Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

The House of the Dead is a novel published in 1861 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. Dostoyevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a camp following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts. The narrator, Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labour. Life in prison is particularly hard for Aleksandr ...

Everything changed when Ordynov, a secluded young thinker, stepped out of his old lodgings in search of another corner. The ailing landlord watched from a distance, while the beautiful landlady came close...A tale of love, murder, and sorcery, The Landlady is one of a kind among Fyodor Dostoevsky's works. Written at the age of 26 before he was sent to Siberia, preceded only by The Double and Poor Folk, this novella draws inspiration from Russian folklore as well as stories by Pushkin and Gogol. It anticipates some of the writer's most important ideas to be developed in his later writings. (...

Egmont Colerus prangt den Hedonismus an, in dem es durch Wollust, Übermaß, Exzess und Dekadenz zum Untergang kommt. Er schildert anschaulich, durch die miteinander verwobenen Geschichten der Hauptfiguren (Bettler, Handwerker, Herrscher und Priester), die Wandlung einzelner Charaktere die zum Untergang des bestehenden Systems führt. Dabei kommt es zu einem überraschenden Ende.(Zusammenfassung von lorda)

"The history of Amphitryon and Alcmene, or rather the myth of the birth of Hercules, is certainly very old, and is to be found in the literature of different nations." Under Moliere's touch, it becomes "One of the most charming and natural comedies composed in French verse.... Sprightliness and vivacity abound in this comedy...." - Summary by Translator Henri Van LaunCast list:Mercury, in the form of Sosia: NemoNight: Eva DavisJupiter, in the form of Amphitryon: Larry WilsonAmphitryon, general of the Thebans: Tomas PeterArgatiphontidas, Theban Captain: Jim LockeNaucrates, Theban Captain: ...

The finished draft of a short novel by Mary Shelley. Its adult theme, concerning a father's incestuous love for his daughter and its consequences, meant that the manuscript was suppressed by Shelley's own father, and not published until 1959, more than a hundred years after her death.

Laurence Hope was the nom de plume of Adela Florence Nicolson, a British poet who wrote verses inspired by India, where she lived. This collection, her first, was originally published in 1901. (summary by Newgatenovelist)

THE PERMANENT HUSBAND, also published as The Eternal Husband, is a psychological novella by the acclaimed Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The plot revolves around the intense and complex relationship between Velchaninov and Trusotsky. Velchaninov, the protagonist, is a former lover of the recently deceased wife of Trusotsky, the title character. Some critics have ranked this novella among Dostoeyevsky’s best works because of its style and structure. Alfred Bem has called it "one of the most complete works by Dostoyevsky in regards to its composition and development. – Adapted from ...

Crime and Punishment is the second of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia, and is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. The novel focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov, in an attempt to defend his actions, argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime while ridding the world of a vermin, ...

In einem langen teils qual-, teils freudvollen aber immer leidenschaftlichen Prozess verschmelzen Mann und Frau zu einem Individuum. Der Weg dahin wird geprägt von starken erotischen Fantasien, die in Bezug zu den verschiedensten Bereichen des menschlichen Zusammenlebens gebracht werden. Hierbei werden sowohl Naturgewalten, Überlieferungen aus der Antike, mystische Erscheinungen, religiöse und heidnische Bräuche und vor allem Vergleiche aus der Botanik symbolisch genutzt. Przybyszewskis hoch entwickelte Sprache macht das Werk zu einem Kleinod der erotischen Literatur. (Zusammenfassung von ...

Nanda Brookenham is coming of age, and thus 'coming out' in London society - which leads to complications in her family's social set in London's fin de siècle life. James presents the novel almost entirely in dialogue, an experiment that adds to the immediacy of the scenes but also creates serious ambiguities about characters and their motives. Summary by Anna Simon, adapted from Wikipedia.

Owing to its highly personal content focused on feminine sexuality, this LibriVox edition was recorded by eight female readers. The Modern Library edition of The Awakening has an introduction by Kay Gibbons, who writes: “The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers with its forthright treatment of sex and suicide. Departing from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine’s desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings ...

A dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-captain, about the latter's voyage to a utopian city. (Summary by Rapunzelina)

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, better known as H.P. Lovecraft, was an American author of horror, fantasy, poetry and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction and many feel he is the acknowledged master of creepy, weird and unsettling stories. These are seven stories by Lovecraft that literally span his career; some being written when he was barely a teenager and one (The Shunned House) only published after he had died. Each story is unique and strange in it's own way but all of them come from the same mind that gave us the Cult of Cthulhu and other wonderful tales that ...

"Herbert West—Reanimator" is a story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft that was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. You want zombies? Listen to this because Lovecraft was one of the very first and he got zombies right: scary, evil, implacable and out to get you. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)

A well-to-do French farm family is destroyed by a flood. The story, thrilling to the very end, is told from the point of view of the family's 70-year-old patriarch. The story speaks of the helplessness of mankind in the face of the forces of nature. (Summary by Karen Merline)

The worshipers of this ancient tentacled horror are still with us, waiting for this terrible being to awake and take vengeance again on an earth filled with nonbelievers. Lovecraft delves into this eons old cult in the greatest detail of any of his stories about Cthulhu and gives us hints about how it is worshiped and the abominable rituals involved. Creepy. Very creepy. - Summary by phil chenevert

In a rundown farmhouse near isolated, rural Dunwich, a bizarre family conjures and nurtures an evil entity from another realm, with the purpose of destroying the world and delivering it to ancient gods to rule, and only an aged university librarian can stop them. The Dunwich Horror was first published in 1929 in Weird Tales. (Summary by Mark Nelson)

La vida transcurre plácida en un pequeño pueblo francés donde el tio Merlier gestiona hábilmente su molino. Los preparativos para el enlace entre su hija Francisca y el joven Domingo se verán interrumpidos por la llegada de un batallón francés que decide atrincherarse en el molino para frenar el avance de las tropas prusianas. Cuento largo en el que Zola plasma los dilemas y sufrimientos que la población civil tiene que soportar en medio de una guerra, en este caso un intrascendente episodio del conflicto franco-prusiano. (Introducción por Epachuko)

In the most cold and remote region of the planet lies mountains towering higher than the Himalayas and containing abominable secrets the mind can scarcely fathom. When an intrepid expedition stumbles across the remains of an ancient race of creatures that predates humanity by millions of years, they believe they've discovered the scientific find of the century. Instead, they've unearthed a terror beyond all reckoning which may devour them both body and soul. Enter into the icy realms of one of H. P. Lovecraft's most seminal cornerstones of the Cthulhu mythos.... If you dare! - Summary by Ben ...

In this essay Lovecraft traces the history of hair-raising fictional stories with a focus on things that go bump in the night, starting with the examples from the Antiquity and ending with a detailed discussion of the works of his contemporaries. - Summary by Piotr Nater This recording was originally published on Legamus.eu and was later released on Librivox when US copyright permitted