First published as The Making of a Marchioness followed by its sequel The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, the two novels were combined into Emily Fox-Seton who is the two works' primary character. The story follows thirty-something Emily who lives alone, humbly and happily, in a tiny apartment and on a meager income... read more »
Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome is the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel's powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most... read more »
Anthony Beavis is a man inclined to recoil from life. His past is haunted by the death of his best friend Brian and by his entanglement with the cynical and manipulative Mary Amberley. Realising that his determined detachment from the world has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice... read more »
Gideon Planish is a novel by American writer Sinclair Lewis. The novel tells the story of Gideon Planish, an unprincipled social climber who becomes involved in various shady philanthropic organizations in his quest for stature without accountability. The work did not fare as well with critics as some of Lewis... read more »
In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. Huxley described his experience with breathtaking... read more »
An Episode in the Life of Mr. Thomas Betteron as told by His Friend John. "After that memorable Day, Mistress, we were like naughty Children who were being punished for playing truant out of School. For Weeks and Months our Lives went on with dreary monotony, with never a chance of seeing Something of that outside... read more »
One of Edith Wharton's unjustly neglected novels, Hudson River Bracketed features two strong protagonists - Vance Weston and Halo Spear. The former is an undereducated young man who arrives in New York with a keen desire to write. Halo Spear is a brilliant, accomplished young woman who introduces Vance to literature... read more »
From cocktail rooms to the depp jungles, Ill Wind: Contango will keep you entertain with the classic "What If" genere novel with each chapter leading to a new character being introduced. "A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn, have changed the face of fortune, and almost of Nature." "History seen... read more »
Raised on the prosperous farm of Hugo Jocelyn, descendant of a French knight, Innocent has always believed herself to be Jocelyn's illegitimate daughter by his fiancee before her death. She is an idealistic woman, inspired by the romanticism of the medieval French literature preserved by her ancestor; indeed, she... read more »
A strikingly original collection of short stories and accompanying vignettes that marked Ernest Hemingway’s American debut. When published, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it... read more »
Shute's speculative glance into the future of the British Empire. An elderly clergyman stationed in the Australian bush is called to the bedside of a dying derelict. In his delirium Stevie tells a story of England in 1983 through the medium of a squadron air pilot in the service of Queen Elizabeth II. It is the... read more »
A vain, outlandish, anti-immigrant, fear-mongering demagogue runs for President of the United States - and wins. Lewis's chilling, and yet prescient bestseller is the story of Buzz Windrip, a 'Professional Common Man', who promises the countries poor, angry voters that he will make America great again, but whose... read more »
Dive into a gripping historical romance from master of naturalism Theodore Dreiser. Things appear to be looking up for downtrodden maid Jennie Gerhardt when she meets and falls in love with a dashing senator. However, soon after their romance blossoms, her new lover is ripped away, leaving Jennie destitute and... read more »
Rootless, restless, nomadic, longing to escape the decay of post-war Europe, Richard and Harriet Somers flee to Australia, hoping to begin a new and freer life. Richard, a disillusioned writer, is drawn into an extreme political group headed by the enigmatic Kangaroo. In his search for ideal love, both brotherly and... read more »
London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god; and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and 'rather moth-eaten already,' a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen 'flatter than any pancake,' Gordon has given up a 'good' job and gone to work in a bookshop at half his former salary. Always... read more »
Last Post, the fourth and final volume of Parade's End, is set on a single post-war summer's day. Valentine Wannop and Christopher Tietjens share a cottage in Sussex with Tietjens' brother and sister-in-law. Through their differing perspectives, Ford explores the tensions between his characters in a changing world... read more »
Last Tales is a collection of twelve of the last tales that Isak Dinesen wrote before her death in 1962. They include seven tales from Albondocani, a projected novel that was never completed but occupied the author for many years; The Caryatids, an unfinished Gothic tale of a couple bedeviled by an old letter and a... read more »
In this haunting novel, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of My Ántonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop performs a series of crystalline variations on the themes that preoccupy her greatest fiction: the impermanence of innocence, the opposition between prairie and city, provincial American values and world... read more »
This sweeping family saga now moves to the lives and loves of the Cherrells in the early 30s, cousins by marriage to the Forsytes. An old English family, their one constant in an age of change and uncertainty is their ancestral home, Condaford Grange. It is especially precious to young Elizabeth Cherrell, or... read more »
Guy Crouchback, determined to get into the war, takes a commission in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. His spirits high, he sees all the trimmings but none of the action. And his first campaign, an abortive affair on the West African coastline, ends with an escapade that seriously blots his Halberdier copybook. Men... read more »
Representing some of Hemingway's most important and compelling early writing. In these 14 stories, Hemingway begins to examine the themes that would occupy his later works: the casualties of war, the often uneasy relationship between men and women, sport and sportsmanship. In Banal Story, Hemingway offers a lasting... read more »
George Hare (of Hare, Briggs, Burton, and Kurtnitz) met Carey Arundel for the first time at the annual Critics' Dinner at Verino's. She was to receive a plaque for the best actress performance of the year, Greg Wilson was to get the actor's, and Paul Saffron the director's. These dinners were rather stuffy affairs... read more »
Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. Mrs Dalloway continues to be one of Woolf's best-known novels. Created from two short stories, Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street and the unfinished The Prime Minister, the novel's story is of... read more »
This is the story of two modern people--a young American who, both as a scientist and as a man, faced some of the biggest problems of our times; and the girl who gave him all her heart and brain. When Jane met Dr. Mark Bradley in London she was only eighteen. She and her mother were both attracted by 'Brad,' and the... read more »
An intimate portrait of two men who cherish the slim bond between them and the dream they share in a world marred by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. Clinging to each other in their loneliness and alienation, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to... read more »
From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around her are vividly recalled in these... read more »
Sidelined by a wartime injury, fighter pilot Alan Duncan reluctantly returns to his parents' remote sheep station in Australia to take the place of his brother Bill, who died a hero in the war. But his homecoming is marred by the suicide of his parents' parlormaid, of whom they were very fond. Alan soon realizes... read more »
Drawing on his own adventures in the Spanish countryside, Dos Passos writes a story of two nomads walking from Madrid to Toledo in the years after World War I. Their travel interweaves Spanish customs, literature, and art. For the author, the country never ceases to tease the imagination. read more »
The story of a character typical to Turgenev -- a 'superfluous' man, weak of will, brimming with indecisive frustration -- and yet tormented by ideals. Rudin is made impotent by the dissonance of honoring the older generations while at the same time embracing the new bold epoch of pre-revolutionary Russia. The theme... read more »
Written towards the end of Andersen’s career, Rudy and Babette tells the tale of Rudy, a boy who lost both his parents and goes to live with his uncle. Rudy had an 'encounter' with The Ice Maiden who continues to interact with him into adulthood. As the story goes forward Rudy meets and falls in love with a girl... read more »