Books published by Aegypan

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has been translated into more than forty languages, and of course, served as the basis for one of history's most popular films, The Wizard of Oz, first released in 1939. The Marvelous Land of Oz is the first sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, originally published in 1904. Baum writes that he wrote the sequel in response to thousands of letters from schoolchildren and to one little girl who journeyed all the way to Baum's home to ask that he write more stories about the Tin Woodsman and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. The Marvelous Land of Oz introduces new characters like Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump, as well as the original favorites.

I did not know, at the start, what the thing would be like at the finish, and I made small effort to make it look shapely and smooth; but the inward impulse in me to write it, somehow, was irresistible, in spite of the other impulse to go off somewhere and rest and forget it all. But I felt that if it were not done then it might never be done at all; and done it must be at any cost. I had promised my mates in prison that I would do it, and I was under no less an obligation, though an unspoken one, to give the public an opportunity to learn at first hand what prison life is, and means.-- Julian Hawthorne

Wessex Tales is a collection of tales written by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, many of which are set before Hardy's birth in 1840.In addition to his great "Wessex Novels," Thomas Hardy wrote Wessex Tales (1896), a collection of six stories written in the 1880s and 1890s that, for the most part, are as bleakly ironic and unforgiving as the darkest of his great novels -- Jude the Obscure. But this great novelist began and ended his writing career as a poet. In-between, he wrote a number of books that many readers find emotionally-wrenching, but which are considered among the classics of 19th Century British literature, including Far from the Madding Crowd, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

George Eliot was the literary pseudonym of British author Mary Anne Evans, born in 1819 in Warwickshire and destined to be one of the most celebrated and notorious of British female writers. Many of her novels deal with happy memories of her Warwickshire childhood, including her first great novel, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner. For their depiction of childhood experiences and illustrations of children learning about moral themes, George Eliot's works have been taught as classic literature since their initial publication. Silas Marner is regarded by many as one of Eliot's best books, second only to her masterpiece, Middlemarch. The story of the miser and title character of Silas Marner, and his redemption from greed and misery by the love of a small child, is one of the classics of English literature.

"Lord Clarenceux had met her then," said Sir Cyril, speaking of Rosetta Rosa, the opera's soprano with the golden throat. I was drawn to the woman, and listened eagerly. "She merely said she would think it over. She wouldn't sign a contract. After a week's negotiation, I was compelled to own myself beaten. Nothing happened for a time. She sang in Paris and America, and took her proper place as the first soprano in the world."Later, I spoke to her myself."He is dead now," she told me. "You have heard -- everyone knows -- that I was once engaged to Lord Clarenceux. He was a friend. He loved me -- he died --""Lord Clarenceux must have been a great man," I said."That is exactly what he was. I wish I could describe him to you, but I cannot. He was immensely rich . . . he fell in love with me, and offered me his hand. I declined -- I was afraid of him. He said he would shoot himself. And he would have done it; so I accepted. I should have ended by loving him. Lord Clarenceux died. And I am alone. I was terribly lonely after his death. I missed his jealousy . . ."