A Word To The Wise: 89 books

HH Munro, better known by his pen name of Saki has scarcely been out of print since he was first published It has to be admitted that a taste for Saki is something of an addiction. And, like all addictions, once acquired, it is hard to shake off. In the years since his tragically early death in the trenches...

Hero and Leander is a mythological short epic by the famous English writer and dramatist Christopher Marlowe. When Marlowe was killed after being accused of blasphemy, he left the poem unfinished to be later completed by George Chapman. The poem follows the love story between the two Greek mythological...

Harry Sinclair Lewis (7th February, 1885 10th January, 1951) was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters." Whilst an accurate description of his writing...

First published in Scribners Magazine in 1915, Edith Whartons Coming Home is a short story of seven chapters that centers around the life of a French man named Jean de Réchamp during the war. The story is narrated in the first-personal pronoun and bases itself on reports about the atrocities committed...

Riders to the Sea is a one-act tragedy by the Irish playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed in Dublin in the very beginning of the twentieth century. The play portrays the simple life of rural Ireland, but also pictures the Irish peoples struggles with the furious sea which is presented...

Katherine Merritte Yates was an American author who also wrote such works as Prairie Artist: Homesteading under the pseudonym E.E Stevens. In By The Roadside Marjorie and her Dream have a beautiful and enchanting adventure. Whilst her work and style is from a bygone era it has a charm that easily captures...

Perils of Certain English Prisoners is a novella published by the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens in 1857 in collaboration with his close friend, the novelist Wilkie Collins. Of the novella's three chapters, Collins wrote the second, "The Prison in the Woods." The story is set in Asia and central...

Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (3rd December 1857 3rd August 1924) was a Polish author regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties when he settled in England and was subsequently granted British nationality. ...

In this volume we look at the works of the poet Alice Meynell. She was born Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson on September 22nd 1847. Her early years were in England, Switzerland, and France as the family moved around finally settling in Italy where she was thereafter raised mainly in Italy. Her great...

The Seven Poor Travellers is one of Charles Dickenss Christmas stories that was first published in the 1854 Christmas issue of the Victorian Novelists periodical Household Words. It follows the adventures of six travelers in addition to the story of the seventh traveller who is none but the narrator...

First published in 1831, Honore de Balzacs The Hidden Masterpiece, or Le Chef-doeuvre inconnu, is a short story that deals with the theme of artistic creativity and appreciation. It has influenced a variety of literary men and artists including the American novelist Henry James and the renowned painter...

Anthony Trollope's John Bull on the Guadalquivir is a short story centering around the eponymous character and narrator. The latter belongs to an English family, the Pomfrets, which has always been connected with the south of Spain for the sake of trading activities. The most important Spanish counterpart...

Bridge Builders (1893) by the British writer Rudyard Kipling is an Indian story about the building of the Kashi Bridge. The story mainly displays Kiplings mastery of the technical details and knowledge related to bridge building. His biographers agree that the author acquired this knowledge through interacting...

Thomas Hardy (2nd June 1840 11th January 1928), celebrated poet and writer, was born in a modest thatched cottage near Dorchester in the West Country, to a builder father. His mother came from a line of intelligent, lively and ambitious women so ensured her son had the best formal education available...