LITERATURE COMPILATION

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

(1886) by Leo Tolstoy. At the start of the story, a peasant named Pahom listens to his wife and sister-in-law debate whether it is better to live in the town or the country. Pahom thinks "if I had plenty of land, I wouldn't fear the Devil himself!"—which the Devil hears from behind the stove. Shortly thereafter, Pahom purchases land from a village woman. He becomes exceedingly jealous and protective of his property, causing him to quarrel with his neighbors and the local judges. Learning of rich land elsewhere, Pahom moves his family, but still is not satisfied. Desirous of acquiring even more land, Pahom visits the nomadic Bashkirs. Their chief, who is possibly the Devil in disguise, says that one thousand roubles will buy as much land as Pahom can walk around in a single day. However, if Pahom does not return to his starting point by sunset, both the money and the land are forfeit. In his greed, Pahom ventures too far. He sprints back while the chief laughs, just as the Devil did in one of Pahom's dreams. Pahom returns to the starting point just in time, but immediately drops dead from exhaustion. A servant buries Pahom in a grave that is six feet long, thus answering the story's title question: a man only needs six feet of land.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

(1886) by Leo Tolstoy. The story begins in a courtroom, as the death of the middle-aged magistrate Ivan Ilyich prompts other members of the legal profession to think about how the new vacancy will affect their status. The story then describes Ivan's unhappy marriage to Praskovya Fedorovna, and his move to Saint Petersburg. As he decorates his new house, Ivan has an accident while demonstrating how he wishes the curtains to be hung. The accident slowly causes Ivan to suffer increasing pain, during which he becomes dependant on the peasant servant Gerasim, and contemplates how meaningless his existence has been. At the end of his life, Ivan screams continuously for three days. Finally, Ivan sees light all around him at the same time that his son Vasya kisses his hand, and realizes that all he can do to end his family's suffering is to die. Ivan thus dies happily.

(Kawabata) Yasunari

(1899-1972): Recipient of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature, he was the first Japanese author to win the Nobel. His works combine classic Japanese values with modern trends, and often center on the role of sex in people's lives. His works are often only a few pages long, a form given the name "palm-of-the-hand." He is best known for three novels: Thousand Cranes, based on the tea ceremony and inspired by The Tale of Genji; The Sound of the Mountain, about the relationship of an old man and his daughter-in-law; and Snow Country, about an aging geisha. A friend of Mishima Yukio, he was also associated with right-wing causes and openly protested the Cultural Revolution in China. He committed suicide two years after Mishima.

Margaret Atwood

(1939-present, Canada). One of Canada's most prominent authors of literary fiction, she has written multiple works that combine speculative elements with psychological realism. In 1985 she published The Handmaid's Tale, which portrays a dystopian near-future in which the United States has been replaced by the patriarchal Republic of Gilead. The Handmaid's Tale is narrated by Offred, whose role as a "handmaid" is to bear children for "the Commander" and his wife, Serena Joy. Offred flees her oppressive existence with the help of Nick, a chauffeur who claims to be a member of the underground Mayday resistance movement. In an epilogue set in the year 2195, the archivist Professor Pieixoto discusses Offred's unknown fate. She later wrote a trilogy set in a post-apocalyptic world where corporations have created bioengineered diseases and people (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam). In addition to her speculative works, she has also written historical fiction (Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, the latter of which contains a character who is a science fiction author), novels about the relationships between female friends (Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride), and a retelling of Homer's Odyssey from a female point of view (The Penelopiad).

David Copperfield

- (1850) Dickens's favorite of his own books, and the most autobiographical. - After this protagonist's father dies, his mother marries the cruel Mr. Murdstone. - He is sent to a school where he is tormented by the headmaster Creakle, but finds comfort in his friendships with Tommy Traddles and James Steerforth. - While working in London, he befriends the optimistic but indebted Mr. Micawber. - Eventually, he escapes his grim warehouse job by walking to Dover. - There, he finds his great-aunt Betsey Trotwood, who arranges for him to be educated by the lawyer Mr. Wickfield. - He keeps in touch with his old nurse Clara Peggotty, whose relative "Little Em'ly" is seduced and abandoned by his former friend Steerforth. - Youthful infatuation causes him to wed the flighty Dora Spenlow, who eventually dies. - After helping to extricate Mr. Wickfield from the schemes of the "humble" clerk Uriah Heep, he marries Mr. Wickfield's daughter Agnes. - Throughout the story, he progresses in the literary world, ultimately becoming a successful novelist.

Zeami

(1363-1443), also called Kanze Motokiyo: The second master of the Kanze theatrical school, which had been founded by his father, he is regarded as the greatest playwright of the No theater. He provided 90 of the approximately 230 plays in the modern repertoire. Among his best works are Atsumori, The Robe of Feathers, Birds of Sorrow, and Wind in the Pines. Also a drama critic, he established the aesthetic standards by which plays have been judged ever since. His Fushi kaden (The Transmission of the Flower of Acting Style) is a manual for his pupils.

(Matsuo) Basho

(1644-1694), a pseudonym of (first name) Munefusa: Generally acknowledged as the master of the haiku form, the most notable influences on his work were Zen Buddhism and his travels throughout Japan. He is noted for works like The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no hosomichi), which includes descriptions of local sights in both prose and haiku. He took his pseudonym from the name of the simple hut where he retired: Basho-an, which means "Cottage of the Plaintain Tree."

(Chikamatsu) Monzaemon

(1653-1725): He was Japan's first professional dramatist. Originally named Sugimori Nobumori, this person wrote more than 150 plays for both the bunraku (puppet theater) and the kabuki (popular theater). This person's scripts fall into two categories: historical romances (mono) and domestic tragedies (wamono). One of this authors most popular plays was The Battles of Coxinga, an historical melodrama about an attempt to re-establish the Ming dynasty in China. He is also largely responsible for developing the sewamono (contemporary drama on contemporary themes) in the joruri, a style of chanted narration adapted to bunraku.

Bleak House

- (1853) This novel revolves around the Chancery case Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has dragged on for many years as family members fight over an inheritance. - The title home (which is actually pleasant, rather than bleak) is owned by John Jarndyce, who cares for his young relatives Richard Carstone and Ada Clare. - Ada has a companion named Esther Summerson, who narrates much of the novel, and is Dickens's only female narrator. - Esther suffers a severe illness after caring for a sick boy named Jo, and learns that she is the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock. - The lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn discovers Lady Dedlock's secret but is murdered by the maid Hortense, a crime that is investigated by Inspector Bucket. - Lady Dedlock dies after fleeing home and the Chancery suit ends, as the disputed inheritance has been totally consumed by court costs. - Other memorable characters in the novel include the merchant Krook, who dies of spontaneous human combustion; Mrs. Jellyby, who busies herself with charitable causes but neglects her own family, and Horace Skimpole, whose blithe irresponsibility burdens others.

Hard Times

- (1854) Thomas Gradgrind is a fact-obsessed utilitarian from Coketown, in the north of England. - He superintends a school whose students include an ambitious boy named Bitzer, and Sissy Jupe, a young member of Mr. Sleary's traveling circus. - Mr. Gradgrind arranges for his daughter Louisa to marry Josiah Bounderby, an unpleasant older banker who employs Mr. Grandgrind's son, Tom. - The politician James Harthouse tries to seduce Louisa, who returns home to her father and causes him to see the error of his ways. - Tom Gradgrind steals from Mr. Bounderby, unsuccessfully tries to frame a worker named Stephen Blackpool, and flees to America.

A Tale of Two Cities

- (1859) Paris and London are the title cities of this novel, which famously begins "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." - At the start of the novel, the French doctor Alexandre Manette is released after 18 years in the Bastille, where he was imprisoned to prevent him from revealing the crimes of the Evrémonde family. - Dr. Manette relocates to England with the help of his daughter Lucie and the Tellson's Bank employee Jarvis Lorry. - Lucie marries Charles Darnay, a Frenchman who bears a striking resemblance to the English lawyer Sidney Carton. - Darnay is also a member of the Evrémonde family. - After returning to Paris during the French Revolution, Darnay is arrested as the result of a vendetta against the Evrémondes waged by the Defarges, a proletarian couple who encode information about their enemies into Madame Defarge's knitting. - Carton expresses his love for Lucie by taking Darnay's place in jail, and goes to the guillotine thinking "it is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done." - Lucie and Darnay escape with the help of the governess Miss Pross, who shoots Madame Defarge.

Mary Shelley

(1797-1851, United Kingdom). As the daughter of the philosophers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft (the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women), and the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, she was a product of both the Enlightenment and Romantic eras. Her 1818 novel Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus helped to lay the groundwork for modern science fiction by contrasting Enlightenment ideas of progress with a Romantic conception of nature as an untameable force. The idea for Frankenstein came to her while she was taking part in a friendly writing competition at Lord Byron's villa on Lake Geneva. Inspired by Luigi Galvani's experiments in "animal electricity," she wrote about the Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein, who reanimates dead tissue and creates a "monster." This attempt to control nature fails, as the monster murders Frankenstein's brother William, friend Henry Clerval, and wife Elizabeth before fleeing to the Arctic. Frankenstein pursues his creation, and tells his story to the explorer Robert Walton before dying. She presented an even bleaker scenario in her 1826 novel The Last Man, which describes Lionel Verney's efforts to survive a 21st-century plague that devastates human civilization.

