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Rooted in myth, occult mysteries, and belief in magic, these stories are populated by a lively cast of sorcerers, fairies, ghosts, and nature spirits. The great Irish poet heard these enchanting, mystical tales from Irish peasants, and the stories' anthropologic significance is matched by their timeless entertainment value.
 

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a novella by the American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891).

 A Defence of Poetry is an essay by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1821 and first published posthumously in 1840. It contains Shelley's famous claim that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world".

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, 
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
    Yet this enjoys before it woo,
    And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
    And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

PREFATORY NOTE.

Of the following studies in Emerson's poetry, as origi nally printed, my friends Charles Eliot Norton, William Rounseville Alger, and Charles Molloy, all veteran students of their revered friend's verse, and among the best living interpreters of his thought, wrote me in very flattering terms expressive of their enjoyment in reading them and their approval of the material as accurate and of permanent value. Hence its appearance in this pamphlet form. I have availed myself of Professor Norton's judgment in correcting one or two points in which I was in error. The " Clews " are not intended to be read independently of the poems, but as gloss and commentary for one who has the poems in hand.

W. S. K. BELMONT, MASS., May i, 1903.

The greatest and most enduring of the prophets of the Victorian era, Thomas Carlyle was prescient about the importance of heroism in defining a nation's ambition and character. First published in 1841, his On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History established a foundation for historical studies that has lost none of its importance in an age of sports, photo-ops, and cable news.

From its first pages the book recognizes the intimate connections between heroism and myth. Beginning with the legends of Odin, lord of the Nordic gods, Carlyle describes major forms that heroism can take: in god, poet, warrior, priest, prophet, and king.

"Rappaccini's Daughter" is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1844 and collected in Mosses from an Old Manse that concerns a medical researcher in medieval Padua.

"Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history.

"Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr (Baron) von Hardenberg (1772-1801), called Friedrich von Hardenberg. The death in 1797 of his young fiancé, Sophie von Kühn, led him to write Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night), a set of six prose and verse lyrics first published in 1800 in Athenaeum, a literary magazine edited by August Wilhelm Schlegel and his brother Friedrich Schlegel. Seven months after the publication of Hymns to the Night, Novalis died of tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed his fiancé.

"The Scarlet Letter published in 1850, is a Gothic American romance novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne; generally considered to be his masterpiece. Set in Puritan New England (specifically Boston) in the seventeenth century, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth after committing adultery, refuses to name the father, and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout, Hawthorne explores the issues of grace, legalism, and guilt.