Ocean State Libraries

Mark Antony is supposed to be ruling the eastern Roman Empire. However, he is carrying on a torrid affair in Egypt with Cleopatra. The death of his wife, Fulvia, and the threat of a war brings him back to Rome.

Told from the perspective of a cantankerous man named Deidrick Knickerbocker, A Knickerbocker's History of New York depicts a satirical history spanning from the world's creation to the end of the Dutch dynasty. Beginning with the start of time itself, Knickerbocker reveals historical anecdotes, both real and imagined featuring social commentary, fresh perspectives on the past, and conversations with powerful historical figures. With humor and intrigue,...

A collection of six stories by Herman Melville includes what has long been regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands. The Piazza: The protagonist idealizes a radiant spot on the mountain he looks upon from his piazza. This spot is a house and one day he goes to the cottage, only to find the unhappy...

In this novel Mr. Conrad has the Mediterranean, as seen from the French south coast, not for a stage, but for a background, in the depth of which the presence of the English blockading fleet is rather felt than seen throughout the course of events which happen on land in a lonely farm house. The narrative, intimate in character, deals with the crisis in the lives of two women and some men - the Rover being the central figure - and ends at sea in an...

This Kraken Edition of Pierre, or The Ambiguities is a reconstruction of the text that Melville delivered to Harper & Brothers early in January 1852, just as some of the most devastating reviews of Moby-Dick were appearing. The Harper brothers apparently decided that Pierre was even more outrageous than Moby-Dick and tried to avoid publishing it by offering Melville less than half the royalties they had paid for his previous books. Accepting the humiliating...

Blood and Revenge-- Titus Andronicus is by far Shakespeare's most violent play. Set in the later days of the Roman empire it follows a fictional succession to the throne. The play follows Titus, a great Roman general, who is thrown into one bad situation after another. Much blood flows and a cycle of revenge ensues and tragedy abounds. Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead. Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things As willingly as one would...

Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeats's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.

"How to Tell a Story and Other Essays" is a collection of essays on various subjects by America's most famous satirist, Mark Twain. Contained in this volume you will find the following essays: How to Tell a Story, In Defense of Harriet Shelley, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Travelling With a Reformer, Private History of the 'Jumping Frog' Story, Mental Telegraphy Again, What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us, A Little Note to M. Paul Bourget, The Invalid's...

A failed mutiny lands the narrator in a Tahitian jail where he and his companion, Doctor Long Ghost, are treated with curiosity and kindness. After their eventual release, the two embark on a series of adventures as they work at odd jobs, view traditional rites and customs on the island, and contrive an audience with the Tahitian queen. Thought-provoking, humorous glimpses of a vanished 19th-century world in the South Seas.

Shadows on the Rock Willa Cather - Set in 17th century Canada. A year in the life of a widow and his young daughter and the trappers, missionaries, craftsmen, friends and others who come to their house and shop, it highlights the men and women who struggled to adapt to the "new world" and make a new life for themselves even as they clung to the one they had left behind