George Sand (the pen name of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin 1804-1876) is famous for flaunting the conventions of behavour expected of women of her standing in France at the time and for her numerous romantic liaisons including her long standing affair with Frédéric Chopin. The Devil’s Pool (published in 1846 as La Mare au Diable) is one of several short pastoral novels drawn from her childhood experiences in the rural French region of Berri. It tells the story of a young widower, Germain, who, at the insistence of his father-in-law, sets out to remarry so that he will have someone to help raise his three young children.
Summary written by the reader.
Consumers of biography are familiar with the division between memoirs of the living or recently dead written by those who “knew” the subject more or less intimately, and the more objective or scholarly accounts produced by later generations.
In the case of Wilde, as presented to us by Frank Harris, we are in a way doubly estranged from the subject. We meet with Oscar the charismatic talker, whose tone of voice can never be reproduced – even if a more scrupulous biographer had set down his words accurately – and we are perhaps already aware of him as Wilde the self-destructive celebrity who uneasily fills the place of the premier gay icon and martyr in our contemporary view.
Die Erzählung “Kleider machen Leute” erschien 1874 im zweiten Band des Novellenzyklus “Die Leute von Seldwyla”.
Ein arbeitsloser Schneidergeselle darf unterwegs in einer vornehmen Kutsche Platz nehmen. Der im kleinen Orte Goldach dem herrschaftlichen Wagen entsteigende Schneider wird vom Kutscher als Herr aristokratischer Herkunft ausgegeben. Der Schneider, der durch sein melancholisches Aussehen, vor allem aber durch seinen kostbar wirkenden Mantel und seine Pelzmütze Aufsehen erregt, gilt bald als ein polnischer Graf, den die Goldacher Bürgerschaft bewirtet und feiert. Er fördert das Mißverständnis nicht von sich aus, findet aber auch nicht den Mut, es aufzuklären. Umsoweniger, ...
Fanny Herself is the story of Fanny Brandeis, a sensitive, young Jewish girl coming of age in the Midwest at the turn of the 20th century. It is generally considered to have been based on Ferber’s own experiences growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin. Fanny’s inner struggle between her compassionate, artistic side and her desire for financial independence as a successful young businesswoman is the recurring theme of the novel. Ferber’s engaging style of writing will quickly draw you into her story. Regarded by many to be the “greatest American woman novelist of her day,” Edna Ferber would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize in a 1925 for her book So Big, and is also the author of...
Once in a generation, a man is born with a heightened sense of empathy. Brion Brandd used this gift to win the Twenties, an annual physical and mental competition among the best and smartest people on Anvhar. But scarcely able to enjoy his victory, Brandd is swept off to the hellish planet Dis where he must use his heightened sense of empathy to help avert a global nuclear holocaust by negotiating with the blockading fleet, traversing the Disan underworld, and cracking the mystery of the savagely ruthless magter.
Summary by Great Plains.