Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Love of Life and Other Stories

  Jack London

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  John Griffith “Jack” London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire,” “An Odyssey of the North,” and “Love of Life.” He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The Heathen,” and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf. London was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel. 
  This collection includes “Love of Life,” “A Day’s Lodging,” “The White Man’s Way,” “The Story of Keesh,” “The Unexpected,” “Brown Wolf,” “The Sun-Dog Trail,” and “Negore, the Coward.”

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  The Looking Glass - From their...

  Anton Chekhov

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  Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia.  
  His family life was difficult; his father was strict and over-bearing but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’.  
  At school Chekhov was distinctly average. At 16 his father mis-managed his finances and was declared bankrupt. His family fled to Moscow. Chekhov remained and eked out a living by various means, including writing and selling short sketches to newspapers, to finish his schooling. That completed and with a scholarship to Moscow University obtained he rejoined his family. 
  He was able to help support them by selling satirical sketches and vignettes of Russian lifestyles and gradually obtained further commissions. In 1884, he qualified as a physician and, although it earned him little, he often treated the poor for free, he was fond of saying ‘Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.’ 
  His own health was now an issue as he began to cough up blood, a symptom of tuberculosis.  Despite this his writing success enabled him to move the family into more comfortable accommodation.  
  Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’.  His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26.  
  He was also a major playwright beginning with the huge success of ‘Ivanov’ in 1887.   
  In 1892 Chekhov bought a country estate north of Moscow. Here his medical skills and money helped the peasants tackle outbreaks of cholera and bouts of famine. He also built three schools, a fire station and a clinic.  It left him with less time for writing but the interactions with real people gained him detailed knowledge about the peasantry and their living conditions for his stories.  
  His most famous work, ‘The Seagull’ was received disastrously at its premiere in St Petersburg. It was later restaged in Moscow to highlight its psychological aspects and was a huge success. It led to ‘Uncle Vanya’, ‘The Three Sisters’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’.  
  Chekhov suffered a major lung hemorrhage in 1897 while visiting Moscow. A formal diagnosis confirmed tuberculosis and the doctors ordered changes to his lifestyle.  
  Despite a dread of weddings the elusive literary bachelor quietly married the actress Olga Knipper, whom he had met at rehearsals for ‘The Seagull’, on 25th May 1901. 
  By May 1904 with his tuberculosis worsening and death imminent he set off for the German town of Badenweiler writing cheerful, witty letters to his family and assuring them his health was improving.  
  On 15th July 1904 Anton Chekhov died at Badenweiler.  He was 44.

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  The Open Window

  Saki Saki

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  Framton Nuttel seeks relaxation in the country. Entranced by a young woman's elaborate lie, he flees in terror from men he believes to be ghosts.

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  The Masterworks and Science...

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  From Edgar Allan Poe—the master of the short story and lyric poem—comes this rare treasury of classics. The outstanding works "A Descent into the Maelstrom," "Annabelle Lee," "Eldorado," "The Bells," and "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," illustrate Poe's meticulous sense of construction, with signature themes of romance and melancholy that characterized his short and troubled life. Short stories such as "MS. Found in a Bottle," "Some Words with a Mummy," "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," and "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" typify Poe's original literary style—one that is still copied in today's detective stories and gothic tales. This worthy collection, dramatized by Oscar-winning actor Paul Scofield, will enthrall all enthusiasts of Poe's work.

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  Princess Mary's Gift Book

  Various

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  In 1917, Princess Mary, then 17 years of age, gave her name to this collection of short stories and essays from the most prominent authors of the time for the purpose of raising funds for the "Work For Women Fund".   A few of the outstanding authors represented in this sparkling collection are J.M. Barrie with is essay on A Holiday in Bed; A. Conan Doyle; J.H. Fabre the naturalist with his well know description of The Ant-Lion; H. Ryder Haggard; Rudyard Kipling; Alfred Noyes ("A Spell for a Fairy"); Baroness Orczy (yes, that one); and Kate Douglas Wiggin    .   - Summary by Phil Chenevert

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  The Metamorphosis

  Franz Kafka

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  One morning, he wakes—and he is no longer himself.
  When traveling salesman Gregor Samsa opens his eyes to find he has transformed into a monstrous insect, his world collapses into fear, shame, and silence. As his family recoils and his life shrinks behind a bedroom door, Gregor confronts the cruelty of alienation and the fragile threads that tie us to one another.
  
  Praised as "one of the most influential works of modern literature," Kafka's unsettling masterpiece blends dark humor, emotional poignancy, and existential horror into a story that lingers long after the final page. Readers are drawn to its raw portrayal of identity, family, and the quiet tragedies hidden within ordinary lives.
  
  If you seek thought-provoking fiction that challenges, unsettles, and stays with you, this timeless novella is essential reading.
  
  Open the book—and step into a transformation you'll never forget.

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