Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  A Strange Story - Turgenev...

  Ivan Turgenev

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  Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born on 9th November 1818 in Oryol, Russia to parents from the nobility.  He and his two brothers were raised by their mother on the family estate.  Surrounded by foreign governesses he became fluent in French, German, and English.  Their father spent little time with them and this undoubtedly had an effect on him and his brothers.  When he was nine the family moved to Moscow to give their children a better education. 
   
  Turgenev studied for a year at the University of Moscow and then at the University of St Petersburg to study Classics, Russian literature, and philology.  During that time his father died from kidney stone disease.  In 1838 Turgenev studied philosophy and history at the University of Berlin for 3 years before returning to St Petersburg for his master's. 
   
  He started his career with the Russian Civil Service and it was only in 1852, after several earlier publications, that he made his name with his short story collection, ‘A Sportsman's Sketches’, based on his observations of peasant life and nature. 
    
  That same year he wrote an obituary for Nikolai Gogol: "Gogol is dead!... What Russian heart is not shaken by those three words?... He is gone, that man whom we now have the right (the bitter right, given to us by death) to call great."  The St Petersburg censor banned publication but the Moscow censor allowed it.  He was dismissed but Turgenev was held responsible and imprisoned for a month, and then exiled to his country estate.  
   
  Along with many other intellectuals Turgenev left Russia and settled in Paris in 1854.  During this period he wrote his finest stories and four novels.  
   
  Alexander II ascended the Russian throne in 1855, and the political climate relaxed.  Turgenev returned home.  
   
  ‘Fathers and Sons’, Turgenev's most famous and enduring novel, appeared in 1862. Its leading character is considered the first ‘Bolshevik’ in Russian literature. But the hostile reaction prompted Turgenev's decision to again leave Russia.  
   
  His health declined during his later years.  In January 1883, an aggressive malignant tumor was removed but by then it had metastasized in his upper spinal cord, causing him intense pain in his final few months of life.  
   
  Ivan Turgenev died on 3rd September 1883 of a spinal abscess, a complication of the metastatic liposarcoma, in his house near Paris.  He was buried in St Petersburg.  
   
  In this tale a young girl, Sophia, endures difficult circumstances before several years later becoming the companion of a devout, but pitifully poor, vagrant holy man wandering the countryside.

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  Berenice

  SAMPI Books, Edgar Allan Poe

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  "Berenice" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, centered on obsession and horror. The story follows Egaeus, a man tormented by obsessive thoughts, and his cousin Berenice, who suffers from a mysterious illness. The narrative unfolds around Egaeus' morbid fixation on Berenice's teeth, culminating in a macabre and disturbing outcome that reveals the depth of his obsession.

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  The Portrait of a Lady

  Henry James

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  Isabel Archer is a young American orphan who receives an inheritance from an uncle. Taken under her aunt's wings, she meets Madame Merle, her aunt's worldly friend, who instills in Isabel a sense of European sophistication, a trait that comes to overpower her own common sense. Isabel marries widower Gilbert Osmond, who projects refined tastes and intellectual detachment. Isabel is utterly captivated by Osmond's languid charm, and he is thrilled to have his superior prize. But in the end, the young woman discovers that her husband and Madame Merle are both exemplars of an appalling, complex depravity that has become the central issue in her life.

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  Orthodoxy (Unabridged)

  G.K. Chesterton

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  This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.

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  Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Opening with the poem that made Poe a household name overnight, this collection of his short works includes the narrative poem "The Raven", the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher", and the first of Poe's "ratiocination" tales: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", featuring the first of the fictional detectives: C. Auguste Dupin. From there we encounter the horror classics: The Pit & the Pendulum, the Cask of Amontillado and the Masque of the Red Death, and the Tell Tale Heart, before finishing with another tale of C. Auguste Dupin: The Purloined Letter. 
  Narrated by Michael Ward.

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  David Copperfield

  Charles Dickens

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  David Copperfield is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in serial form between 1849 and 1850 and later as a complete book in 1850. It is widely regarded as one of Dickens's most beloved works and is often considered semi-autobiographical, reflecting many aspects of the author's own life. The story is narrated by the titular character, David Copperfield, who recounts his journey from childhood to adulthood. 
  David Copperfield is born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, six months after his father's death. His early years are spent in relative happiness with his mother, Clara, and their devoted housekeeper, Peggotty. This idyllic childhood is shattered when Clara marries the cruel Mr. Edward Murdstone, who imposes a strict regime on the household alongside his equally harsh sister. After a series of abusive encounters, David is sent away to Salem House, a boarding school run by the sadistic Mr. Creakle.

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