Kate Chopin's 1899 novella The Awakening is about the personal, sexual, and artistic awakening of a young wife and mother, Edna Pontellier. While on vacation at Grand Isle, an island in the Gulf of Mexico, Edna befriends the talented pianist Mlle. Reisz and the sympathetic Robert Lebrun, both of whom will influence her startling life choices. Chopin's novel created a scandal upon its original publication and effectively destroyed her writing career. Now, however, it is considered one of the finest American novels of the 19th century. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

The Mysterious Stranger-A Romance- is the final novel attempted by Mark Twain. It was worked on periodically from roughly 1890 up until 1910. The body of work is a serious social commentary by Twain addressing his ideas of the Moral Sense and the damned human race. (Wikipedia and John Greenman)...

It was before the Idiot's marriage, and in the days when he was nothing more than a plain boarder in Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's High-class Home for Single Gentlemen, that he put what the School-master termed his alleged mind on plans for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized. This humorous story by the editor of Puck magazine describes how the Idiot sets out to improve the lot of civilized man through his inventions - the lot of barbarian man already being well tended to by missionaries and other do-gooders. (Introduction by peac) CAST: Narrator - peac The Idiot - Algy Pug Mr. Pedagog(aka The Schoolmaster) - Adam Bratcher Mrs. Smithers Pedagog - TriciaG The Doctor - Raken The Bibliomaiac - Availle Mr. Poet - Matthew Reece Mr. Whitechoker(aka The Minister) - Aidan Brack The Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibed - om123 Edited by - peac...

Henry James considered The Ambassadors his best, or perhaps his best-wrought, novel. It plays on the great Jamesian theme of the American abroad, who finds himself in an older, and some would say richer, culture that that of the United States, with its attractions and dangers. Here the protagonist is Lambert Strether, a man in his fifties, editor of a small literary magazine in Woollett, Massachusetts, who arrives in Europe on a mission undertaken at the urging of his patron, Mrs. Newsome, to bring back her son Chadwick. That young man appears to be enjoying his time in Paris rather more than seems good for him, at least to those older and wiser. The novel, however, is perhaps really about Strether's education in this new land, and one of his teachers is the city of Paris -- a real Paris, not an idealized one, but from which Strether has much to learn. Chad Newsome, of course is there too, and so are a scattering of other Americans, his old friend Waymarsh and his new acquaintance Maria Gostrey among them. Had Strether his life to live over again, knowing what he has now learned,. how different would it be? and what are the lessons ...

Selma Lagerlöf was born in Vaermland, Sweden, in 1858 and enjoyed a long and very successful career as a writer, receiving the Nobel-Prize in Literature in 1909. She died in Vaermland in 1940. The Emperor of Portugallia was first Published 1914 in Sweden, and 1916 in English, translated by Velma Swanston Howard. The Story i set in Vaermland around 1860 or 1870. In the centre is Jan of Ruffluck Croft. He loves his daughter more than anything, but when she moves to Stockholm and never sends a word home about her doings, he sinks into a dream-world where she is a noble Empress of Portugallia. And he believes himself to be Emperor too. His whole world and all his thoughts are dominated by the thoughts of her return and what will happen then. In the role of Emperor in the poor forest country where he lives he can question the social hierarchies around him, and dressed in his Royal regalia he sits in the frontbench in the Church, and he takes the place of honour at Parties etc. After 15 years his daughter returns home and is shocked to see what a mad clown her father has become and .... ( Summary by Lars Rolander )...

Sybella There is no plot in this story, because there has been none in my life or in any other life which has come under my notice. I am one of a class, the individuals of which have no time for plots in their life, but have all they can do to get their work done without indulging in such a luxury. Like the author Miles Franklin, Sybella grows up in the bush , and as her family's fortunes decline , so her feelings rise that life should hold more for her than the relentless hard physical work farming marginal land in times of drought.(Summary by Annise)...

In a world where a gentleman’s life is defined more “by being, rather than by doing,” a family’s reputation can be compromised if it is not guarded carefully, and the sole heir of the Amberson family is proving himself to be a difficult person. Expected by the family to carry on its proud traditions, George Amberson Minafer is trusted implicitly. But though rich relatives provide the elegant suits, the handsome young man who wears them is filled with little but appearances. And this happens in spite of, or perhaps, because of, his mother’s selfless love that places him above her own happiness. As George’s uncle perceptively remarks, “life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks.” With the new automobile industry transforming fortunes and coal heat transforming city air into sooty clouds, anything that stands still is apt to be run over, or at least begrimed. What is magnificent about the Ambersons is their faithful reliance on old money and old ways in a world changing rapidly around them. Or perhaps it is the magnificence of the train-wreck created when George’s relatives, with the best intentions, shield h...

The Fortunes of Philippa is based on the author's mother, Angelica Brazil, who had grown up in Rio de Janeiro and attended an English boarding school at the age of 10, finding the English culture, school life and climate confronting....

Brief Encounter meets Tristan und Isolde - on the Isle of Wight, under a vast sky florid with stars. The consequence is tragic indeed for one of the parties, Siegmund, when he sacrifices family life for a few days’ transcendent rapture. His lover, the self-contained Helena, is strong enough to bear a return to the scruffy suburbs. Redemption of a kind is granted to the deserted wife, Beatrice. But between these robust Lawrentian women Siegmund is cancelled out. His love-death is no cosmic swoon but a sordid exit in an unkempt box-room. In this very British romance, there is no earthly escape from outworn attachments and life’s deadening routine... (Summary by Martin Geeson)...

