Henry: Virtuous Prince -- David Starkey

David Starkey has produced an unforgettable biography of a Renaissance prince who turned tyrant—to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession on 21 April 1509. His reign altered the course of British history and a lasting legacy.

Henry VIII was born a second son: the “spare” and not the “heir” as long as his elder brother, Arthur, lived. Rarely did his parents feel secure, since pretenders to the throne won support at home and abroad. Starkey shows more vividly than any previous historian that Bosworth's victor could never be reconciled to the Yorkist rump whatever he tried to do, and that Henry's doting mother, Elizabeth of York, saw her younger son as a crucial piece on the chessboard. From the moment he was created Duke of York at the age of three, she conditioned him to be a peacemaker. Court protocol, on which Starkey excels, required the queens of England to keep separate establishments, and until Arthur's death in 1502, Henry lived in Elizabeth's household with his two sisters. He became a mother's boy: spoilt, extrovert, competitive, over- defensive, overshadowed in every way by his elder brother and father, whose achievements he would later try to beat.

Starkey investigates Henry's education and religious beliefs, and whether he'd been earmarked by his father to be archbishop of Canterbury, which is possible, but unlikely. There was, however, a revolution in Henry's education when he became Prince of Wales after Arthur's death. His fussy, old-fashioned tutor, John Skelton, was sacked and fresh ones hired with connections to Erasmus of Rotterdam, the literary genius of the European Renaissance. Thereafter, Henry could be found carefully annotating his Latin copy of Cicero, jotting down the meanings of significant words and absorbing definitions of “virtue” rooted in moral and philosophical values. For a while, it seemed as if the next king of England might be a scholar. But Erasmus's hopes would be dashed, for although Henry was capable of prodigious bursts of enthusiasm for history, mathematics, music and astronomy, he turned out to be a wayward and opinion- ated student, with a short attention span.

Henry, meanwhile, had married Catherine of Aragon, although the ceremony wasn't binding on a 13-year-old and had to be repeated as soon as he became king. Starkey knows he will divide opinion over Catherine: he says she was a liar, accepting long-disputed evidence that her previous marriage to Arthur had been consummated, which she denied. This evidence, all hearsay with one exception, first emerged 20 years later when Henry wanted a divorce. The best of it came from William Thomas, a former groom of Arthur's privy chamber, who said he'd often escorted Arthur in his nightshirt as far as Catherine's bedroom door. Does that prove they had sex? Starkey thinks they did, but nobody really knows. After her marriage to Henry, Catherine lied in a letter to her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, about a miscarriage. Starkey makes hay with this, but he's too good a historian not to tell us that the two cases aren't alike. When she wrote to Ferdinand, Catherine was following an official government communiqué to spare her husband (and herself) embarrassment. When, however, she said that she was still a virgin when she married Henry, she took a solemn oath.In 1506, Henry met the Archduke Philip of Burgundy. Stylish, handsome and gregarious, a brilliant jouster (and sexual predator) who loved to join in everything, Philip was the very model of the young Henry's hero: his grandfather, Edward IV. Starkey describes their encounters in eye-catching detail: Henry wanted to be like Philip, and from then onwards he dreamt of Camelot, not Cicero. Jousting (or more accurately until he was king, a junior version known as “running at the ring”) became a craze.

Henry became king two months before his 18th birthday. His father's death was kept secret for two days while his councillors, Kremlin-style, fought each other over the corpse. Empson and Dudley, those most closely associated with Henry VII's reign of terror in his final years, were sent to the Tower. The young Henry began his reign with a flurry of grand gestures designed to win popularity. Money flowed liked water as he showered gifts on his friends, esp-ecially his Yorkist relations. Intoxicated with his power, he soon found that his more sober and experienced ministers stepped in to curtail his spending. A stalemate resulted, until the young king, using his crony, the upstart William Compton, to do his dirty work, attempted to break free.

Compton, whom Starkey unmasks for the first time as Henry's backstairs fixer and pimp, was partly successful at liberating Henry, but not successful enough. Then, at 19, Henry was introduced to Thomas Wolsey, the butcher's son who became his chief policy guru and hatchet man for the next 18 years. Wolsey began as he meant to go on, teaching Henry how to overrule the lord chancellor. And that was that. Once Henry had been freed of conciliar supervision, says Starkey, his days as a “virtuous prince” are over, and his mature years begin.

That, of course, departs radically from convention, which takes the watershed to be Wolsey's dismissal in 1529 and replacement by the blacksmith's son, Thomas Cromwell. Starkey's decision is bold: there are 36 action-packed years of Henry's life to be crammed into volume two. For its extraordinary insights into the smouldering embers of the Wars of the Roses, Henry: Virtuous Prince is masterly. As a biography of England's most celebrated king, it's an outstanding overture. The main performance is still to come.

Warsaw 1920 -- Adam Zamoyski

  

     The story told here is a straightforward account of a short, sharp war which took place from April to October 1920 between two infant states, Polish and Soviet.     
       Poland in 1980 was when communism was peacefully pushed into history's bottomless dustbin by the workers of the union, Solidarity. Poland in 1940 was when 20,000 of Europe's intellectuals, doctors, teachers and army officers were taken out and shot on Stalin's orders - a mini-Holocaust not matched by Hitler until the following years. Poland in 1920 was where Lenin's attempt to convert Europe to Bolshevism at the end of machine guns and bayonets came to a dead end.

