Malachi McCormick has gathered 20 amusing, provocative stories that show how the cat has been perceived around the world. 60 silhouettes throughout.

Dead men tell no tales, or so the pirate maxim goes. But when facing execution in 1831 for mutiny and murder, the previously enigmatic pirate Charles Gibbs recounted the infamous crimes of his harrowing life at sea in a self-aggrandizing series of confessions. Wildly popular reading among nineteenth-century audiences, such criminal confessions were peppered with the romanticized mythology that informs pirate lore to this day. Joseph Gibbs takes up the task of separating fact from fiction to explicate the true story of Charles Gibbs - an alias for James Jeffers (1798-1831) of Newport, Rhode Island - in an investigation that reveals a life as riveting as the legend it replaces.Jeffers was the child of a Revolutionary War privateer captain with his own history in the rough work. After a heroic career in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812, Jeffers eschewed military life and took to the privateer trade himself. As Charles Gibbs, pirate, he sailed from the ports of Charleston and New Orleans to wreak havoc in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Stripping away 170 years of embellishment, Joseph Gibbs maps the still-shockingly violent career of Charles Gibbs across the seas and, in the process, challenges and discredits much of his self-made mythology.Gibbs recounts Jeffers' well-documented role in the infamous mutiny and murders in 1830 aboard the brig Vineyard while the vessel was carrying a load of Mexican silver. The pirate was captured the following year and brought to New York. The case against Jeffers and accomplice Thomas Wansley culminated in a sensational trial, which led to their subsequent executions by hanging on Ellis Island.In addition to recounting the exploits of a ruthless cutthroat, The Confessions of Charles Gibbs tells the larger story of American piracy and privateering in the early nineteenth century and illustrates the role of American and European adventurers in the Latin American wars of liberation. Carefully researched, engagingly written, and enhanced by twenty illustrations, this is pirate history at its most credible and readable.

'Vice Versa: A Lesson to Fathers' is a comic novel by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, writing under the pseudonym "F. Anstey". Set in Victorian London, via a magic stone from India a father and son switch places, thus living each other's lives, and gain a better understanding for each other before they switch back.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, attitudes toward history and national identity fostered a romantic rediscovery of folk and fairy tales. This is the period of the Golden Age of folk and fairy tales, when European folklorists sought to understand and redefine the present through the common tales of the past, and long neglected stories became recognized as cultural treasures. In this rich collection, distinguished expert of fairy tales Jack Zipes continues his lifelong exploration of the story-telling tradition with a focus on the Golden Age. Included are one hundred eighty-two tales--many available in English for the first time--grouped into eighteen tale types. Zipes provides an engaging general Introduction that discusses the folk and fairy tale tradition, the impact of the Brothers Grimm, and the significance of categorizing tales into various types. Short introductions to each tale type that discuss its history, characteristics, and variants provide readers with important background information. Also included are annotations, short biographies of folklorists of the period, and a substantial bibliography. Eighteen original art works by students of the art department of Anglia Ruskin University not only illustrate the eighteen tale types, but also provide delightful—and sometimes astonishing—21st-century artistic interpretations of them.

'We pretended we had each a large island inhabited by people 6 miles high.' In their collaborative early writings the Brontës created and peopled the most extraordinary fantasy worlds, whose geography and history they elaborated in numerous stories, poems, and plays. Together they invented characters based on heroes and writers such as Wellington, Napoleon, Scott, and Byron, whose feuds, alliances, and love affairs weave an intricate web of social and political intrigue in imaginary colonial lands in Africa and the Pacific Ocean. The writings of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal are youthful experiments in imitation and parody, wild romance and realistic recording; they demonstrate the playful literary world that provided a 'myth kitty' for their early - and later - work. In this generous selection the writings of Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell are presented together for the first time. The Introduction explores the rich imaginative lives of the Brontës, and the tension between their maturing authorship and creative freedom. The edition also includes Charlotte Brontë's Roe Head Journal, and Emily and Anne's Diary Papers, important autobiographical sources. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This meticulously edited collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1: Fugitive Pieces Poems on Various Occasions Hours of Idleness: Damœtas To Marion Oscar of Alva From Anacreon Lachin y Gair To Romance The Death of Calmar and Orla Poems Original and Translated Early Poems from Various Sources The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 2: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 3: Poems 1809–1813 The Giaour The Bride of Abydos The Corsair Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte Lara Hebrew Melodies: She walks in Beauty The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept If that High World The Wild Gazelle Oh! weep for those On Jordan's Banks Jeptha's Daughter Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom My Soul is Dark I saw thee weep Thy Days are done Saul Song of Saul before his Last Battle "All is Vanity, saith the Preacher" When Coldness wraps this Suffering Clay Vision of Belshazzar Sun of the Sleepless! Were my Bosom as False as thou deem'st it to be Herod's Lament for Mariamne On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept "By the Waters of Babylon" The Destruction of Sennacherib... A Spirit passed before me Poems 1814–1816 The Siege of Corinth Parisina Poems of the Separation The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 4: The Prisoner of Chillon Poems of July—September, 1816: The Dream Darkness Churchill's Grave Prometheus Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan Manfred The Lament of Tasso Beppo Ode on Venice Mazeppa The Prophecy of Dante The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci Francesca of Rimini Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice The Vision of Judgment Poems 1816-1823 The Blues The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 5: Sardanapalus The Two Foscari Cain Heaven and Earth Werner; or, The Inheritance The Deformed Transformed The Age of Bronze The Island The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: Don Juan The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7: Jeux d'Esprit and Minor Poems, 1798–1824: Letters and Journals of Lord Byron Biographies: Byron by John Nichol The Life of Lord Byron by John Galt