Tara K. Harper Web Site:
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One evening, I sat Beauty in my lap.--And
I found her bitter.--And I cursed her.

                                     - Une Saison en Enfer, 1873, Arthur Rimbaud

Also at this site:  
SF/Fantasy Authors
Mainstream and Military/Thriller/Suspense Authors
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A

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."
            - Mark Twain

Aeschylus   (525 - 456 B.C.)   First of the three great Athenian poets of tragedy.
     - Laius  - Lost to us; first of the three plays which tell the story of Oedipus' family.
     - Oedipus  - Lost to us; second of the three plays which tell the story of Oedipus' family.
     - The Seven Against Thebes  - ca.  467 B.C.;  online text.  Third of the three plays which tell the story of Oedipus' family.
     - Prometheus Bound  - ca. 430 -?? B.C.;   online text
     - The Oresteia  - A trilogy of plays:
             - Agamemnon   - online text
             - The Libation Bearers
             - The Eumenides  - "The Furies," ca. 458 B.C.;   online text
     - The Choephori,  ca. 450 B.C.;  online text
     - The Persians  - ca. 472 B.C.;   online text
     - The Suppliants  - ca. 463 -?? B.C.;   online text

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Albee, Edward  (playwright)
     - Tiny Alice  - First performance, December 29, 1964
     - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
     - Tall Women
     - A Delicate Balance

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Angelou, Maya -- Irritating author site that has disables the Back key.
     - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
     - The Heart of a Woman
     - I Shall Not Be Moved
     - All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

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Apollonius Rhodius  (ca. 295 - 215 B.C.).  
At one time, Apollonius served as head librarian of the Alexandrian Library.  However, where his peers turned to writing plays, he turned instead to writing epic poems.  
     - Argonautica   - online text

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Aristophanes  (455? - 385 B.C.)  Best known for The Clouds and The Frogs
     - The Acharnians  - ca. 425 B.C.;  online text
     - The Birds  - ca. 414 B.C.;   online text
     - The Clouds  - ca. 419 B.C.;  online text
     - The Frogs  - ca. 405 B.C.;   online text
     - The Thesmophoriazusae  - ca. 411 B.C.;   online text

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Arouet, Francois-Marie   - See Voltaire 

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Aurelius  (161-180)
Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, best known for his Meditations on Stoic philosophy.  Still considered (in the West) to epitomize the Golden Age of the Roman Empire.
     - Meditations  - ca. 167 A.D.; also quotes.

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Augustine  - Saint Augustine, or Aurelius Augustinus  (354 - 530); including links to online texts
     - The Confessions of Saint Augustine (397-401)
     - The City of God (413 - 426)
     - Soliloquies

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Austin, Jane  (1775 - 1817).  Novels include:
     - Pride and Prejudice
     - The Three Sisters
     - Emma
     - Lady Susan
     - Lesley Castle

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B

Bacon, Sir Francis   (1561-1626).  Also:  selected essays and poems online and critical essays
     - Of Truth
     - Of Marriage and Single Life
     - Of Studies
     - Of Negotiating
     - Novum Organum  (The Idols)
     - The New Atlantis  (or, Solomon's House)

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Baudelaire, Charles Pierre  (1821 - 1867)
     - Les Fleurs de Mal
     - The Poem of Hashish
     - Artificial Paradises

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Beckett, Samuel - playwright

- Murphy (1918)		- Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces
- Waiting for Godot		- Poems in English
- Happy Days		- Molloy  (written in French)
- How It Is		- The Unnamable  (written in French)
- Endgame		- Malone Dies  (written in French)
- Proust		- Watt
- Stories & Texts for Nothing		- Film
- More Pricks Than Kicks

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Bellow, Saul  -  (1915 -- ??).  Nobel Laureate.

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Beowulf
Composed (it is speculated) in the first half of the 8th century.  In 1731, the manuscript was damaged in a fire, so that many lines and words were lost.  However, the poem's text was probably corrupted during the many transcriptions which must have been made between the poem's composition and the translations later made from the copy of the fire-damaged manuscript.  Beowulf is the oldest known epic English poem, and was intended for oral performance.  It is the first of the oral poems which survived the translation from spoken to written literature.
     - Also, feuds in Beowulf
     - Also, an essay on Beowulf
     - Also, a message board discussion group for Beowulf

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Blake, William   - Also, links

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Bly, Robert  (b. 1926).  American poet.

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Bradstreet, Anne  (ca. 1612 - 1672)
Bradstreet was a Puritan who was raised with an education superior to that of most women at that time.  She married a man who was sent to America one year after they were married.  She sailed with him and found the New World difficult.  However, since it was the will of God that she live there with her husband, she submitted to that life.  She continued to write poetry, as she had done as a child.  In 1650, her brother-in-law, without her knowledge, took a manuscript collection of her poems to London and had them printed.  Anne Bradstreet is the author of the first published volume of poetry written by an American resident.  Her meditations and poems provide an historical picture of the religious fervor with which the new Americans lived.  

