Publisher: Sovereign
Listen to the story of how mischievous Tom Kitten got himself into trouble with two very large rats that wanted to turn him into a dumpling. They smeared him with butter, and then they rolled him in the dough.
Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.THE TEMPEST: It was a murky confusion here and there blotted with a color like the color of the smoke from damp fuel of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened.Show book
Herman Melville was born in New York City on 1st August 1819. At the age of 7 Melville contracted scarlet fever which permanently diminished his eyesight. Add this to a contemporary description of being "very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension" and his opportunities for success seemed limited. His father died when he was 12 leaving the family in very straitened times. 2 years later Melville took a job in a bank and followed up with a failed stint as a surveyor. He went to sea and travelled across to Liverpool and then to the Pacific on adventures which included a mutiny, being jailed and falling in love with a South Pacific beauty. He was also a figure of opposition to the coercion of native Hawaiians to the Christian religion. These experiences helped provide the novels ‘Typee’, ‘Omoo’, and ‘White-Jacket’. By 1851 his ambitious masterpiece, ‘Moby Dick’, was ready to be published. It never sold out its initial print run of 3,000 and Melville’s earnings on his masterpiece was a mere $556.37. In succeeding years his reputation waned, life was increasingly difficult. His family was growing and a stable income was essential. Melville took the advice of friends to try public lecturing, as others had, to increase his revenues. He embarked on three successful lecture tours, speaking on Roman statuary and sightseeing in Rome. In 1876 he was at last able to publish privately his 16,000 line epic poem ‘Clarel’. It was to no avail. The book had an initial printing of 350 copies, but sales failed miserably. It was only in late 1885 that Melville was at last able to retire after his wife inherited several legacies, enough to provide them with a reasonable income. Herman Melville, novelist, poet, short story writer and essayist, died at his home on 28th September 1891 from cardiovascular disease. Perhaps his best known short story is ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ an enduring story of a Wall Street lawyer and his very particular assistant.Show book
Neil Munro (1863-1930) was a Scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic who is now mainly known for his humorous short stories.'The Tudor Cup' is an amusing tale based on stereotypes. Two crooked London art dealers are set on swindling an eccentric Scottish Laird of a valuable artefact in his collection: a Tudor cup of silver. A similar cup had sold recently at Sotheby's for a small fortune. But the canny Scot sees straight through the swindle and manages to double-cross the duo quite ingeniously.Show book
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is widely recognized as Germany's greatest poet and writer. His early works are rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which was also the early phase of German Romanticism.Entitled simply Story, this short novella belongs firmly in this early period and is characteristic of Goethe's early work. His hallmark fascination with nature and the point where it fuses with man-made art to create something more beautiful still is magnificently displayed here in his description of the wonderful overgrown ruined castle. His sense of the dramatic, vividly conjured up in lyrical prose is reflected in the market fire and the escape of the showman's tiger and lion. Story is the narrative of a princess, whose husband has gone out hunting. She is inspired by her uncle showing her paintings of a nearby ruined castle which has become overgrown with trees to ask him to take her there on their afternoon ride. On the way, they pass through the busy market and see that there is a showman exhibiting a range of wild beasts. When they reach the base of the castle, they have a fine view back towards their own castle and the town beneath it, but they quickly spot that something is wrong. A fire has broken out in the marketplace. The uncle sets off with all haste to see if he can help out. Meanwhile, the princess returns more slowly...but suddenly finds herself face to face with a tiger which has escaped from the menagerie in the confusion of the fire. From this follows an extraordinary and astounding set of events.Show book
Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.OUT OF THE SEASON: It fell to my lot, this last bleak Spring, to find myself in a watering-place out of the Season. A vicious north-east squall blew me into it from foreign parts, and I tarried in it alone for three days, resolved to be exceedingly busy.Show book
An autobiographical short story written in 1898 and included as the first story in the 1902 volume Youth, a Narrative, and Two Other Stories. This volume also includes Heart of Darkness and The End of the Tether, which are concerned with maturity and old age, respectively. "Youth" is narrated by Charles Marlow who is also the narrator of Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and Chance. Youth depicts his first journey to the East.Show book
