"'The Divine Comedy' begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity. Allen Mandelbaum's astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece that genius whom...

Perhaps Poe's most famous work, The Raven was first published in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror. Known for its tight rhymes, rhythm, and the repetitive response given by the eponymous raven-Nevermore-the poem focuses on that raven and a forlorn man who is distraught over his lost lover, Lenore.

A fresh, modern prose retelling captures the vigorous and bawdy spirit of Chaucer’s classic
Renowned critic, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents the work in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to modern readers while preserving the spirit of the original.
A mirror for medieval society, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales concerns a...

A weaver by trade and a mystic by nature, the 15-century poet Kabir created timeless works of enlightenment that combine the philosophies of Sufism, Hinduism, and the Kabbala. Expressed in imagery drawn from common life and the universal experience, Kabir's poems possess an appealing simplicity. This collection of 100 songs reflects nearly every aspect of the mystic's thought and emotions: ecstasy and despair, tranquil beatitude and fervid illumination,...

Purgatorio, by Dante Alighieri, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

Faust: A Tragedy (German: Faust. Eine Tragödie), or retrospectively Faust. Der Tragödie / erster Teil) is the first part of the tragic play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and is considered by many as the greatest work of German literature. It was first published in 1808. The first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theater,...

Excerpt: "Quixotic is his enterprise and hopeless his adventure is, who seeks for jocularities that haven't yet been said, The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries, And every joke that's possible has long ago been made. I started as a humourist with lots of mental fizziness, But humour is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse, For my stock-in-trade, my fixtures and the good-will of the business No reasonable offer I am likely to refuse....

"Everything Comes Next contains Naomi Shihab Nye's most beloved poems, including 'Famous,' 'A Valentine for Ernest Mann,' 'Kindness,' and 'Gate A-4,' as well as new, unpublished poems. It is an introduction to the poet's work for new readers, as well as a comprehensive edition for classrooms"--

"The Works of Edgar Allan Poe" is a captivating five-book series that immerses readers in the dark, intricate world of one of America's most iconic writers. This collection showcases Poe's mastery across various literary forms, from eerie short stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" to his haunting poetry, including the renowned "The Raven." Poe's works delve into themes of the macabre, the mysterious, and the...

The Metamorphoses, by Ovid, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...