Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

Sixty-two short pieces, many/most of them originally published in The Pansy, a magazine for children. The topics are many and varied, but mostly involve children and teach a moral lesson. (Summary by TriciaG)PARENTAL WARNING: A couple stories, such as "Gertie's Sober Talk" and "Old Jack", are about animals that die or are put down, and who don't have souls.

This 2nd volume of the Marie Antoinette Romances continues the intrigues of "Balsamo, The Magician" and adds to them the schemes of philosophers and the stirrings of revolution. Balsamo (based on the real Count Alessandro di Cagliostro) carries on his occult tactics to weaponize the state secrets that he gained in the previous volume. A serious romance and illness takes root in the court of King Louis XV, convincing one of the leading philosophic minds of the era, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that “the breath of heaven will blast an age and a monarchy.” - Summary by jvanstan

The sequel to "Chicot the Jester" and final book of the "Valois Romances." This story begins six years after the famed "Duel of the Mignons" between the favorites of the courts of King Henry III and Henry the Duke of Guise (somewhat allied with the King's brother, Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alencon). Dumas concludes his historical fiction on the War of the Three Henries while (1) detailing the formation of the Forty-Five Guardsmen (who were to become the Musketeers), (2) following Chicot the Jester as he stays loyal to the failing regency of King Henry III, and (3) continuing the story of ...

Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language--has minced no words--to describe the violent scenes of a violent time.In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. The careful, mature reader, for whom the books are intended, will recognize, and allow for, this fact. Summary from publishers note.

Alfred Noyes, in the blank-verse epic "Drake", fictionalizes the historical Francis Drake, who, during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, sailed (and plundered) on the Spanish Main and beyond. (Summary by Cynthia Moyer)

"The Memoir of my Aunt, Jane Austen, has been received with more favour than I had ventured to expect. The notices taken of it in the periodical press, as well as letters addressed to me by many with whom I am not personally acquainted, show that an unabated interest is still taken in every particular that can be told about her. I am thus encouraged not only to offer a Second Edition of the Memoir, but also to enlarge it with some additional matter which I might have scrupled to intrude on the public if they had not thus seemed to call for it. In the present Edition, the narrative is somewhat ...

James Fenimore Cooper's second novel, The Spy (1821), is based on Sir Walter Scott's Waverly series, and tells an adventure tale about the American Revolution. The protagonist is Harvey Birch, a supposed loyalist who actually is a spy for George Washington, disguised as 'Mr Harper.' The book brought Cooper fame and wealth, and is regarded as the first great success in American fiction.(Summary by Gord MacKenzie)

Flower Fables is Louisa May Alcott's first book, penned at 16 for Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter, Ellen.(Summary by Clarica)

The worshipers of this ancient tentacled horror are still with us, waiting for this terrible being to awake and take vengeance again on an earth filled with nonbelievers. Lovecraft delves into this eons old cult in the greatest detail of any of his stories about Cthulhu and gives us hints about how it is worshiped and the abominable rituals involved. Creepy. Very creepy. - Summary by phil chenevert

Virginia Woolf’s third novel lacks a conventional narrative style and some say even a plot. It follows Jacob from his childhood, through his education at Cambridge and finally to his death in World War I. The prose repeatedly shifts its point of view and the reader is challenged to find connections between the narrative fragments. Largely from the comments of others we come to know the sequence and some moments of Jacob’s life but we never fully learn who Jacob is. The literary experimentation in Jacob’s Room is used even more successfully in Woolf’s later novels. (Summary by DaveC)

There are certain names which are familiar, as names, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree of mental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leading outlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was in their characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extended a fame. Consequently, great historical names alone are selected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent and leading traits in their characters, and all the important events in their lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simple ...

Natty Bumppo goes by many names: La Longue Carabine, Hawk Eye, Leatherstocking, and in this tale, The Pathfinder. Guide, scout, hunter, and when put to it, soldier, he also fills a lot of roles in pre-Revolution upstate New York. An old friend, Sergeant Dunham of the 55th Regiment of Foot, asks him to guide his daughter through the wilderness to the fort at Oswego where Dunham serves. With the French engaging native Indian allies against the British and the Yankee colonists, such a journey is far from safe. Dunham has a plan in mind - to see his daughter Mable married off to the most ...

The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family was written in serial form in 1854- 1855 by the author of such works as Vanity Fair, The Book Of Snobs. It tells the story of a few generations of the Newcome family: their rise to respectability, marriages, love, and the culture in which they lived. The novel teaches the reader what it was like to live in Victorian England - Summary by Stav Nisser

Malgré l'avis de son père, Juliette épouse l'homme dont elle est follement amoureuse, un colonel de Napoléon à l'avenir prometteur. Les années passant, elle réalise que son père avait bien raison... Un gentilhomme anglais, qui s'est épris d'elle, parvient à gagner son coeur. Elle restera malgré tout vertueuse, causant ainsi, sans le vouloir, sa mort. Une nouvelle rencontre, M. de Vandenesse, changera drastiquement le cours de sa vie. Cela aura des conséquences bien funestes sur le bonheur de sa famille.In spite of her father's opinion that the man is unworthy of her, Juliette ...

In 1920s London, a mysterious informant - known only as the Squealer - is systematically betraying London's criminal class to the authorities, leaving a trail of murder and mayhem in his wake. Then an attempt is made on the life of Chief Inspector Barrabal of Scotland Yard, as the unexpected twists and turns hurtle towards a startling conclusion.From the golden age of detective fiction, Edgar Wallace was a prolific author with over 170 novels to his credit, including King Kong. More than 160 films have been made of his works, and a publisher once claimed that a quarter of all books read in ...

Detective mystery story set in London, with some romance, and intriguing plot. - Summary by Peter Thomlinson

When this was written, literary traditions still decreed beauty to be the outward sign of inner saintliness, whereas evil characters tended to be “ugly as sin.” Jean Briggerland defies these expectations by being every bit as angelically beautiful as she is sociopathic. So lovely that all around her are blinded to her guilt no matter how blatant her crimes, only Jack Glover, best friend and lawyer of her most recent victim, is aware of her true nature. Can he stop her crime spree and bring her to justice before she murders her way to wealth and happiness? He really, really shouldn’t ...

Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain detailing his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Abner Doubleday began the Civil War as a Union officer and aimed the first cannon shot in response to the bombardment opened on Ft. Sumter in 1861. Two years later, after a series of battles (including Antietam, where he was wounded), Doubleday took over a division in the Army of the Potomac's 1st Corps.These are his memoirs of service in two of the War's great campaigns. At Chancellorsville, a very promising start made by General Hooker against Lee's Confederate forces fell to a defeat when, in Doubleday's estimation, normal and prudent precautions against surprise in the heavily-wooded ...

In July 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson left Scotland to meet his future wife in her native California. Leaving by ship from Glasgow, Scotland, he determined to travel in steerage class to see how the working classes fared. At the last minute he was convinced by friends to purchase a ticket one grade above the lowest price, for which he was later thankful after seeing the conditions in steerage, but he still lived among the 'lower' classes. His comments on the experience make interesting reading. His father however was so shocked at the thought of his son associating with people 'beneath him' ...