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The Devil's Dictionary (1906) is a work of satire by Ambrose Bierce. Although he is commonly remembered for his chilling short stories on the experiences of Civil War soldiers, Bierce was recognized in his day as a leading journalist and humorist who spent decades ruffling feathers and drawing laughter with his witty opinion columns, poems, and definitions. Toward the end of his career, he decided to compile these satirical definitions into a book,...
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All's Well That Ends Well (1607) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well was likely inspired by the tale of Giletta di Narbona from Boccaccio's Decameron. Unpopular during Shakespeare's lifetime, the play remains one of his least staged works to this day. Despite this, scholars praise All's Well That Ends Well for its moral ambiguity. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, our virtues would be proud...
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Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare - Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play's main themes include justice, "mortality and mercy in Vienna," and the dichotomy between corruption and purity: "some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." Mercy...
5) Pericles
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Likely written around 1607 or 1608 and attributed at least in part to Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is an adventure-filled play that follows the extended sailing journeys of a young prince. Pericles, a young prince from Phoenicia, is forced to flee Antioch when he correctly guesses a riddle that reveals the incestuous activity of King Antiochus. Unable to stay at home in Tyre because of Antiochus' vengeance, he sails away and ends up shipwrecked...
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Valentine and Proteus are devoted comrades ― until they travel to Milan and meet Silvia, the Duke's ravishing daughter. Torn between the bonds of friendship and the lure of romance, the two gentlemen are further bedeviled by Proteus's prior commitment to Julia, his hometown sweetheart, and the Duke's disdain for Valentine. Thus the stage is set for a comic spree involving a daring escape into a forest, capture by outlaws, and the antics of a clown...
7) Utopia
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Utopia (1516) is a work of political satire by Thomas More. Published in Latin while More was serving as Privy Counsellor under King Henry VIII, the text is stylized as a true account of a new civilization discovered in the New World by traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus. While there have been varying interpretations of Utopia over the centuries, it is most consistently regarded as a work of political philosophy in the tradition of Plato's Republic that...
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Loosely based on the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King, "The Waste Land", which first appeared in 1922, is a landmark work of Modernist poetry. Containing hundreds of allusions and quotations from other works, The Waste Land is marked by a disjointed structure which moves between voices and imagery without a clear delineation for the reader, a hallmark of Modernist literature. Arguably Eliot's most famous work, the theme of the...
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In middle age Dante realizes he has strayed from the True Way into the Dark Wood of Error, or Wordliness. When he realizes his loss, he looks up to see the first light of the sun, the symbol of divine illumination, lighting the top of a small hill, the Mount of Joy. It is Easter, the time of resurrection and rebirth. These symbols fill Dante with hope and he sets out immediately to climb to the top of Mount Joy. His way is blocked, however, by the...
14) Cymbeline
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Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 4.2 - AR Pts: 1
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English
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Performed as early as 1611 and published in the "First Folio" in 1623, Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" weaves an elaborate tale of palatial envy and power in Ancient Britain. Cymbeline, King of Britain, commands that his lovely young daughter Imogen marry Cloten, the violent and callous son of the current Queen by her former husband. With her heart already promised to the poor yet heroic Posthumus, Imogen refuses. Disgusted at the prospect of his daughter...
15) Hamlet
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Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 4 - AR Pts: 1
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English
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One of the greatest plays of all time, the compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother's infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet's feigned madness, Ophelia's death and burial, the play within a play, the...
16) Coriolanus
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Shakespeare's tragic drama about a Roman general tested by rioting, war, rejection-and his own all-consuming anger.
Enraged by the withholding of food, the common people of the Roman Republic are rebelling against the elite. In this battle between plebeians and patricians, Caius Marcius has little patience for those he considers beneath him and his family.
After his military victory in the city of Corioli, Marcius is given the nickname Coriolanus...
17) King Lear
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 4 - AR Pts: 1
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English
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Themes: Adapted Classics, Low Level Classics, William Shakespeare, Fiction, Tween, Teen, Young Adult, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books. Timeless Shakespeare-designed for the struggling reader and adapted to retain the integrity of the original play. These classic plays...
18) Fairy tales
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Twenty-four fairy tales by the famous Danish author include "The Snow Queen," "The Flying Trunk," "The Wild Swans," and "The Garden of Paradise."
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This masterpiece of eighteenth-century English poetry tells the epic tale of a sailor who endures a fate worse than death for killing an albatross.
After callously shooting an albatross with his crossbow, a sailor is doomed to a nightmarish voyage from the Antarctic to the Equator before returning home as the sole survivor of the journey. When the haunting figure Life-in-Death wins his soul in a game of dice, the sailor is doomed to forever roam the...
20) The Ramayana
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Rāmāyana is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Mahābhārata. Along with the Mahābhārata, it forms the Hindu Itihasa. The epic, traditionally ascribed to the Maharishi Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, a legendary prince of Ayodhya city in the kingdom of Kosala. The story follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest urged by his father King Dasharatha, on the request of Rama's stepmother Kaikeyi; his travels...
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