Lord Ernest Borrow and Captain Anthony Fenton think they know a secret – a secret that could make them both rich. En route, they are sidetracked by Sir Marcus Antonius Lark, a woman who thinks she’s Cleopatra reincarnate, a Gilded Rose of an American Heiress, and Mrs. Jones, a mysterious Irish woman with a past. Will they find the secret? Or will the trip up the Nile on the Enchantress Isis net them another discovery altogether?
Friedrich Schillers (1759 – 1805) Übertragung der “Mme de la Pommeraye”-Episode aus Diderots (1713-1784) “Jacques le Fataliste”, erschienen 1785.
Aber die kühne Neuheit dieser Intrige, die unverkennbare Wahrheit der Schilderung, die schmucklose Eleganz der Beschreibung haben mich in Versuchung geführt, eine Übersetzung davon zu wagen, welche freilich die Eigentümlichkeit des Originals nicht erreicht haben wird. –Friedrich Schiller
This reading is in German.
Parnassus on Wheels is about a fictional traveling book-selling business. The original owner of the business, Roger Mifflin, sells it to 39-year-old Helen McGill, who is tired of taking care of her ailing older brother, Andrew.
The story deals with the literary world that Gissing himself had experienced. Its title refers to the London street, Grub Street, which in the 18th century became synomynous with hack literature; as an institution, Grub Street itself no longer existed in Gissing’s time. Its two central characters are a sharply contrasted pair of writers:
Edwin Reardon, a novelist of some talent but limited commercial prospects, and a shy, cerebral man; and Jasper Milvain, a young journalist, hard-working and capable of generosity, but cynical and unscrupulous about writing and its purpose in the modern (i.e. late Victorian) world.
Through delightful outings with her students, a teacher introduces her class to the fascinating world of insects. She encourages her students to observe and ask questions. This is a wonderful science text for young children.