Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

Explores the reasons why women do not have the same influence, power, and wealth as men do. Meditates on the writer-temperament and explores the need for a woman to have a room of her own and five hundred pounds a year being symbols of the power to think for oneself and contemplate.

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...

A portrait of five Concord, Massachusetts, writers whose works were at the center of mid-nineteenth-century American thought and literature evaluates their interconnected relationships, influence on each other's works, and complex beliefs.

Presents the full text of Shakespeare's tragedy in which Cassius, fearing Julius Caesar's ambition, forms a conspiracy among Roman republicans including Caesar's trusted friend Brutus to assassinate him on the Ides of March.

The scandal over modern music has not died--while paintings by Picasso and Pollock sell for millions of dollars, works from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring onward still send ripples of unease through audiences. Yet the influence of modern music can be felt everywhere. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalist music has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward. Music critic...

Retells the adventures of the orphan boy who is forced to practice thievery and live a life of crime in nineteenth-century London.

Presents a history of the Broadway musical theater, including summaries of the shows, photographs of the stars, posters, sheet music, production stills, and essays by theater luminaries.