Translator Louise and Aylmer Maude
Publisher: Good Press
"The Light Shines in Darkness" is an unfinished play by Tolstoy. The protagonist Nicholas Ivanovich reads about Christianity and the gospels, which suddenly changes how he looks at life, religion, the church, and society. He cannot accept the lies being fed to people in the name of religion. A thought-provoking play.
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was born in Paris on 2nd April 1840. When he was 3 the family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast. At 7 his father died, leaving the family on a meagre pension. In 1858, they returned to Paris. His mother had planned a law career for Émile, but he failed his baccalauréat examination twice. He took jobs as a clerk in a shipping firm and then in the sales department for the publisher Hachette. Zola also wrote political, literary and art reviews for newspapers. As a writer Zola wrote numerous short stories, essays, plays and novels. When ‘La Confession de Claude’ was published and received the attention of the police Hachette fired him. He continued to write and after his first major novel, ‘Thérèse Raquin’ (1867), Zola started the series called ‘Les Rougon-Macquart’, a carefully planned twenty-volume history of a single family under the reign of Napoléon III. With the publication of ‘L'Assommoir’, Zola became wealthy. His subsequent works, ‘Nana’ and La Débâcle fared even better, increasing both fame and bank balance. He was now a figurehead of the literary bourgeoisie. However, despite several nominations, he was never elected to the prestigious Académie Française. The infamous Dreyfus Affair infuriated Zola who wrote in defence of Alfred Dreyfus. His plan was to be prosecuted for libel so that the truth would be exposed. It went badly wrong. Zola was convicted for criminal libel in February 1898 and removed from the Legion of Honour. The judgment was overturned but a new suit began. Zola fled to England only to return when an Amnesty was granted. Zola said of the affair, "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it." Émile Zola died on 29th September 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by an improperly ventilated chimney. On 4th June 1908 Zola’s remains were transferred to the Panthéon, where he shares a crypt with Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.Show book
Facing harsh adult realities, a young English girl in India must leave childhood behind, in this masterful tale from a New York Times–bestselling author. The Ganges River runs through young Harriet’s world. The eleven-year-old daughter of the British owner of a successful jute concern, she loves her life in Bengal, India, on the river’s edge, so far removed from the English boarding school she attended before the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Often left alone by an overworked father and preoccupied mother, Harriet is enchanted by the local festivals, colors, and vibrant life surrounding her. Now, as she stands on the brink of adulthood—too old to play childish games with her reckless little brother, Bogey, yet too young to be touched by such grown-up concerns as the faraway Second World War—a stranger’s unexpected arrival will rock her world. When Captain John, a handsome soldier returning wounded from the battlefield, becomes her family’s new neighbor, Harriet is instantly entranced, beset by a rush of unfamiliar emotions: longing, jealousy, infatuation. But the inevitable change inherent in growing older may be too heavy a burden for a young girl to bear when it carries with it disappointment and heartbreaking loss. Inspired by the author’s personal experiences as a child raised in India—and the basis for the acclaimed classic motion picture of the same name from French film director Jean Renoir—Rumer Godden’s The River is a lovely, moving portrayal of childhood’s end. Evocative, heartfelt, and bittersweet, it is a coming-of-age story without equal from a major twentieth-century novelist. This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.Show book
This tale, beloved by children and adults everywhere, follows Alice as she falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world, where she meets The Mad Hatter, the Ugly Duchess, the Mock Turtle, the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat-each character more eccentric than the last. Lewis Carroll, the master of sublime nonsense, has created one of the most famous and fantastic novels of all time. He plays with logic in ways that have given the story lasting popularity and not only stirred our imagination but revolutionized literature.Show book
Set in the Netherlands, the beautiful land of windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes, the story concerns the experiences of the impoverished Brinker family, including the thrilling race for the silver skates. The good deeds of the Brinker children, Hans and Gretel, help to restore their father's health and bring about their own good fortune. Mary Mapes Dodge also included many interesting details about Dutch family life and the history and geography of the country.Although Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates was published over 140 years ago, it continues to delight countless readers with its story of a virtuous family that inspires us all to have the courage to pursue our dreams.Show book
In Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus discovers that he has been caught in his terrible destiny, unknowingly murdering his father and marrying his mother. This perfomance features a new translation from the original Greek by director Nicholas Rudall. Starring (in alphabetical order): Spencer Garrett as Shepard, Chorus Francis Guinan as Messenger, Chorus Gregory Itzin as Creon Charles Kimbrough as Priest of Zeus, Chorus Harry J. Lennis as Oedipus Rod McLachlan as Second Messenger, Chorus Carolyn Seymour as Jocasta W. Morgan Sheppard as Teiresias, Chorus (P)2003 L.A. Theatre WorksShow book
James Weldon Johnson's emotionally gripping novel is a landmark in black literary history and, more than eighty years after its original anonymous publication, a classic of American fiction. The first fictional memoir ever written by a black, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man influenced a generation of writers during the Harlem Renaissance and served as eloquent inspiration for Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright. In the 1920s and since, it has also given white readers a startling new perspective on their own culture, revealing to many the double standard of racial identity imposed on black Americans.Narrated by a mulatto man whose light skin allows him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a pilgrimage through America's color lines at the turn of the century-from a black college in Jacksonville to an elite New York nightclub, from the rural South to the white suburbs of the Northeast. This is a powerful, unsentimental examination of race in America, a hymn to the anguish of forging an identity in a nation obsessed with color.Show book