Great Expectations

- (1861) The narrator Philip Pirrip, who is nicknamed "Pip," is brought up by his sister and her kind husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. - While visiting a churchyard, Pip meets the escaped convict Abel Magwitch, and renders him aid. - Later, Pip is hired to "play" with a girl named Estella at Satis House, whose owner Miss Havisham was spurned on her wedding day and has worn a wedding dress ever since. - When the lawyer Mr. Jaggers reveals that a mysterious benefactor will fund Pip's education, Pip assumes that Miss Havisham is making him a "gentleman" so that he can marry Estella. - Instead, Estella marries the wealthy Bentley Drummle, who mistreats her. - Pip discovers that his benefactor was actually the convict Magwitch, and tries to help Magwitch flee England with the help of Pip's friends Startop and Herbert Pocket. - However, the escape is foiled by Compeyson, the man who jilted Miss Havisham. - Pip's great expectations are dashed, but he becomes a better person, and is finally reunited with the widowed Estella. - Dickens modified the novel's conclusion at the suggestion of the author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who objected to an ending in which Estella weds another man.

Every Man in His Humour

- (Ben Jonson, 1598): Set in Jonson's contemporary London, this comedy is a "humours play," in which each character is a stock type governed by a corresponding "humour" (as theorized in Greek medicine). - The plot chiefly concerns Knowell, an old gentleman who worries that his son Edward is becoming too involved with Wellbred, a fun-loving gallant Londoner. - Knowell secretly follows his son to London; meanwhile, Wellbred's brother-in-law, the merchant Kitely, worries that Wellbred's behavior will give his business a bad reputation, all the while suspecting his own wife of infidelity. - Various subplots involve Knowell's mischievous servant Brainworm, the braggart-captain Bobadill, and two friends of Wellbred who try to be fashionably and poetically melancholic. - In the end, the kindly Justice Clement settles all of the grievances amassed over the course of the play. - A sequel was written one year later.

Volpone

- (Ben Jonson, 1605): Each character in this Jonson play is based on an animal archetype. - The greedy Venetian noble namesake protagonist (named for the Italian for "fox") cajoles gifts from men named Corbaccio ("raven"), Corvino ("crow"), and Voltore ("vulture") by faking a fatal illness, and separately promising his fortune to each man. - At the urging of Volpone's servant Mosca ("fly"), Corbaccio agrees to disinherit his own son Bonario by writing a new will that will name the namesake protagonist as sole heir. - The protagonist also engages in stratagems to sleep with Corvino's wife Celia, although his attempt to rape her is foiled by Bonario. - In a subplot, the English traveler Peregrine humiliates a foolish fellow countryman named Sir Politick Would-Be. - After a trial, this protagonist fakes his death and names Mosca his sole heir; Mosca's ensuing behavior prompts this character to reveal himself, resulting in the punishment of all wrongdoing.

The Jew of Malta

- (Christopher Marlowe, c. 1589) - After his massive fortune is seized by Malta's governor, Ferneze, to pay tribute to the Turks, the Jewish merchant Barabas embarks on a complex journey of revenge. - Barabas uses his daughter Abigail to spark a jealous feud that leads to a duel in which the governor's son Lodowick is killed. - Abigail then hides in a convent and converts to Christianity, leading Barabas and his slave Ithamore to poison all of the convent's occupants. - Barabas eventually aids the Turks in conquering Malta, for which he is appointed governor, but betrays the Turks in favor of the Maltese, who kill Barabas in a boiling cauldron as they retake the island. - This play is thought to have influenced Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

(The Tragical History of the Life and Death of) Doctor Faustus

- (Christopher Marlowe, c. 1593): Two scholars named Valdes and Cornelius teach the main character how to summon a demon, which he promptly does, conjuring Mephistophilis. - The protagonist then signs his soul over to Lucifer, in exchange for 24 years of healthy life with Mephistophilis as his dutiful servant. - He constantly rejects the pleas of an angel to accept the forgiveness of God, instead traveling and gaining worldly fame. - At one point, he summons the "shade" of Helen of Troy, and exclaims "was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" - On the night his deal is scheduled to expire, a clock's chimes announce that he is running out of time to repent. - He never does, so devils appear and drag him to hell.

All for Love (or, the World Well Lost)

- (John Dryden, 1677): Dryden wrote that he "professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare" in this play, which retells the story of the Roman leader Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. - In Dryden's version of the tale, the Roman general Ventidius actively tries to separate the two lovers, and encourages Antony to believe that Cleopatra has been secretly consorting with the Roman Dolabella. - Another of the central characters in Dryden's play is Antony's wife Octavia, who travels to Alexandria to convince Antony to reconcile. - At the end of the play, the eunuch Alexas falsely tells Antony that Cleopatra has committed suicide. Antony falls upon his sword, and the grief-stricken Cleopatra lets herself be bitten by a poisonous snake. - The dead lovers are then eulogized by Serapion, a priest of Isis.

The Duchess of Malfi

- (John Webster, 1613): This play is a product of the Jacobean period, in which the thrilling, macabre, and fantastic were prevalent on stage. - The play follows the widowed Duchess, who loves Antonio Bologna, a good-hearted nobleman below her station. - Her twin brother Ferdinand denounces her affection for Antonio out of incestuous envy. Her other brother, a Cardinal, hires the former galley-slave Bosola to spy on her. Bosola discovers the Duchess and Antonio have married (and had children), so the Cardinal sends them into exile. - Ferdinand subsequently imprisons the Duchess, terrorizes her with asylum patients, and arranges for her to see statues resembling the dead bodies of her husband and children. - Executioners sent by Ferdinand then kill the Duchess and her maid Cariola. - Paranoia overtakes both brothers; the Cardinal kills his mistress Julia with a poisoned bible, and Ferdinand imagines he has become a werewolf. Bosola, disgusted by his own actions, tries to murder the Cardinal but mistakenly kills Antonio instead. - In a climactic confrontation, Bosola, the Cardinal, and Ferdinand all kill each other, leaving the son of the Duchess and Antonio to inherit what remains.

Octavio Paz

A prominent poet and essayist, he supported leftist causes in Mexico; he fought briefly for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He published the poetry collection Luna silvestre at age 19, and his 584-line poem The Sun Stone deals with the planet Venus, an important symbol to the Aztecs. While studying in Los Angeles, Paz observed flamboyantly-dressed Mexican-American pachucos ("zoot-suiters"), who inspired him to write about Mexico and its Native American/mestizo heritage in his pivotal essay collection The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950). Another prose work, In the Light of India (1997), reflected Paz's part-(East) Indian heritage.

Isabel Allende

Actually born in Peru, at age three she moved to her mother's native Chile. A successful news reporter in her twenties, she and her family fled to Venezuela after General Augusto Pinochet deposed her uncle Salvador Allende, setting up a dictatorship. Her formal literary career began at age 40, when she published The House of the Spirits, a magical-realist work that chronicles several generations of the Trueba family. Other works of fiction include the short-story collection Eva Luna (1989) and Paula (1995), which detailed her care for her terminally ill daughter.

Mordred

Arthur's illegitimate son. traitors him calling himself king when Arthur was at battle. Arthur kills him at the Battle of Camlann

Queen Guinevere

Arthur's wife; Lancelot's lover and was ordered to be burned at the stake and rescued by Lamcelot

Jules Verne

(1828-1905, France). He offered a brighter vision of technological progress in his novels of adventure, many of which doubled as works of popular science. In his 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Lidenbrock explains contemporary theories of geology and paleontology as he leads an expedition that travels beneath the Earth's crust from Iceland to the Italian volcano Stromboli. He later wrote the 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, whose narrator Pierre Aronnax offers extensive commentary on marine biology while accompanying the mysterious Captain Nemo on a voyage in the submarine Nautilus. In a more realistic vein, he considered the possibilities presented by new forms of transportation in the 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days, which describes a trip taken by the Englishman Phileas Fogg and his French valet Jean Passepartout. During his travels, which are undertaken to win a bet with members of the Reform Club, Fogg falls in love with an Indian woman named Aouda, and is pursued by the Scotland Yard detective Fix, who mistakenly believes that Fogg is a bank robber. Fogg ultimately wins his bet to return to the Reform Club within 80 days of his departure, with the help of an extra day gained by traveling eastward.

José Martí

Best known as a poet and a revolutionary, he fought tirelessly for Cuban independence. Imprisoned at age sixteen and exiled from the island several times, he settled in New York for the last fifteen years of his life, where he wrote essays on Walt Whitman, Jesse James, and the threat of Latin American economic dependence on the United States. His Ill-Omened Friendship (1885) is considered the first Spanish modernist novel, and his poetry collections include Our America and Simple Verses, which contains the poem "Guantanamera," the inspiration for several songs. He was killed in a skirmish at Dos Ríos while participating in an invasion with other Cuban exiles.

The Lady of the Lake

Bestowed Excalibur and gave Merlin powers of sorcery

Pablo Neruda

Born Neftali Reyes, he adopted the surname of the 19th-century Czech poet Jan LAST NAME. Gabriela Mistral was the head of his school in the small city Temuco. In 1923 his best-known work, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, was published, which led to diplomatic appointments. As a penniless consul in Burma in the 1930s, he wrote the surrealist collection Residence on Earth. He served in the Chilean senate in the 1940s, though government opponents forced him into exile over his Communist views. Crossing the Andes on horseback inspired his epic Canto general (1950). He died of cancer days after his friend Salvador Allende was deposed.

Sir Lancelot

Greatest knight of the round table, had an affair with gwynevere, expert swordsman who searched for adventure and danger.

Sir Percival

He is one of the knights that go with Sir Galahad on the Holy Grail quest. Healed Fisher King's wound

Miguel Asturias

He left his native Guatemala in 1923 to study in Paris. There he discovered Mayan mythology, and translated the Popol Vuh into Spanish; the theme would pervade his work, such as 1963's Mulata de tal. He most famous novel, El señor presidente (1946), was a satire against the oppressive Guatalemalan dictatorship. this author also completed a trilogy that blasted exploitation by the American-led United Fruit Company, and the short-story collection Weekend in Guatemala (1956), based on the CIA-led overthrow of president Jacobo Arbenz's liberal government.

