Publisher: Aeterna Classics
The novel tells of the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, who live in a Midland colliery town in the years before the First World War. Ursula falls in love with Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself) and Gudrun has an intense but tragic affair with Gerald, the son of a local colliery owner.
Pierre Loti born to a Protestant family, Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At age 17 he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906. In January 1910 he went on the reserve list. He was in the habit of claiming that he never read books, saying to the Académie française on the day of his introduction (7 April 1892), "Loti ne sait pas lire" ("Loti doesn't know how to read"), but testimony from friends proves otherwise, as does his library, much of which is preserved in his house in Rochefort. In 1876 fellow naval officers persuaded him to turn into a novel passages in his diary dealing with some curious experiences in Istanbul. The result was the anonymously published Aziyadé (1879), part romance, part autobiography, like the work of his admirer, Marcel Proust, after him.SAILORS' YARNS: Within the tropics, on a wondrous evening when the Southern trades were blowing with their balmiest softness, the corporeal portion of his being tired with a healthy muscular fatigue, gently lulled by the slumberous rhythmic motion of the ship.
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Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 1 - Six of the Best - Arthur Conan Doyle - An Introduction 2 - Arthur Conan Doyle - An Introduction 3 - The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle 4 - The Leather Funnel by Arthur Conan Doyle 5 - The Story of B 24 by Arthur Conan Doyle 6 - A Pastoral Horror by Arthur Conan Doyle 7 - The Horror of the Heights by Arthur Conan Doyle 8 - The Final Problem by Arthur Conan DoyleShow book
Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century.'The String Quartet' is a beautifully written and evocative stream of semiconscious thought stimulated by listening to a string quartet playing a piece by Mozart.Show book
A successful man must face the terror of his own mortality in this masterful nineteenth-century Russian novella by the author of War and Peace.In his later years, Leo Tolstoy began to contemplate the inescapable realities of mortality—its terrifying mystery, its many indignities, and the way it forces one to look back on the legacy and regrets of one’s life. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, widely considered the masterpiece of Tolstoy’s late career, is both a deeply insightful meditation on the final months of a man’s life, and an unsparing critique of conventional middle-class life in nineteenth-century Russia. Ivan Ilyich, a prosperous high-court judge, spends his days pursuing social advancement among his peers and avoiding his loveless marriage. But when a seemingly innocuous injury signals the beginning of a terminal illness, Ilyich begins to see the true worth of his life with tragic clarity.Show book
Hailed as a masterpiece on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his dying so much as a passing thought. But one day, death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise, he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This novella was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing, and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.Show book
"The Storm" is Kate Chopin's most sexually charged story, and as such is quite exceptional for a work which was written in 1898. It describes a chance sexual encounter between Calixta and her former flame Alcée during a heavy storm in Louisiana when her husband Bobinôt and her son Bibi are absent.Chopin's description of the events of that day is refreshingly modern and free of the stifling morals of the day. The sexual liaison she presents as something inevitable, healthy, and as strong and natural as the storm that is raging outside.Show book
