Publisher: JH
Opening with the famous line "This is the saddest story I have ever heard", The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel. Set at the dawn of World War I, it tells of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples; with the result that neither the characters nor their relationships are what they seem.
"The Looking Glass" is a short story by Anton Chekhov about a young woman named Nellie who is sitting in her room and staring into a mirror. Nellie is dreamy and lost in thoughts of her future and the man she loves. As she stares into the mirror, she sees the reflection of her future husband and begins to imagine her life with him. Suddenly, Nellie's dream is interrupted by a crisis. Her husband is ill and Nellie rushes to the doctor's house for help. However, the doctor is exhausted from treating patients with typhus and is unable to help Nellie's husband. Despite Nellie's pleas, the doctor refuses to see him, leaving Nellie in despair. The story ends with Nellie left to deal with the situation on her own, questioning the reality of her dreams and the future she had envisioned. Read in English, unabridged.Show book
The Pickwick Papers was Dickens's first novel. Retired businessman and confirmed bachelor, Mr Samuel Pickwick esquire, embarks on a journey through the English countryside accompanied by three fellow “Pickwickians”, Mr Tupman, Mr Snodgrass and Mr Winkle. It is a joy to hear of their misadventures in search of stories and characters of interest and the repeated efforts of the quick-witted Sam Weller (Mr. Pickwicks manservant) to rescue them all from disaster. With a host of unlikely and wonderful characters this masterpiece of comic writing is still to this day one of literatures most beloved works.Show book
The New Yorker’s legendary Paris correspondent explores life and love in the Jazz Age in this novel inspired by her days in Greenwich Village.From the 1920s to the 1970s, Janet Flanner kept Americans abreast of the goings-on in Paris with a biweekly New Yorker column written under the name Genêt. But before she became one of the country’s most famous expats, she lived among the artists and writers of the Algonquin Round Table. Flanner shares a vivid depiction of the New York she knew in this tale of a young woman’s self-discovery.Having left Ohio in search of liberation, Delia Poole struggles to find her place in the big city. After getting work as a costume designer for musical revues, she and her dear friend Nancy are finally finding happiness on their own terms. But nothing is simple. From her adoring suitor, Paul, to her widowed mother’s decision to move to New York, Delia must grapple with expectations, responsibilities, and her own uncertainty.The Cubical City is Janet Flanner’s only published novel. Though homosexuality is never overtly expressed, it is considered by literary scholars to be one of the first examples of modernist lesbian literature.Show book
Two adventurers discover a lost city in the Mexican jungle. One is taken over by an evil god while the other falls in love with a woman from Tlapallan. Back in the states, the possessed man begins to use magic to mutate civilians. The other walks away, but the pair must duel in the end.Show book
The Lost World is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1912, concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive. It was originally published serially in the Strand Magazine and illustrated by New-Zealand-born artist Harry Rountree during the months of April-November 1912. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. The novel also describes a war between indigenous people and a vicious tribe of ape-like creatures.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
