King Lear tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters, after they declare their love for him in an extremely fawning and obsequious manner. His third daughter gets nothing, because she will not flatter him as her sisters had done. When rejected by the two daughters who now have his wealth and power, he is forced to come to terms with the consequences of his actions. He eventually becomes tenderly reconciled...

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject. Unlike many...

This new translation of the great classic of Ancient Greece starts a cycle of drama recordings by Naxos AudioBooks. The anguished tale of Oedipus, who having solved the riddle of the Sphinx and become King of Thebes, gradually realises the crimes he has, unwittingly, committed, remains a drama of unremitting power 2,500 years after it was written. With full drama values, Naxos AudioBooks the atmosphere of the Greek amphitheatre to the soundworld of...