New Release Books by Andrew Lang

Reproduction of the original.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]" by Andrew Lang. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

"Oxford" by Andrew Lang is a compilation of notes on the history of the famed English city. Known for its university, one of the oldest in the world, the book shows that there is so much more to this fascinating place. Lang writes in a way that is both informative and easy-to-understand, a refreshing change from other, drier texts.

It's that time of the year again when families get together to celebrate, laugh, enjoy, and bond over yummy food! So, come along with us and relish the magic of these Thanksgiving classics for a wholesome holiday mood:_x000D_ An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving (Louisa May Alcott)_x000D_ Aunt Susanna's Thanksgiving Dinner (Lucy Maud Montgomery)_x000D_ The Genesis of the Doughnut Club (Lucy Maud Montgomery)_x000D_ An English Dinner of Thanksgiving (George Eliot)_x000D_ The Night before Thanksgiving (Sarah Orne Jewett)_x000D_ A Mystery in the Kitchen (Olive Thorne Miller)_x000D_ Millionaire Mike's Thanksgiving (Eleanor H. Porter)_x000D_ Ezra's Thanksgivin' Out West (Eugene Field)_x000D_ John Inglefield's Thanksgiving (Nathaniel Hawthorne)_x000D_ Helen's Thanksgiving (Susan Coolidge)_x000D_ Thanksgiving at the Polls (Edward Everett Hale)_x000D_ The Thanksgiving of the Wazir (Andrew Lang)_x000D_ The Master of the Harvest (Mrs. Alfred Gatty)_x000D_ How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown (Harriet Beecher Stowe)_x000D_ A Turkey for the Stuffing (Katherine Grace Hulbert)_x000D_ Mrs. November's Party (Agnes Carr)_x000D_ The Debut of Dan'l Webster (Isabel Gordon Curtis)_x000D_ The Two Alms, or the Thanksgiving Day Gift (Eleanor L. Skinner)_x000D_ The Kingdom of the Greedy (P. J. Stahl)_x000D_ Thankful (Mary E. Wilkins Freeman)_x000D_ Thanksgiving at Todd's Asylum (Winthrop Packard)_x000D_ Wishbone Valley (R. K. Munkittrick)_x000D_ Patem's Salmagundi (E. S. Brooks)_x000D_ Miss November's Dinner Party (Agnes Carr)_x000D_ The Visit (Maud Lindsay)_x000D_ The Story of Ruth and Naomi (Bible)_x000D_ Bert's Thanksgiving (J. T. Trowbridge)_x000D_ A Thanksgiving Story (Miss L. B. Pingree)_x000D_ How Obadiah Brought About a Thanksgiving (Emily Hewitt Leland)_x000D_ The White Turkey's Wing (Sophie Swett)_x000D_ The Thanksgiving Goose (Fannie Wilder Brown)_x000D_ A Novel Postman (Alice Wheildon)_x000D_ Chip's Thanksgiving (Annie Hamilton Donnell)_x000D_ A Thanksgiving Dinner (Edna Payson Brett)_x000D_ Two Old Boys (Pauline Shackleford Colyar)_x000D_ A Thanksgiving Dinner That Flew Away (Hezekiah Butterworth)_x000D_ Mon-daw-min (H. R. Schoolcraft)_x000D_ Who Ate the Dolly's Dinner? (Isabel Gordon Curtis)_x000D_ An Old-fashioned Thanksgiving (Rose Terry Cooke)

The Arabian Nights Andrew Lang - One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of stories collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars in various countries across the Middle East and South Asia. These collections of tales trace their roots back to ancient Arabia and Yemen, ancient Indian literature and Persian literature, ancient Egyptian literature and Mesopotamian mythology, ancient Syria and Asia Minor, and medieval Arabic folk stories from the Caliphate era. Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the fourteenth century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to somewhere between AD 800900.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"Some of the first, and best, stories we ever hear in our lives."—Washington Post The Animal Story Book, part of Andrew Lang’s original Fairy Book series, has been admired time and time again, enchanting readers with its carefully crafted prose and eclectic assortment of tales, featuring animals from land, sea, and air, from the domesticated dog and parrot to the wild lion and dolphin. Originally published in 1896, this collection of celebrated tales has stood the test of time. Some of the famous stories included are: The Story of Androcles and the Lion The War Horse of Alexander The Adventures of Pyramus Two Highland Dogs The Ship of the Desert The Otter Who was Reared by a Cat Stories from Pliny And more! This beautiful edition comes complete with the original illustrations by Golden Age Illustrator Henry J. Ford, and is the perfect gift to pass on these timeless classics to the next generation of readers and dreamers. The imaginations of children throughout time have been formed and nurtured by stories passed down from generation to generation. Of the countless genres of stories, fairy tales often conjure the most vivid fantastical worlds and ideas, which cultivate creativity and bring elements of magic back into the real world. The Fairy Books, and its subsequent collections, compiled by famous Scottish novelist and poet Andrew Lang, are widely considered among some of the best collections ever compiled.

