Covering world poetry, ancient and medieval times, the 19th and 20th century, and both serious and humorous works, this volume contains more than 400 short poems. It features verses of 12 lines of less by Boethius, Su T'ung-Po, Plato, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Heine, Tennyson, Whitman, Yeats, Cummings, and scores of others.

This hardcover edition presents an international sampling of classic poetry. It features ancient Greek, Latin, and Persian poets such as Homer, Sappho, and Martial as well as Arabic, Chinese, German, Indian, Japanese, and Yiddish poems from the 12th century BC through the 20th century, plus English, Irish, and American classics by Yeats, Byron, Dickinson, and others.

A murderer discovers his true nature, a samurai attempts to meditate, and a dying man bestows his hat on a friend in these surrealistic short stories by a noted Japanese author.

Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover spiritual truths.

Evil creatures, magical feats, and exciting adventures abound in this captivating archive of six classic tales, retold by one of America's great writers.

Erewhon (an anagram for "nowhere") is a faraway land where machinery is forbidden, sickness is a crime, and criminals receive compassionate medical treatment. Butler's brilliant Utopian novel is an entertaining and thought-provoking work.

Famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass based his only fictional work on the gripping true story of the biggest slave rebellion in U.S. history. The Heroic Slave was inspired by a courageous uprising led by Madison Washington in 1841. Washington rallied 18 of the 135 slaves aboard a ship bound for New Orleans, the country's primary slave-trading market. The mutineers seized control, landing the ship in the British-controlled Bahamas, where their freedom was recognized. Originally published nearly a decade before the Civil War, Douglass's novella was one of the earliest examples of African-American fiction. Douglass presents Madison Washington's heroism less as a matter of violent escape and more as a voluntary act of claiming self-ownership. Douglass's retelling encouraged readers to engage in the abolitionist cause. It captivated readers by equating black slaves' rebellion against tyranny with the spirit and democratic ideals of the American Revolution.