Emma Woodhouse, a young twenty-year-old girl, lives with her father in Highbury, a small village near London. The Wodehouse is the first family in the village. The affair begins immediately after Emma arranged the marriage of her pupil Miss Taylor to become Mrs. Weston and rise in society. After Emma succeeds, she realizes that this is her vocation. In order not to be bored, she is preparing a new marriage. Her next “victim” is Harriet Smith, a young girl with whom she makes friends and is going to marry the village priest, Mr. Elton. To do this, she uses all means, although the matchmaker,...
Alice Morse Earle was an American historian and author from Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writings, beginning in 1890, focussed on small sociological details rather than grand details, and thus are invaluable for modern social historians. She wrote a number of books on colonial America (and especially the New England region) such as Curious Punishments of Bygone Days....
The Raven is Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem, first published on January 29, 1845 in the New York daily newspaper Evening Mirror. Characterized by musicality, artistic expressiveness and a mystical atmosphere, it tells of the mysterious visit of a talking raven to a heartbroken young man who has lost his beloved. In response to questions full of despair and hope, the raven repeats the word “nevermore”, which aggravates the hero’s mental anguish. The poem contains some references to folklore, mythology and antiquity....
Herman Melville's tale is a grotesque narrative of a poor office worker whose unusual behavior breaks the usual rhythm of business life and makes others doubt the correctness of the world order....
A young American, Winterbourne, who has lived in Europe for many years and has managed to break the habit of American customs, arrives in the small Swiss town of Vevey to see his aunt. At the hotel, he accidentally meets a wealthy American Miller family - a nine-year-old boy, his older sister and their mother. They travel around Europe accompanied by their agent and are going to go to Italy. The girl - Daisy Miller - amazes Winterbourne with her beauty, as well as free and laid-back behavior, which is not accepted in Europe. He is trying to understand what is behind this strange behavior from...
Medieval England. King Richard the Lionheart was returning home from the Crusades when he was captured and imprisoned in Austria. His treacherous brother John has already seized the throne and refuses to pay a ransom for Richard. Meanwhile, the conflict between the Saxons and the Normans threatens to escalate into a civil war. Aivengo, the deprived son of Cedric, returns from the crusade to claim his inheritance and marry Rowena, a cousin and niece of Cedric, who seeks to marry the girl to the last offspring of the Saxon royal family....
Spouses Monark, once rich gentlemen, aristocrats. They lost their fortune and were now forced to look for work. Tall stately, graceful, graceful. Spouses considered themselves genuine samples, ideal for working as sitters. But the drawings always turned out to be the same, they looked like beautiful statues. And they were much inferior to real sitters, poor people without any position, but at the same time talented, artistic, able to transform, alive....
Andrew Lang is a British writer, translator, historian and ethnographer. "Coloured Fairy Books" is the famous series of fairy-tale collections compiled by Andrew Lang. It includes 25 books and The Arabian Nights Entertainments, one of which is a unique collection of magical Arabian stories....
Eugenia Grande was considered the most enviable bride in Saumur. Her father, a simple bochar, became rich during the Revolution, buying up confiscated church estates for nothing - the best vineyards and several farms in the Saumur district. He was elected mayor at the Consulate, and during the time of the Empire he was only called Mr. Grande - however, he was familiarly called "dad" by the eyes. No one knew exactly what capital the former Bochar had, but savvy people said that dad Grande had six to seven million francs loyal. Only two people could confirm this, but the notary Kruscho and the...
Kate Greenway is an artist, writer, one of the most famous British illustrators of children's books. The first publication dates back to 1868, when the greeting cards she painted were out of print. The first illustrated book by Kate Greenway is a collection of her own children's poems, “Under the Window.” In 1881, a book of English folk poetry by Mother Goose or The Old Nursery Rhymes was published with Greenway illustrations that have become classic. In the illustrations of Greenway, children and adults are most often dressed in stylized costumes of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries....
The play takes place in 48–47 years BC. e. in Egypt, where Julius Caesar arrived during the civil war and joined as a decisive force in the dynastic conflict between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII. This is one of the most brilliant plays by Bernard Shaw, marked by an exciting dynamic plot, splendor of the language and lively characters....
Poet Danske Dandridge was born in Copenhagen, while her father, Henry Bedinger, was serving as ambassador to Denmark. She was christened Caroline Dane Bedinger, her father giving her the nickname Danske (‘‘Little Dane’’). She lived her life from age 19 in Shepherdstown. She lived for a brief time at the Bower, the historic Dandridge family home near Leetown, following her marriage to A. B. Dandridge in 1877. The family then moved to Poplar Grove, near Shepherdstown, which she inherited from the Bedingers and renamed Rosebrake. She was educated at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia....
Gaston Leroux wrote one of the most inspired theater stories. Based on her motives, films, musicals and theatrical productions were created. Within the walls of the famous opera house, in the center of Paris, a mysterious ghost lives. A young, very beautiful simple chorus girl Kristina Dae becomes, under his leadership, a famous singer with a bewitching voice. But the young viscount Raul de Chagni entered her life. The girl is confused. The past returns to pursue her in a mask of death, the future is foggy, and the present is unsteady. Who will be able to win the girl’s heart: the handsome...
The novel is about a Midwestern girl, Undine Spragg, who was born into a nouveau riche family. She lives in the province, but dreams of a completely different life. To get into the high society of New York, and then conquer Europe and the whole world, the provincial is ready to sacrifice even the closest people. Spragg intends to overcome many obstacles to achieve his goal, because her main dream remains a high position in society....
Siegfried Sassoon - born in Kent, studied at Marlborough and Cambridge. Member of the First World War, officer. He was awarded a military cross. Like W. Owen, belongs to the group of "trench poets." In 1917, S. Sassun stated that "the goals for which the war is being fought are not worth so much suffering." English criticism called Siegfried Sassoon’s poems “an explosion of incandescent anger.” After the war, S. Sassun was engaged in literary criticism, published several books of poetry, but the best that he created relates to the period of the First World War....
