The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle is a picaresque novel by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett (1721 – 1771), first published in 1751, and revised and reissued in 1758. It is the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle, and it provides a comic and caustic portrayal of 18th century European society. (Summary by Wikipedia) [chương_files]
Here are some classic, short Christmas stories from Charles Dickens, who, one may easily argue, was the greatest Christmas storyteller to date. In this season, may we do as Dickens’ asked: “Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted!” Happy Holidays! – Summary by jvanstan [chương_files]
Volume II continues the story of the fortunes and misfortunes of the egotistical dandy Peregrine Pickle. The novel is written as a series of adventures, with every chapter typically describing a new adventure. There is also a very long independent story, “The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality”, written by Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane, inside the novel. Frances Vane, Viscountess Vane (1715 – 1788), known as Lady Fanny, was a British memoirist known for her highly public adulterous relationships. (Wikipedia ) [chương_files]
The novel formally inverts Don Quixote: as the don mistakes himself for the knightly hero of a Romance, so Arabella mistakes herself for the maiden love of a Romance. While the don thinks it his duty to praise the Platonically pure damsels he meets (such as the woman he loves), so Arabella believes it is in her power to kill with a look and it is the duty of her lovers to suffer ordeals on her behalf. (Summary by Wikipedia) [chương_files]
This is one of the early Billy Whiskers books where he bears the title, “Junior.” Billy jumps the fence on the farm and heads west for adventures with sheep, wolves, cowboys and Indians, and meets a dog named Stubby who becomes his companion on this and future adventures. – Summary by Larry Wilson [chương_files]
This collection showcases fabricated documents and stories throughout history, and the diversity of purposes and contexts they were deployed in. The “Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal” is a fabricated anti-Catholic eye-witness account, published in 1836 and purporting to reveal the horrors of life in a convent. The Donation of Constantine is a forged imperial decree, supposedly enacting a perpetual transfer of authority over the western part of the Roman Empire from the emperor to the Pope. George Psalmanazar, who passed himself off as a native of Formosa (Taiwan), wrote a fanciful book about the island, which made a splash in 18th-century London. The Great Moon Hoax was a series of fantastical descriptions of the moon, published in the 1830s by the New York newspaper The Sun, and falsely attributed to the famous astronomer Sir John Herschel. Bram Stoker tells the legend of Sebastian of Portugal, the “Hidden King”, and the story of Franz Mesmer, the purveyor of “animal magnetism” from whose name the word “mesmerize” is derived. “An Architectural Monograph on a New England Village” is a painstakingly documented and illustrated description of a village that never existed. James Macpherson presented the Poems of Ossian as a traditional epic cycle translated from Scottish Gaelic, but modern scholars believe that he largely wrote the poems himself. E. G. Redmond tells of a hoax involving postage stamps, the first of which was conceived by a stamp collector in Germany. “Sketch of the Mosquito Shore” was a glowing but […]
This book, the fiend’s delight, was published in 1873, during the lifetime of author Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914, pseudonym Dod Grile. It is a collection of short stories which cover many subjects. Dependent upon the reader the stories may seem callous, entertaining or some of the stories even just weird. The author has been known to have a penchant for being macabre as some of his works have displayed. Ambrose Bierce served in the Civil War so he did have personal experience with having seen just how horrid some lives were. He also had a family: a wife whom he divorced in 1904 and 3 children, 2 sons and a daughter. Difficult times followed for him as the sons died before Ambrose died, with his ex wife dying 1 year after their divorce. Ambrose himself was known to have had lifelong asthma & brain injuries from the war which caused him to faint & become irritable. His daughter did live 65 years, dying in 1940. She spent time searching for her father, whom she did not think was dead. Possibly his family is why some of his writings were not so macabre? Unfortunately that answer is not known. Leaving to visit his civil war grounds had him traveling into Mexico were there was revolution in 1913. There he joined Pancho Villa’s army as an observer where he disappeared. Many theories existed as to how his disappearance happened, most of which were unreliable. It was determined his final fate was unknown & […]
The location is the English Lake District and the characters very ordinary people. Mrs. Blencarrow is a widow with five children and control of her late husband’s small estate. She is eminently respectable and is involved with the usual round of tea and dinner parties as expected in a quiet town. She is unremarkable, apart from her disdain for scandal, or even gossip of any kind. Imagine the surprise when a stranger describes her as “a woman with a history”? That can only mean a disreputable past or even a scandal, but as she has lived in the community for 18 years, without a hint, what could it possibly be? [chương_files]
Published anonymously in 1894, “A Superfluous Woman” quickly became one of the most widely read of the “New Woman” novels that appeared at the end of the 19th century. At the opening of the story, we find Jessamine Halliday, a pampered young aristocrat, languishing and apparently close to death. Her desperate family has called in a maverick doctor, who recognizes that she suffers from the idleness and listlessness too often experienced by upper-class English women. The only “medicine” she needs is a change of thinking and new self-awareness. Accordingly, the doctor coaches her to think more critically about her role as a woman and about the uses of meaningful labor. (Partly, this doctor is a spokesperson for the author: Emma Brooke was prominently engaged in feminist and socialist thought.) Jessamine tries to radically re-invent herself by fleeing London (and a looming high-society marriage), to seek humble work as a farm helper in Scotland. It turns out, however, that it is not so easy to cast off the assumptions and controls of a lifetime. (Summary by Bruce Pirie) [chương_files]
I scruple not to confess that with all her faults, and she has some, I love her dearly : I owe her many mirthful moments, and the deeper pleasure still of believing that she has brought mirthful moments to others also. Honestly avowing this to be the case, can any one wonder, can any one blame me, for feeling an affectionate longing at my heart to follow her upon the expedition upon which I sent her when last we parted’? I will forthwith proceed to tell them all that has happened to this dear excellent lady since General Hubert and Mr. Stephenson left her in her grand drawing-room in Curzon-street, surrounded by her family and friends. – Summary by Frances Milton Trollope [chương_files]
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