Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

La Isla del Tesoro es una narración llana, un romance fácil, un cuento sabroso con un niño por héroe, y que, á pesar de sus peripecias dramáticas y conmovedoras, conserva en todo el discurso del libro una pureza y una sencillez tales que no habrá hogar, por mucha severidad que impere en él, del cual pueda desterrársele con razón.Stevenson se propuso, además, describir con esa difícil facilidad que parece ser un secreto suyo, esas escenas y aventuras marinas en que el lector percibe, desprendiéndose de la sencilla narración, ya el olor acre de las brisas de la playa, ya el rumor ...

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers during the month of April 2009.

A marvelous depiction of two sides of South Sea Islands' life through three separate tales. One, the experience of the incoming British keen to live free and exploit the innocent; the other the supernatural as perceived by Stevenson working in the lives of the natives. One tale carries the germ of the story of Madame Butterfly, since become a part of Western culture. Another is an extraordinary retelling of a German horror story transposed to a South Sea Island setting. The last is an effort of the pure Stevensonian imagination and there can be nothing better. - Summary by TONY ADDISON

Heir to a noble Scottish house in the mid 18th century, the Master is a charming, clever, and resourceful villain whose daring but ill-advised schemes first alienate his patrimony and at last cost him his life. His younger brother, sweet-tempered and good but dull and unpopular, suffers at the Master's hands until his patience and courage win him limited ascendancy, but he is at last consumed with hatred and driven to madness and death by the strain of his many sufferings. The story is told from the point of view of a loyal servant with the occasional insertion of documents in the words of ...

More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885) is a collection of linked short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift. Three gentlemen of little means and no occupation meet in the Bohemian Cigar Divan, a tobacco shop with couches to sit and smoke. They read of a reward offered for information as to the whereabouts of a man with big moustaches and a sealskin coat. They agree among themselves that they will separate and search for the man so as to claim the reward. The stories that follow concern their adventures. They meet again in the cigar divan in an epilogue to their travels...

David Balfour, a lad of seventeen and newly orphaned, is directed to go and live with his rich uncle, the master of the estate of Shaws in the lowlands of Scotland near Edinburgh. His uncle, Ebenezer (as close a miser as Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge), is shocked to suddenly have his young relative descend on him and tries to rid himself of David with an arranged accident. Failing that, he pays the captain of a brig to kidnap David and sell him into slavery in Carolina.A collision in the fog brings onboard the brig a survivor, Alan Breck Stewart, who is carrying a dangerous amount of gold on his ...

LibriVox’s Short Poetry Collection 042: a collection of 20 public-domain poems.

This short early twentieth century biography of Robert Louis Stevenson by polymath Chesterton and journalist Nicoll is also sometimes entitled ‘The Characteristics of Robert Louis Stevenson.’ Each author wrote a section of the whole. This recording is of the third edition which differs structurally from the first edition and has some additional material. - Summary by David Wales

As a young man, Stevenson wished to be financially independent and began his literary career by writing travelogues. This is his first published work, written at a time when travel for pleasure was still a rarity. He and a friend traveled by canoe through France and Belgium and he relates how they were thrown in jail, mistaken for traveling salesmen and became embroiled in gypsy life. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

'The Listener'First, it was a strange array of cats, then an increasingly mysterious, and then terrifying increase in...happenstances and...appearances...'Number Thirteen'Unlucky for some this room is...on a visit to a Denmark with an ancient presence...'The Horla'Yes, I believed, that an invisible being lived beneath my roof. How weak our head is, and how quickly it is terrified and goes astray, we immediately imagine terrible mysteries and supernatural powers.'The Beast with Five Fingers'With murderous vengeance, the beast pursues the two friends. Will secrecy, intense surveillance and a ...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 readings of My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson's famous poem concerns a child's shadow and its antics. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of September 7th, 2014. Summary by Sweet Pea.

