No poem has ever received the kind of immediate and overwhelming response that Poe's "The Raven" did when it first appeared in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. It made Poe an overnight sensation (though his great fame never brought him much wealth) and the poem, a powerfully haunting elegy to lost love, remains one of the most beloved and recognizable verses in the English language. The illustrations that accompany this Top Five Classics edition are reproductions of the renowned French artist Gustave Doré's steel-plate engravings created for Harper and Brothers' 1884 release of The Raven. It would be Doré's last commission as he died shortly after completing the 25 illustrations in January 1883. His illustrations would become famous in their own right, evoking as they do the lyrical and mystical air of Poe's masterpiece.This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven includes all 25 engravings by Gustave Doré for Harper and Brothers' 1884 edition, reproduced at full-page size; an informative introduction; a detailed biography of Edgar Allan Poe; and the illustrated version of the full poem followed by the text of the poem on its own.
The Adventures of Pinocchio by C. Collodi (the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini) was first published in book form in 1883 in Florence, Italy, after its successful serialization in the weekly Giornale per i Bambini from July 1881 to January 1883. The story of an enchanted marionette who yearns to be a real boy, Pinocchio was an immediate sensation and has never gone out of print, having been translated into hundreds of languages and adapted to the stage and screen countless times. In 1911 the Italian artist Attilio Mussino drew more than 280 beautiful, striking, and iconic illustrations for the first color edition of Pinocchio, which are included in this new Top Five Classics edition of Collodi's immortal work. The text, translated by Carol Della Chiesa for the 1925 American edition, is not the Disney version, but a universal moral parable for children that reflects its Italian heritage and satiric sense of humor, as well as the darkness and magic that are an integral part of all classic fairy tales.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, which saw the return of Sherlock Holmes eight years after his apparent death at the hands of his nemesis Moriarty, is often considered the greatest mystery novel in the English language. It became Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous work and launched an improbable and incredibly successful second act for the world's greatest detective.This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles includes all 60 illustrations by Sidney Paget from the original Strand serials that appeared from August 1901 to April 1902, an informative introduction, and detailed author bio.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..."In 1775 Doctor Manette is reunited with his daughter Lucie after having been locked away in the Bastille for 18 years. Lucie nurtures her half-mad father back to health, but their troubles are far from over, as their lives become entangled with Charles Darnay, the emigrant son of the Marquis St. Evrémonde; the ne'er-do-well Sydney Carton, and the vengeful Monsieur and Madame Defarge. Set against the terror and turmoil of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens's most enduring works-a historical adventure of high drama and profound depth.This Top Five Classics edition of Charles Dickens's immortal A Tale of Two Cities includes the original unabridged text, more than 40 illustrations from the 1859 first edition by "Phiz" (Hablot K. Browne) and from the 1872 edition by Frederick Barnard. In addition, it features a foreword by Dickens scholar and novelist Andrei Baltakmens (author of The Raven's Seal and A Hangman for Ghosts).
"Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!"When Count Dracula welcomes Jonathan Harker into his ancient castle, perched amid Transylvania's Carpathian Mountains, the young solicitor is plunged into a nightmare that will test his mettle and his sanity. Dracula--as Harker, his fiancée Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, her suitors, and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing will soon learn--is a dangerous and powerful vampire who has lived for centuries and possesses abilities no mortal can claim. Bent on creating legions of Un-Dead followers in teeming 1890s London, Dracula must be stopped--but how? Bram Stoker's Dracula--told from multiple perspectives in a series of journal entries, letters, and communiqués, and first published in 1897--established an entire genre of fiction, and with its brooding sense of dread, blood-curdling suspense, and edge-of-your-seat action, formed the template for countless homages, reinterpretations, and adaptations. This unabridged edition includes numerous maps and historical illustrations.
This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein includes all 65 hauntingly beautiful, moody, and subtly erotic woodcut illustrations by Lynd Ward from his 1934 edition; the unabridged 1831 text of the popular revised edition by Mary Shelley; a helpful introduction; and a detailed author bio.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the foundational text of both the horror and science fiction genres, a classic that has been read, discussed, and adapted in every medium for more than 200 years. Dreamed up when the author was only 18 while on holiday in Switzerland with her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and the poet Lord Byron, Frankenstein is the result of a challenge from Byron to each write their own "ghost story." The result was a tale that would become synonymous with horror, that would be the first novel to ask the question, Are there some things man was not meant to know?Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young scientist, discovers the secret to endowing inanimate flesh with life. Without thinking of the repercussions, he throws himself into realizing his ambition, only to recoil in terror at what he has created. Rejected by his creator and humanity, Frankenstein's monster is driven by the primal desire to know love or, if denied that, to inspire fear.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."With every one of Jane Austen's novels still in print more than two hundred years after their initial publication, Pride and Prejudice remains her most beloved and enduring work.Elizabeth Bennet, the second oldest of five daughters, would already be married if her mother had anything to say about it. At twenty-one, she is headstrong, clever, kind, and most of all, unwilling to settle for a loveless match. When she meets the proud Mr. Darcy, they immediately misjudge one another, but soon challenge and ultimately change each other in a story with as much comedy and satire as drama and romance.Featuring 40 illustrations by renowned Austen illustrator Charles E. Brock, this Top Five Classics edition includes the unabridged text, an informative introduction, and a detailed author biography.
