"A collection of essays by poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf focusing on aspects of Mennonite life. Essays examine issues of gender, cultural, and religious identity as they relate to the emergence and exercise of literary authority"--Provided by publisher.

A powerful version of the Latin classic by England's late Poet Laureate, now in paperback.When it was published in 1997, Tales from Ovid was immediately recognized as a classic in its own right, as the best rering of Ovid in generations, and as a major book in Ted Hughes's oeuvre. The Metamorphoses of Ovid stands with the works of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton as a classic of world poetry; Hughes translated twenty-four of its stories with great power and directness. The result is the liveliest twentieth-century version of the classic, at once a delight for the Latinist and an appealing introduction to Ovid for the general reader.

Humorous verse and short fiction based on everyday life, in the Erma Bombeck vein. Author of Who Gets the Yellow Bananas, Duncanson is known for her Celia Thaxter and Emily Dickinson programs. Samuels is the author of Intense Experience: Social Psychology Through Poetry, and To Spade the Earth. --Peter E. Randall Publisher.

A new selection for the NEA’s Big Read program A compact selection of Poe’s greatest stories and poems, chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts for their Big Read program. This selection of eleven stories and seven poems contains such famously chilling masterpieces of the storyteller’s art as “The Tell-tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and such unforgettable poems as “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and “Annabel Lee.” Poe is widely credited with pioneering the detective story, represented here by “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Also included is his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” in which he lays out his theory of how good writers write, describing how he constructed “The Raven” as an example.

"In this illuminating collection of prose, Dan Beachy-Quick broaches "a hazy line, a faulty boundary" between our daily world, "where we who have appetites must fill our mouths, we who have thoughts must fill our minds," and another side, "within the world and beyond it, where appetite isn't to be sated, where desire is not to be fulfilled, and where thoughts refuse to lead to knowledge." Touching on the works of Emerson, Thoreau, and Proust, among others, Beachy-Quick explores the problem of duality -- the separation of the mind and body, word and referent, intelligence and mystery -- striving throughout to overcome this false separation, and to celebrate the notion that "wonder is the fact that the world has never ceased to be real." Combining a rich critical intelligence and the lyricism that has made him "one of America's most significant young poets" (Lyn Hejinian), Wonderful Investigations is a wonder unto itself"--Front flap.

Edgar Allan Poe was the master of tales of mystery and the macbre, and is considered the inventor of detective fiction. This extensive collection also includes his finest poetry.

The great corpus that is medieval literature contains, at its very center, the tale. These verse and prose fictional narratives, as well as stories that are grounded in some degree of historical truth, are the foundation of what readers, scholars, and enthusiasts often point to as signifiers of the medieval age. These tales - from the skillfully crafted to the more rudimentary and plain - often make familiar to modern readers what seems so distant and foreign about the Middle Ages. This volume of essays focuses on the tale and its ability to create "mirth," what modern audiences would often define as "happiness" or "joy," and the significance that the book has had on the transference of this mirth to audiences. This volume also celebrates the scholarship of Thomas H. Ohlgren, a medievalist whose work encompasses a number of different areas, but at its center lives the power of the tale and its ability to create a lasting impression on readers, both medieval and modern.

The works assembled here introduce George Eliot's incisive views on religion, art, and science, and the nature and purpose of fiction. Essays show her rejecting her earlier religious beliefs, questioning conventional ideas about female virtues and marriage, and setting out theories of idealism and realism that she developed further in her famous novels. Also included are selections from Eliot's translations of works by Strauss and Feuerbach, excerpts from her poems, and reviews of writers such as Wollstonecraft, Goethe, and Browning. Wonderfully rich in imagery and observations, these pieces reveal the intellectual development of this most rewarding of writers.

About Author The works of American author Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) include many poems, short stories, and one novel. His fiction spans multiple genres, including horror fiction, adventure, science fiction, and detective fiction, a genre he is credited with inventing. These works are generally considered part of the Dark romanticism movement, a literary reaction to Transcendentalism. Poe's writing reflects his literary theories: he disagreed with didacticism[3] and allegory. Meaning in literature, he said in his criticism, should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface; works whose meanings are too obvious cease to be art. Poe pursued originality in his works, and disliked proverbs.He often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Though known as a masterly practitioner of Gothic fiction, Poe did not invent the genre; he was following a long-standing popular tradition.Poe's literary career began in 1827 with the release of 50 copies of Tamerlane and Other Poems credited only to "a Bostonian", a collection of early poems that received virtually no attention. In December 1829, Poe released Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems in Baltimore before delving into short stories for the first time with "Metzengerstein" in 1832.His most successful and most widely read prose during his lifetime was "The Gold-Bug", which earned him a $100 prize, the most money he received for a single work. One of his most important works, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", was published in 1841 and is today considered the first modern detective story.Poe called it a "tale of ratiocination".Poe became a household name with the publication of "The Raven" in 1845, though it was not a financial success. The publishing industry at the time was a difficult career choice and much of Poe's work was written using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes.