Other books that might interest you

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  Louise de la Valliere Volume 1

  Alexandre Dumas

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  In Louise de la Vallière Volume 1, Alexandre Dumas delves into the tumultuous world of French court intrigue during Louis XIV’s reign. The story follows Louise, a humble lady-in-waiting, whose beauty captures the king's heart, thrusting her into a web of politics and jealousy. Meanwhile, the legendary Musketeers—Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan—navigate shifting alliances and personal challenges. As love blossoms amidst betrayal and ambition, Dumas masterfully blends historical detail with romance and adventure, setting the stage for a dramatic exploration of power, loyalty, and the human spirit.

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  A Story Without An End

  Anton Chekhov

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  Soon after two o'clock one night, long ago, the cook, pale and agitated, rushed unexpectedly into my study and informed me that Madame Mimotih, the old woman who owned the house next door, was sitting in her kitchen."She begs you to go in to her, sir…" said the cook, panting. "Something bad has happened about her lodger… He has shot himself or hanged himself…""What can I do?" said I. "Let her go for the doctor or for the police!"
  "How is she to look for a doctor! She can hardly breathe, and she has huddled under the stove, she is so frightened… You had better go round, sir."
  I put on my coat and hat and went to Madame Mimotih's house. The gate towards which I directed my steps was open. After pausing beside it, uncertain what to do, I went into the yard without feeling for the porter's bell. In the dark and dilapidated porch the door was not locked. I opened it and walked into the entry. Here there was not a glimmer of light, it was pitch dark, and, moreover, there was a marked smell of incense. Groping my way out of the entry I knocked my elbow against something made of iron, and in the darkness stumbled against a board of some sort which almost fell to the floor. At last the door covered with torn baize was found, and I went into a little hall...

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  Shakespeare's Greatest...

  William Shakespeare

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  William Shakespeare, long hailed as the history's greatest dramatic writer, has been lauded for his mastery of poetic expression, his insight into the human condition and his deep exploration into the psyche and motivations of his characters. These skills are perhaps best encapsulated in the monologues he gives his various protagonists, villains and bit players.  From King Henry V's inspiring speech to his soldiers on the field of Agincourt to the villainous Merchant of Venice Shylock defending his own cruelty, to the shepherdess Phebe from "As You Like It" grappling with her sudden attraction to a young courtier, to Nick Bottom from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," awaking from what he considers the strangest dream in history, Shakespeare's monologues are short distillations of his larger themes - love and loss, fairness and inequity, power and envy, lust and purity.Fort Raphael Publishing is proud to present, in this first volume, some of Shakespeare's greatest monologues, each of which captures a shining, brilliant moment from his plays that gives us a deeper understanding of each character, whether flattering, damning or inspiring.Enjoy this collection of monologues from the greatest theatrical writer in the English language - William Shakespeare.

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  Madame Bovary - The Classic Tale

  Gustave Flaubert

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  Written over a century and a half ago, Madame Bovary is still an extraordinarily fresh, exciting and shockingly frank novel, at once an acute psychological study of a woman drawn into adultery through circumstances we can partly understand, and a sharply-observed comedy that offers a fascinating glimpse of the social and cultural divisions running through French provincial society in the mid nineteenth century. This translation is by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, a prominent social activist and literary translator. She was the youngest daughter of Karl Marx. 
   
  Gustave Flaubert was a highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality".He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert. On the occasion of Flaubert's 198th birthday (12 December 2019), a group of researchers at CNRS published a neural language model under his name.

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  Political Ideals

  Bertrand Russell

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  “Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere with others.” 
   
  “The object of education ought not to be to make all men think alike, but to make each think in the way which is the fullest expression of his own.” 
   
  “You may kill an artist or a thinker, but you cannot acquire his art or his thought. You may put a man do death because he loves his fellow men, but you will not by so doing acquire the love which made his happiness.” 
   ― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals 
   
  'Political Ideals' was written during the upheaval of World War One. It is, in many ways, a statement, of Russell's beliefs, a declaration of the ideas that influenced his thinking on the major events of the 20th century. In this sense, it is essential reading for every student of this great philosopher.

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  The Maltese Cat - Celebrated...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Mumbai, India on 30th December 1865.   
   
  As was the custom in those days, he and his sister were sent back to England when he was 5.  The ill-treatment and cruelty by the Portsmouth couple they boarded with Kipling said contributed to the onset of his literary life.  
   
  At 16 he returned to India to work on a local paper where he was soon contributing and writing.  It also exposed him to the issues of identity and national allegiance which pervade much of his work.  
   
  In 1886, his ‘Departmental Ditties’, collection of verse appeared in print followed by 39 short stories for his newspaper over only 8 months.  These were then published as ‘Plain Tales from the Hills’, shortly after his 22nd birthday.  
   
  He continued his prolific pace of writing before being dismissed in a dispute and, taking his pay-off and the profits from the sale of some publishing rights, decided to return to London, travelling via Rangoon, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States, all the while writing articles, and arriving at Liverpool in October 1889. 
   
  Over the next two years he saw further works published as books and in magazines, as well as a nervous breakdown for which he was prescribed a sea voyage, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India.  
   
  Happier times came with marriage to Caroline Starr Balestier in January 1892.  The honeymoon began in Vermont and ended in Yokahama where they heard their bank had failed.  They returned to Vermont and settled.  Caroline was now pregnant and he was planning the ‘Jungle Books’.  
   
  A failed arbitration between the US and England resulted in an argument between Caroline’s brother and Kipling, and then his arrest.  At the hearing he was mortified by the exposure of his private life and after settling the matter they returned to England and life in Torquay.  ‘Kim’ was published in 1902, and ‘Just So Stories for Little Children’, a year later.  
   
  In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature with the citation “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterise the creations of this world-famous author”.   
   
  When the Great War erupted, he scorned those who refused conscription.  His son enlisted and was killed at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at 18, an exploding shell had ripped his face apart.  This death inspired Kipling’s writing thereafter, but the tragedy broke his life and by 1930 his prolific pen had almost ceased. 
   
  Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936 from a perforated duodenal ulcer.  He was 70.  His ashes are buried at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. 
   
  In the Maltese Cat Kipling returns once more to India and the British Empire.  A polo match is being played.  The fierce competitive instincts of two social classes are fighting for dominance.  All told through the voice of the Maltese Cat, the most cunning of the horses.

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