Suitable for boys and girls aged 7 to 9. In this first book of the Billy Growing Up series, Billy Field is uber excited at his approaching tenth birthday. Not only is it his first double-digit birthday, but he’ll be ten on the tenth day of the tenth month—a once in a lifetime event. Billy’s invited his best friend Ant to his party. They’re having a magician who’s being assisted by Max, Ant’s sister. Granddad magics Billy’s present – a twenty-pound note, but soon after the party, Billy has his money stolen by the local bully. Bullying is unacceptable, and has to be dealt with… Billy Has A Birthday is a wonderful example of a story that young children can enjoy reading alone or together with their parents. Using traditional storytelling, it is entertaining while dealing with a serious issue that affects many children as they grow up. Bullying can be a difficult subject for children to talk about, and many feel frightened or embarrassed if they fall victim to bullying. This book acts as the perfect icebreaker for adults and children to begin discussing these issues. Find out how this negative experience turns out. A perfect read for children who enjoy school fiction, but with a positive learning to help other bullied children. If you enjoy reading David Walliams or Jeff Kinney you will love the Billy Growing Up series.

Man’s evident failure to make the most out of his material life suggests a study of the elements in each citizen that make him of value to his age and community. What are the measurements of mankind, and why is it that daily some add new treasures to the storehouse of civilization, while others take from and waste the store already accumulated?

Anton Chekhov's iconic plays including some of the unfamiliar short pieces such as The Wedding, and some of the more established classics such as The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov revolutionised world literature influencing generations of playwrights, screenwriters and actors. George Bernard Shaw described Chekhov's work as a fantasia in the Russian manner on English themes.

Can too much love be fatal? You are about to find out in this exquisite psychological drama between the owner of a pawnshop and his wife. The narrator's marriage started out cordially enough, but his miserly and reserved ways are taxing to his young wife. A dearth of communication and disagreements about how the pawnshop should be run result in arguments, though the narrator insists that they never quarrelled. One fine morning the narrator opens his eyes to see that his wife is standing over him with the revolver pointed at his temple.

An exciting collection of stories from W.W. Jacobs, a London based novelist famous for his humour, horror and travel stories. This volume includes some of his iconic work: The Money-box, The Castaway, Blundell's Improvement, Bill's Lapse, Lawyer Quince, Breaking A Spell, Establishing Relations, The Changing Numbers, The Persecution of Bob Pretty, Dixon's Return, A Spirit of Avarice, The Third String, Odd Charges, Admiral Peters.

An iconic collection of fairy tales from the master of storytelling Charles Perrault including some of his best work: Little Red Riding-Hood, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Little Thumb, Cinderella, Blue Beard.

Sandy Arbuthnot's friend John Blenkiron discovers that a charismatic industrial tycoon is plotting to rule the world from his base in the small South American country of Olifa. Sandy decides to lead a revolution to scuttle the plot and allow the Olifans to decide their own fate.

How to Be a Financial Fiasco contains my personal tips and tricks on how to become a complete financial disaster. If you love true stories, dark humor, & sarcasm, you’ll love this foul-mouthed but forthright look at how I got myself $20K in debt. Consider it an instructive guide on how NOT to handle your finances well.

　　《哈姆雷特》由英国剧作家威廉•莎士比亚创作，是莎士比亚所有戏剧中篇幅非常长、非常负盛名的剧本。戏剧讲述了叔叔克劳狄斯谋害了哈姆雷特的父亲，篡取了王位，并娶了国王的遗孀乔特鲁德，哈姆雷特王子因此为父王向叔叔复仇的故事。《哈姆雷特》同《麦克白》《李尔王》《奥赛罗》被公认为莎士比亚“四大悲剧”。

　　《仲夏夜之梦》是威廉•莎士比亚创作的一部富有浪漫色彩的喜剧作品。故事发生在古希腊的雅典，年轻的赫米娅与拉山德相爱，可是赫米娅的父亲却希望她嫁给狄米特律斯，为此赫米娅与拉山德逃到城外的一片森林里。此时，为了给雅典公爵提修斯和美丽的希波吕妲的盛大婚礼助兴，一群演员也在森株里排练一出喜剧。仙王还无意中得知海伦娜爱着狄米特律斯，就让浦克将一些花汁滴在狄米特律斯的眼里。这种花汁，拿来滴在他的眼睛里，那么他醒来就会狂热地爱上第1眼看到的人或动物。结果，拉山德醒来看到的是海伦娜，便不停地向她求爱，而把赫米娅忘掉了。仙王发现后。赶忙把花汁滴正在熟睡的狄米特律斯的眼中。狄米特律斯醒来，看到正被拉山德追赶的海伦娜，于是两人争先恐后地向海伦娜求爱。看到这样的情景，海伦娜和赫米娅都很生气。与此同时，仙后也中了计，爱上了一个排戏的演员波顿。*后，仙王给所有人解除了魔法，大家如愿以偿都得到了属于自己的一份爱情。

　　《奥赛罗》是莎士比亚的四大悲剧之一。奥赛罗是威尼斯公国一员勇将。他与元老的女儿苔丝狄梦娜相爱。但由于他是黑人，婚事未被允许。两人只好私下成婚。奥赛罗手下有一个阴险的旗官伊阿古，一心想除掉奥赛罗。他先是向元老告密，不料却促成了两人的婚事。他又挑拨奥赛罗与苔丝狄梦娜的感情，说另一名副将凯西奥与苔丝狄梦娜关系不同寻常，并伪造了所谓定情信物等。奥赛罗信以为真，在愤怒中掐死了自己的妻子。当他得知真相后，悔恨之余拔剑自刎，倒在了苔丝狄梦娜身边。 伊阿古*后阴谋败露，也得到了应有的惩罚。

　　《第十二夜》由英国剧作家威廉•莎士比亚创作，以抒情的笔调、浪漫喜剧的形式，讴歌了人文主义对爱情和友谊的美好理想。戏剧讲述了塞巴斯蒂安和薇奥拉这一对孪生兄妹，在一次海上航行途中不幸遇难后各自侥幸脱险，流落到伊利里亚后发生的一番有趣的波折。*终，薇奥拉与奥西诺、奥丽维娅与西巴斯辛双双结成良缘。

Booth Tarkington was born on July 29, 1869 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is one of only three novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize more than once. When you look through the quality of his work it is easy to understand why. The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams, Penrod, Penrod And Sam - all classics. The Penrod novels depict a typical upper-middle class American boy of 1910 vintage, revealing a fine, bookish sense of American humor. At one time, his Penrod series was as well known andregarded as Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Much of Tarkington's work consists of satirical and closely observed studies of the American class system and its foibles. Coming as he did from a patrician Midwestern family that lost much of its wealth after the Panic of 1873 the foundations for that outlook are clear. Today, he is best known for his novel The Magnificent Ambersons which contrasted the decline of the "e;old money"e; Amberson dynasty with the rise of "e;new money"e; industrial tycoons in the years between the American Civil War and World War I. In this volume you have an opportunity to read one his plays, The Gibson Upright

John Marston was born to John and Maria Marston nee Guarsi, and baptised on October 7th, 1576 at Wardington, Oxfordshire.Marston entered Brasenose College, Oxford in 1592 and earned his BA in 1594. By 1595, he was in London, living in the Middle Temple. His interests were in poetry and play writing, although his father's will of 1599 hopes that he would not further pursue such vanities.His brief career in literature began with the fashionable genres of erotic epyllion and satire; erotic plays for boy actors to be performed before educated young men and members of the inns of court.In 1598, he published 'The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion's Image and Certaine Satyres', a book of poetry. He also published 'The Scourge of Villanie', in 1598. 'Histriomastix' regarded as his first play was produced 1599. It's performance kicked off an episode in literary history known as the War of the Theatres; a literary feud between Marston, Jonson and Dekker that lasted until 1602.However, the playwrights were later reconciled; Marston wrote a prefatory poem for Jonson's 'Sejanus' in 1605 and dedicated 'The Malcontent' to him. Beyond this episode Marston's career continued to gather both strength, assets and followers. In 1603, he became a shareholder in the Children of Blackfriars company. He wrote and produced two plays with the company. The first was 'The Malcontent' in 1603, his most famous play. His second was 'The Dutch Courtesan', a satire on lust and hypocrisy, in 1604-5.In 1605, he worked with George Chapman and Ben Jonson on 'Eastward Ho', a satire of popular taste and the vain imaginings of wealth to be found in the colony of Virginia.Marston took the theatre world by surprise when he gave up writing plays in 1609 at the age of thirty-three. He sold his shares in the company of Blackfriars. His departure from the literary scene may have been because of further offence he gave to the king. The king suspended performances at Blackfriars and had Marston imprisoned.On 24th September 1609 he was made a deacon and them a priest on 24th December 1609. In October 1616, Marston was assigned the living of Christchurch, Hampshire.He died (accounts vary) on either the 24th or 25th June 1634 in London and was buried in the Middle Temple Church.

The partnership between William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan and their canon of Savoy Operas is rightly lauded by all lovers of comic opera the world over. Gilbert's sharp, funny words and Sullivan's deliciously lively and hummable tunes create a world that is distinctly British in view but has the world as its audience. Both men were exceptionally talented and gifted in their own right and wrote much, often with other partners, that still stands the test of time. However, together as a team they created Light or Comic Operas of a standard that have had no rivals equal to their standard, before or since. That's quite an achievement. To be recognised by the critics is one thing but their commercial success was incredible. The profits were astronomical, allowing for the building of their own purpose built theatre - The Savoy Theatre. Beginning with the first of their fourteen collaborations, Thespis in 1871 and travelling through many classics including The Sorcerer (1877), H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The Mikado (1885), The Gondoliers (1889) to their finale in 1896 with The Grand Duke, Gilbert & Sullivan created a legacy that is constantly revived and admired in theatres and other media to this very day.

