"Selected Tales and Sketches" is a collection of the best short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Collected here are the following tales: The Gray Champion, Sunday at Home, The Minister's Black Veil, The May-Pole of Merry Mount, Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe, Wakefield, The Prophetic Pictures, The Hollow of the Three Hills, Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Legends of the Province-House: I.-Howe's Masquerade, II.-Edward Randolph's Portrait, III.-Lady Eleanore's Mantle, IV.-Old Esther Dudley, The Haunted Mind, The Ambitious Guest, Night Sketches, Endicott and the Red Cross, The Birth-mark, Young Goodman Brown, Rappaccini's Daughter, The Hall of Fantasy, The Celestial Rail-road, Feathertop: A Moralized Legend, Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent, The Christmas Banquet, Roger Malvin's Burial, Earth's Holocaust, Passages from a Relinquished Work, The Artist of the Beautiful, The Snow Image, The Great Stone Face, Ethan Brand, The Man of Adamant, The Wives of the Dead, My Kinsman, Major Molineux, Alice Doane's Appeal, Mrs. Hutchinson, Sir William Phips, and The Notch of the White Mountains.
<p>First published in 1850, "The Law" is the best known work of 19th century economist Frederic Bastiat, a prominent member of the French Liberal School. A forerunner to the Austrian School of Economics, the French Liberal School was a major proponent of the laissez-faire capitalistic system. Bastiat advocated for unregulated free markets and against protectionism. At the heart of Bastiat's philosophy was an opposition against the redistribution of wealth by the government, which he refers to as "legal plunder," for any reason. In Bastiat's opinion the sole purpose of the government was to protect personal property and liberty. Influenced by John Locke's "Second Treatise on Government," this short little book may seem extreme in its defense of personal property by today's standards. Bastiat in fact opposes such commonly accepted modern day practices as public education. Bastiat's absolutist position is understood when one learns of his personal history, his father's estate was acquired during the French Revolution. While history may ultimately deem Bastiat as nothing more than a reactionary, his contribution to modern economics, which includes the concept of opportunity cost, and his influence on modern political economy cannot be overstated. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translation of Dean Russell.</p>
Adventure and mystery readers alike will love following London's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story collection, "The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes." Created in the late 1800's, Sherlock Holmes has become one of the most recognized and endearing sleuths in the mystery genre. In "Sherlock Holmes and the Red-Headed League," Holmes must figure out the connection between a group of red-headed men, an Encyclopedia Britannica, and a bank robbery for a confused client. Holmes doesn't only take bank robberies and small crimes, though. Many hail "Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band" as the best of the detective's stories every written; Holmes must solve the murder of a young woman who was locked in a room alone by herself. What is the only clue? The young woman whispered "the speckled band" to her sister right before she died. The collection also includes Doyle's favorite Holmes tale, "Sherlock Holmes and the Five Orange Pips." As one of the darker and more popular of Holmes stories, Holmes must solve a string of murders before the culprits strike again. These combined with other classic Holmes tales are the perfect stories for readers of all ages, making "The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" a perfect addition to any collection.
The first volume of Proust's seven-part novel "In Search of Lost Time," also known as "A Remembrance of Things Past," "Swann's Way" is the auspicious beginning of Proust's most prominent work. A mature, unnamed man recalls the details of his commonplace, idyllic existence as a sensitive and intuitive boy in Combray. For a time, the story is narrated through his younger mind in beautiful, almost dream-like prose. In a subsequent section of the volume, the narrator tells of the excruciating romance of his country neighbor, Monsieur Swann. The narrator reverts to his childhood, where he begins a similarly hopeless infatuation with Swann's little daughter, Gilberte. More than this apparently fragmented narrative, however, is the importance of the themes of memory, time, and art that connect and interweave the man's memories. Considered to be one of the twentieth century's major novels, Proust ultimately portrays the volatility of human life in this sweeping contemplation of reality and time.