Perhaps Poe's most famous work, The Raven was first published in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror. Known for its tight rhymes, rhythm, and the repetitive response given by the eponymous raven-Nevermore-the poem focuses on that raven and a forlorn man who is distraught over his lost lover, Lenore.

A fresh, modern prose retelling captures the vigorous and bawdy spirit of Chaucer’s classic
Renowned critic, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents the work in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to modern readers while preserving the spirit of the original.
A mirror for medieval society, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales concerns a...

Here you will understand why Federico García Lorca is unforgettable. Written in 1931, Bodas de sangre is a play about two young people who are going to get married, but on their wedding day, the bride sees her old boyfriend, Leonardo, again, with whom she has always been in love. Then, after the ceremony, the two flee together, carried away by their love. However, the husband then goes out to look for them, full of pain and rage... Reading and...

Faust: A Tragedy (German: Faust. Eine Tragödie), or retrospectively Faust. Der Tragödie / erster Teil) is the first part of the tragic play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and is considered by many as the greatest work of German literature. It was first published in 1808. The first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theater,...

Excerpt: "Quixotic is his enterprise and hopeless his adventure is, who seeks for jocularities that haven't yet been said, The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries, And every joke that's possible has long ago been made. I started as a humourist with lots of mental fizziness, But humour is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse, For my stock-in-trade, my fixtures and the good-will of the business No reasonable offer I am likely to refuse....

The Paradiso, by Dante Alighieri, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of...

This masterpiece of eighteenth-century English poetry tells the epic tale of a sailor who endures a fate worse than death for killing an albatross. After callously shooting an albatross with his crossbow, a sailor is doomed to a nightmarish voyage from the Antarctic to the Equator before returning home as the sole survivor of the journey. When the haunting figure Life-in-Death wins his soul in a game of dice, the sailor is doomed to forever roam the...

First published in 1819, "Don Juan" is often acknowledged as one of Lord Byron's greatest poetic works. An epic poem, comprised of seventeen cantos that Byron continued to work on and expand until his death, "Don Juan" follows the adventures of the famous Spanish libertine and reflects upon many of the romantic and personal experiences that are universal to all mankind. From a forbidden love affair in Spain, to exile in Italy, from being shipwrecked...

A modern twist on the Theseus and Minotaur myth, told in verse. Much like Lin-Manuel Miranda did in Hamilton, New York Times best-selling author David Elliott turns a classic on its head in form and approach, updating the timeless story of Theseus and the Minotaur for a new generation. A rough, rowdy, and darkly comedic young adult retelling in verse, Bull will have readers re-evaluating one of history's most infamous monsters. -- Provided by publisher....

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on 28th August 1749 in Frankfurt, All of his siblings died at a young age except for his sister Cornelia and he was home schooled by his father and a range of tutors. He went to Leipzig to study law but preferred writing poetry. However, from these relatively unremarkable beginnings blossomed a remarkable life. Goethe became the most important cultural icon of his time. Whilst his influence is most closely seen...