John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar. Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year. Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event. John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

Thomas Middleton was born in London in April 1580 and baptised on 18th April. Middleton was aged only five when his father died. His mother remarried but this unfortunately fell apart into a fifteen year legal dispute regarding the inheritance due Thomas and his younger sister. By the time he left Oxford, at the turn of the Century, Middleton had and published Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satirese which was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and publicly burned. In the early years of the 17th century, Middleton wrote topical pamphlets. One - Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets was reprinted several times and the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. These early years writing plays continued to attract controversy. His writing partnership with Thomas Dekker brought him into conflict with Ben Jonson and George Chapman in the so-called War of the Theatres. His finest work with Dekker was undoubtedly The Roaring Girl, a biography of the notorious Mary Frith. In the 1610s, Middleton began another playwriting partnership, this time with the actor William Rowley, producing another slew of plays including Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel. The ever adaptable Middleton seemed at ease working with others or by himself. His solo writing credits include the comic masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1613. In 1620 he was officially appointed as chronologer of the City of London, a post he held until his death. The 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy, and continual favourite, The Changeling, and of several other tragicomedies. However in 1624, he reached a peak of notoriety when his dramatic allegory A Game at Chess was staged by the King's Men. Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after only nine performances at the Globe theatre, having received a complaint from the Spanish ambassador. What happened next is a mystery. It is the last play recorded as having being written by Middleton. Thomas Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in the summer of 1627, and was buried on July 4th, in St Mary's churchyard which today survives as a public park in Elephant and Castle.

Philip Massinger was baptized at St. Thomas's in Salisbury on November 24th, 1583.Massinger is described in his matriculation entry at St. Alban Hall, Oxford (1602), as the son of a gentleman. His father, who had also been educated there, was a member of parliament, and attached to the household of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. The Earl was later seen as a potential patron for Massinger.He left Oxford in 1606 without a degree. His father had died in 1603, and accounts suggest that Massinger was left with no financial support this, together with rumours that he had converted to Catholicism, meant the next stage of his career needed to provide an income.Massinger went to London to make his living as a dramatist, but he is only recorded as author some fifteen years later, when The Virgin Martyr (1621) is given as the work of Massinger and Thomas Dekker.During those early years as a playwright he wrote for the Elizabethan stage entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe. It was a difficult existence. Poverty was always close and there was constant pleading for advance payments on forthcoming works merely to survive.After Henslowe died in 1616 Massinger and John Fletcher began to write primarily for the King's Men and Massinger would write regularly for them until his death.The tone of the dedications in later plays suggests evidence of his continued poverty. In the preface of The Maid of Honour (1632) he wrote, addressing Sir Francis Foljambe and Sir Thomas Bland: "e;I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours."e;The prologue to The Guardian (1633) refers to two unsuccessful plays and two years of silence, when the author feared he had lost popular favour although, from the little evidence that survives, it also seems he had involved some of his plays with political characters which would have cast shadows upon England's alliances.Philip Massinger died suddenly at his house near the Globe Theatre on March 17th, 1640. He was buried the next day in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark, on March 18th, 1640. In the entry in the parish register he is described as a "e;stranger,"e; which, however, implies nothing more than that he belonged to another parish.

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in a hotel bedroom in what is now Times Square, New York. Much of his childhood was spent in the comfort of books at boarding schools whilst his actor father was on the road and his Mother contended with her own demons. He spent only a year at University - Princeton - and various reasons have been given for his departure. However whatever his background and education denied or added to his development it is agreed amongst all that he was a playwright of the first rank and possibly America's greatest. His introduction of realism into American drama was instrumental in its development and paved a path for many talents thereafter. Of course his winning of both the Pulitzer Prize (4 times) and the Nobel Prize are indicative of his status. His more famous and later works do side with the disillusionment and personal tragedy of those on the fringes of society but continue to build upon ideas and structures he incorporated in his early one act plays. Eugene O'Neill suffered from various health problems, mainly depression and alcoholism. In the last decade he also faced a Parkinson's like tremor in his hands which made writing increasingly difficult. But out of such difficulties came plays of the calibre of The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Eugene O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "e;I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."e;

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

本书作为我社“*经典英语文库”第14辑中的一种，精选由俄国著名作家伊凡·屠格涅夫的经典作品《父与子》。小说反映了农奴制改革前夕民主主义阵营和自由主义阵营之间的尖锐的思想斗争。主人公巴扎罗夫是一个激的民主主义者，他具有坚强的性格和埋头工作的习惯。在政治上，他反对农奴制度，批判贵族自由主义，否定贵族的生活准则；在哲学上，他是个唯物主义者，重视实践，提倡实用科学。