A Bantam classic

A contemporary study of the early American nation and its evolving democracy, from a French aristocrat and sociologist. In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, set out from post-revolutionary France on a journey across America that would take him 9 months and cover 7,000 miles. The result was Democracy in America, a subtle and prescient analysis of the life and institutions of 19th-century America. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His study of the strengths and weaknesses of an evolving democratic society has been quoted by every American president since Eisenhower, and remains a key point of reference for any discussion of the American nation or the democratic system.

A collection of autobiographical literature by some of America's most influential black writers includes pieces by Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs.

From The Book's Cover: Three Plays: Our Town - Skin Of Our Teeth - The Matchmaker. This volume brings together the definitive texts of three outstanding plays by one of our most distinguished writers. Two of them, Our town and The Skin Of Our Teeth, were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The Matchmaker has never before been published. Our Town has been revised from the previously published version. All three plays were hits the most recent being The Matchmaker, which was first presented at the Edinburgh Festival in the summer of 1954, then played at the Royal Theatre in London before opening in New York in the fall of 1955 for a run of 489 performances. In his new preface for this volume Mr. Wilder writers: "The theatre has lagged behind the other arts in finding the 'new ways' to express how men and women think and feel in our time. I am not one of the new dramatists we are looking for. I wish I were. I hope I have played a part in preparing the way for them. I am not an innovator but a rediscoverer of for-gotten goods and I hope a remover of obtrusive bric-a-brac. And as I view the work of my contemporaries I seem to feel that I am exceptional in one thing - I give (don't I?) the impression of having enormously enjoyed it.

Дуэль Палата No. 6 Бабье царство Три года Моя жизнь Мужики В овраге

Thomas Paine’s voice rang in the ears of eighteenth-century revolutionaries from America to France to England. He was friend to luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and William Wordsworth. His pamphlets extolling democracy sold in the millions. Yet he died a forgotten man, isolated by his rough manners, idealistic zeal, and unwillingness to compromise. Howard Fast’s brilliant portrait brings Paine to the fore as a legend of American history, and provides readers with a gripping narrative of modern democracy’s earliest days in America and Europe.

The castle of Otranto / Horace Walpole The Old English Baron / Clara Reeve Mistrust or Blanche and Osbright / Matthew Gregory Lewis The heir of Mondolfo / Mary Shelley The white old maid / Nathaniel Hawthorn [The fall of the House of Usher]( / Edgar Allan Poe Carmilla / Sheridan Le Fanu.

17 STORIES [Tell-tale Heart]( [Black Cat]( [Cask of Amontillado]( [Fall of the House of Usher]( [Masque of the Red Death]( [Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar]( Ligeia Murders in the Rue Morgue [Purloined Letter]( [Descent into the Maelstrom]( [Pit and the Pendulum]( Ms. Found in a Bottle [Premature Burial]( [William Wilson]( [Eleonora]( [Silence — A Fable]( Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym 15 POEMS Alone [Annabel Lee]( Bells City in the Sea For Annie Israfel Lenore [Raven]( Romance Sleeper Stanzas To Helen Ulalume—A Ballad Valentine Valley of Unrest

Contains: - All's Well That Ends Well - Measure for Measure - Troilus and Cressida

Parade of comic characters and hilarious anecdotes as the American humorist recalls his Ohio childhood.

Extravagant power of invention and remarkable comic vitality make Aristophanes one of the most brilliant of the ancient Greek playwrights. From the hilariously bawdy yet fundamentally serious play, "Lysistrata", to the creative fantasy of the "Birds", to his comic masterpiece, the "Frogs", Aristophanes displays the biting satire, exquisite lyricism and licentious frankness that continue to make audiences laugh at the immensity of their own follies. A poet who hated an age of decadence, armed conflict and departure from tradition, Aristophanes' comic genius influenced the political and social order of his own fifth-century Athens. His true claim upon our attention is as the most brilliant and artistic and thoughtful wit our world has known. [Back cover].

Contains: - Merchant of Venice - Midsummer Night's Dream - Taming of the Shrew - Twelfth Night