‘All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other peoples' Saki (H.H. Munro) stands alongside Anton Chekhov and O Henry as a master of the short story. His extraordinary stories are a mixture of humorous satire, irony and the macabre, in which the stupidities and hypocrisy of conventional society are viciously pilloried. This collection includes Sredni Vastor and The Unrest Cure. 'We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart'
A novel which deals with a decadent New England family and Holgrave, who rents a room in their seven-gabled house.
This volume completes the canon of the illustrated Sherlock Holmes stories reprinted from The Strand Magazine. It contains the short story series Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes The Valley of Fear-a sinister novella which appeared in 1914-15 - His Last Bow:The War Service of Sherlock Holmes and the last twelve stories The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the classic detective chiller. It features the world's greatest detective，Sherlock Holmes，in his most challenging case. The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast with blazing eyes and dripping jaws'which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated gaskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Now the hound seems to be stalking young Sir Henry，the new master of the Baskerville estate. Is this fiendish spectre the manifestation of the family curse？Or is Sir Henry the victim of a vile and scheming murderer？Only Sherlock Holmes can solve this devilish affair. The Hound of the Baskervilles is introduced by David Stuart Davies，Editor of Sherlock Holmes-The Detective Magazine and several books concerning Sherlock Holmes.
在线阅读本书 Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for cruelexperiments, finds a deserted island where he can create hideouscreatures with manlike intelligence. But as the rigid order onMoreau's island dissolves, the consequences of his experimentsemerge-and his creations revert to beasts more shocking than naturecould devise.
Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion,profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetratinganalysis of the life of an English provincial town is setduring the time of social unrest prior to the first ReformBill of 1832. It is told through the lives of DorotheaBrooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host ofother paradigm characters who illurninate the conditionof English life in the mid-nineteenth century. Henrylames described Middlemarch as a 'treasure-house ofdetail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed GeorgeEliot's masterpiece as 'one of the few English novelswritten for grown-up people'.
A Pair of Blue Eyes is celebrated for its central scene which shocked and stimulated Victorian readers. Forever after it caused Hardy to be embroiled in arguments concerning the sexual morality of his novels in which he strove to show the stifling effects of social conventions on the human spirit. Rich with biographical echoes, this novel reveals the full emergence of the schematic ironies which characterize Hardy's later great works, and gives a suggestion of the tragic philosophy that came to dominate all he wrote. The loving nature of the heroine, Elfride Swancourt, pervades this novel, which has a singular unpolished charm.
Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and without discomposure. Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly, as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride in the discernment of a somewhat rare power in him--that of keeping not only judgment but emotion suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not.
This is a fascinating selection of Kipling's most famous short stories, bringing together the very best of his work. Life's Handicap reflects his experiences of India, and contains two horror stories which permeate the collection with an air of haunted destinies. Delusions and obsessions, past lives and the slums of London in 1890 are the diverse topics featured in Many Inventions. While Traffics and Discoveries is Kipling's well-loved story about a polo pony.
Jane Evre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Althoughthe poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indornitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battleagainst the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester. However there is great kindness and warmth in this epic love story, which is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors. Ultimately the grand passion of lane and Rochester is called upon to survivecruel revelation, loss and reunion, only to be confrontedwith tragedy.
Collins was a master craftsman, whom many modern mystery-mongers might imitate to their profit.Dorothy L. Sayers
Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies: a spectacular, widely-ranging drama of love and war, passion and politics. Antony is divided between the responsibilities of imperial power and the intensities of his sexual relationship with Cleopatra. She, variously generous and ruthless, loving and jealous, petulant and majestic, emerges as Shakespeare's most complex depiction of a woman: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.' Unsurpassed in sumptuous eloquence and powerful characterisation,Antony and Cleopatra deservedly retains its popularity in the theatre.lts insibhts into the corruptions of power and the ambiguities of desire remain timely. This volume is part of the new Wordsworth Classics'Shakespeare Series,in Which each volume has been freshly edited Cedric Watts.
