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1Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

By Margaret Sidney

<i>The Five Little Peppers</i> series was created by Margaret Sidney covering the life of five children with the surname Pepper. The Pepper children were very poor, and their widowed mother was left to raise them by herself. In order of age (descending), the children's names were Ben (Ebaniezer), Polly (Mary), Joel, Davie, and Phronsie. <i>Five Little Peppers and How They Grew</i> is the first book in the series. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Astrophil and Stella is a sonnet sequence written by Philip Sidney, an Elizabethan poet and courtier. It details the frustrated love of Astrophil (whose name means "star-lover") for his beloved Stella (whose name means "star"). It is likely that Sidney based his poems on his own unrequited passion for a married woman. The sequence inspired other sonnet writers of the period, such as Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and Lady Mary Wroth. (Summary written by Elizabeth Klett)

3Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (Version 2)

By Margaret Sidney

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew tells the story of how the Peppers live, learn, and play in their little brown house. They are poor, and Mamsie must work constantly to keep the wolf from the door but they do it with gaiety and spirit that would not be expected.<BR><BR>The Peppers make due with whatever they have and the elder children try to make things special for the younger. Though tragedies often befall them, they bear it as best they are able and make the most of the good. (From Wikipedia)

4Five Little Peppers Midway

By Margaret Sidney

Five Little Peppers Midway is the joyous continuation of the Pepper family's story. A snooty cousin comes to stay with the Peppers, and yet even this can't dampen the joy the Pepper children feel about the wonderful prospect of Mamsie's upcoming wedding! (Summary by Mary Anderson)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of My True Love by Sir Philip Sidney. This was the weekly poetry project for May 24th, 2009.

6Five Little Peppers Grown Up

By Margaret Sidney

Five Little Peppers Grown Up continues the story of Ben, Polly, Joel, David, and Phronsie Pepper. Together with the Kings, the Whitneys, and other friends old and new, the Peppers learn and teach about life and love as they grow into adulthood. (Summary by Angela)

7Five Little Peppers Abroad

By Margaret Sidney

This book is the next in the series of the Five Little Peppers, by Margaret Sidney, after Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Five Little Peppers Midway. It continues the series where Ben, Polly, Joel, Davie, and Phronsie get to travel abroad in Europe! (Summary by Chelsea)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 11 recordings of To Sleep by Sir Philip Sidney. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 23, 2014.<br /><br /> Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. (Summary from Wikipedia)

9Adventures of Joel Pepper

By Margaret Sidney

The Peppers are a family of three boys, two girls, and Mamsie. They are poor, living in their "Little Brown House", but they always manage to be happy. This book comprises the adventures of Joel, the middle Pepper child and the most mischievous. Among other things, Joel encounters a snake, a thief, and a nail pile; puts on a circus; rides on a stagecoach; and gets into a fight on Strawberry Hill! (Summary by Rachel)

10Five Little Peppers at School

By Margaret Sidney

The Five Little Peppers are off to school - Joel and Davie at a boys' boarding school, Polly, Phronsie and Ben at home. At first the storyline shifts between the boys and the girls, until the boys come home for the holidays and all the children are caught up in plans to help the poor family of a brakeman who was killed in an accident. Meanwhile Polly struggles to keep Jasper's friend from being expelled, Phronsie has a frightening accident and Ben works hard to repay Mr. King. It's another heart-warming tale from the author of <i>Five Little Peppers and How They Grew</i>! (Summary by Rachel)

11Ben Pepper

By Margaret Sidney

This book is about Ben Pepper on some adventures! From The Five Little Peppers to Joel Pepper to now Ben Pepper, you'll know everything about the Pepper family. - Summary by Elijah Fisher

Arcadia is a prose work by Sir Philip Sidney, a classic of the Renaissance pastoral and a work of high romance, a fleeting vision of a lost world of gallantry and adventure, representing an escape from the realities of politics in the Elizabethan court. It contributes to the ongoing legend of Sidney as the perfect Renaissance man, "soldier, scholar, horseman he/And all he did done perfectly". - Summary by Nicole Lee

13Stories Polly Pepper Told to the Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House

By Margaret Sidney

Polly Pepper loves to tell stories, but there just isn't enough room in the other books to include her stories! So, since "the author has received from mothers and other persons interested in the Pepper Family, so many requests for the Stories told by Polly Pepper ... this initial volume of Polly’s earlier stories has been prepared in obedience to these requests" (from the Preface). So curl up at Polly's feet, in front of the warm fire, and enjoy the Stories Polly Pepper Told to the Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House! - Summary by Rachel