       Now we have a thorough, beautifully written account of one of the great turning-points in Europe's history. Adam Zamoyski knows Polish, Russian and European archives as few others do, and writes with the dash of a Polish cavalry officer.

        In 1920, Lenin ordered the invasion and occupation of Poland as a prelude to exporting the Russian revolution into the heart of Europe, Germany. In a desperate war in the spring and summer, the Poles held off much greater Russian armies, culminating in the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920. Lenin's military ambitions were defeated and Europe was saved from the full-scale dictatorships that arrived in Germany after 1933 and the eastern half of Europe after 1945.

     Lenin thought the huge numbers he could muster would be enough to see off the Poles. Giant cavalry armies raced for Warsaw. The Russians invented a new weapon - a machine gun mounted on a horse-drawn pram. These raced across battle-fields with scything effect. But as the lines of communication got longer and longer, the Poles were able to cut off and mash up the various red armies.

        The Poles broke all the Russian codes and were able to listen to all communications. The training proved vital two decades later as Polish code-breakers and the Polish underground's capture of the Wehrmacht's Enigma coding machine let London read German war plans. The Red Army had no time for hearts-and-minds campaigns. Women were raped, peasants slaughtered and the Jews blamed as the capitalist paymasters of the hardly philo-Semitic Poles under Pilsudski. Trotsky ordered leaflets to be printed in German as he believed fondly that first Polish, then German workers and peasants would rise up to embrace their Russian liberators.

        London was caught up in its own crises in Ireland and Palestine. British unions tried to block trade to Poland in the name of workers' solidarity with Sovietism. No one in Poland noticed. The French took events more seriously. General Weygand, later responsible for France's defeat in 1940, worked with the Poles, as did a young major, Charles de Gaulle. He never forgot that, between attachment to an ideology and attachment to the nation, the latter always wins. Zamoyski is indulgent to his beloved Poland in arguing that the 1920 war gave Poland two decades of freedom. Yes, in the sense of autonomous rule, but the record of authoritarianism, Jew-hatred and politics that defied all common sense is hardly noble. 1920 prevented Soviet dictatorship but Europe was unable to rise to the challenge of constructing something different. That had to wait until after 1945 and the arrival of Nato and the EU.

       Today, again, Poland and Britain are linked as hundred of thousands of Poles and Brits live in each other's nations, commute, settle and form households. The Poles know and cherish Britain's history as do few other European nations. Now Zamoyski is repaying the compliment as he rightly insists on the centrality of the Polish narrative to understanding Europe

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee -- Dee Brown

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century, and their displacement and slaughter by the United States federal government.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee expresses the American Indian perspective of the injustices and betrayals of the US government--in its dealings with the Indians, which seemed to be engaged in continued efforts to destroy the culture, religion, and way of life of Native American people.

The book begins with the statement that Christopher Columbus had named the Native Americans "Indios" and with the differing dialects and accents of the Europeans to come, the word became known as Indians. Life as known to the indigenous people of the Americas would never be the same from the point of Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492.

Chapter by chapter, the book describes differing tribes of Native Americans and their relations to the US federal government during the years 1860-1890. It begins with the Navajos, the Apaches, and the other tribes of the Southwest US who were displaced as California and the surrounding areas were colonized. Brown chronicles the changing and sometimes conflicting attitudes both of US authorities, such as General Custer, and Indian chiefs, particularly Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and the Indian chiefs' attempts to save their peoples, by peace, war, or retreat.

The later part of the book focuses primarily on the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes of the North American Plains. They were among the last to be moved onto Indian reservations, under perhaps the most violent circumstances. It culminates with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the deaths of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the US slaughter of Sioux prisoners at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, an event generally considered to mark the end of the Indian Wars.

Empires of the Sea -- Roger Crowley

In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date – a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria.

This struggle’s brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto – one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away "because of the countless corpses floating in the sea." Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today.

Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best–a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.

A People's World -- Howard Zinn

A People's History of the World is the first attempt to provide a single, accessible, grass-roots account of the development of human civilisation. The stories of civilisation that have become popular in the era of the "war on terror" usually come with an arid essentialism. We are told there is a discrete entity called "the west", whose ascent is, as the historian Eric Wolf sardonically put it, a "moral success story" in which the peerless west defeats all-comers by virtue of certain "values" that often prove to be the credenda of neocon servatism. The counterpart to such Spenglerian mysticism is the strident celebration of capitalism and the colonial system through which it spread. Niall Ferguson is an avatar of this tendency. Chris Harman's popular history is a vital antidote to these trends.

From the Neolithic revolution to Y2K, A People's History is a dizzying tale of change "from below", with political, economic and cultural narratives interwoven, and occasional pauses to point out intriguing theoretical vistas. Taking pains to upset received opinion, Harman asserts that class societies are neither natural nor a long-term feature of human history. The first such, he argues, emerged after prolonged struggle, after the agricultural revolution that took place in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago. Describing the rise of the ancient world, Harman resists commonplace Eurocentrism, showing how similar environmental and technological pressures were at work in creating precocious civilisations in India, China, Greece and Rome. If the latter were novel, it was partly because of their unusual dependence on slave labour. He resists the fashionable temptation to exalt Roman civilisation, which he argues was largely parasitic on Greek technology and culture, and whose wealth and power derived from barbaric overland expansion.

