Vicar and his two daughters move to a small, quiet country village and soon learn that their neighbor in the yellow house holds secrets that will changeeverything they thought to be real in their lives.
The arrival of a new schoolteacher causes quite a stir in the small New England town of Pattaquasset, not the least of it in the house of Mrs. Derrick and her daughter, where the young man boards. Mr. Linden's idea of teaching stretches far beyond the dusty walls of his classroom, and he is not slow in finding much work to be done for his Master. The schoolboys are soon captivated by their new teacher, and Miss Faith Derrick quickly joins the ranks of his eager pupils.But Mr. Linden is not the only man in Pattaquasset who is attracted to the bright young woman, and his rivals have no intention of letting him carry the field unopposed. When perplexities and dangers begin to multiply, will Faith have the strength to stay true to her heart--and to her newfound Lord?
Semi-autobiographical series of incidents in the life of an intellectual American family in the late 19th - early 20th Century as seen by favored daughter, Sylvia Marshall. Her father is an economics professor in a Midwestern state university and she is following in his inquisitive footsteps. Canfield writes this in a matter-of-fact manner with Tarkingtonesque good humor.
Shirley Claiborne is fascinated by the tall handsome man named John Armitage who seemed to follow her and her brother, Captain Claiborne, as they traveled around Europe. Count von Stroebel had urged Armitage to do something for Austria. Now von Stroebel was dead – cut down by an assassin’s bullet – and Jules Chauvenet is one step closer to seeing the corrupt and worthless Francis ascend to the throne. When Shirley and Captain Claiborne sail for their home in Washington D.C., Armitage follows them. Monsieur Chauvenet also follows, but is he following Shirley or the mysterious John Armitage? And just who is John Armitage?
A sweet, old fashioned Christmas romance set in an old New England meeting house.
Dawn (also known in England as "Keith’s Dark Tower"), was published in 1919, and is set during World War I. Keith Burton is going blind. It is hard for him and his family. Most of the book deals with their ways - right and wrong - of dealing with the situation. At the end, Keith finds pride in helping blind solders.
Eleanor H. Porter was a writer of many popular children’s books and novels, including the Pollyanna and Miss Billy series, as well as Just David, Oh, Money! Money! and more.
With international book sales in the millions, Ralph Connor was the best-known Canadian novelist of the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. The Man from Glengarry was his most popular and accomplished work. Immediately after its publication in 1901, the novel spent several months in the top ranks of the New York Times "Books in Demand" list.
We follow the story of Ranald Macdonald, who is shaped by family and community in rural eastern Ontario in the early decades after Canadian confederation. This is a book about the making of men, but also, ultimately, about the making of a nation, as the mature Ranald moves west to take a leadership role in the fledgling province of British Columbia.
The Man from Glengarry features adventure and romance, and is, above all, a work of serious moral purpose. "Ralph Connor" was the pen-name of the Reverend Charles Gordon, a prominent Canadian minister, and his stories are woven through with his religious convictions. His is a two-fisted Christianity — or, as he said in his autobiography, a religion that can appeal to "red-blooded" people who aren't afraid to engage in physical conflict for causes that they know are right.
Northwest! takes place in western Canada, primarily western Alberta and British Columbia. The story revolves around Jimmy not being sure whether or not he shot and killed a Northwest Mounted while he and some friends were out hunting one day. Not exactly a bushman, he needs to head northwest to avoid capture by the officials who are out to find him and bring him to trial. At least that's what he suspects. Survival in the wilderness for one who was raised in British class proves to be a daunting experience, and we learn of the trials he is to be put through while he is on the lam.
There are many romantic tales about a handsome and rich man falling in love with a beautiful lower class woman over the objections of his family. Remember Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy? however, it takes more than a good woman to secure a man's happiness. He has to have mental strength. It is not certain that our hero, Tom, has that. Lois is a great woman. However, according to his sister, she is a "nobody." Does money and position control everything? Certainly not. Good people deserve to be happy. But only those who have enough strength to secure their happiness, on their own terms. A secondary plot involves Philip, another man who loves Lois, who discovers the love of God and becomes a better man. Not for the woman he loves, but for himself. Want to know if Tom overcomes his family's objections and married the love of his life? Want to read a lively book with an unforgettable and enchanting writing style? If you do, read the book.
