Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Eve's Diary - Twains thought...

  Mark Twain

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  Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on the 30th November 1835 and is far better known by his pen name of Mark Twain.  An American writer and humorist of the first order he is perhaps best known for his novels ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and its sequel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ which are often described with that mythic line The Great American Novel. 
   
  Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri which would later provide the backdrop to these great novels.  Apprenticed to a printer he also became a typesetter and then a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi.  Later, heading west with his brother Orion to make his fortune, he failed at gold mining and instead turned to journalism and thence his true calling as a writer of humorous stories where his wit and humor sparkled from every paragraph, his craft evident with every page and punctured target. 
   
  A staunch supporter of copyright protections this helped him keep much of the wealth his writing created, though much money was also lost on investments that he pursued in his love for science and technology as well as investing in his own inventions. 
    
  Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well.  He died the day after its subsequent return on 21st April 1910, at his house, Stormfield, located in Redding, Connecticut.   
   
  Once again Twain finds a new way to reveal more about humanity.  This time from the baby Eve and her diary   As the first woman she has a very unique perspective and, of course, the author’s way with words.

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  Beowulf

  Unknown Unknown

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  Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory. Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed later, in writing, by a Christian. Beowulf is written mostly in the West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.No definite sources or analogs of the poem can be proven, but many suggestions have been made, including the Icelandic Grettis saga, the Norse story of Hrolf Kraki and his bear-shapeshifting servant Bodvar Bjarki, the international folktale the Bear's Son Tale, and the Irish folktale of the Hand and the Child. Persistent attempts have been made to link Beowulf to tales from Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid. More definite are Biblical parallels, with clear allusions to the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel.

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  Hide And Seek - From their pens...

  Fyodor Sologub

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  Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov was born on 1st March 1863 in St. Petersburg into the family of a poor tailor.  When his father died of tuberculosis in 1867, his illiterate mother was forced to become a servant in the home of an aristocrat, where Sologub and his younger sister grew up.  
  Seeing how difficult his mother's life was, Sologub was determined to rescue her from it, and after graduating from the St. Petersburg Teachers' Institute in 1882 he took his mother and sister with him to his first teaching post in Kresttsy.  It was here he began his literary career in 1884 with his poem ‘The Fox and the Hedgehog’ under the name Te-rnikov. 
  It would be another decade before he could escape his various jobs to move to Moscow and begin his literary career on what would be his most famous novel, ‘The Petty Demon’.  It was now suggested that he use a pseudonym and so Sologub became his new identity. 
  In 1896 he published a book of poems, a collection of short stories, and his first novel, ‘Bad Dreams’, which is considered one of the first decadent Russian novels. 
  In 1905 ‘The Petty Demon’, was published, initially in serial form. But life was still difficult unrewarding jobs, little time to write and a small, cramped apartment lightened only by gatherings of friends, poets and writers. 
  By the October Revolution his work was becoming popular and with the novel of ‘The Petty Demon’, finally published as a book, he now had a growing income. 
  His sister's tuberculosis could now be more easily treated with treatments in proper sanitoria, even as far away as Finland, but in June 1907 she passed. 
  He returned to St. Petersburg and retired.  The following year he married the translator Anastasia Chebotarevskaya who reordered his life.  A big new apartment was rented, small gilt chairs were bought, and the walls of the large cold office were decorated with paintings. 
  Sologub continued to write and publish poems, plays, and translations and in 1914 he started a magazine, Writers' Journals, but the outbreak of World War I put an end to it.  
  The October Revolution, with publishing under Bolshevik control, ensured he now had no outlets for his writing and could only lecture. 
  His wife’s suicide in September 1921, mainly due to deprivation and uncertainty, as they prepared for a new life abroad, grieved him for the rest of his life. 
  In May 1927 Sologub became seriously ill, and by summer he could leave his bed only rarely.  
  After a long struggle, Fyodor Sologub died on 5th December 1927 in Leningrad.  He was 64.

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  Greats Abridged The - Robinson...

  Daniel Defoe

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  Stranded on a deserted island after a violent shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe must face the wild alone. With nothing but his wits, faith, and unyielding determination, he builds a new life in an unforgiving wilderness. This abridged edition brings Daniel Defoe’s groundbreaking tale of survival and spiritual growth to modern audiences with crisp clarity and cinematic pacing. 
  Perfect for listeners of all ages, The Greats Abridged series distills timeless classics without losing their heart. Whether you’re rediscovering Crusoe’s adventures or hearing them for the first time, this edition captures the wonder, danger, and triumph of one of literature’s greatest journeys.

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  Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr...

  Robert Louis Stevenson

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  “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.” 
  Narrator RJ Bayley and Audiobook Empire have once again teamed up to bring you another Gothic classic from Bayley's Bookshelf.  
  Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde explores the bifurcated nature of one man's psyche and the turmoil it can bring upon society, in a time when such things were not fully understood.

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  The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter -...

  Grace Tiffany

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  ""Witty, resilient, and fiercely intelligent, Judith emerges as a heroine for the ages. Her journey, rich in historical authenticity and imaginative storytelling, offers insights that resonate across the centuries.""—Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles 
  For readers of Hilary Mantel and Madeline Miller, a deeply engrossing work of historical fiction—a tale of a woman of the Shakespeare family struggling to manage both her private grief and public danger.   
  At the age of sixty-one, Judith Shakespeare, a midwife-apothecary and twin of the long-dead Hamnet, must flee provincial Stratford on horseback to avoid arrest for witchcraft. Her traveling companions are a zealous Puritan woman and child who have been displaced by civil war—the bloody seventeenth-century strife between Royalists and Roundheads. Judith is also leaving her marriage, which has foundered since the wrenching loss of two adult sons to the plague. 
  The sequel to the author’s My Father Had a Daughter, a tale of Judith in her youth, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter revisits this character for the ages—Shakespeare’s sharp-tongued, witty youngest child, no less feisty in her maturity. Four-hundred years after Judith’s death, Grace Tiffany brings her back onto center stage. Judith’s latest tale offers profound insights—into friendship, motherhood, marriage, religious extremism, and war—which remain resoundingly true today. 
  This work is narrated in Original Pronunciation, that is, Early Modern English, as a nod to the phonological system of Shakespeare’s time. 

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