Publisher: anamsaleem
Mark Twain's Speeches have delighted audiences for over one hundred years. Filled with wit and wry observation, these speeches are enjoyable to read and excellent examples of the way to entertain and persuade a crowd.
All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. Helena, the low-born ward of a Spanish countess, is in love with the countess' son Bertram, who is indifferent to her. Bertram goes to Paris to replace his late father as attendant to the ailing King of France. Helena, the daughter of a recently deceased doctor, follows Bertram, ostensibly to offer the King her services as a healer. The King is sceptical, and she guarantees the cure with her life: if he dies, she will be put to death, but if he lives, she may choose a husband from the court. The King is cured and Helena chooses Bertram, who rejects her, owing to her poverty and low status. The King forces him to marry her, but after the ceremony Bertram immediately goes to war in Italy without so much as a goodbye kiss. He says that he will only marry her after she has borne his child and wears his family ring. In Italy, Bertram is a successful warrior and also a successful seducer of local virgins. Helena follows him to Italy, befriends Diana, a virgin with whom Bertram is infatuated, and they arrange for Helena to take Diana's place in bed. Diana obtains Bertram's ring in exchange for one of Helena's. In this way Helena, without Bertram's knowledge, consummates their marriage and wears his ring. Helena returns to the Spanish countess, who is horrified at what her son has done, and claims Helena as her child in Bertram's place. Helena fakes her death, and Bertram, thinking he is free of her, comes home.Show book
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective's notoriety as the arch-despoiler of the schemes concocted by the criminal underworld at last gets the better of him.Though Holmes and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson solve what will become some of their most bizarre and extraordinary cases - the disappearance of the race horse Silver Blaze, the horrific circumstances of the Greek Interpreter and the curious mystery of the Musgrave Ritual among them - a criminal mastermind is plotting the downfall of the great detective.Show book
It is early summer, 1661, and the royal court of France is in turmoil. Can it be true that the King is in love with the Duchess d'Orleans? Or has his eye been caught by the sweet and gentle Louise de la Valliere? No one is more anxious to know the answer than Raoul, son of Athos, who loves Louise more than life itself. Behind the scenes, dark intrigues are afoot.Show book
"The Man Who Would Be King" (1888) is a story by Rudyard Kipling about two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan. The story was first published in The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888). It also appeared in Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1895), and numerous later editions of that collection. It has been adapted for other media a number of times.The narrator of the story is an Indian journalist in 19th century India - Kipling himself, in all but name. Whilst on a tour of some Indian native states he meets two scruffy adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan. Softened by their stories, he agrees to help them in a minor errand, but later he regrets this and informs the authorities about them - preventing them from blackmailing a minor rajah. A few months later the pair appear at his newspaper office in Lahore.Show book
A secretive gentlemen's dining society meets twice a year. On these occasions they invite a guest speaker... always somebody who has done something extraordinary, like flying to Australia and back, driving across China... or some incredible criminal feat such as robbing the Bank of England. On the search for the next speaker, the Club Secretary spots an account of a most extraordinary jail-break in the East Indies and decides to try to track down the escapee. A course of events is set in motion which nobody could predict.Show book
Under the Lilacs is a tale of friendship and adventure from celebrated author Louisa May Alcott. When sisters Bab and Betty Moss decide to have a tea party one spring morning, little did they know a strange and talented dog and a bedraggled circus run-away would come into their lives. Ben Brown is believed to be orphaned. With no family to return to, the girl's kind neighbour, Miss Celia, takes Ben under her care, where he learns the true meaning of friendship, home and family.Show book
