In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, twenty-six-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success. It is now an international bestseller and available in almost thirty languages across the world.In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man fro...

Written after his wife’s tragic death as a way of surviving the “mad midnight moments,” A Grief Observed is C. S. Lewis’ honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period: “Nothing will shake a man—or at any rate a man like me—out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring ...

This beautifully conceived meditation on prayers and praying from beloved author and theologian C. S. Lewis was the final book he wrote.In the form of warm, relaxed letters to a close friend, C. S. Lewis meditates on many puzzling questions concerning the intimate dialogue between man and God. He considers practical and metaphysical aspects of prayer, such as when we pray and where. He questions why we seek to inform God in our prayers if he is omniscient, whether there is an ideal...

A timeless classic on “Hell’s latest novelties and Heaven’s unanswerable answer”A masterpiece of satire, this classic work has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.”At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood...

Ford Maddox Ford’s masterful trilogy of historical fiction centers on Katharine Howard, a young girl of a proud, noble, and impoverished family who catches the jaded eye of Henry VIII and becomes his controversial fifth queen.In book one, The Fifth Queen, Katharine arrives at the king’s court to find its dimly lit corridors vibrating with corruption and fear as unscrupulous courtiers hungry for power maneuver for advantage. Clever, beautiful, and outspoken, Katharine soon ...

In the closest thing we have to an autobiography, C. S. Lewis, an unfailingly honest and perceptive observer of self, here shares the story of his personal spiritual journey. With characteristic candor and insight, he describes how his “search for joy” led him from the conventional Christianity of his childhood to a youthful atheism, and finally back to an assured Christianity compatible with his formidable intellect. With no pretense, Lewis describes his early schooldays, his experiences ...

Blackstone Audio presents a new recording of this classic masterpiece, originally published in 1320, read by award-winning narrator Ralph Cosham.No words can describe the greatness of this work, a greatness both of theme and of artistry. Dante’s theme is universal; it involves the greatest concepts that man has ever attained. Only a genius could have found the loftiness of tone and the splendor and variety of images that are presented in The Divine Comedy.The story...

Twenty-three great Sherlock Holmes mysteries as published in Strand Magazine. These stories have won over readers in the thousands and have helped make Sherlock Holmes the most popular and most famous detective of all times.Arthur Conan Doyle, was born in Scotland in 1859. He was educated in Jesuit schools in England and Austria. In 1881 he finished a medical degree and signed on as a surgeon aboard a whaling vessel in the Arctic. After an unsuccessful medical practice, Doyle start...

Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, creates a lyrical and engrossing tale, a remarkable journey into the hearts and minds of two canine heroes, Snitter and Rowf.After being horribly mistreated at a government animal-research facility, Snitter and Rowf escape into the isolation—and terror—of the wilderness. Aided only by a fox they call “the tod,” the two dogs must struggle to survive in their new environment. When the starving dogs attack some sheep, they are labe...

Now an animated film adaptation produced and directed by Andy SerkisGeorge Orwell’s classic satire of the Russian Revolution has become an intimate part of our contemporary culture, with its treatment of democratic, fascist, and socialist ideals through an animal fable.The animals of Mr. Jones’s Manor Farm are overworked, mistreated, and desperately seeking a reprieve. In their quest to create an idyllic society where justice and equality reign, th...

The story of the enigmatic Kurtz and his outpost in deepest Congo as told by Marlow is an adventure story that examines the intent and effects of colonization. It remains one of the most controversial and profound writings of world literature.Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, on December 3, 1857, in Russian occupied Poland. His father, who was fighting for Polish independence, wrote a poem asking his son to remain "without land or love" as long as Pola...

Frankenstein is the most famous novel by Mary Shelley: a dark Faustian parable of science misused that was an immediate success on its publication in 1818. Purporting to be the record of an explorer, it tells of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but wayward student of science, who builds a human from dead flesh. Horrified by what he has done, he abandons his creation. The creature, an outcast for his horrific appearance, learns language and becomes civilized. In time, he attempts to join so...