Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

Qui ne connaît Carmen, immortalisée par l'opéra de Bizet? Quoique... Le narrateur rencontre don José, qui lui raconte son aventure de contrebandier avec la belle Gitane. Quant à la Vénus d'Ille, cette statue à l'allure maléfique est à l'origine d'événements mystérieux.Who does not know Carmen, immortalized by Georges Bizet in his most famous opera? Although... The narrator tells his encounter with don Jose, who tells him of his life as a smuggler with the beautiful Gipsy. As for the Venus from Ille, this statue with its malevolent looks is causing mysterious events. (Summary by ...

This is a collection of early Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories. It includes stories of mystery, comedy, shipwrecks and fantasy. (Summary by Richard Kilmer)

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, as Dumas's most popular work. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting ...

Arthur Conan Doyle first published his memories of his many various adventures around the world and his relationships with such famous figures of the age including Oscar Wilde, Empress Eugenie and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour to name a few, in The Strand Magazine between October 1923 and July 1924. This memoir was later formed into a book and published in September 1924.

Here are some classic, short Christmas stories from Charles Dickens, who, one may easily argue, was the greatest Christmas storyteller to date. In this season, may we do as Dickens' asked: "Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted!" Happy Holidays! - Summary by jvanstan

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo is an adventure novel and one of the author's most popular works. He completed the work in 1844. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and in the Levant during the historical events of 1815-1838 (from just before the Hundred Days to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). It deals with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness. The book is considered a literary classic today. (Summary by David Clarke, ref. Wikipedia)

The Voyage Out is the first novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1915 by Duckworth; and published in the U.S. in 1920 by Doran. One of Woolf's wittiest social satires.Rachel Vinrace embarks for South America on her father's ship and is launched on a course of self-discovery in a kind of modern mythical voyage. The mismatched jumble of passengers provide Woolf with an opportunity to satirize Edwardian life. The novel introduces Clarissa Dalloway, the central character of Woolf's later novel, Mrs. Dalloway.E. M. Forster described it as "... a strange, tragic, inspired book whose scene is a ...

Virginia Woolf’s third novel lacks a conventional narrative style and some say even a plot. It follows Jacob from his childhood, through his education at Cambridge and finally to his death in World War I. The prose repeatedly shifts its point of view and the reader is challenged to find connections between the narrative fragments. Largely from the comments of others we come to know the sequence and some moments of Jacob’s life but we never fully learn who Jacob is. The literary experimentation in Jacob’s Room is used even more successfully in Woolf’s later novels. (Summary by DaveC)

This book is an early collection of ten well-known fairy tales. It is thought to have begun the genre of fairy tales.(Summary by A.L. Gramour)

信州の高原で、作家を志す青年と、絵を描く少女が出会った。やがて、二人は婚約する。しかし、少は、肺の病に落ちる。療養の為に、少女と青年は、信州のサナトリウムに行く。しかし、少女は帰らぬ人となってしまう。そして、一年後、青年は少女と出会った村で、冬を過ごす。A love story between a young man and a young lady. They are engaged but the heroine becomes sick. They go to a sanatorium, but she passes away. After a year he goes to the small village where they met, and he lives ...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of A Winter Evening by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Martha Dickinson Bianchi.This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 13, 2022.-----Pushkin is a well-known Russian author and poet. Bianchi, the translator, was the niece of Emily Dickinson and is best known as an editor of Dickinson's poems. - Summary by TriciaG

The Pioneers: The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is one of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. The Pioneers was first of these books to be published (1823), but the period of time covered by the book (principally 1793) makes it the fourth chronologically. (The others are The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, and The Prairie.)The story takes place on the rapidly advancing frontier of New York State and features a middle-aged Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo), Judge Marmaduke Temple of Templeton, whose life...

This is book 5 of 5. An ex-convict breaks parole and starts a new life as a righteous man, but is pursued by a police inspector. Along the way, the ex-convict joins a revolution, adopts a daughter, and beats people up. Hooray. (Summary by smileyman457)

A ghost story and love story all at once, set in medieval Portugal. Don Ruy is in love with Dona Leonor, but her husband has guessed his feelings and hatches a plan. Don Ruy rides right into a trap, but on the way, a dead man joins him and saves his life. - Summary by Carolin

The pedigrees of our county families, arranged in diagrams on the pages of county histories, mostly appear at first sight to be as barren of any touch of nature as a table of logarithms. But given a clue—the faintest tradition of what went on behind the scenes, and this dryness as of dust may be transformed into a palpitating drama. Out of such pedigrees and supplementary material most of the following stories have arisen and taken shape. (Summary adapted from the preface)

Dot and Tot of Merryland is a 1901 novel by L. Frank Baum. After Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he wrote this story about the adventures of a little girl named Dot and a little boy named Tot in a land reached by floating on a river that flowed through a tunnel. The land was called Merryland and was split into seven valleys. (Summary by Wikipedia)

A man who has been condemned to death writes down his cogitations, feelings and fears while he is waiting for his execution. He does not betray his name to the reader or what he has done. He describes his life in prison, everything from what his cell looks like to the personality of the prison priest. (Introduction by Wikipedia)Part of Section 2 read by Nadine Eckert-BouletThis project was proof listened by lh, Barry Eads, and Chieko.

Virginia Woolf's classic modernist novel explores the lives and thoughts of the Ramsays and their guests at the family's summer home on the Isle of Skye. The book is divided into three parts, described by Woolf as 'two blocks joined by a corridor'. The first and last parts tell of two days, ten years, and a world war apart. The 'corridor' describes the decay and renovation of the house over the intervening period, punctuated by marriages and deaths among the Ramsays and their friends. To the Lighthouse remains noteworthy for its use of multiple perspectives to reveal complexities of perception...

A fictional biography following the adventures of Orlando: initially a gentleman, later a lady — always a poet — who romps through British history, living an unusually long and full life…. (summary by Cori)This recording was originally published on Legamus.eu and was later released on Librivox when US copyright permitted.

THREE great names stand forth conspicuous in the annals of America, those of Washington, Bolívar, San Martin. Of Washington, the great leader of the Democracy of the North; of Bolívar and of San Martin, who were the emancipators of the southern half of the continent. The story of the life-work of the latter of these two is the Argument of this book.The scene of action passes on a vast theatre, a territory extending for more than fifty degrees of latitude, from Cape Horn to the Tropic of Cancer, and occupies twenty years of strife. The starting-point of this history is the Argentine ...