Thomas Pynchon

Is a reclusive American novelist. His 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow follows Tyrone Slothrop, a lieutenant in World War II whose sexual encounters seem to predict the locations of future V-2 rocket strikes. A number of characters in the novel are trying to find the secret of a mysterious device called the Schwärzgerat, which is to be installed in a rocket with the serial number 00000. This author also wrote The Crying of Lot 49, in which Oedipa Maas suspects that she has become entangled in an ancient conflict between the Thurn und Taxis and Trystero mail delivery services. This author's other novels include V., in which Herbert Stencil searches for the mysterious title entity, and Inherent Vice, about the Los Angeles private investigator Doc Sportello.

Don DeLillo

Is an American author. His 1985 breakout novel White Noise is narrated by Jack Gladney, a professor of "Hitler Studies" at a Midwestern college. After a chemical spill results in an "Airborne Toxic Event," Jack's wife Babette begins taking a mysterious drug called Dylar. Three years later this author published Libra, a novel about assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's participation in a fictional conspiracy against John F. Kennedy. This author also wrote the 1997 novel Underworld, in which the waste management executive Nick Shay buys the baseball that was hit by New York Giants player Bobby Thomson in the 1951 "Shot Heard 'Round the World."

Sir Gawain

Nephew to King Arthur; most courteous and true of Arthur's knights. Survives his beheading

Jorge Luis Borges

One-quarter English, he learned that language before he learned Spanish. Educated in Europe during World War I, he met a circle of avant-garde poets in Spain, which inspired him to found the ultraismo movement and publish the collection Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923) when he returned to Argentina. While working in a library, he developed his greatest short stories, collected in A Universal History of Infamy (1935), Ficciones (1944), and The Aleph (1949). By his fifties, a disorder inherited from his father had taken his eyesight, but in 1962 he completed the influential story collection Labyrinths.

Vladimir Nabokov

Was a Russian-American author. His 1955 novel Lolita depicts Humbert Humbert's obsession with the adolescent Ramsdale resident Dolores Haze, whom Humbert nicknames "Lolita. Humbert becomes Lolita's stepfather by marrying her mother Charlotte, who soon dies. Lolita and Humbert travel the U.S. before Humbert enrolls Lolita at the Beardsley School for Girls. There, Lolita is cast in a play written by Clare Quilty, and devises a plan of escape. In Nabokov's highly meta-fictional novel Pale Fire, a 999-line poem of the same name by John Shade is the subject of a lengthy commentary by the scholar Charles Kinbote. However, Kinbote's notes are more concerned with himself than with the poem, revealing that he thinks of himself as King Charles, the exiled monarch of the land of Zembla. this author's other books include the novels Ada, or Ardor, which recounts an incestuous relationship; Invitation to a Beheading, about the condemned prisoner Cincinnatus, and The Defense, a Russian-language novel about the chess player Aleksandr Luzhin. In his memoir Speak, Memory, this author wrote about his wife Vera and his scientific interest in butterflies.

David Foster Wallace

Was an American author. His massive 1996 novel Infinite Jest depicts a future North America in which years are named after corporate products. The novel is set mainly at the Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House and the Enfield Tennis Academy (where Hal Incandenza is a student). Hal's father, James, directs "the Entertainment," a dangerously enthralling film sought by Quebeçois terrorists known as the Wheelchair Assassins. This author's other novels are The Broom of the System and The Pale King, the latter of which was left unfinished at his 2008 suicide. This author is also known for his essay collections, including Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

Kurt Vonnegut

Was an American novelist best known for the 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five. The novel centers on Billy Pilgrim, who experiences his life out of order after becoming "unstuck in time." Like this author, Billy survives the firebombing of Dresden during World War II. Billy is also kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians, and displayed in a zoo along with the actress Montana Wildhack. The Tralfamadorians have a fatalistic attitude towards mortality, which is mirrored in the novel's repetition of the phrase "so it goes" after any mention of death. this author's earlier novel Cat's Cradle describes a fictional religion called Bokononism, which was founded on the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo. The plot of Cat's Cradle partly focuses on ice-nine, a substance invented by Felix Hoenikker that has the power to destroy all life on Earth.

Joseph Heller

Was an American novelist. He satirized Army bureaucracy in his novel Catch-22, which was based on his experiences as a bombardier on the Italian front during World War II. The novel is set in Rome and on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa, where John Yossarian is stationed with the 256th Squadron. "Catch-22" is a rule stating that airmen do not have to fly missions if they are insane, but that applying to be excused from flying missions is proof of sanity; consequently, there is no way to avoid the dangerous missions. Characters in the novel include the arch-capitalist mess officer Milo Minderbinder, who sets up a syndicate called M&M Enterprises, and Major Major Major, who is accidentally promoted to the rank of major because of his unusual name. The novel's main antagonist is Colonel Cathcart, who continually raises the number of missions that airmen must fly before they are allowed to go home. In 1994 this author wrote a sequel to Catch-22, titled Closing Time.

Duke Frederick

from As You Like It: Before the opening of the play, he overthrew his brother, Duke Senior, and seized control of the court. There, he harbors his brother's daughter Rosalind as a companion to his own daughter, Celia. When he banishes Rosalind out of fear that she is plotting against him, Celia volunteers to go with her beloved cousin, and suggests that they reunite with Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden. At the same time, a young nobleman named Orlando flees to the Forest of Arden to escape his brother Oliver's mistreatment. Frederick suspects that Orlando is in the company of Celia and Rosalind, and seizes Oliver's lands until Orlando can be produced. After Oliver departs to search for his brother, he is not heard of again until the end of the play, when Oliver and Orlando's brother Jaques reports that he suddenly repented of his crimes after meeting "an old religious man." He relinquishes the crown to Duke Senior, and restores the property of Duke Senior's supporters.

Regan and the Duke of Cornwall, and Goneril and the Duke of Albany

from King Lear: someone and someone are the elderly King Lear's two evil daughters. After Lear bequeaths his kingdom to them, they conspire to undermine Lear's remaining power and defeat Cordelia, Lear's sole loyal daughter. Angered by the treatment that he has received from his heirs, Lear leaves his home in the middle of a thunderstorm. Gloucester, who desires Lear's reinstatement, aids Cordelia's invading army; he is exposed, and somone and someone gouge Gloucester's eyes out. While someone and someone arrange their armies to fight Cordelia, someone and someone both romantically pursue the villainous Edmund. This love triangle results in someone killing someone with poison. He also tries to have someone killed, but commits suicide when the plot is exposed. Cordelia is captured and executed, and Lear dies of grief soon afterward, leaving the redeemed someone and Edmund's half-brother Edgar to take charge of the realm.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester

from Richard III: The quintessential antihero, he describes how his hunchbacked appearance has made him "determined to prove a villain" in a monologue that begins "now is the winter of our discontent / made glorious summer by this son of York." In the aftermath of a Yorkist victory in the Wars of the Roses, he plots against his brothers King Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence, and causes Edward to imprison Clarence in the Tower of London. Assassins sent by him later kill Clarence, who is drowned in a "malmsey-butt," or cask of wine. He also marries and kills the Lady Anne, and orders the deaths of Edward's children (the "princes in the tower"). Although he becomes king, he soon faces a rebellion led by Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. On the eve of a battle at Bosworth Field, he is haunted by the ghosts of those he wronged. The battle turns against him (who cries "a horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"), and Richmond is crowned as King Henry VII of England.

Tybalt

from Romeo and Juliet: He is a hot-headed member of the Capulet family who is the beloved cousin of Juliet. During the public brawl that begins the play, he provokes the peaceful Benvolio. At a ball given by the Capulets, he recognizes the disguised Romeo and calls for a sword, but is prevented from fighting by Lord Capulet. He then demands a duel with Romeo, who does not wish to fight one of Juliet's kinsmen. Romeo's friend Mercutio is shocked by this "vile submission," and calls him "king of cats" while challenging him to a duel. (He shares his name with a feline character from medieval fables about Reynard the Fox.) Romeo tries to intervene in the duel, which allows him to kill Mercutio. Romeo then kills him, and is banished from Verona.

Caliban

from The Tempest: He is the son of the Algerian witch Sycorax, who once ruled the island where he was born. After Sycorax died the island fell under the control of the magician Prospero, an exiled duke of Milan. Prospero taught the young boy language, and showed kindness to him, until he tried to rape Prospero's daughter Miranda. In response, Prospero enslaved him, and began treating him as a subhuman creature. (His exact nature is unknown, but he seems to be physically distinct from the other characters in the play. At various points, he is called a "monster," a "demi-devil," a "strange fish," a "thing of darkness," a "moon-calf," and a "freckled whelp" who lacks a "human shape.") When the play begins, he longs to overthrow Prospero but still fears Prospero's magic, which is stronger than that of his god, Setebos. Trinculo and Stephano, two drunkards who are shipwrecked and separated from the rest of their crew, give him liquor; he then conspires with them to kill Prospero. When the group hears music played by the spirit Ariel, he delivers a speech beginning "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises" that demonstrates sensitivity and loss. The plot to unseat Prospero quickly fails, and he vows to be "wise hereafter." Unlike Ariel, he is not freed at the end of the play.

King Claudius

from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Before the start of the play, he became the ruler of Denmark by pouring poison into the ear of his sleeping brother, King Hamlet. He then married Gertrude, King Hamlet's widow. In the play's first act, Prince Hamlet learns of his uncle's treachery by speaking to King Hamlet's ghost. Hamlet then arranges for a troupe of actors to perform a play titled The Murder of Gonzago, which Hamlet revises to increase the similarities to his father's death. He is disturbed by the performance, and storms out during the murder scene. Later, he prays for forgiveness, causing Hamlet to delay killing him out of fear that his soul would go to heaven. As Hamlet feigns madness, he sends him to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who unknowingly carry a letter calling for Hamlet's execution. After Hamlet escapes and returns to Denmark, he arranges for Hamlet to fight a duel with Laertes, who seeks revenge for the death of his father, Polonius, and sister, Ophelia. Laertes uses a poison-tipped sword, and he prepares a poisoned drink as a back-up. When Laertes falls in combat he reveals the plot, prompting Hamlet to stab him with the poisoned sword, and make him drink from the poisoned cup.