With amazing vividness, Nina Foch essays Henry James's earliest (1881) and perhaps most accessible masterpiece. A penniless American girl is brought to Europe where her beauty, ingenuousness, and na veté attract a variety of suitors. In spite of wanting to do everything right, everything comes out wrong in this perceptive, subtle, and multilayered psychological novel, which Foch plays like a musical instrument. A rather loud one -- she hits all the notes correctly but coarsely. The effect is like a bordello pianist--albeit one with nimble fingers--playing Chopin on an old upright. A maladroit abridgment causes occasional confusion. Lackadaisical engineering adds stridency and calls attention to edits. Y.R. AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.
This 100th Anniversary Edition presents the timeless tale ofHumphrey Van Weyden, pressed into service aboard the seal-huntingGhost, led by the brutal, enigmatic captain Wolf Larsen. Thisvolume also includes four of London's acclaimed short stories.
Set in the reign of Richard I,Coeur de Lion,Ivanhoe is packed with memorable incidents-sieges,ambushes and combats-and equally memorable characters:Cedric of Rotherwood,the die-hard Saxon:his ward Rowena;the fierce Templar knight,Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert;the lew,isaac of Yourk,and his beautiful,spirited daughter Rebecca;Wamba and Gurth,Jester and swineherd respecitively. Scott explores the conflicts betwwen the Crown and the powerful Barons,between the Norman overlords and the conquered Saxons,and between Richard and his scheming brother,Prince John.At the same time he brings into the novel the legendary Robin Hood and his band,and creates a brilliant,colourful account of the age of chivalry with all its elaborate rituals and costumes and its values of honour and personal glory.
Adultery us not a typical lane Austen theme, butwhen it disturbs the relatively peaceful householdat Mansfield Park. it has quite unexpected results. The diffident and much put-upon heroine Fanny Price has to struggle to cope with the results,re-examining her own feelings while enduring thecheerful amorality, old-fashioned indifference andpriggish disapproval of those around her.
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasantwoman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallantand persistent battle to care for those she loves-an unforgettablenovel that "will wring your heart out" (Associated Press).
One of the great classics of Western literature，Les Miserables is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical de*ion. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean. the street urchin Gavroche.the rascal Thenardier. the implacable detective lavert， and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosotte， have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis persoae. The reader is also treated to the unforgettable de*ions of the Battle of Waterloo and Valjean's flight through the Paris sewers.
NOTHING BUT TROUBLEFlagan and Galloway Sackett had settled anold family debt and were heading west from Tennessee to seek theirfortune. That's when they came across an old Irish horse trader whooffered them two fine horses if they agreed to escort hisgranddaughter, Judith, to her father in Colorado. Flagan sawnothing but trouble in the pretty, fiery young woman. But theyneeded and wanted the horses. Unfortunately, Flagan was right, forJudith had fallen for James Black Fetchen, a charismatic gunmanwhose courtship hid the darkest of intentions. Now Fetchen and hisgang are racing the Sackett brothers to Colorado -- leaving a trailof betrayal, robbery, and murder. Flagan and Galloway could onlyguess why Judith is so important to Fetchen and what awaits them ather father's ranch. One thing Flagan knows for sure: The tough andspirited woman had won his heart. But could he trust her with hislife?Our foremost storyteller of the authentic West, L'Amour hasthrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave m
Generally regarded as the pre-eminent work of Conrads shorter fiction. Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended. is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the nineteenth century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic.social and political exploitation on European and African societies and the cataclysrnic behaviour this induced in some individuals. The other two stories in this book-Youth and The End of the Tether - concern the sea and those who sail upon it, a genre in which Conrad reigns supreme.
With an Introduction and Notes by Joe Andrew, Professor ofRussian Literature, Keele University Anton Chekhov is widelyregarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. Heconstructs stories where action and drama are implied rather thandescribed openly, and which leave much to the reader's imagination.This collection contains some of the most important of his earliestand shortest comic sketches, as well as examples of his great,mature works. Throughout, the doctor-turned-writer displayscompassion for human suffering and misfortune, but is always ableto see the comical, even farcical aspects of the humancondition.
Sherlock Holmes was not the only writing Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) did but Holmes and Dr. Watson are his most remembered characters. Holmes titled himself a "Consulting Detective". His powers of observation, his understanding of crime, and his insights into the criminal mind were brilliant. His knowledge of things not related to crime were extemely limited, except in opera and the violin. Like many other authors famous for a single character, Arthur Conan Doyle attempted to "kill" Holmes. But the readers would not let this happen. Holmes eventually appeared in 56 short stories and 4 novels. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