Against the view that the feudal period was one of stasis, Harman emphasises its dynamism. On the Reformation, he properly highlights the social interests embodied in it rather than reducing it to a battle of ideas. And the Islamic contribution to Enlightenment thought is duly registered in a way that frustrates attempts to claim the Enlightenment for "the west". With the French Revolution, Harman assails the myths about its bloodthirstiness progenerated by historians such as Simon Schama and François Furet. And, rebutting colonial triumphalism, he notes that African societies were, before the locust years of slavery and colonies, at least on a par with European societies in literacy and social development. Similarly, Indian society was far from the stagnant behemoth supposed when it was colonised by Britain, whose early success owed more to its ability to win over local rulers than to economic or military superiority.

A People's History has an almost telescopic structure, devoting greater space to more recent periods as the pace of change increases. The past 150 years of human life, from Marx to the millennium, take up approximately half of the book, and it is by far the most provocative part. From the hopeful experiments of early working-class socialism to the horrific Götterdämmerung of the Second World War and the chilling nuclear stasis of the Cold War, there is much to subvert conventional expectations. Scathing about the effects of capitalism and colonialism, Harman holds no brief for the Stalinist dictatorship.

He shows that the USSR, far from being concerned with emancipatory politics, adopted a manipulative stance towards left-wing movements, encouraging loyal parties to limit their radicalism and to connive in pro-colonial policies. In fact, his principal diagnosis here is that the twin pincers of Stalinism and fascism crushed the tradition of "socialism from below" mid-century, and that this tradition was partially revived in the "New Left" movements of the 1960s. Thus, if the postwar strength of the USSR did not confirm the socialist case, Harman maintains, its collapse did not disprove it.

There are a number of points where engagement with recent scholarship might have altered Harman's account. On the subject of the First World War, for example, he in part accepts the idea that the German masses greeted the war enthusiastically, a view that has lately been demolished by the historian Jeffrey Verhey. And one could split hairs over some of the formulations. It is surprising to see Harman defend a version of Marx's conception of an "Asiatic Mode of Production". It is also surprising that he does not discuss the controversies over the origins of capitalism. Given the demands of concision, it is an understandable omission. Nevertheless, it might have been useful to give the general reader at least some indication that they exist.

These are minor quibbles, however, about such an ambitious and marvellously readable history. Harman has, with impressive narrative sweep, delivered a sophisticated attack on many prevailing assumptions, not least of which is the complacent faith in capitalism's durability.

The Last Mughal -- by William Dalrymple

The author brings to life very vividly an extremely important period of Delhi - the turbulent times of 1857, labeled the Mutiny by some and an uprising by others. When the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II gave his support to a rebellion among the Company’s own Indian troops, it gave the Mutiny legitimacy and turned it into an uprising against the British.

                     The book fleshes out the principal characters of the Mughal imperial family. One can quite sympathize with Zafar’s vacillations. He was a calligrapher, Sufi theologian apart from being a poet; but had virtually no power to rule. By May 1857 Zafar was already 82 and probably in no position to understand the consequences of a failure. He was also incapable of keeping the mutineers under control.

                 Zafar’s wife Zinat Mahal and her son Mirza Jawan Bakht are also important  players in the conspiracy. Zinat Mahal plotted with the British and against the Mutineers to ensure that her son succeeded as heir. The palace intrigues and the lives of the British in Delhi are narrated with such skill that the reader feels that he is participating in their lives.

                            One can feel the scorching summer of Delhi on May 11 1857 as the mutineers made their way to the emperor in the Red Fort. One can visualize the intense longing for the hills and holidays of the British to escape the Delhi summer, probably unaware of the intensity and critical nature of the situation.

The fear and anxiety of the British is palpable when the mutineers have trapped them. They are outnumbered and have to flee. Theo Metcalfe (also called the ‘one-eyed Metcalfe’ because he used to wear an eye patch over his inflamed eye) was a key player in trying to save the British community during the uprising. He survived to only emerge as a ruthless leader of lynch mobs.

                  The author illustrates dramatically the confusion, panic and chaos of Delhi during the time of the uprising. Delhi society is split between the elite Hindus and Muslims who were worried about hosting the desperate and violent sepoys and the workers of lower classes especially the Muslim weavers and Punjabi merchants who whole heartedly supported them.

                              Other prominent Delhi-ites like Ghalib, Munshi JiwanLal (who was a munshi or clerk to Theo Metcalfe), and the thanedar of Paharganj Muin ud-din Hussain Khan (who helped save Theo’s life) come alive in the book. The author sees 1857 and the fall of the Mughal dynasty as the end of Indo-Islamic culture.

             Readers will find the familiar joys of William Dalrymple’s writing – the breathtaking accuracy of observation; the apparently casual narrative that turns out to have led inexorably to some inescapable juncture, the disarming directness of expression; the author's ability to captivate us immediately and draw us gradually into strange, intense, lingering states of mind; the penetrating social vision; the inimitable blend of cool scrutiny and profound empathy.

                        But The Last Mughal is not only every bit as beautiful and substantial a work as Dalrymple’s readers might hope for; it is also a work of originality. The author has used previously untranslated Urdu and Persian manuscripts and the records of Delhi Courts, police and administration during the siege to weave the account. This is a book that I will return to again and again to savor and relive Delhi during that tumultuous time.

