Metropolitan Library System

Many of the U.S. presidents' inaugural addresses have provided windows into the presidency and the state of the nation. The voices of sixteen presidents are preserved in this collection of great inaugural addresses—from George Washington's somber comments in 1789 and Abraham Lincoln's noteworthy addresses attempting to bind the nation together, to John F. Kennedy's stirring "Ask not what your country can do for you" and Ronald Reagan's 1981

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With the publication of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens almost single-handedly created the genre of the "Christmas story." And while that beloved classic remains among the best known in the field, Dickens also wrote a number of other delightful tales associated with Yuletide.
This volume features three of the best. Combining realism with fantasy, and with kindness and affection for the poor a dominant theme, they include the title story,...

One of the greatest poets of any century, the Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) drew upon Irish folklore and myth as inspiration for much of his early poetry. Mythic themes as well as many other topics are masterfully explored in this rich selection of 134 lyrics chiefly selected from six volumes of verse published between 1889 and 1914. Among the poems included are "The Stolen Child" and "Down by the Salley Gardens" (Crossways,

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First published in 1900, Lord Jim is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Its central message about the consequences of straying from personal responsibility and ethical integrity is as powerful today as it was over one hundred years ago.
In a split-second impulse of self-preservation, a young ship's officer abandons his imperiled vessel and its passengers. He survives, but suffers a wretched existence.

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A traveling salesman awakens from troubled slumbers to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Franz Kafka's matter-of-fact tone brings an air of absolute truth to his fantastic narrative, which chronicles the effects of this monstrous conversion upon the protagonist's business and family life. Interpretations of Kafka's acclaimed 1915 novella range from religious allegory to psychoanalytic case history. All agree upon its status as a landmark...

Fusing romance and realism in a unique, gripping style, Balzac wrote more than 90 novels and tales in which he endowed the lives of his seemingly ordinary characters with a highly melodramatic gloss. This choice collection presents readers with original translations of five of the great French writer's most acclaimed stories.
In "The Unknown Masterpiece," a tale much admired by Cézanne and Picasso, a painter becomes obsessed with his search

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The Golden Bowl comes in the first years of the 20th-century: the publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, decided never to serialise it and published it in New York in December 1904 in two volumes. After just a few months, in February 1905, also Methuen published the novel in London in a one-volume edition. In 1909, a revised edition appeared as volumes 23 and 24 of the New York edition, and James this time also prepared the preface, in which he reflected...

The Aspern Papers Henry James - The Aspern Papers is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who saved them until she died. Set in Venice, The Aspern Papers demonstrates James'...

The classic account of moving from slavery to freedom, by the celebrated African-American educator and university founder. Booker T. Washington believed that every man and woman deserved a chance, regardless of their skin color. This classic work of literature, originally published in 1901, relays the story of a man born into slavery who, once freed, pursued education and racial equality. This new edition of Booker T. Washington's autobiography features...

A group of pilgrims bound for Canterbury Cathedral agree to pass the weary miles by taking turns at storytelling. The travelers ― noble, coarse, jolly, and pious ― offer a vibrant portrait of fourteenth-century English life. Their narratives form English literature's greatest collection of chivalric romances, bawdy tales, fables, legends, and other stories.
The Canterbury Tales reflects a society in transition, as a middle class...