Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

"I am going to tell you about a splendid unexplored country, and several adventures that happened therein, and I hope some day that some of you will go and see those countries, and penetrate even further into their mysteries, than did the girls and boys who figure in this book." This is the original children's tale and should not be confused with the R rated 1987 movie of the same name. - Summary from the introduction

A humorous tale about a poor Irish charwoman living in the slums of Dublin, and her innocent teenage daughter, Mary Makebelieve, whose first forays into courtship and romance, and their desire to escape from drudgery -- provide us with a charming picture of youth's enthusiasm and a mother's devotion, amidst Dublin's many parks and shops. The chapters are filled with James Stephens' witty Irish observations on life, love, ignorance, the frustrations of the poor and the wishful thinking that sustains them . . . . told as jauntily as only a few authors can equal. ( ~ Michele Fry, Soloist)

The story revolves around Montgomery Brewster, a poor man who inherits a large sum of money. However, there is a catch — he has to spend every penny within 30 days, and end up with nothing at that time. Should he make the deadline, he stands to gain an even larger sum; should he fail, he remains penniless.Brewster finds that spending so much money is more difficult than he first thinks, especially when the lawyers are trying to make him fail so that they can claim the money. What makes it worse is that he starts to be a little too successful with some ventures, actually making money from ...

This book contains 13 stories for little children, about a little boy named Birdie and his adventures out in nature with the fairies. The stories include "The Frost Fairies", made famous by a very similar short story entitled "The Frost King", penned by deaf/blind Helen Keller when she was a young girl. Helen's story was so similar to Margaret Canby's tale, that Keller was accused of plagerizing. Her teacher Anne Sullivan finally pieced together that a friend had read Margaret’s story to Helen years before, and she had internalized many details without remembering the story having been read ...

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans – an ironic ‘deception’ given that Adam Bede, her first novel, is written unashamedly from a feminist standpoint.The story centres on a pastoral love triangle. Two young men, carpenter Adam Bede and squire Captain Arthur Donnithorne, are both in love with the mercurial Hetty Sorrel. There’s a further love interest between Adam and beautiful lay preacher Dinah Morris.The setting is a country village in the north of England in the last years of the eighteenth century. The author paints a wonderful landscape of contemporary life as it really...

In "An Anonymous Story," Chekhov continues to explore his favorite themes of superfluous men, ironic rakes, exploited women, and the dangers of social conventions to human happiness. The Anonymous Narrator is a feckless, would-be revolutionary who gets himself hired on as a flunky in the household of the young useless aristocrat Orlov, hoping to spy out some useful information for the Cause. Orlov seduces the beautiful Zinaida Fyodorovna away from her husband but quickly tires of her. The Narrator, another in the long line of Russian literary superfluous men, allows Orlov to use him to deceive...

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a historical novel by Charles Dickens; it is moreover a moral novel strongly concerned with themes of guilt, shame, redemption and patriotism.The plot centers on the years leading up to French Revolution and culminates in the Jacobin Reign of Terror. It tells the story of two men, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, who look very alike but are entirely different in character.(Summary from Wikipedia)

The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of nineteen poems by the English poet John Donne (1572–1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. Summary from Wikipedia.

Lovely book for children written by teacher and naturalist Clara Dillingham Pierson. This book in the "Among the People" series explores the animal inhabitants of a pond. The beautiful writing brings the pond creatures into being in the reader's imagination and allows them a glimpse of the mysterious lives being carried out above and below the water's surface. (Summary by Jill Engle)

"The Stories in this little book have been set down almost in the same words in which they were told. How the telling of them came about is a very simple matter. Having three children, each of whom loved a Fairy Tale, it somehow became the fashion, on Sunday evenings, to tell them a story.On one occasion, when the youngest member was just about to be taken to bed, his sister said; “None of the books about Fairies ever say a word about Australia! Are there any Australian Fairies, Father?”Somewhat hastily, perhaps, I answered: “Why, yes, of course! Whole tribes of them!”Instantly the ...

