The Black Cat, short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in The Saturday Evening Post in August 1843 and included in the collection Tales by Edgar Allen Poe (1845). The story’s narrator is an animal lover who, as he descends into alcoholism and perverse violence, begins mistreating his wife and his black cat Pluto.

When Pluto attacks him in self-defense one night, he seizes the cat in a fury, cuts out one of its eyes, and hangs it. That night a fire destroys his house, leaving him in ...

"Three Little Kittens" is an English language nursery rhyme, in all likelihood with roots in the British folk tradition. The rhyme as published today however is a sophisticated piece usually attributed to American poet Eliza Lee Cabot Follen (1787–1860). With the passage of time, the poem has been absorbed into the Mother Goose collection. The rhyme tells of 3 kittens who first lost, then find and soak, their mittens. When all is finally set to rights, the kittens receive their mother's app...

Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More (1478–1535), written in Latin and published in 1516. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.The title De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia literally translates to "Of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia."

It is variously...