Casa editrice: Sovereign
The cabman Iona's son recently died. He desperately and unsuccessfully tries to have a talk with the people he meets and tell them of how shattered he is. He ends up talking to his horse.
Two half brothers look so similar as infants that no one can tell them apart. One, the legitimate son of a rich man, is destined for a life of comfort, while the other is condemned to be a slave because he is part black. The mother of the would-be slave is also the nurse of the other; to give her son the best life possible, she switches the babies. Soon the boy who is given every advantage becomes spoiled and cruel. He takes sadistic pleasure in tormenting his half brother. As they grow older, the townspeople no longer notice that the boys look similar, and they readily accept that each is born to his station.A local lawyer, David Wilson, has had a similar experience. On his first day in the village, he made an odd remark about a dog, and the townspeople gave him the condescending name "Pudd'nhead." Although he was a young, intelligent lawyer, he is unable to live down this name, so he toils in obscurity for over twenty years. Finally, he is presented with a complex murder trial-a chance to prove himself to the townspeople and shake this unjust label.Mostra libro
In "The Island of the Fay", Edgar Allan Poe describes the narrator's contemplation on the inaudible music of nature, observing a fairy on a mystical island. The tale explores themes of isolation, natural beauty and the permeability between the seen and the hidden.Mostra libro
"Sarrasine" (1830) is a novella by Honoré de Balzac, part of his Comédie Humaine.The stage is set around midnight during a ball, the narrator is sitting at a window. There is an unknown old man around the house, whom the family was oddly devoted to, and who frightened and intrigued the partygoers.When the man sits next to the narrator's guest, Beatrix Rochefide, she touches him, and the narrator rushes her out of the room. The narrator knows who the man is and says he will tell her his story the next evening. Then he portrays Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a passionate, artistic boy, who after having trouble in school became a prodigy of the sculptor Bouchardon.Sarrasine, a talented young man, after one of his sculptures wins a competition, heads to Rome, where he sees a theatre performance featuring Zambinella. He falls in love with her, going to all of her performances and creating a clay mold of her. The old man is not Sarrasine. Who is he?Mostra libro
The Man with the Twisted Lip, one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the sixth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine in December 1891. Doyle ranked "The Man with the Twisted Lip'' sixteenth in a list of his nineteen favourite Sherlock Holmes stories.Late at night, Kate Whitney, a friend of Dr. Watson's wife, calls on them. Her husband, Isa, has been absent for several days. Frantic with worry, she begs Dr. Watson to fetch him home from the opium den where he goes. Watson does this; but he also finds his friend Sherlock Holmes in the den, disguised as an old man, seeking for clues among the habitués of the place.The case involves Mr. Neville St. Clair, a prosperous, respectable, punctual man, who is missing. His family's home is in the country, but he visits London every day on business. One day when Mr. St. Clair was in London, Mrs. St. Clair also went to London separately. She happened to pass down Upper Swandam Lane, a "vile alley" near the London docks, where the opium den is. Glancing up, she saw her husband at a second-floor window of the opium den. He vanished from the window immediately, and Mrs. St. Clair was sure that there was something wrong.Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle's: "A Study in Scarlet", "Silver Blaze", "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "The Yellow Face", "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Red-Headed League", A Case of Identity", "The Boscombe Valley Mystery", "The Five Orange Pips", "The Man with the Twisted Lip", "The Blue Carbuncle", "The Speckled Band", "The Engineer's Thumb", "The Noble Bachelor", "The Beryl Coronet", "The Copper Beeches" and many more.Mostra libro
The top 10 short stories of all time written by European authors. Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. The short story in Europe has a long and illustrious career yet is often unjustly neglected after a quick scan of de Maupassant and one or two others. Across its seemingly endless cultures that enrich themselves across the canvas of time many other gems are apparent. In this volume we bring some of their bountiful harvest to your ears. 1 - The Top 10 - The European Short Story - An Introduction 2 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev 3 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 4 - Youth by Joseph Conrad 5 - The Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac 6 - The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant 7 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol 8 - The Dead by James Joyce 9 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka 10 - The Return of Martin Guerre by Alexander Dumas 11 - Markheim by Robert Louis StevensonMostra libro
Set against the background of Dublin at the turn of the century, Joyce's celebrated collection of short stories recount a series of unremarkable incidents in the lives of ordinary men and women. Stylistically straightforward, it is Joyce's eye for detail, matched only by his interest in the habits and patterns of daily life and celebration of the unique wit and landscape of the Irish that makes these stories so enchanting.Mostra libro
