Other books that might interest you

• 

  Tales of Space and Time

  H. G. Wells

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A collection of three short stories and two novellas written between 1897 and 1898. All the stories had first been published in various monthly periodicals and this was the first volume to collect these stories.contains"The Crystal Egg" "The Star" "A Story of the Stone Age" "A Story of the Days To Come""The Man Who Could Work Miracles"

  Show book

• 

  Rappaccini's Daughter

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. 
   
  At only four years old, his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.  
   
  He was sent to college at his maternal uncle’s insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career.  
   
  At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel ‘Franshawe’ to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.  
   
  Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.   
   
  Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with ‘The Scarlet Letter’ followed by ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ the following year.  
   
  In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication. 
   
  During the early 1860’s his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  
   
  ‘Rapaccinni’s Daughter’ is a classic piece of literature from his pen.  Set in Italy, it is an unsettling story of romance destroyed by science.

  Show book

• 

  The Art of War

  Sun Tzu

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is commonly considered to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China's Seven Military Classics, and "for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name." It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

  Show book

• 

  Tales From Edgar Allan Poe -...

  Edgar Allan Poe

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement.  Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.  He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Here is a fifth collection of some of his best stories:  The Pit and The Pendulum, A Descent Into The Maelstrom, and Mesmeric Revelation.

  Show book

• 

  The Possessed

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Although titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles "The Devils or Demons". An extremely political audiobook, Demons is a testimonial of life in Imperial Russia in the late 19th century.As the revolutionary democrats begin to rise in Russia, different ideologies begin to collide. Dostoyevsky casts a critical eye on both the radical idealists, portraying their ideas and ideological foundation as demonic, and the conservative establishment's ineptitude in dealing with those ideas and their social consequences. This form of intellectual conservativism tied to the Slavophile movement of Dostoyevsky's day, called Pochvennichestvo, is seen to have continued on into its modern manifestation in individuals like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.Dostoyevsky's novels focus on the idea that utopias and positivist ideas, in being utilitarian, were unrealistic and unobtainable. The novel has five primary characters representing different ideologies. By exploring their differing philosophies, Dostoyevsky describes the political chaos seen in 19th century Russia.

  Show book

• 

  Adventure of the Noble Bachelor...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Lord Robert St. Simon's new American bride, Hatty Doran, has disappeared almost immediately after the wedding. The servants had prevented an old love interest of his from forcing her way into the wedding breakfast, Hatty had been seen in whispered conversation with her maid, and Inspector Lestrade arrives with the news that Hatty's wedding dress and ring have been found floating in the Serpentine. Holmes quickly solves the mystery, locating Hatty at a hotel with a mysterious, "common-looking" man who had picked up her dropped bouquet after the ceremony. The man turns out to be Hatty's husband Frank, whom she had thought dead in America, and who had managed to locate her only moments before she was to marry Lord St. Simon. Frank and Hatty had just determined to go to Lord St. Simon in order to explain the situation when Holmes found them.

  Show book