Almayer, an immigrant living on the Malayan continent with his native wife and his daughter, Nina, dreams of riches, and so pursues hidden gold mines and begins construction on a mansion to impress the British forces that he believes are coming to conquer the region. However, none of Almayer's schemes come through for him, and his recklessness results in a desperate situation for him and his family. Almayer's Folly was Joseph Conrad's first novel....

James George Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic...

In finely crafted lyrics and sonnets, Edna St. Vincent Millay gave voice to her generation's claim to personal freedom and earned a reputation as a sexually liberated free-thinker. But her subject matter varies widely - from meditations on nature, love, life, loss, death, and the reincarnation of the human soul to commentaries on politics and discrimination against women - and reveals poetic influences from the classical to the romantic. Comprising...