Classic English Style

The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity—its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history—is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary. From real crime to serial...

The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Humphries has rendered (Ovid's) love poetry with conspicuous success into English which is neither obtrusively colloquial nor awkwardly antique.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. is an American English writing style guide. It is one of the best-known and most influential prescriptive treatments of English grammar and usage, and often is required reading in US high school and university composition classes. The original 1918 edition of The Elements of Style detailed eight elementary rules of usage, 10 elementary principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of commonly "misused" words and expressions.

Now a major motion picture starring Liev Schreiber and Josh Hutcherson! A poignant post-WWII tale of a revitalizing love found too late that follows the fleeting connection between an Italian countess and an injured, aging American colonel in Italy—a love story that inspires light and hope...

Best-selling author Jeff Alworth takes serious beer aficionados on a behind-the-scenes tour of 26 major European and North American breweries that create some of the world's most classic beers. Learn how the Irish make stout, the secrets of traditional Czech pilsner, and what makes English cask ale unique by delving deep into the specific techniques, equipment, and geographical factors that shape these distinctive styles.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the finest tales of Ancient Greece, an epic journey of adventure and trial standing beside similar stories of Perseus, Theseus and the Labours of Heracles. The finest classic account comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet of the 3rd century BCE and librarian at Alexandria. Though less well-known than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and much shorter, it is an epic poem which is both exciting and moving, with remarkably vivid portraits of the main characters, Jason and Medea.

The Song of Roland is acknowledged today as the first masterpiece of French vernacular literature and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. Written down around the year 1090, The Song of Roland finely crafted verses tell of the betrayal and defeat of Charlemagne’s beloved nephew at the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees and of the revenge subsequently sought on his behalf.

The illustrated edition of this audiobook features 14 beautiful pieces of artwork in an attached PDF, and a link to a comprehensive set of behind-the-scenes videos documenting the illustration and narration processes. The ultimate way to experience this classic tale! What happens after Homer's Iliad? Not only is the larger conflict unresolved by the end of that story, but several of the most famous events of the Trojan War are absent from its pages. It's hard not to want another complete epic to pick up where Achilles, Agamemnon, and Priam left off.

FOREWORD BY ALI SMITH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADE Who better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf? In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in English: T. S. Eliot, Henry James and E. M...

In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has ben banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve. The actions get Adam and Eve banished from paradise, and in the aftermath of their sin they get to glimpse the future of humanity based on their actions.

The Kalevala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. The Kalevala was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the sense of nationality that led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917. Beginning with the traditional Finnish creation myth, the Kalevala branches out into stories of the creation of the earth, plants, creatures, and the sky. There are many stories of, romance, kidnapping, seduction, and magical spell casting and singing.

The poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman first appeared in his 1855 volume Leaves of Grass. "Song of Myself" is written in Whitman’s signature free verse style. The "I" of the narrator should not be confused with the person of the historical Walt Whitman, as the first-person persona is portrayed as having transcended the conventional boundaries of self. Most critics consider "Song of Myself" as the core of Whitman’s poetic vision, and it remains one of the most acclaimed of all American poems.

The spectrum of all of human life, as portrayed in the poem, will unfold with breathtaking variety, drama, thought, and beauty: In the middle of the journey of our life / I found myself in a dark wood, where the straight path was lost. The process of listening to Dante’s Comedy is a journey into not just literature but into the mysteries of human nature and its capacity for unhappiness and happiness, folly and wisdom, rejection and wonder over the miracles of creation and existence.

In Stephen Mitchell's The Iliad, the epic story resounds again across 2,700 years, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector, and Priam flows in every word. And we are there with them, amid the horror and ecstasy of war, carried along by a poetry that lifts even the most devastating human events into the realm of the beautiful. Mitchell's The Iliad is the first translation based on the work of the preeminent Homeric scholar Martin L. West.

Having spent ten years fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus embarks on his journey back to Ithica. To get there he must deceive a giant Cyclops, face Poseidon’s wrath, escape cannibalism, defeat the witch-goddess Circe, skirt the land of the Sirens, sail between a six-headed monster and a raging whirlpool, and escape captivity on the island of Calypso. But perhaps his biggest threat is his prolonged absence from home, as 108 suitors are vying for his wife’s hand in marriage.

Discover everything you ever wanted to know about the world's greatest novels. From medieval romances and tales of chivalry through the realist novels of the 19th century to experimental modernist works and today's explorations of the self, Great Novels explores the finest novels from around the...

An anthology of over 40 classic nature poems, read by some of our finest actors. The majesty of nature has always inspired poets, and this collection contains a selection of the very best verses praising the natural world.

The Paradiso is a culminating aspect of a journey from Inferno to Paradiso, and it is also Dante’s vision of the variety, the paradoxes, and the wonder that human beings have any existence at all. The process of listening to Dante’s Comedy is a journey into not just literature but into the mysteries of human nature and its capacity for unhappiness and happiness, folly and wisdom, rejection and wonder over the miracles of creation and existence.

One of the great masterpieces of Western literature, The Odyssey chronicles the many trials and adventures Odysseus must pass through on his long journey home from the Trojan wars. Though the stormy god of the ocean is determined to keep him off course, Odysseus is clever and has the brilliant goddess Athena on his side.