New York Times bestseller "An incomplete but highly compelling retelling . . . An action-packed, doom-haunted saga, full of vivid natural description."—New York Times Book Review

The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur, who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood, is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere's infidelity

Geoffrey Chaucer's fourteenth-century masterpiece The Canterbury Tales is such a rollicking good read that you'll forget many critics and scholars also regard it as one of the most important literary works in English. A group of pilgrims are traveling together to visit a holy shrine at the Canterbury Cathedral. Along the way, they decide to hold a storytelling contest to pass the time, with the winner to be awarded a lavish feast on the

It is virtually impossible to overstate Edgar Allan Poe's importance in the field of American literature. He is credited not only with inventing or significantly advancing the short story, detective fiction, and science fiction, but also with being one of the first Americans to pursue a career in writing as a vocation. This comprehensive volume is a career-spanning collection of Poe's stories and poems.

Beowulf is the earliest surviving poem in Old English. Although the authorship is anonymous it is believed to have been written before the 10th century AD. The only extant European manuscript of the Beowulf text is placed at around 1010. The epic tells the tale of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf as he struggles against three adversaries; the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother and an unnamed dragon. The epic was recently released as a blockbuster