Bradstreet lived at a time when her duty was clearly defined as that of bearing children, serving her husband, and examining her conscience.  Her health was not strong enough for pregancy, but she risked death eight times to bear children for her husband.  Before the Birth of One of Her Children speaks to her husband, asking him not to remarry after she died, so that her children would not be beaten or poorly cared for by the new wife whom she assumed he would take after her death.  In another poem, she berates herself for grieving for a child, since the Puritans believed that children had no souls until they had received proper religious instruction:  "...Blest babe, why should I once bewail thy fate, / Or sigh thy days so soon were terminate, / Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state."  (From In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665, Being a Year and Half Old.)  

By ritualizing her circumstance via poetry--including the burning of her home in 1666--into a statement of God's will, not her own good or bad fortune, Bradstreet was able to lessen the impact on herself of her own tragedies.
     -  Selected poetry  - online texts

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Bronte, the sisters.  Also, the Bronte Home Pages, various quotes from Charlotte Bronte's work, and complete online texts of the Bronte sisters' poems.

Charlotte Bronte  (1816 - 1855).  It is speculated that she died from an illness associated with pregancy.  She also wrote under various pseudonyms, including Currer (for Charlotte), Acton (for Anne), and Ellis Bell (for Emily).
     - Jane Eyre  - 1846, under the pseudonym Currer Bell.  Online text
     - Shirley  - 1849, under the pseudonym Currer Bell.  Online text
     - Villette  - 1953, under the pseudonym Currer Bell.  Online text
     - The Professor  -1857  (under a pseudonym?).  Online text

For amusement:  David Brown's Jame Eyre, a short parody of Bronte's Jane Eyre .

Bronte, Emily  (1818 - 1848).  Bio
     - Wuthering Heights  - online text
     - I Am the Only Being Whose Doom (poem)  - online text
     - Love Is Like the Wild Rose Briar (poem)  - online text
     - Love and Friendship  - online text
     - Faith and Despondency (poem)  - online text
     - Methinks this heart (poem)  - online text
     - She Dried Her Tears (poem) - online text
     - Last Words (poem) - online text

Anne Bronte
     - Agnes Grey  - online text
     - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall  - online text

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Browne, Sir Thomas  (1605-1682)

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Browning, Robert  (1812 - 1889).  Biography, selected bibliography, and links to Browning pages. Also, a more in-depth biograpy.
     - Selected poetry

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Burns, Olive Ann.  Short bio.  
     - Cold, Sassy Tree

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Burns, Robert  (1959 - 1796).  The Electric Scotland is a free newsletter that includes a section devoted to Burns.  Also, just for fun, The Haggis, and A Toast to the Lassies.
     - Complete poetry  - online texts
     - Selected poetry  - online texts to what some consider his finest works:
            - Tam O'Shanter
            - Holy Willie's Prayer
            - Address to a Haggis
            - Auld Lang Syne
            - A Man's A Man for a' That
            - My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose
            - The Cotter's Saturday Night
            - Address to the Unco Guid
            - To A Mouse
            - Epistle to a Young Friend

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Buson, Taniguchi  - Japanese poet and painter (1715 - 1783).  Also known as Yosa Buson. Short bio.
     - Selected Poetry  - online texts (2-page listing)
     - Also:  online images of and information about some of Buson's paintings.

Dawn-- Fish the cormorants haven't caught Swimming in the shallows.         [ Translated by Robert Hass  ]

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Byron   - Lord George Gordon Noel Byron  (1788 - 1824).  Extensive site that includes biographical information, selected letters, and critical opinions.  Also, Poetry links and another, brief biography on the literature site.

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C

"I criticize by creation - not by finding fault."
              - Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Callimachus  (ca. 310 - 240 B.C.).  Greek poet and critic, and chief librarian of the famous Alexandria library.  Brief biography.  
     - The Aitia  - Literally, "Causes."  Approximately 7000 lines long, though only fragments have survived, mostly on scraps of papyrus.
     - Hymm V:  The Bath of Pallas
     - Also various epigrams...

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de Cervantes, Miguel   - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; born (estimated) September 27, 1547; died April 23, 1616
     - Don Quixote  (part 1:  1605;  part 2: 1615); online text in English and in Spanish
     - La Galatea  (1585)
     - Novelas exemplares  (1613)

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Chaucer, Geoffrey  (1343-1400).  Also:  the Chaucer Pedagogy, and the Harvard Chaucer Page, including course notes, analyses, etc.
     - The Canterbury Tales - online texts in both Middle and Modern English.
     - Pilgrims
     - Troilus and Cressida  - online text in Middle English
     - Complaint to His Purse
     - Gentilesse
     - The House of Fame - online text in Middle English
     - Merciles Beaute
     - Against Women Unconstant - online text in Middle English
     - The Parliament of Fowls - online text in Middle English
     - To His Scribe Adam
     - To Rosamond
     - Truth
     - Also:  online texts of other works

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Chekhov, Anton  (1860 - 1904 -??)  Also spelled "Chehov"
Worked as a general practitioner in Moscow while also working as a writer, selling short stories and sketches.  He published 129 short stories and sketches in 1885;  112 in 1886;  66 in 1887;  and 12 in 1888, but he spent more and more time perfecting each story, thus producing less, but which was of higher quality, and all the while, continuing to practicing medicine.  Chekhov:  "Medicine is my legal spouse, while literature is my mistress.  When I get tired of one, I go and sleep with the other..."  All of his major plays were written in the last 15 years of his life.

