The Samurai Series on Amazon

From the Samurai Series:

I have been many years training in the Way of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now I think I will explain it in writing for the first time. It is now during the first ten days of the tenth month in the twentieth year of Kanei (1645). I have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo in Kyushu to pay homage to heaven, pray to Kwannon, and kneel before Buddha. I am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Geshin, age sixty years.

From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist, Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests. 

After that I went from province to province duelling with strategists of various schools, and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools’ strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to realise the Way of strategy when I was fifty.

Since then I have lived without following any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I practice many arts and abilities – all things with no teacher. To write this book I did not use the law of Buddha or the teachings of Confucius, neither old war chronicles nor books on martial tactics. I take up my brush to explain the true spirit of this Ichi school as it is mirrored in the Way of heaven and Kwannon. The time is the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, at the hour of the tiger (3-5 a.m.)

And so begins Miyamoto Musashi in trying to explain the ways of the warrior in Go Rin No Sho, now known as The Book of Five Rings.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Classic Collector's Edition

Premises of The Art of War

The Art of War presents the basic principles of warfare and gives military leaders advice on when and how to fight. Its 13 chapters offer specific battle strategies–for example, one tells commanders how to move armies through inhospitable terrain, while another explains how to use and respond to different types of weapons–but they also give more general advice about conflicts and their resolution. Rules like “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight;” “He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces;” “He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks;” “Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men;” and “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril” can be applied to particular battle situations as well as to other kinds of disagreements and challenges. 

The Art of War Today

The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Classic Collector's Edition

Ever since The Art of War was published, military leaders have been following its advice. In the twentieth century, the Communist leader Mao Zedong said that the lessons he learned from The Art of War helped him defeat Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist forces during the Chinese Civil War. Other recent devotees of Sun Tzu’s work include Viet Minh commanders Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh and American Gulf War generals Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.

Meanwhile, executives and lawyers use the teachings of The Art of War to get the upper hand in negotiations and to win trials. Business-school professors assign the book to their students and sports coaches use it to win games. It has even been the subject of a self-help dating guide. Plainly, this 2,500-year-old book still resonates with a 21st-century audience.

Art by Corinne Malvern in Ladies Home Journal

Special Edition Books has announced the publication of a re-issued series of books by Gladys Malvern, many of them featuring illustrations by Corinne Malvern, the author’s sister.

Behold Your Queen! A Story of Esther and The Foreigner – A Story of Ruth have been released in paperback versions, and are available at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

The publisher will be releasing Dear Wife – A Story of the American Revolution and According to Thomas – A Story of the Apostle Thomas later this month. Patriot’s Daughter – The Story of Anastasia Lafayette is set to be released in April, 2011, followed by Tamar, Saul’s Daughter and Rhoda of Cypress.

Fans of the Malvern sisters may also remember them from their work in vaudeville and Broadway. Child actresses, both Gladys and Corinne appeared in dozens of plays, operas and traveling productions during the early part of the 20th century.

Gladys famously appeared at the age of 11 in the 1908 Broadway production of The Man Who Stood Still. Corinne’s art appeared in Ladies Home Journal and in the Little Golden Books series.

The Overcoat & Selected Stories - Special Edition

One of the most influential short stories ever written, Nikolai Gogol’s ‘‘The Overcoat’’ first appeared in 1842 as part of a four-volume publication of its author’s Collected Works. The story is considered not only an early masterpiece of Russian Naturalism—a movement that would dominate the country’s literature for generations—but a progenitor of the modern short story form itself.

