Bücher veröffentlicht von Cosimo Classics

Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly, his masterpiece of ironic literature, in less than a week while en route to England from Italy to visit his good friend Thomas More. He wrote it merely to amuse himself and he was astonished at its immediate and wide popularity. But his satire of the clergy, the upper classes, and general pretentiousness, narrated by the goddess Folly, daughter of Youth and Wealth, struck a chord and is considered by some historians to be one of the catalysts of the Protestant Reformation. This might have disappointed Erasmus who, though critical of the Church, never intended to encourage a split and remained a faithful adherent until his death. Still read regularly in college English courses, Erasmus's timeless classic remains as relevant today as it was when first written nearly five hundred years ago.Dutch humanist, scholar, and theologian DESIDERIUS ERASMUS (1466?-1536) is perhaps best remembered for In Praise of Folly. His other works include Handbook of a Christian Knight (1503), Instituto principis Christiani (1516), and Colloquia familiaria (1518).

Titled De rerum natura in Latin, On the Nature of Things, written by Titus Lucretius Carus and translated by John Selby Watson, is an epic poem and philosophical essay in one. Written with the intent of explaining Epicurean philosophy to the Romans, the original poem was divided into six books and written in dactylic hexameter. The overarching principle in the book explains the human role in a universe ruled by chance. Notable is the absence of the gods the Romans depended upon; though LUCRETIUS invokes the goddess Venus in the poem's opening lines, he uses her merely as an allegory for sexual and reproductive power. Other themes throughout the poem include the nature of the soul and mind, why we sense and feel and think, principles of the void and atomism, the creation and evolution of the world, and celestial and terrestrial phenomena (and their differences). It tries to explain human life and purpose in a nutshell, or the nature of the Universe--a way for people to cope and understand in a confused and terrifying world.TITUS LUCRETIUS CARUS (c. 99 BC - 55 BC) was a Roman philosopher and poet. Very little is known about his life, and his only known work is the epic poem on Epicurean philosophy, On the Nature of Things. He dedicated the work to the famous Roman orator and poet Gaius Memmius, who may have been a friend, and it is thought that he may have died before he finished editing the poem, as it ends rather abruptly. The book's translator, JOHN SELBY WATSON (1804-1884), was a British translator and writer, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering his wife in 1872.

She wrote some of the most beloved stories of all time-Little Women and Little Men-and some sensationalistic (but lesser known) potboilers that still thrill: A Long Fatal Love Chase, Pauline's Passion and Punishment, and others. Novelist Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is an American treasure, one of the best known novelists of the 19th century and an essential figure in the literature and the social movements (early feminism; abolition) of her day.This early biography, by American writer EDNAH DOW LITTLEHALE CHENEY (1824-1904) and first published in 1888, explores and gives context to Alcott's works through the prism of her life and her experiences. From her poverty-stricken childhood in Concord, Massachusetts to her time as a nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War to her travels in Europe, this is an intimate look at Alcott's life, told in part through her own words. As a contemporary of Alcott, Cheney brings a perspective that no future biography could add, making this an endlessly valuable addition to our understanding of an important writer.

Originally published between 1909 and 1917 under the name "Harvard Classics," this stupendous 51-volume set-a collection of the greatest writings from literature, philosophy, history, and mythology-was assembled by American academic CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT (1834-1926), Harvard University's longest-serving president. Also known as "Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," it represented Eliot's belief that a basic liberal education could be gleaned by reading from an anthology of works that could fit on five feet of bookshelf.Volume LI, the final volume, features 60 fascinating lectures on the wide range of knowledge the series covers-history, poetry, natural science, philosophy, biography, prose fiction, criticism and the essay, education, political science, drama, voyages and travel, and religion-that put this extraordinary survey of human knowledge in context. They are the collective capstone on a bookshelf reading course unparalleled in comprehensiveness and authority.