Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte

Peter Schlemihl lernt den reichen Kaufmann Thomas John kennen, in dessen Garten er einem eigenartigen grauen Herrn begegnet. Dieser überredet ihn dazu, seinen Schatten für ein Säckel voller Gold zu verkaufen, der wie ein Füllhorn nie versiegt.
Sobald die Menschen aber bemerken, dass er keinen Schatten hat, fürchten sie sich und meiden ihn. Er reist deshalb über das Gebirge zu einem Badeort und richtet sich dort mit Hilfe seines treuen Dieners Bendel so ein, dass seine Schattenlosigkeit zunächst nicht bemerkt wird.
Hier verliebt er sich in die schöne Mina und sein Geheimnis wird von einem anderen seiner Diener verraten. Nur wenn er seinen Schatten zurück bekommt, erklärt ihm M...

The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933) studied art in Paris in the late 80’s and early 90’s, where his work was displayed at the Salon. However, shortly after returning to America, he decided to spend his time in writing. He became popular as the writer of a number of romantic novels, but is now best known as the author of “The King In Yellow”. This is a collection of the first half of this work of short stories which have an eerie, other-worldly feel to it; but the stories in the second half are essentially love stories, strongly coloured by the author’s life as an artist in France.

Only the first half of the collection of stories is presented here: the earlier stories are all coloured ...

The Flaming Jewel

During the last two years, Fate, Chance, and Destiny had been too busy to attend to Mike Clinch. But now his turn was coming in the Eternal Sequence of things. The stars in their courses indicated the beginning of the undoing of Mike Clinch. In the North Woods, mayhem ensues as three parties vie for possession of the Flaming Jewel.

Become immersed in the chasing and slinking to determine who will possess this famed jewel. Better than typical adventure writing magnificently describe the 19th Century Northeastern US in this great novel.

The Other Side of the Door
It's 1865 in the city of San Francisco. Pretty, young Ellie Fenwick is walking to the market early one morning to surprise her father with some fresh mushrooms. As she passes a gambling house, she hears a gunshot and two young men emerge. One man falls dead on the pavement and the other is Johnny Montgomery, a handsome young man Ellie recognizes from seeing him previously at a dance. Johnny is holding a smoking pistol in his hand. This incident propels the proper young Ellie into a world of prisons and courtrooms as a murder trial unfolds and the fate of Johnny may rest with her testimony. But, what is the connection with the mysterious Spanish Woman, who lives in a grand house and suppos...
Don Quijote

Don Quijote de la Mancha (ortografía y título original —1605—, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha) es una de las obras cumbre de la literatura española y la literatura universal, el libro más traducido después de la Biblia, escrito por Miguel de Cervantes.

La novela consta de dos partes: la primera, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, fue publicada en 1605; la segunda, El ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, en 1615.

La primera parte se imprimió en Madrid, en casa de Juan de la Cuesta, a fines de 1604. Salió a la venta en enero de 1605 con numerosas erratas, a causa de la celeridad que imponía el contrato de edició...

Don Quichot van La Mancha

Door het lezen van te veel ridderromans is Don Quichot zijn verstand kwijtgeraakt. Denkend dat hij zelf een dolende ridder is, verlaat hij zijn huis en begint een dwaaltocht over de wegen en het platteland van Spanje, op zoek naar avonturen. Als doel heeft hij voor ogen het rechtzetten van alle soorten onrecht, om door deze goede daden beroemd te worden. Op zijn trektocht wordt Don Quichot vergezeld door zijn buurman en dienaar Sancho Panza. (naar Wikipedia)
This is a Dutch translation and adaptation of the book: Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

Cellini’s autobiographical memoirs, which he began writing in Florence in 1558, give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights, written in an energetic, direct, and racy style. They show a great self-regard and self-assertion, sometimes running into extravagances which are impossible to credit. He even writes in a complacent way of how he contemplated his murders before carrying them out. He writes of his time in Paris:

Parts of his tale recount some extraordinary events and phenomena; such as his stories of conjuring up a legion of devils in the Colosseum, after one of his not innumerous mistresses had been spirited away fro...

Mille et une fadaises

De retour de sa campagne, la Baronne de … va voir la Marquise de …, qui n’a plus fermé l’oeil depuis quinze jours. Qu’est-ce qui mieux qu’un discours de l’Abbé pourrait y remédier ?
Le voici justement qui se présente.
Sans talent pour les réflexions, ce sera par un conte qu’il tentera de les endormir :
Riante, la Fée Troisbosses et d’autres seront les héros de sont récit cocasse. Que de sottises !

When visiting the Marquise of …, the Baroness of … finds her deprived of sleep for a fortnight. Couldn’t one of the Abbot’s speeches solve this?
There he is.
He will attempt to put them to sleep by entertaining them with a fairy tale. The heroes of his comical...

Treatise on Purgatory
Saint Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, born Genoa 1447 – 15 September 1510) is an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor. She was a member of the noble Fieschi family, and spent most of her life and her means serving the sick, especially during the plague which ravaged Genoa in 1497 and 1501. She died in that city in 1510.

In 1551, 41 years after her death, a book about her life and teaching was published, entitled Libro de la vita mirabile et dottrina santa de la Beata Caterinetta de Genoa. This is the source of her "Dialogues on the Soul and the Body" and her "Treatise on Purgatory", which are often printed s...
One of Ours

This 1923 Pulitzer Prize winning novel was written by Willa Cather. This work had been inspired by reading her cousin G.P. Cather’s wartime letters home to his mother. He was the first officer from Nebraska killed in World War I. Claude Wheeler, the subject of the novel, is a young man growing up on a Nebraska farm. The son of well to do parents, Claude is troubled by his apparent inability to find purpose with his life. Everything he does seems to turn out wrong, at least in his own mind. Although he is a skilled farmer, Claude believes his destiny lies elsewhere. While attending a church-affiliated college his parents have selected for him, he befriends a German family (the Ehrlichs’...