All's Well That Ends Well (1607) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well was likely inspired by the tale of Giletta di Narbona from Boccaccio's Decameron. Unpopular during Shakespeare's lifetime, the play remains one of his least staged works to this day. Despite this, scholars praise All's Well That Ends Well for its moral ambiguity. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, our virtues would be proud...

A gifted American artist finds fame, fortune, and tragedy in Europe in this classic tale. Working in obscurity, sculptor Roderick Hudson finds a generous patron in Rowland Mallet, an art aficionado so captivated by the young man's work, he offers to take Hudson with him to Europe. Mallet soon falls in love with Miss Mary Garland, a distant cousin of Hudson's who lives with the family and tends to his aging mother. Unfortunately, Hudson has already...

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) is a work of art history by Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt. Recognized today as the founder of modern art history and as one of the key thinkers of the nineteenth century, Burckhardt changed not only the way we think about the Renaissance in relation to European and world history, but the value placed on art as a tool for understanding historical developments. The Civilization of the Renaissance...

Presents the full text of the play along with introductory material, textual analysis and notes, information about past productions of the play, and information about the theatrical career of William Shakespeare.

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabeled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending. The play has been...

A notice in The Times addressed to 'Those Who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine' advertises a 'small medieval Italian Castle to be let for the month of April'. Four very different women take up the offer: Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, both fleeing unappreciative husbands; beautiful Lady Caroline, sick of being 'grabbed' by lovesick men; and the imperious, ageing Mrs Fisher. On the shores of the Mediterranean, beauty, warmth and leisure weave their...

First Published in 1860, "The Marble Faun" is the last of the four major romances written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Published shortly before the beginning of the American Civil War, it is a romantic and fantastical tale set in an imagined Italy and revolves around the love lives of the four main characters: Miriam, a beautiful and mysterious painter, Hilda, an innocent and morally upright copyist, Kenyon, a gifted sculptor, and Donatello,...

A Sicilian Romance (1790) is a novel by Ann Radcliffe. Published anonymously, Radcliffe's second novel is a tragic story of love and murder set in the sublime landscape of the Sicilian coast. Considered an essential work of Gothic fiction, A Sicilian Romance is an early example of her prowess as a leading novelist of suspense and the supernatural. "As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the...

"In 1486, Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, Italy. As a woman, she is not meant to blow glass--but when her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work becomes the cornerstone of the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague rearing its head over Venice...

When tragedy strikes on his son's wedding day, Lord Manfred believes it is a foreboding omen, and will do whatever it takes to stop it-no matter how immoral. Set in the 18th century, The Castle of Otranto begins on the day Manfred's son, Conrad, was meant to be married. Known for his sickly nature, Conrad is the eldest child of two, and is set to marry Princess Isabella, a union that would reap strong benefits for the noble family. However, when...