Otros libros que te pueden interesar

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  The Kiss - From their pens to...

  Anton Chekhov

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  Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia.  
  His family life was difficult; his father was strict and over-bearing but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’.  
  At school Chekhov was distinctly average. At 16 his father mis-managed his finances and was declared bankrupt. His family fled to Moscow. Chekhov remained and eked out a living by various means, including writing and selling short sketches to newspapers, to finish his schooling. That completed and with a scholarship to Moscow University obtained he rejoined his family. 
  He was able to help support them by selling satirical sketches and vignettes of Russian lifestyles and gradually obtained further commissions. In 1884, he qualified as a physician and, although it earned him little, he often treated the poor for free, he was fond of saying ‘Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.’ 
  His own health was now an issue as he began to cough up blood, a symptom of tuberculosis.  Despite this his writing success enabled him to move the family into more comfortable accommodation.  
  Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’.  His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26.  
  He was also a major playwright beginning with the huge success of ‘Ivanov’ in 1887.   
  In 1892 Chekhov bought a country estate north of Moscow. Here his medical skills and money helped the peasants tackle outbreaks of cholera and bouts of famine. He also built three schools, a fire station and a clinic.  It left him with less time for writing but the interactions with real people gained him detailed knowledge about the peasantry and their living conditions for his stories.  
  His most famous work, ‘The Seagull’ was received disastrously at its premiere in St Petersburg. It was later restaged in Moscow to highlight its psychological aspects and was a huge success. It led to ‘Uncle Vanya’, ‘The Three Sisters’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’.  
  Chekhov suffered a major lung hemorrhage in 1897 while visiting Moscow. A formal diagnosis confirmed tuberculosis and the doctors ordered changes to his lifestyle.  
  Despite a dread of weddings the elusive literary bachelor quietly married the actress Olga Knipper, whom he had met at rehearsals for ‘The Seagull’, on 25th May 1901. 
  By May 1904 with his tuberculosis worsening and death imminent he set off for the German town of Badenweiler writing cheerful, witty letters to his family and assuring them his health was improving.  
  On 15th July 1904 Anton Chekhov died at Badenweiler.  He was 44.

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  The Getting of Wisdom

  Henry Handel Richardson

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  The Getting of Wisdom, a wicked and satirical novel on the pain and confusion of growing up, first appeared in 1910. A century later, it has lost none of its bite.  
  One of the most memorable characters in Australian fiction, Laura Rambotham, aged twelve, enters the portals of an exclusive girls’ school eager to be accepted. But this precocious country girl is snubbed and ridiculed by her fellow students, who are richer, more attractive, and more adept at dealing with life’s hypocrisies.

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  Poor Richards Almanac - A...

  Benjamin Franklin

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  A brief biographical sketch of Franklin's life, followed by a collection (published in 1899) of 670 aphorisms, apothegms, or proverbs - short, pithy, instructive sayings - that were scattered throughout the pages of his Poor Richard's Almanack over its 25 years of once-a-year publication (1732-1758). Many of these sayings are familiar to all . . . "a penny saved is a penny earned" . . . "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" . . . but there are many more for you to laugh at, ponder over and learn from! Most were not invented by him, but these little gems of wisdom Franklin gleaned from all over the world are what made his Almanack so wildly popular, and himself a wealthy man. 
   
  Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher.

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  The Name Tree - From their pens...

