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What's Wrong With The World By G. K. ChestertonRenewal of interest in the work of GK Chesterton continues apace. The writer whose career began when he dictated his first story to his aunt Rose at the age of three started early and aimed high, and his intellectual development was among the more conspicuously interesting of the Edwardian age. His Orthodoxy of 1908 has become a sort of touchstone text during the present vogue for philosophical theology, much cited by the likes of Slavoj Zizek and the radical theologian John Milbank, while oddball novels such as The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) retain the power to entertain and bemuse in equal measure.This year, however, sees the centenary of one of his rather less high-profile publications. What's Wrong with the World represents an extrapolation of Chesterton's original response to a query posed in so many words by the Times to a selection of eminent writers and thinkers of the day. "Dear Sirs," ran GK's succinct rejoinder, "I am". The publication of the book suggested that, on reflection, there might have been more to say on the subject.The Chesterton offered us by his latter-day biographers and critics is a lost proto-radical, if we could but make him out as such. Along with his close friend Hilaire Belloc, he was the proponent of a species of Third Way politics avant la lettre, a plague-on-both-your-houses confutation of capitalism and socialism known as distributism. Drastically simplified, the vision was of an atomised entrepreneurialism in which as many individuals as possible pursued the goal of profit, so as to wrest capital accumulation from both a few vastly powerful interests (such as "Jewish banking families") and a monolithic socialist state.What's Wrong with the World opens with an analysis of the predicament of modern humanity, too obsessed in the great age of political idealism with visions of the future. Has the Enlightenment ideal of continual social progress been a reality, or has it all been a piece of western myth-making? "Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them?" he wonders. But then again, "Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared?"What it does contain is the wreckage of half-realised ideals. There is a lack of conviction in attempts to enact the radical doctrines of Christianity or of political justice, and too often the espousal of great causes results in panic at the consequences of one's own actions. Where national leaders paid lip-service to such humanist ideals as egalitarianism, they came to rue their faith in humanity. "Joseph of Austria and Catherine of Russia quite agreed that the people should rule what horrified them was that the people did.""The Guardians: The World of of GK Chesterton, and what's wrong with it"

A Whisper in the Darkby Louisa May Alcott As we rolled along, I scanned my companion covertly, and saw much to interest a girl of seventeen. My uncle was a handsome man, with all the polish of foreign life fresh upon him yet it was neither comeliness nor graceful ease which most attracted me for even my inexperienced eye caught glimpses of something stern and sombre below these external charms, and my long scrutiny showed me the keenest eye, the hardest mouth, the subtlest smile I ever saw, -a face which in repose wore the look which comes to those who have led lives of pleasure and learned their emptiness. He seemed intent on some thought that absorbed him, and for a time rendered him forgetful of my presence, as he sat with folded arms, fixed eyes, and restless lips. While I looked, my own mind was full of deeper thought than it had ever been before for I was recalling, word for word, a paragraph in that half-read letter: "At eighteen Sybil is to marry her cousin, the compact having been made between my brother and myself in their childhood. My son is with me now, and I wish them to be together during the next few months, therefore my niece must leave you sooner than I at first intended. Oblige me by preparing her for an immediate and final separation, but leave all disclosures to me, as I prefer the girl to remain ignorant of the matter for the present."That displeased me. Why was I to remain ignorant of so important an affair? Then I smiled to myself, remembering that I did know, thanks to the wilful curiosity that prompted me to steal a peep into the letter that Madame Bernard had pored over with such an anxious face. I saw only a single paragraph, for my own name arrested my eye and, though wild to read all, I had scarcely time to whisk the paper back into the reticule the forgetful old soul had left hanging on the arm of her chair. It was enough, however, to set my girlish brain in a ferment, and keep me gazing wistfully at my uncle, conscious that my future now lay in his hands for I was an orphan and he my guardian, though I had seen him but seldom since I was confided to madame a six years' child. Presently my uncle became cognizant of my steady stare, and returned it with one as steady for a moment, then said, in a low, smooth tone, that ill accorded with the satirical smile that touched his lips,"I am a dull companion for my little niece. How shall I provide her with pleasanter amusement than counting my wrinkles or guessing my thoughts?"I was a frank, fearless creature, quick to feel, speak, and act, so I answered readily,"Tell me about my cousin Guy. Is he as handsome, brave, and clever as madame says his father was when a boy?"My uncle laughed a short laugh, touched with scorn, whether for madame, himself, or me I could not tell, for his countenance was hard to read."A girl's question and artfully put nevertheless I shall not answer it, but let you judge for yourself.""But, sir, it will amuse me and beguile the way. I feel a little strange and forlorn at leaving madame, and talking of my new home and friends will help me to know and love them sooner. Please tell me, for I've had my own way all my life, and can't bear to be crossed."