Taken from Elisaveta Fen's introduction to Anton Chehov:  Three Plays:     "It is characteristic of Chehov that a few hours before he died he was making up a humorous story as he sat in bed, at which his wife was able to laugh wholeheartedly.  Neither of them realized how near was his end until he awoke the same night, feeling very ill, and asked her to send for the doctor.  Chehov said to him:  "I am dying."  The doctor ordered ice to be put on his heart.  "You don't need to put ice on an empty heart," said Chehov.  The doctor then gave him champagne.  Chehov sat up, smiled and said to his wife:  "It's long since I last drank champagne!"  He emptied his glass, leaned back and died..."
     - Ivanov  (1887-8)
     - The Boor  (1888 -?)
     - The Wood Demon  -1888-1889.  Was severely criticized, considered unsuitable for the stage, and was not produced as a play until after his death.  Chekhov was demoralized enough by this severe reaction that he did not write for seven  years.  Much later, he rewrote this piece and recast it into the play, Uncle Vania.
     - The Sea Gull  - 1896.   Initial production was "a resounding failure."  After Uncle Vania was well-received, this was produced again by a master producer, and became a complete success.  It was also the instigation of a new dramatic style:  the "theatre of moods" or of "underground streams of emotion."
     - Uncle Vania  (1896)
     - Three Sisters  (1900)
     - The Cherry Orchard  (1903)

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Clemens, Samuel Langhorne - Writing under the pseudonym, Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
     - The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
     - The Awful German Language  - including online text
     - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  - online text.  WARNING:  large file.
     - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
     - Old Times on the Mississippi
     - The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson  - online text
     - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court  - online text
     - The Prince and the Pauper  - online text
     - The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
     - What Is a Man?
     - Bible Teaching and Religious Practice
     - Thoughts of God
     - Cannibalism in the Cars
     - The Innocents Abroad

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Coleridge, Samuel Taylor  (1774 - 1834).  His science, philosophy, and theology.  A timeline of his life, letters, and online texts of poems, including:
     - Kubla Khan  - online text
     - Christabel  - online text
     - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner  - online text
     - On Donne's Poetry  - online text

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Congreve, William  (1670 - 1729).  Also, in-depth biography and brief biography.
     - The Old Bachelor  (1693)
     - The Double Dealer  - A near failure
     - Love for Love  (1695)
     - The Mourning Bride  (1697)
     - The Way of the World  - 1700; Congreve's greatest work; failed miserably when first produced and resulted in Congreve quitting the stage for the rest of his life.  This play is considered the finest example of a comedy of manners, and has never been successfully produced on-stage.  It is now considered to be literature, rather than a stage play.

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Conrad, Joseph  (1857 - 1924).  Site of the Joseph Conrad Society.
Teodor Josef Konrad (baptized, Catholic name).  Family name:  Nalecz Korzeniowski.  Born in Berdyczew, in Russian Poland, the son of a country gentleman, educated in in the city and by private tutors.  Raised by his maternal uncle from the age of 12 (his mother died when he was eight and his father died when he was twelve).  Conrad became a competent master mariner in the British merchant marine.  Wrote all his stories in English.  He did not begin writing until he was 35; his first novel was published in 1895.  

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Cooper, James Fenimore  (1789 - 1851)  James Fenimore Cooper Society site.  Also, bio.

Cooper was most reknowned for:
     - The Leather-Stocking Tales:  - in order of the chronology of Natty Bumppo:
               - The Deerslayer  (1841)
               - The Last of the Mohicans  (1826)
               - The Pathfinder  (1840)
               - The Pioneers  (1823)
               - The Prairie  (1827)

The site includes online texts for little known and hard-to-find works, such as The Water Witch; or, The Skimmer of the Seas.

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Cowper, William  (1730 - 1800).  Minor site with a very few works online.  Also, the Cowper and Newton Museum, including biographical information about his early, middle, and later years.
     - Two Poems
     - The Diverting History of John Gilpin  - online text
     - The Colubriad  - online text
     - The Castaway  - online text

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Crane, Stephen  (1871 - 1900).  Stephen Crane Society, including online texts for many of Crane's works.  Also, a timeline biography, the American Poems site for Stephen Crane, including online texts of many poems, and a links page to Stephen Crane sites.
     - The Red Badge of Courage
     - The Black Riders and Other Lines - experimental poetry, 1895
     - War Is Kind and Other Lines  - online text
     - The Black Riders and Other Lines  - online text

                    
                    The Heart

                    In the desert
                    I saw a creature, naked, bestial
                    Who, squatting on the ground,
                    Held his heart in his hands,
                    And ate of it.
                    I said, "Is it good, friend?"
                    "It is bitter--bitter," he answered;
                    "But I like it
                    Because it is bitter,
                    And because it is my heart."

