Showing results by narrator "Linda Barrans" in All Categories

Emily Dickinson was one of the most reclusive of all poets. She spent much of her life in seclusion in her father’s house in Amherst, and only a handful of her 1800 poems were published in her lifetime. Credit for the posthumous publication of her work must be given to her editor and friend Thomas W. Higginson, who reported that, in spite of the voluminous correspondence which passed between himself and Dickinson, he only met her twice in person.

When it was first published in 1847, Wuthering Heights was considered highly controversial for its blunt portrayal of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the dismissal of Christian values by some of its characters. Today, this gothic novel is considered one of the greatest in English literature.

Persuasion has certain similarities with Emma, another late novel by Jane Austen. In both stories, the heroine is a young woman who lives with her widowed father, and who has an enduring attachment to her eventual spouse from the opening of the action. Persuasion also incorporates certain elements common to Austen's earlier novels, such as characters from the military, visits to Bath and calculating and cynical suitors. In the end, Anne Elliot successfully combats the destructive vanity of her father and the machinations of her villainous cousin William.

Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost are two of Gene Stratton Porter's most famous novels. Set primarily in the Limberlost Swamp of Indiana, USA, Freckles follows the story of Freckles, a lame orphan whose innate character rises above his circumstances. A Girl of the Limberlost is the story of Elnora, blamed for her father's death by her mother, who nevertheless meets every challenge that comes her way with admirable resilience.

When the tale begins, a strange and sudden malady is claiming the lives of the local peasants in Styria. Laura, an innocent girl of eighteen, lives a lonely life there with her loving father and two governesses. Then a dramatic coach crash on Laura’s doorstep brings a mysterious, beautiful, but languorous young woman to stay with them. This is Carmilla.

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

The novel opens with Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s visit to Sanditon, a village on the coast of Sussex. Sanditon is being developed into a bathing-place under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the parish, Mr. Parker and Lady Denham. Mr. Parker suffers an injury and receives assistance from a local farmer, Mr. Heywood. The latter’s daughter, Charlotte, is of marriageable age and has three eligible suitors: Lady Denham’s foppish son, Sir Edward; Mr. Parker’s devil-may care brother, Sydney; and Arthur, who is an unemployed hypochondriac.

The collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies.

Freckles is the only name he has ever known. His right hand is missing at the wrist, and he is haunted by not knowing how it happened. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent and sings with a beautiful voice. Now, exhausted after many days of walking, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids Lumber Company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp from timber thieves. His Swamp Angel declares her love for him and promises that she will find his parents and prove that Freckles comes from "a race of men that have been gentlemen for ages."

Euripides (c. 480-406 B.C.E.) is the author of eighteen extant plays and many more only surviving in fragments. He is the youngest of the three great Athenian tragedians with Aeschylus and Sophocles. Hippolytus, bastard son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyta, has sworn chaste allegiance to the goddess Artemis, thus severely offending the goddess Aphrodite by failing to revere her. Aphrodite swears revenge and promises that he will die before the day is done, taking with him Queen Phaedra, wife of Theseus.

In Jane Austen's unfinished novel, young Emma Watson returns to her father's house after being raised by her wealthy and refined uncle. As she gets to know her family, she finds that her father is reclusive and sickly, her sisters are crude and shallow, and her eldest brother has a petulance that is matched only by his wife's.

Uncle Vanya is Anton Chekhov's 1902 tragicomedy focusing on the romantic entanglements of the residents of a declining country estate. Vanya loves Helena, the unhappily married wife of aged professor Serebrakoff. Sonia loves Dr. Astroff, but he's more interested in Helena. Serebrakoff loves only himself and is idealized by Vanya's mother, who believes him to be a genius.

In January 1817, Jane Austen began work on Sanditon, but died a few months later, leaving it unfinished. The surviving fragment begins the story of Charlotte Heywood, a sheltered young woman who is invited to the up-and-coming resort town of Sanditon. While there, she meets a host of memorable characters, drawn with Austen's classic wit and insight, including a fortune-hunting fop, a domineering dowager, and a hoard of hypochondriacs.

This collection arguably contains some of the most charming lyrics ever written in English. Blake’s poems can be enjoyed, not only for their historical importance in an age which was fiercely proud of its genius and its traditions, but also for their simple and beautiful expression of “two contrary states of the human soul.” Songs of Innocence was originally a complete collection of twenty-three poems, first printed in 1789. In 1794, a composite collection entitled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, containing forty-seven poems, was published.

Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's classic comic romance, in which the five Bennet sisters try to find that most elusive creature: a single man in possession of a large fortune. Sparks fly when sweet, pretty Jane meets their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley, but her sister Elizabeth is offended by his haughty friend, Mr. Darcy. This is Jane Austen at the height of her powers, complete with ironic narration, hilariously drawn supporting characters, and romantic suspense.

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed for a suitable husband.

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor. The action is set in London, and takes place over the course of 24 hours.

The Victorians had a fondness for scaring their offspring straight with cautionary tales - moral stories featuring children who misbehaved and suffered the consequences. Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales are a parody of the Victorian moral fables: irresistible, irreverent and downright jolly.

Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives, and by amusing herself in flirtation with the various men who fall under her spell. Lady Susan has a daughter, Frederica, who is bashful and innocent—in stark contrast to her unfeeling and manipulative mother. Her mother is anxious to marry Frederica off to a spouse of appropriate wealth and social standing, and also, perhaps, to capture a new mate for herself.

The plot follows the usual trajectory of a young girl falling in love and the relationship becoming compromised by unforeseen circumstances. In this case, Austen’s heroine is a naïve country girl, Catherine Morland, who has an addiction to reading the Gothic horror novels which were so popular in the Regency period. When she is invited to stay at the family seat of her love interest and discovers it to be a vast and ancient castle, her romantic imagination runs riot. What secrets lie hidden in this vast pile over which the widowed head of the house exercises an iron control?