Peter Pan -- J.M.Barrie

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860–1937). A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Indians, fairies,pirates, and (from time to time) meeting ordinary children from the world outside. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie's works.


                    The book is layered (like Alice in Wonderland), so you find new treasures each time you read it. If you read it as a child, and then again as an adult, it will be like two different stories—time only deepens the beauty of the book. It tells children not to grow up too fast, while it reminds parents that acting like a grown up isn’t always a good thing.


                    The classic story and play of the boy who will not grow up starts when Mr and Mrs Darling go out for the evening. They are sure their family is safe. Nana is there and though she is a dog she has always taken good care of the children. But tonight Nana is tied up. She knows something will happen, because there is magic in the air, and Nana, as always, is right. Peter Pan is on his way from Neverland. He flies straight into the children’s bedroom. He has lost his shadow, and wants Wendy, the eldest of Mr and Mrs Darling’s children to fix it for him, which she does with a needle and thread. Then they are all off back to Neverland. To enable them to fly, Wendy and her two brothers need plenty of help from Tinkerbell, a fairy with her own problems. Not only are all fairies under threat because when someone says they don’t believe in fairies, they drop down dead, but Tinkerbell has an ownership problem about Peter. He’s hers, not Wendy’s, and it is only after considerable persuasion does she agree to help at all. Wendy meets the Lost Boys, the Red Indians, and the Mermaids. There are plenty of adventures to be had in Neverland, including the rescue of Tiger Lily, bringing Tinkerbell back to life by clapping for her and the defeat of that most evil of villains, Captain Hook and his gang of pirates. Peter still does not want to grow up. 
                                 He has distant memories of his mother but when he went to see her, another boy had taken his place. Wendy and her brothers think differently. They feel homesick for their parents and Nana, and with the mixed sadness of all departures the do at last return, to a loving and welcoming family reunion. The story doesn’t completely end there. Peter Pan comes back for visits, but as Wendy grows up and has a family of her own, life changes for her. The final end has the poignancy of times lost to it. Nevertheless, J.M Barrie’s storytelling is imbued with idiosyncratic warmth and humour. He wrote many other popular plays and books, but it is for Peter Pan that he remains most famous today.

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860–1937).

In the nursery of the Darling home, a dog is the nurse, or nanny. Perhaps that is one reason there is so much joy there. Nurse Nana bathes the three children and gives them their suppers and in all ways watches over them. One night, Mrs. Darling, on Nana’s night off, sits with the children as they sleep. Drowsing, she is awakened by a slight draft from the window, and, looking around, she sees a strange boy in the room. She screams, and Nana, who has just returned home, lunges for the intruder, but the boy leaps out the window, leaving only his shadow behind. He had been accompanied also by a ball of light, but it too has escaped. Mrs. Darling rolls up the boy’s shadow and puts it in a drawer, thinking that the boy will come back for it sometime soon and thus may be caught.

When Mr. Darling is told of the incident he considers it a little silly; at present he is more concerned with finding a different nurse for the children. Believing that the dog, Nana, is getting too much authority in the household, Mr. Darling drags her out of the house and locks her up.

Mr. and Mrs. Darling go out the following night, leaving only a maid to look in on the children occasionally. After the lights are out and the children are asleep, the intruder returns. The boy, whose name is Peter Pan, is accompanied by Tinker Bell, a fairy who appears as a ball of light. Peter finds his shadow after searching in all the drawers in the nursery, but in his excitement he shuts Tinker Bell in one of the drawers.

As Peter tries to get his shadow to stick to him again, he makes enough noise to awaken Wendy, the daughter of the household. Peter tells Wendy that he ran away the day he was born because he heard his parents talking about all the things he would do when he was a man; he went to live with the fairies so that he would never have to grow up. Suddenly he remembers Tinker Bell, and he looks for her until he finds her in one of the nursery dressers. Tinker Bell, a ball of light no bigger than a fist, is so small that Wendy can hardly see her. She is not a very polite fairy—she calls Wendy horrible names.

Peter tells Wendy, the only girl of the three Darling children and instantly his favorite, that he and Tinker Bell live in Neverland with the lost boys, boys who had fallen out of their baby carriages and were never found again. He had come to Wendy’s house to listen to her mother tell stories to the others. Peter, begging Wendy and her brothers to go back to Neverland with him, promises to teach them to fly. The idea is too much for the children to resist. After a little practice they all fly out the window, barely escaping their parents and Nana, who has broken her chain to warn Mr. and Mrs. Darling of the danger to the children.

In Neverland, the Indians, with their chief and their princess, help to protect the lost boys against a group of mean pirates led by Captain Hook, who has a hook where one of his hands used to be. It is Hook’s greatest desire to capture Peter Pan, for Peter is the one who tore off Hook’s arm and fed it to a crocodile. The crocodile so liked the taste of the arm that he now follows Hook everywhere, waiting for a chance to eat the rest of him. The crocodile has, unhappily, also swallowed a clock, and its ticking warns Hook whenever the crocodile approaches.

