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This lyrical ballad is one of Tennyson's most famous poems. The subject, the tragic passing of a reclusive noblewoman, was suggested by a 13th-century Italian romance, the Donna di Scalotta.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a poetic marvel, a work that has survived translation into many languages, while losing little of its force and its wry character. As a source of literary imagery and memorable quotations it ranks with the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. While Edward Fitzgerald was neither the first nor the most scholarly of the English translators of the Rubaiyat, his translation has been largely responsible for the world-wide popularity of this monument of classic Persian poetry.

Between 1895 and 1897 Oscar Wilde served a prison sentence for offences "of gross indecency". Most of this time was spent at Reading Gaol, where Wilde encountered another prisoner, Harles Thomas Wooldridge, sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Wooldrige was hanged at the gaol on 7th July, 1896. Wilde wrote the poem in France in 1897 after his release from prison. The poem is a long reflection on the inequity and ineffectiveness of statutory punishment and the redeeming power of the Christian message of forgiveness.

Antonio, a wealthy and popular merchant, is in financial difficulty. He approaches a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who agrees to provide 3000 ducats, with a very curious bond – a pound of the merchant’s flesh, to be levied if Antonio fails to make a timely repayment. Feeling confident that his argosies will arrive in time to cover the debt, Antonio agrees to this bizarre transaction.

James Elroy Flecker, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, and diplomat, like his illustrious poetic peers, Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke, did not survive the First World War. All three died young: Owen and Brooke in the line of battle, and Flecker, who never fought due to a long-standing respiratory illness, in a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1915. Flecker's poems are generally short: none of his original verse works exceeds 1200 words in length. Flecker revised his poems regularly, refining their spare but telling verbiage and achieving simplicity and directness.

According to Tertullian and others Marcion was the son of a bishop and was born at Sinope, in Pontus. He arrived in Rome in about 140 CE, bringing a scripture with him that he named "The Gospel of the Lord". Marcion described this not as a new gospel, but as that which Saint Paul had used and which he communicated to the churches he founded.

In this extended pamphlet, free-thinking advocate Henry Tichenor presents the life story of Gotama Buddha in the style of a hagiography, in which the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism are interwoven.

Oedipus the King is the story of a man whose life is destroyed by his own good intentions. When a terrible secret from his past is brought to the light of day, the consequences are chilling - and ineluctable.

Thomas Troward (1847 - 1916) was a divisional Judge in the British administration of India. In his later years, he developed a distinctive discipline of personal development which he called Mental Science. He had a particular reverence for Jesus. In the introduction, the author asserts that "we possess latent powers which a better knowledge of the truth regarding ourselves will enable us to develop, and that the purpose of the Bible is to lead us into this knowledge in a perfectly natural manner while guarding us against the dangers arising from misuse of it."

Among the pioneers of the New Thought movement, William Walker Atkinson was one of the most active and most prolific. His many publications include texts on religion, the occult, concentration, memory, and healing. In the words of the author: "All students of Mental Influence have noticed the close resemblance that is manifested between the phenomena of electrical and magnetic energy on the one hand and the phenomena of mental energy on the other."

Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen’s first novels, though it was not published until after her death, and contains some of her most biting satire. Catherine Morland, the novel’s naive and provincial heroine, has formed her idea of the world from Gothic novels, full of gloomy Italian castles, long-kept secrets, and dastardly villains. However, when she travels to the city of Bath and encounters a wider society, she will discover that all her reading has ill-prepared her for the real world.

Although he was well known as an authority on spiritual traditions, Paul Carus was unusual in that he refused to align himself with any particular form of organized religion. In any case, his universalist view of God would probably have put him outside the allowable boundaries of Christian belief. Carus was particularly active in raising awareness of Eastern spiritual traditions in the West.

Háfiz (1315-1390) was a lyric poet, a major figure in classical Persian literature. The compendious anthology of his poetry simply titled the Divan contains several hundred odes, from which this small selection was made by the translator. In the introduction Bicknell writes: ...we must look upon Háfiz as one of the few poets in the world who utters an unbroken strain of joy and contentment. His poverty was to him a constant fountain of satisfaction, and he frankly took the natural joys of life as they came....

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished king, after years of wandering, accompanied by his faithful daughter Antigone, finds himself in Athens. Receiving a warm if guarded welcome from Theseus, King of Athens, he prepares to settle himself to spend his last days in peace. However, unwelcome visitors from his tortured past continue to haunt him until the very end.

Thomas Troward (1847-1916) was a divisional Judge in British-administered India. In his retirement, he became well known as a lecturer on metaphysical subjects and developed a unique New Thought philosophy, which he discussed in a number of books. The Law and the Word was published posthumously in 1917. The book explores the power of the word as the fundamental element in manifestation. Troward held the word to be the expression of the immutable law of creation and supports his claim with extensive citations from the Bible.

Between 1895 and 1901 H. G. Wells wrote six science fiction novels, which have become among the most celebrated examples of the genre. In this collection, Wells explores a number of topics that have since become very common subjects in science fiction, including time travel, celestial beings, eugenics, alien invasion, and space exploration.

This classic farce was first performed in 1892. Since the record-breaking initial run in London, it has been revived many times around the world in a variety of languages, and has also been adapted for a number of presentations on film. The play incorporates many of the features which have become standard in romantic comedies: a cross dressing central character, identity confusion, young lovers kept apart by parental influence and older lovers unexpectedly reunited.

This dramatic romance, first published in 1845, ostensibly relates the story of the escape of a love-lorn young woman from the rigours of life with a stern and uncaring husband. Several commentators have seen the poem as an oblique reference to Browning's own current life situation, in which he enabled his future wife, Elizabeth Barrett, to escape from the confines of a patriarchal household to Italy, a country that forms the backdrop to many of his poems.

The Waste Land by T. S Eliot is narrated by Danielle Cohen and Denis Daly. Eliot's cross-cultural epic poem, first published in 1922, remains one of the most challenging poems in the English language. It is dedicated to Eliot's mentor, Ezra Pound. Like Pound, Eliot reveled in drawing allusions and quotations from a vast body of world literature.

Thomas Troward (1847-1916) was a divisional Judge in British-administered India, who, in his later years, developed a highly idiosyncratic New Thought philosophy. One of Troward's most startling assertions was that thought had the power to directly create phenomenal manifestation. This theme is explored in detail in this particular book. According to Troward, the universe is the expression of a Universal Creative Principle, which is activated by the self-contemplation of Spirit. To be complete, creation is obliged to incorporate physical expression.