The Ark

Mortal Coils Aldous Huxley - Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1921. As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney. In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S....

First published in 1818, "Nightmare Abbey" Is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock and his third long work of fiction. It is a Gothic satirical tale that follows Christopher Glowry, Esquire, a melancholic widower who lives with his only son Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey, a run-down mansion that has been in his family for generations. It explores in a comical way the romantic movement in contemporary English literature and its preoccupation with morbidity,...

Widely believed to be among Melville's most popular works, "Redburn, His First Voyage" follows the young Wellingborough Redburn on his first journey at sea. A boy just on the verge of manhood, Redburn's decision to become a sailor is apparently at odds with his gentle upbringing, which has made him in many ways unprepared for the hardships of his chosen profession. He is unmercifully initiated into the life of a sailor by his fellow crewmen, a trying...

Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter...

This antiquarian volume contains an essay by Arnold Bennett on the subject of mental efficiency. This text is typical of the numerous self-improvement essays and books that Bennett wrote alongside his famous fiction work, and it is a text that, although old, still contains much that will amuse and edify the modern reader. A must-have for fans and collectors of Bennett's work, this book would make for a worthy addition to any collection. The chapters...

The Antichrist is Friedrich Nietzsche's great masterpiece, wherein Nietzsche attacks Christianity as a blight on humanity. This classic is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Nietzsche and his place within the history of philosophy. Nietzsche claimed that to understand this philosophy, the reader should be above politics and nationalism. Also, the usefulness or harmfulness of truth should not be a concern. About the Author: Friedrich...

The History of Mr. Polly is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells. The protagonist of The History of Mr. Polly is an antihero inspired by H. G. Wells's early experiences in the drapery trade: Alfred Polly, born circa 1870, a timid and directionless young man living in Edwardian England, who despite his own bumbling achieves contented serenity with little help from those around him. Mr. Polly's most striking characteristic is his "innate sense of epithet",...

The Virginian is a 1902 debut novel set in the Wild West by the American novelist Owen Wister. Describing the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, it helped establish the western novel as a literary genre. The unnamed protagonist in The Virginian, who courts a local schoolteacher and defers personal revenge while meting out justice to a cattle thief, set the tone for the rough but civilized cowboy, a prototype for scores of ensuing books,...

Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. Persuaded to put money into a notional plot to run a railroad from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, the capricious gambler Felix Carbury soon becomes one of his victims. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit - which also draws in characters as diverse as his own...