Published anonymously during Baum's lifetime as he did not want his adult adventure stories to detract from his children's fantasy stories, the story takes the limited points of view of three protagonists in the field of Egyptology. A complex tale of intrigue, embezzlement, forgery, arranged marriages, bigotry and cheating keep the reader guessing the outcome until the last chapter.
There's bad blood between Rowland ''Rowdy'' Vaughan and Harry Conroy. Really bad blood. But Rowdy is crazy about Harry's sister, Jessie. Really crazy. And Jessie thinks the world of Harry and doesn't believe he would ever do anything bad, but...
More than anything, the young Red Saunders wanted to be a good boy. And he was a good boy, except for his quick temper and quicker fists. By the time he was 16 he knew he had to leave home, leave town, leave the life he knew. And that’s when life became really interesting, really challenging, and really worth living.
A charming rogue, a stolen birthright, unrequited love, mutiny on the high seas, with a backdrop of 17th century England and the Spanish Main, make for another historical romance from George Gibbs.
In Italy, everything is possible. Or, at least, much more than in the oppressive social order of the Victorian era. A group of British expatriates go to tour the country and do things they might live to either bless or regret. This book details their adventures and search of identity. The central question remains clear: can one be completely free? And, if so, is the price too high? ( Stav Nisser.)
Agatha, Gwen, Clare and Elfie have always been told that they will inherit their aunt's house. But when their aunt dies, she leaves it all to their intolerable cousin James. What will they do? Will the verses Nannie gives them prove true?
Adele Garrison was the nom de plume of Nana Springer White, an American writer. Her career included time as a schoolteacher in Milwaukee. She later worked as an editor for the Milwaukee Sentinel and then a reporter and writer for the Chicago Examiner and Chicago American.
"Revelations of a Wife" ran as a serial story in her daily newspaper column in multiple American newspapers from 1915 until the Depression. It told the story of the marital ups and downs of Margaret "Madge" Graham, an independent-minded former schoolteacher, and her husband Dicky, an artist. At the height of the story's popularity, it had one million regular readers.
This offering from George Gibbs, follows the developing romance between lawyer Tom Gallatin, trying to beat his alcoholism, and debutante Jane Loring. It begins with Tom getting lost while on a hunting trip in the Canadian wilderness, where he has gone in hopes of rehabilitating himself. Attempting to find his way back, he encounters Jane Loring, also lost. Each is attracted to the other, but after a few nips from Jane's flask, Tom steps over the line with her. The seriousness of his actions, as well as his feelings toward Jane, leads him to overcome his addiction.Meeting again months later, in New York City and civilization, forgiveness and a new start lead to a renewal of the romance, although not free from difficulties.
The story of a love so strong that neither the rigid rules of Society in California in the 1800s nor the very bowels of hell could keep a young woman from the love she had found. A story rich in fashion ad feminism showing how determination and love could overcome all obstacles.
The semi-invalid Mrs. Moulton and her long-suffering husband are touring Europe with their two adult daughters, Jane and Lydia. They have firm ideas of what is proper and decorous. Mr. Moulton's young relative, Catalina, does not fit this ideal. Her dress is too short. She mixes with the natives. She wants to visit Spain... not, in itself, a problem; except she proposes to travel in a third class compartment on the train! Funds will not stretch to any other class, and if the Moultons refuse to accompany her, she proposes to walk! What will become of them all? Surely only doom, disaster and the loss of reputation lie ahead.
This is a series of seven letters by the eminent author of scandalous romances, Elinor Glyn, written to her godchild Caroline in the years 1912-1914. The Letters give Caroline advice on how best to find her way in life, particularly to matrimony. They contain such gems of wisdom as "It is better to marry the life you like, because after a while the man does not matter", that beauty is of "colossal importance", and that a woman will do well never to ask her husband any questions. The letters are very entertaining to read, though most modern godchildren may not wish to follow the advice too closely.
Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. In Book 8, Vronsky leaves for the Servian war, unable to live without Anna and hoping to die. Back at his farm with a loving wife and baby son, Levin struggles with thoughts of death and the horror of living when he does not understand "the whence, and why, and how, and what [life] was."
Emma is a novel about youthful hubris and the perils of misconstrued romance....As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma, however, is also rather spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives, and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.
Set in Old California in the wake of the Mexican-American War, Ramona is two stories at once. It is the story of the love between a part-Native American orphan girl, Ramona, and Alessandro, a young Indian sheepherder. It is also the story of racial prejudice and the clash between cultures as California changes from a Spanish colony to an American territory. Ramona is the ward of Señora Gonzaga Moreno, who despises the girl for her race but honors the dying wish of the Señora's sister, Ramona's foster-mother, to raise her as her own. Señora Moreno embodies the aloof arrogance of Spanish nobility, hating both the Americans who dispute her claim to her vast rancho, and the Indians, whom she places in the same social class with slaves. Her only semblance of love is reserved for her son Felipe.
Despite the Señora's machinations, Ramona and Alessandro fall in love, and eventually elope. But their life together is not an easy one, as they roam the Southern California searching for a home. Their many hardships cannot dull their love for one another, but they soon take a toll that changes their lives forever.
Jane Austen demonstrated her mastery of the epistolary novel genre in Lady Susan, which she wrote in 1795 but never published. Although the primary focus of this short novel is the selfish behavior of Lady Susan as she engages in affairs and searches for suitable husbands for herself and her young daughter, the actual action shares its importance with Austen’s manipulation of her characters' behavior by means of their reactions to the letters that they receive. The heroine adds additional interest by altering the tone of her own letters based on the recipient of the letter. Thus, the character of Lady Susan is developed through many branches as Austen suggests complications of identity and the way in which that identity is based on interaction rather than on solitary constructions of personality. Lady Susan’s character is also built by the descriptions of the other letter-writers; but even though their opinions of this heroine coincide with the image that develops from her own letters, Austen demonstrates the subjectivity of the opinions by presenting them – primarily – in the letters of one woman to another, thereby suggesting the established literary motifs of feminine gossip and jealousy. Readers recognize these subjective motifs and examine all of the idiosyncrasies of the characters in order to create their own opinion of Lady Susan – as they would of any real acquaintance.
The Rainbow is the story of three generations of the Brangwen family, a sexual and religious collection of incidents that eventually shows the inertia of an individual consciousness to outgrow the commonplace and embrace the reality that lies beyond it. Throughout the novel, including its setting, the characters are being isolated because of their deviation from a conformist English society in a changing, steadily industrializing world.
Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. The whole work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred. Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint, Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and also Merlin and the Lady of the Lake.
The title of the novella is almost an adequate summary in itself. The "boy-meets-girl-then-loses-her" story is universal but not, I think, banal - despite a surprise ending which notoriously turns out to be very little of a surprise. First Love is given its originality and poignancy by Turgenev's mastery of the piercing turning-point (akin to Joyce's "epiphanies") that transforms the character's whole being, making a tragic outcome inevitable. Even the nature symbolism is rescued from triteness by lovely poetic similes - e.g. "but at that point my attention was arrested by the appearance of a speckled woodpecker who busily climbed up the slender stem of a birch-tree and peeped out uneasily from behind it, first to the right, then to the left, like a musician behind the bass-viol."
One of Dante's earliest works, La vita nuova or La vita nova (The New Life) is in a prosimetrum style, a combination of prose and verse, and tells the story of his youthful love for Beatrice. The prose creates the illusion of narrative continuity between the poems; it is Dante's way of reconstructing himself and his art in terms of his evolving sense of the limitations of courtly love (the system of ritualized love and art that Dante and his poet-friends inherited from the Provençal poets, the Sicilian poets of the court of Frederick II, and the Tuscan poets before them). Sometime in his twenties, Dante decided to try to write love poetry that was less centered on the self and more aimed at love as such: he intended to elevate courtly love poetry, many of its tropes and its language, into sacred love poetry. Beatrice for Dante was the embodiment of this kind of love—transparent to the Absolute, inspiring the integration of desire aroused by beauty with the longing of the soul for divine splendor.