"The Fairy Books, also known as ""Coloured"" Fairy Books, are a collection of twelve books of fairy tales, each associated with a different color. Andrew Land gathered them from various countries and translated them by Lang's wife and other translators. They also retold many of the stories. The collection has been enormously influential. While he did not collect the stories directly from oral tradition, he can lay claim to the first English translation of many of them. It was first published in 1904.Andrew Lang was a Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic who lived from 1844 to 1912. Although he did not collect the stories from oral tradition himself, the breadth of his sources, who had originally collected them (with the notable exception of Madame d'Aulnoy), made the collections enormously influential. Many of the stories were first told in English by Lang. Although Lang made the majority of the selections, his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and retelling of the actual stories, as stated in the prefaces.This book includes an author biography as well as a table of contents that is linked to each chapter (Kindle edition). We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high-quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork."

A story in rhyme of the fortunes of Helen, who, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, wife of king Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor, Polydeuces and Clytemnestra. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War. Helen was described as having the face that launched a thousand ships. Helen or Helene is probably derived from the Greek word meaning "torch" or "corposant" or might be related to "selene" meaning "moon".

"Andrew Lang's Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's ""Coloured"" Fairy Books constitute a twelve-book series of fairy tale collections. Although Andrew Lang did not collect the stories himself from the oral tradition, the extent of his sources, who had collected them originally (with the notable exception of Madame d'Aulnoy), made them an immensely influential collection, especially as he used foreign-language sources, giving many of these tales their first appearance in English. As acknowledged in the prefaces, although Lang himself made most of the selections, his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and telling of the actual stories.The Blue Fairy Book assembled a wide range of tales, with seven from the Brothers Grimm, five from Madame d'Aulnoy, three from the Arabian Nights, and four Norse stories, among other sources."

"Andrew Lang's Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's ""Coloured"" Fairy Books constitute a twelve-book series of fairy tale collections. Although Andrew Lang did not collect the stories himself from the oral tradition, the extent of his sources, who had collected them originally (with the notable exception of Madame d'Aulnoy), made them an immensely influential collection, especially as he used foreign-language sources, giving many of these tales their first appearance in English. As acknowledged in the prefaces, although Lang himself made most of the selections, his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and telling of the actual stories.The Red Fairy Book is the second in the series."

Prince Prigio is a literary and comic fairy tale written by Andrew Lang in 1889, and illustrated by Gordon Browne. It draws in Langs folklorist background for many tropes. A sequel was published in 1893, Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia: Being the Adventures of Prince Prigios Son. The two were issued in one 1895 volume as My Own Fairy Book: Namely, Certain Chronicles of Pantouflia, As Notably the Adventures of Prigio, Prince of That Country, and of His Son, Ricardo, with an Excerpt from the Annals of Scotland, As Touching Ker of Fairnilee, His Sojourn with the Queen of Faery. All three books were published by J. W. Arrowsmith of Bristol. My Own Fairy Book appeared during the run of "Coloured Fairy Books" edited by Lang and published in London and New York by Longmans, Green, and Co. from 1890: The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, and so on. Longmans was also the US publisher of the Pantouflia books. The two stories were also published together as The Chronicles of Pantouflia by Little, Brown and Company in 1942, with illustrations by Robert Lawson, and by David R. Godine in 1981.

