Alfred Tennyson

Alex Struik

Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar." Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain haemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses," and "Tithonus." During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success. Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing.

The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Gautama Buddha

Hendrik Kern

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most popular and influential Mahayana sutras, and the basis on which several schools of Buddhism were established.The oldest parts of the text (Chapters 1-9 and 17) were probably written down between 100 BC and 100 AD: most of the text had appeared by 200 AD. The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sutra is the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra, which translates to "the Lotus Flower Formula (or Rule) of Good Dharma." The Lotus Sutra presents itself as a discourse delivered by the Buddha toward the end of his life. The tradition in Mahayana states that the sutra was written down at the time of the Buddha and stored for five hundred years in a realm of nagas. After this they were reintroduced into the human realm at the time of the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir.

The Lotus Sutra

Homer

Hesiod

Hugh G. Evelyn-White

This edition contains the collected works of Hesiod including Works and Days, The Shield of Heracles, The Theogeny as well as Homer's Hymns, Epigrams and fragments of the Epic Cycle. Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. Modern scholars refer to him as a major source on Greek mythology, farming techniques, early economic thought (he is sometimes identified as the first economist), archaic Greek astronomy and ancient time-keeping. In the Western classical tradition, Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica

Basil Hall Chamberlain

Yasumaro Ō no

Kojiki ("Record of Ancient Matters") is the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century (711-2) and composed by O no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Gemmei. The Kojiki is a collection of myths concerning the origin of the four home islands of Japan, and the Kami. Along with the Nihon Shoki, the myths contained in the Kojiki are part of the inspiration behind Shinto practices and myths. O no Yasumaro (died August 15, 723) was a Japanese nobleman, bureaucrat, and chronicler. He is most famous for compiling and editing, with the assistance of Hieda no Are, the Kojiki, the oldest extant Japanese history. Empress Genmei (r. 707-721) charged Yasumaro with the duty of writing the Kojiki in 711 using the various clan chronicles and native myths. It was finished the following year in 712. Yasumaro became clan head in 716, and died in 723.

The Kojiki

Cao Xueqin

H. Bencraft Joly

Dream of the Red Chamber is a masterpiece of Chinese literature and one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was composed in the mid-18th century during the Qing Dynasty and is generally acknowledged to be a pinnacle of Chinese fiction. The novel is believed to be semi-autobiographical, mirroring the rise and decay of author's own family and, by extension, of the Qing Dynasty. As the author states in the first chapter, it is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth - friends, relatives and servants. At the center of the story is Bao-yu, a precocious, spoiled, and undisciplined boy and his romantic affinity to his poetry-loving, orphaned cousin, Dai-yu. The novel is remarkable not only for its huge cast of characters and psychological scope, but also for its precise and detailed observation of the life and social structures typical of 18th-century Chinese aristocracy.

Hung Lou Meng :

Dream of the Red Chamber

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823. The storyline emerged from a dream. Mary, Percy, Lord Byron, and John Polidori decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story. After thinking for weeks about what her possible storyline could be, Shelley dreamt about a scientist who created life and was horrified by what he had made. She then wrote Frankenstein.Mary Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Frankenstein

John Galsworthy

The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes (intervening episodes) published between 1906 and 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning English author John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of an upper middle-class British family, similar to Galsworthy's own. Only a few generations removed from their farmer ancestors, the family members are keenly aware of their status as "new money". The main character, Soames Forsyte, sees himself as a "man of property" by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions—but this does not succeed in bringing him pleasure.John Galsworthy (14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906–1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.This is Volume II of a three volume set.

Indian Summer of a Forsyte, and in Chancery

Forsyte Saga Volume II

Brothers Grimm

Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German folk tales first published in 1812 by the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales.The Brothers Grimm , Jacob (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 – December 16, 1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who together collected folklore. They are among the most well-known storytellers of European folk tales, and their work popularized such stories as "Cinderella", "Hansel and Gretel" , "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin", and "Snow White".

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of twelve stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930), featuring his famous detective and is generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction.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.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Miguel de Cervantes

John Ormsby

Don Quixote , fully titled "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha",is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a hidalgo who reads too many chivalric novels and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique, earthy wit. Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. This is Volume II.Miguel de Cervantes (29 September 1547-22 April 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern European novel, is a classic of Western literature.

Don Quixote

Don Quixote , fully titled "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha",is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a hidalgo who reads too many chivalric novels and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique, earthy wit. Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. This is Volume I.Miguel de Cervantes (29 September 1547-22 April 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern European novel, is a classic of Western literature.

