Publisher: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
Short Works Voltaire - This unique collection of Voltaire's most iconic romances has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards. François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit.
Oliver Tressilian, a Cornish gentleman who helped defeat the Spanish Armada, is betrayed by his jealous half-brother. When the ship he is on is captured by the Spanish, he is made a galley slave. Freed from slavery by Barbary pirates, he joins up with them and becomes a follower of Islam and the scourge of European ships. Taking the name "Sakr-el-Bahr," or "The Hawk of the Sea," he swears vengeance against his brother. It is this desire for revenge that brings him back to the British shores where he is a wanted man.Show book
Billeted away from the trenches for a week, Private Peter Galbraith suddenly finds himself separated from his retreating regiment and marooned in the town of Ypres in the face of the German advance. With the army gone, law and order has broken down in the town and looting and fighting is rife.Private Galbraith takes it upon himself to re-establish the rule of law in the town, and before long he becomes the acting provost and recognized King of Ypres. But he realizes that his conduct is likely to be seen in a different light by his superior officers. He realizes that he undoubtedly faces a court martial for desertion. But the King of Ypres is undaunted by the thought of death by firing squad....Show book
Thomas Hardy was born in the hamlet of Upper Bockhampton about three miles east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, on 2nd June 1840. Despite a fairly wide education and being an avid reader his parents thought it unlikely he would lead a successful scholarly or clerical career and he was apprenticed in 1856, at age 16, to a local architect whose speciality was in church restoration. Hardy’s only opportunity to read was in the morning before work between the hours of five and eight. On the back of a failed love affair he moved to London and spent five years working as an assistant to the architect Arthur Blomfield, also a restorer and designer of churches. Hardy though had by now become disillusioned with institutionalised forms of Christianity and abandoned any lingering hopes of ordination in the Anglican Church. However, his writing of poetry was now flourishing, although it was still rejected for publication. His novel ‘Desperate Remedies’, was published anonymously in 1871 and he now resolved to write full time though he was not yet in a position to achieve financial security or literary success. His second novel, ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’, appeared in 1872 and in 1873 ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes’, the most autobiographical of his works arrived. With ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ in 1874, came critical acclaim, public attention and financial success. This was repeated in 1878 with ‘The Return of the Native’, and the ensuing years saw him rise to ever greater popularity. His classic ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ arrived in 1886 and 5 years later ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’. The latter only saw publication after extensive alterations to its plot and the deletion of long passages to lessen the shock to the prudish Victorian audience who were dismayed by the seduction and ruin of a young girl by a rakish aristocrat. ‘Jude the Obscure’, his last novel, suffered the same fate when it was published in 1895. The uproar so disturbed him that he returned to poetry. In 1898 he had an earlier poetry collection, ‘Wessex Poems’ published. Hardy spent the years between 1903 and 1908 writing ‘The Dynasts’, an epic poem on the Napoleonic Wars. In his twilight years came honours and awards from the great and the good in recognition of his stature as one of the most outstanding of British authors across novels, short stories and poetry. George V conferred on him the Order of Merit in 1910. From 1920 to 1927 he worked, in secret, on his autobiography, which was later published after his death as the work of his second wife, Florence Hardy. Thomas Hardy OM died on the 11th January 1928. His heart was buried alongside his first wife in Stinsford churchyard, Dorchester.Show book
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) was a preeminent Ukrainian-born story writer. He is particularly famous for those stories which veer in the direction of surrealism and the grotesque.The Cloak is one such tale. Akaky Akakiyevich is a reclusive and widely ridiculed lower official whose job is to copy letters. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence with his elderly landlady and has little money. But the harsh weather in St. Petersburg necessitates the purchase of a new cloak. His existing cloak, threadbare and filthy, is the butt of jokes among his comrades, and the tailor refuses to patch it up any further.Akaky Akakiyevich has somehow to scrape together the money for a new one. As he begins to save for it, the cloak begins to take on a much greater significance in his life. He dreams of it, visualises it, plans it with the tailor and scrimps and saves until the glorious day when he is able to actually commission its manufacture.The cloak is his pride and joy...but disaster waits around the corner. And in true Gogol style, the story takes a weird twist.Show book
"Rosa, Gulla, their cousins, and uncles are going to make rotis with Amma. But can any of them get the correct shape? See if you can identify the shapes of their rotis. The Rosa Gulla series introduces early-learning concepts to children. With cheerful illustrations and relatable characters, this book introduces children to shapes."Show book
The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. America prides itself on liberty, on justice for all and, if you are a wealthy white man, that is essentially true. Sadly, many other segments of society find it difficult to feel or become part of this endeavour. Within this chronological history of the American short story, that prejudice has helped shape the borders of those two endless questions about any anthology. Why that story? Why that Author? We made some hard choices. We start with Uriah Derrick Dárcy, an unlikely American name and, to all intents, it appears to be a pseudonym, about whom little is known or can be verified. He leads our literary parade. From here leviathans appear on a regular basis; Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Twain but also note how many women are here and not just Stowe, Alcott and Chopin. Women’s status as writers is often neglected or undervalued, predominantly due to their second-class social status throughout much of history but their stories, their angles of approach to writing are both expertly crafted and refreshing. Another stain on the social and cultural fabric of American has been that of Race. Black people were harshly and unfairly treated as a matter of course. The Civil War may have opened the door but in reality little changed. The majority of the stories included here written by black authors are disturbing in the wrongs they were accused of, and the burdens they were forced to carry. This eye-opening literature enables us to once more take stock and applaud and bring some glimmers of recognition to their struggles and their art. There are some authors, liberally sprinkled throughout, both male and female who may previously have escaped your attention. Enjoy them. Adore them. Make them part of your everyday reading and listening. These forgotten voices are fine examples both of their craft, their art, and their take on society as it was then. In the period we cover from the late 18th Century, around the time of the American Revolution, up until the catastrophe of World War 2, the printing press was creating a market to share words. With industrialization and a large swathe of people eager to be distracted from hard working lives, a plethora of magazines and periodicals shot up, all clamoring for works to publish, to share those words, to introduce new ideas and explain how some of us view ourselves and each other. Some of these authors were only published that way, one story wonders—hitched to the fading star of a disposable periodical. And, of course, the elephant in the room was the English. In its early days US copyright law was non-existent and didn’t recognise anyone else’s. Publishers were free to take the talents of Dickens or Trollope and freely print it without permission or coin. Competing against that, gave you a decided disadvantage. Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice. A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive. It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight. Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward. The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: The American short story Literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look. Which is hereShow book