Vera or, The Nihilists By Oscar WildeVera or, The Nihilists is a play by Oscar Wilde. It is a melodramatic tragedy set in Russia and is loosely based on the life of Vera Zasulich. It was Wilde's first play, and the first to be performed. In 1880, with only a few copies privately printed, arrangements were made with noted actresses for a production in the United Kingdom, but this never materialized. The first public performance was in New York City in 1883 at the Union Square Theatre, based on revisions made by Wilde while lecturing in America in 1882. The play was not a success and folded after only one week.It is rarely revived.At the time of writing, the reform-minded Tsar Alexander II was involved in a struggle with revolutionaries who sought to assassinate him (and eventually succeeded). Though none of Wilde's characters correspond to actual Russian people of the time, the above situation was well-known both to Wilde and to the audience for which he was writing. It has been suggested that the plot was inspired by true events. In 1878, three years before the play's completion, Vera Zasulich shot the Governor of St Petersburg, Trepov. Wilde described himself as a Socialist, although Ellmann describes his Socialism as more "a general hatred of tyranny" than a specific political belief.Marie Prescott and her husband, Mr Perzel purchased the rights to perform the play, and she was the leading actress in its first performance at the Union Square Theatre. Wilde travelled to America for the second time in his life specifically to oversee the production.The play was withdrawn after one week. Mr Perzel stated to newspapers "the play is withdrawn simply because it did not pay," citing that he had lost $2,500 on the piece the previous week. He also implied that he had hoped Wilde himself would lecture between the acts, allowing him to capitalise on Wilde's popularity as a public speaker.Peter Sabouroff (an Innkeeper).Vera Sabouroff (his Daughter).Michael (a Peasant).Dmitri Sabouroff.Colonel Kotemkin.Ivan the Czar.Prince Paul Maraloffski (Prime Minister of Russia).Prince Petrovitch.Count Rouvaloff.Marquis de Poivrard.Baron Raff.General Kotemkin.A Page.A Colonel of the Guard.Peter Tchernavitch, President of the Nihilists.Michael.Alexis Ivanacievitch, known as a Student of Medicine.

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) completed in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with The Three Musketeers.

Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labeled "the first modern novel" and many authors consider it to be the best literary work ever written.The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) from La Mancha named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story.The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844), Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), as well as the word quixotic and the epithet Lothario; the latter refers to a character in "El curioso impertinente" ("The Impertinently Curious Man"), an intercalated story that appears in Part One, chapters 33-35. The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer cited Don Quixote as one of the four greatest novels ever written.When first published, Don Quixote was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution, it was better known for its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and seen as disenchanting. In the 19th century, it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on". Many critics came to view the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote's idealism and nobility are viewed by the post-chivalric world as insane, and are defeated and rendered useless by common reality. By the 20th century, the novel had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature.

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences (French: Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation 'Je pense, donc je suis' (English: 'I think, therefore I am', or 'I am thinking, therefore I exist'), which occurs in Part IV of the work. The similar Latin statement, Cogito, ergo sum, is found in Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism, which had previously been studied by Sextus Empiricus, Al-Ghazali and Michel de Montaigne. Descartes modified it to account for a truth he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.The book was originally published in Leiden, in the Netherlands. Later, it was translated into Latin and published in 1656 in Amsterdam. The book was intended as an introduction to three works: Dioptrique, Météores and Géométrie. La Géométrie contains Descartes's initial concepts that later developed into the Cartesian coordinate system. The text was written and published in French rather than the language in which philosophical and scientific texts were most frequently written and published in at the time, namely, Latin. Most of Descartes' other works were written in Latin.Together with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy and Rules for the Direction of the Mind, it forms the base of the epistemology known as Cartesianism. The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations, had led me to imagine that all things, the knowledge of which is competent to man, are mutually connected in the same way, and that there is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction of one truth from another. This treatise on the value of doubt and skepticism when studying the natural world laid the foundation for the modern scientific method as we still employ it today, as well as the basis for modern philosophy. Written in French and first published in 1637 under the full title Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, it is here presented in the 1901 edition of the 1850 English translation by Scottish poet, philosopher, and historian JOHN VEITCH (1829-1894).

Dear EnemyThe sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-LegsAs Daddy-Long-Legs traced Judy Abbott's growth from a young girl into an adult, Dear Enemy shows how Sallie McBride grows from a frivolous socialite to a mature woman and an able executive. It also follows the development of Sallie's relationships with Gordon Hallock, a wealthy politician, and Dr. Robin MacRae, the orphanage's physician. Both relationships are affected by Sallie's initial reluctance to commit herself to her job, and by her gradual realization of how happy the work makes her and how incomplete she'd feel without it. The daily calamities and triumphs of an orphanage superintendent are wittily described, often accompanied by the author's own stick-figure illustrations. Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. First published in 1915, it was among the top ten best sellers in the US in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are Judy Jervis Pendleton, Judy's husband and the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new superintendent can be installed Gordon Hallock, a wealthy Congressman and Sallie's later fiancé and the orphanage's doctor, embittered Scotsman Robin 'Sandy' MacRae (to whom Sallie addresses her letters: "Dear Enemy"). Webster employs the epistolary structure to good effect Sallie's choices of what to recount to each of her correspondents reveal a lot about her relationships with them.Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster, July 24, 1876 - June 11, 1916) was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.