Is it really a woman of your superiority who speaks of the proprieties of society? Are not women like you above all that? Was I to come delicately and hypocritically to offer your husband the sum he stood in need of? That is a course that would have been unworthy of him, of me, and of you. No, you know it well, the proprieties and dignity are nothing any longer, when passion or necessity predominates. Did your grandmother respect the dignity of her daughter when she gave her up to a prince? - Summary by From the PlayCast list:John de Hun: John BurlinsonNourvady: Kristin GjerløwGodler: K. ...

D’Artagnan, son of a poor Gascon aristocrat, travels to Paris to seek his fortune. His family connections enable him to obtain a position in a Guard regiment. His provincial ingenuousness and his hot-headed sense of honor earn him three duels in as many hours. Thankfully, his preparation with the sword is sufficient to recommend himself to his Musketeer antagonists, and they – Athos, Porthos, and Aramis – become his fast friends.But fate also crosses D’Artagnan’s path with some dangerous people who become his opponents: a mysterious “man from Meung” and a woman who styles herself...

Le roman raconte les aventures d'un gascon désargenté de 18 ans, d'Artagnan, monté à Paris faire carrière. Il se lie d'amitié avec Athos, Porthos et Aramis, mousquetaires du roi Louis XIII. Ces quatre hommes vont s'opposer au premier ministre, le Cardinal de Richelieu et à ses agents, dont la belle et mystérieuse Milady de Winter, pour sauver l'honneur de la reine de France Anne d'Autriche. Avec ses nombreux combats et ses rebondissements romanesques, Les Trois mousquetaires est l'exemple type du roman de cape et d'épée. (Summary from Wikipedia)

After The Three Muskateers and Twenty Years After the adventurous story of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan continues!The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (French: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard) is the last of the Musketeer novels. It is usually divided into four volumes and this second volume contains chapters 76-140. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)

The Lady of the Camellias (French: La Dame aux camélias) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Theatre de Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to put the story to music. His work became the 1853 opera La Traviata with the female protagonist "Marguerite Gautier" renamed "Violetta Valéry".In the English-speaking world, The Lady of the Camellias became known as Camille and sixteen versions have been performed at ...

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the violent scenes of a violent time.In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. The careful, mature reader, for whom the books are intended, will recognize, and allow for, this fact. (from publisher's note)The first volume comprises the annals of the Borgias and the Cenci. The name of the noted and notorious Florentine family has become a synonym for intrigue and violence, and yet the ...

Armando Duval, un joven de la alta sociedad parisiense, se enamora perdidamente de Margarita Gautier, reconocida cortesana, quien corresponde sinceramente a este sentimiento. Olvidándose de esas circunstancias que les rodean, Armando y Margarita se entregan por completo a ese amor, sin importarles el escándalo que esto genere. (Summary by Phileas Fogg)

Born in Scotland, Alexander Dunlop Lindsay was a teacher of philosophy at a number of universities in England in the early 1900s. This brief commentary on Kant's philosophy is a work that focuses solely on some of the main ideas Kant put forth in the three Critiques. Although not comprehensive, the narrative style of this volume makes it a pleasant read and will be a valuable "break-in" point (or introduction to) the complex philosophy of Immanuel Kant. (Summary by SKwanlada)

Subtitled "The Throne, The Tomb, and The Scaffold - An Historical Play in 3 Acts From the Celebrated Play of that Name by Alexandre Dumas" - How can you resist a play about English history - the doomed fifth wife of Henry the 8th - by the celebrated French author of The Musketeers?? - Summary by ToddHWCast list:Henry VIII, King of England: Larry WilsonAthelwold, Duke of Northumberland: Paul SimoninArchbishop Cranmer: alanmapstoneDuke of Sussex: KHandDuke of Norfolk: tovarischGrand Chamberlain: Tomas PeterLieutenant of the Tower: Sandra SchmitFleming, an Alchemist: AvaillePage: LydiaMartin ...