Publisher: Charles River Editors
Edith Wharton was one of the most famous American authors of the early 20th century. Wharton’s writings were known for their witty presentation on upper class society in America. This edition of Crucial Instances includes a table of contents.
The premier novel of the French Revolution, by England’s greatest authorSet against the bloodthirsty backdrop of revolutionary France, this monumental saga—one of the most famous works in all of literature—is at its heart the story of a beautiful woman and the two men who compete for her love: Charles Darnay, a French aristocrat who renounces his heritage, yet stands accused of treason in the rush to the guillotine, and Sydney Carton, a disillusioned English barrister who finds his salvation in the ultimate act of sacrifice.Full of rich historical details and populated by a sprawling cast of characters, Charles Dickens’s masterwork is epic in every sense of the word. Yet its finest achievement may be the intimate moments shared by three people who have the foresight and the courage to see beyond the chaos that surrounds them. A novel whose contradictions are laid bare from the very start—“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”—A Tale of Two Cities is the stuff of life, and great art. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.Show book
Sons and Lovers is a famous novel by D. H. Lawrence. The refined daughter of a "good old burgher family," Gertrude Coppard meets a rough-hewn miner, Walter Morel, at a Christmas dance and falls into a whirlwind romance characterized by physical passion. But soon after her marriage to Walter, she realizes the difficulties of living off his meagre salary in a rented house. The couple fight and drift apart and Walter retreats to the pub after work each day. Gradually, Mrs. Morel's affections shift to her sons beginning with the oldest, William. As a boy, William is so attached to his mother that he doesn't enjoy the fair without her. As he grows older, he defends her against his father's occasional violence. Later he leaves for a job in London, and rises up into the middle class. He gets engaged, but dies. Mrs. Morel is heartbroken, but when Paul catches pneumonia she rediscovers her love for her second son…Show book
Thomas Olney, a "philosopher" visiting the town of Kingsport, Massachusetts with his family, is intrigued by a strange house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is unaccountably high and old and the locals have a generations-long dread of the place which no one is known to have visited. With great difficulty, Olney climbs the crag, approaches the house, and meets the mysterious man who lives there. The only door opens directly onto a sheer cliff, giving access only to mist and "the abyss". The transmittal of archaic lore and a life-altering encounter with the supernatural ensue, as Olney is not the only visitor that day. He returns to Kingsport the next day, but seems to have left his spirit behind in the strange, remote dwelling.Show book
Christy and RITA Award-winner Robin Lee Hatcher pens the moving stories of four women working in Boise, Idaho during World War II. Margo King fears for her son fighting on the North African front and tries to hide her painful past. Dotty King searches for forgiveness from her mother and God after committing a single ardent mistake. Lucy Anderson struggles to resist temptation while her husband is away in England. And Penelope Maxfield longs for a new life free from her husband and children. Told from each woman’s perspective, this story chronicles the hardships and uncertain times they all try to overcome with the help of their faith.Show book
The extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful. The texts are taken from his recent omnibus, The Early Stories, 1953-1975. In describing how he wrote these stories in a small, rented, smoke-filled office in Ipswitch, Massachusetts, he says, "I felt that I was packaging something as delicately pervasive as smoke, one box after another, in that room, where my only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me -- to give the mundane its beautiful due."Show book
This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books."Show book
