Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

"The Story of the Exploration of Australia is one which we cannot willingly let die. There are many reasons for keeping alive the remembrance of such heroic deeds. It is due to the memory of those men who took their lives in their hands, and, in many cases, laid their bones in the desert; it is an act of gratitude on our part, who have entered on their labours; and it is a kind of information indispensable to every Australian who desires to know the history of his country." - Summary from the Author's Preface

The novel is a fictionalized account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London. The book is told roughly chronologically, though without sections or chapter headings.

Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets deals with such themes as love, time, death, immortality, lust, and sex. The poems follow but also depart from the Petrarchan tradition of sonnets written by a frustrated male lover to an unattainable idealized female beloved. Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to both male and female lovers: the androgynous "young man" and the alluring yet dangerously sexual "dark lady." (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

Pope Leo XIII (2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903), born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, reigned from 20 February 1878 to his death in 1903. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), and had the third longest pontificate.He is well known for his intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his famous papal encyclical Rerum Novarum and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. He issued a record eleven encyclicals on the rosary earning the moniker the "Rosary Pope". This book includes ...

The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break him of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Supersensual Man.This manuscript tells of a man, Severin von Kusiemski, so infatuated with a woman, Wanda von Dunajew, that he requests to be treated as her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. At first Wanda does not understand or relate to the request, but after humouring Severin a bit she ...

A collection of 10 out of the 12 Encyclicals written by Pope Benedict XV, who was Pope from 1914-1922. Public domain English translations of 'In Hac Tanta' and 'Principi Apostolorum Petro' were not able to be located for this collection. (Summary by Maria Therese)

This is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving. Irving lived at the Alhambra Palace while writing some of the material for his book. In 1828, Washington Irving traveled from Madrid, where he had been staying, to Granada, Spain. At first sight, he described it as "a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen." He immediately asked the then-governor of the historic Alhambra Palace as well as the archbishop of Granada for access to the palace, which was granted because of Irving's celebrity status. ...

Charlotte Brontë was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all time. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Brontë? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser. A recording of Volume 2 of this work is also available.

"Being some Account of Life and Work in the Province of Canterbury, South Island." A set fo 26 letters covering the Author's period of service in New Zealand as an Anglican priest. They cover his parochial work in Christchurch, on the West Coast, and Timaru. This is interspersed with commentary on Diocesan matters along with accounts of his journeys between New Zealand and England. - Summary by Beeswaxcandle

Viele der Märchen von Charles Perrault sind sehr bekannt - allerdings unter dem Namen der Brüder Grimm, die sie vielleicht von der berühmten Viehmännin, einer Kaufmannsfrau mit hugenottischen Wurzeln, erzählt bekommen haben. Perraults Versionen sind gut 100 Jahre älter und auch sie gehen auf ältere Quellen zurück. Eine Ausgabe der "Blauen Bibliothek aller Nationen", aus der diese Übersetzung von 1790 stammt, stand auch in der Bibliothek der Grimms. - Zusammenfassung von Hokuspokus

9/11 Commission Report, formally titled Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was prepared by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (informally sometimes known as the "9/11 Commission" or the "Kean/Zelikow Commission") at the request of the President of the United States and Congress. The commission convened on November 26, 2002 (441 days after the attack) and their final report was issued on July 22, 2004.

These stories were the original ones collected by Charles Perrault and published in French in 1696. You may have heard of some of them and they are probably a bit different than what you may expect, coming from an age and time when the ears of our children were not considered so delicate." For example: "Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!" "That is to eat thee up."And, saying these words, this wicked Wolf fell upon Little Red Riding-hood, and ate her all up." end of story. - Summary by Phil chenevert

This is the twelfth collection of our "coffee break" series, involving public domain works that are between 3 and 15 minutes in length. These are great for study breaks, commutes, workouts, or any time you'd like to hear a whole story and only have a few minutes to devote to listening. The theme for this collection is "The Performing Arts", with works about theatre, music, dance, and film! Summary by Rosie.

After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance. Summary by Wikipedia Cast list: Narrator: Mary J Lucy Snowe: Elizabeth Barr Graham/Dr. John: Robert Dixon Monsieur Paul: Herman Roskams Madame Beck: Elizabeth Klett Polly/Paulina: Amanda Friday Mrs. Bretton: Michele Eaton Ginevra Fanshawe: Libby Gohn Mr. Home/Bassompierre: tovarisch Rosine [the portress]: Leanne Mademoiselle St. Pierre [a teacher]: Kristin Gjerløw Isabelle [a student]: Arie Pere ...

Asgard Stories - Tales from Norse Mythology. To all our Children who have loved the hearing of these Asgard Stories. This little volume is the outcome of several years experience in telling to classes of children the classic myths, both southern and northern. "A broad simplicity, so very different from the light gracefulness of the old Greek paganism, distinguishes this Norse system. It is thought, the genuine thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened to the things about them, - a face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of things, - the first characteristic of all good thought in ...

Cain: A Mystery is Lord Byron's retelling of the classical Biblical story from the point of view of its antagonist. Undoubtedly influenced by Milton's Paradise Lost, Byron's Cain is defiant and questioning. In trying to come to terms with the mortality humanity has been punished with, he comes face to face with Lucifer, who takes him to the "Abyss of Space," shows him a vision of Earth's violent natural history, and gives him a true understanding of death. Upon his return, a devastated Cain carries out the familiar end of his tragedy. Cain: A Mystery is a closet drama, a popular form for ...

“Extreme busyness…is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.”What comforting words for the idle among us! Like many of the best essayists, Stevenson is very much the genial fireside companion: opinionated, but never malicious; a marvellous practitioner of the inclusive monologue.In this collection of nine pieces he discusses the art of appreciating unattractive scenery, traces the complex social life of dogs, and meditates in several essays upon the experience of reading literature and writing it. ...

Blueblooded mama's boy Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones is swept overboard during a south seas voyage for his lifelong ill health. He finds himself on a jungle island. His bookish education has not prepared him to cope with these surroundings, and he is a coward. He is terrified when he encounters primitive, violent men, ape-like throwbacks in mankind's evolutionary history. He runs from them, but when he reaches a dead end, he successfully makes a stand, astonishing himself. While keeping the hairy brutes at bay, he meets a beautiful girl, Nadara, also on the run. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he ...

Writer/entertainer Garrison Keillor (A Prairie Home Companion) on “The Innocents Abroad”: “…one of the best selling travel books of all time.” (The Writer’s Almanac, June 8, 2012)When you dive into Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’) The Innocents Abroad, you have to be ready to learn more about the unadorned, ungilded reality of 19th century “touring” than you might think you want to learn. This is a tough, literary journey. It was tough for Twain and his fellow “pilgrims”, both religious and otherwise. They set out, on a June day in 1867, to visit major tourist sites in ...

Northanger Abbey is a hilarious parody of 18th century gothic novels. The heroine, 17-year old Catherine, has been reading far too many “horrid” gothic novels and would love to encounter some gothic-style terror — but the superficial world of Bath proves hazardous enough. (Summary by Kara)