Editorial: Aeterna Classics
A black comic novel about the last remaining survivors of a tontine - a group life-insurance policy in which the last surviving member stands to receive a fortune. It is a farcical, eccentric and brilliantly written piece of work.
The Modern Soul is more about characters than action. The story begins with the stereotype of the pompous German music professor explaining to the young English narrator why he incessantly eats cherries: "There is nothing like cherries for producing free saliva after trombone playing, especially after Grieg's 'Ich Liebe Dich'" He's cherry eating is connected with a consuming desire for women. The two older Germans, the Professor and the German actress' mother, talk incessantly of food and soul. They agree that the English are "fish blooded," cold and without soul. The modern soul is posture and hypocrisy; the varieties of sexual attraction are puzzles and complexities that human beings cannot handle. CharacterisationVer libro
Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago, and when it fails he turns his back on humanity once more. But his life alters when he rescues a young English girl, Lena, from Zangiacomo's Ladies' Orchestra and the evil innkeeper Schomberg, taking her to his island retreat. The affair between Heyst and Lena begins with her release, but the relationship shifts as Lena struggles to save Heyst from the detachment and isolation that have inhibited and influenced his life.Marked by a violent and tragic conclusion, Victory is both a tale of rescue and adventure and a perceptive study of a complex relationship and of the power of loveVer libro
Anton Chekhov's "The Death of a Government Clerk" humorously unfolds when a government official accidentally sneezes on a high-ranking official. The tale navigates the protagonist's escalating paranoia and guilt, culminating in a series of comical misadventures. Chekhov's satire highlights the absurdity of social anxieties and bureaucratic entanglements in this short yet entertaining story. Read in English, unabridged.Ver libro
Real men don't take guff from snotty kids. Neither does Disko Troop, skipper of the "We're Here", a fishing schooner out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, when his crew fishes Harvey Cheyne out of the Atlantic. There's no place on the Grand Banks for bystanders, so Harvey is press-ganged into service as a replacement for a man lost overboard and drowned. Harvey is heir to a vast fortune, but his rescuers believe none of what he tells them of his background. Disko won't take the boat to port until it is full of fish, so Harvey must settle in for a season at sea. Hard, dangerous work and performing it alongside a grab-bag of characters in close quarters is a life-changing experience.And when Harvey at last is reunited with his parents, who have thought him dead for months, he must face the hard decisions of how he will allow his experience to change his life.Ver libro
In the story, "An Avenger", Anton Chekhov, explores the themes of infidelity, trust, revenge, shame and pride. Fyodor Sigaev catches his wife being unfaithful to him red-handed. He finds himself angry and outraged at a gun shop where he has thoughts of killing his wife, her lover and himself.Ver libro
A classic collection of haunting stories by Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and more. A vengeful phantom lurks in a country graveyard. A whaling crew becomes trapped on a haunted ship. A human skull is kept locked in a cupboard—but sometimes at night, it screams . . . This collection of tales transports the reader to a time when staircases creaked in old manor houses, and a candle could be blown out by a gust of wind—or by a passing ghost. Penned by some of the greatest Victorian novelists and masters of the ghost story genre, each is illustrated with exquisitely eerie artwork.Ver libro