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 was, and excels in the portraits of her characters. Each is flawed, each has their own passions, each is unique, and through this great novel, Eliot put her stamp on literature and on the way we view the vagaries of character, helping us to see people as they really are.This is one of the greatest novels in the English language. First published in 1859, Adam Bede has never been out of print since, which speaks volumes about its timeless quality.
The tales included in this little book of translations are derived mainly from the "Lays" of Marie de France. I do not profess them to be a complete collection of her stories in verse. The ascription varies. Poems which were included in her work but yesterday are withdrawn to-day, and new matter suggested by scholars to take the place of the old. I believe it to be, however, a far fuller version of Marie's "Lays" than has yet appeared, to my knowledge, in English. Marie's poems are concerned chiefly with love. To complete my book I have added two famous mediaeval stories on the same excellent theme. This, then, may be regarded as a volume of French romances, dealing, generally, with one aspect of mediaeval life.
In this first collection of stories following the characters from the "Anne of Green Gables" series, we see 12 vignettes into the lives of the other inhabitants of Avonlea. The case of Ludovic Speed as mentioned in "Anne of the Island" is finally detailed, along with another appearance by Anne Shirley herself in "The Courting of Prissy Strong". We meet some old friends and many new ones from "The Island", in stories both sweet and poignant. An old lady finds happiness in being a "fairy godmother" to a young music teacher; two lovers will not speak for fifteen years, but still love each other dearly; a woman-hater is quarantined with a man-hater; and other anecdotes of country town life are drawn by the delicate and sure hand of L.M. Montgomery.
This medieval French romance is the oldest surviving work about Lancelot. When Queen Guinevere is abducted by Meleagrant, Lancelot must face many trials, physical, emotional, and social, to rescue her.
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders is a 1722 novel by Daniel Defoe. - Defoe wrote this after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become recognized as a novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. His political work was tapering off at this point, due to the fall of both Whig and Tory party leaders with whom he had been associated; Robert Walpole was beginning his rise, and Defoe was never fully at home with the Walpole group. - Defoe's Whig views are nevertheless evident in the story of Moll. The full title of the novel tells part of its story: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums."
Jo’s little men and women are grown up and entering new stages of life. Along with discovering their individual niches, there are lots of lessons to study, plays to perform, and parties to attend… and love is undeniably in the air. When three of Jo’s most beloved boys embark on journeys of their own, they encounter some of the most difficult challenges ever faced in their young lives. Meanwhile, back at home, Jo and her family must be strong when they receive the news that not all three of the boys may return. Will Emil, Nat, and Dan find their way home to Plumfield?
Find out in Jo’s Boys, the final installment of the Little Women trilogy by Louisa May Alcott.
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 first volume contains chapters 1-75.
Glenn Kilbourne returns from the war and travels to Arizona to regain his health. There he is nursed back to health by an Arizona girl, Flo Hutter Kilbourne's fiancée, Carley Burch arrives in Arizona but soon becomes disillusioned with life in the West and returns to New York. Carley soon learns that life in the Big City is not what she really wants. Should she return to Arizaona? Will Glen still love Her?
Not only a great love story, Grey, as usual, describes the environment in all its glory.
These stories form the first volume of the renowned Tales of Hoffman. They are fantasies with hints of the supernatural—quintessential Romanticism. Writers of the Romantic period typically seek to lift the spirit to awe, wonder, love, horror, or other extremes of emotion. Hoffmann is drawn to such experiences, particularly as they relate to the creative process. Although he occasionally arouses them in the reader, he more often examines them critically or, in the case of hysterical excesses, especially infatuation, satirizes them.
