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Excerpt: El Verdugo by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: The Pickwick Papers, Volume One by Charles Dickens.

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Excerpt: Paz by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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This is volume 5 of 5. -- An ex-convict breaks parole and starts a new life as a righteous man, but is pursued by a police inspector. Along the way, the ex-convict joins a revolution, adopts a daughter, and beats people up. Hooray. (Summary by smileyman457)...

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Fiction, Romance

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Excerpt: ACT I. SCENE I. King Lear?s palace. Enter KENT, GLOUCESTER, and EDMUND. KENT: I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall. GLOUCESTER: It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weighed, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either?s moiety. KENT: Is not this your son, my lord? GLOUCESTER: His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. KENT: I cannot conceive you....

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LEAR, King of Britain KING OF FRANCE DUKE OF BURGUNDY DUKE OF CORNWALL DUKE OF ALBANY EARL OF KENT EARL OF GLOUCESTER EDGAR: Son to Gloucester. EDMUND: bastard son to Gloucester. CURAN: a courtier. Old Man: tenant to Gloucester. Doctor Fool OSWALD: Steward to Goneril. A Captain employed by Edmund Gentleman attendant on Cordelia A Herald Servants to Cornwall GONERIL: REGAN: daughters to Lear. CORDELIA: Knights of Lear?s train, Captains, Messengers, Soldiers, and Attendants...

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The scene of the following Poem is laid chiefly in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, in the Western Highlands of Perthshire. The time of Action includes Six Days, and the transactions of each Day occupy a Canto. (Summary by William J. Rolfe, ed.)...

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Poetry, Myths/Legends

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The writings of J. B. Bury (1861-1927), on subjects ranging from ancient Greece to the 19th-century papacy, are at once scholarly and accessible to the layman. This work covers the period from the beginning of the Roman Empire until Gibbon begins; from Augustus through Marcus Aurelius and the Antoinine Emporers. (Summary by kmerline)...

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History

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The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley. (Summary excerpted from Prefatory Remarks from the book by W. M. Thackeray)...

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Humor

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. Like a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there weren?t any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together....

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volunteers bring you 29 recordings of When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 3rd, 2010.

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Poetry

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Excerpt: Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief by James Fenimore Cooper.

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Excerpt: That homely proverb, used on so many occasions in England, viz. ?That what is bred in the bone will not go out of the flesh,? was never more verified than in the story of my Life. Any one would think that after thirty-five years? affliction, and a variety of unhappy circumstances, which few men, if any, ever went through before, and after near seven years of peace and enjoyment in the fullness of all things; grown old, and when, if ever, it might be allowed me to have had experience of every state of middle life, and to know which was most adapted to make a man completely happy; I say, after all this, any one would have thought that the native propensity to rambling which I gave an account of in my first setting out in the world to have been so predominant in my thoughts, should be worn out, and I might, at sixty one years of age, have been a little inclined to stay at home, and have done venturing life and fortune any more....

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In this anthology of true crime tales, editor Walter Wood interviews those who were touched by the crimes recounted, sometimes as an acquaintance of the deceased or criminal or in the course of their professional duties. This work provides a personal look at some of the most sensational crimes and scandals of late 19th and early 20th century Britain. (Summary by Nullifidian)...

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Excerpt: An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids by Anthony Trollope.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Part The First. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enameled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red....

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volunteers bring you 15 different recordings of A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 15th, 2007....

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Poetry

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After his father’s death Gerard Roylake returns from Germany to take up his inheritance at Trimley Deen. On one evening he meets his childhood friend, Cristel Toller. They fall in love, but there is a crux. A deaf man, called The Lodger is obsessed with Cristel. He invites Gerard to tea with evil intentions… and Gerard accepts the invitation. The book is written in the first person and tells the story from Gerard's point of view. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)...

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Literature, Fiction

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Excerpt: Why Mrs. General Talboys first made up her mind to pass the winter of 1859 at Rome I never clearly understood. To myself she explained her purposes, soon after her arrival at the Eternal City, by declaring, in her own enthusiastic manner, that she was inspired by a burning desire to drink fresh at the still living fountains of classical poetry and sentiment....

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Excerpt: While the translation is fairly literal, and Malleson (a clergyman) has taken pains with the scientific portions of the work and added the chapter headings, he has made some emendations concerning Biblical references of his own, listed below?...

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Meriwether Lewis and William Clark - In the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, two men commanded an expedition which explored the wilderness that stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the Columbia enters the Pacific, and dedicated to civilization a new empire. Their names were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This book relates that adventure from it's inception through it's completion as well as the effect the expedition had upon the history of the United States. (Summary from the text and Roger Melin)...

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History, Biography