                               - Stephen Crane
                    

     - The Monster and Other Stories (1899)
     - Whilomville Stories (1900)
     - Maggie:  A Girl of the Streets   - his first novel, 1893
     - The Little Regiment  - short fiction

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cummings, e. e.  (1894 - 1962).  American poet.  A short bio and an extensive selection of poems with online texts.
____________________

Buffalo Bill's

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
   who used to
   ride a watersmooth-silver
        stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                 Jesus

he was a handsome man
                and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
____________________

gee i like to think of dead

gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper firmer
since darker than little round water at one end of the well it's
too cool to be crooked and it's too firm to be hard but it's sharp
and thick and it loves, every old thing falls in rosebugs and
jackknives and kittens and pennies they all sit there looking at
each other having the fastest time because they've never met before

dead's more even than how many ways of sitting on your head your
unnatural hair has in the morning

dead's clever too like POF goes the alarm off and the little striker
having the best time tickling away everybody's brain so everybody
just puts out their finger and they stuff the poor thing all full
of fingers

dead has a smile like the nicest man you've never met who maybe winks
at you in a streetcar and you pretend you don't but really you do
see and you are My how glad he winked and hope he'll do it again

or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it makes your neck
feel pleasant and stoopid and if dead says may i have this one and
was never introduced you say Yes because you know you want it to dance
with you and it wants to and it can dance and Whocares

dead's fine like hands do you see that water flowerpots in windows but
they live higher in their house than you so that's all you see but you
don't want to

dead's happy like the way underclothes All so differently solemn and
inti and sitting on one string

dead never says my dear,Time for your musiclesson and you like music and
to have somebody play who can but you know you never can and why have to?

dead's nice like a dance where you danced simple hours and you take all
your prickly-clothes off and squeeze-into-largeness without one word and
you lie still as anything in largeness and this largeness begins to give
you,the dance all over again and you,feel all again all over the way men
you liked made you feel when they touched you(but that's not all)because
largeness tells you so you can feel what you made,men feel when,you touched,
them

dead's sorry like a thistlefluff-thing which goes landing away all by
himself on somebody's roof or something where who-ever-heard-of-growing
and nobody expects you to anyway

dead says come with me he says(andwhyevernot)into the round well and
see the kitten and the penny and the jackknife and the rosebug
and you

say Sure you say (like that) sure i'll come with you you say for i
like kittens i do and jackknives i do and pennies i do and rosebugs i do

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D

Dante  (Dante Alighieri; 1265 - 1321).   Downloadable texts.  Information about Dante exhibitions.
     - Inferno.  Online text.  Also, recommended English translations:
                   - Dante's Inferno, Translations by 20 Contemporary Poets
                   - The Inferno of Dante, A New Verse Translation by Robert Pinsky, Bilingual Edition
     - The Divine Comedy  - complete texts online  for both Longfellow's and H.F. Cary's translations.  Also, complete text in original Italian

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Defoe, Daniel  (1660 - 1731).  Brief bio, and more in-depth bio.
Born in London as James Foe, of Flemish stock.  He changed his name to Defoe around 1695.  Was the author of 560 books, journals, and pamphlets from satirical to dramatic topics, in history, social science, crime, and biography.  Was imprisoned various times for debts and other, more political transgressions.
       - Captain Singleton
       - Colonel Jack
       - A Journal of the Plague Year  - online text
       - Memoirs of a Cavalier
       - Moll Flanders  - online text.  Note:  this is an irritating site that disables the Back key.
       - On the Education of Women  - online text
       - Robinson Crusoe  - online text
       - Roxana
       - The True Born Englishman  - satirical poem (1701)

                  Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
                  The Devil always builds a chapel there;
                  And 't will be found, upon examination,
                  The latter has the largest congregation.

                       - From The True-Born Englishman, Part i

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Dickens, Charles  (1812 - 1870).  Another extensive Dickens site, as well as the Charles Dickens Gad's Hill Place (usually broken links, but some good quotes).  In-depth bio, and much more extensive biographical info, a Dickens timeline, and online texts of his works.  Also, the Victorian political history and the social and political context of his works.

Dickens work is available online from a variety of sources.
     - Pickwick Papers - Dickens' first novel; serialized from April 1836 to November 1837.  Most famous of all pre-Victorian novels.
     - David Copperfield
     - A Tale of Two Cities  (1859)
     - Great Expectations  (1860-61)
     - A Christmas Carol  (1843) - One of the "Christmas Books" (short novels)
     - The Chimes  (1844) - One of the "Christmas Books" (short novels)
     - Oliver Twist (1837-39)
     - Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39)
     - The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41)
     - Barnaby Rudge (1841)
     - Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44)
     - Dombey and Son (1846-48)
     - Bleak House (1852-53)
     - Hard Times (1854)
     - Little Dorrit (1855-57)
     - Our Mutual Friend (1864-65)
     - The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), only half-completed.
     - The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
     - The Battle of Life (1846)
     - The Haunted Man (1848)

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Dickenson, Emily  (1830-1886).  Online texts of poems (WARNING:  this is an irritating site with a popup for every click you make).  Also, links to magazine/journal articles about Emily Dickenson.

