Showing results by narrator "Denis Daly" in All Categories

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.

A Doll's House, published in 1879, was the earliest of Ibsen's "social dramas", and the first of his works to attract attention outside of Scandinavia. The central theme of the play is a woman's right to individual self-development, and represents, as humourist Stephen Leacock observed of many Ibsen plays, "a profound problem stated but not solved".

Neither the date nor the authorship of the Dhammapada is known, but there is conclusive evidence that this monument of the Buddhist canon existed well before the Christian era. Many scholars agree in ascribing its utterances to Buddha himself, while others are of the opinion that it is a compilation made by Buddhist monks from various sources. This classic religious text focuses on practical morality, which, if practiced earnestly and diligently, will lead the practitioner to Nirvana, the state of unconditioned eternal bliss.

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 Greek legend, a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Later the goddess Aphrodite responded to his earnest prayers and brought the statue, named Galatea, to life. Shaw's Pygmalion is a fussy unmarried professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who claims that he could train an uneducated person off the street to speak so that he or she could pass as a member of the aristocracy. His Galatea is Eliza Doolittle, who sells flowers at Covent Garden and whose father is a dissipated but cunning vagrant.

While he is most famous for his didactic fable, The Prophet, the works of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) address a wide range of philosophical and social issues. The overriding theme of his narratives is not the religious universalism that he is supposed to represent, but rather the inevitable conflict between human aspirations and the remorseless machinations of fate.

Thomas Troward was a divisional Judge in British-administered India, who had a particular interest in the study of comparative religion. The major influence on his thinking, as well as on his writing, was the Bible, although he also considered the elements of ancient Mesopotamian religions, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in his deliberations. After his retirement from the judiciary in 1896, Troward applied himself to the study of cause and effect in the spiritual realms using the principles of judicial investigation.

Between 1895 and 1901 H. G. Wells wrote six science fiction novels, which have become among the most celebrated examples of the genre. In this collection, Wells explores a number of topics that have since become very common subjects in science fiction, including time travel, celestial beings, eugenics, alien invasion, and space exploration.

This 1918 novella presents the life history of an ideal inamorata, universally admired and doomed to an untimely passing. The author uses the story to explore in-depth the concept of beauty, both personal and spiritual.

Keats commenced writing his epic poem, Hyperion, in 1818 and ceased working on it in the spring of 1819. He said that he gave the project up for having "too many Miltonic inversions." The unfinished poem, which ceases in the middle of the third canto, was published in 1820. The narrative is based on the Titanomachia, or War of the Titans, and describes the aftermath of their fall to the Olympian Gods.

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.

First published in 1847, Jane Eyre was the last and most popular of the novels composed by the Brontë sisters. The narrative bristles with energy and passionate conviction, and is one of the first novels written from the perspective of a child.

This full cast presentation includes Part 1 and Part 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Among the monuments of world literature, few works have been as influential as the Divine Comedy. Dante's compendious allegory of a journey through the world of the afterlife is significant on many levels. It established Italian as a literary language, and consolidated the position of Florentine Italian as the lingua franca of the Italian peninsula. As an engaging portrait of the social and intellectual life in medieval Florence it is unrivalled

James Allen (1864-1912) was a philosopher and pioneer of the New Thought movement. A prolific author, his works have become a fundamental source for many of the concepts used today in motivational and self-help programs. The Mastery of Destiny is Allen's treatise on the apparent conflict between fate and free will. He states that there is a method by which these opposing forces can be reconciled.

Manly Palmer Hall was a lecturer and author, whose particular interest was in arcane spirituality and esoteric religious traditions. He was associated with a number of universalist religious groups, like the Rosicrucians, and, in later life, the Freemasons.

First published in 1872, The Martyrdom of Man has been described as the first synoptic history of mankind. It was one of the first surveys of history based on the then-controversial principle of organic evolution. The book received a very mixed reception: Cecil Rhodes lauded the work, stating that it had "made him the man he was", while William Ewart Gladstone stated that it was so dangerous that it should be banned.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished king, after years of wandering, accompanied by his faithful daughter Antigone, finds himself in Athens. Receiving a warm if guarded welcome from Theseus, King of Athens, he prepares to settle himself to spend his last days in peace. However, unwelcome visitors from his tortured past continue to haunt him until the very end.

A prominent focus of the works of New Thought author Christian Larson (1874-1954) was the cultivation of positive mental states for the attainment of success and happiness. In this short treatise, he analyzes some common mental maladies and gives suggestions for their treatment.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is one of the earliest and most compelling presentations of the story of a man who sold his soul to the Devil. It is based on the popular history of Johann Georg Faust (1466–1541) a German chemist and magician, allegedly perished in an explosion during an alchemical experiment. In the theologically charged world of early reformation Germany, a report spread that his violent death was a demonstration that the devil had come to collect his soul. The legend spread quickly and has formed the basis of many later literary and dramatic works.