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The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account after living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several weeks, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. In his attempt to understand the working-class of this deprived area of London the author stayed as a lodger with a poor family. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

The view from John Dowson s living room window is a miniature masterpiece. It reveals Venice in decay; crumbling, soft pink brick, and the ever-changing jade waters of a minor canal. But one morning the composition is marred by an old jacket draped carelessly over the iron railings of the balcony. This almost insignificant alteration to the perfect, arranged order of Dowson s life is just the first of many changes which become more profound as the days pass.