It’s a dreary February in post-World War I London when Mrs. Wilkins spots an advertisement in The Times for a small Italian castle for rent in April. She sees another member of her women’s club, Mrs. Arbuthnot, reading the same advertisement and manages to convince her that the two of them should rent it. Both are miserable and lonely in their marriages. They can’t afford the cost of the villa, San Salvatore, on their own and must advertise for two others, eventually recruiting an elderly widow named Mrs. Fisher, and Lady Caroline Dester, a beautiful young socialite desperate to escape from London and society. The four journey to Italy where San Salvatore works its magic separately on each of them, changing their lives in unexpected ways.
This is the story of a man’s monumental struggle against nature, to win the hand of the woman he loves, and surmount every difficulty that Nature puts in his path
Illegitimacy, false identity, and bankruptcy are the major elements of Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel, The Antiquary. Set in the period of the French Revolution, the novel's hero, Lovel, struggles to gain repute and the hand of his beloved despite his uncertain parentage. During these pursuits, he befriends the title's antiquary, Johnathan Oldbuck, who finds Lovel a captive audience to his scholarly studies and a tragic likeness to his own disappointments in love. Readers will discover whether Lovel's acts of bravery and courage ultimately earn him the birth and fortunes of a nobleman.
This novel is subtitled The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School. The Quire is the group of musicians who accompany the hymns at the local church and we follow the fortunes of one member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day. Another element of the book is the battle between the traditional musicians of the Quire and the local vicar, Parson Maybold, who installs a church organ. This battle illustrates the developing technology being introduced in the Victorian era and its threat to traditional country ways. The novel was published anonymously in 1872 and is often seen as Thomas Hardy's most gentle and pastoral novel. In 2005 Under the Greenwood Tree was adapted for a television version by Ashley Pharoah.
Robert Chambers was a contemporary of Lovecraft, and this book consists of "weird supernatural tales" in a somewhat similar manner, except that the emphasis is on humor rather than horror. The narrator works for the newly opened Bronx Zoo in New York. He describes his adventures trying to obtain various rare specimens for the zoo's collection, animals that range from the merely extinct to the considerably more unusual. Along the way, he invariably finds a beautiful woman to fall in love with.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented in chronological publishing order.
"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?"
Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza.
Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practises the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes.
But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison...
The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented in chronological publishing order.
The Marble Faun is Hawthorne's most unusual romance. Writing on the eve of the American Civil War, Hawthorne set his story in a fantastical Italy. The romance mixes elements of a fable, pastoral, gothic novel, and travel guide. In the spring of 1858, Hawthorne was inspired to write his romance when he saw the Faun of Praxiteles in a Roman sculpture gallery. The theme, characteristic of Hawthorne, is guilt and the Fall of Man. The four main characters are Miriam, a beautiful painter who is compared to Eve, Beatrice Cenci, Lady Macbeth, Judith, and Cleopatra, and is being pursued by a mysterious, threatening Model; Hilda, an innocent copyist who is compared to the Virgin Mary; Kenyon, a sculptor, who represents rationalist humanism; and Donatello, the Count of Monti Beni, who is compared to Adam, resembles the Faun of Praxiteles, and is probably only half human.
An romantic comedy. A pretty young American girls tours English Cathedrals, with her very blue-blooded Aunt. Then boy meets girl. Boy chases girl. Boy loses girl. Boy finds girl. Finally, girl catches boy with the help of a mad bull.
The novel on which the famous silent movie starring Rudolf Valentino was based. The plot is set in motion as Lady Conway disapproves of Diana's planning a desert trip with just her Arab guides to accompany her. Diana gets kidnapped by the Sheik, Ahmed Ben Hassan. Finally allowed to ride in the desert alone, she plans an escape. However, the Sheik recaptures her. And so the story unfolds.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo religionist, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Home and the World is a 1916 novel, set in the estate of the rich Bengali noble Nikhil. He lives happily with his beautiful wife Bimala until the appearance of his friend and radical revolutionist, Sandip.
Sandip, a passionate and active man, is a contradiction to the peace-loving and somewhat passive Nikhil. He easily attracts the innocent and unsuspecting Bimala, creating a love triangle.