Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. He also invented bifocals, a stove that is still manufactured, a water-harmonica, and the lightning rod. Franklin's extraordinary range of interests and accomplishments...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

"An infamous Renaissance classic, The Prince shocked Europe upon publication with its ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. Niccolo Machiavelli even came to be regarded by some as an agent of the Devel, his name taken for the intriguer "Machevill" of Jacobean tragedy. For his treatise on statecraft Machiavelli drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting...

A prose retelling of William Shakespeare's play about the strange events that take place in a forest inhabited by fairies who magically transform the romantic fate of two young couples.

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

A king tries in vain to avert a horrific fate in this epic tragedy, widely considered a masterpiece. Oedipus was warned that his destiny is for him to kill his father and marry his mother. So he fled his home and has now become the king of Thebes, taking the throne after the death of its previous occupant, Laius, and marrying his widow, Jocasta. But just as Laius long ago labored to defy a prophecy and ultimately failed, so will Oedipus, in this masterpiece...