Other books that might interest you

• 

  Story of a Lie The (Unabridged)

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A chance encounter in a Parisian café leads to a series of unfortunate misunderstandings that threaten to bring to a premature and irreconcilable end the envisioned marriage between a pair of young lovers. When eligible bachelor Dick Naseby meets the lovely young Esther Van Tromp - a woman estranged from her cherished father, a talented artist whose success takes him around the world - he is too well-bred and smitten with her to confess the truth: he knows her father well. He wrongly believes that to reveal the truth would cause great harm, and the consequences of his deceit soon become tangible.

  Show book

• 

  After Twenty Years

  O. Henry

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American writer of outstanding short stories known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and surprise endings.In this story two old friends had promised to meet up exactly 20 years to the day since their last meeting in New York. One of the friends has travelled a thousand miles to be there...and is now waiting for his childhood companion. Will he turn up?

  Show book

• 

  The Red Room

  H. G. Wells

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. "The Red Room" is the account of the terrifying nocturnal experiences of a young man who volunteers to spend a night in the haunted red room at Lorraine Castle.

  Show book

• 

  Lady of the Shroud The (Unabridged)

  Bram Stoker

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Lady of the Shroud is a novel by Bram Stoker, published by William Heinemann in 1909.The book is an epistolary novel, narrated in the first person via letters and diary extracts from various characters, but mainly Rupert. The initial sections, leading up to the reading of the uncle's will, told by other characters, suggest that Rupert is the black sheep of the family, and the conditions of having to live in the castle in the Blue Mountains for a year before he can permanently inherit the unexpectedly large million-pound estate suggest the uncle is somehow testing the heir.

  Show book

• 

  Tono-Bungay - Book the Second:...

  H. G. Wells

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Herbert George "H. G." Wells (1866 - 1946) was an English writer.He was prolific in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is called a "father of science fiction"BOOK THE SECOND: THE RISE OF TONO-BUNGAY: I came to live in London, as I shall tell you, when I was nearly twenty-two. Wimblehurst dwindles in perspective, is now in this book a little place far off, Bladesover no more than a small pinkish speck of frontage among the distant Kentish hills; the scene broadens out, becomes multitudinous and limitless, full of the sense of vast irrelevant movement. I do not remember my second coming to London as I do my first, for my early impressions, save that an October memory of softened amber sunshine stands out, amber sunshine falling on grey house fronts I know not where. That, and a sense of a large tranquillity.

  Show book

• 

  Anton Chekhov - A Short Story...

  Anton Chekhov

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  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.  
  1 - Anton Chekhov - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov 
  3 - Volodya by Anton Chekhov 
  4 - Misery by Anton Chekhov 
  5 - The Death of a Government Clerk by Anton Chekhov 
  6 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov 
  7 - A Chameleon by Anton Chekhov  
  8 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov 
  9 - The Student by Anton Chekhov 
  10 - The Looking Glass by Anton Chekhov 
  11 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov 
  12 - About Love by Anton Chekhov 
  13 - The Kiss by Anton Chekhov

  Show book