The best time for book-hunting in Paris is the early morning. "The take," as anglers say, is "on" from half-past seven to half-past nine a.m. At these hours the vendors exhibit their fresh wares, and the agents of the more wealthy booksellers come and pick up everything worth having. These agents quite spoil the sport of the amateur. They keep a strict watch on every country dealer's catalogue, snap up all he has worth selling, and sell it over again, charging pounds in place of shillings. But M. de Resbecq vows that he once picked up a copy of the first edition of La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims" out of a box which two booksellers had just searched. The same collector got together very promptly all the original editions of La Bruyere, and he even found a copy of the Elzevir "Pastissier Francais," at the humble price of six sous. Now the " Pastissier Francais," an ill-printed little cookery-book of the Elzevirs, has lately fetched 600 pounds at a sale. The Antiquary's story of Snuffy Davy and the "Game of Chess," is dwarfed by the luck of M. de Resbecq. Not one amateur in a thousand can expect such good fortune. There is, however, a recent instance of a Rugby boy, who picked up, on a stall, a few fluttering leaves hanging together on a flimsy thread. The old woman who kept the stall could hardly be induced to accept the large sum of a shilling for an original quarto of Shakespeare's "King John." These stories are told that none may despair. That none may be over confident, an author may recount his own experience. The only odd trouvaille that ever fell to me was a clean copy of "La Journee Chretienne," with the name of Leon Gambetta, 1844, on its catholic fly-leaf. Rare books grow rarer every day, and often 'tis only Hope that remains at the bottom of the fourpenny boxes. Yet the Paris book-hunters cleave to the game.

A retelling of the exploits of King Arthur and his knights at the court of Camelot and elsewhere in the land of the Britons.

'Life is not all beer and skittles,' said a reflective sportsman, and all books are not fairy tales. In an imperfect state of existence, 'the peety of it is that we cannot have all things as we would like them.' Undeniably we would like all books to be fairy tales or novels, and at present most of them are. But there is another side to things, and we must face it. '"Life is real, life is earnest," as Tennyson tells us,' said an orator to whom I listened lately, and though Longfellow, not Tennyson, wrote the famous line quoted by the earnest speaker, yet there is a good deal of truth in it. The word 'earnest,' like many other good words, has been overdone. It is common to sneer at 'earnest workers,' yet where would we be without them, especially in our climate? In a Polynesian island, where the skies for ever smile, and the blacks for ever dance, earnestness is superfluous. The bread-fruit tree delivers its rolls punctually every morning, strawberries or other fruits, as nice, spring beneath the feet of the dancers; the cavern in the forest provides a roof and shelter from the sun; the sea supplies a swimming-bath, and man, in time of peace, has only to enjoy himself, eat and drink, laugh and love, sing songs and tell fairy tales. His drapery is woven of fragrant flowers, nobody is poor and anxious about food, nobody is rich and afraid of losing his money, nobody needs to think of helping others; he has only to put forth his hand, or draw his bow or swing his fishing-rod, and help himself. To be sure, in time of war, man has just got to be earnest, and think out plans for catching and spearing his enemies, and drill his troops and improve his weapons, in fact to do some work, or have his throat cut, and be put in the oven and eaten. Thus it is really hard for the most fortunate people to avoid being earnest now and then. The people whose stories are told in this book were very different from each other in many ways. The child abbess, M�re AngŽlique, ruling her convent, and at war with naughty abbesses who hated being earnest, does not at once remind us of Hannibal. The great Montrose, with his poems and his scented love-locks, his devotion to his cause, his chivalry, his death, to which he went gaily clad like a bridegroom to meet his bride, does not seem a companion for Palissy the Potter, all black and shrunk and wrinkled, and bowed over his furnaces. It is a long way from gentle Miss Nightingale, tending wounded dogs when a child, and wounded soldiers when a woman, to Charles Gordon playing wild tricks at school, leading a Chinese army, watching alone at Khartoum, in a circle of cruel foes, for the sight of the British colours, and the sounds of the bagpipes that never met his eyes and ears.

