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Description
Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape isn’t one of his best-known works, but it has gained popularity as an exploration of early American society. It was first produced in 1922 by the Provincetown Players in Massachusetts, embracing expressionism in its set design and staging, before moving on to Broadway, where it faced resistance from local and federal governments due to its radical views.
The play examines the existential crisis of the protagonist, a brutish stoker named Yank, who begins the play secure in his role as the leader of firemen on an Atlantic ocean liner. But when confronted by the disdain of an upper-class passenger who calls him a “filthy beast,” he seeks to rebel against his place. Then, as all his plans for revenge fail, he slowly finds himself descending to the literal level that society has relegated him to.
O’Neill uses Yank’s search for belonging to explore the destructive forces of industrialization and social class. Early on, The Hairy Ape’s commentary on the dehumanization of workers caused it to be taken up by many labor groups and unions to further their own causes. The play also touches on themes of masculinity and socialism, and the repeated references to the “blackface” of the ship’s stokers and Yank’s degeneration into an animal have added a racial element to recent analyses.
Description
D-503 is the Builder of the Integral, the United State’s first spaceship. A life of calculations and equations in the United State leaves little room for emotional expression outside of the pink slips that give one private time with another Number. The façade however starts to crack when I-330, a mysterious she-Number with a penchant for the Ancients, enters the picture.
We, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s fourth novel, was written in 1920–21, but remained unpublished until its English release in 1924 due to conditions in the Soviet Union at the time (it was eventually published there in 1988). Its dystopian future setting predates Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, and it’s now considered a founding member of the genre. It has been translated into English and other languages many times; presented here is the original 1924 translation by Gregory Zilboorg.
Description
At the Earth’s Core, published in 1914, is the first of a series of science fiction novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs set inside a hollow earth with a central “sun,” a land called Pellucidar. However unlikely this scenario, it allowed Burroughs free play to create heroic adventures in yet another alien environment in addition to his fantastic version of Mars in his Martian series.
The story’s hero, David Innes, is recruited by an old man, Perry, to help fund his invention, a “mechanical subterranean prospector,” and then to test it out. Unfortunately once the powerful burrowing machine is set going, it cannot be steered, and the pair find themselves burrowing deeper and deeper into the Earth’s crust. To their astonishment, rather than dying from suffocation or increasing heat, they emerge inside a hollow shell inside the Earth. This world is populated by prehistoric creatures as well as primitive humans, intelligent gorillas, and supremely intelligent pterosaurs, the masters of this land. David and Perry are captured by these creatures and many adventures ensue.
Description
Charlotte Brontë’s last novel, Villette, is thought to be most closely modelled on her own experiences teaching in a pensionnat in Brussels, the place on which the fictional town of Villette is based. In the novel, first published in 1853, we follow the protagonist Lucy Snowe from the time she is fourteen and lives with her godmother in rural England, through her family tragedies and departure for the town of Villette where she finds work at a French boarding school. People from her past reappear in dramatic ways, she makes new connections, and she learns the stories and secrets of the people around her. Through it all, the reader is made privy to Lucy’s thoughts, feelings, and journey of self-discovery.
Description
Four years after writing his immensely popular The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum returned to the Land of Oz in this second book of fourteen he wrote about the magical country. Like its predecessor, The Marvelous Land of Oz has delighted children through the years, and has been adapted into stage plays, films, and comics.
A young boy named Tip lives in Gillikin Country in Oz with an old witch named Mombi. When Mombi threatens to turn Tip into a statue, he escapes with his friend Jack, a wooden man with a pumpkin for a head who has been brought to life through magic. He then journeys to the Emerald City, where he embarks upon an exciting adventure, meeting new quirky characters and returning favorites from the first book.
Description
In the late 19th century, Lewis Carroll—better known these days as the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—was also an established mathematician who had published many books and papers in the fields of algebra and logic. His mathematical interest extended to the setting of puzzles for popular consumption. The stories collected here cover varied subjects including the cataloguing of paintings, the number of times trains will pass each other on a circular track, the most efficient way to rent individual rooms on a square, and many more. They were published originally in The Monthly Packet magazine and then collected with some additional commentary into a book originally published in 1885. Included along with the stories is a full appendix with Carroll’s answers, and his often acerbic commentary on the answers submitted to him at the time.
Description
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the many comedies written by William Shakespeare. It was written around 1595 and first published in Shakespeare’s first quarto in 1600. The exact reason for why this play was produced has been lost to time; some historians theorize that it could have been written for an aristocratic wedding, or for Queen Elizabeth I to celebrate the feast of St. John.
The play opens with Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, planning the celebration of their marriage. During their visit to Athens four guests—Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia—are trying to find their own spouses and to follow each other into the woods. Also entering the woods are six actors practicing a play for the duke and his new wife. Unbeknownst to all, they have also entered the realm of the fairy kingdom, ruled by King Oberon and Queen Titania and inhabited by the mischievous Puck.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
Description
The Time Traders is the first book in Andre Norton’s Time Traders series. First published in 1958 by World Publishing Co., The Time Traders is told from the perspective of Ross Murdock, a young criminal faced with a choice: be turned over to the new Rehabilitation Service or volunteer for a secret government project.
Murdock chooses the secret government project, hoping for a chance to escape. At the Arctic base he learns what the project is, and instead of escaping he joins a team posing as Beaker Traders during Europe’s Bronze Age. His team makes several jumps through time searching for the source of technology the Reds are using to gain advantages in the present.
Description
Pellucidar, the sequel to At the Earth’s Core, was published in 1915. It continues the adventures of David Innes as he returns to the hollow interior of the Earth in search of his friend Perry and his lost love Dian the Beautiful. He takes with him many tools and weapons, intent on bringing civilization to the savage world within, which is populated with dinosaurs and neolithic creatures. He has many perilous adventures as he battles to survive.
Description
A classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, this work is one of the most well-known subterranean fictions to this day. It inspired many similar works and adaptations. First published in 1864 in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre, it was quickly translated to English by several different publishers in the 1870s. The current edition was based on the translation by Frederick Amadeus Malleson that was published by Ward Lock & Co Ltd. in 1877.
Our protagonist is Axel, whose overcautious and unadventurous spirit contrasts with that of his uncle Professor Otto Lidenbrock, an eccentric professor of geology. When Professor Lidenbrock obtains a mysterious runic-coded note in the manuscript of an Icelandic saga, he is determined to decipher it. Axel inadvertently solves the code and, much to his chagrin, discovers that it is a set of directions left by a sixteenth-century Icelandic alchemist to reach the center of the earth via the volcano Snæfelljökull. Reluctantly, Axel joins his uncle on a trip to Iceland, and with the aid of a local guide, Hans, begins an adventure towards the center of the earth, where they will encounter giant mushrooms and insects, an island with an enormous geyser, and battle pre-historic reptiles. One of Verne’s most well-known works, this novel is a testament to Verne’s love of geology, science, and cryptography.