Other books that might interest you

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  The Return of Native

  Thomas Hardy

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  "To be loved to madness - such was her great desire."
  
  
  The Return of the Native is Hardy's most popular novel.
  
  Clym Yeobright is the "native" who returns to Egdon Heath from his studies in Paris. 
  
  Clym is soon caught up in a troubled relationship with Eustacia Vye, a darkly complicated young woman who hopes to escape her dreary existence on the Heath for an exciting life in Paris. Several other characters as well are soon caught up in a web of deceit, misunderstanding, and misfortune, and the reader wonders which of them will manage to find happiness.
  
  The Return of the Native was filmed for television in 1994 starring Catherine Zeta Jones as Eustacia Vye, Clive Owen as Damon Wildeve, Ray Stevenson as Clym Yeobright, and Joan Plowright as Mrs. Yeobright. In 2010 an adaptation of The Return of the Native was directed by Ben Westbrook. It is set in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1930s during The Great Depression. The novel has also been adapted for the stage several times.
  An Author's Republic audio production.

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  Wintry Peacock

  D H Lawrence

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  'Wintry Peacock' is, on the surface, a tale of misdirected love or even irresponsible love, the relationship between the wife and the peacock being the most strange but it is the conspiracy of the two men in the story to prevent the truth coming out about the husband's love child that is most disturbing. The innocent are punished and the guilty get away with their sins and the author goes laughing down the hill at the end of the story.

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  Self-Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  Follow the thoughts of essayist, poet and American Transcendentalism founder Ralph Waldo Emerson as he discovered his own belief system in the anthology "Self-Reliance ." In "Self-Reliance," Emerson explained that standing on one's own two feet against society was essential to forming a strong union with God. Once this essay was published, it received both wild praise and hurtful backlash from different factions of America. However, Emerson pushed through the negative criticism, stood against the crowd, and found himself stronger in his faith than he ever had before. Emerson found that self-reliance, no matter the situation, would always help the individual persevere and become stronger. Because Emerson wrote for the common man, many of his essays and poems are relatively simple and straight-forward; he wanted audiences to understand his thoughts and identify with his beliefs. He also wanted to wake them up from the conventional modern life that he believed had often placated them. Emerson's writings were meant to help the reader transcend to a more thoughtful mindset. His essays discuss themes of philosophy, poetry, history, politics, ethics, and literary criticism, all of which helped break people from what he believed were their mediocre lives. He saw that humanity could become stronger as a whole if people would take the steps to make themselves and their minds stronger. The texts in "Self-Reliance" will not only inspire readers, but they will inspire self-examination and evaluation as well.

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  The Hired Baby A Romance of the...

  Mary Mackay

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  Mary Mackay was born on the 1st May 1855 in London. 
   
  At the age of 11 she was sent to a Parisian convent to further her education and returned to Britain four years later in 1870. 
   
  She began her career as a musician, giving piano recitals under the pseudonym of ‘Marie Corelli’ which she now also used as she turned to life as a writer. She published her first novel in 1866. From that point until World War I her popularity and sales exceeded those of Arthur Conan Doyle, H G Wells, and Rudyard Kipling, although she also faced criticism from the literary elite for her melodramatic writing. She was also fairly prolific; in total she wrote some 30 novels and short story collections. 
   
  A recurring theme in Corelli's books is her attempt to reconcile Christianity with reincarnation, astral projection as well as other mystical ideas that she was drawn too. She was also closely associated with the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis; a Rosicrucian and mystical organisation.  
   
  Corelli spent her final years in Stratford-upon-Avon and fought hard to preserve its 17th-century buildings. She was also somewhat eccentric boating on the Avon in a gondola, complete with gondolier, whom she had brought over from Venice. 
   
  For over forty years, Corelli lived with her devoted companion, Bertha Vyver. 
   
  During World War I she was convicted of food hoarding which shocked her paying public.  From that point she wrote little and sold little. 
   
  Marie Corelli died in Stratford on the 21st April 1924.  Later her beloved Bertha was buried alongside her.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - Men...

  Joseph Conrad, Anton Chekhov,...

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  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. 
   
  As the Century staggers to a close under the burdens of its expansive history authors, freed from many constraints, are exploring new ideas on a more intimate scale but on a wider landscape.  Their now everyday names and reputations are forged in these stories.  
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The 1890's - The Men - An Introduction 
  2 - Youth - Part 1 by Joseph Conrad 
  3 - Youth - Part 1 by Joseph Conrad 
  4 - About Love by Anton Chekhov 
  5 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky 
  6 - B24 by Arthur Conan Doyle 
  7 - Lost Hearts by M R James 
  8 - The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker 
  9 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 
  10 - The Inconsiderate Waiter by J M Barrie 
  11 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub 
  12 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 1 by Robert W Chambers 
  13 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 2 by Robert W Chambers

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  The Metamorphosis

  Franz Kafka

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  “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” With this startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first sentence, Franz Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction.

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