To this strange land Wendy and her brothers fly with Peter Pan. The lost boys, seeing Wendy first in the sky when they arrive, think that she is a giant bird, and one of them shoots her with a bow and arrow. The jealous Tinker Bell had suggested the deed. Peter arrives and, after finding that Wendy is only stunned, banishes Tinker Bell for a week to punish her for provoking the attack. He then tells the others that he has brought Wendy to them. They promptly build her a house and ask her to be their mother. Wendy thinks that taking care of so many children is a great responsibility, but she quickly assumes her duties by telling them stories and putting them to bed.

Jealous, the pirates plan to steal Wendy and make her their mother; they intend to force the other children to walk the plank. Peter overhears them plotting, however, and he saves the children and Wendy. He himself escapes by sailing out to sea in a bird’s nest.

Wendy and her brothers begin to worry about their parents, and they decide that they should return home. The lost boys, delighted at the thought of having a real grown-up mother, eagerly accept Wendy’s invitation to come live with her and her brothers and parents. Peter refuses to go, because he wants always to be a little boy and have fun. He lets the others go, however, and asks Tinker Bell to show them the way.

The pirates have learned of the children’s journey, and as Tinker Bell and the children begin to fly from Neverland, Hook and his men seize them. When Peter finds out that Hook has captured all his friends, he vows to get revenge on the pirate once and for all.

On the pirate ship, the children are being prepared to walk the plank. They are all paraded before Wendy, who is tied to the mast. Unknown to the pirates, however, Peter is also on board, and by using tricks and false voices he leads first one pirate and then another to his death. These strange happenings are too much for Hook. When he knocks the seat out from under Peter and the boy remains in place, calmly sitting on air, the pirate throws himself overboard, into the waiting jaws of the patient crocodile.

Meanwhile, at the Darling home, Mrs. Darling and Nana wait, with little hope, for the children to return. They have left the nursery window open constantly, so that their loved ones might enter easily should they ever come home, but Peter and Tinker Bell fly ahead of the others and close the window so that Wendy and the others will think they are not wanted. Peter, however, does not know how to get out of a room through the door, and thus he is forced to fly out the window again, leaving it open behind him. Wendy and her brothers fly in and slip into their beds, and Mrs. Darling and Nana are overcome with joy when they find the children safe again.

The Darlings adopt the lost boys, who have great fun romping with Mr. Darling. Peter returns and tries to get Wendy to fly away with him, but she refuses to leave her parents again. She does go once each year to clean his house for him, but each time they meet she sees him a little less clearly. Once or twice she tries to get him to see her as something more than a mother, but Peter does not know what she means. Then comes the day when Wendy can no longer fly without a broomstick to help her. Peter, watching her, sadly wishes he could understand all that she says. He picks up his pipes and plays softly, perhaps too softly to awaken humans in a grown-up world.

The Jungle Book -- Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling.

During the Victorian period, Mowgli is the five-year-old son of Nathoo, a wilderness guide, with whom he accompanies on a tour in the jungles of their native India and has Grey Brother as a pet wolf cub. Mowgli becomes close friends with a British girl named Katherine Anne "Kitty" Brydon, whose father, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon, commissioned the journey. When Shere Khan goes on a rampage in the camp and kills Mowgli's father and one of Colonel Brydon's soldiers, the boy and the wolf are lost in the confusion and are left to fend for themselves. Bagheera finds them and leads Mowgli to the wolf pack. Mowgli is befriended by the animals of the jungle including Baloo the bear cub, and they develop an unspoken bond as the boy learns to survive. Twenty years later, the Bandar-log steal the bracelet Kitty gave Mowgli. He follows them to the ruins of an overgrown and lost city, deep in the jungle, where he meets King Louie the orangutan, who he follows in to a chamber full of vast treasure. Louie wants to add the bracelet to the treasure, but agrees to give it back if Mowgli fights the great serpent Kaa and wins. Mowgli manages to defeat Kaa with a jeweled dagger he found in the temple. Kaa flees, but he is not killed. Louie returns Mowgli the bracelet, proclaiming the latter a hero.

A little later, Mowgli once again encounters Kitty, who has returned to India with her father and her arrogant and deceitful suitor, Captain William Boone. Kitty and Mowgli recognize each other, and while his powers of speech are rusty, Kitty reintroduces Mowgli to civilization with the help of Dr. Julius Plumford and Mowgli introduces Kitty to his friends in the jungle. However, after spending most of his life in the jungle, Mowgli does not feel at home among the rude and snobbish aristocrats (especially soldiers Sgt. Harley and Lt. Wilkins) who are friends with Kitty's family. He falls in love with Kitty, but he concedes to his rival for her affections, believing that he does not belong in her world.

Meanwhile, Buldeo, one of Boone's men, finds the jewelled dagger Mowgli used against Kaa, and they hatch a plan to get Mowgli to lead them to the treasure in Monkey City. After Mowgli refuses they attempt to capture him but fail thanks to Baloo's intervention. Baloo is shot in the process and Mowgli rushes back to Kitty's home to find Dr. Plumford; however the butler informs him that Kitty and Plumford are going back to England. Mowgli finds Kitty and the others just as Boone's men, led by Buldeo and Tabaqui (a guide working for Boone), ambush and attack them. Geoffrey is shot and wounded, and abducted along with Kitty. Mowgli saves Plumford, and asks him to return the favour by helping Baloo. Mowgli catches up with Boone's men, and agrees to escort them to Monkey City in exchange for Kitty and Geoffrey's safety.

