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Readers can revel in Dickens' masterful atmospheric descriptions of Victorian London and the terror of the French Revolution as they encounter some of the novelist's most enduring and best-loved characters, from Fagin to Scrooge and Miss Havisham.

This luxury gift edition contains five volumes bound in high-quality cloth and matching color endsheets. These editions fit handsomely into a decorative slipcase with luxurious cloth finishes on the top and bottom. Complete and unabridged, these enduring classics make a wonderful gift or collectible to take pride of place on your bookshelf.

Includes:
• Oliver Twist
• A Christmas Carol
• Hard Times
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Great Expectations

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Collector's Classics series are high-quality, clothbound box-sets of classic works of literature. With elegant embossed cover-designs and colored endpapers, these editions make wonderful gifts or collectibles to treasure forever.

This book is a learned essay at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and religion. It is first and foremost a diagnosis and critique of the secular religion of our time, humanitarianism, or the “religion of humanity.” It argues that the humanitarian impulse to regard modern man as the measure of all things has begun to corrupt Christianity itself, reducing it to an inordinate concern for “social justice,” radical political change, and an increasingly fanatical egalitarianism. Christianity thus loses its transcendental reference points at the same time that it undermines balanced political judgment. Humanitarians, secular or religious, confuse peace with pacifism, equitable social arrangements with socialism, and moral judgment with utopianism and sentimentality.

With a foreword by the distinguished political philosopher Pierre Manent, Mahoney’s book follows Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in affirming that Christianity is in no way reducible to a “humanitarian moral message.” In a pungent if respectful analysis, it demonstrates that Pope Francis has increasingly confused the Gospel with left-wing humanitarianism and egalitarianism that owes little to classical or Christian wisdom. It takes its bearings from a series of thinkers (Orestes Brownson, Aurel Kolnai, Vladimir Soloviev, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) who have been instructive critics of the “religion of humanity.” These thinkers were men of peace who rejected ideological pacifism and never confused Christianity with unthinking sentimentality. The book ends by affirming the power of reason, informed by revealed faith, to provide a humanizing alternative to utopian illusions and nihilistic despair.

This is a story of the Anti-Christ, written by the Russian mystic Vladmir Soloviev in 1900, this futuristic tale is set after the fictional conquest of Asia and Europe by an ever-expanding Japanese empire. In the cultural and sociological aftermath of this great war, a unique man appears. He is special, beautiful and brilliant in everything he says or does. He is, in every respect, a superman. After a mysterious midnight visit from a shadowy, incorporeal being claiming to be his 'father', this man at once sets to write an expansive treatise, universally acclaimed. When the closely bonded Catholic, Orthdox, and Protestant churches raise an objection with the work based on its total omission of Christ, the superman invites the remainder of these churches to a grand summit in Jerusalem. Aided by his dark magician, the superman's stage is then set to either gain the complete support of the three remaining churches, or to destroy them utterly. This 2012 reprint of Soloviev's classic (and almost forgotten) work is simply bound for a crisp appearance which makes it ideal for the personal library or the classroom. Footnotes provide greater detail to some minor points.