Considered by some to be her finest work, Edith Wharton’s „Summer” created a sensation when first published in 1917, as it was one of the first novels to deal honestly with a young woman’s sexual awakening. Seventeen-year-old Charity Royall is desperate to escape life with her hard-drinking adoptive father. Their isolated village stifles her, and his behavior increasingly disturbs her. When a young city architect Lucius Harney visits for the summer, it offers Charity the ch...
Even a short novel like „Madame de Treymes” shows you what a masterful writer Edith Wharton was. It is a captivating portrait of turn-of-the-century American and French culture. Inspired by Wharton’s own entré into Parisian society in 1906 and reminiscent of the works of Henry James, it tells the story of two young innocents abroad: Fanny Frisbee of New York, unhappily married to the dissolute Marquis de Malrive, and John Durham, her childhood friend who arrives in Paris in...
One of Edith Wharton’s most famous novels – the first by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize – exquisitely details a tragic struggle between love and responsibility during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people „dreaded scandal more than disease”. Newland Archer, a restrained young attorney, is engaged to the lovely May Welland but falls in love with May’s beautiful and unconventional cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska who returns to New York after a...
Originally published in 1916, but actually written in 1890, „Bunner Sisters” is a compelling, heartbreaking little novella about two sisters, who have never been apart, struggling to eek an existence as small shopkeepers on the margins of late nineteenth-century society in New York. They barely make enough money to live on. But when Ann Eliza the elder buys Evelina the younger a clock that does not work for her birthday, the sisters commence a relationship with Herbert Ramy...
In the early years of the 20th century, life on a farm in Massachusetts is not easy. The New England winters are hard; snow and ice cover the fields for months, and the nights are long and cold. For a poor farmer like Ethan Frome, life has few bright moments. He works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s young and beautiful cousin Mattie Silver enters their househo...
Originally published in 1901, „Crucial Instances” is the second collection of six short stories connected, as the title suggests, by a hinging moment in the narrative through which the plot alters dramatically. The contents included the following: „The Duchess at Prayer”, „The Angel at the Grave”, „The Recovery”, „Copy: A Dialogue”, „The Rembrandt”, „The Moving Finger” and „The Confessional”.This is a great collection of stories, where Edith Wharton shows her wide range of ...
A humorous account of a trip to London and brief sojourn in that city and its vicinity. It includes: „A Ticket to Europe”, „Crossing the Atlantic”, „In England–Now! „, „Mayfair in the Fair Month of May”, „A Hostess at Home”, „The Light on Burns’s Brow”, „Certain Social Uncertainties”, „A Sentimental Journey”, „All in a Garden Fair”, „I Went and Ranged about to Many Churches”, „Piccadilly Circus and its Environs”, „The Game of Going On”, „A French Week-End”. Carolyn Wells (1...
A collection of short sketches by the prolific American author which was first published in 1913. Carolyn Wells was an early 20th century poet and author best known for mysteries like „The Gold Bag” and „Fleming Stone Detective Stories”. During the first ten years of her career, she concentrated on poetry, humor, and children’s books. After 1910, she devoted herself to the mystery genre. The book contains: „At the lost-and-found desk”, „Tootie at the bank”, „The dressmaker ...
In this dense novel, the house in which the Darke family exists apparently has its own impassive but claustrophobic influence on the family, which, in turn, tied itself up too quickly in its network of special hate agreements and connections. Jasper fights against his religion, Ruby is trapped between her need for conventions and her own desires, and Peter is forced to rebel.
”Seven For A Secret” is the story of a young girl who turns into a compassionate, passionate, loving woman, who is visible through the eyes of a shepherd poet who loves her. Gillian is nineteen when the romance opens, and she is a romantic star who wants to flirt with men to fall in love with her. Gillian, in many ways, still behaves like a child, and she is selfish, narcissistic, and stupid with others in her life. A kind and simple shepherd named Robert, working with her ...
This is an exciting collection of 15 stories. Indeed, there are some who are very good – there is a sad and exciting „Silly old fool” about a canon who believes that a woman cares for him, and „Engraving” sees how an obsessed husband goes against his wife’s desires, collecting engravings. Other great stories are Little Donkeys with Raspberry Saddles, gentle Chinese Horses about two women and a man, and Major Wilbraham sees a World War I major go crazy. This is a wide genre ...
Despite the severity of the life he encounters, like a little rat, Douglas Gordon, with good mood and good fortune, with calm courage, pushes his way through difficulties. And this is followed by a fairy tale full of sea fool, the enchanting beauty of the islands in the Gulf of Georgia, the color of the promenade: a boy, a girl and a dog in a human adventure on the wild sea coast life near Vancouver.
A magnificent classic tale of family life at a former age. The wooden horse is the story of the Trojans, a family that calmly accepted the belief that they were people for whom the world was created. But when Harry Troyan returned home twenty years later in New Zealand, with the democracy that he learned by working with his hands, he was a „wooden horse” who boldly carried an army of alien ideals into the walls of Troyan, which made a group of people out of this selfish fam...
The story – the mother-in-law – the situation of the daughter-in-law, growing hatred, as motherhood possessions find disappointment. The final break looks like anti-climax. In the story, the story is reminiscent of „The Daughter of Mr. Despondency” by Anna Parrish, although Walpole dealt with his material more confidently, with great skill.
The book opens shortly before Christmas, many years ago. The city of Polchester was an old rickety building on a cliff above old grass. The house was a windy, creaky, bitten rain place where three elderly women lived as tenants, including Miss Beringer, who had moved the day before. These old women are only 70 years old, but in the history of Walpole, written in 1924, they are seriously ancient, poor, oppressed, miserable creatures. If you have any doubts about the progress...
An energetic girl enters society and must choose between her rebellious and exiled cousin or an ordinary young man. Rachel chooses an ordinary young man, but when their marriage begins to degenerate, she again comes into contact with her cousin. She falls in love with him – will she leave her husband and run away with her romantic but weak lover?
Strikingly bright characters. Such a well-designed image of moods, places and feelings. Maggie Cardinal’s father dies very suddenly, leaving her alone, not very upset, since he never showed special love for her. She is „strange”, „misunderstood” a captive in a world in which others fit in, but she does not.
In the first novel, which takes place in Galicia during the retreat of the Russian army in 1915, the narrator tells of a tragedy that unfolds inside a triangle: John Trenchad – Maria – Semenov. The theme of spiritual love in the novel is promoted by the motive of white nights. It was during this period (on white nights) that John Trenchad met Mary.
This is a wonderful story of English school life, depicting the driving of boys and the hungry, cramped life of the masters, as well as the tragedy that captures and leads Mr. Perrin. We are set up so as not to love the school teacher Mr. Perrin, who is falling into our eyes into some kind of paranoid delusion. Nevertheless, at every step, the author deviates from the expected result, truly not letting us understand why this was not so inevitable as he drew it up to this po...
Bright pavilions – the fifth book of a series of six volumes of The Chronicles of Harris. As a historical background, the stormy Elizabethan England, including her enemy Queen of Scots. The story tells how one family shared fidelity and frustrated love. If you like to plunge into history, then this book is for you.
This chronicle tells of several generations of a family that lives in the Lake District in England, dating back to the late seventeen hundred. Hugh’s descriptions of this area are excellent. He had such a great love for him that he conveyed a great sense of his presence throughout all four novels. His characters also become so alive for the reader, because, I think, he is completely immersed in them.
The House of the Blind is Walpole’s last book before his death. This is a psychological study of the village and people who come in contact with a blind person and his young bride. The letter is impeccable. If you enjoy in-depth character study and enjoy reading old novels, then you will really enjoy it.