The next morning, while the troupe is still searching for the treasure, Harley sinks in quicksand Tabaqui falls off a cliff, and Wilkins is chased down by Shere Khan. Eventually only Mowgli, Kitty, Boone and Buldeo make it to Monkey City.

As the three enter the ancient ruins, Buldeo attempts to shoot Mowgli and chases him into a crypt, but accidentally sets off a booby trap that buries him alive. In the end, only Mowgli, Kitty and Boone reach the treasure alive. Boone, no longer needing Mowgli, attempts to kill him, but the two fight and Boone loses. Mowgli and Kitty flee the temple, as Boone starts to pocket all the gold he can find. Kaa suddenly appears and scares Boone into falling into the water below them. While Boone is underwater, he notices a few skeletons of people whom Kaa had possibly killed in the past. Boone joins them when he is bitten and killed by Kaa.

Shere Khan confronts Mowgli and Kitty as they exit. Khan still does not trust Mowgli, and the two stare at each other a long time before Khan is stared down and leaves in submission - the fulfillment of a dream Mowgli had in the beginning of the story, where he, already a 'half-tiger' in spirit, would stare Shere Khan eye to eye and become a 'whole tiger', Khan recognising in Mowgli another creature of the jungle. Mowgli and Kitty reunite with their friends and family, including Geoffrey and Baloo, both cured by Plumford. Kitty and Mowgli are now together. They share a passionate kiss by a waterfall.

Oliver Twist -- Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist, published in 1838, is one of Charles Dickens' s best-known and well-loved works. It was written after he had already attained success as the author of The Pickwick Papers. It has been adapted as a film and a longrunning Broadway musical and has been considered a classic ever since it was first published.

An infant is born of a dying mother in a parish workhouse. Old Sally, attending the birth and death, takes from
the dying woman a locket and ring. Bumble, the beadle, names the boy Oliver Twist. Oliver is sent to an infant
 farm, run by Mrs Mann, until he is 9 years old, at which time he is returned to the workhouse.

The orphans at the workhouse are starving due to callous mistreatment and cast lots to decide who among them will ask for more gruel on behalf of the group and Oliver is chosen. At supper that evening, after the normal allotment, Oliver advances to the master and asks for more.

Oliver is branded a troublemaker and is offered as an apprentice to anyone willing to take him. After narrowly escaping being bound to a chimney sweep, a very dangerous business where small boys are routinely smothered being lowered into chimneys, Oliver is apprenticed to the undertaker, Sowerberry.

Oliver fights with Noah Claypole, another of the undertaker's boys, after Noah mocks Oliver's dead mother. After being unjustly beaten for this offence, Oliver escapes the undertaker's and runs away to London.

On the outskirts on the city Oliver, tired and hungry, meets Jack Dawkins who offers a place to stay in London. Thus Oliver is thrown together with the band of thieves run by the sinister Fagin. Oliver innocently goes "to work" with Dawkins, also known as the Artful Dodger, and Charlie Bates, another of Fagin's boys, and witnesses the real business when Dawkins picks the pocket of a gentleman. When the gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, discovers the robbery in progress Oliver is mistaken for the culprit and, after a chase, is captured and taken to the police. Oliver, injured in the chase, is cleared by a witness to the crime and is taken by the kindly Brownlow to his home to recuperate.

Oliver is kindly treated at the Brownlow home and, after a period of recuperation, is sent on an errand by Mr Brownlow to pay a local merchant 5 pounds and to return some books. On carrying out this charge Oliver is captured by Nancy and Bill Sikes and returned to Fagin's den of thieves.

Mr Brownlow, thinking that Oliver has run away with his money concludes that Oliver was a thief all along. This assumption is further strengthened when Bumble the beadle, answering an ad in the paper, placed by Brownlow, for information concerning Oliver, gives a disparaging opinion of Oliver.

Oliver is forced by Fagin to accompany Sikes in an attempted robbery, needing a small boy to enter a window and open the door for the housebreakers. The robbery is foiled when the house is alarmed and, in the ensuing confusion, Oliver is shot.

Oliver is nursed back to health at the home of the Maylies, the house Sikes was attempting to burglarize. Oliver imparts his story to the Maylies and Doctor Losberne.

The mysterious Monks, revealed to be Oliver's half brother, teams up with Fagin in an attempt to recapture Oliver and lead him into a life of crime thereby negating the unknowing Oliver's claim to his rightful inheritance which would then go to Monks.

Sike's woman, Nancy, having compassion for Oliver, overhears Fagin and Monk's plan and tells Rose Maylie in the hope of thwarting the plan. Rose recruits Mr. Brownlow, Dr. Losberne, and others.

Bumble the beadle has married the matron of the workhouse, Mrs. Corney. The former Mrs. Corney, attending the death of Old Sally, has taken the locket and ring that Sally had taken from Oliver's mother on her deathbed. Monks buys this locket and ring from the Bumbles hoping that in destroying it that Oliver's true identity will remain hidden.

Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylie meet Nancy on London Bridge and she tells them where to find Monks. Fagin has had Nancy followed and, enraged, tells Sikes that Nancy has betrayed them. Sikes brutally murders Nancy and flees to the country.

Monks is taken by Mr. Brownlow. Fagin is captured and sentenced to be hung. Sikes, with a mob on his tail, accidentally hangs himself trying to escape. The Bumbles are relieved of their position at the workhouse, become paupers, and are now inmates at the same workhouse they once managed.

