I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon...I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth - a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow. The weird tales in this slim volume are all linked by a play, the second act of which reveals truths so...

The Satirical and Bitter Side of Mark Twain. "Man is made of dirt, I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impurities, he comes today and is gone tomorrow, he begins as dirt and departs as stench. I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? He has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself." The Mysterious Stranger and Other...

This anthology covers the entire span of Twain's inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years. Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, " to the bitter vision of humankind in "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, " to the delightful hilarity of "Is He Living or Is He Dead?"

Selected Stories of O. Henry, by O. Henry, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

In 1850, Mellicent "Mellie" Blanchard takes a job at a mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, to help support her family. In search of additional earning opportunities, she approaches a daguerreotype shop owner with the proposal that he hire her to make paper cuttings or silhouette portraits for those who can't afford an expensive daguerreotype. When a particularly charming customer -- whose broad smile and twinkling eyes catch her off guard -- asks to...

Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in mid-nineteenth-century New England.

"In the seventh standalone title in the American Novels series, Ellen Finch recalls her time as an assistant to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, heroes of America's woman suffrage movement, and her friendship with the diminutive Margaret, one of P.T. Barnum's "eccentrics" in his circus. When Ellen's infant son is abducted by the Klan to punish her for serving the cause of women, Ellen, Margaret, and the two formidable, if elderly, suffragists...

"In the sixth stand-alone book in The American Novels series, Shelby Ross, a merchant ruined by the depression of 1873-79, is hired as a New York City Custom House appraiser under inspector Herman Melville, the embittered, forgotten author of Moby-Dick. On the docks, Ross befriends a genial young man and makes an enemy of a despicable one, who attempts to destroy them by insinuating that Ross and the young man share an unnatural affection. Ross narrates...