Iago

from The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice: He is the "ancient," or standard-bearer, of the general Othello, and is passed over for a promotion to lieutenant in favor of the less-experienced Michael Cassio. In addition, he believes that his wife, Emilia, may have cheated on him with Othello. Consequently, he vows revenge. At the start of the play, he and his associate Roderigo alert the Venetian senator Brabantio that Brabantio's daughter, Desdemona, has eloped with Othello. After Desdemona testifies that she married Othello willingly, the Duke of Venice places Othello in charge of defending Cyprus. On the island, he ingratiates himself with Othello, and deceitfully warns the general against the "green-eyed monster" of jealousy. He then places Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's room, causing Othello to believe that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. Once Othello has murdered Desdemona, Emilia exposes his plot. Before killing himself, Othello stabs him, who survives to be arrested by Cassio.

Proteus

from The Two Gentlemen of Verona: He begins the play as an innocent lover, but develops into the primary antagonist after he visits his friend Valentine in Milan, and becomes infatuated with Valentine's love, Silvia. Although he has sworn that he will be faithful to a woman in Verona named Julia, he breaks his promise and tries to win Silvia for himself. To this end, he betrays Valentine by telling Silvia's father, the duke, that Valentine and Silvia plan to elope. After the duke exiles Valentine, Silvia rejects him because of his treachery towards his friend, and his unfaithfulness to Julia. When Silvia escapes to the woods to find Valentine, he follows her and rescues her from outlaws. Silvia continues to reject him, who threatens to rape her ("I'll force thee yield to my desire") before Valentine intervenes. He repents, and Julia — who has been disguised as his male page — reveals herself. He then reunites with Julia and resumes his friendship with Valentine, whom the duke permits to marry Silvia.

Zadie Smith

is a British novelist. Her 2000 debut novel White Teeth depicts the Bengali Muslim Samad Iqbal and his English friend Archie Jones, who both live in London. Samad's son Magid becomes an atheist scientist who joins Marcus Chalfen's project to develop a genetically modified "FutureMouse," while Magid's twin brother Millat joins a Muslim fundamentalist group called KEVIN (Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation). Both twins sleep with Archie's daughter, Irie. This author's other novels include NW, which takes place in northwest London; Swing Time, which describes a troubled dancer named Tracey; and the academic novel On Beauty, which is loosely based on E. M. Forster's novel Howards End.

Murder on the Orient Express

by Agatha Christie. This novel features Christie's popular Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who is snowbound on the title train in the Balkans when a passenger named Samuel Ratchett is found stabbed to death. Thanks to a scrap of paper in Ratchett's compartment referencing "little Daisy Armstrong," Poirot realizes Ratchett is actually Lanfranco Cassetti, a man who was acquitted on technicality of kidnapping and murder (a crime inspired by the real-life kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby). Poirot discovers that all the passengers—including former Russian princess Natalia Dragomiroff—are concealing their pasts and each had a motive to kill Cassetti, and Poirot correctly deduces that all of them stabbed Cassetti. However, Poirot's alternate theory, that a stranger entered the snowbound train and randomly killed Ratchett, is the one presented to local authorities.

And Then There Were None

by Agatha Christie. This novel is an example of a "country house mystery," a genre popularized by Christie in which possible suspects are limited due to the crime's isolated locale. The novel concerns ten murderers who have escaped justice and who are invited to an island mansion. After a mysterious record accuses each guest of their crimes, they begin turning up dead one by one. Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard are the final two survivors; Vera, suspecting Philip of being the killer, shoots him dead, then returns to her room and hangs herself. The novel ends with a fisherman recovering a message in a bottle written by Justice Wargrave, one of the victims, who confesses he orchestrated all the killings in the name of "true justice." The novel was previously published under the title Ten Little Indians and an even earlier title that included a racial slur and was taken from a popular minstrel song whose lyrics—which allude to each victim's death—are framed and hung in the mansion's bedrooms.

The Queen of Spades

(1834) by Alexander Pushkin. The story begins at a late-night gambling party given by the Russian army officer Naroumov. There, Tomsky discusses his own grandmother, a countess who once lost a fortune paying the card game faro in Paris, and who subsequently sought assistance from the Comte de Saint-Germain (a real historical figure). Saint-Germain taught the countess how to win back her money by playing a sequence of three cards. After hearing this tale, an engineering officer of German descent named Herman schemes to meet the countess by courting her ward Lizaveta, who tells Herman how to secretly enter the house. Herman accosts the countess, who refuses to reveal the names of the cards. When Herman draws a pistol, the countess dies of fright. At the countess's funeral, her corpse appears to wink at Herman. That night, Herman is visited by the countess's ghost, who tells him that the cards are the three, seven, and ace. Herman goes to the gambling salon of Chekalinsky, where he wins a massive sum of money by betting on the three. The following night, Herman wins again by betting on the seven. On the third night he intends to bet everything on the ace, but the card that he actually plays is the queen of spades. When Herman looks at the card, it seems to wink at him as the countess had done. Herman goes insane and is put in an asylum, where he spends his days muttering "three seven ace! Three seven queen!"

Nevsky Prospekt

(1835) by Nikolai Gogol. Nevsky Prospekt is a major thoroughfare in Saint Petersburg. After describing the various types of people who walk down the street at different times of day, the story focuses on two men, who each pursue a beautiful woman. The first is Piskaryov, a painter who sees a dark-haired woman, follows her to the brothel where she works, and falls obsessively in love with her, eventually turning to opium to calm himself. He returns and proposes to the woman, but she mocks his advances, after which Piskaryov cuts his own throat. The second man, Lieutenant Pirogov, follows a blond woman. She turns out to be the wife of a German tinsmith, who beats Pirogov. The lieutenant plans to avenge himself, but abandons the idea after eating pastries and going dancing.

The Nose

(1836) by Nikolai Gogol. On the morning of March 25, the barber Yakovlevich cuts open a loaf of bread, and discovers a nose inside it. The nose belongs to Major Kovalyov, who wakes up the same day to find a smooth patch of skin where his nose used to be. Upon encountering his missing nose, which is traveling in a carriage and wearing the uniform of a state councillor, Kovalyov chases it to a shopping center called the Gostiny Dvor. There, Kovalyov wonders how to approach the nose, since its uniform indicates that it has a higher status than him. Summoning his courage, Kovalyov tries to convince the nose to return to his face, but the nose claims not to recognize him. Kovalyov goes to a newspaper, intending to offer a reward for the nose's return, but the clerk refuses his absurd-sounding request. Kovalyov then speaks with the police, who later catch the nose attempting to flee to Riga. However, the doctor that Kovalyov consults is unable to re-attach the nose, even with an operation. Kovalyov writes a letter to Madame Alexandra Podtochina Grigorievna, accusing her of cursing him so that he will marry her daughter, but receives an uncomprehending reply. Finally, on April 7, Kovalyov wakes up with his nose reattached, and resumes his normal life.

The Overcoat

(1842) by Nikolai Gogol. Remarking on the story's importance to Russian literature, Fyodor Dostoyevsky quipped "we all come out of Gogol's overcoat." The story's protagonist is Akaky Akakievich, a poor government clerk whose only joy in life is copying documents. His coworkers often make fun of his worn-out overcoat, so he visits his tailor Petrovich, who says that the coat must be replaced. Akaky scrimps to save up the necessary 80 roubles, and finally acquires the coat after receiving an unexpectedly large bonus. As he walks home from a party that was given in part to honor the new garment, Akaky is accosted by two ruffians who steal his overcoat. Akaky tries to seek justice from the municipal superintendent and from an "important personage," but both refuse to help him. Soon afterwards, Akaky contracts a fever and dies. His ghost is said to haunt the streets of Saint Petersburg, searching for the stolen cloak. Eventually, the "important personage" is accosted by a figure whom he believes to be Akaky's ghost, and is forced to surrender his own coat. However, the story's final words hint that the supposed "ghost" was actually an ordinary robber.

Herbert George Wells

(1866-1946, United Kingdom). He used speculative fiction to explore the social issues of his day from a left-wing perspective. In the 1895 novella The Time Machine, he wrote about a "Time Traveller" who visits the year AD 802,701, and learns that humanity has diverged into two different species—the surface-dwelling Eloi, who are gentle and beautiful but intellectually limited, and the subterranean Morlocks, who resemble apes but are strong and clever enough to use the Eloi as livestock. The Time Traveller speculates that the Eloi are descended from aristocrats who were once served by the ancestors of the Morlocks. After writing about time travel, he helped to establish another of science fiction's key themes by depicting an alien invasion in the 1897 novel The War of the Worlds. The anonymous narrator of The War of the Worlds observes a Martian spaceship that lands in Surrey, and flees the "Tripods" and "Black Smoke" that the Martians use as weapons in the conquest of Earth. The invaders easily overcome human resistance, but eventually perish from lack of immunity to Earth microbes. He also wrote several novels about researchers who use science to pursue unethical goals. In the 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, the shipwrecked Edward Prendick discovers that the title vivisectionist performs painful experiments to transform animals into human-like "Beast Folk." A year later he published The Invisible Man, which centers on a student of physics named Griffin who plans to use his invisibility to enact a "reign of terror." However, Griffin's invisibility makes it difficult for him to exist in society (he must cover himself with clothes and thick bandages if he wishes to be seen), and he is eventually killed by an angry crowd.

