Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a 'hired girl', Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.
Het leven in Hannibal, een dorpje van minder dan tweeduizend inwoners aan de Mississippi, dat in De avonturen van Tom Sawyer Sint-Petersburg is gedoopt. De wereld van Twains jeugd, met haar trage leeftempo, gemoedelijkheid, kleinburgerlijke knusheid en plattelandsgezelligheid, is wellicht nergens beter beschreven dan in Tom Sawyer.
Referring to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, " H. L. Mencken noted that his discovery of this classic American novel was "the most stupendous event of my whole life"; Ernest Hemingway declared that "all modern American literature stems from this one book," while T. S. Eliot called Huck "one of the permanent symbolic figures of fiction, not unworthy to take a place with Ulysses, Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet." The novel's preeminence derives from its wonderfully imaginative re-creation of boyhood adventures along the mighty Mississippi River, its inspired characterization, the author's remarkable ear for dialogue, and the book's understated development of serious underlying themes: "natural" man versus "civilized" society, the evils of slavery, the innate value and dignity of human beings, the stultifying effects of convention, and other topics. But most of all, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a wonderful story filled with high adventure and unforgettable characters (including the great river itself) that no one who has read it will ever forget. Unabridged Dover (1994) republication of the text of the first American edition, published by Charles L. Webster and Company, New York, 1885. New introductory Note."
Childers's lone masterpiece, The Riddle of the Sands, considered the first modern spy thriller, is recognisable as the brilliant forerunner of the realism of Graham Greene and John le Carre. Its unique flavour comes from its fine characterization, richly authentic background of inshore sailing and vivid evocation of the late 1890s - an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and intrigue that was soon to lead to war.
If you find a locked room in a lonely inn, don't try to open it, even on a bright sunny day. If you find a strange whistle hidden among the stones of an old church, don't blow it. If a mysterious man gives you a piece of paper with strange writing on it, give it back to him at once. And if you call a dead man from his grave, don't expect to sleep peacefully ever again. Read these five ghost stories by daylight, and make sure your door is locked.