Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

The adventures of Tyltyl and The Fairy Berylune. Of all the girls he knows, who does he love the most? Read on to find out. - Summary by Michele EatonCast List:Gaffer Tyl: Alan MapstoneNeighbour: Alan MapstoneThe Miser: Algy PugJalline: Annie MarsAimette: Belinda LovedayRoselle: Matea BracicChild: Jenn BrodaBelline/Child: Joanna Michal HoytThe Great Ancestor/Daddy Tyl: Wayne CookeMummy Tyl: SoniaRosarelle: Kelly S TaylorMytyl: Lauren-Emma BlakeLight: LydiaNarrator: MichaelMaggsMilette: MinnieSmallest Child: Mira WilliamsAnother Child 1: Jim LockeThe Shape/Destiny: Andrew GaunceBeryllune the ...

Catherine is a beautiful woman, and despite being a respectable married woman, enjoys matchmaking, flirting and mischief. The tale is set in the French countryside, amid a simple people, who are no match for her machinations. - Summary by LynneT

The Egoist is a tragi-comical novel by George Meredith published in 1879. The novel recounts the story of self-absorbed Sir Willoughby Patterne and his attempts at marriage; jilted by his first bride-to-be, he vacillates between the sentimental Laetitia Dale and the strong-willed Clara Middleton. More importantly, the novel follows Clara's attempts to escape from her engagement to Sir Willoughby, who desires women to serve as a mirror for him and consequently cannot understand why she would not want to marry him. Thus, The Egoist dramatizes the difficulty contingent upon being a woman in ...

The Chateau D'Or, or The Castle of Gold, looked gloomy and gray from the train rattling through the French countryside from Paris to Marseilles. How did it get its grand name? Stories and legends abound, but this is just one as related by two interested travelers. Also included are two shorter stories, Norah and Kitty Craig - Summary by LynneT

In his mid-70s, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé took on the project of recording the culture and heritage of French Canada, especially that of the late 1700s, the world of his youth. The result, published in French in 1863, was the historical fiction "Les Anciens Canadiens (literally, “The Canadians of Old”).In this book, inspired by the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott, Aubert de Gaspé collects the customs, traditions, folk tales, superstitions, and songs of the Quebec people, weaves in memories of life in his own ancestral home, and sets all this within the momentous historical events ...

This collection from renowned author Washington Irving (famed for his haunting tale "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the fantastical legend of "Rip Van Winkle") offers a diverse mix of stories ranging from the spooky and strange supernatural folk tales surrounding his native New England to stories more exotic of ancient legends and travel sketches from faraway places reflective of the time Irving spent journeying through Europe. - Summary by Ben Tucker

Edward Sylvester Ellis was a major American author during the era of inexpensive fiction of the nineteenth century (dime novels). Because he wrote under dozens of pseudonyms, as well as under his own name, it is virtually impossible to know exactly how many books he wrote, but it is believed to be in the hundreds. He specialized in boys' stories, inspirational biography, and history for both children and adults. (From FictionDB.com)This is a western, set in the Pecos River valley in the late 19th century, post Civil War era. This is the sequel to "In the Pecos Country", and the second half of ...

As ranchers in Alberta, Canada release their horses into the wild to graze through the winter, one horse struggles to retain her independence from man and lead her herd to freedom in the open wilds. - Summary by Aaron Hackett

Blueblooded mama's boy Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones is swept overboard during a south seas voyage for his lifelong ill health. He finds himself on a jungle island. His bookish education has not prepared him to cope with these surroundings, and he is a coward. He is terrified when he encounters primitive, violent men, ape-like throwbacks in mankind's evolutionary history. He runs from them, but when he reaches a dead end, he successfully makes a stand, astonishing himself. While keeping the hairy brutes at bay, he meets a beautiful girl, Nadara, also on the run. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he ...

First published in 1893, this novel came to question many subjects which were considered taboo. Through a few interconnected plots and sub plots, the story examines the role of women and the different opportunities women and men had. Through the twins of the title, a girl and a boy, and through two other ladies we discover the Victorian world in a different light. What does a woman have to do if, after marriage, she discovers very unsettling things about her husband's past? Yes, society expects her to stay with him and honor the marriage. But what if she is not willing? What are women expected...