LibriVox volunteers bring you recordings of Double Sestina - Ye Goatherd Gods by Phillip Sidney.<br> This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 5, 2019. <br> ------<br> Poem is included in the book "Countesse of Pembroke's Arcadia" Ye Goatherd Gods" depicts the sorrows of two shepherds who love the same woman. She has left them both, however, and the two shepherds are dejected and heartbroken. They appeal to the gods, to nature, and to the heavens in their angst, and everything they see is altered because of their sorrows. The poem is hyperbolic and highly emotional, with the two speakers engaged in a traditional pastoral singing match. Alternatively its stanzas are the lamentations of two broken hearted goatherds who pine after the goddess Urania, who was one of the nine Greek Muses, the muse of astronomy and Astrology. A sestina is a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern with all six words appearing in the closing three-line envoi. The six key words in this poem are: mountaines; vallies; forrests; musique; morning; evening. This is a DOUBLE sestina with 12 stanzas instead of 6. ( Summary by William Jones )

A poetic version of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) and his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621). "It is possible that the original Autograph manuscript of Sir Philip Sidney may still exist in the library at Wilton. It would have been desirable to have ascertained this, as it might prove which were versified by him, and which by his sister. This I have not been able to accomplish." Some of the Psalms may have been written by a third party.<br/> <br/> <i>The Christian Remembrancer</i> magazine for June, 1821 contains a paper by Dr. Cotton on English Psalmody. In speaking of this translation, he says, "By what strange means it has happened that this version has slept in unmerited obscurity for nearly two centuries and a half, I am utterly at a loss to divine. I see in many of them passages of considerable beauty; and notwithstanding the stiffness characteristic of the poetry of the day, there is often peculiar happiness of expression, a nerve and energy, a poetic spirit that might have disarmed, even if it could not extort praise, from the fastidious Warton himself." (Summary from the Advertisement)

Astrophil and Stella is a sequence of sonnets and songs written by Sir Philip Sidney, the Elizabethan poet, courtier and soldier. It details the frustrated love of Astrophil (whose name means "star-lover") for his beloved Stella (whose name means "star"). The first of the famous English sonnet sequences, Astrophel and Stella influenced later writers like Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare. In it, Sidney partially nativised the key features of his Italian model, Petrarch, which served to free the English sonnet from the strict rhyming requirements of the Italian form. - Summary by Alan Mapstone

Sonnet sequences, which these poems by Sidney made very popular in the Elizabethan age, reflected the Medieval motif of courtly love, whereby a wretched lover courts an unavailable woman, typically married already and faithful to her vows. The poet, although unsuccessful, is a slave to her beauty and virtue, which, by pulling in opposite directions, hold him in an agonizing tension that prolongs the sequence.<br><br> Sidney wrestles creatively, though, with the restrictions of the ancient conventions. The first line of the first poem declares him an iconoclast, for he defies the very definition of a sonnet by using iambic hexameter. This opening poem, therefore, is no sonnet, and besides, it portrays the beloved as (at least initially) a sadist, an extreme exaggeration of the typical beloved’s aloofness. The following poems fall more or less into line with the conventions, the speaker’s adoration displayed against a background of the reproaches, self-contempt, self-pity, and indignation that the lady’s behavior inspires.<br><br> Moderns find Sidney’s language difficult partly because its antiquity has rendered many words obsolete, partly because word order is (doubtless deliberately) tortured, but also possibly because of the Italian vogue for asprezza ‘roughness.' In addition, many of the poet’s allusions puzzle modern readers. In the Elizabethan age, readers shared with writers a common heritage of lore that they enjoyed using almost like a code: Rather than saying simply “Plato,” Sidney writes, “The wisest scholar of the wight most wise by Phoebus’ doom,” referring to Socrates, whom a god’s oracle had declared the wisest of men (as we read in Plato’s account of his teacher’s trial). Moreover, Sidney's readers had knowledge of both Greek and Latin, so the title of this work, which means "Star-lover and Star," would have been well understood by them. The delight that those of Sidney’s age took in using their education obliges a student seeking full comprehension to rely on a scholarly edition with extensive footnotes. The Oxford English Dictionary can help as well; it even cites Sidney’s Sonnet 46 for the meaning of the obsolete verb to myche 'play truant.' However, anyone can enjoy these poems without understanding every allusion. An oral reading can assist by bringing out the many different tones of voice and even different voices the poet employs, for he often creates little dramas in which various characters speak.<br><br> On the other hand, certain puns are not audible, e.g., posie (bouquet)/poesie (poetry) raze/raise rich/Rich (“Rich” being the lady’s married name) Moreover, if the text contains fruitful ambiguities, an oral reading necessarily eliminates them. For instance, when the poet, addressing the faculty of Reason, says, “Leave love to will” does he mean “Stop influencing love,” or does he mean, “Allow the Will to handle love”? These two interpretations reinforce each other, but a performer must sacrifice one or the other in speaking the words. So it is best not to rely on any performance as the definitive reading.<br><br> History of the text: Philip Sidney wrote most of his literary work while staying on the country estate of his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton in Wiltshire. When he left to return to the army or court he left the manuscripts which had written with his sister, who preserved them carefully and supervised their publication after his early death. It is thought that the 1591 edition was made from other people's copies of Sidney's manuscripts and so contains many errors. The 1598 edition, which also includes Arcadia, was made under the supervision of Mary and is thought to have been taken from Sidney's original handwritten manuscripts and so is the most accurate version. It does of course have some errors as all printed documents did at that time.<br><br> The text used for this reading is the 1598 edition.<br><br> (Summary by Thomas A. Copeland; history by Alan Mapstone)

