There may be children whose education has been so neglected that they have not read Prince Prigio. As this new story is about Prince Prigio’s son, Ricardo, you are to learn that Prigio was the child and heir of Grognio,King of Pantouflia. The fairies gave the little Prince cleverness, beauty, courage; but one wicked fairy added,“You shall be too clever.” His mother, the queen,...
Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was entitled The Cronicle History of Henry the...
The story opens with a quick overview of Santa's castle in the Laughing Valley. Its focus soon switches to the five Caves of the Daemons in nearby (though unnamed) mountains. These creatures are pagan daemons rather than Christian demons, in that they are not servants of Satan or necessarily evil. Four of the five, the Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, and Malice, certainly are bad, but the...
East of Suez: A Play in Seven Scenes is a popular book by William Somerset Maugham, consists of 7 parts:
A street in peking
A small verandah on an upper storey of the british american tobacco company's premises
The temple of fidelity and virtuous inclination
The sitting-room in the andersons' apartments
The courtyard in the andersons' part of the temple
A small room in a chinese...
Soldiers Three is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. The three soldiers of the title are Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who had also appeared previously in the collection Plain Tales from the Hills. The current version, dating from 1899 and more fully titled Soldiers Three and other stories, consists of three sections which each had previously received separate publication in...
This book content includes:
PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE.
A TALE OF JERUSALEM
THE SPHINX
HOP-FROG
THE MAN OF THE CROWD.
NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD
THOU ART THE MAN
WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING
SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY.
THE POETIC PRINCIPLE
OLD ENGLISH POETRY
Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. Written as fiction for readers of all ages, the literary classic has been considered a children's novel since the mid-twentieth century. It recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, a young orphan girl, age 11 who is mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who have a...
I was advised on all hands not to write this book, and some English friends who have read it urge me not to publish it.
"You will be accused of selecting the subject," they say, "because sexual viciousness appeals to you, and your method of treatment lays you open to attack.
"You criticise and condemn the English conception of justice, and English legal methods: you even question the...
The Poison Belt was the second story, a novella, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Professor Challenger. Written in 1913, roughly a year before the outbreak of World War I, much of it takes place in a single room in Challenger's house in Sussex – rather oddly, given that it follows The Lost World, a story set largely outdoors in the wilds of South America. This would be the last story...
The Ancient Allan is a novel by H Rider Haggard.
Sitting beside entrancing Lady Ragnall while the smoke of an ancient Egyptian herb grows thick around them, Allan Quatermain finds himself departing the world he know and entering into his strangest adventure. In a mystic transformation, he comes to his senses in an earlier incarnation... as Shabaka, hunter of lions -- scion of the rulers of...
Man and Wife was Wilkie Collins’ ninth published novel. It is the second of his novels (after No Name) in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his novels to explore social abuses, which according to critics tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time...
Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.
As Adonis is preparing to go hunting, Venus "seizeth on his sweating...
Rewards and Fairies is a historical fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling published in 1910. The title comes from the poem "Farewell, Rewards and Fairies" by Richard Corbet. The poem is referred to by the children in the first story of the preceding book Puck of Pook's Hill. Rewards and Fairies is set one year later chronologically although published four years afterwards.
The book consists of a...
This book is the result of twelve years' experience in teaching university students to write special feature articles for newspapers and popular magazines. By applying the methods outlined in the following pages, young men and women have been able to prepare articles that have been accepted by many newspaper and magazine editors. The success that these students have achieved leads the author to...
The Talisman is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. It was published in 1825 as the second of his Tales of the Crusaders, the first being The Betrothed.
The Talisman takes place at the end of the Third Crusade, mostly in the camp of the Crusaders in Palestine. Scheming and partisan politics, as well as the illness of King Richard the Lionheart, are placing the Crusade in danger. The main characters are...
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors (along with The Tempest) is one of only two of Shakespeare's plays to observe...
Mrs Craddock is a novel by William Somerset Maugham first published in 1902.
Set in the final years of the 19th century, Mrs Craddock is about a young and attractive woman of independent means who marries beneath her. As he had written about a subject that was considered daring at the time, Maugham had some difficulty finding a publisher. Completed in 1900, the novel was eventually published in...
A wonderful short story, which perfectly sets forth Francis Hodgson Burnett's philosophy of life in the form of an engaging narrative of a depressed and suicidal businessman who loses his way in a London fog and meets a number of strangers who change his outlook on life.