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Bronte. Primarily of the romance genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of eponymous Jane Eyre, her growth to adulthood, and her love for Mr. Rochester, the byronic master of Thornfield Hall. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel's exploration of classism, sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism.Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards.

An Autobiography

Jane Eyre

Hugo Grotius

"Mare Liberum" is a book (originally written in Latin) on international law written by the Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius. In Mare Liberum, Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The disputation was directed towards the Portuguese Mare Clausum policy and their claim of monopoly on the East Indian Trade. Grotius wrote the treatise while counsel to the Dutch East India Company over the seizure of the Portuguese carrack "Santa Catarina".Hugo Grotius (10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. He was also a philosopher, theologian, Christian apologist, playwright, and poet.

Mare Liberum

Gaius Julius Caesar

W. A. Macdevitt

Commentarii de Bello Gallico (English: Commentaries on The Gallic War) is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Caesar describes the battles and intrigues that took place in the nine years he spent fighting local armies in Gaul that opposed Roman domination. De Bello Civili (The Civil War), or Bellum Civile, is an account written by Julius Caesar of his war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Senate. Shorter than its counterpart on the Gallic War, only three books long, and possibly unfinished, it covers the events of 49-48 BC, from shortly before Caesar's invasion of Italy to Pompey's defeat at the Battle of Pharsalus and flight to Egypt with Caesar in pursuit. It closes with Pompey assassinated, Caesar attempting to mediate rival claims to the Egyptian throne, and the beginning of the Alexandrian War. Gaius Julius Caesar (July 100 BC - 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.

And Other Commentaries of Gaius Julius Caesar

Commentaries on the Gallic War

Yasotaro Morri

Kinosuke Natsume

Botchan is a novel written by Natsume Soseki in 1906. It is considered to be one of the most popular novels in Japan, read by most Japanese during their childhood. The central theme of the story is morality.Natsume Soseki (February 9, 1867 – December 9, 1916), born Natsume Kinnosuke , is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period (1868–1912). He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales.

Botchan

Sophocles

F. Storr

Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thereby brought disaster on his city and family. The story of Oedipus is the subject of Sophocles's tragedy Oedipus the King, which was followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. Together, these plays make up Sophocles's three Theban plays contained herein. Oedipus represents two enduring themes of Greek myth and drama: the flawed nature of humanity and an individual's powerlessness against the course of destiny in a harsh universe.Sophocles (circa 497 BC – 406 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.

Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone

The Theban Plays

Augustus F. Lindley

The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. It was led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having claimed to have received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history Augustus Frederick Lindley (Lin-Le to his Taiping soldiers) was a Royal Navy officer who, along with his wife Mary, joined the 1860 Taiping reform movement in China. He trained Taiping soldiers using modern techniques, and Mary became a sniper. In 1863, Lindley returned to the UK. In 1866 he wrote and published this book (Ti Ping Tien Kwoh: OR The History of the Taiping Revolution, including a narrative of the author's personal adventures).

The History of the Taiping Revolution

Snorre Sturleson

I. A. Blackwell

The "Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson" also known as the "Prose Edda" is believed to have been put together by the Icelandic poet, politician, and historian Snorri Sturluson in the 14th Century and consists of a Christian's interpretation of the origins of Nordic mythology. The Prose Edda is related to the Poetic Edda in that the Prose Edda cites various poems collected in the Poetic Edda as sources. The two Eddas are the most important extant sources on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century onwards have had a powerful influence on later Scandinavian literatures. Poets who have acknowledged their debt to the Poetic Edda include Vilhelm Ekelund, August Strindberg, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ezra Pound and Karin Boye.

The Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson

James George Frazer, Sir

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. It was first published in 1890. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855). It offered a modernist approach to discussing religion, treating it dispassionately as a cultural phenomenon rather than from a theological perspective. The impact of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature was substantial. This is Vol II of the 1922 edition.Sir James George Frazer FRS FRSE FBA OM (1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941), was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. He is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology. His most famous work, The Golden Bough , documents and details similar magical and religious beliefs across the globe. Frazer posited that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, in turn replaced by science.

A Study of Magic and Religion

The Golden Bough Vol II

The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. It was first published in 1890. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855). It offered a modernist approach to discussing religion, treating it dispassionately as a cultural phenomenon rather than from a theological perspective. The impact of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature was substantial. This is Vol I of the 1922 edition.Sir James George Frazer FRS FRSE FBA OM (1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941), was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion. He is often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology. His most famous work, The Golden Bough , documents and details similar magical and religious beliefs across the globe. Frazer posited that human belief progressed through three stages: primitive magic, replaced by religion, in turn replaced by science.

Alex Struik

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