Artisan: 415 books

From the Foreword By Philip Dossick: The thrill of reading Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room is the feeling of looking into a whirlpool just as something utterly extraordinary and unexpected materializes for the first time.  It is so for all her novels. The language itself...

War And Peace has become one of the most widely read and influential books ever written.  It reveals the astounding range, subtlety, artistry, and depth of a true original, Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina and countless other literary masterpieces. Published in hundreds of...

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest orator in Roman history, left behind a remarkable collection of letters, philosophical treatises, and orations. His works run to many volumes, an output that is the more astonishing when one reflects how much has been lost forever. In 1345, in the...

The Call of the Wild The Sea-Wolf The Road White Fang Martin Eden John Barleycorn The People of the Abyss Few writers have captured the living texture of life as well as Jack London. Each of the seven classic titles appearing in this superbly...

HERBERT GEORGE "H. G." WELLS (1866–1946) was an English writer, best known for his work in science fiction. Often called "The Father of Science Fiction" along with Jules Verne, many of his visions of the future have already become reality, including genetic engineering (Island...

Leaves Of Grass is Walt Whitman’s rare and genuine masterpiece; an exhilarating work of artistry deserving of the label in a thousand different ways.  It is a landmark of American literature. WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892), one of the greatest authors of the nineteenth century, transformed...

In 1964, Lenny Bruce was riding high. His underdog, idealistic humor took on every American icon and sacred cow, from capitalism to organized religion to sexual mores. College kids adored him. Audiences were eager to see him perform his free-form riffs at every opportunity. His...

L’argent (1890), Dix-huitième roman de la série Rougon-Macquart, mais quatrième dans l'ordre de lecture recommandé car il découle logiquement La Curée, fait suite à l'extraordinaire carrière d'Aristide Saccard, le plus jeune fils de Pierre et Félicité Rougon, un financier-dealer qui rivalisera...

John Keats, who died at the age of twenty-five, had perhaps the most remarkable career of any English poet. Regarded by many as one of the very greatest of the Romantic poets, John Keats was also among the most intriguing figures of his age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful...

Summer Sanctuary Madame de Treymes The Fruit of the Tree The Custom of the Country The Reef The Age of Innocence Readers the world over have spoken of their favorites among Edith Wharton’s prodigious collection of masterworks. But what of Edith Wharton herself? What were...

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a revolutionary document of Afro-American culture: the first first-person novel ever written by a black, it became a powerful model for later novelists Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison. Johnson’s resolutely candid novel gave many...

O. HENRY (1862 –1910), born William Sydney Porter, was an American short story writer. Most of O. Henry's stories take place in New York City and deal with ordinary people: policemen, waitresses, bartenders, salesmen, etc. O. Henry received widespread acclaim because of his trademark tales...

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most significant political essays ever devised. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels envisioned a society without classes, private property or a state, arguing that the exploitation of industrial workers would eventually lead to a revolution in which Capitalism...

“Lyrical Ballads, in case you missed it, is, quite simply, possibly the single most important collection of poems in English ever published…” -Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads has long been regarded as the seminal text of English Romanticism:...