Publisher: Benjamin
Collection of 6 Works of Alexander Pushkin\ Boris Godunov Marie Poems The Daughter of the Commandant The Queen Of Spades The Queen of Spades and other stories
Henry James was born 15th April 1843 in New York City. His youth was spent travelling with his family receiving what was an "extraordinarily haphazard and promiscuous" education as they journeyed through London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the father's current interests and publishing ventures. James studied primarily with tutors and only briefly attended schools. Undoubtedly the quality of his writing has ensured his name is enshrined in the American literary tradition. James was a committed Anglophile and spent most of his adult life as an expatriate in Europe. Many of his novels juxtapose the Old World with the New World. Classics such as ‘The Portrait of a Lady’, ‘Daisy Miller’ and ‘The Ambassadors’, display the entanglement between American and European cultures and mentalities. They highlight the differences between the two worlds through following the experiences of American expatriates in Europe. A prolific author he was able to easily move across genres to create vivid and totally real worlds and situations and to offer sophisticated observations of human relations as well as realistic, social criticism. As a critic James was unafraid to venture into reviews and essays of those other literary giants around him. These together with his short stories and, of course, classic novels, make Henry James an author to be not only admired but read, and read often. In 1915 Henry James became a British citizen. On 28th February 1916, at the age of 72, Henry James died in Chelsea, London. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912 and 1916. He never won. In this story James examines the effect that the death of a dearly loved person has on a man’s life. How he copes, how he grieves and how he attempts to move forward.Show book
Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements. Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft. Many attempt, but few achieve.Show book
Shipwrecked on a desert island, Robinson Crusoe must learn to survive. At first he is alone – but then cannibals arrive at the island, with a prisoner. Can Crusoe rescue the man – or will he face the same fate? And will he ever leave the island alive?Show book
Listen to Black Jack with a movie-style soundtrack and amplify your audiobook experience. The son of a notorious outlaw is adopted into a wealthy, law-abiding family as an infant after his father is killed in an attempted robbery. Will he follow in the footsteps of his outlaw father or will his life be guided by the respectable woman who nurtured him to manhood? Another exciting tale by the master of the pulp western, Max Brand.Show book
The Blue HotelThe Blue Hotel is considered one of Crane's finest three short stories, along with the Open Boat and The Bride comes to Yellow Sky. The story starts with the hotel owner trolling for guests at the train station and finding three, the Swede, the Cowboy, and the Easterner. As with many stories the personalities are known by their titles not their names; the two known by their names are the hotel keeper, Scully, and his son Johnny. The first major event is in a play for fun no money card game in which the Swede accuses Johnny of cheating. Johnny skillfully defends himself by saying he won't put up with the accusation, while side stepping the truth of the matter. The Swede is all worked up; no one comes to his rescue; he has a fight with the boy; wins; and leaves. He goes to the local saloon and gets into event number 2 in challenging the gambler after he won't take a drink. As with most Crane stories, the irony is building as the story goes on. Also, in the spirit of the literary times, as reflected in Spoon River by Edgar Lee Masters and Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, this is the key moment in the story that could change everything. The gambler does not take the free drink; he winds up killing the Swede; he goes to jail and the Swede is dead. He could have just taken the drink and didn't. Later the Easterner tells the Cowboy that no, Johnny wasn't innocent, he was cheating and the Easterner didn't have the guts to stop it by speaking out. Then the Swede would have stayed in the hotel and wouldn't have died. Another landmark story with the last turn of events topping it off.Keywords: Stephen Crane, The Open Boat, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Winesburg, Ohio, Spoon River, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters.Show book
In In the Vault we find an undertaker trapped in the vault where coffins are stored during winter for burial in the spring, and is mysteriously injured when he escapes. "In the Vault" was based on a suggestion made in August 1925 by Charles W. Smith, editor of the amateur journal Tryout, which Lovecraft recorded in a letter: "an undertaker imprisoned in a village vault where he was removing winter coffins for spring burial, & his escape by enlarging a transom reached by the piling up of the coffins".Show book
