Publisher: Passerino
"The Betrothed" is an Italian historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, first published in 1827, in three volumes. It has been called the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language. Alessandro Manzoni (7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet and novelist.
Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels and humorous short stories under the pseudonym F. Anstey. "A Bohemian Bag" is the story of a piece of luggage with a perverse mind of its own. The Gladstone bag in question goes on its own travels every time it is left in the care of a railway porter or station master...usually catching up with its hapless owner only days later.Show book
When Algernon Weatherhead moves into Wisteria Villa, he finds himself living next door to the Currie family, who are besotted with their black poodle Bingo. Algernon falls in love with the Colonel Currie's adopted niece Lillian... but he cannot make friends with Bingo, a dog with a deeply psychotic desire to bite neighbours, tradespeople, the gardener and passers-by.When Algernon shoots Bingo dead by accident, events lead to him burying the body in a shallow grave and pretending the dog has run away. But when Lillian makes it a condition of her agreeing to marry Algernon that he should find Bingo, he is left with a dilemma...the only solution is to find a doppelganger for Bingo and convince the Curries that it really is their dog.Show book
Mrs. Sangrail is determined to offload her wayward son Clovis onto Lady Bastable for six days while she takes a trip to Scotland. Is desperation she resorts to cunning bribery, but Clovis has other ideas and devises an ingenious scheme to thwart his mother’s plans. Another piece of genius humour writing by Hector Hugh Munro, peppered with his humorous observations on British Edwardian society.Show book
Dew On The Grass, first published in 1934, was Eiluned Lewis' first novel and immediately enjoyed both popular success and critical acclaim. A semi-autobiographical account of childhood in rural Montgomeryshire in the early years of the twentieth century, Lewis' novel focuses on Lucy, nine years old, dreamy, accident -prone and acutely alive to the world around her. Lewis' prose is a delight: sensuous, evocative and nostalgic. Here is a book which distils all the joys and agonies of childhood and seems to speak directly to us all of our own lost selves.Show book
The seaside village of Treswnd has elected Catrin as its scapegoat, shunning and stoning her as a witch. In bitter isolation Catrin internalises the idea of herself as damned and outcast, but her loneliness is eased by a growing friendship with Goronwy, to whom she starts to reveal the hidden wonders of the natural world with which she has become familiar. In particular she knows the underground waterways of the 'Deep Stream' lying beneath Treswnd, a zone of darkness complete with wrecks and human skeletons. Goronwy does not fully appreciate her strength until he becomes a collier in south Wales and a pit disaster leaves him trapped for days underground. 'Alone with the dead, the dying, and the frenzied around him,' Goronwy was then 'brought face to face with the deep mysteries of life.' Only Catrin's knowledge of that 'darkness at the core of life' as symbolised by the underground waters of the 'Deep Stream' can save him now. First published in 1902, A Welsh Witch, parallels superstitious rural communities and early industry with its harsh working conditions, and explores the ways in which human resilience and empathy can make 'a romance of rough places'.Show book
Sketches New and Old is a compilation of fictional stories written by Mark Twain. Among them is "A Ghost Story". In each story, one can catch a great sense of Twain's humor and creativity. These classic sketches from Twain are no longer than 10 minutes, but all show his quick witted humor in response to the events of the day.A real storyteller can make a great story out of anything, even the most trivial occurrence. Composed between 1863 and 1875, the sixty-three often outrageous sketches in Sketches New and Old contain, for instance, a piece about the difficulty of getting a pocket watch repaired properly; complaints about barbers and office bores; and satirical comments on bureaucrats, courts of law, the profession of journalism, the claims of science, and the workings of government. In Mark Twain's hands, all these potentially dry and dull topics bristle with vitality and interest. "What fascinates Twain," Lee Smith writes in her introduction, is how people "react to the things that happen to them." Twain "lets them speak in their own voices by and large, in a chorus ranging from high-flown oratory to the plain speech of working people... It seems generally true that the more elevated the speech, the likelier that person is to be an idiot; words of wisdom and common sense are invariably voiced by the common man" – or woman. "The most profound and moving sketch in this whole collection" Smith writes, is one "told by a freed slave." The candid, ironic, playful, and petulant sketches in this volume are indispensable to our understanding of a harried genius during thirteen quite amazing years.An EChristian, Inc production.Show book
