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  Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Volume 2

  Oscar Wilde

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  Oscar Wilde's is most famous for his satirical plays which he wrote at the time of great literary enlightenment, when all Britons were able to embrace literature previously only available to the wealthy and educated. At the height of the prosperity sweeping through London in the Victorian Era Oscar Wilde also wrote many tales offering rich and dramatic portrayals of the human life and condition. This volume of Oscar Wild tales includes: The Model Millionaire, The Star-Child, The Sphinx Without a Secret. Read in English, unabridged.

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  The Bishop of Hell - An abusive...

  Marjorie Bowen

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  Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell was born on 1st November 1885 on Hayling Island in Hampshire.  
   
  Her childhood was fraught with problems, her alcoholic father left early in her life and was later found dead on a London Street. Life thereafter was poverty with an uncaring mother. 
   
  However, her talents took her to the Slade School of Fine Art and later to study in Paris.  
   
  Her first fiction, written at a mere 16, was a violent medieval historical novel, ‘The Viper of Milan’. Initially rejected by several publishers it went on to become a best-seller  
   
  After this her prolific writings were the main financial support for the family.  Her literary output numbered over 150 volumes, mainly under the pseudonym of Marjorie Bowen but she also used the names Joseph Shearing, George R Preedy, John Winch, Robert Paye and Margaret Campbell.  Within this output she assigned the pseudonyms to the various genres she worked across, from Historical fiction to supernatural short stories.  
   
  Perhaps her best known work is the 1909 book ‘Black Magic’, a Gothic horror novel about a medieval witch. 
   
  Several of her works were also adapted into films.   
   
  She was married twice.  The first to Zefferino Emilio Constanza (they had two children), who died of tuberculosis, and then to Arthur L Long (and another two children) 
   
  Marjorie Bowen died on 23rd December 1952 at St Charles Hospital in North Kensington, London after suffering serious concussion from a fall in her bedroom.  She was 67.

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  Parallel Lives of the Noble...

  Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus

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  Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving lives contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives.Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. The first pair of lives the Epaminondas-Scipio Africanus no longer exists, and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers.In this copy-right expired 11-volume translation from the Loeb Classical library, the order of the paired lives is rearranged to present the Greek lives in chronological order.Vol 4 presents the paired lives of Alcibiades & Coriolanus, two notorious turncoats, and Lysander & Sulla, two military commanders who imposed drastic changes in civil government in their respective countries. ( Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline)

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  The Life and Adventures of...

  Charles Dickens

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  The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (commonly known as Martin Chuzzlewit) is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialised between 1842 and 1844. While he was writing it Dickens told a friend that he thought it was his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels.
  The late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing read the novel in February 1888 "for refreshment" but felt that it showed "incomprehensible weakness of story".
  Like nearly all of Dickens's novels, Martin Chuzzlewit was first published in monthly instalments. Early sales of the monthly parts were disappointing, compared to previous works, so Dickens changed the plot to send the title character to the United States. Dickens had visited America in 1842 in part as a failed attempt to get the US publishers to honor copyright laws. He satirized the country as a place filled with self-promoting hucksters, eager to sell land sight unseen. In later editions, and in his second visit 24 years later to a much changed US, he made clear it was satire and not a balanced image of nation in a speech and then included that speech in all future editions.
  The main theme of the novel, according to Dickens's preface, is selfishness, portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family. The novel is also notable for two of Dickens's great villains, Seth Pecksniff and Jonas Chuzzlewit. Dickens introduced the first private detective character in this novel. It is dedicated to Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, a friend of Dickens.

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  Passage To India

  E. M. Forster

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  "A Passage to India" is a novel written by E.M. Forster and published in 1924. It explores the complexities of human relationships and the clash of cultures during the British Raj in India. The novel revolves around the experiences of various characters, both British and Indian, in the fictional city of Chandrapore. The main plot follows Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, and his interactions with a British schoolteacher named Adela Quested. 
   
  One of the most significant events in the book is the alleged assault of Adela in the Marabar Caves during a trip with Aziz. This incident sparks controversy and leads to a highly publicized trial, which highlights the tensions and prejudices between the British colonizers and the Indian population. 
   
  Throughout the novel, Forster delves into themes such as racism, cultural misunderstandings, imperialism, and the struggle for personal and cultural identity. He explores the power dynamics between the British and Indians, examining the impact of colonization on both the colonizers and the colonized. 
   
  "A Passage to India" is known for its nuanced portrayal of characters and its exploration of human connection and empathy complexities. Forster raises questions about the limitations of understanding different cultures and the difficulty of bridging the gap between them. 
   
  The novel ends on a note of ambiguity, emphasizing the challenges of genuine communication and the lasting effects of colonization. It remains a significant work of literature that continues to be studied and analyzed for its social and political commentary.

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  It Couldn't Be Done

  Edgar A. Guest

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  LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of It Couldn't Be Done by Edgar A. Guest. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 29th, 2010.

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