Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  When I Was a Witch - From their...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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  Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on 3rd July 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, to an unaffectionate mother and a father who abandoned her and her older brother to a life of poverty. 
  Inevitably her schooling was limited and by 15 she had attended seven different schools but received only four years education.  However Charlotte was resourceful and did spend time with her father’s aunts – the suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and the ‘Uncle Tom Cabin’s’ author, Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as many hours at the public library studying ancient civilisations. 
  In 1878, she enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design where she met Martha Luther and they developed a close relationship until Luther married in 1881. Charlotte was devastated and detested romance and love until she met and married the artist Charles Walter Stetson.  
  Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born in 1885 but left Charlotte with post-natal depression, then often dismissed as a case of hysteria or nerves.  Unsuited to domestic life she ruptured her life and moved to California with Katherine.  She divorced in 1894 and then sent Katharine east to live with her father and his second wife confirming that his paternal rights be acknowledged and that Katherine establish a relationship with her father. 
  After her mother died in 1893, Charlotte moved back east and became involved with her first cousin, Wall Street attorney, Houghton Gilman who she married in 1900. After his death she moved back to California, where Katherine now lived.   
  Her most popular story is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which touched on her own post-partum depression and underlined the need for women to be responsible for their mental and physical well-being, as the narrator is ordered by her husband/doctor to take compete rest in her room where she is isolated and becomes obsessed with the revolting yellow wallpaper.   
  She wrote other notable short stories the best of which we also include.   
  Charlotte lectured widely for social reform, wrote important non-fiction works that questioned our patriarchal system and left a legacy as a leading and positive spokesperson for feminism.  
  She was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932 and, as she wrote in her suicide note and autobiography, she ‘chose chloroform over cancer’    
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman took her own life on 17th August 1935, aged 75, in Pasadena, California.

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  The Great Sermon Handicap

  P. G. Wodehouse

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  In the quiet villages of England, sport takes many forms. But none is as treacherous as a Sunday morning in church.
  The Great Sermon Handicap begins with an innocent enough idea and quickly drifts into that uniquely Wodehouseian territory where friendly competition becomes absurdly serious. Bertie Wooster soon discovers that even the calm rituals of village life can inspire rivalry, speculation, and chaos on a near-professional scale.
  Elegant, mischievous, and beautifully timed, this story showcases Wodehouse at his most playful — transforming ordinary social rituals into a masterpiece of comic escalation, where every polite conversation hides the possibility of complete catastrophe. 
  A brilliantly irreverent comedy of errors that proves that in Wodehouse's world, even a religious service is a perfectly valid reason for a spectacular disaster.

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  The White Ship

  H. P. Lovecraft

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  Basil Elton is a lighthouse keeper prone to fantasies – especially one recurring fantasy of a man in white robes on a white ship that only appears on a full moon. During this fantasy, Elton goes with the man on his ship, following an azure bird. Despite the man’s warnings that no man has ever returned from one of these realms, Elton asks that he take him to legendary land of hope: Cathuria. Their journey takes them to the end of the world, and instead of toppling over the side and dying Elton wakes up on the rocks of his lighthouse next to the first shipwreck in his time as lightkeeper.  

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  No More Parades

  Madox Ford

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  There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them. — W. H. Auden  
  No More Parades is the second of four in Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, a work that Ford hoped would contribute to the obviating of all future wars. The novel follows Christopher Tietjens, a wealthy British landowner and the last British Tory; his unfaithful wife, Sylvia; and his mistress, Valentine Wannop. Highlighting the tension between traditional values and the new reality of a world marred by war, the novel details Tietjens' turmoils in both his personal life and on the warfront—and what follows when those struggles become one and the same.  
  The Parade's End tetralogy privileges not the conflict of World War I itself, but the impact the war had on its participants and upon society writ large. It is often referred to as one of the greatest 20th century novels, and one of the best depictions of war in literature. The 2012 television adaptation, written by Tom Stoppard and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and seven BAFTA Television Awards.

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  The Magnificent Seventeen

  Various

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  The Magnificent Seventeen is a musical adventure through 17 famous works of poetry and prose, with renowned Australian narrator and producer, Lindsay Radford. CONTENTS-1. Introduction2. "The Creation", from The Book Of Genesis, in The Bible.3. "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love", by Christopher Marlowe.4. "The Daffodils", by William Wordsworth.5. "Sonnet 43 (How Do I Love Thee ?)", by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.6. "The Man From Snowy River", by Andrew Barton Paterson.7. "The Village Blacksmith", by Henry Longfellow.8. "The Charge Of The Light Brigade", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.9. "The Bixby Letter", by Abraham Lincoln.10. "She Walks In Beauty", by Lord Byron.11. "The Destruction Of Sennacherib", by Lord Byron.12. "To A Skylark", by Percy Shelley.13. "Written The Night Before His Execution", by Chidiock Tichborne.14. "Soliloquy From Romeo And Juliet", by William Shakespeare.15. "Monologue From Julius Caesar", by William Shakespeare.16. "Soliloquy From Hamlet", by William Shakespeare.17. "Sonnet 17", by William Shakespeare.18. "Sonnet 18", by William Shakespeare.

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  Germinal

  Émile Zola

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  Émile Zola's Germinal is a powerful and unflinching portrayal of working-class struggle, social injustice, and the relentless fight for dignity. Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century, this masterpiece of literary naturalism immerses readers in the harsh realities of coal miners in northern France and delivers a searing critique of industrial capitalism.
  
  The story follows Étienne Lantier, a young, unemployed mechanic who arrives in a mining town seeking work and survival. He soon finds employment in the coal pits, where he witnesses firsthand the brutal conditions endured by the miners—grueling labor, meager wages, hunger, and constant danger beneath the earth. Entire families toil in darkness, their lives dictated by the demands of powerful mine owners who profit from their suffering.
  
  As Étienne becomes increasingly aware of the systemic exploitation around him, he begins to embrace revolutionary ideas and dreams of collective resistance. His growing involvement in the workers' movement sparks tension within the community and sets the stage for a dramatic and devastating strike. Zola masterfully depicts the rising anger, desperation, and hope of the miners as they confront starvation, repression, and betrayal.
  
  With meticulous realism and emotional intensity, Germinal explores themes of class conflict, solidarity, poverty, and human resilience. Zola does not shy away from the physical and psychological toll of industrial labor; his vivid descriptions of the mines create an atmosphere that is both suffocating and unforgettable. Yet amid the darkness, he also reveals moments of tenderness, courage, and shared humanity.
  
  The novel's title—referring to a spring month in the French Revolutionary calendar—symbolizes rebirth and renewal. Even in the wake of tragedy, Zola suggests that the seeds of change have been planted. The struggle for justice may be painful and incomplete, but it carries the promise of future transformation.
  
  Both a gripping narrative and a profound social document, Germinal remains strikingly relevant today. It is a timeless exploration of inequality and the enduring human desire for fairness and hope in the face of oppression.

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