It is the best known book about American slavery, and was so incendiary upon its first publication in 1852 that it actually ignited the social flames that led to Civil War less than a decade later. What began as a series of sketches for the Cincinnati abolitionist newspaper The National Era scandalized the North, was banned in the South, and ultimately became the bestselling novel of the 19th century. Today, controversy over this melodramatic tale of the dignified slave Tom, the brutal plantation owner Simon Legree, and Stowe's other vividly drawn characters continues, as modern scholars debate the work's newly appreciated feminist undertones and others decry it as the source of enduring stereotypes about African Americans. As one of the most influential books in U.S. history, it deserves to be read by all students of literature and of the American story. American abolitionist and author HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) was born in Connecticut, daughter of a Congregationalist minister and sister to abolitionist theologian Henry Ward Beecher. She wrote more than two dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction.

Product Description: Based on exclusive, personal interviews with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Pearce's biography of the renowned Russian dissident provides profound insight into a towering literary and political figure. From his pro-Communist youth to his imprisonment in forced labor camps, from his exile in America to his return to Russia, Solzhenitsyn struggled with the weightiest questions of human existence: When a person has suffered the most terrible physical and emotional torture, what becomes of his spirit? Can science, politics and economics truly provide all of man's needs? In his acclaimed literary and historical works, Solzhenitsyn exposed the brutality of the Soviet regime...read more

Product Description: "Star-crossed" Romeo and Juliet are Shakespeare's most famous lovers. A staple of high school reading lists, the tragedy especially resonates with young adult readers who, like Romeo and Juliet, have experienced the exhilarating and perilous phenomenon of being "in love"...read more

Product Description: This new edition of a classic anthology of the writings and sermons of the great John Henry Newman is a rare treasure house of Newman’s thought and inspiration. Released to coincide with the Beatification of Newman by Pope Benedict XVI in Newman’s homeland, England, where Newman’s spiritual influence on his own contemporaries was immense, this collection shows the timeless wisdom of Newman and how strong an appeal his writings have for the modern Christian...read more

Product Description: Fulfilling the promise he made in his previous book, The Quest for Shakespeare, bestselling literary writer Joseph Pearce analyzes in this volume three of Shakespeare's immortal plays -The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet and King Lear - in order to uncover the Bard's Catholic beliefs...read more

Product Description: The Merchant of Venice is probably the most controversial of all Shakespeare's plays. It is also one of the least understood. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? What is the meaning behind the test of the caskets? Who is the real villain of the trial scene? Is Shylock simply vicious and venomous, or is he more sinned against than sinning? Can the play be described as anti-semitic? What exactly is the quality of mercy? Is Portia one of the great Christian heroines of western literature? And what of the comedy of the rings with which Shakespeare ends the play? These questions and many others are answered in this critical edition of one of the Bard's liveliest plays...read more

Product Description: Flannery O'Connor has been studied and lauded under many labels: the Southern author whose pen captured the soul of a proud region struggling to emerge out of racism and poverty, the female writer whose independent spirit and tragically short life inspired a generation of women, the Catholic artist whose fiction evokes themes of sin and damnation, mercy and redemption...read more

Product Description: Jane Austen is arguably the finest female novelist who ever lived and Pride and Prejudice is arguably the finest, and is certainly the most popular, of her novels. An undoubted classic of world literature, its profound Christian morality is all too often missed or wilfully overlooked by today's (post)modern critics...read more

Product Description: In true Faustian tradition The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the tale of a young man who sells his soul to the devil in return for youthful immortality, only to discover that the "devil's bargain" is no bargain at all. "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" When Dorian Gray is asked this question he knows the answer...read more

Product Description: Arguably Shakespeare's finest and most important play, Hamlet is also one of the most misunderstood masterpieces of world literature. "To be or not to be", may be the question, but the answer has eluded many generations of critics...read more

Product Description: Highly regarded and best-selling literary writer and teacher, Joseph Pearce presents a stimulating and vivid biography of the world's most revered writer that is sure to be controversial. Unabashedly provocative, with scholarship, insight and keen observation, Pearce strives to separate historical fact from fiction about the beloved Bard...read more

Product Description: E.F. Schumacher argued that our current pursuit of profit and progress which promotes giant organizations has resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution and inhumane working conditions. He proposed a system of intermediate technology, based on smaller working units and regional workplaces, utilizing local resources...read more

Product Description: This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity. All of the great ones are here: Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier; late nineteenth-century mystics like Dickenson and Hopkins, as well the great converts of that period like Newman and Chesterton; and, T...read more

Details the life of Oscar Wilde, including his work as an author, his fascination with Catholicism, and his time in prison for a homosexual affair.

Product Description: Literary Giants, Literary Catholics by Joseph Pearce British author Joseph Pearce has firmly established himself as the premier literary biographer of our time, especially in interpreting the spiritual depths of the Catholic literary tradition...read more

Product Description: Roy Campbell (1902–57) led an unquiet life marked by numerous affairs (both real and imagined), brawls (he once attacked Stephen Spender on stage during a poetry recital), and curious stunts (with the help of Dylan Thomas, he once ate a vase of daffodils in celebration of St...read more

Product Description: There are many Protestants and Catholics who have been deeply affected and spirituality changed by the writings of C.S. Lewis, including many converts to Catholicism who credit C.S. Lewis for playing a significant role in their conversion...read more

Product Description: Peter Jackson’s film version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the accompanying proliferation of Rings-related paraphernalia, has once again brought the work of J. R. R. Tolkien to a popular audience. There are, however, few full and accessible treatments of the religious vision permeating Tolkien’s influential works...read more