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01/08/2024
Secresy, or, the Ruin on the Rock cover

Secresy, or, the Ruin on the Rock

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This is the story of Caroline and Sibella, two female friends. Strong and smart women who try to make it in a man’s world while keeping their values and loyalties intact. The only way to do that is to hide a few secrets. Yet secrets cannot remain hidden for ever, and everything has a price. This is both a social novel and a gothic novel. A true page turner with all the elements of a good 18th century novel: a woman locked in an estate, a hidden pregnancy, some politics of marriage, villains, sentimentality and thought provoking philosophy. Summary by Stav Nisser.     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Letters of a Portuguese Nun cover

Letters of a Portuguese Nun

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The Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Les Lettres Portugaises) were first published anonymously in Paris in 1669. The five passionate letters in book form were a publishing sensation since their appearance, with five editions in the first year, followed by more than forty editions throughout the 17th century. A Cologne edition of 1669 stated that the Marquis de Chamilly was their addressee, but, aside from the fact that she was female, the author’s name and identity remained unknown. The letters were translated in several languages, and set a precedent for sentimentalism in European culture at large, and for the literary genres of the sentimental novel and the epistolary novel into the 18th century. The interest in the Letters was so strong that the word “portugaise” became synonymous with “a passionate love-letter” in the 17th century. The authorship of the work was assigned to Mariana Alcoforado, a Portuguese nun, as early as the 18th century. During the 20th century, however, many scholars have supported the idea that they are a work of epistolary fiction written by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues, a French politician, who had been secretary of the King’s Chamber and also director of the Gazette de France. Nevertheless, any doubts about the authorship do not detract from the beauty and power of the letters themselves, presented here in a prose translation followed by a versified one. – Summary by Leni     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Laodicean cover

Laodicean

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The Laodicean (someone whose religious beliefs are “lukewarm”) of the title is Paula Power who bought the ancient castle De Stancy which she is determined to restore. Being of a modern frame of mind, she has the telegraph connected to the castle – and uses it all the time in the course of the story. George Somerset is a young architect who is invited to compete for the chance of the commission to restore the castle and who falls in love with Paula. However, the brother of Paula’s great friend Charlotte De Stancy – of the aristocratic family that once owned the castle – aided by his villainous illegitimate son, sets out to win Paula for himself. Although Paula likes the idea of being a De Stancy, she is drawn to George from the start. The various machinations of De Stancy and his son keep the narrative moving along at a fast pace. Summary by Simon Evers     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Old Friends, Essays in Epistolary Parody cover

Old Friends, Essays in Epistolary Parody

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“Every fancy which dwells much with the unborn and immortal characters of Fiction must ask itself, Did the persons in contemporary novels never meet? In so little a world their paths must often have crossed, their orbits must have intersected, though we hear nothing about the adventure from the accredited narrators. In historical fiction authors make their people meet real men and women of history—Louis XI., Lazarus, Mary Queen of Scots, General Webbe, Moses, the Man in the Iron Mask, Marie Antoinette; the list is endless. But novelists, in spite of Mr. Thackeray’s advice to Alexandre Dumas, and of his own example in “Rebecca and Rowena,” have not introduced each other’s characters” (from the Introduction). In this volume, Andrew Lang shows, what a letter from one fictional character to another might look like.     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again cover

Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again

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This satire on the U.S.A.’s myth of being the “Home of the Oppressed, where all men are free and equal”, is unrelenting in its pursuit of justice through exposure. It draws a scathingly shameful portrait of how Chinese immigrants were treated in 19th century San Francisco. (Introduction by John Greenman)     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 3 cover

Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady – Volume 3

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Clarissa Harlowe, is the tragic heroine of this story, she is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Originally they planned to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowe’s into the possession of James Harlowe, Clarissa’s brother whose wealth and political power will lead to his being given a title. Clarissa’s grandfather has left her a substantial piece of property upon his death, and a new route to the nobility opens through Clarissa marrying Robert Lovelace, heir to an earldom. James’s response is to provoke a duel with Lovelace, who is seen thereafter as the family’s enemy. James also proposes that Clarissa marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James to concentrate James’s holdings and speed his becoming Lord Harlowe. The family agrees and attempts to force Clarissa to marry Solmes, whom she finds physically disgusting as well as boorish. The story continues to twist and turn through a series of letters written between two women, two men and a variety of other characters which continues throughout the 9 volumes of the book. (Summary by Michele Eaton)     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Coquette, Or The History of Eliza Wharton cover

Coquette, Or The History of Eliza Wharton

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The classic early American epistolary novel about the seduction and ruin of a passionate young woman. Based on the true story of Elizabeth Whitman, whose lonesome death in childbirth in a Connecticut inn sparked widespread discussion and outrage, the novel went through many editions and innumerable printings in the century after its initial publication in 1797. (Summary by Jon Miller)     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 6 cover

Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady – Volume 6

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It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, It is generally regarded as Richardson’s masterpiece. This is Volume six out of a series of nine Volumes. Letter 6 read by TriciaG, wib66, Timothy Ferguson and Adonis. ( Michele Eaton )     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 4 cover

Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady – Volume 4

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Volume 4 continues the story in epistolary form of the despoliation of Clarissa, as all the forces of society and the personal nefariousness of the devilish rake Lovelace conspire to overcome her virtue. One of the earliest and certainly the longest novel in the English language, with a wide-ranging influence not only on the English novel, but also on nineteenth century European literature at large, it is gripping, twisted and a magnificent dramatic soap opera. – Summary by Nicole Lee     [chương_files]  

31/07/2024
Letters to Dead Authors cover

Letters to Dead Authors

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With twenty two letters, addressed to various already deceased authors, Andrew Lang discusses literary subjects with his usual humour and acidity. The impulse for the writing of the letters came, almost as a joke, from the editor of the ‘St. James’s Gazette,’ and sixteen of the letters collected in the volume appeared first in that journal. According to the author, “some of the Letters are written rather to suit the Correspondent than to express the writer’s own taste or opinions”; in all of them, though, the reader will find the charming wit of their author. (Summary by Leni)     [chương_files]