The Lady with a Dog

(1899) by Anton Chekhov. The married banker Dmitri Gurov has been on vacation by himself in Yalta for two weeks when he hears of a "new face" attracting attention, a lady with a dog. Dmitri meets the woman, Anna Sergeyevna von Diderits. She is vacationing without her spouse, as her marriage is unhappy—just like Dmitri's. The two sleep together. After returning to Moscow, Dmitri cannot forget the memory of Anna, and realizes he has fallen in love. He pretends to be going to Saint Petersburg for business, but instead travels to Anna's hometown. There, he finds her at the debut of a play titled The Geisha. Dmitri confronts Anna at the performance, and she confesses that she too has fallen in love. Anna begins making excuses to visit Moscow every few months to see Dmitri. The two fall deeper in love, but do not know how to leave their marriages. The story ends on an unresolved note, stating "to both of them it was clear that the end was still very far off, and that their hardest and most difficult period was only just beginning."

The Bet

(1889) by Anton Chekhov. An old banker recalls a bet that he made 15 years ago at a party, in response to an argument about whether capital punishment is more or less cruel than life in prison. A lawyer suggests that life in prison is superior, because it would be better to have some existence than none at all. The rash banker bets two million roubles that the lawyer would not last five years in solitary confinement; the lawyer insists he could withstand 15 years, and the bet is on. The lawyer is often unhappy during the early years of his confinement in a lodge on the banker's estate. However, the lawyer betters himself by refusing wine and tobacco, and gradually studies languages, history, literature, philosophy, the Bible, theology, and science. Meanwhile, the banker grows steadily poorer, and realizes that paying off the bet will leave him bankrupt. On the last day of the bet, the banker resolves to kill the lawyer, and sneaks into the lodge while the lawyer is sleeping. There, the banker finds a letter in which the lawyer explains that years of study have taught him to scorn earthly knowledge and riches, and to care only about the salvation of his soul. The lawyer thus plans to leave the lodge five hours before 12 o'clock on November 14, 1885, when he would have won the bet. The banker departs without doing the lawyer harm and the lawyer carries out his plan, allowing the banker to avoid ruin. The banker then hides the lawyer's note in a safe, to avoid "unnecessary talk."

The Kreutzer Sonata

(1889) by Leo Tolstoy. Both Russia and the U.S. censored this novella, which describes the fatal results of an affair. As passengers on a train discuss marriage and love, a "nervous man" named Basile Posdnicheff breaks into the conversation, and insists that romantic love cannot endure for a lifetime. Posdnicheff recalls the dissipations of his bachelor days before explaining how he courted his wife, whom he accuses of trapping him into marriage with her physical charms. According to Posdnicheff, the idleness of the well-fed upper classes leads to an unhealthy emphasis on romance, giving women power over men. He advocates the ideal of celibacy even in marriage, astonishing the other train passengers. Posdnicheff describes quarrels with his wife, complaining that she was overly concerned with the health of their children, and that she eventually used contraception. As the marriage grows intolerable, Posdnifcheff's wife spends more time playing the piano, and is introduced by Posdnicheff to Troukhatchevsky, who studied the violin in Paris. Although Posdnicheff is initially suspicious of Troukhatchevsky, he is comforted by his wife's disavowal of interest in the musician, and by the elevated emotions he feels while listening to his wife and Troukhatchevsky play Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. However, Posdnicheff's jealousy returns during a work trip, when he receives a letter from his wife mentioning Troukhatchevsky. He takes a long journey back to his house, where he finds Troukhatchevsky's overcoat. Posdnicheff removes his shoes to walk more quietly, takes a dagger from the wall, and surprises the pair in the dining room. Because he does not wish to run after Troukhatchevsky without shoes, Posdnicheff turns on his wife, and fatally stabs her. Although jailed while awaiting trial, Posdnicheff is ultimately acquitted because of his wife's suspected infidelity.

Ward No. 6

(1892) by Anton Chekhov. The story is set in a run-down asylum, whose five inmates include the university-educated Ivan Gromov and the imbecilic Moiseika. Moiseika is the only inmate allowed to go into town, where he begs for items that are all confiscated by Nikita, the asylum's porter. The hospital is run by the medical assistant Sergei Sergeyitch and by the doctor Andrei Yefimitch Ragin, whose supervision gradually becomes lax. Andrei discusses philosophical issues with the postmaster Mikhail Averyanich, and later begins to engage in such conversations with Ivan. Dr. Yevgeny Hobotov, whom a local council appoints to work at the hospital, grows concerned at Andrei's long conversations with an inmate. Fearing that Andrei is not well, Mikhail proposes that they take a trip to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Warsaw, but the journey goes poorly, and Andrei spends most of his money paying off Mikhail's gambling debts. Upon returning, Andrei finds out that he has been fired and replaced by Dr. Hobotov. Andrei withdraws into himself, and eventually shouts at Mikhail and Dr. Hobotov to leave him alone. Dr. Hobotov tricks Andrei into entering Ward No. 6, where mental patients are confined. When Andrei protests his incarceration, Nikita beats him. Andrei soon dies of a stroke; Mikhail and Andrei's servant Daryushka are the only people at the funeral.

(Akutagawa) Ryunosuke

(1892-1927): His mother died insane while he was a child, and his father was a failure who gave him up to relatives. Despite this inauspicious childhood, his 1915 short story Rashomon brought him into the highest literary circles and started him writing the macabre stories for which he is known. In 1927 he committed suicide by overdosing on pills, and his suicide letter "A Note to a Certain Old Friend" became a published work. Rashomon also was key to his international fame, when Kurosawa Akira made it into a film in 1951. One of Japan's two most prestigious literary prizes is named for this person; it is awarded for the best serious work of fiction by a new Japanese writer.

Aldous Huxley

(1894-1963, United Kingdom). He belonged to a prominent family of British intellectuals that included the Victorian evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley. Although he depicted his own social milieu in novels such as Crome Yellow and Point Counter Point, he is best known for writing about a dystopian "World State" in the 1932 novel Brave New World. Extrapolating from Henry Ford's model of industrial production and contemporary advances in biochemistry, he imagined a world in which the fictional "Bokanovsky's Process" is used to create human clones, which are then modified to posses different intellectual abilities, and sorted into social castes named after the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. Inhabitants of the World State enjoy a prosperous existence, immersive entertainment known as Feelies, and the drug soma, but lack family connections and spiritual fulfillment. The shallow pleasures of the World State are contrasted with the ideals of John the Savage, a young man who grew up on a New Mexico reservation. John is initially delighted to meet the World State residents Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne, and excitedly quotes the "Brave New World" speech from Shakespeare's play The Tempest. However, John soon grows disgusted with "civilization." After the World Controller Mustapha Mond forbids John from living on an isolated island with the aspiring writer Helmholtz Watson, John unsuccessfully tries to retreat from society, and eventually hangs himself.

George Orwell

(1903-1950, United Kingdom). This man (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) condemned the totalitarian government of Joseph Stalin in the fantasy Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. His speculative fiction was part of a wide-ranging body of work that also included attacks on British colonialism (the essay "Shooting an Elephant" and the novel Burmese Days), first-hand accounts of war (Homage to Catalonia) and poverty (Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier), and works of cultural criticism (the essay "Politics and the English Language"). After taking part in the Spanish Civil War and growing alarmed at the authoritarian nature of Russian communism, he wrote the 1945 novel Animal Farm as an allegory of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Animal Farm describes barnyard animals who revolt against their owner, and try to create a more equitable society under the leadership of the pig Snowball, who develops principles of "Animalism" such as "Four legs good, two legs bad." However, Snowball is soon ousted by his fellow pig Napoleon, who exploits the other animals, sends the horse Boxer to be slaughtered, and degrades the principles of Animalism to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Four years later, he imagined a future Britain subsumed into Oceania, a superpower under the harsh rule of "Big Brother", in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Winston Smith and his lover Julia try to rebel against Big Brother, but are tortured into compliance in the Ministry of Love. Nineteen Eighty-Four also described the distortion of the English language for political purposes ("Newspeak"), and introduced many words and phrases that are still used with reference to oppressive governments (thoughtcrime, doublethink, memory hole, "we've always been at war with Eastasia," "war is peace," "Big Brother is watching you").

Isaac Asimov

(1920-1992, United States). Along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, he was one of genre science fiction's "Big Three" writers. During the 1930s' and 1940s' "Golden Age" of science fiction pulp magazines, he worked closely with Astounding Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell Jr. to create stories such as "Nightfall," which describes a rare moment of darkness on a planet with multiple suns, and "Robbie," the first of his many works about robots with positronic brains. (The word "robot" was introduced by the Czech author Karel Čapek in the 1920 play R.U.R., which depicts the worldwide uprising of "Rossum's Universal Robots"). Before him, most stories about artificial life had followed the template established by Shelley's Frankenstein, in which a scientist who tries to usurp God's power to create life is ultimately destroyed by his own creation. He challenged this trope by creating the "Three Laws of Robotics," which robots in his stories are obligated to follow: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. By using these laws in dozens of stories (some of which were collected in the book I, Robot), he helped to promote a conception of robots as useful machines rather than inhuman monsters. He is also known for his Foundation series, which was inspired by Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Foundation series begins when the "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon realizes that the Galactic Empire will soon fall, and creates the title organization to limit the length of the ensuing Dark Age. He eventually linked together his Robot and Foundation series into a far-reaching "history of the future," which also includes his novels The Caves of Steel, Pebble in the Sky, and The Stars, Like Dust.

Ray Bradbury

(1920-2012, United States). His science fiction and fantasy stories often contain nostalgic elements related to his Midwestern childhood. The Illinois community Green Town is the setting of his novels Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes, both of which center on boys beginning to enter adulthood. Similarly, small towns on Earth and Mars are the setting of many stories in his 1950 collection The Martian Chronicles, which is made up of loosely connected works about the expeditions of human astronauts, the displacement of indigenous Martians as human settlers arrive, and a nuclear war that destroys most life on Earth. He also wrote about Mars in several stories that appear in his collection The Illustrated Man, whose title character has tattoos that foretell the future. Another theme that recurs in his works is censorship and the importance of literature. This theme is expressed most strongly in his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, which depicts a dystopian future in which "firemen" burn books. The protagonist of Fahrenheit 451 is Guy Montag, a fireman whose wife Mildred is deeply depressed and addicted to television programs that she watches on large "parlor walls." Montag begins to question his profession after meeting the free-spirited Clarisse McClellan, and secretly preserves books to read, leading to a rebuke from Fire Captain Beatty. Montag is eventually pursued by a robotic attack dog called the "Mechanical Hound," but escapes to join a community of rebels who memorize classic works of literature.

