Publisher: Classica Libris
The Beast in the Jungle is novella by Henry James written in 1903, and firstly published as part of the collection, The Better Sort. This story deals with appropriately universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and death.
Written under extreme pressure and drawing from Dostoevsky's own destructive addiction, 'The Gambler' is a visceral portrait of the gambling mania. Through the eyes of Alexey Ivanovitch, we enter the high-stakes world of European spas and casinos, where social status and sanity are staked on a single number. A timeless psychological thriller narrated with captivating intensity by George Baker.Show book
Alice Ruth Moore was born on 19th July 1875 in New Orleans where she was part of the multi-racial Creole community. She was the first generation seemingly born free after the Civil War and unusually for the times, obtained a university education which led to her becoming a teacher at a public school in New Orleans. In 1895, when she was 20, she published her first collection of short stories and poems, ‘Violets and Other Tales’, and moved to New York City where she co-founded and taught at the White Rose Mission, a Home for Girls. Alice was always politically active and sought to advance the position of black women. She began work as a journalist at the Woman’s Era newspaper where her work was seen by the established poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar. After corresponding for two years she joined him in Washington DC and they married in 1898. It was a difficult relationship, due mainly to Dunbar’s fragile health, alcoholism and depression. After a severe beating she left him and moved to Delaware to teach for a decade though took time out to enroll at Cornell University. A short-lived marriage to Henry A. Callis, a physician and professor at Howard University ended in divorce and she became co-editor and writer for an influential publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A third marriage to civil rights activist Robert J. Nelson came about, as did affairs with several women, notably the activist Fay Jackie Robinson. In Wilmington Delaware she and her husband devoted their time and writings to working for equality for African Americans and women’s suffrage. Alice Dunbar Nelson was a natural and gifted writer across many genres, from novels, essays, plays to diaries, criticism, poetry and of course short stories, of which ‘Stones in the Village’ is a fine example. The protagonist, like herself, is light skinned from New Orleans, which allows for a social mobility and a unique position in American society that Dunbar Nelson captures with an imagination and insight to explores another divisive perspective on race. It is unsurprising that Alice was a prominent part of the early Harlem Renaissance and influenced many others including Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Alice and her husband moved to Philadelphia in 1932 and it was here that she died on 18th September 1935, at the age of 60, from a heart ailment.Show book
There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating. From their pens to your your ears. 01 - 3 Stories About - Class and Status 02 - The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield 03 - The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant 04 - The Lost Reflection by E T A HoffmanShow book
Shakespeare’s most famous play is one of the greatest stories in the literature of the world. Distressed by his father’s death and his mother’s over-hasty remarriage, Hamlet, prince of Denmark is faced by a specter from beyond the grave bearing a grim message of murder and revenge. The young prince is driven to the edge of madness by his struggle to understand the situation he finds himself in and to do his duty. Many others, including Hamlet’s beloved, the innocent Ophelia, are swept up in his tragedy. Hamlet is played by Simon Russell Beale. Imogen Stubbs plays Ophelia, Jane Lapotaire is Gertrude, and Bob Peck is Claudius. Polonius is played by Norman Rodway. ACT IScene 1. The ghost of Old Hamlet, King of Denmark, has appeared to officers guarding the castle of Elsinore. When the apparition is witnessed by Horatio, friend of the Dead King’s son, he fears that it portends ill. He decides to tell young Hamlet, hoping that the ghost might reveal to him the cause of its restlessness.Scene 2. The dead king’s brother, Claudius, has assumed the crown and married the widowed Queen Gertrude. He dispatches emissaries to Norway where the king’s nephew Fortinbras is threatening Denmark with war. The King and Queen urge young Hamlet to cast off his dark mood. Once alone, the prince vents his violent grief at his father’s death and outrage at his mother’s “incestuous” remarriage. Wen Horatio tells Hamlet about the ghost, he too suspects foul play.Scene 3. Laertes warns his sister, Ophelia, not to take seriously Hamlet’s attentions because, being a prince, he is not free to make his own choices in matters of love. Scene 4. Hamlet and Horatio meet on the battlements. The ghost appears and beckons to Hamlet to follow him. Scene 5. The ghost describes to Hamlet how it was murdered by Claudius. It urges him to revenge the crime. ACT IIScene 1. Polonius, a garrulous counsellor and father to Ophelia and Laertes, instructs Reynaldo to investigate the kind of life Laertes is leading in Paris. Ophelia describes Hamlet’s bizarre behavior to Polonius who attributes this to her recent rejection of him.Scene 2. The King and Queen ask Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, old friends of Hamlet, to discover the cause of the prince’s erratic behavior. The King of Norway has stopped Fortinbras’ preparations for war against Denmark. Polonius takes Hamlet’s scathing and capricious wit as proof of his insanity. Hamlet greets Rosencrantz and Guildenstern warmly, but becomes suspicious of their motives. He is, however, pleased to hear that a company of players has arrived at Elsinore. Once alone, he berates himself for his failure to undertake his revenge. He plans to have the players enact King Hamlet’s murder and to observe Claudius’ reaction as a way of ascertaining his guilt. Act IIIScene 1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have failed to uncover the reason for Hamlet’s behavior. Hamlet shocks Ophelia with his crude and bitter contempt for women and marriage. Their conversation is overheard by Claudius, who recognizes that it is not thwarted love that is responsible for Hamlet’s dangerous instability. He resolves to send him on a diplomatic mission to England to get him away from the court. Polonius suggests that Gertrude should persuade Hamlet to confide in her; he himself will eavesdrop on their conversation.Scene 2. Hamlet tells Horatio to watch Claudius during the play for signs of guilt. As a murder identical to that of King Hamlet is enacted, Claudius rises in fright and calls for lights, thus ending the performance. Hamlet is summoned to his mother’s closet and vows to “speak daggers to her, but use none.”Scene 3. Claudius orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to accompany Hamlet to England. Once alone he expresses agony at his dreadful crime. Hamlet comes upon him trying to pray, but desists from killing him on the grounds that, were Claudius to die in prayer, his soul might go to heaven rather than hell.Scene 4. Hamlet haranguesShow book
The bookshelves of European literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure. Among them is Arthur Elck.Show book
"Metzengerstein: A Tale in Imitation of the German" is a short story by American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, his first to see print. It was first published in the pages of Philadelphia's Saturday Courier magazine, in 1832. The story follows the young Frederick, the last of the Metzengerstein family, who carries on a long-standing feud with the Berlifitzing family. Suspected of causing a fire that kills the Berlifitzing family patriarch, Frederick becomes intrigued with a previously unnoticed and untamed horse. Metzengerstein is punished for his cruelty when his own home catches fire and the horse carries him into the flame. Part of a Latin hexameter by Martin Luther serves as the story's epigraph: Pestis eram vivus—moriens tua mors ero ("Living I have been your plague, dying I shall be your death").
The story, told by an unnamed third-person narrator, takes place in Hungary at an unspecified date. There is a rivalry between two wealthy families—the Metzengersteins and the Berlifitzings—which is so old that no one knows how far back it dates. The narrator states that its origin appears to rely on an "ancient" prophecy: "A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing."
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