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The Cherry Orchard (1903) is the final play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It is considered as one of four outstanding plays by Chekhov, along with The Seagull, Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya. The narrative recounts an aristocratic landowner who returns to her family estate just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. It dramatizes the socio-economic developments in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom and the waning power of the aristocracy.

The deaconess Olympias, to whom 17 of Chrysostom's extant letters are addressed, was born about 368 to a pagan family of high rank. After the death of her father Seleucus, she was brought up under the guardianship of her uncle Procopius who was a devout Christian.

The Emperor Jones by Eugene O’Neill is a play in eight scenes, published in 1921. It chronicles the fall of Brutus Jones, who has escaped from prison and exchanged the US for an unnamed Caribbean island. With the aid of Henry Smithers, a Cockney adventurer, Jones persuades the illiterate, uneducated and superstitious islanders that he’s a powerful magician, whereupon they crown him emperor. As his secret foreign bank account grows, Jones abuses and exploits his subjects.

The Romans hated Pompey’s greedy father, Strabo, with a vengeance. Yet when Pompey rose in prominence, Plutarch notes that he developed the opposite character, and the Romans loved him for it. Pompey had many great accomplishments in his military and political life, but his legacy lies in forming the First Triumvirate with Crassus and Caesar. When the alliance eventually dissolved, and Pompey fled from Caesar to his death, the Roman world would never be the same.

This letter of St. John Chrysostom to the Bishop of Rome, deals with Theophilus, the leader of the Church in Alexandria. Theophilus had been commanded to go to Constantinople, to answer to the Emperor for accusations against him. He arrived bringing with him a multitude of Egyptian Bishops, showing from the outset that he came for war and antagonism, argues Chrysostom.

John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, wrote this homily against prevalent heresies of his time. Marcionism was an early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope around the year 144, while Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a spiritual world of light and a material world of darkness.

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus is a hotly debated Roman politician and statesman. His controversial warfare tactics, as described by Plutarch, are among the many influences for worldwide guerrilla warfare that can be seen today. From his brutal army tactics to his dictatorship to his ultimate demise, Fabius Maximus led a politically full and interesting life.

The Shield of Heracles is an archaic Greek epic poem which was attributed to Hesiod in antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition of Hercules and his nephew Iolaus against Cycnus, who challenged Heracles to combat as they were passing through Thessaly on their way to the city of Trachis.

Feudalism denotes the relationships which existed in the Middle Ages - especially from the ninth and 10th to the 12th and 13th centuries - between the members of the fighting and landowning class. In a broader sense, it also covers the life of the subjugated peasantry upon the land dominated by the warriors and all the other economic, social, political, and intellectual results of feudalism. Local officials and great landholders became a law unto themselves, and the former tried to hand on their political power to their sons as the latter did their lands.

Through a series of calculated moves that involve death and a large inheritance, a small community is rocked and shrouded in mystery at the hands of the conniving Sir Percival Glyde, who is interested only in making himself wealthy at the hands of others.... Celebrated as one of the first popular mystery novels, The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, skillfully incorporates the twisting and turning of more than a few plot lines that all manage to converge beautifully at the end of the work.

Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder was published in 1892 and performed the next year. The architect and builder Halvard Solness receives a visit from the young Hilda, who persuades him to employ her in the household. When Hilda learns of the completion of Halvard’s project - a tall building with a towering steeple - she makes a point of persuading him to climb the steeple at the public opening ceremony. Halvard of course, suffers from acrophobia, a morbid fear of extreme heights....

Nathan the Wise, a play published by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in 1779, is a fervent plea for religious tolerance. It was first performed in 1783 at the Döbbelinsches Theatre in Berlin. The narrative is set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade and describes how the wise Jewish merchant Nathan, the enlightened sultan Saladin, and a Templar Knight bridge the differences between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Its major themes are friendship, tolerance, the relativism of God, a rejection of miracles and a need for communication.

First published in 1918, My Antonia is the final book of Willa Cather’s "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark. This is a coming-of-age story about the orphaned boy Jim Burden growing up on his grandparents' farm in Nebraska and his lifelong friendship with Ántonia Shimerda, the eldest daughter of an immigrant family from Bohemia.

Emmeline Pankhurst was to women’s suffrage in England what Susan B. Anthony was for the same cause in America. She gave this memorable speech while campaigning in the US. In it, she explains the root trouble women face when campaigning for their rights: “We women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact - a very simple fact - that women are human beings.” Though she faced harsh criticism for her “militant” means of advocacy, she never backed down, and as a result, gained suffrage in her lifetime.

In The Life of Cicero, Plutarch details the priceless contributions Cicero made to Roman society. He translated the works of Greek philosophers into Latin, gained acclaim as an orator and lawyer, and was elected to office. Politics ultimately got the better of him, however, and his life ended in assassination while in exile. Cicero’s ideas live on through his body of work, but to learn about the man himself, Plutarch’s biography is an excellent starting point.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a famous French poet. His most celebrated work is The Flowers of Evil, a collection of lyrical poetry.

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book VI is devoted to the Cynics, like Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, Monimus, Onesicritus, Crates of Thebes, Metrocles, and Hipparchia of Maroneia.

The story of Romulus is perhaps the most noteworthy entry in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. According to legend, Romulus and his brother Remus founded Rome after being raised by a “she-wolf”, though Plutarch notes that this word was also used to describe sexually immoral women. “The Life of Romulus” shows how it is impossible to separate the man from the myth. For this reason, Plutarch’s portrait of Romulus argues that legends often have as great an influence on culture as the truth.

Pausanias is one of the most interestingly complicated figures in Greek history. A Spartan hero, he was also a Spartan villain; even his own contemporaries did not know what to make of him. Explore his life with Cornelius Nepos and come to your own conclusion - was Pausanias great or terrible?

"German Kingdoms in the West" is part of Lynn Thorndike’s History of Medieval Europe. The section discusses the kingdoms that arose in Western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The kingdoms were those of the Franks, Burgundians, the Visigoths in the Iberian peninsula, the Vandals in Africa and Sicily, and the Lombards in Italy.