Kurt Vonnegut

(1922-2007, United States). His fiction provides a darkly humorous response to the absurdities and violence of the twentieth century. During World War II, he was a prisoner of war in Germany, and lived through the Allied firebombing of Dresden. That experience was the basis for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five, in which the soldier Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time," and perceives his life in a non-linear fashion. Billy travels between the present, past, and future as he is captured by the German army, witnesses the destruction of Dresden, becomes a prosperous optometrist in the town of Ilium, is kidnapped by aliens and placed in a zoo along with the actress Montana Wildhack, and is eventually assassinated. Slaughterhouse-Five contains a number of elements that recur in other novels, including the veteran Eliot Rosewater, aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, the unsuccessful science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, and members of the wealthy Rumfoord family. He also wrote the novel Cat's Cradle, which describes a substance called "ice-nine" that instantly turns liquid water into a solid. Ice-nine was created by the atomic scientist Felix Hoenikker, whose life is researched by the novel's narrator, John. Another thread in Cat's Cradle concerns the "bittersweet lies" of the prophet Bokonon, who lives on the Caribbean island San Lorenzo. Bokonon comments on human stupidity after an accident that occurs during the funeral of the San Lorenzan dictator Papa Monzano causes ice-nine to fall into the ocean, destroying almost all life on Earth.

(Endo) Shusaku

(1923-1996): He converted to Catholicism at the age of 11, and majored in French literature. His first works, White Man and Yellow Man, explored the differences between Japanese and Western values and national experiences. Silence tells of the martyrdom of the Catholic converts of Portuguese priests. The Samurai recounts the tale of a samurai sent to establish trade relations between his shogun and Mexico, Spain, and Rome. The latter two novels are generally considered to be Shusaku's greatest achievements.

(Mishima) Yukio

(1925-1970), a pseudonym of Hiraoka Kimitake: He was a novelist whose central theme was the disparity between traditional Japanese values and the spiritual emptiness of modern life. He failed to qualify for military service during World War II, so worked in an aircraft factory instead. This author's first novel, Confessions of a Mask (Kamen no kokuhaku), was successful enough to allow him to write full-time. His four-volume epic The Sea of Fertility (Hojo no umi, consisting of Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel), is about self-destructive personalities and the transformation of Japan into a modern, but sterile, society. This person, who organized the Tate no kai — a right-wing society stressing physical fitness and the martial arts — committed ritual suicide after a public speech failed to galvanize the armed forces into overthrowing the government.

(Oe) Kenzaburo

(1935-present): Novelist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature. His first work, Shiiku (The Catch in the Shadow of the Sunrise), describes a friendship between a Japanese boy and a black American POW, and won him the Akutagawa award while he was still a student. His early works are filled with insanity, abuse, perverse sex, and violence, but his later works — including A Personal Matter (Kojinteki-na taiken) and The Silent Cry (Man'en gannen no futtoboru) — reflect the experience of being the father of a brain-damaged child. His fiction centers on the alienation following Japan's surrender, and his political writings focus on the search for cultural and ideological roots.

Douglas Adams

(1952-2001, United Kingdom). He wrote comic science fiction and fantasy novels that poked fun at genre tropes and the quirks of British culture. After working on Monty Python's Flying Circus, he created the BBC radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which premiered in 1978. The radio series became the basis of a series of novels (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; Mostly Harmless; and the authorized sequel And Another Thing..., which was written by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer after he died). The Hitchhiker's series focuses on Arthur Dent, an ordinary Englishman who becomes one of the last humans in the universe after Earth is destroyed by the alien Vogons. Arthur and his friend Ford Prefect travel on a starship named the Heart of Gold, along with the "paranoid android" Marvin, the two-headed galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, and the human scientist Trillian. Arthur eventually discovers that "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" is 42 (although the question itself remains unknown). Characters in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series sometimes consult the title reference work, which offers the advice "Don't Panic," encourages hitchhikers to carry towels at all times, and provides the recipe for a drink called the "Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster." Besides the Hitchhiker's series, he also co-authored two books offering comic definitions of British place names (The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff), and wrote a pair of novels about the supernatural adventures of the private investigator Dirk Gently (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul).

Merlin

(Arthurian legend) the magician who acted as King Arthur's advisor. Identified a pool of two dragons underneath a tower.

(Sei) Shonagan

(c. 966 - c. 1013): Like Lady Murasaki, was a lady-in-waiting of the Empress. Since Lady Murasaki and this person were contemporaries and known for their wit, they were often rivals*. This person only work is the Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), which is considered the best source of information about life at the Japanese court during the Heian period (784-1185).

(Lady) Murasaki Shikibu

(c. 978 -c. 1015): Novelist, diarist, and courtesan. She was the author of the Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), the first known novel; the diary nikki; and a collection of tanka poems. The daughter of the court official Fujiwara Tametoki, she sat in on the classical Chinese literature lessons that her brother received, in spite of the Heian traditions against higher education for women.

The Pickwick Papers

- (1837) The London gentleman Samuel __________ (the protagonist), the president of his namesake "club," sets out with fellow members Nathaniel Winkle, Tracy Tupman, and Augustus Snodgrass on a series of coach journeys to sites in provincial England. - While on their travels, this club foils the attempt of Alfred Jingle to elope with Rachael Wardle of Dingley Dell. - The protagonist also befriends and employs the Cockney valet Sam Weller, who is known for grotesquely humorous sayings such as "out with it, as the father said to his child, when he swallowed a farthing."

Oliver Twist

- (1838) The orphan protagonist is brought up in a workhouse, where he horrifies the beadle Mr. Bumble by asking for more food. - He is then apprenticed to the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry. - After fighting with the bully Noah Claypole, he runs away to London. - On the road he meets the pickpocket Jack Dawkins, known as the "Artful Dodger," who leads him to the den of the criminal Fagin. - A kindly gentleman named Mr. Brownlow temporarily rescues the protagonist, but he is returned to Fagin by the cruel Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. - During an attempt to rob a house, he is shot. - He is tended by an occupant of the house named Rose Maylie, who eventually learns that he is being plotted against by his villainous half-brother, Monks. - The novel ends happily, as his chief enemies die or emigrate, and he is left in the care of Mr. Brownlow and Rose, who is revealed to be his aunt.

Nicholas Nickleby

- (1839) After his father dies, this protagonist is sent to work at Dotheboys Hall by his cruel uncle Ralph. - With the help of the disabled Smike, he beats the foul schoolmaster Wackford Squeers, and escapes to London. - His sister Kate works with the milliner Madame Mantalini, but must confront the attentions of the foppish Mr. Mantalini and Sir Mulberry Hawk. - He finds employment in Portsmouth with the theater manager Vincent Crummles, then returns to London and works for the Cheeryble brothers. - Smike dies, and Ralph commits suicide after learning that Smike was his son. - The protagonist marries a woman named Madeline Bray, and Kate weds the Cheerybles' nephew, Frank.

The Old Curiosity Shop

- (1841) Thirteen-year-old Nell Trent goes to live with her grandfather, a gambling addict who owns a London shop filled with mysterious and horrible objects. - His gambling causes him to lose the shop to the evil dwarfish moneylender Daniel Quilp. - Nell's older brother Frederick plots to marry her off to Dick Swiveller to get a share of a supposed treasure trove, but Dick eventually marries a servant girl nicknamed "the Marchioness" instead. - A major subplot concerns Quilp's efforts to frame a boy named Kit Nubbles for theft. - At the end of the novel, Quilp drowns, and Nell dies shortly before her grandfather also passes away.

A Christmas Carol

- (1843) The cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley. - Marley's ghost, who wears heavy chains made of cash boxes and other symbols of greed, tells Scrooge to expect the arrival of three spirits. - During a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past, Scrooge is shown a holiday party given by his former employer Mr. Fezziwig, and is taken back to the moment when his fiancée Belle left him on account of his avarice. - The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to the homes of his nephew Fred and his clerk Bob Cratchit, whose son Tiny Tim is near death. - The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge the grave of an unloved man—Scrooge himself. - Scrooge has a change of heart, celebrates Christmas, and becomes a benefactor to the Cratchit family, preventing Tiny Tim from dying.

She Stoops to Conquer (or, The Mistakes of a Night)

- (Oliver Goldsmith, 1773): In this enduringly popular comedy, a wealthy gentleman's son named Charles Marlow is sent to visit the country home of Mr. Hardcastle, who has a beautiful daughter named Kate. - On the way, Marlow and his companion George Hastings stop at an alehouse where Kate's half-brother, Tony Lumpkin, tricks them into thinking they are miles from their destination. - Tony directs the travelers to Mr. Hardcastle's house, claiming it is an inn. - There, Marlow and Hastings rudely treat the Hardcastles as innkeepers, which the Hardcastles patiently endure for the sake of their friendship with Marlow's wealthy father. - At the same time, Kate discovers that Marlow is timid and reserved around high-born ladies, but is rakishly charming to lower-class women. - Kate therefore "stoops" to impersonating a barmaid in order to woo Marlow. - Meanwhile, Mrs. Hardcastle attempts to make her niece Constance Neville marry Tony. - Constance, however, is secretly engaged to Hastings, and the pair try to obtain a casket of jewels that belongs to Constance, but which Mrs. Hardcastle carefully guards. - In the end, Kate wins Marlow, and Tony discovers that he is older than the Hardcastles have led him to believe. - Upon discovering he is an adult, Tony refuses the arranged marriage, freeing Constance to marry Hastings.

