Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in World Literature

Hornung published this second volume of the adventures of genius cracksman A.J. Raffles in 1901. Raffles is always casing rich homes to burgle, and is always accompanied by his trusted friend and confidant 'Bunny.' While they generally score, their escapades are never without a certain degree of risk, but Raffles seems always prepared.

This collection was published posthumously in 1869 under the title of Petits Poèmes En Prose, but is also known as Le Spleen de Paris. A prime influence was Gaspard de la Nuit, the prose poem collection by Aloysius Bertrand. Baudelaire described these short pieces as experiments, and also "confessions." The poet was seeking to create "the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and without rhyme, subtle and staccato enough to follow the lyric motions of the soul, the wavering outlines of meditation, the sudden starts of the conscience."

A lovable but mischievous marionette hopes to become a real boy, but first must learn to work hard, overcome peer pressure, and stop telling lies before his wish is granted. Pinocchio has enraptured the hearts of children and adults alike since 1881. The tale revolutionized Italian children's literature by using comedic characters and minimal adult intrusion to tell a story with a moral lesson. Published as a serial in the Giornale per i bambini, or "Children's Magazine", the stories were compiled into one volume in 1883.

A tale of romance, greed, blackmail, secrets, Spain, and ships. Loss and intrigue, too, as we follow twin brothers along their life paths.

Enough Rope was Dorothy Parker's first published collection of poems, and was a best seller. The Nation described her verse as "caked with a salty humor, rough with splinters of disillusion, and tarred with a bright black authenticity."

The Eve of St. Agnes was first published in 1820 in a collection containing many of Keat's best-known poems. Several of these were retellings of stories that were popular in the Middle Ages and earlier times.

Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1818) is a poetic retelling of a story from The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. The poem relates the sad fate of two victims of youthful love. The aristocratic and nubile Isabella is intended for marriage to an eligible suitor but falls in love with the plebeian Lorenzo. Isabella's brothers murder Lorenzo and bury his body, the location of which is revealed to Isabella by a ghost. She exhumes the body and re-inters the head in a pot of basil.

John Donne (1573-1631) is considered by many to be the finest poet of the Elizabeth Age after Shakespeare. Ironically, poetry was not Donne's dominant preoccupation. In his own day, he was better known as a scholar, and, in later life, a clergyman. His verse was composed sporadically and in an offhand fashion and appears not to have been subjected to revision. In spite of occasional solecisms, his poetic verbiage is vigorous and compelling and marked by a striking use of imagery.

The focus in Melincourt is the operation of the "rotten borough" which corrupted the English electoral system until the reform bill of 1832. A rotten borough was a constituency that had been established by royal prerogative but had subsequently lost most of its population. Nevertheless, it still retained the right to have two representatives in the House of Commons. On the other hand, many population centers which had expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution were not entitled to any electoral representation.

The lyrical ballad The Lady of Shalott is one of Tennyson's best-known and best-loved poems. It is based on the story of Elaine of Astolat, a figure from Arthurian legend, who dies from her unrequited love for Sir Lancelot. The subject matter provided inspiration for many of the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Tennyson published two versions of the poem, both of which are included in this recording. The first was written in 1832, and the second—the better-known of the two versions—in 1842.

Lamia is a tragic narrative poem in two parts. It was written in 1819 and first published in 1820 with "Isabella" and "The Eve of St. Agnes". The Greek god Hermes has left Olympus in search of a beautiful nymph. He comes across Lamia, a woman trapped in the form of a snake, who promises to reveal the nymph to him if he, in exchange, restores her human form so she may seek the love of Lycius, a youth of Corinth.

The Cricket on the Hearth, published in 1845, is the third in Charles Dickens' series of "Christmas Books." The story centers around the hearth and home of the good-hearted carrier, John Peerybingle, and his young wife Mary—affectionately called Dot by her husband. Their baby boy is cared for by a clumsy nanny, Tilly Slowboy. The household is completed by Boxer the dog and the cricket on the hearth, who acts as a guardian angel to the family. When disaster looms following the arrival of an elderly stranger, the cricket appears in fairy form to save the day.

The selection of eighteen poems is taken from Tennyson's first collection, published in 1830. The most famous poem in the collection is Mariana, a dramatic narrative, which, like The Lady of Shalott, describes the tragic fate of an abandoned woman. All the poems feature the elegant euphony for which Tennyson's verse has become famous.

Keats commenced writing his epic poem, Hyperion, in 1818 and ceased working on it in the spring of 1819. He said that he gave the project up for having "too many Miltonic inversions." The unfinished poem, which ceases in the middle of the third canto, was published in 1820. The narrative is based on the Titanomachia, or War of the Titans, and describes the aftermath of their fall to the Olympian Gods.

Twelve years on from the events of The Three Hostages, Sir Richard Hannay begins to fear that his idyllic existence with his family in their Cotswolds home is a little too comfortable, merely the placid acceptance of encroaching old age. But then echoes of a past adventure during his days in Africa, and an old oath to protect the son of the man whom he saved then, draw him—along with son Peter John and old friend Sandy Clanroyden—into new danger, and a showdown on the remote Island of Sheep....

Many of the short poems for which Keats has become famous were written in a burst of inspiration early in 1819, including these four odes: Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Psyche, and Ode on Melancholy. The generally melancholy and sometimes elegiac quality of these poems is reflective of Keats' inevitable preoccupation with his declining health. Another significant factor was his infatuation with Fanny Brawne, who returned his affection in an unfortunately non-exclusive manner.

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), known in the English-speaking world simply as Petrarch, was a 14th-century Italian scholar and poet who was one of the first to use Italian as a literary language. One of his close friends was Boccaccio, who was also a pioneer in literary composition in Italian. Although Petrarch was a notable Latin scholar, and most of his works were written in that language, today he is most famous for his many sonnets in Italian, which frequently feature the superior charms of his innamorata, Laura.

The devil always held a fascination for decadent poet Charles Baudelaire. In this brief morality tale, the author sells his soul for good fortune, and, ironically, for relief from the crushing sense of ennui that traditionally accompanies an indulgent lifestyle.

Today Thomas Gray is remembered almost solely for this melancholy meditation on the inevitability of death and the insignificance of fame. The poem was originally thought to have been inspired by the death of Gray's close friend, Richard West, but modern critics think this to be unlikely. Retiring by nature, Gray did not want the elegy to be published, but his hand was forced by an unscrupulous editor who planned to publish the poem without permission. The polished elegance of the versification has ensured that the poem has retained its appeal over the centuries.

On 16 August 1819, a crowd of about 60,000 people gather at Manchester in a peaceful demonstration to demand reform of the parliamentary electoral system. The government of the day interpreted the gathering as an act of rebellion and ordered the militia to disperse the crowd. In the resulting fracas, fifteen demonstrators were killed and several hundred injured. Shelly was living at Leghorn at the time of the massacre, and the news of the massacre roused his fiery republican sentiments. The result was The Mask Of Anarchy, a rousing call to action on behalf of the oppressed.