Publisher: JH
Although author Gertrude Atherton was born and died in her beloved home state of California, she spent a significant amount of time touring and living in Europe. In Ancestors, she puts her experience as a world traveler to good use, spinning an entertaining yarn about several aristocratic English ladies who decide to liven up their twilight years by touring the rough-and-tumble landscape of the American frontier.
An outbreak of plague in London forces a gentleman, Lovewit, to flee temporarily to the country, leaving his house under the sole charge of his butler, Jeremy. Jeremy uses the opportunity given to him to use the house as the headquarters for fraudulent acts. He transforms himself into 'Captain Face', and enlists the aid of Subtle, a fellow conman and Dol Common, a prostitute. In The Alchemist, Jonson unashamedly satirizes the follies, vanities and vices of mankind, most notably greed-induced credulity. People of all social classes are subject to Jonson's ruthless, satirical wit. He mocks human weakness and gullibility to advertising and to "miracle cures" with the character of Sir Epicure Mammon, who dreams of drinking the elixir of youth and enjoying fantastic sexual conquests. The Alchemist focuses on what happens when one human being seeks advantage over another. In a big city like London, this process of advantage-seeking is rife. The trio of con-artists - Subtle, Face and Dol - are self-deluding small-timers, ultimately undone by the same human weaknesses they exploit in their victims.Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy.Show book
Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote abundantly in an exceptional variety of genres: lyrics, satires, epics, philosophical poems, epigrams, novels, history, critical essays, political speeches, funeral orations, diaries, and letters public and private, as well as dramas in verse and prose.VOLUME 5: JEAN VALJEAN: The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets that history has ever beheld.Show book
Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was a British writer, clergyman and member of the landed gentry, having inherited an estate of 3,000 acres. While a young curate, he met and fell in love with a beautiful 16-year-old mill worker. He paid for her education and married her, and they subsequently had 15 children. Their relationship formed the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which was turned into the musical My Fair Lady. Baring-Gould's strangest and most enduring works are those which are based on fantastical medieval myths and folklore. "The Red-Haired Girl" is a ghost story about an eerie and ominous servant girl who stalks the house, watching its inhabitants malevolently.Show book
"Mauki" written by Jack London: He weighed one hundred and ten pounds. His hair was kinky and negroid, and he was black. He was peculiarly black. He was neither blue-black nor purple-black, but plum-black. His name was Mauki, and he was the son of a chief. He had three tambos. Tambo is Melanesian for taboo, and is first cousin to that Polynesian word. Mauki's three tambos were as follows: First, he must never shake hands with a woman, nor have a woman's hand touch him or any of his personal belongings; secondly, he must never eat clams nor any food from a fire in which clams had been cooked; thirdly, he must never touch a crocodile, nor travel in a canoe that carried any part of a crocodile even if as large as a tooth.Show book
Do you want to listen to The Strange Case of DR. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? If so then keep reading…A London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often called "split personality", referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In this case, there are two personalities within Dr. Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.What are you waiting for The Strange Case of DR. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one click away, select the “Download” button in the top right corner NOW!Show book
Brimming with tense and violent incidents The Call Of The Wild traces the changes in the heart of Buck, the dog who grows from a pampered pet in California to a rugged fearsome and indomitable working dog in the far north. Primeval instincts surface in Buck, and only his affection for John Thornton, his one decent master, delays his return to the wild. Finally, after avenging his murdered friend, Buck takes over his true domain as leader of a wolf pack and runs free amidst the harsh landscape.Show book
