Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  About Love - 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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  Fair Exchange and No Robbery

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

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  Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942), published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. The book was an immediate success. The title character, orphan Anne Shirley, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following.
  Fair Exchange and No Robbery: Katherine Rangely was packing up. Her chum and roommate, Edith Wilmer, was sitting on the bed watching her in that calm disinterested fashion peculiarly maddening to a bewildered packer.

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  Don Quixote: Book Summary &...

  Briefly Summaries

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  This is a concise summary and analysis of  Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
   
  It is not the original book and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
   
  Ideal those seeking a quick and insightful overview.
   
  
   
  A timeless tale of adventure, imagination, and folly, Don Quixote follows the exploits of a delusional yet noble-hearted Spanish nobleman who, inspired by chivalric romances, sets out on a quest to revive knighthood. Accompanied by his loyal squire, Sancho Panza, he battles windmills, confronts bandits, and pursues his ideal of justice, often with humorous and tragic results. This novel is a brilliant satire of medieval ideals and a profound meditation on reality, identity, and the power of storytelling.

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  The Tragedy of Coriolanus

  William Shakespeare

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  Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. The tragedy is one of the last two tragedies written by Shakespeare, along with Antony and Cleopatra.
  Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military success against various uprisings challenging the government of Rome. Following this success, Coriolanus becomes active in politics and seeks political leadership. His temperament is unsuited for popular leadership and he is quickly deposed, whereupon he aligns himself to set matters straight according to his own will. The alliances he forges along the way result in his ultimate downfall.
  The play opens in Rome shortly after the expulsion of the Tarquin kings. There are riots in progress, after stores of grain were withheld from ordinary citizens. The rioters are particularly angry at Caius Marcius, a brilliant Roman general whom they blame for the loss of their grain. The rioters encounter a patrician named Menenius Agrippa, as well as Caius Marcius himself. Menenius tries to calm the rioters, while Marcius is openly contemptuous, and says that the plebeians were not worthy of the grain because of their lack of military service. Two of the tribunes of Rome, Brutus and Sicinius, privately denounce Marcius. He leaves Rome after news arrives that a Volscian army is in the field.
  Among the most significant works William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, Venus and Adonis, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale and many more.

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  Debby's Debut

  Louisa May Alcott

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  Debby's Debut, written in 1863, is a delightful story that smells of the sea and summer, of joy and youthful innocence, of love, tenacity and courage to claim one's ideas, in which the typical themes of Alcott's production--the construction of female identity, the dignity of work, the importance of honesty and always remaining faithful to themselves, the safeguarding of the good values that modern society risks forgetting--find a lively, ironic and absolutely convincing expression. An unmissable gem for Alcott lovers. 
   
  Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was an American novelist. She is best known for the novels Little Women, published in 1868, and Little Men. Due to the family's poverty, she began work at an early age as an occasional teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, and writer - her first book was Flower Fables (1854). As she grew older, she developed as both an abolitionist and a feminist. A lesserknown part of her work are the passionate, fiery novels and stories she wrote, usually under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, such as A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866). Alcott also produced moralistic and wholesome stories for children, and a semi-autobiographical tale Work (1873). In her later life, Alcott became an advocate of women's suffrage and was part of a group of female authors during the Gilded Age to address women's issues in a modern and candid manner. Despite worsening health, Alcott wrote through the rest of her life. 
   
  Lyssa Browne makes her home in Seattle where she works as a voice actor, performs in regional theatre companies, as well as acts for TV and film. Her voice can be heard as many different characters in a variety of video games and audiobooks, and as the narrator of documentaries for the Discovery Channel and others.

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  The Island of Doctor Moreau

  H. G. Wells

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  Edward Prendick finds himself floating perilously in the ocean after having been shipwrecked. He is picked up and his life saved by the curious Dr Montgomery, a medical man travelling with a cargo of various wild animals. Prendick soon finds himself once again adrift at sea after an argument with a hostile and drunken captain. 
  For a second time Montgomery appears as his saviour and he is hauled ashore on the Island of Dr Moreau, Montgomery’s mysterious colleague and mentor. 
  As he encounters some of the deformed and bestial inhabitants on the island, Prendick soon comes to realise that he has heard of this infamous Dr Moreau before. Now begins a nightmarish existence as the full truth of Moreau’s scientific ambitions become horribly apparent. 
  Head StoriesAudio presents "The Island of Dr Moreau" by H.G. Wells. Narrated by Simon Hester. With original music.

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