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In the opening chapters of Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times (1854), the aptly named Thomas Gradgrind warns the teachers and pupils at his “model” school to avoid using their imaginations. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life,” exclaims Mr. Gradgrind. To press his point, Mr. Gradgrind asks “girl […]

It is a signal honor to introduce Hermann Hesse’s Demian to a contemporary audience, since it means following in the footsteps of no less a predecessor than Thomas Mann, who wrote in April 1947, “For me, [Hesse’s] life, with its roots in native German romanticism, for all its strange individualism, its now humorously petulant and […]

THE STREETS ARE quiet and deserted as I make my way across the city under the cover of darkness. I listen for footsteps and other stirring noises; so far, I have not sensed any pursuers, but that does little to settle the unease I feel. I know that it’s only a matter of time before […]

Conan the Barbarian: born on a battlefield in Cimmeria, his life was spent wandering the world of the legendary Hyborian Age. From boy-thief to pirate, mercenary and outlaw, ultimately becoming King of Aquilona, Conan carved a red swathe through lost cities and unexplored jungles, facing hideous horrors or supernatural menaces with nothing more than a […]