Oliver is revealed to be the illegitimate son of Edwin Leeford and Agnes Fleming. Leeford has fathered the evil Edward (Monks) through a failed former marriage. After seducing Agnes, Edwin dies, leaving a will which states that the unborn child will inherit his estate if "in his minority he should never have stained his name with any public act of dishonor, meanness, cowardice, or wrong" in the event of which all would go to Edward (Monks), hence Monk's attempt to corrupt Oliver via Fagin.

Monks is given half of Oliver's inheritance by Mr. Brownlow, who had been a friend of Edwin Leeford, in the hope that he will start a new life. Monks flees to America where he quickly squanders his portion and dies in prison. Rose Maylie is revealed to be the sister of Agnes Fleming who is adopted by the Maylies after her parents die, therefore Rose is Oliver's aunt.

Oliver collects his inheritance and is adopted by Mr. Brownlow. Rose marries longtime beau, Harry Maylie.

Ali Baba And 40 Thieves

Ali Baba  is a fictional character from medieval Arabic literature. He is described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

     Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of amerchant. After the death of their father, the greedy Cassim marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business—but Ali Baba marries a poor woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter.

         One day Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a group of forty thievesvisiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic. It opens on the words  "Open Sesame" in English, and seals itself on the words  "Close Sesame". When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself, and takes some of the treasure home.

    Ali Baba borrows his sister-in-law's scales to weigh this new wealth of gold coins. Unknowing to Ali, she puts a blob of wax in the scales to find out what Ali is using them for, as she is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock, she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband, Ali Baba's rich and greedy brother, Cassim. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes to the cave and enters with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over the treasures forgets the magic words to get back out again. The thieves find him there, and kill him. When his brother does not come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him, and finds the body, quartered and with each piece displayed just inside the entrance of the cave to discourage any similar attempts in the future.

                 Ali Baba brings the body home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl in Cassim's household, with the task of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases medicines from an apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill. Then, she finds an old tailor known as Baba Mustafa whom she pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassim's house. There, overnight, the tailor stitches the pieces of Cassim's body back together, so that no one will be suspicious. Ali and his family are able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyone asking awkward questions.

                    The thieves, finding the body gone, realize that yet another person must know their secret, and set out to track him down. One of the thieves goes down to the town and comes across Baba Mustafa, who mentions that he has just sewn a dead man's body back together. Realizing that the dead man must have been the thieves' victim, the thief asks Baba Mustafa to lead the way to the house where the deed was performed. The tailor is blindfolded again, and in this state he is able to retrace his steps and find the house. The thief marks the door with a symbol. The plan is for the other thieves to come back that night and kill everyone in the house. However, the thief has been seen by Morgiana and she, loyal to her master, foils his plan by marking all the houses in the neighborhood with a similar marking. When the 40 thieves return that night, they cannot identify the correct house and the head thief kills the lesser thief. The next day, another thief revisits Baba Mustafa and tries again, only this time, a chunk is chipped out of the stone step at Ali Baba's front door. Again Morgiana foils the plan by making similar chips in all the other doorsteps. The second thief is killed for his stupidity as well. At last, the head thief goes and looks for himself. This time, he memorizes every detail he can of the exterior of Ali Baba's house.

                    The chief of the thieves pretends to be an oil merchant in need of Ali Baba's hospitality, bringing with him mules loaded with thirty-eight oil jars, one filled with oil, the other thirty-seven hiding the other remaining thieves. Once Ali Baba is asleep, the thieves plan to kill him. Again, Morgiana discovers and foils the plan, killing the thirty-seven thieves in their oil jars by pouring boiling oil on them. When their leader comes to rouse his men, he discovers that they are dead, and escapes.

To exact revenge, after some time the thief establishes himself as a merchant, befriends Ali Baba's son (who is now in charge of the late Cassim's business), and is invited to dinner at Ali Baba's house. The thief is recognized by Morgiana, who performs a dance with a dagger for the diners and plunges it into the heart of the thief when he is off his guard. Ali Baba is at first angry with Morgiana, but when he finds out the thief tried to kill him, he gives Morgiana her freedom and marries her to his son. Ali Baba is then left as the only one knowing the secret of the treasure in the cave and how to access it. Thus, the story ends happily for everyone except the forty thieves and Cassim.

Golden Goose -- Brothers Grim

The Golden Goose  is a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. The hero is the youngest of three brothers, given the nickname Dummling. His eldest brother is sent into the forest to chop wood, fortified with a rich cake and a bottle of wine. He meets a little gray man who begs a morsel to eat and a swallow of ale but is rebuffed. The eldest brother meets an accident and is taken home. The second brother meets a similar fate. Dummling, sent out with a biscuit cooked in the ashes of the hearth and soured beer, is generous with the little old man and is rewarded with a golden goose. The goose has been discovered within the roots of the tree chosen by the little gray man and felled by Dummling.

                  With the goose under his arm, Dummling heads for an inn, where, as soon as his back is turned, the innkeeper's daughter attempts to pluck just one of the feathers of pure gold, and is stuck fast. Her sister, coming to help her, is stuck fast too. And the youngest, determined not to be left out of the riches, is stuck to the second. Dummling makes his way to the castle, and each person who attempts to interfere is joined to the unwilling parade: the parson, his sexton, and two laborers.

