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Norman Lindsay’s classic tale about an anthropomorphic pudding and its band of protectors was written in 1917, in response to an argument between Lindsay and the critic and anthologist Bertram Stevens about the types of stories that would appeal most to children. In retrospect it appears that Lindsay clearly won the argument. The book has never been out of print in Australia and has been adapted for presentation as a film, a stage play, and an opera. It has been described by eminent children’s author Philip Pullman as "the funniest children's book ever written."

The Raven Edition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) presents his complete literary output in five volumes. In addition to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Poe's longest work, Volume 3 contains six stories, which feature Poe's characteristic interest in death, dissolution, and twisted relationships.

Listeners are invited to sit back and enjoy this collection of classic Yuletide tales....

Between 1895 and 1897 Oscar Wilde served a prison sentence for offences "of gross indecency". Most of this time was spent at Reading Gaol, where Wilde encountered another prisoner, Harles Thomas Wooldridge, sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Wooldrige was hanged at the gaol on 7th July, 1896. Wilde wrote the poem in France in 1897 after his release from prison. The poem is a long reflection on the inequity and ineffectiveness of statutory punishment and the redeeming power of the Christian message of forgiveness.

It is said that there is no-one more zealous in a cause than an adult convert. A notable example of this was Joseph McCabe, whose conversion was not to a religion, but from religious faith to secularism. Ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1890, and later recognized by the Catholic Church as an able scholar and teacher, by 1897 McCabe had completely lost his faith and had left the priesthood. He became a very active secularist, delivering thousands of public lectures and publishing over two hundred books on a wide range of religious, historical and scientific topics.

The Raven Edition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) presents his complete literary output in five volumes. The second volume contains 22 stories, which illustrate the author's fascination with the macabre, the unexpected, and the terrifying.

First published in 1874, "The City of Dreadful Night" is an extended poetic meditation on melancholy, or what is generally termed today as depression. Thomson's "city" is the "città dolente" of Dante, the domain of souls trapped in a round of ceaseless misery. However, the inhabitants of Thomson's world endure a torment more subtle and more devastating than the acute and picturesque tortures of Dante's Inferno - a complete loss of purpose and a relentless draining of energy, a desperate and ever wakeful ennui.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (aka PG Wodehouse) wrote in excess of 90 books, 40 plays, and 200 short stories between 1902 and 1974 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. Right Ho, Jeeves! is his second in a series of books written about a luckless young British millionaire named Bertram Wooster and his sharp valet, Jeeves.

This anthology, first published in 1919, is very much a record of its time. Many of the poems deal with the cataclysmic trauma of World War One and the emergence of a new world order after the fading of the Edwardian era. Among the authors of the 151 poems can be found the names of Rupert Brooke and Ivor Gurney, best known as war poets, as well as James Joyce and the mystic philosopher Evelyn Underhill.

Although Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is best known today as a master of macabre fiction, his writings cover a wide range of other forms, including poetry, drama, criticism, and historical commentary. The Raven Edition presents his complete literary output in five volumes, the first of which contains three tributes to Poe and eight of his stories.

Although the historicity of Sun Tzu is today in dispute, his short treatise on the art of war has remained a pre-eminent classic of military philosophy and practice. In this small audiobook, the author describes in trenchant detail the approach and methods required for success in any combative endeavor. The principles he enunciates have been widely applied not only by leaders in the military but also in business, politics, sports, and education.

Stephen Leacock was a prolific and brilliant writer, whose tongue-in-cheek writings have been amusing Canadian fans for decades. He first published Winsome Winnie in 1920 as part of a compendium of short stories entitled Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels. It relates the trials and tribulations of the recently orphaned and penniless Winnifred Clair.

This treatise on politics was the fruit of Machiavelli's many years of experience as a diplomat and historian and circulated in 1513 but not published until 1532. It was dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici, a member of the ruling dynasty of Florence. In Machiavelli's view the ideal ruler is an effective executive rather than a moral paragon. If one desires power, one must take all the appropriate steps to acquire and maintain it.

John Pollen (1855-1923) was an official in the Indian Civil Service. A keen linguist, he learned Russian, Esperanto, and Persian and in 1915 published an English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His collection contains 158 quatrains and includes a set of seven prefatory quatrains by Andrew Lang and a foreword by the Aga Khan.

Dooman's translation of the Rubaiyat, containing 180 quatrains, was first published in 1911. It has a roughhewn quality, reminiscent of the style of an earlier American translator, John Payne, who published a collection of 845 quatrains in 1898.

Together with the Iliad, the Odyssey, The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost, the Aeneid is one of the true monuments of world literature. Like all these great classics, over the centuries it has become stultified by academic formalism, and its true glory as a narrative of thrilling power and richness has become very much obscured. This new translation seeks to highlight the vigor and immediacy of Virgil's epic while still respecting the grandeur of the original language.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is best known as the cofounder of theosophy, which is essentially a selective conflation of Hindu and Buddhist ideas combined with Blavatsky's idiosyncratic system of cosmology. The Voice of the Silence, first published in 1889, is described by the author as "chosen fragments from the Book of the Golden Precepts, for the daily use of disciples".

In the introduction, anthologist Douglas Sladen stated that the purpose of this collection was "to lay before the English public a selection of poems inspired by life and scenery in Australia". He further comments, "This volume is essentially the work of people who have meditated in the open air and not under the lamp; and if its contents oftentimes want the polish that comes only with much midnight oil, they are mostly a transcript from earth and sea and sky, and not from books."

After many years living abroad with her longtime lover, Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney visits her former marital home, now occupied by her son, Arnold, and his wife, Elizabeth. Also present is her estranged husband, Clive, who lives in a cottage on the estate. Elizabeth has become dissatisfied with the life she leads with her wealthy husband, who is very occupied with his political career, and she encourages the advances of a dashing but impecunious suitor, Teddy Luton.

While debate continues about the historicity of Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, the collection of sayings attributed to him, has remained one of the most influential religious texts of all time. Using simple yet profound language, the author probes the eternal mystery of the Tao, the elusive substrate which underlies all creation.