Lord Chatterley has come back from the Great War paralyzed from the waist downwards, and Lady Chatterley soon tires of the charm of sitting-room conversations with him and their visitors about the life of the intellect and the woes of the world and begins to yearn for other satisfactions. Which she certainly does get in a big way from the estate’s reclusive, misanthropic, dialect-speaking and very virile game-keeper, as is described in graphic detail by the pen of one of the finest (…)
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"Lady Chatterly’s Lover" by D. H. Lawrence (1928)
13 November 2023, by D. H. Lawtence -
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
6 November 2023, by F. Scott FitzgeraldAll 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 (…) -
"The Tragedian" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
30 October 2023, by 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 October 2023, by Guy de Maupassant1. THE ODYSSEY OF A STREET GIRL (1883) The narrator remembers an unforgettable night when he had saved a young street girl from being caught up in a police raid and she had recounted to him the story of her fall from grace. A sad story with a strong undercurrent of social criticism. (2,300 words)
2. MEMORIES (1884) A woman writes to a friend in Paris to explain why she won’t come to visit her any more, explaining that true happiness for her lies in dreaming, not about the future but about (…) -
"Ulysses" by James Joyce (1924)
16 October 2023, by 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 October 2023, by 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. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Chapter I (…) -
"Plain Tales From the Hills" by Rudyard Kipling (1882)
2 October 2023, by 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. (…) -
"Colonel Chabert" by Honoré de Balzac (1832)
25 September 2023, by 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)
18 September 2023, by Honoré de BalzacA young painter – who we soon discover to be the future world-famous Nicolas Poussin [1] – pays a visit to the studio of a celebrated master, Porbus, where he is admitted behind a rather strange old man who has also come to visit the master, whose works he proceeds to ruthlessly criticize for their lack of life and truthfulness. This visitor turns out to be an unknown master painter himself, who passionately describes the magnificent masterpiece that he has almost but not quite finished for (…)
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"Mountain Crystal (Bergkristall)" by Adalbert Stifter (1853)
11 September 2023, by 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 (…)