The History of the Kings of Britain

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Completed in 1136, "The History of the Kings of Britain" traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famou...

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" portrays a world on fire, split between Paris and London during the brutal and bloody events of the French Revolution. This "Penguin Classics" edition of is edited with an introduction and notes by Richard Maxwell. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of ti...

The Eclogues

Virgil

Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocrit...