In a dark, narrow street in Paris lives an old widow and her pretty young daughter, sit by the window most days. They share a poor but contented existence, supporting themselves through embroidery work. They see a gentleman in a brown coat pass by in the mornings and return in the evenings. The mother always remarks that he appears either over-worked or in delicate health. The daughter ignores most of her remarks as her mother sees every passer-by as a possible protector fo...
An extremely collectible, sweet little book named for and written in honor of Balzac’s mother. Comtesse Honorine de Bauvan was married to the Comte at nineteen. She leaves him and is later abandoned by her lover when she becomes pregnant. She lives simply and earns money by making artificial flowers. What she doesn’t know is that her husband is paying exorbitant prices for her work, thus supporting her while letting her think she is independent of him. The story is perhaps ...
Now married, the warm-hearted and fiesty Jo Bhaer (nee March) couldn’t be happier. Jo, along with her husband Professor Friedrich Bhaer, operates the Plumfield Estate School, an unconventional school based on individuality and diversity. Plumfield is a haven for poor orphans which is attended by 12 adopted boy and Jo’s own two sons. Although Plumfield is a place of trust and warmth, the boys occasionally struggle to maintain good manners. Personal relationships are key to t...
Better known for her novels „Little Women” and „Little Men”, Louisa May Alcott continued the story of her feisty protagonist Jo in this final novel chronicling the adventures and misadventures of the March family. It is the only Alcott novel that has not had a film adaption. Originally published in 1886, two years before Ms. Alcott’s death, Jo’s boys follows the lives of the young men readers came to love and cherish in its prequel. In it, we learn the fates of Jo’s sons Ro...
„Flower Fables” is Louisa May Alcott’s first book, penned at 16. She created the fanciful stories for the amusement of the daughter of a family friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Miss Alcott loved and was well acquainted with flowers, insects, birds and animals of the meadows and forest. From these beauties she spun adventures of enchanting nature’s woodland fairies, telling them to children of friends and others. Each fable has a moral of sorts, a captivating way to inspire chil...
By the time of the author’s death, at least ten editions of the poem had been published. Adonis is preparing for a hunt; Venus is trying in every way to seduce him. Passion flares up between them, but Adonis believes that he is too young for romance novels and he is more interested in hunting. Soon Adonis dies due to an accident during a hunt.
Originally published in 1866 under the pseudonym „A. M. Barnard.” Louisa May Alcott’s novel of romance and sexual intrigue is one of her lesser-known gems. „Behind a Mask, or A Woman Power” is a controversial novella; its tone and characterizations strike a markedly different chord from her best-known works, such as „Little Women” and „Little Men”. The plot of the novella is focused upon Jean Muir, who works as a governess for one of the rich families of Coventry to their s...
This play is not just a fairy tale by its name, everything in it is amazing and unbelievable, and it would be ridiculous to look for likelihood here! But, as you know, a fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, because among the wonderful fairy-tale accidents of the play we learn about what actually happens. That there are jealous husbands, rejected wives, abandoned children, as well as good nurses, loyal servants, honest counselors. That evil can take possession of ...
Do you ever feel like you are tied up in our times? Worrying too much about cell phones, fashions, and the latest whatever’s? This book can set you straight. It gives you a peace of mind and fills you with simple pleasures. Polly Milton is a fourteen-year-old country girl raised on old-fashioned values and invited to Boston for an extended stay with her friend, Fanny Shaw. Quite the unlikely friendship since Fanny, despite being only two years older, is no longer just a gir...
Louisa May Alcott created some fascinating short stories here. „A Modern Cinderella: or The Little Old Shoe And Other Stories” contains four short stories by Louisa May Alcott, the author of „Little Women”: „A Modern Cinderella”, „Debby’s Debut”, „The Brothers”, and „Nelly’s Hospital”. Like her more famous novels, Alcott tells stories of young women interacting with people and events from the late 1800s. Louisa May Alcott bestows a truly amusing and thoroughly modern retell...
Louisa May Alcott, more famously known for her „Little Women” series, takes a familiar nursery rhyme and creates a whole novel out of it in one of her last books „Jack and Jill: A Village Story”. The story follows the lives of two 13-year-old neighbors, Jack and Jill, in the fictional Harmony Village. They go sledding on the first day of the season whereupon their adventurous natures and competitiveness get the better of them. After sledding down a particularly treacherous ...
Recently orphaned, young Rose Campbell is sent to the „Aunt Hill,” where Uncle Alex, her six aunts and seven boisterous male cousins live in noisy confusion. For someone who was used to a girl’s boarding school, it is pretty overwhelming, especially since her guardian Uncle Alex makes her eat healthy things like oatmeal, and tries to get her to give up her pretty dresses for drab, sensible clothes. Much to the horror of her aunts, Rose’s forward-thinking uncle insists that ...
A love story that everyone knows from infancy. We encounter two children at the beginning of the play, who do not yet represent what love, passion, desire are, but as soon as they get to know each other and understand that they cannot live without each other, they both change, become adults, independent. They are ready to act for their love, boldly step over obstacles and strive for each other. But so much divides them throughout the play that only death can reunite.
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, „Little Women”. Four sisters are raised in genteel poverty by their loving mother in a quiet Massachusetts town while their father serves as an army chaplain during the American Civil War. Here are independent, tomboyish Jo; delicate, loving Beth; pretty, kind Meg; or precocious and artistic Amy, the baby of the family. Th...
Shakespeare’s first play, a comedy about friendship, love, deception and a change of character, shows wit and humor, funny dialogues and fast-paced, two-faced actions, which soon crown him the undeniable king of drama. With the forgiving, unifying prospect of double marriage after a dramatic conflict, „one feast, one house, one mutual happiness,” this has a bright, sweet, happy ending.
This is one of the most funny Shakespeare comedies, full of jokes and life-affirming optimism, elegant, brilliantly refined, built on aphorisms, wordplay and mind games. In her family, a meeting with which seems unthinkable, are unexpectedly. And the happiness awaits the heroes right around the bend, and it doesn’t matter that not where they are looking for him.
Is it about the fact that people are a flock of sheep? No, rather, how difficult it is to make the right choice without having enough information. And this topic is relevant in the current policy after two thousand years. She raises a lot of questions: Is Caesar’s murder a deliverance from a tyrant or a betrayal?
Originally published in 1900, „Linnet, A Romance” is a classic romance novel by noted author Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen. Two young English tourists come to a little mountain village Tyrol where they find the Tyrolese in all their native simplicity; the young men, with the pride and aspirations of the hunter, who dance wildly and make love fiercely, and the maidens of easy virtue who tend their cows in the summer and serve a master in the village through the long winter...
Heroes of the work are ready for terrible deeds for the sake of power. Richard is a model of canonical evil, almost a fairy-tale villain, in whom there is nothing light. The main character goes to power through numerous crimes and deceptions. He does not spare underage nephews, ordering to kill them in the Tower, and then dies in a battle with another claimant to the throne.
We begin our acquaintance with history with a quarrel between Henry and Norfolk. And where would be a fight for life and death – but no, not destiny! Richard, having his own reasoning, stops the beginning of the battle and expels both! After the death of his father, Heinrich decides to return to his name and that which belongs to him by right. However, something went wrong.
There are two main lines: the story of the lovers of Postum and Imogen and the story of lost and found royal sons. All this, like a silver frame, is framed by sufferings, oaths of loyalty, amazing coincidences and other tasty Shakespearean curlicues. Postum was simply naive and blind, like most of the heroes of Shakespeare. And Imogen, in my opinion one of the most intelligent and clever heroines of him.
Colonel Cuthbert Clay is a master of disguise and an ingenious con man who sets his sights on the South African Millionaire, Sir Charles Vandrift, a millionaire owner of diamond mines in Africa. Each chapter brings new cringing on the reader’s part as we realize before Charles does that he is about to be a victim anew. As his South African diamond fortune takes hit after hit from the quick-witted master of disguise, the author leaves even the reader guessing: who can you tr...
„Under the Lilacs”, published in 1878, is another lovely morality tale by Louisa May Alcott that centers around two young girls who are having a tea party with their dolls when they stumble upon a young boy and his dog who have run away from the circus. Ben and his trained dog, Sancho, run away from the circus and soon find a warm welcome in a kind community where spirited games are played. Theatricals and imaginative pageantry are all part of the fun. This book by Louisa M...