In the castle lives the king with the Princess who has never laughed.But the despondent Princess, sitting by the window and glimpsing the parade staggering after Dummling and his golden goose, laughs until she cries. Some versions include an additional three trials. Dummling succeeds in all with the help of his little gray friend and finally wins the princess, living happily ever after.

The Emperor's New Clothes -- Hans Christian Andersen

"The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that are invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.


An Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.

Cinderella -- Strabo

"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" (French: Cendrillon, ou La petite Pantoufle de Verre) is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune. The word "cinderella" has, by analogy, come to mean one whose attributes are unrecognised, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect. The still-popular story of "Cinderella" continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media.

Once upon a time, there was a widower who married a proud and haughty woman as his second wife. She had two daughters, who were equally vain. By his first wife, he'd had a beautiful, young daughter, who was a girl of unparalleled goodness and sweet temper. The Stepmother and her daughters forced the first daughter to complete all the housework. When the girl had done her work, she sat in the cinders, which caused her to be called "Cinderella". The poor girl bore it patiently, but she dared not tell her father, who would have scolded her, since his wife controlled him entirely.

One day, the Prince invited all the young ladies in the land to a ball so he could choose a lovely wife. As the two Stepsisters were invited, they gleefully planned their wardrobes. Although Cinderella assisted them and dreamed of going to the dance, they taunted her by saying a maid could never attend a ball.

As the sisters swept away to the ball, Cinderella cried in despair. Her Fairy Godmother magically appeared and vowed to assist Cinderella in attending the ball. She turned a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman, and lizards into footmen. She then turned Cinderella's rags into a beautiful gown, complete with a delicate pair of glass slippers. The Godmother told her to enjoy the ball, but warned that she had to return before midnight; otherwise, the spells would be broken.

At the ball, the entire court was entranced by Cinderella, especially the Prince, who never left her side. Unrecognized by her sisters, Cinderella remembered to leave before midnight. Back home, Cinderella graciously thanked her Godmother. She then greeted the Stepsisters, who enthusiastically talked of nothing but the beautiful girl at the ball.

When another ball was held the next evening, Cinderella again attended with her Godmother's help. The Prince became even more entranced. However, this evening she lost track of time and left only at the final stroke of midnight, losing one of her glass slippers on the steps of the palace in her haste. The Prince chased her, but outside the palace, the guards had seen only a simple country wench leave. The Prince pocketed the slipper and vowed to find and marry the girl to whom it belonged. Meanwhile, Cinderella kept the other slipper, which had not disappeared when the spell had broken.

The Prince tried the slipper on all the women in the kingdom. When the Prince arrived at Cinderella's villa, the Stepsisters tried in vain to win over the prince. When Cinderella asked if she might try, the Stepsisters taunted her. Naturally, the slipper fitted perfectly, and Cinderella produced the other slipper for good measure. The Stepsisters begged for forgiveness, and Cinderella forgave them for their cruelties.

Cinderella returned to the palace, where she married the Prince, and the Stepsisters also married two lords.

The moral of the story is that beauty is a treasure, but graciousness is priceless. Without it, nothing is possible; with it, one can do anything.

Beauty and the Beast -- Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740.The best-known written version was an abridgement of her work published in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, in Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves; an English translation appeared in 1757.
A wealthy merchant lived in a mansion with his three daughters, all of whom were very beautiful, but only the youngest, at fourteen, is named Belle (a French name equivalent to "Beauty") for being lovely and pure of heart; her sisters, in contrast, are wicked and selfish. The merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea, and he and his daughters must therefore live in a small farmhouse and work for their living. After some years of this, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent off has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its compatriots; therefore, he returns to the city to discover whether it contains anything of monetary value. Before leaving, he asks his daughters whether they desire that he bring them any gift upon his return. His two elder daughters ask for jewels and fine dresses, thinking that his wealth has returned; Belle is satisfied with the promise of a rose, as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him without money by which to buy his daughters their presents.

During his return, he becomes lost in a forest. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace. He finds inside tables laden with food and drink, which have apparently been left for him by the palace's unseen owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night. The next morning as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Belle had desired a rose. Upon picking the most lovely rose he finds, the merchant is confronted by a hideous 'Beast', which tells him that for taking his (the Beast's) most precious possession after accepting his hospitality, the merchant must die. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Belle, only if the merchant will return, or his daughter goes to the castle in his place.

The merchant is upset, but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with jewels and fine clothes for his daughters, and stresses that Belle must come to the castle of her own accord. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Belle; but she pries it from him and willingly goes to the Beast's castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Each night, the Beast asks Belle to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Belle dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, and she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Belle does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches for him and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but, of course, never the prince from her dreams.

For several months, Belle lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace, being waited on hand and foot by invisible servants, having no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Yet, eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go to see her family. He allows it, if she will return exactly a week later. Belle agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. They grow jealous of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay another day, even putting onion in their eyes to make it appear as though they are weeping. It is their wish that the Beast will grow angry with Belle for breaking her promise and will eat her alive. Belle's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.

Belle begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead of heartbreak near the rose bushes her father had stolen from and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast.

Upon returning, Belle finds the Beast almost dead, and she weeps over him, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. The Prince informs Belle that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast after he refused to let her in from the rain, and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could he break the curse. He and Belle are married and they lived happily ever after together.