James Baldwin

You have heard of Homer, and of the two wonderful poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which bear his name. No one knows whether these poems were composed by Homer, or whether they are the work of many different poets. And, in fact, it matters very little about their authorship. Everybody agrees that they are the grandest poems ever sung or written or read in this world; and yet, how few persons, comparatively, have read them, or know any thing about them except at second-hand! Homer commences his story, not at the beginning, but "in the midst of things;" hence, when one starts out to read the Iliad without having made some special preparation beforehand, he finds it hard to understand, and is tempted, in despair, to stop at the end of the first book. Many people are, therefore, content to admire the great masterpiece of poetry and story-telling simply because others admire it, and not because they have any personal acquaintance with it.

The Winds of War is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II, the first being The Caine Mutiny (1951). Published in 1971, it was followed up seven years later by War and Remembrance; originally conceived as one volume, Wouk decided to break it in two when he realized it took nearly 1000 pages just to get to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1983, it became a highly successful miniseries on the ABC television network.

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it is among the most famous works of fiction. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette. The novel was published in weekly installments instead of monthly, as with most of his other novels. The first ran in the first issue of Dickens' literary periodical All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran thirty-one weeks later, on 25 November.

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times. Great Expectations is the story of the orphan Pip, writing about his life (and attempting to become a gentleman along the way). The novel, like much of Dickens' work, draws on his experiences of life and people. The main plot of Great Expectations takes place between Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old (and which happens to be the year of Dickens' birth), and the winter of 1840.

Mr. Commissioner Sanders had graduated to West Central Africa by such easy stages that he did not realise when his acquaintance with the back lands began. Long before he was called upon by the British Government to keep a watchful eye upon some quarter of a million cannibal folk, who ten years before had regarded white men as we regard the unicorn; he had met the Basuto, the Zulu, the Fingo, the Pondo, Matabele, Mashona, Barotse, Hottentot, and Bechuana. Then curiosity and interest took him westward and northward, and he met the Angola folk, then northward to the Congo, westward to the Masai, and finally, by way of the Pigmy people, he came to his own land.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective and illustrated by Sidney Paget. These are the first of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, originally published as single stories in the Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892. The book was published in England on 14 October 1892 by George Newnes Ltd and in a US Edition on 15 October by Harper. The initial combined print run was 14,500 copies. The book was banned in the Soviet Union in 1929 for the occultism[citation needed] of its author, although the book shows few to no signs of such material. Later, the embargo was lifted.

We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of mothers and the care of the most attentive of nurses did their best to injure an excellent constitution.

1915. Written by the author of Phantom of the Opera,this tale takes us to Peru where Dick Montgomery hopes to marry his fiance, Maria-Teresa de la Torre, the daughter of a Spanish marquis. Because of their disrespectful manner, Maria-Teresa discharges a group of Quichua Indians working in the household, including Huascar. It is heard that the Indians have found an Incan king and are going to celebrate an ancient ceremony wherein a virgin bride is sacrificed to the Sun King. Maria-Teresa is the chosen victim and is kidnapped. Dick and Maria-Teresa's father attempt to save her, but are unsuccessful. Huascar comes to them, saying he will save Maria-Teresa, but is he to be trusted? Left with no choice, they take Huascar at his word, and the rescue begins.

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted.

1863. Braddon is one of the most successful of the Victorian sensation novelists. Aurora Floyd follows the story of the heroine of the same name, who has left France to escape a checkered past. Aurora gains the hearts of two men, Talbot Bulstrode and John Mellish. Aurora warns off Bulstrode, who then marries the tenderhearted Lucy, but Mellish perseveres in winning her heart and marrying her. In due course, her hidden secret emerges and as she wrestles with her guilt her husband begins to suspect that she is concealing a secret. See other Braddon titles available from Kessinger Publishing.

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!