David R. Slayton

In Plato’s Republic, Echecrates meets Phaedo of Elis, one of the men present during Socrates’ final hours. The philosopher argues that there is a perpetual cycle of life and death, so that when we die we come back to life after a period of time.

Tom Jones, much like its predecessor Joseph Andrews, centers on a love story as its primary narrative focus. Squire Allworthy has a sneaking suspicion that the newborn he adopts and gives the name Tom Jones is really the illicit child of Jenny Jones, who works for him.

Herman Melville’s The Piazza Tales is a collection of tales. It was released in 1856. Five of the six pieces in the book had previously appeared in Putnam’s Monthly magazine; only the title story, “The Piazza,” was new to the collection.

The narrative is set in 1819 in a run-down boardinghouse on the left side of the Seine in Paris. Mme. Vauquer, a stingy widow, governs her tenants. Mlle. Michonneau, the old woman, Poiret, a puppet-like person, and Victorine Taillefer are among them.

The swashbuckling exploits of a dapper scoundrel—a French version of Thomas Crown Arsene Lupin is a clever confidence man and thief who was created by Maurice LeBlanc in the early 20th century. He is sometimes referred to as the “Sherlock Holmes” of the criminal world.

mile is a half-treatise, half-novel about a fictitious character called mile. Rousseau recounts mile’s growth and education, a schooling aimed to instill in him the characteristics of his imagined “natural man,” uncorrupted by contemporary society.