'Many a man,' says De Quincey, 'can trace his ruin to a murder, of which, perhaps, he thought little enough at the time.' This remark applies with peculiar force to Philip II. of Spain, to his secretary, Antonio Perez, to the steward of Perez, to his page, and to a number of professional ruffians. All of these, from the King to his own scullion, were concerned in the slaying of Juan de Escovedo, secretary of Philip's famous natural brother, Don John of Austria. All of them, in different degrees, had bitter reason to regret a deed which, at the moment, seemed a commonplace political incident. The puzzle in the case of Escovedo does not concern the manner of his taking off, or the identity of his murderers. These things are perfectly well known; the names of the guilty, from the King to the bravo, are ascertained. The mystery clouds the motives for the deed. Why was Escovedo done to death? Did the King have him assassinated for purely political reasons, really inadequate, but magnified by the suspicious royal fancy? Or were the secretary of Philip II. and the monarch of Spain rivals in the affections of a one-eyed widow of rank? and did the secretary, Perez, induce Philip to give orders for Escovedo's death, because Escovedo threatened to reveal to the King their guilty intrigue? Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and Monsieur Mignet accepted, with shades of difference, this explanation. Mr. Froude, on the other hand, held that Philip acted for political reasons, and with the full approval of his very ill-informed conscience. There was no lady as a motive in the case, in Mr. Froude's opinion. A third solution is possible: Philip, perhaps, wished to murder Escovedo for political reasons, and without reference to the tender passion; but Philip was slow and irresolute, while Perez, who dreaded Escovedo's interference with his love affair, urged his royal master on to the crime which he was shirking. We may never know the exact truth, but at least we can study a state of morals and manners at Madrid, compared with which the blundering tragedies of Holyrood, in Queen Mary's time, seem mere child's play. The 'lambs' of Bothwell are lambs playful and gentle when set beside the instruments of Philip II.

Thirty years have passed, like a watch in the night, since the earlier of the two sets of verses here reprinted, Ballades in Blue China, was published. At first there were but twenty-two Ballades; ten more were added later. They appeared in a little white vellum wrapper, with a little blue Chinese singer copied from a porcelain jar; and the frontispiece was a little design by an etcher now famous. Thirty years ago blue china was a kind of fetish in some circles, aesthetic circles, of which the balladist was not a member. The ballade was an old French form of verse, in France revived by Theodore de Banville, and restored to an England which had long forgotten the Middle Ages, by my friends Mr. Austin Dobson and Mr. Edmund Gosse. They, so far as I can trust my memory, were the first to reintroduce these pleasant old French nugae, while an anonymous author let loose upon the town a whole winged flock of ballades of amazing dexterity. This unknown balladist was Mr. Henley; perhaps he was the first Englishman who ever burst into a double ballade, and his translations of two of Villon's ballades into modern thieves' slang were marvels of dexterity. Mr. Swinburne wrote a serious ballade, but the form, I venture to think, is not 'wholly serious,' of its nature, in modern days; and he did not persevere. Nor did the taste for these trifles long endure. A good ballade is almost as rare as a good sonnet, but a middling ballade is almost as easily written as the majority of sonnets. Either form readily becomes mechanical, cheap and facile. I have heard Mr. George Meredith improvise a sonnet, a Petrarchian sonnet, obedient to the rules, without pen and paper. He spoke 'and the numbers came'; he sonneted as easily as a living poet, in his Eton days, improvised Latin elegiacs and Greek hexameters.

Many of the verses and translations in this volume were published first in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Though very sensible that they have the demerits of imitative and even of undergraduate rhyme, I print them again because people I like have liked them. The rest are of different dates, and lack (though doubtless they need) the excuse of having been written, like some of the earlier pieces, during College Lectures. I would gladly have added to this volume what other more or less serious rhymes I have written, but circumstances over which I have no control have bound them up with Ballades, and other toys of that sort. It may be as well to repeat in prose, what has already been said in verse, that Grass of Parnassus, the pretty Autumn flower, grows in the marshes at the foot of the MusesÕ Hill, and other hills, not at the top by any means.

A ruler said to be the model of goodness over evil and a formidable comrade in the ever-present struggle between right and wrong, the figure of King Arthur of England prevails at the heart of the Arthurian legends. The myths surrounding his reign have been recounted in endless tales. This collection includes thirteen of the best-loved legends of the man and his Knights of the Round Table.Bewitching stories, related by one of the world's great storytellers, tell of how the young Arthur pulled a sword from a stone to become king; his meeting with the Lady of the Lake and acquisition of the mighty sword Excalibur; gatherings at the Round table; the death of Merlin; how the mysterious sorceress Morgan Le Fay attempted to kill Arthur; the quest for the Holy Grail; the romance of Lancelot and Guenevere, Arthur's wife; the passing of King Arthur, and more.Magnificent engravings appear throughout the text, further enhancing this splendid introduction to Camelot and its enchanting lore.

