Publisher: Charles River Editors
Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific British writer and journalist. Bennett is popular for fiction such as The Old Wives’ Tale and also for non-fiction works such as How to Live on 24 Hours a Day and Mental Efficiency. This edition of The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure includes a table of contents.
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.BOOK 8: THE WICKED POOR MAN: Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, Marius had but one thought,-to gaze once more on that sweet and adorable face.Show book
No one knows if there was a man named Homer, but there is little doubt that the epic poems assembled under his name form the cornerstone of Western literature. The Iliad and the Odyssey-with their incomparable tales of the Trojan War, Achilles, Ulysses and Penelope, the Cyclops, the beautiful Helen of Troy, and the petulant gods-are familiar to most people because they are so pervasive. They have fed our imaginations for over two and a half millennia, inspiring everyone from Plato to Virgil, Pope to Joyce, Dante to Wolfgang Petersen. In this graceful and sweeping addition to the Books that Changed the World series, Alberto Manguel traces the lineage of these epic poems. He considers their original purpose, either as allegory or record of history; surveys the challenges the pagan poems presented to the early Christian world; and traces their spread after the Reformation. Following Homer through the greatest literature ever created, Manguel's book above all delights in the poems themselves, the "primordial spring without which there would have been no culture."Show book
There was once an emperor who was only interested in one thing, his clothes. He spent all his money on his outfits and had a different one for every time of day and every occasion. One day, two thieves arrived in town pretending to be weavers who knew how to make the most beautiful and sophisticated fabrics, which had the marvellous property of only being visible to those who did their job well.. It was the perfect offer for our king, who immediately placed an order.-Show book
The story follows the life of Stepan Ovsyanikov, a peasant who has recently become a landowner. Stepan, who was once a serf, is now the proud owner of a small estate. Despite his newfound freedom, Stepan's life is far from easy. He struggles to manage his land and make ends meet, and his relationships with his family members are strained. As the story unfolds, we see Stepan grappling with the responsibilities that come with landownership. He tries to be a good landlord to his serfs, but he is also forced to collect rent from them in order to pay off his own debts. Meanwhile, his son Vasya, who has been educated in the city, has grown distant from his father and sees his new status as a landowner as a burden. Read in English, unabridged.Show book
This first novel in Henry Rider Haggard's Zulu trilogy depicts the tumultuous political era of the 1830s involving the trek-Boers, the French colonists, and the Zulu tribe in the Cape colony of South Africa. Hate and suspicion run high between the home government and the Dutch subjects. Allan Quatermain accompanies the ill-fated Pieter Retief and the Boer Commission on an embassy to the Zulu despot Dingaan. Along the way, villains attempt to kill Allan and rob him of his wife, the Dutch-born Marie Marais. The unfortunate mission ends in a blood-curdling massacre. Written at a time when slavery was widespread, Marie portrays characters and views reflective of its era.Show book
The eighth novel in Naxos AudioBooks’ series of the great works of Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist is Dickens’ second novel. Coming shortly after The Pickwick Papers it is a thrilling study of childhood innocence thrust into the darkly comic world of Fagin, his apprentice the Artful Dodger and their gang of child thieves. Who will help the orphaned Oliver to escape from their clutches and discover his true history? The original story is even more powerful than the musical that popularised it. Anton Lesser reads with all his intensity and comic versatility.Show book
