Showing results by author "Michela Bertazzo" in All Categories

Gil Blas is born in misery to a stablehand and a chambermaid of Santillana in Cantabria, and is educated by his uncle. He leaves Oviedo at the age of seventeen to attend the University of Salamanca. His bright future is suddenly interrupted when he is forced to help robbers along the route and is faced with jail. He becomes a valet and, over the course of several years, is able to observe many different classes of society, both lay and clerical. Because of his occupation, he meets many disreputable people and is able to adjust to many situations, thanks to his adaptability and quick wit.He ...

This is volume 4 of 4. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (or, more briefly, Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years. It was not always held in high esteem by other writers (Samuel Johnson responded that, "Nothing odd can last"), but its bawdy humour was popular with London society, and it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English, as well as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Sailing voyage from England to Portugal in the mid Eighteenth Century, by one of the premier humorists, satirists, novelists and playwrights of his age. It was to be his last work, as his failing health proved unable to persevere much longer after the voyage. ( Summary by JCarson )

After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy", this book would seem to require a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle or an end. Let us say: an exercise in the infinitely comic. "There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all their inflections and delineations, into ...

You can call me Dr. Fathom. Or Count Fathom. But I'm not who I say I am. And can you blame me? My mother was a soldiers' harlot who pocketed extra loot by wandering through the battlefield stripping the dead and dying of valuables. I don't even know who my father was, except he must have had my handsome looks. People liked looking at me. And people liked how I talked too. Early on, I learned that telling the truth didn't get you the same quick reward as telling them what they wanted to hear, being assiduously charming, dissimulating. In a word, lying. I became good at it. And I became the ...

"Joseph Andrews ... was the first published full-length novel of the English author and magistrate Henry Fielding, and indeed among the first novels in the English language. Published in 1742 and defined by Fielding as a ‘comic romance,’ it is the story of a good-natured footman's adventures on the road home from London with his friend and mentor, the absent-minded parson Abraham Adams." (Summary by Wikipedia)

This novel is sometimes thought of as [Fielding's] first because he almost certainly began composing it before he wrote Shamela and Joseph Andrews. It is a satire of Walpole that draws a parallel between Walpole and Jonathan Wild, the infamous gang leader and highwayman. He implicitly compares the Whig party in Parliament with a gang of thieves being run by Walpole, whose constant desire to be a "Great Man" (a common epithet for Walpole) should culminate only in the antithesis of greatness: being hanged. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Tom Jones is considered one of the first prose works describable as a novel. The novel is divided into 18 smaller books. Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth. He develops affection for his neighbor's daughter, Sophia Western. On one hand, their love reflects the romantic comedy genre popular in 18th-century Britain. However, Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to oppose their love; this criticism of class friction in society ...

The second volume of Amelia. - Summary by Libby Gohn

Early eighteenth century England saw the criminal element bargaining with magistrates and lawyers to be released or receive lenient sentences. Neither party could be trusted and the situation grew worse. Enter famed author Henry Fielding, who had a strong social conscience and served as a magistrate. In addition to this treatise, he began a register of convicted criminals, and recruited six full-time, paid constables - known colloquially as "The Bow Street Runners" and hailed as the forerunners of the modern police force. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or simply Shamela, as it is more commonly known, is a satirical novel written by Henry Fielding and first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber. Fielding never owned to writing the work, but it is widely considered to be his. It is a direct attack on the then-popular novel Pamela (November 1740) by Fielding's contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson and is composed, like Pamela, in epistolary form. Shamela is written as a shocking revelation of the true events which took place in the life of Pamela Andrews, the main heroine ...

Volume II continues the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle. The novel is written as a series of adventures, with every chapter typically describing a new adventure. There is also a very long independent story, "The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality", written by Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane, inside the novel. Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (1715 - 1788), known as Lady Fanny, was a British memoirist known for her highly public adulterous relationships. (Wikipedia )

Henry Fielding could not write plays that he could get published. So he decided to write a play - a farce - about that, and success was his at last. The third act of the play is the play that the Author in the play supposedly writes - a Puppet Show (though acted by people) called The Pleasures of the Town. - Summary by ToddHWCast list:Luckless, the Author and Master of the Show: Adrian StephensWitmore, his friend: Greg GiordanoMarplay Senior, Comedian: Alan MapstoneMarplay Junior, Comedian: AvailleBookweight, a Bookseller: ToddHWScarecrow, a Scribler: David PurdyDash, a Scribler: Joanna Michal...

Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is the longest real novel in the English language. (Summary by 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)

Volume three in the trilogy entitled Amelia. A continuation of the love story of Amelia and her husband Willam Booth and the trials and tribulations they go through. - Summary by Michele Eaton

"Now first published in order to cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both Sexes.A Narrative which has its Foundation in Truth and Nature; and at the same time that it agreeably entertains, by a Variety of curious and affecting Incidents, is intirely divested of all those Images, which, in too many Pieces calculated for Amusement only, tend to inflame the Minds they should instruct."(From the frontispiece of the first edition)Pamela tells the story of a 14 year old lady's maid named Pamela whose master, Mr. B., makes unwanted advances towards her. She ...

Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become very wealthy only in recent years and is now eager to become part of the aristocracy by acquiring estates and titles through advantageous pairings. Clarissa's relatives attempt to force her to marry a rich but heartless man (Roger Solmes) against her will and, more importantly, against her own sense of virtue. Desperate to remain free, she is tricked by a young gentleman of her acquaintance, Lovelace, into escaping with him. However, she refuses to marry him, longing — unusual for...

Pamela, tells the story of a 15-year old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose country landowner master, Mr. B, makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother. He abducts her, locks her up in one of his estates, and attempts to seduce and rape her. She rejects him but starts to realise that she is falling in love with him. She then attempts to build a relationship with him and to fit in with upper class society. This is a continuation of "Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded". (Michele Eaton)

It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, It is generally regarded as Richardson's masterpiece. This is Volume six out of a series of nine Volumes. Letter 6 read by TriciaG, wib66, Timothy Ferguson and Adonis. ( Michele Eaton )