"The Fall of the Nibelungs" is Margaret Armour's plain prose translation from the middle high German of the "Nibelungenlied", a poetic saga of uncertain authorship written about the year 1200. The story is believed by many to be based on the destruction of the Burgundians, a Germanic tribe, in 436 by mercenary Huns recruited for the task by the Roman general Flavius Aëtius. The introduction to the 1908 edition summarizes the story, "And so 'the discord of two women,' to quote Carlyle, 'is as a little spark of evil passion, which ere long enlarges itself into a crime; foul murder is done; and ...

When George Randolph first caught sight of Orena, he was astounded by its gleaming perfection. Here were hills and valleys, lakes and streams, glowing with the light of the most precious of metals. And, more astonishing than that, it was a world of miniature perfection—an infinitely tiny universe within a golden atom!But for Randolph it was also a world aglow with danger. Somewhere in its tiny vastness were the friends he had to rescue. Captives of a madman, they had been reduced to native Orena size; to return to Earth they needed the growth capsules Randolph was bringing them. It was up to...

Beyond the Horizon is a 1920 play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It was O'Neill's first full-length work, and the winner of the 1920 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play focuses on the portrait of a family, and particularly two brothers Andrew and Robert. In the first act of the play, Robert is about to go off to sea with their uncle Dick, a sea captain while Andrew looks forward to marrying his sweetheart Ruth and working on the family farm as he starts a family. (Summary by Wikipedia)CastJames Mayo: Delmar H. DolbierKate Mayo: Amy L. GramourCaptain Dick Scott: Algy PugAndrew ...

Charles Hanson Towne was a well known editor, author and poet. He was a popular New York celebrity who was considered by many as being the quintessential New Yorker. Besides being the editor at such magazines as Smart Set, Delineator, McClure’s, Designer, and Harper’s Bazaar, Towne also taught poetry at Columbia University. His most notable student was author J.D. Salinger. At the age of 63, Town joined the company of the Broadway hit, Life with Father, and at 68 wrote his autobiography, So Far, So Good. - Summary by Nemo

Beautiful, playful young Deirdre, caught in the crosshairs of Ireland's wily, chauvinistic King Conachur, who desires to marry her after his own wife Maeve has escaped his clutches, is one of many prequels to the legend of “The Great Tain”, Ireland's national epic. Sometimes called "The Irish Iliad", this saga of war between rival Irish and Scottish kings, with its many characters, was preserved in oral tradition with many variations, until committed to writing in the Middle Ages. Stephens gives his own interpretation, insights and humor of the Deirdre story as he spins court intrigue, ...

One dark winter's day in the north of Finland, Father Mikko seeks shelter in an isolated cabin till a storm abates. After dinner the family sit around the fire, and the daughter asks him to tell them "all the stories he had ever heard from the very beginning of the world all the way down", and so the book begins. In the words of the author "If this little volume may in any degree awake some interest in the Finnish people its author will be amply satisfied, and its end will have been attained." ( Annise)

A rollicking juvenile adventure tale, this historical fiction book received the Newbery Honor award in 1922. Set in England during the early 1200s, the scion of a Western Marches noble family relates the many encounters and battles that he faces with the Saxon yeoman who becomes his fast friend. This yeoman, great of cross-bow skill and strategy, often saves the day, and after earning knighthood, becomes instrumental in the making of the Magna Carta. - Summary by Lynette Caulkins

Cattle Brands is a collection of 14 entertaining short stories depicting not only the life of cowboys in the wild, wild West, but also the harrowing skirmishes with banditos, thrilling shoot-outs, attempt at and the recapture of stolen chattel from fierce desperados, and much, much more exciting accounts that make one think it all actually happened. (Summary by Kehinde)

William Wilfred Campbell was a Canadian author and poet. Some of his poems are among the most famous Canadian poems of all time, and many contemporary Canadians interested in poetry may be familiar with one or two of his poems. The rest of his work is not very well-known today - a pitiful oversight. This collection contains 36 of his poems, and may serve as a good reintroduction into Campbell's poetry. - Summary by Carolin

This is a collection of 26 selections, both fiction and nonfiction, in which each topic begins with a different letter of the alphabet.