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The story of The Scarlet Plague takes place in 2073 in the San Francisco area, 60 years after an apocalyptic pandemic called the Red Death or Scarlet Plague has depopulated the Earth. James Smith, one of the survivors, lives with his grandsons who are hunter-gatherers in a tribal world. He relates the horror of the plague to them, and tells them of the time when he was a professor of English, and of the start of the pandemic. His grandsons, who are of limited cognitive ability, refuse to believe him; they cannot believe that the disease was spread by germs.

Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, "The Philosophy of Composition", sets forth a theory on good writing. It first appeared in the April 1846 issue of Graham's Magazine, and Poe illustrates his theory on the composition of his poem, "The Raven". The three main elements of his philosophy of composition are length, logical method, and "unity of effect". Poe believed that literary works should be short, claimed that writing is methodical, not spontaneous, and asserted that a work of fiction ought to be written only after the author has decided on the conclusion.

Where Love Is, There God Is Also is a short story by Leo Tolstoy written in 1885, about a shoemaker named Martin Avdeitch. Martin had lost his wife and children, and in his grief, he denied God. One day, after a visit from a missionary, Martin bought a Bible and read about a Pharisee who had invited Jesus into his house, and about the woman who anointed and washed Jesus' feet with her tears. That night, he dreamed that God told him that He would visit him the next day.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome is a witty 1889 account by Jerome, of a two-week boating trip on the Thames. The author, two friends, and the dog, Montmorency, travelled from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back again. The narrative describes their journey as well as the villages and historical landmarks that they pass, including Hampton Court Palace, Hampton Church, Magna Carta Island, and Monkey Island. The author’s habit of digressing into humorous anecdotes is the element which has made the book a classic.

The tale begins with an experiment to enable a woman named Mary to experience the supernatural realm, which turns her into an idiot. Then follows an account of a series of mysterious occurrences and deaths surrounding a sinister woman named Helen Vaughan. The protagonists eventually confront Helen and forces her to kill herself. Before dying, she undergoes a series of spooky transformations that reveals her to be the daughter of the ill-fated Mary and the god Pan.

Heretics is a collection of 20 essays and articles by G. K. Chesterton, in which he appraises prominent figures of his time in the worlds of literature and the arts. He scrutinises the work of luminaries such as George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, and H. G. Wells with insight and wit, criticizing those who hold incomplete and flawed views of "life, the universe, and everything".

In this atmospheric horror story, the city of the title is the ruin of a primordial site in the Arabian desert, thought to be more ancient than the first human civilization. In its heyday, the city flourished on the edge of the ocean. The inhabitants were a species of reptile looking like a hybrid of crocodile and seal, but with horns and protruding foreheads. They moved by crawling, so the remaining buildings have low ceilings.

Agamemnon is the first part of the Oresteia trilogy by the Greek playwright Aeschylus. Each of the plays that form part of The Oresteia can stand alone, but they perfectly complement one other in a longer narrative. Agamemnon provides the seed of all the themes that are explored in part two, The Libation Bearers, and three, The Eumenides.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "A Faint Heart" (1848) is a short story about two close friends, Arkady Ivanovitch Nefedevitch and Vasya Shumkov. After a lengthy rumination on their names, Dostoevsky recounts the tale of how one of them is so overwhelmed by his good fortunate and happiness that he becomes consumed by it. The prospect of marrying his sweetheart brings him such euphoric joy that he experiences a masochistic transformation because the world wasn’t equally happy. So he ends up in an institution and his bride-to-be marries another.

"Tamerlane" is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe when he was only 17 years old. Based on a fictionalized account of the 14th century conqueror known as Tamerlane, it was first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. The choice of an eastern figure by a western writer was unusual for that era. In the poem, the protagonist sacrifices his love for a young woman in order to pursue a life of conquest, but on his deathbed he regrets the decision.

A Journal of the Plague Year is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in March 1722. It gives an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the the bubonic plague struck the city of London.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright. In his short story "La Grande Breteche", Dr. Horace Bianchon discovers an abandoned manor house near the town of Vendôme. Fascinated by the ruin, he tries unsuccessfully to enter the mansion over several nights. Upon inquiry, the local people explain the story of the house. It turns out that Madame de Merret, its late owner, forbade anyone from entering the building for 50 years after her death.

This 1902 essay collection by the Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin explore the role of mutually beneficial cooperation and reciprocity in the animal kingdom and human societies. It is an argument against theories of social Darwinism that emphasize competition and survival of the fittest, and against the romantic views of writers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau who thought that cooperation was motivated by universal love.

Antigone is a famous Greek tragedy attributed to the ancient playwright Sophocles at around 440 BCE. The play expands on the Theban legend of Oedipus that predates it, dealing with Antigone’s burial of her brother Polyneices in defiance of the law and the tragic results of her act. On another level, the play exposes the dangers of the absolute ruler or tyrant in the character of Creon. No one speaks freely to him, so he makes a series of mistakes, illustrating the folly of tyranny.

Three Men on the Bummel, also titled Three Men on Wheels, is a humorous novel by Jerome K. Jerome, published in 1900, 11 years after his best seller, Three Men in a Boat. This time, the three companions J, George, and Harris take a bicycle tour through the Black Forest in Germany. Besides the bicycling travelogue, humorous vignettes or "set pieces" are constructed by a gradual accumulation of detail, including commentary on German culture from the point of view of a British tourist, and sitcom-like scenarios of the interactions between the characters.

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the first surviving account of the geography, climate, and peoples of Britain. The German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania.

This work by Chekhov is about Musatov, who finds himself fortunate to have such dedicated children. Musatov is a drunkard and is constantly seeking out money from his sons, which they routinely give to him. His children indulge their father continually, even though he doesn't deserve it for all the trouble he brings them and the fact that he has nothing to give in return.

Published in the February 1916 issue of her magazine, Mother Earth, Goldman states that it is only by totally rejecting the idea of God that mankind can break away from the crutch of religion and achieve true freedom. Goldman argued that religion is irrational, destructive, and harmful.

The Miraculous Prophecies, Predictions, and Strange Visions of Sundry Eminent Men is an old English book which explores various mysteries, and the visions and predictions of seers like Nostradamus.

Besides being a great short story writer, Anton Chekhov was also a master of the novella. One of his best is My Life, the tale of a rebellious young man so disgusted with bourgeois society that he drops out to live amongst the working classes, only to find himself once more disillusioned.