             435           

             Much Madness is divinest Sense --
             To a discerning Eye --
             Much Sense--the starkest Madness--
             'Tis the Majority
             In this, as All, prevail--
             Assent--and you are sane--
             Demur--you're straightaway dangerous--
             And handled with a Chain--
             

             From 709:

             Publication--is the Auction
             Of the Mind of Man--
             

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Dickey, James  - poet, novelist  (1923 - ).  Born in Atlanta, Georgia; Dickey wrote more than 17 books of poetry, 14 books of prose (including the famous novel, Deliverance, which was later made into a film) and sound recordings.  In-depth bio.
     - Deliverance - novel
     - Cherrylog Road
     - The Shark's Parlor  - online text
     - For the Last Wolverine  - online text

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Donne, John  (1572 - 1631)
      - Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation VXII   (1624)  - online text

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

                         -  From Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne

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Dostoevsky, Fyodor  (October 30, 1821 -  1881)
All his work was published serially in Russian periodicals.  Four major features of his writing, often assumed now to be simply features of Russian writers:  amazing truthfulness in his descriptions of life, deeply described and well-delineated characters, mastery in describing the social conditions of his protagonists, and wonderfully artistic sense of tragedy.
     - Mary Stuart  - 1841, a historical drama.  Has not been preserved.  One of Dostoevsky's first literary efforts.
     - Boris Godunov  - 1841, a historical drama.   Has not been preserved.  One of Dostoevsky's first literary efforts.
     - The Idiot (1867)
     - The Devils (also known as The Possessed)
     - Poor Folk (1846)
     - The Grand Inquisitory
     - The Double  -1846; Subtitled:  A Petersburg Poem
     - The Honest Thief  (1848)
     - The peasant Marey
     - The Christmas Tree and a Wedding  - artistically perfect, satiric
     - White Nights  (1848)
     - The Gambler
     - The Village of Stepanchikovo  - 1861?; comic masterpiece
     - The Insulted and Injured (1861)
     - Notes from House of the Dead (1861-62)
     - A Disgraceful Affair  (1862)
     - Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1862)
     - Notes from the Underground  - 1864; English title only.  Actual title:  Memoirs from a Dark Cellar
     - Crime and Punishment  - 1866
     - The Eternal Husband  (1870)
     - The Adolescent -  1874; English title only.  Actual title:  The Raw Youth.  Thought to be his weakest novel.
     - A Gentle Creature (1876)
     - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man  (1877)
     - The Brothers Karamazov

"The starving soul is humbled and driven to submission, seeking salvation in gin and dissipation and beginning to believe that this is the way things ought to be.  Facts oppress the spirit, and if scepticism is born, it is a gloomy, accursed sort of scepticism which seeks salvation in religious fanaticism."

                            - Dostoevsky, about his travels abroad in an1863 issue of Vremya (Time)

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Dove, Rita  - Nobel Laureate poet.

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Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan.  Brief bio.
     - original Sherlock Holmes stories online

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Dryden, John
     Selected poetry and prose online (complete texts or excerpts)
     - The State of Innocence  - completed 1673-4?; never played
     - Mac Flecknoe  - satire
     - Absalom and Achitophel  - satire
     - The Medal  - satire
     - All for Love  - drama
     - Anne Killigrew  - ode
     - St. Cecilia's Day - ode
     - Alexander's Feast  - ode
     - Religio Laici   - verse essay, 1682
     - The Hind and the Panther  - online text; 1687
            Symbolism in the Hind and the Panther, summarized from John Dryden, Selected Works, commentary by William Frost:  The Hind = Roman Catholicism; the Panther = the Church of England; the Bear = The Congregationalists (originally known as the Independents); the Hare = the Quakers, who would not take oaths; the Ape = the atheists or freethinkers; the Boar = the Baptists; Reynard the Fox = the Unitarians; the Wolves = the Presbyterians, who believed in predestination; the Lion = King James II, who had recently issued a declaration of religious tolerance in England; Caledonia = England; Pan = Christ; the Swallows = English Catholics; the Martins = a priest or party of priests who were in favor of pro-Catholic measures taken by King James; the unnaturally clement weather = the reign of King James; and the disasters  = predictions of the plight of Catholics after the reign of James ended.

