(Modern Library of the world's best books)

Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.

English missionary's sister enlists aid of mechanic in blowing up German gunboat on African lake.

A compelling story of passion, with an enduring air of enchantment throughout, Precious Bane is a novel that haunts us with its beauty and its timeless truths about our deepest hopes. Set in Shropshire in the 1800s, it is alive with the many moods of Nature, benevolent and violent and the many moods -- equally benevolent and violent -- of the people making lives there.

That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antique station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to the tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age.

À rebours (French pronunciation: [a ʁ(ə).buʁ]; translated Against Nature or Against the Grain) is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences. À rebours contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea to portray a man "soaring upwards into dream, seeking refuge in illusions of extravagant fantasy, living alone, far from his century, among memories of more congenial times, of less base surroundings ... each chapter became the sublimate of a specialism, the refinement of a different art; it became condensed into an essence of jewellery, perfumes, religious and secular literature, of profane music and plain-chant." (Wikipedia)

Supposedly based on Beethoven, Jean-Christophe Krafft's life, personality, and artistic development are the themes of this series of volumes, along with the difficulties of the artist in society.

Originally published in 1925, after three years of anticipation, the book follows the life of Martin Arrowsmith, a rather ordinary fellow who gets his first taste of medicine at 14 as an assistant to the drunken physician in his home town. It is Leora Tozer who makes Martin's life extraordinary. With vitality and love, she urges him beyond the confines of the mundane to risk answering his true calling as a scientist and researcher. Not even her tragic death can extinguish her spirit or her impact on Martin's life. After years of work as a small town doctor and a research scientist, Arrowsmith heads for the West Indies with a serum to halt an epidemic. A tragic turn of events forces him to come to terms with his career and his personal life. As the son and grandson of physicians, Sinclair Lewis had a store of experiences and imparted knowledge to draw upon for Arrowsmith.

Contains (order varies by edition): Novels: Blithedale Romance Fanshawe House of the Seven Gables Marble Faun Scarlet Letter From Twice-Told Tales: Ambitious Guest David Swan [Dr. Heidegger's Experiment]( Endicott and the Red Cross Gentle Boy Gray Champion Great Carbuncle Hollow of the Three Hills Legends of the Province House May-Pole of Merry Mount [Minister's Black Veil]( Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure Shaker Bridal Wakefield Wedding Knell From [Mosses from an Old Manse]( Artist of the Beautiful [Birth-Mark]( Celestial Railroad Drowne's Wooden Image Egotism ; Or, the Bosom Serpent Feathertop : a Moralized Legend Mrs. Bullfrog Procession of Life [Rappaccini's Daughter]( Roger Malvin's Burial [Young Goodman Brown]( From Snow Image: Canterbury Pilgrims Devil in Manuscript Ethan Brand Great Stone Face My Kinsman, Major Molineux Snow Image : a Childish Miracle

Thomas Bulfinch was an American banker and Latin scholar. Bulfinch’s Mythology is a posthumous compilation of three volumes published by Bulfinch during his lifetime which were intended to introduce the general reader to the myths and legends of Western Civilization by presenting them in simple prose with occasional commentary by the author. Bulfinch also includes many quotations showing how these stories have been handled by poets and playwrights of later years. The three original volumes are The Age of Fable (1855), dealing largely with Greek and Roman mythology but also touching on the mythology of other cultures such as the Indian, Egyptian and Norse myths; The Age of Chivalry (1858), dealing with Arthurian legend, the Holy Grail and the Mabinogeon; and Legends of Charlemagne (1863), dealing with the fantastical legends surrounding Charlemagne and his “paladins” such as Orlando, Oliver and Rogero. The combined volume entitled Bulfinch’s Mythology quickly became very popular, and by some accounts it is one of the most popular books ever published in the United States.

Presents in chronological order, poems by German poets from Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock born in 1724 to Heinrich Boll, born in 1917.

Existential novel focusing on the ethical and moral conflicts in the philosophy and life of a French professor.

This satirical novella tells the story of the life and early death of a high court judge. Ivan Ilych is proud of his achievements and his status in society, despite his poor relations with his wife which renders his home life bleak and joyless. When he becomes hopelessly ill he begins to realize that he has not after all lived the good life he had supposed he was enjoying.

Contains: - [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland](

From back cover of Washington Square Press paperback January 1970: A wicked satire This is a brilliantly etched portrait of a Bostonian and of the tradition-bound, gilded society in which he lived. But even more, it is the story of three generations of Apley men, a story of the maturing of America, a story of the golden era of American security from 1866 to 1933. The Late George Apley is fascinating, warm, witty and delightful. Marquand's superb sense of the comix has made it a classic of modern American literature. And when at last you reluctantly put it down, you will know why it won a Pulitzer Prize. Introduction by Henry H. Adams

The Counterfeiters (French: Les Faux-monnayeurs) is a 1925 novel by French author André Gide, first published in Nouvelle Revue Française. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original and the copy, and what differentiates them – both in the external plot of the counterfeit gold coins and in the portrayal of the characters' feelings and their relationships. The Counterfeiters is a novel-within-a-novel, with Édouard (the alter ego of Gide) intending to write a book of the same title. Other stylistic devices are also used, such as an omniscient narrator who sometimes addresses the reader directly, weighs in on the characters' motivations or discusses alternate realities. Therefore, the book has been seen as a precursor of the nouveau roman. The structure of the novel was written to mirror "Cubism", in that it interweaves between several different plots and portrays multiple points of view. The novel features a considerable number of bisexual or gay male characters – the adolescent Olivier and at least to a certain unacknowledged degree his friend Bernard, in all likelihood their schoolfellows Gontran and Philippe, and finally the adult writers the Comte de Passavant (who represents an evil and corrupting force) and the (more benevolent) Édouard. An important part of the plot is its depiction of various possibilities of positive and negative homoerotic or homosexual relationships. Initially received coldly on its appearance, perhaps because of its homosexual themes and its unusual composition, The Counterfeiters has gained reputation in the intervening years and is now generally counted among the Western canon of literature.

A [Streetcar Named Desire]( / Tennessee Williams -- [Death of a Salesman]( / Arthur Miller -- Come back, little Sheba / William Inge -- The seven year itch / George Axelrod -- Tea and sympathy / Robert Anderson -- The Caine mutiny court-martial / Herman Wouk

The title story of this collection is, like many of the others, set during the Franco-Prussian war. As in so many of Maupassant’s stories he explores class barriers and looks at the contrasts between the French and German combatants.