Showing results by narrator "Robert Bethune" in All Categories

In this, the 13th of the series, Dumas, the novelist-historian, finds ample scope for his favorite approach. His subject is a well-documented historical figure: Ali Tepelini, most often known as Ali Pasha and known even in his own day as The Lion of Tepelen. Dumas presents us with an extraordinary character, a man of tremendous courage, unstoppable tenacity, matchless duplicity, extreme debauchery, disgusting cruelty, and amazing ingenuity.

John Maynard Keynes died in 1946, but his name is still prominent in economics and politics worldwide. Although his contributions to economic theory established and maintain his fame, he also - particularly at the time in his life when he wrote the present book, Economic Consequences of the Peace - showed a flair for practical political work. At the end of World War I he was appointed as the British Treasury's representative to the Versailles Peace Conference. His experiences at the Conference formed the basis of this book.

To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language - has minced no words - to describe violent scenes of violent times. In particular, the torture of Beatrice Cenci at the hands of the authorities of Rome is given in brutal and clinical detail, sparing nothing.In this, the second of the series, Dumas tells the frankly horrifying story of the tragic sons and daughers of Francesco Cenci.

With Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, cantos III and IV, Byron comes to the high point of his work and to clear and definite mastery of his art as a poet. Though he himself doubts his powers - he says his visions no longer swim so palpably before his eyes as once they did - his visions are far more palpable to us, expressed as they are with the full depth of his romantic and passionate feelings. He continues the device of the journey of the fictional Harold, but Harold is almost a ghost; the thin disguise and facade that separates him from the poet essentaily vanishes.

Housman himself knew that his output as a poet would not be large. In his preface to this volume, he wrote, rather touchingly: "I publish these poems, few though they are, because it is not likely that I shall ever be impelled to write much more." He pulled Last Poems together because his life-long friend, Moses Jackson, was dying and Housman wanted Jackson to be able to read these poems before Jackson passed away.

Thomas Gray is worldfamous as the author of "Gray's Elegy", more properly known as "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". He did not write very much, but he did write more than just his most famous poem. This collection is a recording of the 1768 Dodsley edition, the primary publication of his poetry that he published during his lifetime.

In Merlin, Edwin Arlington Robinson delves into the minds and hearts of a gallery of characters from the story Camelot. He places the action at the moment when Guinevere and Lancelot have fled to Joyeux Gard, and Arthur, goaded on by Modred and Gawaine, is reluctantly preparing an army to make war on them. It is at this time that he needs the advice and support of his old mentor, Merlin, more than ever before in his reign and his life, but it is at just this crucial time that Merlin has found that the love of Vivian is more important to him than kings, knights, or Camelot itself.

Conrad Aiken was fascinated throughout his early work with the image of a tempestuous, romantic young man who tears himself away from his wife, his first love, and from a pastoral, peaceful life in a rural setting, to pursue what he hopes will be a richer, fuller, more rewarding life in a great city. In this book, Aiken explores this theme in full, especially in the final long poem, "Dust in Starlight", which also forms Part III of his trilogy, Earth Triumphant.

At one point in his moody, erotic, and barbarous romance of She, H. Rider Haggard puts into the mouth of his narrator, Horace L. Holly, the observation that her story sounded like some extraordinary invention of a speculative brain. That, precisely, is what She is: a really marvelously inventive story, combining an amazing variety of what should be utterly implausible ideas into a fabric that constantly feels like truth.

A Shropshire Lad is A. E. Housman's reflections on love, death, and the eternal uncertainty of the human condition, placed in an idealized world of rural England, unpolluted by the taint of the city, but still a place where love can fail, evil can come to good people, and human beings can find themselves torn deeply by conflicting desires and feelings. Housman had great faith in his work even when he could not find a publisher and had to bring it out himself. His faith was rewarded.

In this, the fourth volume of the work, William Hazlitt takes us through the great turning point in Napoleon's life: his invasion of Russia. He shows us the situation in Europe at that time: England controlling the sea, France controlling the land, and only Russia left as a land-based threat to France. He also explores the changes in Napoleon's life and mind: his divorce from Josephine, his marriage to Maria Louisa, his friendship with Emperor Alexander...a friendship that turned to deep enmity.

Here is part of the byroads-and-backwaters side of Lord Byron - poems you probably won't hear elsewhere, poems he wrote casually and sometimes never published, but poems that offer a side of him not seen elsewhere.

In this, the third volume of the work, William Hazlitt takes us through the a critical period in Napoleon's life: his leadership of France as first consul. He shows us how the political developments of the time coincided with Napoleon's personal development, the experiences that convinced him that France needed a new leader, and how he came to believe that he himself was that leader. This volume ends with the greatest transition of all, from first consul to emperor.

In this, the fourth of the series, Dumas tells the story of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots - a story both strikingly touching and almost morbidly violent. Never one to allow a mere fact to stand in the way of a good story, though very sympathetic to Mary, Dumas puts all the most sensational accusations made against her - mostly by her enemies - to circumspect yet full use, which certainly distorts history, but makes for a great tale.

In Charnel Rose, Conrad Aiken takes the plunge into a deeply metaphysical and surrealistic world, capturing the essence of one aspect of quintessential humanity: how we create and pursue a deeply personal, intensely idealistic, physically and emotionally draining search for love, and how some of us turn away from real love when we do find it, preferring instead to re-invent and re-amplify our idealistic vision of passionate perfection. He does this through an amazing combination of highly imaginative imagery conveyed through strikingly simple and beautiful poetry, musically complex....

This is Carl Sandburg's fourth collection of poetry. His signature style, a rough-and-ready free verse that often transforms into poetic prose, is in full view. Like Whitman before him and like Masters and Frost in his own time, he puts his focus directly on life as he sees it around him, life in the rough-and-tumble Chicago of the early 20th century and life in the American West at a time when that wild country was finally succumbing to civilization

William Hazlitt is one of the foremost writers of the English language. His fame as a critic, essayist, and social commentator ranks with the likes of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He considered his justly famous Life of Napoleon as his most important work. In this, the fifth volume of the work, William Hazlitt takes us through Napoleon's captivity on the island of St. Helena, his decline and his death.

There's a long tradition of English Christmas stories, sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, often revolving around ghosts and apparitions. Dickens drew on it in a serious vein in A Christmas Carol; here, Jerome K. Jerome tells hilarious stories from around an English Christmas fireside.

In The Man Against The Sky, Edwin Arlington Robinson presents us with a gallery of characters drawn from the streets, homes and gathering places of Tilbury Town, his fictional Northeastern dwelling place. A mysterious compelling stranger, a woman living on charity, a welcoming home - this and other portraits give us a compelling and perceptive view of the range of human character and feeling.

Five wonderful stories by Ambrose Bierce, full of vivid characters, precise and evocative language, surprises, and suspense. Written more than a century ago, these stories still capture the imagination with vivid, precise language that bites - and may even draw blood! This Freshwater Seas production presents these five classic stories performed by Susie Berneis and Robert Bethune, with subtle musical underscoring to enhance and enrich Bierce's words.