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Dumas, Alexandre (1802 - 1870), including online texts to most of his major works, in both English and French.  Also, short bio, a more in-depth bio, yet another bio, and the 1911 encyclopedia article on Dumas.
     - The Three Musketeers (marvelous!)  - online text
     - The Count of Monte Cristo (marvelous!) - online text
     - Twenty Years After (incredibly depressing) - online text
     - Le Vicomte de Bragelonne  - Note that this story, when translated into English, is usually published as three volumes:
               - The Vicomte de Bragelonne
               - Louise de la Valliere
               - The Man in the Iron Mask

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E

Eliot, T. S.  Includes online text of poems.  Brief bio.
     - The Wasteland - including notes and symbolism
     - Gerontion
     - Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
     - Sweeney Erect
     - A Cooking Egg
     - Le Directeur
     - Mélange Adultère de Tout
     - Lune de Miel
     - The Hippopotamus
     - Dans le Restaurant
     - Whispers of Immortality
     - Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service
     - Sweeney among the Nightingales

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo  (1803 - 1882).  Includes online texts of his work, other notes.

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Erdrich, Louise  (1954 -- )
     - Beet Queen
     - Love Medicine

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Euripides
Nineteen plays have been found/preserved.  Ten of his plays were selected for educational reasons ansd so were copied and preserved.  Nine others were found later during the classical revival that occurred in the 1200 - 1400's A.D.  Some sources maintain that only eighteen plays have been found (seventeen tragedies and Orestes, a satyr play), and that it is possible that Rhesus was not authored by Euripides.  

The plays originally preserved are:		The nine plays found later:
- Medea  - ca. 431 B.C.		- The Heracleidae  - ca. 429 - ?? B.C.
- Hippolytus  - ca. 428 B.C.		- Andromache  - ca. 428-24 B.C.
- The Bacchantes  - ca. 410 B.C.		- The Suppliants  - ca. 422 B.C.
- Iphigenia In Tauris  - ca. 414-412 B.C.		- Heracles  - ca. 421-416 B.C.
- The Trojan Women  - ca. 415 B.C.		- Helen  -  ca. 412 B.C.
- Ion  - ca. 414-412 B.C.		- The Phoenissae  - ca. 411-409 B.C.
- Alcestis  - ca. 438 B.C.		- Iphigenia At Aulis  - ca. 410 B.C.
- Electra  - ca. 420-410 B.C.		- The Cyclops  - ca. 408? B.C.
- Hecuba  - ca. 424 B.C.		- Orestes  - ca. 408 B.C
- Rhesus  - ca. 450 B.C.

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F

Faulkner, William - One of America's Nobel Prize-winning authors.  Also a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.  Born in Mississippi in 1897; educated at the University of Mississippi (but did not graduate), served in the British Royal Air Force during WWI, and drifted to New Orleans, where he began writing for "little magazines."
     - Mosquitoes - an early novel
     - Soldier's Pay - an early novel
     - The Sound and the Fury - an early novel
     - Absalom, Absalom!
     - Go Down, Moses
     - Intruder in the Dust
     - Light in August
     - Sanctuary
     - As I Lay Dying
     - The Unvanquished

"Man is tough.  Nothing -- war, grief, hopelessness, despair -- can last as long as man himself can last;
man himself will prevail over all his anguishes, provided he will make the effort to stand erect
on his own feet by believing in hope and in his own toughness and endurance."

                            - Faulker

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Fet  - Afanasy Afanasyevitch Fet.   Russian poet in the era of the Tsars.

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Fielding, Henry  (1707-1754).  English novelist and dramatist.   In-depth bio.  Also, another biography, and Morality in Fielding's Novels.
Wrote comedies for the stage, but his satires and burlesques attacked the Walpole government and resulted in the Licensing Act of 1737.   This act was a censorship of the stage, and Fielding quit the writing to turn to novels.  Fielding was appointed magistrate for Westminster, and later, with his blind half-brother, created London's first formal police force, the Bow Street Runners.  Works include:
     - Joseph Andrews  (1742)
     - Jonathan Wild  (1743)
     - The History of Tom Jones   (1749)

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Fitzgerald, F. Scott  (1896 - 1940).  bio.    Also bio and summaries of his works and online texts
     - The Great Gatsby (1925)
     - This Side of Paradise (1920)

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Frost, Robert  (1875 - 1963)  A short bio and bibliography, a life sketch,
     - Selected poems , such as Acquainted with the Night, others  -  online text  
     - Selected poems, including:
               - Mowing  - online text
               - October  - online text
               - An Old Man's Winter Night  - online text

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Fry, Christopher  (b. 1907)  Actor, playwright, and director.  Brief bio and bibliography, and a 1989 interview with Christopher Fry.
On poetry:   "Poetry is the language in which man explores his own  amazement."
     - The Boy with a Cart
     - Curtmantle
     - The Dark Is Light Enough
     - The Firstborn
     - The Lady's not for Burning, 1949  - online text
     - A Phoenix too Frequent
     - A Sleep of Prisoners
     - Thor, with Angels
     - Venus Observed

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Fuentes, Carlos  (b. 1928) -- Mexico's most influential writer.  An interview.