Sidney envisions the world as an ideally ordered structure that rewards good and punishes evil, but this order, vitiated by sin, has fallen prey to random chance. The function of poetry is, by teaching (through delight of various sorts), to restore the original order so far as is humanly possible. This treatise defends the dignity of poetry, by which Sidney means literature in general, and criticizes the literature of his own day. Much of this criticism sounds to a modern ear like unimaginative carping, but its probable function was to defend the author against the charge of partiality arising from naïve idealism.<br><br> Albert S. Cook, the editor of the edition chosen in this project, wrote in 1890, “In this essay [Sidney] appears as a link between the soundest theory of ancient times and the romantic production of the modern era, as a humanist actuated by ethical convictions, as a man of affairs discharging the function of the scholar with the imaginative insight of the poet.” - Summary by T. A. Copeland

19Five Little Peppers and Their Friends

By Margaret Sidney

From the Preface: "There were so many interesting friends of the Five Little Peppers, whose lives were only the faintest of outlines in the series ending when Phronsie was grown up, that a volume devoted to this outer circle has been written to meet the persistent demand. <br><br> Herein the author records many happenings that long ago Ben and Polly, Joel and David told her. And even Phronsie whispered some of it confidentially into the listening ear. "Tell about Rachel, please," she begged; and Margaret Sidney promised to write it all down some day. <br><br> And that day seems to have arrived in which it all should be recorded and the promise fulfilled. For the Five Little Peppers loved their friends very dearly, and were loyal and true to them. And hand in hand, the circle widening ever, they lived and loved as this history records." - Summary by Margaret Sidney

A Cabinet of Gems, cut and polished by Sir Philip Sidney; now, for the more radiance, presented without their setting by George MacDonald. "By these extracts from writings I have long loved, I hope to help some of my friends to a genuine acquaintance with the writer." (From the preface.) The excerpts in this book, edited by George MacDonald, are taken primarily from Sir Philip Sidney's "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" and relate to a wide range of subjects. (Summary by Devorah Allen)

21Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House

By Margaret Sidney

“What ever became of Polly Pepper’s famous Chicken Pie, and also Phronsie’s red-topped shoes?” the friends of the “Five Little Peppers” keep asking. “We have searched through all the Pepper Books, and cannot find them. Please give us those two stories again.” At last all these requests are granted in this book, containing, first of all, those two stories that make the very beginning of all the records of the Pepper Family. Indeed, there wasn’t any Pepper Family before they were written; nor any Little Brown House, not a sign of one; nor any Badgertown even, till Margaret Sidney one day wrote “Polly Pepper’s Chicken Pie” and sent it to the Wide Awake Magazine. And no one could be more astonished than was she—for the record was so simple—when the editor wrote for another one just like it. So “Phronsie Pepper’s New Shoes” was written. And then—well, the editor wrote that the Wide Awake must have enough stories for one year, to be connected. So Margaret Sidney had to go regularly after that to the “Little Brown House” and write down all the records just as Mrs. Pepper and the Five Little Peppers told them to her, and then those insatiable editors wrote that they must have a book—nothing more nor less—because the children’s letters to them from all over the country demanded it. So that was the way it all began. And of course the two separate stories—the motif, as it were, for the book—had to be left out. So here they are now in the post of honor—leading off in the very front of the volume, as is quite proper; the other stories (which are all just newly written expressly for this book) following humbly after in the wake of Phronsie’s red-topped shoes. Summary from the Preface by Margaret Sidney

22Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (Dramatic Reading)

By Margaret Sidney

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, is an adorable story about five children and the daily adventures they have. A poor little Brown House holds up for the broke family, but from the smallest of routine work, to getting the measles, the peppers keep on going with their fun and expressed characters. - Summary by ej400

Although Old Arcadia has never been greatly popular, it has entertained a small set of readers for over 400 years with its sensational treatment of sex, politics, violence, soporifics, mobs, and cross-dressing. Narrated in sprawling Renaissance prose, the romance comprises five "books or acts," organized according to the five-part structure of classical dramaturgy: exposition, action, complication, reversal, catastrophe. This hybrid structure—part prose romance and part classical drama—allows Sidney to contain the diverseness of romance within the cohesiveness of the dramatic arc. The work is often called "tragicomic" for its combination of a "serious" high plot centering on the princes and Duke Basilius's household and a "comic" low plot that centers on the steward Dametas's family. - Summary by Wikipedia