Fiction

As the New York Times said in 1903, this lesser-known work by Jerome K. Jerome does not display the wit of Congreve or even the glittering sort Mr. Jerome employs in some of his other books. It takes the form of imaginary conversations between the writer and a number of un-named characters at the afternoon tea table. The Woman of the World, the Old Maid, the Girton Girl, the Philosopher and the Minor Poet wax lyrical on subjects like marriage, art, society and politics. Frequently they appear to prefer the sound of their own voice to that of others. Although I couldn't agree with the NY Times that it is the Baedeker guide to conversation, it is certainly an eye-opening glimpse into this now almost extinct art. The participants are already bemoaning the lack of invigorating conversation in society: Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American multimillionaire marries an impoverished English baronet and goes to live in England. She all but loses contact with her family in America. Years later her younger sister Bettina, beautiful, intelligent and extremely rich, goes to England to find what has happened to her sister. She finds Rosalie shabby and dispirited, cowed by her husband's ill treatment. Bettina sets about to rectify matters. She meets Lord Mount Dunstan, an impoverished earl, who lives nearby and they fall in love, but he cannot speak because it would look as if he were after her money... This is a romance but it is also about the rejuvenating effects of Americans and American money on a somewhat decadent English aristocracy. (Summary by Tabithat)...

Fiction

All the excitement, danger, heartbreaks and triumphs of this well known story, but without the big words. Lucy Aikin, an accomplished writer and writing as Mary Godolphin, accomplishes this with apparent ease in this little book. The story of a plucky family ship wrecked on a desolate island, saving what they can from the ship, is well known. The entire family, under the leadership of an intrepid father and mother works together to not only survive in this island, but actually prosper. This work would seem an excellent one for non-English native readers to try their skill at. (Summary by Phil Chenevert )...

This 1861 novella was the first published work by Rebecca Harding Davis: writer, social reformer, and pioneer of literary realism. It tells the story of Hugh Wolfe, a Welsh laborer in an iron mill who is also a talented sculptor, and of Deborah, the hunchbacked woman who unrequitedly loves him. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

Fiction

The Sport of the Gods is a novel by Paul Laurence Dunbar, first published in 1902, centered around urban black life. Forced to leave the South, a family falls apart amid the harsh realities of Northern inner city life in this 1902 examination of the forces that extinguish the dreams of African Americans. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Fiction

The House of Mirth (1905), by Edith Wharton, is a novel about New York socialite Lily Bart attempting to secure a husband and a place in rich society. It is one of the first novels of manners in American literature, and one of the first to openly explore how American Victorian society offered little social mobility for women. (Summary from Wikipedia)....

Fiction

The wandering minstrel Martin Pippin finds a lovelorn ploughman who begs him to visit the orchard where his beloved has been locked in the well-house with six sworn virgins to guard her. Martin Pippin goes to the rescue and wins the confidence of the young women by telling them love stories. Although ostensibly a children's book, the six love stories, which have much the form of Perrault's fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, have a depth which is adult in sentiment, and indeed they were written not for a child but for a young soldier, Victor Haslam. Among the stories, themes include the apparent loss of a loved one, betrayal, and the yearning of a woman for whom it appears that love will never come. (Introduction adapted from Wikipedia)...

Fiction

This is a COMPELLING semi-autobiography of a woman who experienced severe highs and lows! Starting many things at a very young age in life & experiencing incredible happiness! Only all too soon to find herself in extreme opposite situations. This book shows some of the true heartlessness that some human beings can display, as well as some family. It conveys hypocrisy of some in the religious world. It also displays true grit and what desperation can do to drive a person! This book will inevitably cause the reader to experience several emotions and thoughts, some pleasant, some not so nice. Live the journey along with the author! A MUST read! (Written by Deborah Knight)...

Fiction

Both Trollope and some of his later critics have considered The Last Chronicle to be his greatest novel. Many of its characters are familiar from the earlier Barsetshire novels, including the Rev. Josiah Crawley, the impoverished curate of Hogglestock, whose alleged theft of £20, together with the efforts of many to clear up the mystery, lie here at the center. Central also is the trying courtship between Major Grantly and Grace Crawley, the clergyman's daughter, over the objections of the Major's parents, Archeacon Grantly and his wife; and the adventures of Johnny Eames, a protagonist of the Small House at Allington. Finally, it is in The Last Chronicle that Bishop Proudie of Barsetshire and his domineering wife, introduced in Barchester Towers, achieve their fullest and most dramatic portrayal.(Summary by Nicholas Clifford)...

Fiction

First published in 1766, the loveable and innocent Dr Primrose and his family have given pleasure to all that have read it.The story opens with the vicar losing his fortune and moving to another parish. What follows is a tale of love,deceit,betrayal,humour and a hidden hero…..It was one of Charles Dickens favourite books and a source of inspiration to him. No further recommendation is needed. Enjoy. (Summary by Tadhg)...

Fiction

With seven children and a home to take care of, Margaret wondered how her Mother could be so happy living a life that seemed all drudgery. As Margaret has new experiences, she comes to realize that her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well. (Summary by Megan Kunkel)...

Fiction