In the years following World War I, Connie Chatterley finds that she is unhappy in her marriage. She begins a cross-class relationship with her gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Content warning: This book contains explicit language. (Summary by Scarbo)

One of the most renowned of all Protestant Christian missionaries, Amy Carmichael is remembered most for the fifty-five years she spent doing evangelistic and philanthropic work in India. She began her missions career, however, with fifteen months in Japan before falling ill, returning to Ireland, and then returning to Asia with her focus on India. This collection of letters is a record of that time in Japan, and is fascinating not only for its biographical interest but also for its insights into the rapidly-changing life of fin de siècle Japan and the status of its small unpopular handful of...

Charlotte Bronte was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Bronte sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all times. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Bronte? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser.Volume One of this biography is available here

A fairy tale with real life consequences, All's Well That Ends Well concerns a poor physician's daughter who goes to Paris to heal the King and asks of him a husband; not himself, but the Count Rousillon, in whose house her good father had lived. He weds her but does not bed her, flees to the wars where he is followed by his wife in a pilgrimage of which he is the object. How she uses his lust for a virtuous young woman to trick him into bedding her and giving her a child is but the real life drama to which, or so it would appear, a good woman is forced to commit herself to get herself a ...

La Fortune des Rougon est le premier volume de la série Les Rougon-Macquart. Il se déroule dans une petite ville appelée Plassans, et à Lorgues, dans le Var. Ce livre débute la généalogie des Rougon-Macquart, et se situe dans les jours qui suivent le coup d'État du 2 décembre 1851, soit au début du Second Empire. Il raconte l’histoire d’amour entre Silvère Mouret et Miette, les deux jeunes gens participant à la résistance en Provence au coup d'État du 2 décembre 1851. (Résumé par Bidou)

"Harold Transome is a landowner who goes against his family's political tradition (much to his mother's distress), while Felix Holt is a sincere radical. The setting of the book, the 1832 parliament election, is used to discuss the social problems of that time. A secondary plot involves Esther Lyon, the stepdaughter of a minister who is the real heiress to the Transome estate, with whom both Harold Transome and Felix Holt fall in love. Esther loves poor Felix Holt, but would she choose a comfortable life with Harold Transome?" (Summary by Stav Nisser)

Aristopia (published 1895) is truly an alternative history. It is an imagination of how the continent of North America might have developed if one man with the vision, altruism and determination to build a state for the benefit of all its people had been in the happy position of having wealth enough to make his dream a reality.It is an interesting book which deserves its place in literary history largely for being the first novel-length example of its genre. It is written, not as a novel, but as unvarnished history. Only a few passages seem really to catch alight with the idealistic passion of...

Fanny relates the experiences of a 19th century missionary as she and her young husband proselytize throughout Europe in search of converts to the new Mormon faith. Her religious zeal is sorely tested upon receipt of news from America revealing that their religion has adopted the practice of polygamy as the means to exaltation. The couple is summoned to Utah only to find themselves firmly ensconced in Brigham Young's inner circle and called upon to practice plural marriage or risk a fall from family, friends, and faith. - Summary by Spiffycat

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS, as a friend and fellow author has written of him, was “youth incarnate,” and there is probably nothing that he wrote of which a boy would not some day come to feel the appeal. But there are certain of his stories that go with especial directness to a boy’s heart and sympathies and make for him quite unforgettable literature. A few of these were made some years ago into a volume, “Stories for Boys,” and found a large and enthusiastic special public in addition to Davis’s general readers; and the present collection from stories more recently published is issued...

An alphabet of historical characters presented in poetical form! In their original form, the contents of thisbook appeared in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, which newspaper is hereby thanked for the privilege of reproducing this Alphabet(Summary from the Acknowledgment and Ann Boulais) Who frets about the mysteryEnshrouding all of historyOn reading this will, maybe, seeWe've made it plain as A, B, C.