Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Literary History & Criticism

This chilling tale of greed, lust, and deception opens on a midwinter night when Felix Canaris, a despairing writer about to take his own life, is saved by a knock at the door. The mysterious visitor, a Jasper Helwyze, promises Felix fame and fortune in return for his complete devotion.

Trilby opens in the Latin Quarter of Paris, where Trilby O'Ferrall is working as an artist's model. Her grace and ingenuous charm make a poignant contrast to the cruel magnetism of Svengali, under whose spell she falls. Using hypnotic powers, Svengali shapes her into a virtuoso singer, Europe's most captivating soprano. But her golden voice, and even her life, become fatally tied to him.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"?

Marty Kihn was the nicest guy in the world, until he got fed up with being passed over for promotions at work, tired of being suckered into walking his neighbor's dog, and sick of being disrespected by the man who sold him his morning coffee. On the day he turned 40, Kihn set out to transform himself from Mr. Nice Guy into a rule-breaking, power-mongering, Fox News-watching asshole.

What makes a penguin a bird? Is a camel more closely related to a horse than to a giraffe? Why is a whale not a fish? Similar puzzles preoccupied Charles Darwin throughout his life. Whimsy, in the playfulness of stories for children, is a way to appreciate Darwinian histories. In Do Elephants Have Knees? Charles R. Ault Jr. uses the fanciful imagery of story to explain Darwinian thought. At the same time, he launches careful consideration of Darwin's humanity, the origins of his curiosity, and his ideas.

From his rare vantage point as Lewis's student, friend, and professional colleague, Professor John Lawlor recalls Lewis "in his habit as he lived." He offers an unforgettable account of studying under Lewis and an enchanting depiction of undergraduate life at Oxford between the wars. To round out his picture, Professor Lawlor draws on the recollections of other associates of Lewis, including a close comparison with J.R.R. Tolkien.

Designed to be compatible with virtually every standard textbook in its subject field, Barron's EZ-101 Study Keys gives you a valuable overview of your college-level course. From Middle English through the modern writers, English Literature covers the key themes, quotations, and literary terms.

In Lost Sound, Jeff Porter examines the vital interplay between acoustic techniques and modernist practices in the growth of radio. Concentrating on the 1930s through the 1970s, but also speaking to the rising popularity of today's narrative broadcasts such as This American Life, Radiolab, Serial, and The Organist, Porter's close readings of key radio programs show how writers adapted literary techniques to an acoustic medium with great effect.

The classical Greek intellectual tradition pervades nearly every aspect of our modern Western civilization. Our logic and science, our philosophy, politics, literature, architecture, and art are all indebted to the ancient inhabitants of the small mountainous Mediterranean country. And the powerful myths of the Greeks, refined by Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and the great Greek dramatists, still resonate at the core of our culture.

The literary canon is filled with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines, and legendary female authors. Like today’s women, they too placed a premium on personality, spirituality, career, sisterhood, and family. When their backs were against the wall, characters like Scarlett O’Hara, Jo March, Jane Eyre, and Elizabeth Bennet fought back - sometimes with words, sometimes with gritty actions.

This work set the style for a whole class of literature, a work that the critic Morton Dauwen Zabel calls an example of Conrad's "central theme...the grip of circumstances that enforce self-discovery and its cognate, the discovery of reality and truth...." It is a novel about a man's lifelong efforts to atone for an act of instinctive cowardice.

Frank Harris, a journalist and editor, delighted in Oscar Wilde's genial wit and self-assurance. Wilde's verbal charms evoked Harris' financial and emotional support when Victorian England disdained the playwright for his paganism and imprisoned him for "homosexual offenses". Harris relates the proceedings of Wilde's trial and the malice that sent him to France after release from prison.

In December 2005, a young robotocist on his way to Google headquarters lost an overnight bag on a flight somewhere between Dallas and Las Vegas. In it was the fully functional head of an android replica of Philip K. Dick, cult science fiction writer and counterculture guru. It has never been recovered. In a story that echoes some of the most paranoid fantasies of a Dick novel, listeners will get a fascinating inside look at the scientists and technology that made this amazing android possible.

In American Literature, all main periods are covered, from colonial times to the present movement toward cultural diversity. Also covered are key themes and personalities, with emphasis on major figures, including Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Alice Walker, and many more.

First published in 1915, The Voyage Out marked the literary debut of one of the great pioneers of the modern novel. Virginia Woolf's extraordinary narrative follows a group of lively, eccentric British tourists embarking on a sea voyage from London to South America. Among them is Rachel Vinrace, a shy, motherless young woman who has been taken along under the wing of her Aunt Helen, so that she may learn "how to live".

Ardis Cameron mines extensive interviews, fan letters, and archival materials including contemporary cartoons and cover images from film posters and foreign editions to tell how the story of a patricide in a small New England village circulated over time and became a cultural phenomenon.

Lost in Language & Sound is a vibrant and vital collection that celebrates the three most important muses in the life and work of Ntozake Shange - language, music, and dance. In this deeply personal book, the celebrated writer reflects on what it means to be an artist, a woman, and a woman of color through a beautiful combination of memoir and essay. She describes where her love for creative forces began - in her childhood home, a place where imagination reigned and boredom wasn't allowed.

When Glenn Dixon is spurned by love, he packs his bags for Verona, Italy. Once there, he volunteers to answer the thousands of letters that arrive addressed to Juliet - letters sent from lovelorn people all over the world to Juliet's hometown, people who long to understand the mysteries of the human heart. Glenn's journey takes him deep into the charming community of Verona, where he becomes involved in unraveling the truth behind Romeo and Juliet.

Master wit Mark Twain selected these 27 stories himself by 15 of his favorite 19th-century authors. The order follows that which Twain placed them in in the original anthology, published in 1888. He indulged his comic fancy rather than making a textbook in which all themes or authors are placed together, saying that "This way you will have to peruse the whole thing before discovering that one of your favorites is not included." Among others, you'll find: Artemus Ward, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Francis Lee Pratt, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Frederick W. Cozzens, and Twain himself.

Torn by a quirk of fate from his life as a dilettante and intellectual, Humphrey van Weydon finds himself at the whim of the ruthless Wolf Larsen. The 2 men - the one youthful, idealistic, and upper-class, the other ruthless, dangerous, self-taught, and self-determined - inevitably become adversaries. As he does in Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London dramatizes in this story the violent encounter between safe, genteel comfort and a brutal set of circumstances.