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  Her First Ball (Unabridged)

  Katherine Mansfield

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  "Her First Ball" is a 1921 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in The Sphere on 28 November 1921, and later reprinted in The Garden Party and Other Stories.A young girl called Leila has come to the city to stay with her cousins. They are going to a ball. Leila is very excited: this is her first ball. Once there, she is both excited and terrified. After dancing with several young boys her own age, she dances with a wrinkly balding man who has been coming to balls for a while. This spoils her mood until she dances with a good looking young gentleman where her worries disappear.

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  The Daughter of the Swamp King

  Hans Christian Andersen

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  One of the strangest and, sadly, least known tales by Hans Christian Andersen, The Daughter of the Swamp King is complex and comprehensive. It covers great distances, long spans of time, transitions between real and imaginary worlds, and a variety of challenges and conflicts. The author relentlessly exposes his characters to the crises of perception, faith, conviction, and inner strength. How they venture through these tribulations and whether they stand all these trials successfully is for the reader to discover and decide.

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  Notes from the Underground

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  A predecessor to such monumental works as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from the Underground represents a turning point in Fyodor Dostoevsky's writing toward the more political side. In this work, we follow the unnamed narrator of the story, who, disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives, withdraws from that society into the underground. This "Underground Man" is one of the first genuine antiheroes in European literature.The first part of this unusual work is often treated as a philosophical text in its own right; the second part illustrates the theory of the first by means of its own fictional practice. A dark and politically charged novel, Notes from the Underground shows Dostoevsky at his best.This version of Notes from the Underground is the translation by Constance Garnett.

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  The Group - A Novel

  Mary McCarthy

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  This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant” (Cosmopolitan).  At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one of their own, before going their separate ways in the world. In the years that follow, they will each know accomplishment and loss in equal measure, pursuing careers and marriage, experiencing the joys and traumas of sexual awakening and motherhood, all while suffering through betrayals, infidelities, and sometimes madness. Some of them will drift apart. Some will play important roles in the personal dramas of others. But it is tragedy that will ultimately unite the group once again. A novel that stunned the world when it was first published in 1963, Mary McCarthy’s The Group found acclaim, controversy, and a place atop the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years for its frank and controversial exploration of women’s issues, social concerns, and sexuality. A blistering satire of the mores of an emergent generation of women, The Group is McCarthy’s enduring masterpiece, still as relevant, powerful, and wonderfully entertaining fifty years on. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate. 

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  Twelfth Night

  William Shakespeare

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  Twelfth Night, first performed around 1600, probably at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, is the tale of separated brother and sister twins – Sebastian and Viola – and their love entanglements. It also offers the rich comic colours of Sir Toby Belch, Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Twelfth Night is part of Naxos AudioBooks’ exciting new series of complete dramatisations of the works of Shakespeare, in conjunction with Cambridge University Press. It uses the New Cambridge Shakespeare text, as used by the Royal Shakespeare Company and educational institutions across the world.

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  Uncle Tom's Cabin

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

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  In debt, Kentucky farmer Arthur Shelby reluctantly decides to trade two of his slaves. The two, middle-aged Uncle Tom and young Harry, are to be sold to Mr. Haley, a detestable slave trader. Eliza, Harry's mother and Mrs. Shelby's maid, overhears the details of the arraignment, warns Uncle Tom and flees with Harry to the north. Eliza and Harry barely make it across the Ohio River before slave catchers can catch up with them. On the run, Eliza and her family seek shelter and safety. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom, who refused to run away, is separated from his family and sold down river. As novel progresses, the juxtaposed narratives highlight the harsh reality of slavery.

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