Publisher: Charles River Editors
Louisa May Alcott was an American writer best known for coming of age novels featuring young women. Alcott also served as a nurse at a Union hospital during the Civil War and wrote about her experiences there. This edition of A Modern Cinderella includes a table of contents.
"The Mystery of Marie Rogêt", a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, is a detective narrative that explores Dupin's investigation into the mysterious disappearance and subsequent death of a young woman in Paris, based on a real case in New York, highlighting analysis and logical deduction.Show book
George Robert Gissing was born on November 22nd, 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent. By the age of ten he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero. In 1872 Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876. On release he decided to start over. In September 1876 he travelled to the United States. Here he wrote short stories for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. On his return home he was ready for novels. Gissing self-published his first novel but it failed to sell. His second was acquired but never published. His writing career was static. Something had to change. And it did. By 1884 The Unclassed was published. Now everything he wrote was published. Both Isabel Clarendon and Demos appeared in 1886. He mined the lives of the working class as diligently as any capitalist. In 1889 Gissing used the proceeds from the sale of The Nether World to go to Italy. This trip formed the basis for his 1890 work The Emancipated. Gissing's works began to command higher payments. New Grub Street (1891) brought a fee of £250. Short stories followed and in 1895, three novellas were published; Eve's Ransom, The Paying Guest and Sleeping Fires. Gissing was careful to keep up with the changing attitudes of his audience. Unfortunately, he was also diagnosed as suffering from emphysema. The last years of his life were spent as a semi-invalid in France but he continued to write. 1899; The Crown of Life. Our Friend the Charlatan appeared in 1901, followed two years later by The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. George Robert Gissing died aged 46 on December 28th, 1903 after catching a chill on a winter walk.Show book
"Life on the Mississippi" is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans many years after the War.Show book
The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was the last major novel by Herman Melville, the American writer and author of Moby-Dick. Published on April 1, 1857 (presumably the exact day of the novel's setting), The Confidence-Man was Melville's tenth major work in eleven years. The novel portrays a Canterbury Tales-style group of steamboat passengers whose interlocking stories are told as they travel down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans. The novel is written as cultural satire, allegory, and metaphysical treatise, dealing with themes of sincerity, identity, morality, religiosity, economic materialism, irony, and cynicism. Many critics have placed The Confidence-Man alongside Melville's Moby-Dick and "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a precursor to 20th-century literary preoccupations with nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism.Show book
Thirty little gems by some of the world's great classic short story writers. 1. The Flying Man by H. G. Wells2. Between Rounds by O. Henry3. A School Story by M. R. James4. A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin5. A Deal in Ostriches by H. G. Wells6. The Piano Next Door by Elia W. Peattie7. Royal Visitors by E. F. Benson8. The Stolen Bacillus by H. G. Wells9. The Story of Chugoro by Lafcadio Hearn10. One Law for the Rich by Stacy Aumonier11. My Enemy and Myself by Vincent O'Sullivan12. Philanthropy by John Galsworthy13. Powers of the Air by J. D. Beresford14. Escape, Three and Sixpence by Winifred Holtby15. The Pearl of Love by H. G. Wells16. The Adventure of the German Student by Nathaniel Hawthorne17. A Vision of Judgment by H. G. Wells18. A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf19. The Black Dog by Stephen Crane20. Treasure Trove by Neil MunroPlus ten more engaging classic short stories.Show book
Edmund Gill Swain (1861-1938) was an English cleric and author of ghost stories. He was a longtime friend of M. R. James, and his ghost stories show James' influence. 'The Eastern Window' is the peculiar tale of a vicar who sees something very odd one night in his church. It appears that a stained-glass window with the image of St. John the Baptist moves and points to the ruins of the old manor house nearby.The vicar, Mr. Batchel, goes outside to investigate and sees a strange ghostly figure, who again indicates that he should go to the ruins. That night, with the intermittent moonlight, he can do little, but the next day he sets out to investigate....Show book
