46 "...One Thousand and One Nights..."
"One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كتابألفليلةوليلة- kitāb 'alf laylah wa-laylah;
Persian: ﻩزاروﯼﮎشب- ezār-o yak šab) is a collection of stories collected over thousands
of years by various authors, translators and scholars in various countries. These collections
of tales trace their roots back to ancient Arabia and Yemen, ancient India, ancient Persia
(especially the Sassanid Hazār Afsān Persian: ﻩزارافسان, lit. Thousand Tales), ancient
Egypt, ancient Mesopotamian Mythology, ancient Syria, and medieval Arabic folk stories
from the Caliphate era. Though an original manuscript has never been found several
versions date the collection's genesis to somewhere between AD 800-900.
The main frame story concerns a Persian king and his new bride. The king, Shahryar, upon
discovering his former wife's infidelity has her executed and then declares all women to be
unfaithful. He begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next
morning. Eventually the vizier cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade, the vizier's
daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of
their marriage, Scheherazade tells the king a tale, but does not end it. The king is thus
forced to keep her alive in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she
finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) another. So it goes for 1,001 nights.
The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems,
burlesques, various forms of erotica, and Muslim religious legends. Numerous stories depict
djinn, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and
geography; the historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist, as are his alleged
court poet Abu Nuwas and his vizier, Ja'far al-Barmaki. Sometimes a character in
Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may
have another one told within it, resulting in a richly-layered narrative texture.
The different versions have different individually detailed endings (in some Scheherazade
asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife,
in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king
giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern
literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in danger of losing his life or
another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration
in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of
Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy
according to Galen—and in all these cases turns out to be justified in her belief that the
king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.
The Indian folklore is represented by certain animal stories, which reflect influence from
ancient Sanskrit fables. The Jataka is a collection of 547 stories, which are for the most part
moral stories with an ethical purpose. The Tale of the Bull and the Ass and the linked Tale of
the Merchant and his Wife are found in the frame stories of both the Jataka and the Arabian
Nights."
-- Reference: Wikipedia.org
47 "... Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...”
"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) (often shortened to Huck Finn) by Mark Twain. The
book is noted for its innocent young protagonist, its colorful description of people and places
along the Mississippi River, and its sober and often scathing look at entrenched attitudes,
particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huckleberry Finn and his friend, runaway slave
Jim, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of
escape and freedom in all of American literature."
-- Reference: Wikipedia.org
48 "... Gulliver's Travels ..."
"Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of
the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several
Ships, is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the
"travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of
English literature. The book became tremendously popular as soon as it was published
(John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that "it is universally read, from the cabinet council to
the nursery"), and it is likely that it has never been out of print since then. The book
presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first
a surgeon, then a captain of several ships"."
-- Reference: Wikipedia.org
49 "...Peter Pan..."
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860–
1937). A mischievous boy who flies and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his
never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his
gang the Lost Boys, interacting with fairies and pirates, and from time to time meeting
ordinary children from the world outside.
Barrie never described Peter's appearance in detail, leaving much of it to the imagination of
the reader and the interpretation of anyone adapting the character. He describes him as a
beautiful boy with a beautiful smile, "clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that flow from
trees".
Peter is mainly an exaggerated stereotype of a boastful and careless boy. He is quick to
point out how great he is. Peter has a nonchalant, devil-may-care attitude, and is fearlessly
cocky when it comes to putting himself in danger. Barrie writes that when Peter thought he
was going to die on Marooner's Rock, he felt scared, yet he felt only one shudder run
through him when any other person would've felt scared up until death. With his blissful
unawareness of the tragedy of death, he says, "To die will be an awfully big adventure".
Peter's archetypal ability is his refusal to grow up. Barrie did not explain how he was able to
do this, leaving the implication that it was by an act of will.
Peter is a skilled swordsman, with the skill to rival even Captain Hook, whose hand he cut off
in a duel. He has remarkably keen vision and hearing. Peter Pan is said to be able to do
almost anything. Peter has an effect on the whole of Neverland and its inhabitants when he
is there. Barrie states that the island wakes up when he returns from his trip to London.
Peter is the leader of the Lost Boys, a band of boys who were lost by their parents, and
came to live in Neverland. He is friends with Tinker Bell, a common fairy who is often
jealously protective of him."
-- Reference: Wikipedia.org
50 "...The Legend of Sleepy Hollow... "
"A short story by Washington Irving contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey
Crayon, Gent., written while he was living in Birmingham, England, and first published in
1820. With Irving's companion piece "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is
among the earliest American fiction still read today.
The story is set circa 1790 in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, in a secluded
glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a lanky schoolmaster from
Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the
hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, only daughter of a wealthy farmer. As Crane leaves
a party at the Van Tassel home on an autumn night, he is pursued by the Headless
Horseman, supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who lost his head to a cannonball
during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War and who "rides forth to
the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head." Crane disappears from town, leaving Katrina
to marry Brom Bones, who was "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod
was related."
-- Reference: Wikipedia.org