Christmas Classics from the Modern Library - Softcover

Modern Library

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679602828 ISBN 13: 9780679602828

Publisher: Modern Library, 1997

Synopsis

This little treasury of Christmas favorites from the Modern Library is our selection of stories, songs, carols, poems, and more to gladden the heart for the festive season. It is ideal to be dipped into for reading aloud--perhaps around a Christmas tree or in front of a fire in happy re-creation of a holiday scene that Charles Dickens might have described.
     Beginning with the Bible stories of Christ's Nativity, Christmas Classics leads us on a joyous journey. The beloved stories "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry and "The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Andersen, along with a Christmas mystery with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, accompany extracts from Dickens's A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers as well as the opening sections of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The beautiful devotional verses of John Donne and John Milton are included, together with seasonal offerings from poets like Tennyson, Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Sir Walter Scott, Clement Clarke Moore, and Robert Louis Stevenson. And the songs and carols that mean Christmas to so many of us are here: "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and "Jingle Bells." Selections from the holiday chronicles of Samuel Pepys, the seventeenth-century English diarist, and recipes from Mrs. Beeton's Victorian kitchen--staples like plum pudding and mince pies--complete this bo
ok of yuletide cheer.
     Christmas Classics from the Modern Library is
a delightful book to give and to receive and
will become a family favorite for countless Christmases yet to come.
The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE THREE KINGS
Henry Wadswortb Longfellow

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they traveled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere;
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,
Three caskets of gold with golden keys;
Their robes were of crimson silk, with rows
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,
Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.

And so the Three Kings rode into the West,
Through the dusk of night over hill and dell,
And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast
And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,
With the people they met at some wayside well

"Of the Child that is born," said Baltasar,
"Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;
For we in the East have seen His star,
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,
To find and worship the King of the Jews."

And the people answered, "You ask in vain;
We know of no king but Herod the Great!"
They thought the Wise Men were men insane,
As they spurred their horses across the plain
Like riders in haste who cannot wait.

And when they came to Jerusalem,
Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;
And said, "Go down unto Bethlehem,
And bring me tidings of this new king."

So they rode away, and the star stood still,
The only one in the gray of morn;
Yes, it stopped, it stood still of its own free will,
Right over Bethlehem on the hill,
The city of David where Christ was born.

And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,
Through the silent street, till their horses turned
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;
But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,
And only a light in the stable burned.

And cradled there in the scented hay,
In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,
The little Child in the manger lay,
The Child that would be King one day
Of a kingdom not human, but divine.

His mother, Mary of Nazareth,
Sat watching beside his place of rest,
Watching the even flow of his breath,
For the joy of life and the terror of death
Were mingled together in her breast.

They laid their offerings at his feet:
The gold was their tribute to a King;
The frankincense, with its odor sweet,
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete;
The myrrh for the body's burying.

And the mother wondered and bowed her head,
And sat as still as a statue of stone;
Her heart was troubled yet comforted,
Remembering what the angel had said
Of an endless reign and of David's throne.

Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;
But they went not back to Herod the Great,
For they knew his malice and feared his hate,
And returned to their homes by another way.

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Library
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679602828
• ISBN 13: 9780679602828
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224