  Mary Webb

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  Mary Gladys Meredith was born on 25th March 1881 at Leighton Lodge in the village of Leighton, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire.  
  Mary was home-schooled by her father before being sent to a finishing school in Southport in 1895. Her longs walks in the countryside helped her develop a heightened sense of observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused both her poetry and prose. 
  When she was 20 she developed symptoms of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder that caused bulging protuberant eyes and throat goitre. This caused life-long ill health and was a possible contributor to her early death.  
  Mary was first published as a teenager when her brother sent to a local newspaper her poem on a recent rail accident.  Mary, who was in the habit of destroying her work was appalled though placated when she discovered that it had received some positive appreciation in readers letters. 
  1912 brought marriage to Henry Bertram Law Webb, a teacher. He supported her literary work which, in 1917, resulted in the publication of her novel ‘The Golden Arrow.’ 
  A few years later they acquired a property in London where, it was hoped, recognition of her literary talents would be more easily recognised.   
  Her 1924 novel, ‘Precious Bane’, won the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, the prestigious French literary prize awarded by an all-female jury. 
  Most of her poetry and various other works were only published after her death. 
  By 1927 her health was deteriorating and her marriage failing.   
  Mary Webb died on 8th October 1927 at St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.  She was 46.

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  Demir-Kaya - From their pens to...

  Alexander Kuprin

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  Alexander Kuprin was born in Narovchat, Penza in Russia on 7th September 1870. 
  At 3 his Father died and he and mother moved to Moscow. By 10 he was enrolled at the Second Moscow Military High School and there his interest in literature began. The Alexander Military Academy followed and two years later he was a sub-lieutenant and posted to an Infantry Regiment for a further four years. 
  Despite his duties he was a now a keen writer and published his first short story at this time. His military duties also garnered him experiences for his breakthrough work ‘The Duel’.  Leaving the military he left for Kiev to work for local newspapers.  He continued to publish both stories and novels and by 1901 he was in St Petersburg becoming part of a group that included Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreyev.  
  In the years that followed further controversial works and acclaim followed.  His comments on the regime meant he was also put under secret police surveillance.   
  As World War I erupted, Kuprin opened a military hospital but was then given command of an infantry company in Finland. He was soon discharged on grounds of ill health.  
  The October Revolution saw him praise Lenin, but he warned that the Bolsheviks threatened Russian culture and might cause further widespread suffering to the peasants.  As Civil War raged he took his family to Helsinki and then on to Paris. 
  Exile saw his talents decline further and his succumbing to alcoholism. He became lonely and withdrawn. The family's poverty increased his malaise.   
  In May 1937, the Kuprin’s returned to Moscow.  He now saw his work published but wrote almost nothing new.  In 1938 his health rapidly deteriorated.  Already suffering from a kidney problems and sclerosis, he had now developed cancer of the oesophagus.  
  Alexander Kuprin died on 25th August 1938.

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  A Wicked Voice - Violet Paget...

  Vernon Lee

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  Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget on 4th October 1856 in Boulogne, France to intellectual expatriate British parents.   
   
  In common with several other very talented literary women of the day she felt it necessary to publish under a masculine pseudonym in order for her writing to be taken seriously.  Indeed she seems to have adopted that persona across her whole lifestyle becoming personally known and acknowledged by all as Vernon Lee and accordingly dressed as a man.    
   
  Her first published work, in 1880, was taken from her collection of essays that had originally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine with the scholarly title of; ‘Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy.’ It reflected her passion for music and centered on the rich creative lives of poet-librettist Pietro Metastasio and dramatists Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi.   
   
  She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel with her scholarly appreciation animated by wit and imagination.  Lee was well-regarded as an expert on the Italian Renaissance and was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement. 
   
  Her literary talents were extensive and she wrote a number of novels and plays.  Perhaps her best remembered works are her haunting and powerful short stories exploring the supernatural.  Lee has often received accolades for these and glowingly compared to other authors such as M R James. 
    
  A committed pacifist she was resolved to protest against World War I. Her social activism in other areas was perhaps fueled by her feminist beliefs.  In her private life she was a lesbian and had long-term passionate relationships with three women including the doomed author and poet, Amy Levy.   
   
  Vernon Lee died on 13th February 1935 in San Gervasio Bresciano, Italy.  
   
  In this story a writer of Operas discovers the history of a venetian singer whose very voice could lift an audience to ecstasy, love and even death.

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