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G

Ginsberg, Allen  (1926 - 1997)
     - Howl  - online text, also here.  Also description and analysis.  Also here.  
     - Sunflower Sutra  (1955) - online text
     - Kaddish  (1960)  - online text.  Description and analysis
     - A Supermarket in California  - online text

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Grass, Gunter.  Timeline biography.
Grass is one of Germany's favorite authors.  A modern writer, he took up the tradition of baroque and melancholy literature, and explored themes such as vanity, carpe diem, and Senecan Stoicism.  
     - The Tin Drum
     - The Flounder
     - Local Anaesthetic

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H

If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil increase; if men do to him as he has done, it will be true justice.

                          -The Great Works, Hesiod

Hardy, Thomas.  Also, an overview site.
     - Far From the Madding Crowd

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Hawthorne, Nathaniel  (1804 - 1864).  Extensive site with online texts, portraits, and links to other sites.  Earliest American master of the short story and the romance.  A short bio.
     - Twice Told Tales  (1937)  - including online text
     - The Whole History of Grandfather's Chair  (1840)
     - Mosses from an Old Manse  (1846) - including online text, criticisms, etc.
     - The Scarlet Letter  (1850) - online text
     - The House of the Seven Gables  (1851)  - including online text
     - The Blithedale Romance  (1852)  - online text, including author's preface
     - The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales (1852)  - online text
     - The Life of Franklin Pierce  (1852)
     - A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys  (1852)  - online text
     - Tanglewood Tales  (1853)  - online text
     - The Marble Faun  (1860)  - online text and notes about publication versions.
     - "Chiefly About War Matters"  (1862)
     - Our Old Home  (1863)  - online text
     - The Wives of the Dead

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Heaney, Seamus  - Nobel Laureate Poet, Irish
     - Digging

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Hecht, Anthony  - poet.  Overview site.  Extracts from an interview with Phillip Hoye.  Brief bio.

Online texts of a six poems:
     - Saul and David
     - Witness
     - Late Afternoon:  The Onslaught of Love
     - Curriculum Vitae
     - A Hill
     - Prospects

Also:
     - A Letter  - online text
     - Eclogue of the Shepherd and the Townie  - online text  (Note:  file also contains Curriculum Vitae)

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Hemingway, Ernest.   Also:  Bio, and another, more in-depth bio.

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Herodotus  (490 - 425 B.C.)
     - The History of Herodotus  - ca. 440 B.C.;  online text

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Hesiod  (estimated to have lived during the 7th century B.C)
The father of Greed didactic poetry.  Only two of his epic poems have been preserved, one relating to mythology of the gods, the other to peasant life (The Great Works, or, Works and Days)
     - The Great Works  - the verse of the slaying of Rhadamanthys:  "If a man sow evil, he shall reap evil increase; if men do to him as he has done, it will be true justice."
     - Theogony  - online texts in English and Greek.  Also:  Another translation.
     - Shield of Heracles  - online texts in English and Greek

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Hesse, Herman   - German home site.  Also, brief bio in English.
     - Der Steppenwolf
     - Siddhartha
     - Demian
     - Magister Ludi  - won the Nobel Prize for Literature
     - Beneath the Wheel

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Homer   (estimated to have lived during the late 8th century B.C).  An essay/article on Homer.
     - The Iliad  - online text
     - The Odyssey  - online text

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Horace  - Quintus Horatius Flaccus  (65 - 8 B.C.)
     - Odes  - 103 short lyric poems comprising four books
     - Satires

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Hugo, Victor.  In-depth bio.  The Victor Hugo Central web site is irritating to navigate, but does provide reviews, essays, biographical information, etc.
     - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
     - Notre-Dame de Paris  (1831)
     - Les Miserables  (1862)
     - Ruy Blas

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I

Ibsen, Henrik  (1828 - 1906) - Norweigan playwright.  An in-depth bio, and another even more in-depth bio.  A site with essays submitted by netizens.

Ibsen's early works were written between 1850 and 1873, and include Peer Gynt and The League of Youth.  His major prose plays include:

- Pillars of Society  (1877)		- The Lady from the Sea  (1888)
- A Doll House  (1879)		- Hedda Gabler  (1890)
- Ghosts  (1881)		- The Master Builder  (1892)
- An Enemy of the People  (1882)		- Little Eyolf  (1894)
- The Wild Duck  (1884)		- John Gabriel Borkman  (1896)
- Rosmersholm  (1886)		- When We Dead Awaken  (1899)

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Irving, Washington  (1783 - 1859)  A bio, another site with portraits and short bio, and a more in-depth bio.
     - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
     - Rip Van Winkle
     - The Spectre Bridegroom
     - Little Britain  - online text
     - A History of New York (1809)  - notes and excerpts

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J

James, Henry  (April 15, 1843 - February 28, 1916). Works online
     - The American
     - The Aspern Papers
     - The Turn of the Screw

 We trust to novels to maintain us in the practice of
great indignations and great generosities.
                             - Henry James, in an essay on Anthony Trollope:

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Johnson, Samuel  (1709 - 1784).  Full texts online, including:
     - Rambler essays  (1750-1752)
     - The Life of Savage
     - Dictionary
     - The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
     - Idler essays  (1758-1760)

