The Mayor of Casterbridge -- Thomas Hardy (with explanatory notes)

'The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?'
Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is fated to be a modern-day tragic hero, unable to survive in the new commercial world, his story is also a journey towards love.

Russell Freedman begins with a lively account of Abraham Lincoln's boyhood, his career as a country lawyer, and his courtship and marriage to Mary Todd. Then the author focuses on the presidential years (1861 to 1865), skillfullly explaining the many complex issues Lincoln grappled with as he led a deeply divided nation through the Civil War. The book's final chapter is a moving account of that tragic evening in Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. Concludes with a sampling of Lincoln writings and a detailed list of Lincoln historical sites.

'Lie Still' is a murder mystery and a character study and a well-crafted family drama, all wrapped up into one beautiful little package. It's suspenseful and solidly written, in an elegant, no-nonsense style. It's funny and tragic and harrowing - as Emily tries to figure what's going on, if a spectre from her past has come back to haunt her new life or if this is some unknown threat hovering over her, I was compelled to follow all the way to the end.

To Samuel Taylor Coleridge, tragedy was not solely a literary mode, but a philosophy to interpret the history that unfolded around him. Tragic Coleridge explores the tragic vision of existence that Coleridge derived from Classical drama, Shakespeare, Milton and contemporary German thought. Coleridge viewed the hardships of the Romantic period, like the catastrophes of Greek tragedy, as stages in a process of humanity's overall purification.

Love in Shakespeare: Five Stories (B1)

In The Taming of the Shrew, Katharina learns to love Petruchio only after she has learnt to be an obedient wife. Romeo and Juliet’s love is destined to end in tragedy. In Twelfth Night, love is romantic but also painful, while in Othello love turns into jealousy. And in the final story, Antony and Cleopatra’s passionate love has tragic consequences.
Dossiers:
The Life of William Shakespeare
Courtship and Marriage in Elizabethan Times
Answer key included.