Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

This story presents through letters, poems and third-person commentary the love affair between a young man named Freeman Jones and a married woman named Elinor, lady of the castle he is visiting in Scotland. Events in the affair are traced from initial attraction through seduction to (somewhat) graphic sexual encounters and their aftermath. (Allegedly based on a real-life scandal, the author, in re-issuing his story two years later, transplanted the action to Italy, renaming the principals Fernando Jeronimi and Leonora.) (Summary by Grant Hurlock)

Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges going through what's known today (but not in 1912) as a mid-life crisis. Although married to his wife Winifred, Bartley resumes his acquaintance with a former lover, Hilda Burgoyne, in London. The affair proves to gnaw at Bartley's sense of propriety and honor. (Summary from Wikipedia)

This is the first volume of a three volume novel. In this novel, Amelia marries William Booth against her mother's desires, and the two must move to London. Fielding explores the issues of married life such as infidelity and whether women's intelligence is equal to men's. (Summary by Libby Gohn)

In an era before the advent of electric lights, telephones or motor vehicles, there exists a small cluster of aristocratic "old revolutionary stock" families that rule New York's social life. Under the rules of this society, "being things" is better than "doing things" and reputation and outward appearances come at the exclusion of everything else. In this Gilded Age, when America’s expansion and increased industrialism produce a group of newly wealthy robber barons and financiers, the patient, time-honored values of the old ruling class, and century, are giving way to the expediencies of ...

A dragon who flies out of a magical book; one whose purr quiets a fussy baby; another who eats an entire pack of tame hunting-hippopotomuses: These eight dragon tales are filled with the imaginative wit of children's author Edith Nesbit. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

After Prince Florimel flees his home (and a particularly nasty uncle) he has a series of adventures with the mischevious but helpful Brownies, Queen Titania and her fairies, and the ill-tempered enchanter, Dragonfel.Reader's note: Although some terms in this 1918 book are not really acceptable anymore, the book’s overall message that people should not be judged by their size is still a worthy lesson today. - Summary by Jude Somers

Wild animals play a big role in many fairy tales, and foxes are some of the best-represented animals in folklore. In this volume, Clifton Johnson has collected stories about foxes from all over the world, adapted for children as bedtime fairy tales. - Summary by Carolin

This group project is a collection of 43 fairy tales (both old and new), folk lore, myths and real life stories by a variety of authors, brought together by writer Fanny E Coe. They are mostly short and are fun to read and tell to children and most teach valuable lessons about life. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)

This book contains 13 stories for little children, about a little boy named Birdie and his adventures out in nature with the fairies. The stories include "The Frost Fairies", made famous by a very similar short story entitled "The Frost King", penned by deaf/blind Helen Keller when she was a young girl. Helen's story was so similar to Margaret Canby's tale, that Keller was accused of plagerizing. Her teacher Anne Sullivan finally pieced together that a friend had read Margaret’s story to Helen years before, and she had internalized many details without remembering the story having been read ...

"I am going to tell you about a splendid unexplored country, and several adventures that happened therein, and I hope some day that some of you will go and see those countries, and penetrate even further into their mysteries, than did the girls and boys who figure in this book." This is the original children's tale and should not be confused with the R rated 1987 movie of the same name. - Summary from the introduction

A. O. Stafford, an African American educator and folklorist, wrote this collection of African and African Diaspora folktales for students in elementary school. By combining African and Diaspora stories together in a single collection, Stafford sought to demonstrate the storytelling continuity between African cultures and African American culture in the United States. The stories are all fables about animals, and many of them are trickster stories featuring the trickster rabbit and also stories about the trickster jackal. There are also "just-so" stories explaining the world of nature, such as ...

La entrada de Alicia en el panorama de las letras castellanas se produjo, en realidad, el 15 de noviembre de 1914 con la primera entrega de una versión que vio la luz en las páginas de una revista juvenil editada en Madrid, Los Muchachos. Semanario con regalos. (El curioso subtítulo de la publicación se explica porque incluía cupones para unos sorteos de juguetes y libros entre los lectores). La serie se prolongó en ocho entregas dominicales hasta el 5 de enero de 1915. El texto abreviado parece conceder más importancia a los capítulos iniciales y finales, así como al de la Merienda ...

Diggeldy Dan (rhymes with Wiggildy Wan) is a most ingenious fellow who lives in a circus called Spangleland. He looks like a clown because he perhaps is a clown but a very special clown who invites the Pretty Lady with the Blue Blue Eyes (a very special person herself) to meet with the animals of the circus. Many things happen that are just too amazing to talk about because you won't believe them but if you read this book you will perhaps learn that fun is inside all of us. The writing is adult, not childlike, and easy to understand. - Summary by phil chenevertBecome a supporter of this ...

"The Stories in this little book have been set down almost in the same words in which they were told. How the telling of them came about is a very simple matter. Having three children, each of whom loved a Fairy Tale, it somehow became the fashion, on Sunday evenings, to tell them a story.On one occasion, when the youngest member was just about to be taken to bed, his sister said; “None of the books about Fairies ever say a word about Australia! Are there any Australian Fairies, Father?”Somewhat hastily, perhaps, I answered: “Why, yes, of course! Whole tribes of them!”Instantly the ...

A collection of Aesop's fables for children from the classic American book illustrated by Milo Winter. Read along and see the illustrations at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19994. (Summary by Jill Engle)

A small collection of some of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales -- including The Emperor's New Clothes, The Red Shoes, The Naughty Boy and fifteen others. (Summary by Halle Kill)

Brownies, like fairies and goblins, are imaginary little sprites, who are supposed to delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds. They work and sport while weary households sleep, and never allow themselves to be seen by mortal eyes. Summary by Palmer Cox

The well known and delightful tale of Alice in Wonderland but retold in simpler language. All the characters are there, even the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter. Note that even though the title says 'words of one syllable', there are quite a few two and even multiple syllable words which the author divides into smaller bites by using dashes. Don't let this bother you. The book is well written and would be an excellent choice for all listeners or those for whom English is not their first language.

This first collection of the correspondence of Oscar Wilde begins with the Irish playwright's earliest extant letter, thanking his mother for the hamper she had sent to him at school. It includes letters about his travels in Italy, his American lecture tour, the staging of his first play (Vera, or the Nihilists), arrangements for the publication of a friend's poetry collection, and exchanges in the press with artist James McNeill Whistler. The letters, some of which have been excerpted or redacted, are sourced from auction catalogues, newspapers, biographies, and other texts in the public ...

Luís Vaz de Camões é frequentemente considerado como o maior poeta de língua portuguesa e dos maiores da Humanidade. O seu gênio é comparável ao de Virgílio, Dante, Cervantes ou Shakespeare.A obra lírica de Camões foi publicada como "Rimas", não havendo acordo entre os diferentes editores quanto ao número de sonetos escritos pelo poeta e quanto à autoria de algumas das peças líricas. Alguns dos seus sonetos, como o conhecido "Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver", pela ousada utilização dos paradoxos, prenunciam o Barroco. Nesta coleção, apresentamos uma recolha de Sonetos de ...