Published: 1813

Austen's finest comedy of manners portrays life in the genteel rural society of the early 1800s, and tells of the initial misunderstandings (and mutual enlightenment) between lively and quick witted Elizabeth Bennet and the haughty Mr. Darcy.

Author: Hilaire Belloc

Published: 1904

Published: 1871

Published: 14th century

"The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In a long list of works, including "Troilus and Criseyde", "House of Fame", "Parliament of Fowls", the Canterbury Tales is Chaucer's magnum opus, and a towering achievement of Western culture."--Wikipedia

Author: John Donne

Published: 1959

Published: 1913

Alternately slow-moving and fast-paced, the story focuses on three animal characters in a bucolic version of England, and is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality and camaraderie. It will provide as much pleasure to adult readers as to children, although for rather different reasons.

Author: William Hazlitt

Author: Samuel Johnson

Published: 1765

Author: Walter Savage Landor

Author: John Henry Newman

Published: 1852

The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following:—That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge. This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual, not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement. If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a University should have students; if religious training, I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science.

Author: Samuel Pepys

Edited by Lord Braybrooke

Of all writers of speculative philosophy, both ancient and modern, there is probably no one who has attained so eminent a position as Plato. What Homer was to Epic poetry, what Cicero and Demosthenes were to oratory, and what Shakespeare was to the drama of England, Plato was to ancient philosophy, not unapproachable nor unapproached, but possessing an inexplicable but unquestioned supremacy. Translated by Henry Cary.

Published: 1907

For about two thousand five hundred years Sappho has held her place as not only the supreme poet of her sex, but the chief lyrist of all lyrists. Every one who reads acknowledges her fame, concedes her supremacy; but to all except poets and Hellenists her name is a vague and uncomprehended splendour, rising secure above a persistent mist of misconception.

Published: 1770

Ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story, one of the central jokes of the novel is that the main character cannot explain anything simply without making explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that we do not even reach Tristram's own birth until Volume III. Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or comic misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments. In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults, the influence of one's name, noses, as well as explorations of obstetrics, siege warfare and philosophy, as he struggles to marshall his material and finish the story of his life.

Virginibus Puerisque
Crabbed Age and Youth
An Apology For Idlers
Ordered South
Aes Triplex
El Dorado
The English Admirals
Some Portraits by Raeburn
Child's Play
Walking Tours
Pan's Pipes
A Plea For Gas Lamps

Published: 1653