Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

Adam Bede, the first novel written by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), was published in 1859. It was published pseudonymously, even though Evans was a well-published and highly respected scholar of her time. The novel has remained in print ever since, and is used in university studies of 19th century English literature. The story's plot follows four characters rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love triangle between beautiful but thoughtless Hetty Sorrel, Captain Arthur Donnithorne, ...

This fragment of a novel was written by Jane Austen in 1804 and remained untitled and unpublished until her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh printed it in his A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1871. The title is from him. Mr Watson is a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But when her aunt contracts a foolish second marriage, Emma is obliged to return to her father's house. There she is chagrined by the crude and reckless husband-hunting of two of ...

This story follows the lives of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Set in the tumultuous days of the American Civil war, readers grow to love the four sisters as they grow and mature into young women. This book has characters any girl can relate to because each of the four March sisters has a unique and different personality. A story that the young and old have enjoyed for years, this book truly is a classic. (Summary by Abigail Rasmussen)

Mary Godolphin was the pseudonym of Lucy Aikin who undertook translating great literature into single-syllable words so that young readers could enjoy plots that were considerably more interesting than, say, the McGuffey readers of the 1880's or the "Dick and Jane" primers of the 1950s (still around today as "decodable readers" in elementary schools).She produced this volume based on Daniel Defoe's most famous work, considered by many to be the first English novel (1719). She also rendered Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson, which she translated as well.I’ve recorded...

The Tang Dynasty (618 to 907) was a golden age of Chinese culture: religion and philosophy, painting and calligraphy, sculpture, architecture and music all reached peaks of perfection. Poetry was the epitome of the arts: a scholastic requirement, a route to fame, a moulder of character. Nearly 50,000 poems of the Tang have survived. The collection 'Three Hundred Tang Poems' was compiled around 1763. It comprises six volumes, with poems grouped by verse form. Volume 1 covers the 'ancient verse' style in five-character lines (poems 1 to 35), and 'folk song style verse' (36 to 45). The masters Li...

Scenes of Clerical Life, which appeared in book form in 1858 (after serial publication in the previous year), was the first published fiction by George Eliot, the pen name for Mary Anne Evans. It consists of three novellas based on the lives of country clergymen and their communities. These characters interest Eliot not for their theology — she had abandoned conventional Christian belief — but for their humanity. In these stories, we find the earliest signs of the narrative voice, the humanism, and the realism that would make George Eliot one of the greatest novelists of the 1800s. (...

Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen’s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Its manuscript was first written between 1796 and 1797, and was initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813 by the same Mr. Egerton of the Military Library, Whitehall, who had brought out Sense and Sensibility. Like both its predecessor and ...

Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (1719) is considered by many the first English novel. Based on the real-life experiences of the castaway Alexander Selkirk, the book has had a perennial appeal among readers of all ages-–especially the young adult reading public–-who continue to find inspiration in the inventive resourcefulness of its hero, sole survivor of a shipwreck who is marooned on an uninhabited island. Especially poignant, after more than two decades of unbroken solitude, is the affection that Robinson develops for ...

The Dance of Death is a play in two parts by the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, written in 1900. It depicts the dissolution of a marriage between Edgar, an artillery captain, and Alice, a former actress. Increasingly isolated in their fort-like house, they manipulate and bait each other, until the unexpected arrival of Curt, Alice's cousin. His presence creates a tense triangular relationship that escalates throughout Part One, and is complicated with the introduction of two of the trio's children, Allan and Judith, in Part Two. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)CastEdgar: Bob NeufeldAlice: ...

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes. During the following year Eliot resumed work, fusing together several stories into a coherent whole, and during 1871–72 the novel appeared in serial form. The first one-volume edition was published in 1874, and attracted large sales. Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of ...

A Relíquia é um romance do escritor português Eça de Queirós, publicado em 1887. Uma de suas obras mais irreverentes e mais fantasiosas, "A Relíquia"pode ser lida como uma sátira ao catolicismo em Portugal, ou, mais amplamente, ao conservadorismo, através das memórias do narrador Teodorico Raposo, que, para herdar a fortuna da tia velha e solteirona, vive uma vida dupla: extremamente católico e devoto para a família, mas um ébrio galanteador junto aos amigos. Como prova cabal de sua devoção, Teodorico empreende a longa viagem de Portugal à Terra Santa como representante da tia, ...

A governess comes to Sherlock Holmes for advice on an offer of a excellent position with a new employer. But the conditions are odd and expectations strange. What is behind the smiling demeanor of the owner of the Copper Beeches house? Sherlock and Dr. Watson are happy to help this lady with her conundrum and save lives as a consequence.

This is a massive effort, taking place in England and the Middle East, with a cast of thousands... Well, not thousands, fortunately, but certainly a great many. There are three Bertrams present: Sir Lionel, his son George (our hero), and the wealthy uncle. The primary story involves the joining of two couples (following some rocky periods), and the disposal of the uncle's fortune. The more amusing bits focus on peripheral characters in the social settings of a fictional town and in travel on board ship or touring Egypt. Trollope digresses from time to time to lecture us on religion, politics, ...

Dickens' last complete novel was published serially 1864-5. It begins with an intriguing fortune offered to John Harmon by his late father, a rich dust contractor, in his will. To receive the money, John must marry a certain Bella Wilfer who he does not know from Eve. He is returning from the exile enforced by his father and confides in a ship's mate who attempts to murder him. The mate gets killed instead, leaving one inconvenient corpse. Because John is considered dead (the body is found with his papers), the money passes to Mr Boffin, old Harmon's foreman. Harmon adopts Bella and John comes...

Sonnet sequences, which these poems by Sidney made very popular in the Elizabethan age, reflected the Medieval motif of courtly love, whereby a wretched lover courts an unavailable woman, typically married already and faithful to her vows. The poet, although unsuccessful, is a slave to her beauty and virtue, which, by pulling in opposite directions, hold him in an agonizing tension that prolongs the sequence.Sidney wrestles creatively, though, with the restrictions of the ancient conventions. The first line of the first poem declares him an iconoclast, for he defies the very definition of a ...

Following his assignment to South Africa as Black and White Magazine's war artist, Mortimer Menpes travelled extensively, becoming the artist of choice for A. & C. Black's colour guide book series. His guide to Venice, co-authored with his daughter, Dorothy Menpes, contained 75 watercolour illustrations. Menpes's text, which serves well as a guide to the art and architecture of present-day Venice, is enlivened by his enthusiasm for everything Venetian, and especially by his satirical portrait of the community of foreign artists who gather at the Panada restaurant. - Summary by Phil Benson

Sketches by Boz is a collection of short pieces published by Charles Dickens in 1836 accompanied by illustrations by George Cruikshank. It consists of 56 passages divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes", "Characters", and "Tales". Of these, only the last contains fiction. (Summary by Wikipedia)

LibriVox’s Short Poetry Collection 020: a collection of 20 public domain poems.

A great collection of 12 classic stories about ghosts and the supernatural. Included are stories by Thomas Hardy, Fitz-James O'Brien, and Margaret Oliphant. Recommended for fans of classic ghost stories of yesteryear. - Summary by Phyllis Vincelli

One of the most renowned of all Protestant Christian missionaries, Amy Carmichael is remembered most for the fifty-five years she spent doing evangelistic and philanthropic work in India. She began her missions career, however, with fifteen months in Japan before falling ill, returning to Ireland, and then returning to Asia with her focus on India. This collection of letters is a record of that time in Japan, and is fascinating not only for its biographical interest but also for its insights into the rapidly-changing life of fin de siècle Japan and the status of its small unpopular handful of...