English Renaissance

In 1642, a pregnant Hester Prynne is found guilty of adultery, shunned by her neighbors, and forced to wear a scarlet letter 'A' on her dress. Meanwhile, Hester's husband - long thought to be lost at sea - has returned to Boston under the assumed name 'Roger Chillingworth' and plots to uncover her lover's identity. After her daughter Pearl is born, Hester is frequently visited by both Reverend Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, but always refuses to name her lover.

Al-Hasan al-Wazzan - born in Granada to a Muslim family that in 1492 went to Morocco - became famous as the great Renaissance writer Leo Africanus, author of the first geography of Africa to be published in Europe (in 1550). He had been captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by the Pope; when he was released and baptized, he lived a European life of scholarship as the Christian writer Giovanni Leone....

In the Houses of Montague and Capulet, there is only one goal: power. The boys are born to fight and die for honor and-if they survive-marry for influence and money, not love. The girls are assets, to be spent wisely. Their wishes are of no import. Their fates are written on the day they are born.Benvolio Montague, cousin to Romeo, knows all this. He expects to die for his cousin, for his house, but a spark of rebellion still lives inside him.

“Gravitational Renaissance: Unveiling the Universe Through Evolving Compressive Gravity” is the first volume in Dr. James W. Michel's ambitious “Cosmic Chronicles Monograph Series”. This groundbreaking work redefines our understanding of the universe by challenging the traditional concepts of gravity and the need for dark matter and dark energy.

After decades as a commissario in his city on the River Po, Piero Trotti has retired. But his newfound peace is brief. An old friend calls him to Siena to give him urgent news: a known hit man has returned to Italy to kill Trotti. The former inspector must admit that he isn't entirely undeserving, as his mistaken accusations and failed gambles have cost innocent lives in the course of his investigations.

Eric Walrond was a singular voice of the Harlem Renaissance, and Tropic Death is his most famous work - a collection that highlights his particular strength as a writer of short fiction. Over the course of these ten stories, Walrond vividly details the punishing realities of life and labor across the Caribbean, and yet the overall effect is far from grim. These are unsentimental yet startlingly beautiful portraits of the migrant experience, full of distinctive voices striving for an audience in a seemingly implacable world.

A chance meeting reunites Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, estranged friends who have long been separated by their ambitions. Since losing touch, Irene has become a wife and mother in Harlem, where she remains closely connected to her racial heritage. The seductive Clare, however, now “passes,” enjoying the privileges of white society while hiding her roots from the world, including her rich (and racist) husband.

When The Sport of the Gods opens, the Hamilton family is doing relatively well. They have stable jobs and good reputations as servants for a wealthy Southern family - but they also have little sense of how tenuous their existence has become. When money goes missing, the supposed victim points a finger at patriarch Berry Hamilton, and Berry is sentenced to ten years of hard labor. In response, Berry’s wife, Fannie, and his two children, Joe and Kit, migrate to New York City. Their hope is that the great city of the North will provide them with a fresh start.

A young military couple from Indiana is separated by a deployment and haunted by secrets. Shamar Jackson, a sergeant in the US Army, struggles to maintain a long-distance relationship, while his wife, Jelisa, fights to escape the past she never told him about. Lies and deceit stand to ruin this young couple's family, but will the truth make things better or worse? Still tied to the streets, Shamar is determined to keep his family intact by any means necessary. After returning home from war, he is now faced with the fact that the battlefield has been at home the whole time.

Mary Boleyn, ‘the infamous other Boleyn girl’, began her court career as the mistress of the king of France. François I of France would later call her ‘The Great Prostitute’ and the slur stuck. Mary would emerge the sole survivor of a family torn apart by lust and ambition, and it is in Mary and her progeny that the Boleyn legacy rests.

On May 30, 1593, London's most popular playwright was stabbed to death. The royal coroner ruled that Christopher Marlowe was killed in self-defense, but historians have long suspected otherwise, given his role as an "intelligencer" in the queen's secret service. In sixteenth-century London...

Angelic Essie Belle Johnson and devilish Laura Reed both agree that they need to do something to spice up their lives and earn more money. So, they start their own church on the street in front of their Harlem apartment. With Laura's gift for performing and Essie's melodious voice, the two quickly become a hit and must move their services into a renovated theater. But as their congregation grows, a host of misfits enter the scene - some honest, but others who just want a piece of the pie.

Susanna Shakespeare finds the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon much too quiet and provincial. She yearns to travel to London to see her father's world of players and poets, and to follow a secret dream of her own. Once Susanna arrives in London, nothing is quite as she expected it to be - least of all her relationship with her famous father. But propelled by her love for Thomas Cole, a Catholic chorister, and her desire to sing, Susanna discovers that it is only with the support of those who love her that she has the strength to succeed.

Here, National Book Award winner Richard Winston explores life in the Middle Ages - from the fifth to the 15th centuries - beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire and ending with the dawn of the Renaissance. In both countryside and cities, from the peasants to the bourgeoisie to the nobility, no aspect of life in this era is left unexplored.

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

Poet Jean Toomer’s short-story and poetry collection.

At the time of its publication, Wallace Thurman’s debut novel was deeply provocative. This was due not only to its frank considerations of race and sex, but also to its vivid portrait of a Harlem that few other writers had dared to explore. At the heart of this journey into new terrain is Emma Lou Morgan, a Black woman who leaves her “color-struck” Idaho hometown behind and strikes out, first for Los Angeles and later for Harlem—where, unfortunately, discrimination simply takes on a new form.

For Henry David Thoreau, there was no separation between public politics and personal principle. "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" is his famous account of the night he spent in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that supported slavery and waged war. His impassioned stand for justice later inspired Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many other peaceful revolutionaries. This volume includes Thoreau's other important political writings: "A Plea for Captain John Brown", "Life Without Principle", and the poem "Independence".

The Alice Dunbar-Nelson Collection showcases the multifaceted talent of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, a prominent voice of the Harlem Renaissance. This compilation features standout works like Violets, Ten Minutes' Musing, A Carnival Jangle, The Woman, and Titee, each reflecting her keen insight into themes of identity, gender, race, and social justice. With lyrical elegance and emotional depth, Dunbar-Nelson captures the intricacies of human experience while addressing the cultural and societal dynamics of her time.

Benvenuto Cellini, master artisan of Renaissance Italy, once crafted a beautiful amulet prized for its unimaginable power - and untold menace. Now the quest to recover this legendary artifact depends upon one man: David Franco, a brilliant but skeptical young scholar at Chicago's world-renowned Newberry Library.