Publisher: Diamond Book Publishing
Christmas Day is a very fun story about Christmas day in 19th century England. It will entertain adults and children alike. Christmas Day is a book written by American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) and first published in 1819.
Boule de Suif (1880) is a famous novella by Guy de Maupassant. The story is set in the Franco-Prussian War and follows a group of French residents of Rouen, recently occupied by the Prussian army. The ten travelers decide, for various reasons, to leave Rouen and flee to Le Havre in a stagecoach. Sharing the carriage are Boule de Suif or "Butterball", a prostitute; a strict Democrat; a shop-owning couple from the petty bourgeoisie; a wealthy upper-bourgeoisie factory-owner and his wife; the Comte and Comtesse of Bréville; and two nuns. Thus, the carriage constitutes a microcosm of French society, representing different parts of the French population during the late 19th century. The story focuses on how the "representatives of Virtue" handle Boule de Suif before, during and after blundering into Prussian-held territory, where the only way out is that she sleeps with a Prussian officer…Show book
Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built. Lesson I, The Master Mind: You Can Do It if You Believe You Can!, is a course on the fundamentals of success. Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one's self to the ever-varying and -changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise.Show book
"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.Show book
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes and was published in 1904.Holmes is hired by the débutante Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve compromising letters from a blackmailer: Milverton, who causes Holmes more revulsion than any of the 50-odd murderers in his career. Milverton is "the king of blackmailers". He demands £7,000 (over £800,000 in 2015) for the letters, which if given to third parties would cause a scandal that would end Lady Eva's marriage engagement. Holmes offers £2,000, all Lady Eva can pay, but Milverton insists on £7,000. It is worth £7,000 to him, he explains, to make an example of Lady Eva; it is in his long-term interest to ensure that his future blackmail victims would be more "open to reason" and pay him what he wants, knowing he will destroy them if they do not. Holmes resolves to recover the letters by whatever means necessary, as Milverton has placed himself outside the bounds of morality.Holmes visits Milverton's Hampstead house, disguised as a plumber, in order to learn the plan of the house and Milverton's daily routine. He cultivates the acquaintance of Milverton's housemaid and even becomes engaged to marry her. This rather shocks Watson, but Holmes assures him that he has a hated rival who will step in when the plumber disappears. Holmes has learned where Milverton keeps his blackmail papers (a safe in his study), and plans to burgle Milverton's house that night. Watson comes along...Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World.Show book
Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) was a prolific English writer best known for his outstanding science fiction stories and novels. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times."The Crystal Egg" is a science fiction short story about an antiquarian dealer, Mr. Cave, who discovers that a crystal egg in his shop has strange properties. In certain light conditions it functions as a window on the planet Mars and he is able to observe the Martians and their bizarre cities and machines.Show book
Mary Webb (1881-1927) was an English Romantic novelist, short story writer and poet whose work is set chiefly in Shropshire.'Mr. Tallent's Ghost' is an amusing tale about an eccentric writer who likes to read his appalling and tedious novels aloud to his relatives...or indeed anyone who will listen. He persuades a lawyer to draw up a will devoting his entire fortune to funding the publication of his writing. Shortly after this, news of Mr. Tallent's death arrives.The disinherited relations dispute the will vigorously, and soon after this, the ghost of Mr. Tallent begins to haunt the relatives and the executor. Worse still, the ghost is reading his dreadful novels to them aloud. One by one the relatives are consigned to mental institutions. The lawyer, who is also Mr. Tallent's executor, holds out longest...and then he makes an extraordinary discovery.Show book
