Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  A Story of the Wedding Tour

  Margaret Oliphant

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  Margaret Oliphant Wilson was born on 4th April 1828 in East Lothian in Scotland but spent her childhood in Midlothian, Glasgow and Liverpool.   
   
  She wrote from a young age and in 1849 had her first novel about the Scottish Free Church movement, a cause her parents sympathized with, published.  Her next, ‘Caleb Field’, a couple of years later, led to a lifelong association with Blackwood Magazine to which she contributed more than a 100 articles and reviews. 
   
  In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, an artist working in stained glass, and settled in Camden, London. Together they had six children but tragically three died in infancy.   
   
  Unfortunately, Frank developed tuberculosis and so they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then south to Rome, where he died. Margaret was devastated and was left with the burden of supporting herself and their three children.  
   
  She returned to England and with her prolific literary work increased her commercial reputation and the size of her reading audience.  Margaret worked tirelessly to sustain her popularity with her supernatural tales and historical fiction. 
   
  Unfortunately, her family life continued to be fraught with tragedies due to the further death of her one remaining daughter, financial ruin for her alcoholic brother and unfulfilled ambitions for her two sons followed by their deaths in 1890 and 1894.  She had settled in Windsor near Eton where her sons had been educated in 1866 and was buried there following her death on 25th June, 1897. 
   
  Despite the short time she lived in Scotland, much of her writing displays strong connections in terms of settings, themes and its oral tradition.   
   
  Margaret was admired for her range of supernatural tales, which resonated with her fascination for the afterlife and given her own experience, provided a sense of comfort to those grieving.   
   
  She also wrote about the injustice faced by women and evidenced here by her strong tale:- ‘A Story of a Wedding Tour’ describing a young bride deserting her husband for a life that would give her a chance to express her own desires.

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  Hitched to the Horseman

  Stella Bagwell

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  Gabe Trevino came to the family-owned Sandbur Ranch to train horses, not fall for the boss's daughter. The sultry ranching heiress could ride and rope as well as any man. She was also hiding something, tempting Gabe to solve the enigma that was beautiful, vulnerable Mercedes Saddler.Mercedes knew better than to trust the handsome cowboy. She'd come home to Texas to start over on the ranch she loved. And Sandbur's new head horse trainer was a man who could break her heart as easily as he could break a foal. But Gabe called to something deep within her, making her yearn to heal the past and build a future with this lonesome, wary-of-love loner….

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  Oscar Wilde - Collected Stories

  Oscar Wilde

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  Does the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville really exist? And if he does, will he meet his match in the Otis family? Or will the rambunctious Otis children be the very death of him? The answers lie in these witty, hilarious tales.

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  The Rise of Silas Lapham

  William Dean Howells

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  The Rise of Silas Lapham is the most widely read of W.D. Howells’ novels. An example of literary realism, the story is about a farmer (Silas Lapham) who launches a very successful paint business, and moves his family up the social ladder of Boston. Lapham, however, is not one of the new types of American businessman, the ruthless plutocrat, rather he is the old-fashioned trustworthy Yankee trader, and the story deals with how he fares in the industrial capitalist environment. It is also a novel of manners, telling the story of the courtship of a daughter, and the difficulties the family deals with in attempting to move from one social class to another. (Summary by Margaret Espaillat)

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  Vsevelod Garshin - A Short Story...

  Vsevelod Garshin

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  Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin was born on 14th February 1855 in what is now Dnipro in the Ukraine, but then part of the Russian Empire. 
   
  After attending secondary school he studied at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.  
   
  Wars between and on behalf of Empires were a regular feature of the decades then.  Garshin volunteered to serve in the Russian army at the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.  
   
  He began as a private in the Balkans campaign and was wounded in action.  By the end of the war, in 1878, he had been promoted to officer rank.  
   
  By now Garshin, having previously published some articles and reviews in newspapers, wished to devote himself to a literary career.  The decision made he resigned his army commission. 
   
  His time as a soldier provided rich experiences for his early stories. His first ‘Four Days’ was related as the interior monologue of a wounded soldier left for dead on the battlefield for four days, face to face with the corpse of a Turkish soldier he had killed, gained him early admiration as an author of note.  
   
  He wrote perhaps only 20 stories, but their influence was immense, although in these more modern times he is barely remembered and lives in the more prolific shadows of others.  His characters are superbly worked into stories that come alive in the intensity and reality of his prose.   
   
  Garshin’s most well-known story is ‘The Red Flower’, also known as ‘Scarlet Blossom’ and is easily amongst the first rank of stories dealing with mental health issues. 
    
  Despite early literary success, he himself experienced periodical bouts of mental illness.   
   
  In one such bout Garshin attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself down the stone stairs leading into his apartment building.  Although not immediately fatal, Vsevolod Garshin died as a result of his injuries in a St Petersburg hospital on 5th April 1888.  He was 33. 
  1 - Vesvelod Garshin - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - A Red Flower by Vsevolod Garshin 
  3 - A Very Short Romance by Vsevolod Garshin 
  4 - Officer and Soldier-Servant by Vsevolod Garshin 
  5 - The Signal by Vsevolod Garshin 
  6 - Coward by Vsevolod Garshin

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  Appointment With Death

  Agatha Christie

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  Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. 
  Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter with the language targeted at learners of English. 
  Mrs Boynton, a cruel and hated woman, is found dead in the ancient city of Petra. Was it just a weak heart and too much sun that killed her, or has one of Mrs Boynton’s many victims found revenge? 
  By chance, the great detective Hercule Poirot has some useful information, but is it enough to find the killer? He has 24 hours to solve the case.

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