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Jonson, Ben  (1573 - 1637).  A short bio and another bio.  Also, an extensive listing of critical essays and articles on Jonson and his works.
     - Selected works  - online text
     - Selected plays and other works, original spellings  - online text
     - Selected poems  - online text
     - Selected monologues  - online text

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Joyce, James  (  )  Also, a James Joyce Resource Center, and the Brazen Head, with extensive links
     - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
     - The Dubliners (incredibly depressing)
     - Ulysses
     - Finnegan's Wake

"Why don't you write books people can read?"
                                          - Nora Joyce to her husband James

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K

Kafka, Franz.  Died 1924, of tuberculosis.  In-depth bio.
     - Metamorphosis
     - The Trial

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Keats, John  (1795-1817)  Extensive site that includes biographical information, online texts of poems, letters, and a message forum for discussion.  Also, a links site for pages relating to Keats, and just for interest's sake, an extensive list of Victorian links.

Selected poetry online, including:
     - La Belle Dame Sans Merci  - online text
     - Ode on a Grecian Urn  - online text
     - When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be  - online text
     - Endymion  - books I-IV
     - Lamia  - online text
     - Hyperion

Also, index of poetry online, by first lines.

               This Living Hand, Now Warm and Capable

               This living hand, now warm and capable
               Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
               And in the icy silence of the tomb,
               So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
               That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
              So that in my veins red life might stream again,
               And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--
               I hold it towards you.

                          - John Keats
                

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Kerouac, Jack   (1922 - 1969)  A bio and timeline.
     - The Town and the City
     - The Dharma Bums  - analysis and excerpts
     - The Subterraneans
     - On the Road  - analysis and excerpts
     - Big Sur  - analysis and excerpts

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Kesey, Ken.  Short bio, the LitKicks bio, and another slightly longer bio.  Also a 1992 interview by Todd Fahey, and the Fenex/Rick interview.
     - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  - brief bio and notes.  And more notes.
     - Sometimes a Great Notion
     - The Demon Box

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Kipling, Rudyard  (1865 - 1936)  Nobel Laureate in Literature.  Short bio, and a slightly longer bio.
     - Selected poems  - online text
     - The Jungle Book
     - The White Man's Burden  -  Regarding the debate about imperialism in the United States.
     - Captains Courageous

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L

Lang, R. D.  - poet;   - no satisfactory reference, historical, or literary sites yet located

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Langland, William  (1330 - 1387).  A short bio.  Is considered the author of over 45 manuscripts for the Middle Ages poem, Peres the Ploughmans Crede, often titled to The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman.  However, modern scholars believe there were five authors who wrote the Crede, and the manuscripts have been grouped into three "manuscript traditions," and called simply the A, B, and versions.

The Vision of Piers Plowman - online text of B version and detailed analysis.  Published 1377-1379
      Also:  the poem by section (select Langland in the author listing)

                Excerpt from The Crede of Piers the Ploughman
                William Langland

                As I went on my way,
                I saw a poor man over the plough bending.
                His hood was full of holes,
                And his hair was sticking out,
                His shoes were patched.
                His toes peeped out as he the ground trod.
                His wife walked by him
                In a skirt cut full and high.
                Wrapped in a sheet to keep her from the weather.
                Bare foot on the bare ice
                So that the blood flowed.
                At the field's end lay a little bowl,
                And in there lay a little child wrapped in rags|
                And two more of two years old upon another side.
                And all of them sang a song
                That was sorrowful to hear.
                The all cried a cry,
                A sorrowful note.
                And the poor man sighed sore and said
                "Children be still."
                

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Lawrence, D. H.   David Herbert Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire in 1885 as the fourth child of a coal miner.  Died in Venice in 1930.  Also:  biographical information divided by eras in Lawrence's life.  Selected poems online.
     - The White Peacock - his first novel
     - The Rainbow - 1915, novel
     - Women in Love - 1916, novel
     - Lady Chatterly's Lover - his last novel; online text.  Also, the history of the story.
     Also:  various short stories, novelettes, and nonfiction pieces on nature, ethics, philosophy, men and women, etc., including:
          - Christs in the Tirol
          - Men Must Work and Women Also
          - Pornography and Obscenity

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Lear, Edward  (1812 - 1888)  Biographical info, including timeline.  A very short bio.
     - Complete limericks , and selected songs and stories  - online text w/drawings
     - Selected poems  - online text
     - More selected poems  - online text
     - Over 150 selected poems  - online text
     - Lear's picture stories  - online version
     - The Jumblies  - online text
     - The Owl and the Pussy-Cat  - online text.  Also here.

Also:
     - The Death of Edward Lear, by Donald Barthelme

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Lee, Harper  (Nelle Harper Lee, b. April 28, 1926)  Biography.  Also:  biographical information about Nelle Harper Lee and other members of her family.
     - To Kill a Mockingbird  - symbolism and lecture notes.  Also:  Student Survival Guide, a guide to over 400 terms and idioms used in Lee's book.

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