Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language are too limited. "The 30-Minute Shakespeare" is a new series of abridgements that tell the "story" of each play from start to finish while keeping the beauty of Shakespeare's language intact. Specific stage directions...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

Rumored to be haunted, the Palais Garnier opera house in nineteenth-century Paris is the setting for this story of a dangerous love triangle involving a young Swedish soprano, her mysterious Phantom tutor, and her childhood friend. When Carlotta, the lead soprano, takes ill and Christine Daa'̌s understudy performance is a rousing success, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny falls in love with Christine. Meanwhile, her tutor, the Angel of Music, whom she believes...

"Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold." Its influence is enormous on popular perceptions of pirates, including such elements as treasure maps marked with an “X,” schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen bearing parrots on their shoulders. Treasure Island was originally considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere,...

Professor Arronax and his two companions, trapped aboard a fantastic submarine as prisoners of the deranged Captain Nemo, come face to face with exotic ocean creatures and strange sights hidden from the world above.

"Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching, mean, old miser. He treats his family and employee poorly, and, in turn, is not a well-liked man. He especially does not like Christmas! But, one fateful Christmas Eve, he is visited by three ghosts that change his life forever!" -- Page [4] of cover.

The story of the gypsy Esmeralda, her lover Phoebus, her nemesis Claude Frollo, and her faithful protector - the hunchback, Quasimodo.

Showcases the work and achievements of 12 of the world's most influential authors. Each spread contains fascinating facts about each author and how their accomplishments helped change the world.

Little Women is an outstanding achievement of nineteenth-century American literature, and the first children's novel written in the United States to have become an enduring classic. The March girls are shown throughout as real people and not mere moral examples as we follow them from childhood through Little Women and Little Women Part Two (known in Europe as Good Wives). The portrayal of the strains and delights of family life is unsurpassed in literature...

William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is a gripping political drama that delves into the complex themes of power, betrayal, and the consequences of ambition. Set in ancient Rome, the play unfolds in the wake of Caesar's triumphant return from war. As the city celebrates his victories, a group of senators, including Brutus and Cassius, grows increasingly concerned about Caesar's growing influence and potential tyranny. They plot his assassination...