Classic fiction: literary and general

Book Synopsis"Living with Ghosts", the second volume of this series, contains the collections of stories that Cunningham Graham published between 1900 and 1905, in the period immediately after he was forced to sell his estate of Gartmore and divide his time between London and the smaller house of Ardoch on the Clyde. He was thus made more free to devote himself to writing and achieve a greater output of the stories and sketches that are at the heart of his literary endeavour. The collections, Thirteen Stories (1900), Success (1902), and Progress, and Other Sketches (1905), display his new-found confidence about his own skills and ability to handle the wide-ranging subject matter that became his trademark. "I, writing as a man who has not only seen, but lived with ghosts, may perhaps find pardon for this preface, for who would run in heavily and dance a hornpipe on the turf below which sleep the dead?" (Thirteen Stories, Preface) Alan MacGillivray is a specialist in Scottish Literature, who has lectured at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, and is a former President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. John C. McIntyre taught Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He holds a postgraduate Diploma in Scottish Literature.Table of ContentsPreface to the Collection. 'Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham: The Life; The Writings'. Note to Volume 2. Introduction. 'Thirteen Stories'. Introduction. 'Success.' Introduction. 'Progress, and Other Sketches.' Appendix. 'Cunninghame Graham's Use of the Scots Language.' Index of Stories in Volume 2.

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Book SynopsisAs the First World War looms, Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas, seventeen-year-old orphan twins, are thrust upon relatives. But Uncle Arthur, a blustering patriot, is a reluctant guardian: the twins are half-German and, who knows, they could be spying from the nursery window... Packed off to America, they meet Mr Twist, a wealthy engineer with a tendency to motherliness, who befriends them on the voyage. However, he has failed to consider the pitfalls of taking such young and beautiful women under his wing, especially two who will continue to require this protection long after the ship has docked, and who are incapable of behaving with tact. Many adventures ensue (and befall them) in this sparklingly witty, romantic novel in which Elizabeth von Armin explores the suspicions cast upon the two Annas and Mr Twist in a country poised for war.Trade ReviewA mistress of irony * Lisa St Aubin de Teran *An extremely talented writer...Elizabeth von Armin has a neat wit, a wild sense of comedy, and a vision continually thwarted though it was- of potential happiness. * Penelope Mortimer *

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Book SynopsisThe novel "Woe From Wit" by the writer and satirist, Griboyedov, is part of the Bristol Classical Press Russian texts series. The series is designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing A Level and undergraduate market for texts in the Russian language. Each text comes with English notes and vocabulary, and with an introduction by an editor with an expert knowledge both of the work and of its literary and cultural context.

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Book SynopsisVictoria Benedictsson published Money, her first novel, in 1885. Set in rural southern Sweden where the author lived, it follows the fortunes of Selma Berg, a girl whose fate has much in common with that of Madame Bovary and Ibsen's Nora. The gifted young Selma is forced to give up her dreams of going to art school when her uncle persuades her to marry, at the age of sixteen, a rich older squire. Profoundly shocked by her wedding night and by the mercenary nature of the marriage transaction, she finds herself trapped in a life of idle luxury. She finds solace in her friendship with her cousin and old sparring partner Richard; but as their mutual regard threatens to blossom into passion, she draws back from committing adultery and from the force of her own sexuality. The naturalism and implicit feminism of Money place it firmly within the radical literary movement of the 1880s known as Scandinavia's Modern Breakthrough. Benedictsson became briefly a member of that movement, but her difficult personal life and her struggles to achieve success as a writer led to her suicide only three years later.

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Book SynopsisNinety-three, the last of Victor Hugo's novels, is regarded by many -- including such diverse critics as Robert Louis Stevenson and Andre Maurois -- as his greatest work. 1793, Year Two of the Republic, saw the establishment of the National Convention, the execution of Louis XVI, the Terror, and the monarchist revolt in the Vendee, brutally suppressed by the Republic. Hugo's epic follows three protagonists through this tumultuous year: the noble royalist de Lantenac; Gauvain, who embodies a benevolent and romantic vision of the Republic; and Cimourdain, whose principles are altogether more robespierrean. The conflict of values culminates in a dramatic climax on the scaffold. Following a distinguished career as a civil servant, James Hogarth acquired a reputation as a versatile and punctilious translator. His translations span travel guides, archaeological texts, and novels. In 2002 he won the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for his English translation of Victor Hugo's Travailleurs de la Mer. He died in 2006.

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