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  Shakespeare Love Tales

  William Shakespeare, Edith Nesbit

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  Shakespeare was familiar with all beautiful forms and images, with all that is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature and human life, of that indestructible love, and clear waters, and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers. The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed the richest, the purest, the fairest, that genius uninspired ever penned. This collection of Shakespeare's love tales includes: 'Romeo and Juliet', 'King Lear' and 'Pericles'. These timeless stories are retold in modern English retaining all key elements of Shakespeare's original storyline, characters and wisdoms. Read in English, unabridged.

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  Sons and Lovers

  D.H. Lawrence

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  "Sons and Lovers" is a semi-autobiographical novel by D.H. Lawrence and is often considered his earliest masterpiece. Set in the coal-mining town of Bestwood, Nottinghamshire, the narrative delves into the complexities of family, love, and Oedipal tensions. The story chronicles the life of Paul Morel and his bond with his mother, Gertrude Morel. As Paul matures, he navigates relationships with two very different women, all while struggling with his deep emotional ties to his mother. Lawrence's exploration of sexuality, class, and individual aspirations is both poignant and controversial, making "Sons and Lovers" a groundbreaking work in its time.

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  Emma

  Jane Austen

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  Clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.
   
  With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work.

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  The Lady with the Dog

  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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  10 Essential Pieces of Literature

  Khalil Gibran, Robert Louis...

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  This Audiobook contains the following work: 
  The prophet [Khalil Gibran] 
  Treasure Island [Robert Louis Stevenson] 
  White fang [Jack London] 
  The Time machine [H. G. Wells] 
  The Battle of Life [Charles Dickens] 
  The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes [Arthur Conan Doyle] 
  The Three Musketeers [Alexandre Dumas] 
  The adventures of Pinocchio [Carlo Collodi]Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe] 
  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Mark Twain]

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  Little Women (Part 1)

  Louisa May Alcott

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  Little Women (Part 1): Four sisters and their mother, whom they call Marmee, live in a new neighborhood (loosely based on Concord) in Massachusetts in genteel poverty. Having lost all his money, their father is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army in the American Civil War, far from home. The mother and daughters face their first Christmas without him. When Marmee asks her daughters to give their Christmas breakfast away to an impoverished family, the girls and their mother venture into town laden with baskets to feed the hungry children. When they return, they discover their wealthy, elderly neighbor Mr. Laurence has sent over a decadent surprise dinner to make up for their breakfast. The two families become acquainted following these acts of kindness.
  Little Women is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Loosely based on the lives of the author and her three sisters, it is classified as an autobiographical or semi-autobiographical novel.

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