Every work,
annotated.
You get the whole passage, in its own words, plus a note in the margin that explains what it's doing. Nothing is abridged.
See which of these became films →The Tyger
William Blake · 1794
Six burning questions about who could possibly build something so fierce.
To be, or not to be
William Shakespeare · Hamlet · 1601
The most famous think-out-loud in the language, plainly translated.
Doctor Faustus — The Bargain
Christopher Marlowe · c. 1592
The bargain with the devil that English drama never got over.
An Essay on Man
Alexander Pope · 1733
Eighteenth-century philosophy in couplets that close like lids.
The Waste Land — Opening
T. S. Eliot · 1922
The poem that broke English verse open, starting with a contradiction.
Death, be not proud
John Donne · 1633
A sonnet that argues with death and wins on a technicality.
Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold · 1867
A honeymoon poem that ends on a battlefield.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot · 1915
A middle-aged man rehearsing a question he will never ask.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880
Three brothers, one murdered father, and the question of whether anything is permitted.
Young Goodman Brown
Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1835
A man walks into the woods and sees everyone he trusts.