Publisher: Bu Classics Books
Osmond Waymark seeks to embrace the raw reality of the streets, finding beauty and truth among social outcasts and the "unclassed." His relationship with a woman forced into prostitution challenges every convention of Victorian morality. The novel is a bold declaration of artistic freedom and a compassionate plea for those marginalized by society.
Our Mutual Friend, written in 1864-1865, is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quoting the book's character Bella Wilfer, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life". Most reviewers in the 1860s continued to praise Dickens's skill as a writer in general, but did not review this novel in detail. Some found the plot both too complex and not well laid out. The Times of London found the first few chapters did not draw the reader into the characters. In the 20th century, however, reviewers began to find much to approve in the later novels of Dickens, including Our Mutual Friend. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some reviewers suggested that Dickens was, in fact, experimenting with structure, and that the characters considered somewhat flat and not recognized by the contemporary reviewers were meant rather to be true representations of the Victorian working class and the key to understanding the structure of the society depicted by Dickens in the novel.Show book
Poor Bunny! A bad evening at cards leaves him without a penny, and desperate to preserve his good name. In his desperation he comes to A.J. Raffles, his old school friend, hoping for a solution. Well... Raffles has one, but not perhaps the one Bunny was thinking of... for Raffles too, is desperately hard up, and has a novel solution to both their troubles: Burgulary! The first in Hornung's Raffles: The Gentlemen Thief series, The Amateur Cracksman is a collection of eight short stories centered around the titular thief as narrated by his erstwhile compatriot bunny, from their first theft to a possible final farewell on a German steamship in the Mediterranean. Narrated by Michael Ward.Show book
Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. This mid-century decade reveals a journey traversing continents and genres as authors explore and revel in the telling of tumultuous times of social upheaval as nations are divided by Civil War or expand with the brute force of Imperial Dreams. Our writers are here to document and narrate more about this fascinating decade. 01 - The Top 10 - The 1860's - The Men - An Introduction 02 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 03 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 04 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 05 - The Generous Gambler by Charles Baudelaire 06 - The Romance of Certain Old Clothes by Henry James 07 - Malachi's Cove by Anthony Trollope 08 - The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte 05 - The Astounding Adventure of Wheeler J Calamity, Related by Himslef by W S Gilbert 10 - The Spectre Bridegroom by William Hunt 11 - The 9.30 Up-Train by Sabine Baring-Gould 12 - The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett HaleShow book
First published in 1602 by William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor features the popular figure Sir John Falstaff, who first appeared in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Some speculate that Merry Wives was written at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see Falstaff in love; and that Shakespeare was forced to rush its creation as a result, and so it remains one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded plays. The play revolves around two intertwined plots: the adventures of the rogue Falstaff who plans to seduce several local wives, and the story of young Anne Page who is being wooed by prominent citizens while she has her sights set on young Fenton. The wives come together to teach Falstaff a lesson, and in the end love triumphs. The Merry Wives of Windsor is believed to have been first performed in 1597 and was subsequently published in quarto in 1602, in a second quarto in 1619, and then in the 1623 First Folio. Despite holding a lesser place in Shakespeare's canon, it was one of the first Shakespearean plays to be performed in 1660, after the reinstatement of Charles II and theatre once again was permitted to be performed in London.Show book
Nowadays The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the most famous and popular novel by an American writer Mark Twain (his real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Huckleberry Finn is a teenager who runs away from his alcoholic father that was constantly beating him. On the way, an escaped black slave Jim, whose master was going to sell him to more cruel owners, joins him. Huck and Jim sail down the Mississippi River to Cairo in Illinois where slavery is abolished. The book is famous for its picturesque descriptions of people and towns along the Mississippi River. The actions happen before the Civil War in the south society that disappeared approximately 20 years before the publication of the novel. It is full of a satire on ingrained prejudices, racism in particular.Show book
Burning Daylight, Part 1: Burning Daylight takes place in the Yukon Territory in 1893. The main character, Elam Harnish, nicknamed "Burning Daylight" was the most successful entrepreneur of the Alaskan Gold Rush. The story of the main character was partially based upon the life of Oakland entrepreneur "Borax" Smith. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. Embarking on a new life in California, he makes another fortune by underhanded means . . . only to find his corrupt life suddenly turned around by the love of a woman.Show book