Gogol’s writings have been seen as a bridge between the genres of romanticism and realism in Russian literature. Progressive critics of his day praised Gogol for grounding his prose fictions in the everyday lives of ordinary people, and they claimed him as a pioneer of a new “naturalist” aesthetic. Yet, Gogol viewed his work in a more conservative light, and his writing seems to incorporate as much fantasy and folklore as realistic detail. “The Overcoat,” which was written sporadically over several years during a self-imposed exile in Geneva and Rome, is a particularly dazzling amalgam of these seemingly disparate tendencies in Gogol’s writing. The story begins by taking its readers through the mundane and alienating world of a bureaucratic office in St. Petersburg where an awkward, impoverished clerk must scrimp and save in order to afford a badly needed new winter coat. As the story progresses, we enter a fairy-tale world of supernatural revenge, where the clerk’s corpse is seen wandering city streets ripping coats off the backs of passersby. Gogol’s story is both comic and horrific—at once a scathing social satire, moralistic fable, and psychological study.

In addition to “The Overcoat,” this special edition also includes the novel length “Taras Bulba”, “The Mysterious Portrait” and three other short stories, with a linked table of contents to each book and chapter in the collection.

List of Contents:

Introduction to the life of Nikolai Gogol
Book 1: The Overcoat
Book 2: Taras Bulba
Book 3: St. John’s Eve
Book 4: The Nose
Book 5: The Mysterious Portrait
Book 6: The Calash

The Art of War by Baron de Jomini - Special Edition

The Art of War – Special Edition series has been the definitive collection of military strategy texts produced in the last decade. Including the works of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Baron de Jomini and Mao Tse-tung, these four books have brought together some of the greatest military strategists and treatises on war that history has ever known.

Sun Tzu has been instructing students of history on the fundamentals of conflict and strategy for over 25 centuries. Baron de Jomini was an advisor to Napoleon and wrote extensively on war tactics. Niccolo Machiavelli is famous for his book on political machinations, The Prince, and also produced his own treatise titled The Art of War. Mao Tse-tung was one of the most ruthless and brilliant experts on guerrilla warfare techniques of the modern era.

The Art of War – Special Edition series has just been re-released, this time in updated, collectible hardcover editions. Included in the series are:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu – Special Edition
The Art of War & The Prince by Machiavelli – Special Edition
The Art of War by Baron de Jomini – Special Edition
The Art of War by Mao Tse-tung – Special Edition

Tao - The Way - Special Edition

Lao Tzu was the father of Taoism. In his Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu outlined the basic concept of Tao. Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu were Lao Tzu’s most important followers who expounded and expanded the basic principles set forth by Lao Tzu. Together, the sayings of these three sages, which make up this volume, are the foundations for the philosophy of Tao.

The translations of the works of these ancient Chinese sages by Lionel and Herbert Giles are very highly regarded and considered by many to be the definitive English translations. Lionel’s translation of The Sayings of Lao Tzu (1905), taken from the Tao Te Ching and logically re-ordered, is remarkable for its clarity of expression, particularly given the complexity of the subject. Herbert’s translation ofThe Sayings of Chuang Tzu, presented here, with an introduction by Lionel, was originally published as Musings of a Chinese Mystic (1906). Lionel’s translation of The Sayings of Lieh Tzu was originally published as The Book of Lieh Tzu, Teachings in Taoism (1912).

Individually the works of these Chinese sages are classics. Together, they are a master resource of the history of Tao.

Excerpt from Tao – The Way – Special Edition. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know but that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home?

The lady li Chi was the daughter of Ai Feng. When the Duke of Chin first got her, she wept until the bosom of her dress was drenched with tears. But when she came to the royal residence, and lived with the Duke, and ate rich food, she repented of having wept. How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?

Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams – I am but a dream myself. This is a paradox. To-morrow a sage may arise to explain it; but that tomorrow will not be until ten thousand generations have gone by.

Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right or wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.

Who shall I employ as arbiter between us? If I employ some one who takes your view, he will side with you. How can such a one arbitrate between us? If I employ some one who takes my view, he will side with me. How can such a one arbitrate between us? And if I employ some one who either differs from or agrees with both of us, he will be equally unable to decide between us. Since then you, and I, and man, cannot decide, must we not depend upon Another? Such dependence is as though it were not dependence. We are embraced in the obliterating unity of God.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called metempsychosis. –This text refers to the Paperback edition.