Mostrando resultados por narrador "Mitchley Richard" en Todas las categorías

Death is a subject that few of us talk about, but many think about and more than a few of us dread. Whether it is the actual end of our life’s journey or merely a transit point to heavenly glory, its actual point of impact is, obviously, life-changing. But what do poets think of it? How do their minds tangle with the subject and make sense of this? That’s what we wondered too. Poets as rich and diverse as Tennyson, Hardy, Shelley, and Poe here share their words, thoughts and visions with us.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. This decade is resplendent with literature and its many prodigiously talented authors who write on as varied a range of subjects as might be thought possible. Yet each is studded with careful literary precision and narrative verve. It is a remarkable decade.

Captain Lionel Wafer and his fellow-pirates - Toad, Brace-and-Bit and Winkle, are no ordinary ruffians. Clinging to the belief that life should be simple, free and unplanned they set off in a converted teashop of a ship, renamed The Sinful Sausage, to sail backwards and forwards over the bounding blue. In no time a dastardly plan has formed in Captain Wafer's mind to kidnap the famous inventor, Humbert Cash-Cash, from his sunshine retreat and purloin his inventions - or at the very least pinch his diamond doorknob.

The Man Who Would Be King. This rich wonderfully written classic features two opportunists who venture into remote Central Asia with the intention of acquiring a country to rule. Their adventures meet with surprising initial success but then.....

Love has many forms, many needs. Some fall into the dark, into the shadows. Forbidden love has connotations of desire, of possession but also of matters far more unsavoury. It’s a delicate facet of love that our classic authors explain with careful words and superbly crafted narratives.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

We are all driven by needs, desires, ambitions and many other forces. Life runs as normal with the obligatory ups and downs. In this volume such literary leviathans as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nikolai Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and many others provide tales from pens that seep with wisdom and worry.

Many giants of literature originate from the shores of the emerald isles: Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, the Brontes, and Austen, to which most people would willingly add the name Thomas Hardy. Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and The Mayor of Casterbridge are but three of his literary masterpieces. But let us go further and add to his canon his poems....

Poetry has over the centuries grouped poets or poems into many different themes and movements. Amongst its most unusual movements are the English wordsmiths, The Silver Poets. This select band lived during the sixteenth century reign of Queen Elizabeth 1st. Amongst their storied ranks were Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Davies, Michael Drayton and Mary Sidney (Herbert), the Countess of Pembroke.

Robert Louis Stevenson. In the Scottish canon to be placed alongside Burns is high praise indeed but it’s a rightful place for one of Scotland’s finest novelists and here, poets. Born in 1850 he managed to cram much into his 44 years travelling widely to France, The States, Samoa and the South Seas.

Kabir, meaning "Great" and one of the 99 names of God in Arabic, was a mystic and poet, born around 1440 in Varanasi to poor Muslim parents. Another account claims he was the child of a Brahmin widow. He himself said he was "at once the child of Allah and Ram". Kabir grew up learning his father’s craft of weaving and overcame many obstacles to become a disciple of Saint, or Swami, Ramananda, the leading pioneer of the Bhakti movement, which promoted salvation for all.

The English language has grown into the world’s pre-dominant spoken language, containing over one million words. Its sources are rich and diverse, having absorbed words from other cultures and times without hesitation. With such talents as Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Kipling, Blake, and many other classic poets using this most flexible language to render their thoughts and visions, it is no wonder that the beauty and reach of English entrances us.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France. Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.

The beautiful island of Ireland has endured a history that is pock-marked with struggle and oppression, with religious division and self-serving administrations. It has sacrificed its youth in wars, its generations in famines and emigration, but it has never forsaken its calling that Ireland is a beacon of dignity, humanity and a home for words and literature of every description. Across the centuries, whatever its joys or torments, its poets have assembled verse that speaks from its soul.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. Whether they hail from the Lowlands or the Highlands, to be a Scottish author is to part of a quite an extraordinary band of authors and its literary traditions. These beguiling stories example the full range and majesty of their talents and the subjects they explore.

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents from the literary landscape of Continental Europe and its male authors whose time has now come again.

As Islam moved from its Arabian heartland to a wider geographic area, its core message remained albeit adapted to different lands, to different ears. Poets were ever eager to provide an alternate way of delivering the ‘message’ in beautiful verse. Their simplicity was embracing, their ornateness a humble offering to greater forces. The poems here are both profound and wide-ranging.

John Clare was born on 13th July, 1793 in Helpston, a few miles north of Peterborough. Schooled only until the age of 12, his early career was that of agricultural labourer, pot boy, gardener and lime burner. His early life of hardship and frequent malnutrition led to his diminutive stature of five feet and contributed to his later health problems. In 1820 his first poems were published and began to earn him a reputation as the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. His poetry sold well, but only occasionally did that and other incomes keep his head above water.

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.

Milton was to now publish his greatest works, which had been gestating for many years. Paradise Lost, perhaps the classic English epic poem was originally published in 10 books in 1667. This was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in 1671. Because of his anti-monarchy views their reception was muted, but over the centuries since, Milton has established himself as second only to Shakespeare. He died of kidney failure on November 8th, 1674, and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate.