Benito Cereno is the story of a meeting between two ships in the Atlantic. The Bachelor's Delight and the San Dominick come alongside one another so that the former can offload relief supplies to the storm-battered latter, only to discover that the San Dominick has been seized by rebel slaves hiding behind a captive white crew. The novel meditates on violence, human connection, and depravity before the uprising is overthrown and its leader put to death, an event which occasions paradoxical sympathy in his victims.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story concerning Mr. and Mrs. Button, whose newborn baby appears to be a seventy-year-old man. The Buttons are horrified at this, and despite the old man's cranky demeanor, are determined to treat him the way a real baby should be treated. However, as Benjamin ages, they discover that he is actually growing younger in appearance. This story explores the themes of social propriety, normalcy, and existence.
The Alchemist is a 17th century play that satirizes social classes, depicting human folly, greed and opportunism of others' gullibility and irrational desires. The play centers around the butler Jeremy, whom the gentleman Lovewit leaves in charge of his house as he leaves to avoid the plague. With the help of Subtle and the prostitute Doll Common, he begins to draw naive customers to the house to con them. Eventually Lovewit returns, Jeremy is caught and he offers his boss the marriage of a widow as compensation.
Volpone is a play following the story of the rich and duplicitous eponymous character, a Venetian noble who fakes his own impending death in order to inspire various gentlemen to squabble over his fortune as prospective heirs and, in the process, divest themselves of their own assets. Volpone is revealed over the course of the play to be a totally vicious, amoral, and rapacious miser whose satirically banal desires form the engine of the drama.