Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Classics

Step into a world of visions, philosophy, and passion in which dreamers, seekers, princesses, and wandering poets dwell. The 6 wonderful, romantic tales in this collection are reminiscent of ancient Oriental and German fairy tales. The selections, "The Poet," "The Flute Dream," "The Dwarf," "Faldum," "Ziegler," and "Dream of the Gods" were hand-picked by the narrator, legendary folk and rock musician Donovan.

Beneath the twin shadows of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl in Mexico, the Consul is drunk. He staggers from bar to bar hoping to find salvation staining the bottom of the next glass. His lonely existence is disrupted when his former wife, Yvonne, returns with, Hugh, the Consul's half-brother. But the reunion turns sour when a local peasant turns up dead, beginning a series of events that will decide the Consul's fate. In the course of one day an entire life is chronicled, set against the backdrop of Europe during the Spanish Civil War.

At the end of the 19th century, fourteen-year-old Ántonia Shimerda has realized the immigrant's dream. She has just arrived in rural Nebraska with her Bohemian (Czech) family at the same time as ten-year-old Jim Burden, an orphan sent to live with his grandparents. While Jim's family is prosperous and steady, the Shimerdas quickly find themselves mired in poverty and struggle to make ends meet. But they live near to each other (by pioneer standards), and the two youngsters become close. Ántonia's warmth belongs to the land and the people who love her. For Jim, Ántonia is home.

Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, Emma is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She believes she was meant for something more—a life of luxury, leisure, and, above all, true and passionate love. She spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and throws herself headlong into a reckless series of doomed affairs. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter.

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an excursion into boyhood, a return to the simple, rural Missouri world of Tom Sawyer, his friends Huck Finn, Becky Thatcher and Aunt Polly. It is a world of summertime and hooky, of pranks and punishments, of villains and adventure, seen through the eyes of a boy who might have been the young Mark Twain himself.

Set in the frozen wasteland of the Yukon, Jack London's most popular and enduring work is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival. Buck—a mix of St. Bernard and Scotch Shepherd—is a loyal family pet until cruel men steal him and make him a pawn in their feverish search for gold. Brutally beaten into serving as a sled dog, Buck finds the blood of his wolf ancestors rising within him. Unable to resist the call from the Alaskan wilderness, he breaks free to roam as the leader of a ferocious wolf pack.

Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lionhearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Ivanhoe defends Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman, against a charge of witchcraft—but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe's true love. Richard's brother, the wicked Prince John, plots to usurp England's throne, but Richard and the well-loved famous outlaw, Robin Hood, team up to defeat the Normans and regain the castle. Blending historic reality, chivalric romance, and high adventure, Ivanhoe features action, high drama, adventure, and colorful characters.

Elliott Gould, Burt Reynolds, Meryl Streep, and a host of other celebrities read over 100 poems by four of America's greatest poets. Walt Whitman celebrates the brash and rugged individualism of his country in exuberant language. The spare, precise language of Emily Dickinson conveys her penetrating vision of the natural world and an acute understanding of the most profound human truths.

Sappho's Leap is a journey back 2,600 years into the heart and mind of the greatest romantic poet the world has ever known. At the age of 14, Sappho is seduced by the beautiful poet Alcaeus and plots with him to overthrow the dictator of their island. Sappho is caught and married off to a repellent older man in hopes that marriage will cause her to behave. Instead, it leads to a series of amorous adventures with both men and women, taking her from Delphi to Egypt, to the Land of the Amazons and the realm of Hades.

Has Jeeves finally lost his grip? Wealthy, scatterbrained Bertie Wooster—with the aid of his ever-faithful butler, Jeeves—attempts to romantically link dreamy, soulful Gussie Fink-Nottle with soppy, sweet Madeline Bassett. But as soon as Bertie takes Gussie and Madeline's love connection into his own hands, things go disastrously wrong! Fortunately, Jeeves steps in to set matters straight. But the characters must endure tangled layers of comedic complications before they reach the invariably clever and satisfying finale.

Here are legendary director, producer, screenwriter, author, and actor Orson Welles' historic interpretations of excerpts from classic literature. Includes selections from Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince', H.G. Wells' "The Red Room", Saki's "Shredni Vashtar", Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer", Rudyard Kipling's "Riki-Tikii-Tavi", Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wakefield", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart", and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde".

When the philanthropic, genial Dr. Jekyll becomes intensely submersed in the problems of good and evil and their affects on the nature of man, his deliberations soon drive him into his laboratory. There, he pursues to answer a question that has become his obsession: can the two opposing forces be separated?

In this classic, romantic ghost story, a governess on a remote country estate begins to believe her charges are possessed by the spirits of 2 dead former servants. Are her perceptions simply the fruit of her neuroses - or could they possibly be valid? A foray into the very heart of evil, Henry James's masterful novel is also remarkable for its psychological acuity and evocation of mood.

Originally meant to be heard rather than read, this great epic returns to the oral form for today's listeners.

Long considered the world's greatest adventure story, The Odyssey is celebration of life in all its infinite variety. The poem has deeply ingrained in us the sense of life as a journey, introducing a gallery of characters and events that have profoundly influenced western literature. Scylla and Charybdis, Circe, the Lotus Eaters, a visit with the dead, and, through it all, Odysseus's determined search for home, are all here in a classic translation.

Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal which takes place in the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, and questions the morals and assumptions of the elite New York society set in the 1870s when "scandal was more dreaded than disease."

This award-winning anthology of poetry and prose takes a new look at being a woman - particularly an aging woman - in a society that prizes and glorifies youth. The works are by both younger writers looking forward in time and writers who have experienced the joys and challenges of growing older. This international best seller was put together by editor Sandra Martz who selected the collection's pieces from thousands of submitted manuscripts.

"...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." So says Rat, as he welcomes the lonely Mole to the community of the River. Whether messing about in boats, touring in Toad's motorcar, or simply relaxing at home, Mole, Rat, Otter, Toad, and Badger demonstrate the honorable human characteristics of kindness, patience, and tolerance toward all that have made this classic tale beloved by generations since it was first published in 1908.

Jack London worshiped strong and virtuous heroes, and his stories give great weight to the inevitable triumph of good over evil. His telling of the adventures of Humphrey van Weydon in The Sea Wolf is in keeping with this theme of moral man. His powerful and gripping saga of van Weydon's capture by a seal-hunting ship and the ensuing tangles with its dreaded captain, Wolf Larsen, makes this a classic American tale of peril and victory.

Rediscover the voices of the original text of the Bible in this fresh retelling of its most powerful stories. The author introduces the listener to many new authors, reveals the imaginative power of the original verse, and heralds a new era in Biblical scholarship.