Showing results for "Mark Owen" in Classics

A gritty reimagining of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, this brand new modern-day audiobook adaptation of William Shakespeare's classic love story is full of passion, emotion, scandal, disillusionment and family fallout.

Written in seclusion following the intense negative public reaction to the publication of his novel Pierre, The Piazza Tales is Herman Melville's accessible and entertaining collection of short stories and novellas concerning love, labor, and loss. The collection includes his three most important achievements in the genre of short fiction: the short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and the novellas Benito Cereno and The Encantadas.

Considered to be the least characteristic of Melville's stories, somewhat resembling the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, The Bell-Tower is a dark literary work that explores, though never fully reveals, its central mystery. An eccentric artist and architect dreams up plans for a magnificent bell tower. After receiving approval from the city, he happily begins construction. When city residents begin to notice strange occurrences associated with the project, their complaints eventually force the city magistrates to investigate.

Written as an introductory story to The Piazza Tales, the protagonist of The Piazza idealizes a radiant spot on the mountain that he looks upon from his piazza. Traveling to the spot he realizes it is a house, occupied by the unhappy girl Marianna, who longs to see the lucky individual who lives in the white house she looks upon from her window. The narrator realizes he has been the object of a fantasy like his own, and leaves thinking how all idealism is an illusion.

The Encantadas (or Enchanted Isles) is a series of 10 descriptive sketches, and a reminiscence from Melville's sailor days revealing the ecologically pristine Galapagos Islands as both enchanting and horrifying. Containing some of Melville's most memorable prose, The Encantadas was a critical success at a time when Melville's fortunes were down. After publication, the New York Dispatch cited the chapters as universally considered among the most interesting papers of that popular magazine, and each successive chapter was read with avidity by thousands.

Chosen for inclusion in William Evans Burton's Cyclopediae of Wit and Humor of 1857, The Lightning-Rod Man was the one Melville tale to be available throughout his lifetime, thanks to reissues of this volume. More a parable than a character-driven story, the Lightning-Rod man is a charlatan who tries to profit by selling fearful people lightning-rods during thunderstorms. The narrator has a difficult encounter with the Lightning-Rod man in this story about overcoming fear and superstition.