Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Exemplary Stories (Penguin Classics)

by Miguel de Cervantes

More popular in their day than Don Quxixote, Cervantes's Exemplary Stories (1613) surprise, challenge and delight. Ranging from the picaresque to the satirical, the Exemplary Stories defy the conventions of heroic chivalric literature through a combinaton of comic irony, moral ambiguity, realism, and sheer mirth. This new translation captures the full vigour of Cervantes's wit and makes available two rarely... (more)

Ulverton

by Adam Thorpe

Three hundred years of English history come alive through the lives and fortunes of the inhabitants of Ulverton, a fictional village on England's Wessex Downs. A first novel.

A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven

A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven

by Cynthia B. Herrup

Sex, privilege, corruption, and revenge--these are elements that we expect to find splashed across today's tabloid headlines. But 17th century England saw a sex scandal that brought disgrace to the ruling class and ended with the beheading of an earl. In A House in Gross Disorder, Cynthia Herrup presents a strikingly new interpretation of the case of the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven and of the sexual and social... (more)

Seesaw Girl

by Linda Sue Park

Impatient with the constraints put on her as an aristocratic girl living in 17th-century Korea, 12-year-old Jade Blossom determines to see beyond her small world. Jade Blossom can never go beyond her family's inner court. All girls from good Korean families must learn to sew, do laundry, and work in the kitchen. This prepares them for their future lives in their husbands' inner court. Jade has other interests.... (more)

For Her Love (Zebra Historical Romance)

by Paula Reed

"Life is like that, Grace. Sometimes you sail with nothing to trust but the stars... It all works out if you plot your course carefully." Giles Courtney may be the captain of his own ship, but he’s not yet certain he’s the master of his destiny. His reckless privateering days behind him, Giles is determined to make a respectable name for himself, yet where to begin is the question at hand—especially when he... (more)

Into His Arms (Zebra Debut)

by Paula Reed

Geoffrey Hampton has little faith in his fellow man. The English privateer follows his own fearless code, taking his fortune and his pleasures as he sees fit. And as for the possibility of finding true love, well, it's an illusion...as unlikely as a beautiful woman hiding in his cabin. But Faith Cooper is no illusion; she's a stowaway from Boston Harbor. She's also a delectable flesh-and-blood woman and seems... (more)

I Am Rembrandt's Daughter

by Lynn Cullen

With her mother dead of the plague, and her beloved brother newly married and moved away, Cornelia van Rijn finds herself without a friend or confidante—save her difficult father. Out of favor with Amsterdam’s elite, and considered brash and unreasonable by his patrons, Rembrandt van Rijn, once revered, is now teetering on the brink of madness. Cornelia alone must care for him, though she herself is haunted by... (more)

English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660-1789 (Longman Literature in English)

English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century, 1660-1789 (Longman Literature in English)

by Richard W. Bevis

What were the causes of Restoration drama's licentiousness? How did the elegantly-turned comedy of Congreve become the pointed satire of Fielding? And how did Sheridan and Goldsmith reshape the materials they inherited? In the first account of the entire period for more than a decade, Richard Bevis argues that none of these questions can be answered without an understanding of Augustan and Georgian history. The... (more)

Les Precieuses Ridicules

by Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, dit Molière, (1622-1673) est un dramaturge et acteur de théâtre français. Considéré comme l'âme de la Comédie-Française, il en est toujours l'auteur le plus joué. Impitoyable pour le pédantisme des faux savants, le mensonge des médecins ignorants, la prétention des bourgeois enrichis, Molière aime la jeunesse qu'il veut libérer des contraintes absurdes. Très loin des rigueurs de la dévotion... (more)

Plymouth Colony, its history & people, 1620-1691

Plymouth Colony, its history & people, 1620-1691

by Eugene Aubrey Stratton

The first complete history and genealogy of Plymouth Colony ever published, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People includes a concise chronological and topical history of this famous pilgrim colony! This pioneering work offers and excellent combination of genealogy and history, including topics on politics, law, and morality in Plymouth Colony; a chronological history; biographical sketches; and... (more)

The Adventures of Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes

The Adventures of Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes

Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion

by Jack Zipes, Jack David Zipes

The fairy tale may be one of the most important cultural and social influences on children's lives. But until Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion little attention had been paid to the ways in which the writers and collectors of tales used traditional forms and genres in order to shape children's lives -- their behavior, values, and relationship to society. As Jack Zipes convincingly shows, fairy tales have... (more)

Pirate Latitudes: A Novel

by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton, who died in Los Angeles on November 4, 2008, was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006. Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for... (more)

The Courtier's Secret

by Donna Russo Morin

France, 1680. Louis XIV, the Sun King, is at the height of his power. The court at Versailles is a paradise for privileged young women. Jeanne Yvette Mas Du Bois is unlike most other courtiers. Her thirst for knowledge often incurs her father's brutal wrath. But her uncle encourages Jeanne's independence, secretly teaching her fencing in the palace's labyrinthine basement. . . When two of the king's Musketeers... (more)

Discourse on Method

by Rene Descartes

This new edition contains Donald Cress's completely revised translation of the Meditations (from the corrected Latin edition) and recent corrections to Discourse on Method, bringing this version even closer to Descartes's original, while maintaining the clear and accessible style of a classic teaching edition.

The Verneys

by Adrian Tinniswood

The remarkable story of one English family during the tumultuous seventeenth century, as revealed through their original letters and documents, which paint an extraordinarily accurate and detailed picture of life in England, Europe, and even the American colonies. "To know the Verneys is to know the seventeenth century," Adrian Tinniswood writes in this brilliant new book. The Verney family's centuries-long... (more)

A Mercy

by Toni Morrison

A powerful tragedy distilled into a jewel of a masterpiece by the Nobel Prize–winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root. ... (more)

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason

by Russell Shorto

On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, the Frenchman René Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was buried after a cold and lonely death far from home. Sixteen years later, the French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes' bones and transported them to France. Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains of a philosopher who... (more)

The Pilgrim's Progress (Ambassador Classics)

The Pilgrim's Progress (Ambassador Classics)

by John Bunyan

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Browse Subjects: 17th century

Top Books

by Miguel de Cervantes

by Adam Thorpe

by Cynthia B. Herrup

by Linda Sue Park

by Paula Reed

by Paula Reed

by Lynn Cullen

by Richard W. Bevis

by Molière

by Eugene Aubrey Stratton

by Miguel de Cervantes

by Jack Zipes, Jack David Zipes

by Michael Crichton

by Donna Russo Morin

by Rene Descartes

by Adrian Tinniswood

by Toni Morrison

by Russell Shorto

by John Bunyan

by Racine