Publisher: Charles River Editors
Daniel Defoe was an English trader and author. Defoe was a very prolific writer of various topics such as politics, religion, marriage and psychology. This edition of Memoirs of a Cavalier includes a table of contents.
The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time Buried in the archive for almost 90 years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers—collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.Show book
In Gwen's Adventure in the Snow, Gwen and her siblings set out on a winter evening's sleigh ride only to encounter bad weather. Taking shelter in their country house to wait out the snowstorm, the group builds a fire, makes a picnic from the house's reserves and shares stories to allay each other's fears.Show book
This collection of works by the great Irish author includes his most famous novel, an intimate memoir written from prison, and four delightful fairy tales. The Picture of Dorian Gray: Infatuated with his own youth and beauty, Dorian Gray wishes that his portrait would grow old instead of him. When his wish comes true, both his age and his sins are recorded on the canvas. Freed from the physical toll of his wrongdoings, Dorian turns on his friends and drives his lover to suicide, all in the pursuit of pleasure. To society, he remains handsome and glowing. In the painting, he is hideous. But only one of these images can be real. De Profundis: In 1891, Oscar Wilde began an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, known to his friends as Bosie. Taken to court by Bosie’s father, Wilde was sent to prison for “gross indecency”—and wrote this stunning autobiographical work from his cell. Detailing the wrongs done to him by Bosie and his family, Wilde also traces his spiritual growth while imprisoned, transforming his hardship into art. A House of Pomegranates: This collection presents four of Wilde’s darkly enchanting fairy tales. In “The Young King,” a shepherd’s son finds himself next in line for the throne. A dwarf performs for a Spanish princess in “The Birthday of the Infanta.” In “The Fisherman and His Soul,” a man faces a terrible choice after falling in love with a mermaid. And an arrogant young boy, who believes he is the son of an actual star, learns a bitter lesson when he is brought down to earth in “The Star-Child.”Show book
William Shakespeare’s great Roman tragedy of adultery amid political conflict is now available in audiobook format.Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire. Mark Antony is part of the ruling triumvirate of Rome and at the outset of the play he is living in Egypt engaged in an affair with the beautiful Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra. When the word that his wife has died and that Pompey is raising an army to challenge the authority of the triumvirate, Mark Antony returns to Rome to help manage the situation. "Antony and Cleopatra" is one of Shakespeare's great historical dramas.Show book
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 7: THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP: The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. On the morning of the 17th of February, it was a little past midday when Basque, with napkin and feather-duster under his arm, busy in setting his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door.Show book
Our Laodicean Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy Victorian railway engineer, is the sole inheritor of the ancient De Stancy Castle. The castle requires much modernisation and repair so she sets about securing a young, up and coming architect, George Somerset, to undertake the project. Immediately captivated Somerset falls in love with our heroine but alas, he is not her only suitor. Paula, “the modern flower in a mediaeval flower-pot” while attracted to him yearns for the dashing Captain De Stancy and the aristocratic background he represents. The novel “A Laodicean” was published in 1881. Like many Victorian novels it was first published in serial format. Unlike many of his novels this story is set in the more contemporary setting with many advancements of this fast moving, technological period. As Thomas Hardy himself suggested that for the “large and happy section of the reading public which has not yet reached ripeness of years - "A Laodicean" may perhaps help to while away an idle afternoon.”Show book