Long ago, in a little island called Ithaca, on the west coast of Greece, there lived a king named Laertes. His kingdom was small and mountainous. People used to say that Ithaca Òlay like a shield upon the sea,Ó which sounds as if it were a flat country. But in those times shields were very large, and rose at the middle into two peaks with a hollow between them, so that Ithaca, seen far off in the sea, with her two chief mountain peaks, and a cloven valley between them, looked exactly like a shield. The country was so rough that men kept no horses, for, at that time, people drove, standing up in little light chariots with two horses; they never rode, and there was no cavalry in battle: men fought from chariots. When Ulysses, the son of Laertes, King of Ithaca grew up, he never fought from a chariot, for he had none, but always on foot. If there were no horses in Ithaca, there was plenty of cattle. The father of Ulysses had flocks of sheep, and herds of swine, and wild goats, deer, and hares lived in the hills and in the plains. The sea was full of fish of many sorts, which men caught with nets, and with rod and line and hook. Thus Ithaca was a good island to live in. The summer was long, and there was hardly any winter; only a few cold weeks, and then the swallows came back, and the plains were like a garden, all covered with wild flowersÑviolets, lilies, narcissus, and roses. With the blue sky and the blue sea, the island was beautiful. White temples stood on the shores; and the Nymphs, a sort of fairies, had their little shrines built of stone, with wild rose-bushes hanging over them.

So for lang years three did they sweep the sea, but a closer watch was set, Till nae food had they, but twa ounce a day o’ meal was the maist they’d get. And men fight but tame on an empty wame, so they sent a flag o’ truce, And blithe were the Privy Council then, when the Whigs had heard that news. Twa Lords they sent wi’ a strang intent to be dour on each Cavalier, But wi’ French cakes fine, and his last drap o’ wine, did Middleton make them cheer, On the muzzles o’ guns he put coats and caps, and he set them aboot the wa’s, And the Whigs thocht then he had food and men to stand for the Rightfu’ Cause. So he got a’ he craved, and his men were saved, and nane might say them nay, Wi’ sword by side, and flag o’ pride, free men might they gang their way, They might fare to France, they might bide at hame, and the better their grace to buy, Wullie Wanbeard’s purse maun pay the keep o’ the men that did him defy!

Reproduction of the original: History of English Literature by Andrew Lang

Reproduction of the original: The Secret of the Totem by Andrew Lang

Reproduction of the original: Magic and Religion by Andrew Lang

Reproduction of the original: The Princess Nobody by Andrew Lang

A pioneering anthropologist and folklorist presents scores of lively and reputedly true ghost stories from around the world, featuring the naked ghost, the rattlesnake ghost, the dancing devil, other apparitions.

"It is almost impossible to envision what childhood would be like without the enchanting world of fairyland. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, giants and dwarfs, monsters and magicians, fairies and ogres - these are the companions who will thrill young boys and girls of all lands and all times, as Andrew Lang's phenomenally successful collections of stories have proved. From the day that they were first printed, the Lang fairy tale books of many colors have entertained thousands of boys and girls, as they have also brought pleasure to the many parents who have read these unforgettable classics to their children.The Blue Fairy Book was the first volume in the series and so it contains some of the best known tales, taken from a variety of sources: not only from Grimm, but exciting adventures by Charles Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy, The Arabian Nights, and other stories from popular traditions. Here in one attractive paperbound volume - with enlarged print - are ""Sleeping Beauty,"" ""Rumpelstiltskin,"" ""Beauty and the Beast,"" ""Hansel and Gretel,"" ""Puss in Boots,"" ""Trusty John,"" ""Jack the Giantkiller,"" ""Goldilocks,"" and many other favorites that have become an indispensable part of our cultural heritage.All in all, this collection contains 37 stories, all narrated in the clear, lively prose for which Lang was famous. Not only are Lang's generally conceded to be the best English versions of standard stories, his collections are the richest and widest in range. His position as one of England's foremost folklorists as well as his first-rate literary abilities makes his collections unmatchable in the English language. "

The Langs' Fairy Books are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections of fairy tales also known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. In all, the volumes feature 798 stories, besides the 153 poems in The Blue Poetry Book.

The Olive Fairy Book zo ul levr kontadennoù saoznek gant Andrew Lang e 1907, er rummad The Lang's Fairy Books. Dibabet eo ar c'hontadennoù e lennegezh-pobl meur a vro (Turki, India, Island, Danmark, Armenia, hag ivez e skridoù ar skrivagner gall Anatole France.