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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Stephen Sondheim, Larry Gelbart, Burt Shevelove · 148 pages
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a comedy set in ancient Rome, where slaves were fashionable, virgins were regarded as objects to be conquered, and eunuchs were in abundance. The basic plot consists of a slave (Pseudolus) trying to buy his freedom from his owner, Hero, who is the son of Senex (a dirty old man) and Domina (a battle axe). Luckily for Pseudolus, Hero has fallen in l
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Tom Stoppard · 126 pages
Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett · 87 pages
This volume is an absurdist play in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. They claim he's an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him when they do see him.
Medea
Euripides · 100 pages
"Medea has been betrayed. Her husband, Jason, has left her for a younger woman. He has forgotten all the promises he made and is even prepared to abandon their two sons. But Medea is not a woman to accept such disrespect passively. Strongwilled and fiercely intelligent, she turns her formidable energies to working out the greatest, and most horrifying, revenge possible." "Euripides' devastating tr
Antigone
Sophocles · 80 pages
Publisher's description: Echoing through western culture for more than two millennia, Sophocles' play has been a touchstone of thinking about human conflict and human tragedy, the role of the divine in human life, and the degree to which men and women are the creators of their own destiny. This exciting new translation of the Antigone is both extremely faithful to the Greek and poetically striking
The Jew of Malta
Christopher Marlowe, H. Havelock Ellis · 122 pages
This edition is of the best-known play by one of Shakespeare's chief predecessors and early contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe. The Jew of Malta was enormously influential on Shakespeare when he came to write The Merchant of Venice, and for good reason, since the play explores anti-Semitism and revenge. An introduction discusses the significance of this formative and brilliant play, with detailed
Paradise Lost
John Milton · 336 pages
John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his ban
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 224 pages
**The Picture of Dorian Gray** is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical *Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine*. The novel-length version was published in April 1891. (Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray))
Caesar and Cleopatra
George Bernard Shaw · 136 pages
Caesar and Cleopatra satirizes Shakespeare's use of history and comments wryly on the politics of Shaw's own time, but the undertone of melancholy makes it one of his most affecting plays.
Grendel
John Gardner · 174 pages
The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his own side of the story in this frequently banned book. This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic. This is the book William Gass called "one of the finest of our contem
All for Love
John Dryden · 102 pages
"All For Love is a heroic drama by John Dryden written in 1677. Today, it is Dryden's best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine. Combining the unities of classical
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Herman Melville · 420 pages
A classic of the sea, telling of the pursuit of Moby Dick, the white whale who defied capture.
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess · 188 pages
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Na
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Cormac McCarthy · 337 pages
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indi
The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings
Marquis de Sade · 799 pages
Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. · 202 pages
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.
Marius the Epicurean
Walter Pater, Michael Levey · 349 pages
Marius is born in the second-century Roman Empire to a patrician family. In his youth he takes in the rituals, religion, and surroundings of his native land, and when his parents die, he’s sent away to a boarding school. As young Marius develops into manhood, he explores various schools of philosophy and ways of life, until he lands into the position of amanuensis to the emperor Marcus Aurelius—wh
Clouds
Aristophanes, Kenneth James Dover · 133 pages
The Catholic University of America Speech and Drama Department presents Aristophanes' "The Clouds," translated by William Arrowsmith, directed by Leo Brady, choral interpretation by Josephine McGarry Callan, setting and lighting by James D. Waring, costumes by Joseph Lewis.
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 498 pages
A masterpiece of guilt and redemption that transforms the sordid story of an old woman’s murder into the nineteenth century’s profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, is determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammeled individual will. When he commits an act of murder and theft, he sets in
Life Is a Dream
Pedro Calderon de la Barca · 119 pages
In the mountainous barrens of Poland, the rightful heir to the kingdom has been imprisoned since birth in an attempt by his father to thwart fate. Meanwhile, a noblewoman arrives to seek revenge against the man who deceived and forsook her love for the prospect of becoming king of Poland.