This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights includes the complete, unabridged text; 12 starkly beautiful woodcut illustrations by renowned artist Clare Leighton (which were the inspiration for the sets of the classic 1939 Laurence Olivier-Merle Oberon film adaptation), as well as a helpful introduction, detailed author bio, and bibliography.Wuthering Heights was released in 1847 in the shadow of the instantly successful Jane Eyre, published two months earlier by her older sister Charlotte. It enjoyed only mixed reviews--but the reactions were intense, foreshadowing the eventual stature the novel would claim in the pantheon of English literature, surpassing in many readers' eyes even her sister's magnum opus. Though Emily would not live to see it, Wuthering Heights would become synonymous with passionate gothic romance and tragic love, establishing Heathcliff and Catherine as the most poignantly doomed couple in fiction since Romeo and Juliet, but with even darker consequences for everyone involved.
This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Dickens’ immortal holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, includes the original color illustrations by John Leech, as well as another 20 woodcut engravings by Sol Eytinge Jr. from the 1869 American edition by Ticknor & Fields. Beautifully designed and carefully edited, this hardcover edition also includes a short introduction and bio.Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old curmudgeon who spurns Christmas as a “humbug,” is given the chance to redeem himself through the intervention of four spirits on Christmas Eve—the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come. The story not only reformed Scrooge, it transformed the way we celebrate the Holiday itself. If reading Dickens’ most beloved story doesn’t put you in the true spirit of Christmas, you may very well be beyond hope.As Scrooge’s nephew Fred said, “I have always thought of Christmas time...as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”Or as Tiny Tim put it more succinctly, “God Bless Us, Every One!”
By the time Lucien Carr stabbed David Kammerer to death on the banks of the Hudson River in August 1944, it was clear that the hard-partying teenage companion to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs might need to reevaluate his life. A two-year stint in a reformatory straightened out the wayward youth but did little to curb the wild ways of his friends.MANIA tells the story of this remarkable group-who strained against the conformity of postwar America, who experimented with drink, drugs, sex, jazz, and literature, and who yearned to be heard, to remake art and society in their own libertine image. What is more remarkable than the manic lives they led is that they succeeded-remaking their own generation and inspiring the ones that followed. From the breakthrough success of Kerouac's On the Road to the controversy of Ginsberg's Howl and Burroughs' Naked Lunch, the counterculture was about to go mainstream for the first time, and America would never be the same again.Based on more than eight years' writing and research, Ronald Collins and David Skover-authors of the highly acclaimed The Trials of Lenny Bruce (2002, 2012)-bring the stories of these artists, hipsters, hustlers, and maniacs to life in a dramatic, fast-paced, and often darkly comic narrative.
"The impressive first in a historical series, which effortlessly alternates between Washington, D.C., in 1862 and the same city 95 years later...this debut shows definite promise." -Publishers WeeklyNo one noticed anything suspicious about the death of a wounded soldier at the height of the Civil War-not, that is, until almost a hundred years later.In 1957, a young Washington, D.C. police sergeant, Ben Carey, heads up a team of officers in a dilapidated house three blocks from the Capitol. Though Carey's career is on the rise, his marriage is circling the drain, and as he spends more time at the office, he discovers there is something not quite right about this decaying old home. It harbors some dark secrets-connecting him to the long-dead soldier and others in ways he can't understand. With his personal life in shambles, and forces from within the house vying for his attention, Carey casts reason aside and begins an investigation to uncover the truth about what happened in this haunted place. As he peels back the layers of history, he finds courage and love, but also deception, greed, jealousy, and murder.Twisting through time-between an America torn by Civil War and the prosperous 1950s-Murder Bay is a mystery that spans eras and the gulf dividing what can and cannot be explained."Very nicely done...Recommended." -Library Journal"An involving, period-perfect story. The action is fast-paced and convincing...the characters are expertly drawn." -Foreword Reviews
"We are transported. We are consigned to the ends of the Earth. And we are therefore as good as dead to the realm and its judges. There can be no hope of reprieve…"Gabriel Carver, the convict hangman of Sydney Prison, knows that none of his kind may depart Australia's penal colony without the system's leave. Then three people are murdered, seemingly to protect the "Rats' Line," an illicit path to freedom that exists only in the fevered imaginations of transported felons. But why kill to protect something that doesn't exist?When an innocent woman from Carver's past is charged with one of the murders and faces execution at his hands, she threatens to reveal an incriminating secret of his own unless he helps her. So Carver must try to unmask the killer among the convicts, soldiers, sailors, and fallen women roaming 1829 Sydney. If he can find the murderer, he may discover who is defying the system under its very nose. His search will take him back to the scene of his ruin-to London and a past he can never remake nor ever escape, not even at the edge of the world."Baltakmens, echoing the voices of 19th-century masters like Conrad and Melville, combines adventure and mystery in a high-stakes tale of class, morality, and justice." -Kirkus Reviews"A page-turner, a savory treat to be devoured." -Foreword Reviews
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