Arthur Rackham

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future. Illustrated notes throughout the text explain the historical background of the story.

On an ordinary summer's afternoon, Alice tumbles down a hole and an extraordinary adventure begins. In a strange world with even stranger characters, she meets a grinning cat and a rabbit with a pocket-watch, joins a mad tea party and plays croquet with the Queen. Lost in this fantasy land, Alice finds herself growing more and more curious by the minute.

A superstitious schoolmaster, in love with a wealthy farmer's daughter, has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman.

"The following Tales are meant to be submitted to the young reader as an introduction to the study of Shakespeare, [so] that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years -- enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions." --

Presents a collection of Andersen's fairy tales.

Irish Fairy Tales is a selection of mythical stories highlighting themes of love, duty and deception in the magical setting of ancient and medieval Ireland. Each narrative presents internal and external conflicts that test the moral code of its leading characters. James Stephens explores Ireland's cherished history though the eyes of fabled hunters, soldiers, kings and queens. Many stories feature the Fianna, a group of tribal warriors, and their...

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales collects the best macabre stories of Washington Irving. Blending sly humor with supernatural thrills, these tales are among the most beloved and re-read of all American fiction. In the thirteen stories gathered for this volume, Irving evokes the colorful landscapes of his Hudson Valley hometown, and conjures characters and creatures from its historical past for a unique kind of weird tale that speaks directly...

Among the masterpieces of world literature, this early verse drama by the celebrated Norwegian playwright humorously yet profoundly explores the virtues, vices, and follies common to all humanity — as represented in the person of Peer Gynt, a charming but irresponsible young peasant. Based on Norwegian folklore and Ibsen’s own imaginative inventions, the play relates the roguish life of the world-wandering Peer, who finds wealth and fame...

"The King of the Golden River," which Ruskin wrote in 1841 (it was not published until 1851) for nineteen-year-old Euphenia Chalmers Gray, whom he married in 1848. The story is set in the ancient country of Stiria, in a beautiful and fertile valley called Treasure Valley, owned by brothers Schwartz, Hans and Gluck. When the cruel Hans and Schwartz turn an important stranger away from their home, the valley turns to desert, leaving them penniless and...

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a witty and insightful satirical novel recounts the history of Lemuel Guliver, "First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships". In his travels Gulliver visits the Land of Lilliput, where he towers over the local inhabitants, the land of Brobdingnag where he is much smaller than the citizens, the floating island of Laputa, infested with fanatical scientists who in their obsession with reason

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