The Rivals

- (Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1775): Like Sheridan's later play The School for Scandal, this play offers a satirical take on manners and courtship. - The play's heroine is Lydia Languish, a wealthy heiress who loves reading novels, and who wants her own life to imitate the tropes of romantic fiction. - To win Lydia's heart, the wealthy Captain Jack Absolute pretends to be the impoverished "Ensign Beverley." Lydia is also desired by the "country gentleman" Bob Acres and the Irish baronet Sir Lucius O'Trigger, the latter of whom sends letters via the maid Lucy. - However, O'Trigger's letters are actually read and answered by Lydia's guardian Mrs. Malaprop, who is infatuated with O'Trigger and uses the pseudonym "Delia" in her correspondence. - (Mrs. Malaprop's comical speech patterns gave rise to the English word "malapropism," which refers to the accidental substitution of one word for another that sounds similar, but has a different meaning.) - Jack's father Sir Anthony Absolute eventually exposes Jack's deception, infuriating Lydia. Jack then has an abortive duel with Sir Lucius, leading Mrs. Malaprop to admit that she is "Delia." - At the end of the play, Lydia and Jack reconcile, as do their friends, the quarreling lovers Julia and Faulkland.

The Spanish Tragedy (or, Hieronimo is Mad Again)

- (Thomas Kyd, c. 1585) - A sensational hit when it was first performed, this play pioneered and popularized the gory genre known as the revenge tragedy - The play is set in the wake of a war between Portugal and Spain, during which the Spanish soldier Don Andrea was killed by the Portuguese prince Balthazar - After Andrea's death, Balthazar was captured by two Spanish soldiers: Lorenzo, the nephew of the King of Spain; and Horatio, the capable son of the marshal Hieronimo. - As the play begins, Andrea's ghost has returned to Earth along with the spirit of Revenge, to watch the events that will lead to Balthazar's death. - Those events are put in motion by Andrea's former lover Bel-imperia, who falls in love with Horatio and rejects the smitten Balthazar. - Lorenzo and Balthazar then conspire to kill Horatio, whose death devastates Hieronimo. - Bel-imperia is imprisoned by Lorenzo to cover up the crime, but sends a letter written in her own blood to Hieronimo, exposing Lorenzo's schemes. During a climactic play-within-a-play, Hieronimo and Bel-imperia take vengeance by stabbing Lorenzo and Balthazar, and subsequently kill themselves. - This play is noted for its influence on the works of Shakespeare, especially the incriminating play-within-a-play in Hamlet.

The Way of the World

- (William Congreve, 1700): The Way of the World's complex plot (typical of Restoration comedy) concerns Mirabell and Millimant, two lovers who wish to marry. - However, Millimant will lose "half her fortune" unless her choice of husband is approved by her aunt Lady Wishfort, who wants her to marry Sir Wilfull Witwoud. - Mirabell enlists the married servants Waitwell and Foible to trick Lady Wishfort into falling in love with Sir Rowland, who is actually Waitwell in disguise, so that the compromised Lady Wishfort will be forced to agree to Mirabell and Millamant's marriage. - The scheme is supported by Lady Wishfort's daughter, Mrs. Fainall, but exposed by a woman named Mrs. Marwood, who loves Mirabell. - A resolution is reached when the rakish Mr. Fainall tries to blackmail his mother-in-law Lady Wishfort, who asks for Mirabell's help. - Mirabell then produces an old contract that invalidates the blackmail attempt, securing Lady Wishfort's blessing for his marriage to Millamant.

Tristan and Iseult

Drink a powerful potion that makes them in love with whoever else drinks it.

Salman Rushdie

Is a novelist born in India, who holds British and American citizenship. This author's 1981 Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight's Children follows Saleem Sinai, a man with an enormous nose who is born at precisely the moment that India becomes independent, giving him telepathic powers. Other members of the novel's title group—the people born within an hour of independence—include Shiva, a child with enormous knees, and the magical Parvati-the-witch. This author's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses begins as the actors Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha are miraculously saved after their plane explodes over the English Channel. Upon being betrayed by Gibreel, Saladin seeks revenge by ruining Gibreel's relationship with the mountaineer Allie Cone. The Satanic Verses was condemned in a fatwa, or religious decree, issued by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The fatwa accused this author of blasphemy and ordered Muslims to kill this author, his editors, and his publishers. In 1998, Iran agreed not to actively seek this author's death. This author described his years of hiding in the memoir Joseph Anton; the title refers to the pseudonym that this author adopted, which was inspired by the authors Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. This author's other novels include The Moor's Last Sigh, which is narrated by the swiftly aging Moraes Zogoiby; The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which was loosely inspired by the legend of Orpheus; and the young adult books Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Luka and the Fire of Life.

Sir Galahad

Son of Sir Launcelot and purest of Arthur's knights; Only one who can sit in the Siege Perulous. completed the quest for the Holy Grail.

Gabriela Mistral

The first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, this author was actually named Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, but took her pen name from the Italian and French poets Gabriele D'Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral respectively. At first a prominent educator, she wrote "Sonnets of Death" (1914) after the suicide of her fiancé. Those sonnets later appeared in her most famous collection, Desolation (1922). A native Chilean, she served as a diplomat both in the United States and Europe. Langston Hughes translated a portion of this author's poetry into English just after she died.

Gabriel García Marquez (1928-2014, Colombia; Nobel Prize for Literature 1982)

The master of magic realism, his birthplace, Aracataca was the model for the fictional town Macondo. The town played a prominent role in many of his works, such as Leaf Storm and his seminal novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), which details the decline of the Buendía family over seven generations. A newspaper journalist in the 1950s, he exposed a naval scandal (chronicled in The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor). Other prominent novels include In Evil Hour, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The General in His Labyrinth, a depiction of Simón Bolívar's final years.

King Arthur

The true king of Camelot. Young and honorable. Uther Pendragon is his father. Pulls the legendary sword out of the ground.

Carlos Fuentes

Though born into a well-to-do family, he often dealt with the betrayed ideals from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the subject of both his first novel, Where the Air is Clear (1958), and his most successful book, The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962). Other notable novels include Terra nostra, set during the reign of King Philip II of Spain, and The Old Gringo, which portrays Ambrose Bierce's last days in Mexico. He also wrote absurdist plays and essay collections on Mexican and American art and literature.

Jorge Luis Borges

Was an Argentine short story writer who often dealt with meta-fictional themes. His story "The Library of Babel" depicts an infinite library made up of hexagonal rooms, which contain every possible 410-page book. In "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," the fictional 20th-century author Pierre Menard writes a line-by-line reproduction of Cervantes's Don Quixote, which is much more interesting than the original because of the historical context in which the new version was produced. This author's story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" describes an imaginary realm, created by a secret society of intellectuals, that gradually intrudes into the world of the story. "The Aleph" is named after a point from which every other point in the universe can be perceived. Many of This author's best-known stories appeared in the collections Ficciones and Labyrinths, the latter of which is named after a common motif in this author's work. For example, in "The Garden of Forking Paths" the author Ts'ui Pên tries to create a metaphorical "labyrinth" by writing a novel in which every event is followed by every possible outcome. The story is narrated by Ts'ui Pên's descendent, Dr. Yu Tsun, who kills the Sinologist Stephen Albert to convey a coded message to German forces during World War I.

Italo Calvino

Was an Italian author. In his 1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler, the even-numbered sections are presented as the first chapters of a number of different books, each of which breaks off abruptly at a climactic moment. The odd-numbered sections are addressed in the second person to "You," the reader of this author's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler." You and a fellow book-lover named Ludmilla investigate oddities in the novels you are reading, in the process encountering a best-selling author named Silas Flannery, the deceitful translator Ermes Marana, and a scholar of Cimmerian literature named Professor Uzzi-Tuzii. This author's novel Invisible Cities is framed as a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, who describes 55 fictional cities to the Mongol ruler. This author is also known for his fantastical short stories, some of which are collected in the volume Cosmicomics and narrated by an ancient being named Qfwfq.

Mario Vargas Llosa

While attending military school in Lima, he wrote the play The Escape of the Inca (1952), but the harsh treatment he received there was the basis for his novel The Time of the Hero. Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) was his serious take on living under the dictatorship of Manuel Odría, while in 1977 he published the lighter, autobiographical Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, about soap operas. Other important works include The War of the End of the World and A Fish in the Water, which discusses his political career; he ran for president of Peru in 1990 but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori.

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammett. This classic of the "hard-boiled" genre follows Sam Spade, a San Francisco private eye hired by "Ms. Wonderly" to tail Floyd Thursby, with whom her sister has eloped. The next day, Sam's partner Miles Archer is found dead, shot by Thursby, who is also dead. The cops suspect Spade, who is sleeping with Archer's wife. Spade learns that "Ms. Wonderly" is actually Brigid O'Shaughnessy, a woman hunting for a priceless statuette called the Maltese Falcon alongside the obese Caspar Gutman and a homosexual Middle Easterner named Joel Cairo. At a private meeting in which Gutman explains how Brigid, Thursby, and Cairo found the Falcon in Constantinople, Spade suddenly faints, having been drugged by Gutman. Spade returns to his office, where a ship captain gives him a package containing the falcon, then dies. Brigid calls, urgently requesting Spade's help, but Spade returns home only to find Brigid, Gutman, and Cairo waiting, demanding the Falcon. Spade reminds them that one of them will be pegged for the murders, and they turn on each other. Gutman decides his bodyguard, Wilmer, will be the patsy, but when they discover the Falcon is a fake, Wilmer escapes. Cairo and Gutman leave to find the real Falcon, but Spade doesn't let Brigid go, certain she cannot be trusted. She confesses she shot both Archer and Thursby but is in love with Spade; Spade, refusing to "play the sap" for her, turns her over to the cops, who report that Wilmer has just murdered Gutman. The novel's 1941 film adaptation, starring Humphrey Bogart, is considered a film noir masterpiece.

