel to The Call of the Wild. In The Call of the Wild we follow a dog’s journey from domestication to wilderness, but in White Fang we see the opposite: a wild wolf-dog captured by men and eventually domesticated.
White Fang’s journey isn’t an easy one; both the wild and civilization have their share of brutal violence. But he eventually seems happy in a home with a loving family. When read side-by-side with The Call of the Wild, White Fang poses an interesting question: is wilderness really an improvement over civilization? Is there one right way to live?
Description
One of the most famous ghost stories in literature, The Turn of the Screw earned its place in the annals of influential English novellas not for its qualities as a gothic ghost story, but rather for the many complex and subtle ways the reader can come to opposing conclusions as to tale’s very nature. Are the ghosts the governess sees real, or are they figments of her quiet insanity?
The Turn of the Screw was originally published as a serial, and later went through many revisions by James himself. Though there aren’t any overt suggestion that James intended his novella to be anything but a simple ghost story, the ambiguity in the narrative has captured the imagination of generations of readers and critics.
Description
In A Princess of Mars, John Carter is transported to a Mars inhabited by strange civilizations and embarks on various adventures on his quest home. Often held up as a seminal example of pulp science fiction, A Princess of Mars is the first entry in Burroughs’ epic Martian series, and the first to feature the character of John Carter.
Though often categorized as just a pulp adventure tale, A Princess of Mars was hugely influential on many budding science fiction writers, professional scientists, and explorers of the day. The novel remains a light, fast-paced, and enjoyable read, and continues to inspire adaptations nearly a hundred years after its publication.
Description
Jules Verne’s most-acclaimed novel remains a cultural cornerstone to this day. The story of Phileas Fogg’s spectacular journey by then-novel technologies is a fast-paced, colorful, and thoroughly enjoyable portrait of the British empire at the height of its power.
Originally published as a serial so believable that readers at the time placed bets on whether Fogg would succeed or not, Verne’s adventure epic continues to inspire travelers and adventurers to this day.
Description
Beyond Good and Evil, one of Nietzsche’s four “late period” works, is a philosophical treatise organized into nine parts and 296 short individual sections. In it he explores the concept of morality as taken for granted by contemporary philosophers, and whether “good” and “evil” should be considered just two sides of the same coin.
Description
Stanley Weinbaum was an influential science fiction writer who died at an early age. His short story “A Martian Odyssey,” included in this collection, was praised by science fiction luminaries like Isaac Asimov, who said the story “had the effect on the field of an exploding grenade. With this single story, Weinbaum was instantly recognized as the world’s best living science fiction writer, and at once almost every writer in the field tried to imitate him.”
This collection includes all of Weinbaum’s short stories that are believed to be in the public domain.
Description
Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and Percy Bysshe Shelley were visiting their friend Lord Byron in Geneva one rainy summer. With the weather against them, they decided to spend their time writing ghost stories for each other. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s submission to their contest, later published anonymously in 1818.
Victor Frankenstein, a strange but brilliant scientist, discovers a method of imparting life to inanimate matter. The Monster is thus born: a hideous, 8-foot-tall creature of muscle, speed, and intellect. Frankenstein’s rejection of his appalling creation sends it into a spiral of despair, and Frankenstein’s life is never the same.
Considered by many to be the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein is a powerful narrative that explores complex themes of belonging, morality, and the consequences of the power over life and death.
Description
Omar Khayyám was a medieval Iranian mathematician, philosopher, scholar, and poet. He was thought to have composed over 1,000 rubáiyát, or quatrains, in his lifetime. Many different scholars have translated selections of Khayyám’s quatrains, but Edward FitzGerald’s translation remains the most beloved.
FitzGerald’s translation is interesting in that it isn’t a literal translation—rather, FitzGerald took significant artistic license in his interpretation. Thus it’s tough to say if we should call this a translation of the Rubáiyát, or poems by FitzGerald based on or inspired by Khayyám’s quatrains.
Whatever we call it, this translation is a bright and lyrical celebration of the joys and beauties of everyday life. FitzGerald’s work has remained popular for hundreds of years precisely because of its uplifting and wondrous quality.
This ebook is based on the fifth edition, which is very similar to the fourth edition, the last edition to be published in FitzGerald’s lifetime. The fifth edition was published posthumously based on FitzGerald’s notes.
Description
North of Boston is Robert Frost’s second collection of poetry. It includes some of his more famous poems, like “Mending Wall,” “Home Burial,” and “After Apple-Picking.”
Description
Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and his friend and contemporary Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A hugely influential work, Lyrical Ballads is generally acknowledged to have started the Romantic movement in English literature—a period marked by a departure from the stiff and unapproachable poetry of earlier times, and by a focus on readable, relatable verse written in everyday language. Many of Wordsworth’s poems focus on the natural world and the down-to-earth people of the country, another far departure from the rational and dry literature of old. Romanticism was one of the largest sea changes in modern English literature, and Lyrical Ballads was its catalyst.
This ebook edition is based on the 1805 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and features the famous poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Tintern Abbey,” “Expostulation and Reply,” “Lucy Gray,” and many others.
Description
White Fang is Jack London’s companion novel to The Call of the Wild. In The Call of the Wild we follow a dog’s journey from domestication to wilderness, but in White Fang we see the opposite: a wild wolf-dog captured by men and eventually domesticated.
White Fang’s journey isn’t an easy one; both the wild and civilization have their share of brutal violence. But he eventually seems happy in a home with a loving family. When read side-by-side with The Call of the Wild, White Fang poses an interesting question: is wilderness really an improvement over civilization? Is there one right way to live?
Description
One of the most famous ghost stories in literature, The Turn of the Screw earned its place in the annals of influential English novellas not for its qualities as a gothic ghost story, but rather for the many complex and subtle ways the reader can come to opposing conclusions as to tale’s very nature. Are the ghosts the governess sees real, or are they figments of her quiet insanity?
The Turn of the Screw was originally published as a serial, and later went through many revisions by James himself. Though there aren’t any overt suggestion that James intended his novella to be anything but a simple ghost story, the ambiguity in the narrative has captured the imagination of generations of readers and critics.
Description
In A Princess of Mars, John Carter is transported to a Mars inhabited by strange civilizations and embarks on various adventures on his quest home. Often held up as a seminal example of pulp science fiction, A Princess of Mars is the first entry in Burroughs’ epic Martian series, and the first to feature the character of John Carter.
Though often categorized as just a pulp adventure tale, A Princess of Mars was hugely influential on many budding science fiction writers, professional scientists, and explorers of the day. The novel remains a light, fast-paced, and enjoyable read, and continues to inspire adaptations nearly a hundred years after its publication.
Description
Jules Verne’s most-acclaimed novel remains a cultural cornerstone to this day. The story of Phileas Fogg’s spectacular journey by then-novel technologies is a fast-paced, colorful, and thoroughly enjoyable portrait of the British empire at the height of its power.
Originally published as a serial so believable that readers at the time placed bets on whether Fogg would succeed or not, Verne’s adventure epic continues to inspire travelers and adventurers to this day.
Description
Beyond Good and Evil, one of Nietzsche’s four “late period” works, is a philosophical treatise organized into nine parts and 296 short individual sections. In it he explores the concept of morality as taken for granted by contemporary philosophers, and whether “good” and “evil” should be considered just two sides of the same coin.