Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

Night and Day (1919) is a novel by Virginia Woolf. Set in Edwardian London, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of two friends, Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet. The novel examines the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success. (Wikipedia)

Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's late romances, which (like The Tempest and The Winter's Tale) combines comedy and tragedy. Imogen, the daughter of King Cymbeline of Britain, angers her father when she marries Posthumus, a worthy but penniless gentleman. The King banishes Posthumus, who goes to Rome, where he falls prey to the machinations of Iachimo, who tries to convince him that Imogen will be unfaithful. Meanwhile, the Queen (Imogen's stepmother) plots against her stepdaughter by trying to plan a match between Imogen and her worthless son Cloten. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)Cast:Arviragus...

Eleven-year-old Jude Fawley, inspired by his teacher Mr. Phillotson, who leaves Marygreen for Christminster to take a university degree, decides to adopt the same course for himself. Raised by his great-aunt, he studies hard with the aid of some old Latin and Greek books sent to him by Phillotson.He trains as a stonemason in order to enable him to support himself when at the university. However when he finally arrives in Christminster he soon finds that a university education is not easily come by for one of his social standing.Meeting and falling in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead his ...

Charlotte Bronte was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Bronte sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all times. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Bronte? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser.Volume One of this biography is available here

Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but became a governess and consequently, at the age of 18, married well. However, her husband died two weeks after the wedding. Her father-in-law, Lord Petherwin, died shortly afterwards. Ethelberta (now 21) lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since her marriage, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privileges by Lady Petherwin but restricted from seeing her own family. The story follows Ethelberta's career as a famous poetess and storyteller. Meanwhile, she struggles to support ...

LibriVox’s Long Poems Collection 002: a collection of 7 public-domain poems longer than 5 minutes in length.

"Herbert West—Reanimator" is a story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft that was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. You want zombies? Listen to this because Lovecraft was one of the very first and he got zombies right: scary, evil, implacable and out to get you. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)

The first book in the 20-novel Rougon-Macquart Cycle. A monument of French naturalism. The sprawling tale of a family in Provence, during the Second Empire, the family that grew out of the liaisons between Adelaide Fouque and her husband Rougons, and the smuggler Macquart. - Summary by Mark Leder

Inspired by the real life story of Caroline Norton, a friend of the author's, this book tells about a lively woman who is trapped in a miserable marriage. Yet Diana is not one to give up in her quest for love, happiness and fulfillment. - Summary by Stav Nisser

Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) wrote eighty-eight Encyclicals during his twenty-five year pontificate (1878-1903). Fifty-six of those are included in this collection.Among the topics covered are the Rosary, socialism, Christian marriage, labour, freemasonry, Church and state, human liberty, dueling, the Holy Eucharist, and more. (Summary by Maria Therese)

The English Romantic Period in literature featured a towering group of excellent poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. If we add in forerunners Burns and Blake, we have perhaps an unmatchable collection of writers for any era. Of these, Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the brightest and best, coupling a giant intellect with a highly emotional and impetuous nature. He was always a champion of liberty, but was largely ignored when he tried to promote political and social reform. He was wise enough, however, to realize that his efforts were ineffective, and he chose instead, not ...

La Sacra Bibbia.Versione riveduta sui testi ebraici e grecia cura del Prof. Giovanni Luzzidella Facoltà Teologica Valdese.

This is the first volume of Dumas' Marie Antoinette Romances (also called "The Memoirs of a Physician"). This historical fiction chronicles the strange events surrounding the fall of the French monarchy (starting ~1770) and rise of revolutionaries so terrifying that the period is still called "The Reign of Terrors" (1793-1794). In this volume, a renowned magician, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (Balsamo), employs various occult tactics, like hypnotism and necromancy, to gain state secrets. Balsamo claims to be plotting against the Bourbons, but one must wonder whether this 3000 year old ...

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was an English flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He won several victories, including the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during which he was killed. These are the letters that he wrote to Lady Hamilton, with whom he was having a notorious affair until his death in 1805. (Summary by Wikipedia)

A collection of readings in the readers' language of choice.

The book describes the love triangle between a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the respectable, established, older man who represents London society. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie Humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Études de mœurs qui...

Este poeta español, miembro de la mítica Generación del 27, es el mayor referente de la literatura española del siglo XX. También escribió numerosas obras de teatro, género en el que también se lo considera autoridad e ícono del siglo pasado, destacándose Bodas de sangre y La casa de Bernarda Alba. Fue asesinado en Granada durante la Guerra Civil Española por su condición de republicano y homosexual. Entre sus poemas podemos encontrar Gacela de la terrible presencia, Alba, Alma ausente, La casada infiel, Muerto de amor y Ciudad sin sueño. - Summary by Phileas Fogg

Captain Blood is an adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1922. It concerns the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish physician, who is convicted of treason in the aftermath of the Monmouth rebellion in 1685, and enslaved on the Caribbean island of Barbados. He escapes and becomes a pirate. [Wikipedia]Captain Blood was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated swashbuckling film that rocketed Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland to stardom in Hollywood. The fast-paced historical fiction of Rafael Sabatini is often compared with that of Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre ...

More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885) is a collection of linked short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift. Three gentlemen of little means and no occupation meet in the Bohemian Cigar Divan, a tobacco shop with couches to sit and smoke. They read of a reward offered for information as to the whereabouts of a man with big moustaches and a sealskin coat. They agree among themselves that they will separate and search for the man so as to claim the reward. The stories that follow concern their adventures. They meet again in the cigar divan in an epilogue to their travels...