The Purloined Letter

by Edgar Allan Poe. The police prefect "G" asks for Dupin's help regarding a devious official known as "Minister D." G believes the minister stole a letter that contains potential blackmail fodder regarding an unnamed but powerful man, and thus a huge reward is offered. However, the police cannot find the letter in Minister D's lodgings or on his person. One month later, "G" contacts Dupin again after the reward increases to 50,000 francs; Dupin asks for the reward immediately and amazingly produces the letter. Dupin, using a metaphor about a map game—in which players tasked with finding a name on a map can easily overlook large-print names—says Minister D hid the letter in plain sight, putting it amongst a bundle on the mantle. Once hearing of the theft, Dupin went to the apartment, located the letter, and then created a diversion so he could swap the letter with a taunting fake.

The Murders in Rue Morgue

by Edgar Allan Poe. This story marks the debut of C. Auguste Dupin, the predecessor of many future literary genius detectives. The unnamed narrator begins by musing on the unique mental challenges presented by the games of chess and whist, and then recalls how Dupin was once able to practically read the narrator's mind regarding an actor named Chantilly. Both the narrator and Dupin then read newspaper accounts of the murders of two women; the daughter was strangled and stuffed up a chimney, while the mother had her throat slashed so deep by a razor (also found at the scene) that her head falls off when she is moved. Neighbors testify they heard two voices but one was unidentifiable. Bags of money at the scene lead to the arrest of local banker Le Bon; Dupin deduces that, because the money remains, Le Bon is innocent and robbery is not the motive. Offering his services to a police prefect known as "G," Dupin notes the extreme strength required of both murders, the odd language, and tufts of hair. He realizes the murderer was non-human and places a newspaper ad for a missing orangutan. A sailor confesses to the crime: he bought an orangutan in Borneo but could not control it, and when he got angry that the orangutan grabbed the razor and mimicked the sailor's daily shave, the orangutan ran off in a bestial rage and killed the two women.

The Big Sleep

by Raymond Chandler. Wealthy patriarch General Sternwood hires private eye Philip Marlowe to help his daughter Carmen, who is being blackmailed by bookseller Arthur Geiger. Sternwood also worries about Regan, his daughter Vivian's missing husband. Pretending to be a gay book collector, Marlowe learns that Geiger's bookstore is a pornography front, and after staking out Geiger's home, he hears gunshots and sees two cars speeding away. Geiger is dead, and Carmen Sternwood is naked and drugged in front of a camera from which the film has been taken. The next day, Sternwood's chauffeur is found dead in a car driven off a pier. Marlowe meets with Joe Brody, who is taking over Geiger's bookstore, when Carmen busts in with a gun, demanding the photographs in Brody's possession. Marlowe forces her to leave, then learns the chauffeur killed Geiger to protect Carmen from disrepute; Brody, also spying on Geiger that night, pursued and killed the chauffeur. Geiger's homosexual lover then arrives and kills Brody, thinking Brody killed Geiger. With the case seemingly solved, Marlowe still wonders about Vivien's missing husband Regan, as well as the missing wife of Eddie Mars, a criminal who backed Geiger's business. Carmen and Vivien each try to seduce Marlowe while Marlowe investigates those disappearances. On returning to Sternwood's house, Carmen asks Marlowe to teach her to shoot; at the lesson, she tries to shoot Marlowe, but Marlowe put blanks in the gun. This proves Marlowe's theory: Carmen is a nymphomaniac who killed Regan when he spurned her advances. Vivien admits she hid the body and lied to save her father from shame, and she promises to put Carmen in an asylum.

The Final Problem

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sherlock Holmes stories made Doyle a celebrity, but Doyle, feeling cheapened by the work, decided to kill off Holmes in this story. The story begins with Watson welcoming in a bleeding Holmes, who recounts that Professor Moriarty—Holmes's alleged archnemesis, despite first appearing in this story—has just tried to kill Holmes via a staged car accident, a falling brick, and an armed thug. Holmes plans to go to Europe to defeat Moriarty without alerting him; however, despite Holmes disguising himself as an Italian priest and giving Watson circuitous, Moriarty tails them by rail, though Holmes and Watson evade him. In Strasbourg, Holmes learns that Scotland Yard has busted Moriarty's organization but have failed to catch the man himself, leading Holmes to continue to Switzerland. During a hike to the Reichenbach Falls, a messenger tells Watson that a sick woman at their hotel needs a doctor; Holmes knows this is a trap laid by Moriarty but says nothing. Finding no such woman, Watson rushes back to the falls, where footprints and signs of a struggle convince him that Moriarty found Holmes and, during a fight, both fatally tumbled over the waterfall.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This novel was the first Holmes story to appear after "The Final Problem." Holmes is solicited by James Mortimer, whose friend Charles Baskerville recently died in terror, with nearby canine footprints consistent with a myth about a hellish hound who kills Baskerville heirs. The next heir, Henry, is almost shot by a bearded pursuer in London, leading Holmes to send Watson to Baskerville Hall to protect Henry while he investigates. At the estate on the moors, Watson learns that two neighbors, the Stapleton siblings, are behaving oddly, as are the Baskerville servants, the Barrymores, and Laura Lyons, the woman Charles was supposed to meet the night of his death. Watson learns that Mr. Barrymore is skulking around to secretly aid his brother, an escaped convict, and discovers through Laura that a shadowy figure walking the moors at night is actually Holmes, laying low. Holmes discovers that Laura was used by Jack Stapleton to lure Charles onto the moors, where Stapleton—a distant heir of the Baskervilles—killed Charles with his huge pet dog. Holmes and Watson then use Henry as bait; the ruse works, and they kill Stapleton's dog, who has been painted with phosphorus to appear spectral. Stapleton drowns in the Grimpen Mire while fleeing, and Holmes and Watson learn Stapleton's supposed "sister" is actually his wife, who refused to help her villainous husband.

The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco. This mystery is set in 1327 at a Catholic conference to resolve a potential heresy. William of Baskerville and his novice, Adso of Melk, are tasked with investigating the death of the comical manuscript artist Adelmo. The abbey's librarian, Malachi, bars the two men from entering a mysterious, labyrinthine library, so they meet with Jorge of Burgos, a blind monk who hates laughter. The next day, after the monk Venantius is found dead in a vat of pig blood, William and Adso find that both victims had sought out a book from a secret room called the Finis Africae. Upon breaking into the labyrinth, they find odd writings left by Venantius; later, the monks discover that Venantius's fingers and tongue were stained black. Eventually, William and Adso realize the letters above rooms in the library spell out regions of the world, and they locate the Finis Africae behind a mirror. As the conference ramps up, a monk named Severinus tells William about an odd book in his own library, but he is murdered before he can say more and the book goes missing. On the sixth day, Malachi is killed; his tongue and fingers are also black. On the final day of the conference, William and Adso enter the Finis Africae and find Jorge of Burgos within. Severinus's secret book is a sequel to Aristotle's Poetics, whose thoughts on comedy will undermine Christianity. Jorge poisoned the pages, knowing any reader would lick his fingers to turn them. Jorge then eats the manuscript, killing himself, but not before using Adso's lantern to set the library ablaze. William and Adso escape.

The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins. Rachel Verinder's 18th birthday party is marred by the theft of the Moonstone, a sacred gem plundered from India that Rachel had just inherited. Suspicion falls on a trio of Indian jugglers, but also on Rachel herself, who behaves oddly and breaks off her engagement with Franklin Blake when Franklin leads the search. The maid Rosanna Spearman is also suspected, especially after she commits suicide by jumping into quicksand. Local inspector Sergeant Cuff cannot solve the mystery, but one year later, Franklin returns from abroad and learns that Rosanna, who was secretly in love with him, began impeding the investigation after a paint smudge made her suspect he was the thief. Franklin then meets with Rachel, who claims she saw Franklin steal the Moonstone but never told anyone to save their reputations. Eventually, Franklin learns that he was secretly fed laudanum at the party by Dr. Candy, and while in a drugged stupor took the Moonstone to protect it. The Moonstone later turns up for sale, upon which it is stolen by the trio of Indians. The Indians also kill the seller, who is revealed to be Godfrey Ablewhite, another party guest whose personal debts prompted him to keep the Moonstone when the drugged Franklin gave it to him. Other characters who narrate portions of the book include Miss Drusilla Clack, an Evangelical who constantly hands out moralizing tracts; Gabriel Betteredge, a servant obsessed with Robinson Crusoe; and Dr. Candy's opium-addicted assistant Ezra Jennings, an odd man with multi-colored hair.

Angelo

measure to measure: this character is entrusted with the rule of Vienna by Duke Vicentio, who pretends to leave the city but actually remains present, disguised as "Friar Lodowick." he enforces antiquated laws against fornication, resulting in Claudio's arrest and imminent execution. Claudio's sister, the novice nun Isabella, pleads for Claudio to be pardoned; the antagonist agrees, but only if Isabella will have sex with him. After debate, Duke Vincentio proposes a "bed trick." Isabella pretends that she is willing to have sex with the antagonist in absolute darkness and silence, which allows Mariana, a woman who was once betrothed to the antagonist, to take Isabella's place. Although the plan works, and the antagonist believes that he had sex with Isabella, he goes back on his word and orders Claudio's execution. This forces the duke to arrange a "head trick," in which the head of the pirate Ragozine is presented to the antagonist, and Claudio's life is saved. Once the duke "returns" to Vienna, Isabella and Mariana petition him to right their wrongs. the antagonist initially denies the charges brought against him, but confesses once he learns that the duke and Friar Lodowick are the same person. the antagonist's life is spared for Mariana's sake, and the duke proposes marriage to Isabella.