All that glitters is not gold… This sparkling tale of the brilliant social life in the Long Island of the glittering Twenties makes good reading indeed for those non-socialites among us for whom the rich, handsome, elegant, cultured, and mysterious eponymous (war-)hero would be quite insupportable if he had turned out to really be all those American-dreamy good things with no redeeming awfulnesses to get him back down nearer to our lowly level.
The story reads for the most part in its (…)
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"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
6 novembre 2023, par F. Scott Fitzgerald -
"The Tragedian" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
30 octobre 2023, par Anton ChekhovTABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE TRAGEDIAN (1883) The daughter of a police captain becomes so enthusiastic about the theatre and about actors after seeing her first performance by a travelling company that she goes there every night, and ends up running away with the chief tragedian. But life on the road for an impoverished actor’s wife is not as magical as she’d imagined. (1,300 words)
2. THE BIRD MARKET (1883) A colourful and engaging description of a Moscow marketplace specialised in selling (…) -
"The Odyssey of a Street Girl" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
23 octobre 2023, par Guy de MaupassantSeven more of the master’s best stories, most with a rather racy, distinctively Gallic touch and all with a distinctively direct, straightforward and rather elegant Maupassantian touch.
They have all been translated specially for this site. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE WINDOW The narrator recounts his long, intensive courtship of the well-known, wealthy, attractive, intelligent, really quite ideal Mme de Jadelle, and how a fateful false step unfortunately upset his careful plans regarding (…) -
"Ulysses" by James Joyce (1924)
16 octobre 2023, par James JoyceThis most famous of Irish novels is a quite amazing literary tour de force. It has an extraordinary, experimental, let’s-see-what-can-be-done-with-words side to it which was very much in tune with the questioning drive for innovation and experimentation in art, music and literature that dominated intellectual and artistic Europe at the time of its conception during teens and twenties of the 20th Century.
And it’s an impressive demonstration of the author’s phenomenal mastery of the English (…) -
"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce (1916)
9 octobre 2023, par James JoyceThe first novel published by the future author of Ulysses, a largely autobiographical account of a young boy emotionally and intellectuelly coming of age with an intensely Roman Catholic upbringing in the city of Dublin at the beginning of the 20th century, a city and a country then under foreign rule.
(85,500 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below.
All of the footnotes have all been added specially for this site. CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V (…) -
"Plain Tales From the Hills" by Rudyard Kipling (1882)
2 octobre 2023, par Rudyard KiplingThe first work published by Rudyard Kipling, an outstanding and deceptively light-hearted collection of stories about life in India/Pakistan under British control in the latter part of the 19th century.
(73,000 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. LISPETH. 2. THREE AND—AN EXTRA. 3. THROWN AWAY. 4. MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS. 5. YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER. 6. FALSE DAWN. 7. THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 8. CUPID’S ARROWS. 9. HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 10. WATCHES (…) -
"Colonel Chabert" by Honoré de Balzac (1832)
25 septembre 2023, par Honoré de BalzacThe Colonel Chabert had played a heroic role in Napoleon’s victory at the battle of Eylau but had been left for dead on the battlefield under his horse, his body thrown into a collective burial pit, and he’d been declared legally deceased. However, he managed to revive and to survive although a great many months had passed before he’d sufficiently recovered to be able to consider returning to the post-Napoleonic Paris and recover his estate and his belongings. But as he’d been declared (…)
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"The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac (1831)
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"Mountain Crystal (Bergkristall)" by Adalbert Stifter (1853)
11 septembre 2023, par Adalbert StifterTwo children go over into the neighbouring valley high up in the Austrian Alps to visit their grandmother on the day before Christmas and get lost on their way back when a terrible snowstorm unexpectedly hits the whole region and covers up not only their tracks but all the recognizable landmarks that usually guide them on their way.
A story about life in the mountains, a story about the diverse and ever-changing environment in the mountains, a story about Christmas in the mountains and the (…) -
"Ivanhoe’ by Walter Scott (1819)
6 septembre 2023, par Walter ScottWalter Scott’s best-known work, a historical novel that established him as the most celebrated European novelist for a good long time, recounting the complex struggles in 12th-century England between the Norman rulers – Richard Coeur-de-Lion and his ambitious brother John – and their numerous enemies and opponents, notably the Saxon nobility that still dreamed of reestablishing their authority and also highly-organized bands of outlaws in parts of the realm such as the forests of (…)