Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

Alcott in 1862 served as a nurse in Georgetown, D.C during the Civil War. She wrote home what she observed there. Those harrowing and sometimes humorous letters compiled make up Hospital Sketches. (Summary by Aaron Elliott)

The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck. On the night of Christmas a boy and a girl, Tyltil and Mytil, are visited by Fairy Berilyuna. Fairy's granddaughter is sick and can only be saved by the Blue Bird. Thanks to the Fairy's magic gift children have the opportunity to see the soul of things. Inanimate objects Clocks, Fire, Water, Bread, Sugar, Milk transformed into beings with their own character. Together, they set off on a dangerous journey for the fabulous Blue Bird. The play is inspired with the deep idea of the author "be brave enough to see the hidden." - ...

The Old Testament, translated by an American committee lead by S.H. Hooke, using Basic English, a simplified English vernacular developed by linguist Charles Kay Ogden for use in teaching English to non-native speakers and as an international auxiliary language. Basic English utilizes a limited vocabulary of around 850 English words. - Summary by Mark Penfold

The Articles of Confederation: On November 15th, 1777 The Articles of Confederation became the first constitution of the United States, though not yet ratified by the thirteen original colonies. Ratification of the Articles took place almost three and a half years later on March 1st, 1781. The purpose of the articles was to create a confederation of sovereign states with a weak central government; thus allowing state governments to wield most of the power. It wasn’t long before the need for a stronger federal government was realized which led to the Articles being replaced by the United ...

LibriVox’s Short Mystery Story Collection 002: a collection of 10 short works of mysterious fiction in the public domain read by a group of LibriVox members.

In this collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, the great detective continues doing what he does best: averting political scandals, tracking down murderers, dragging Dr. Watson into unpleasant situations. As always, it's adventurous fun for the rest of us. This book was published in 1917, after The Return of Sherlock Holmes. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time, (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens' Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first of the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centers around a Professor Redlaw and those close to him. (Summary from the Wikipedia)

This story presents through letters, poems and third-person commentary the love affair between a young man named Freeman Jones and a married woman named Elinor, lady of the castle he is visiting in Scotland. Events in the affair are traced from initial attraction through seduction to (somewhat) graphic sexual encounters and their aftermath. (Allegedly based on a real-life scandal, the author, in re-issuing his story two years later, transplanted the action to Italy, renaming the principals Fernando Jeronimi and Leonora.) (Summary by Grant Hurlock)

This first collection of the correspondence of Oscar Wilde begins with the Irish playwright's earliest extant letter, thanking his mother for the hamper she had sent to him at school. It includes letters about his travels in Italy, his American lecture tour, the staging of his first play (Vera, or the Nihilists), arrangements for the publication of a friend's poetry collection, and exchanges in the press with artist James McNeill Whistler. The letters, some of which have been excerpted or redacted, are sourced from auction catalogues, newspapers, biographies, and other texts in the public ...

"The Story of the Exploration of Australia is one which we cannot willingly let die. There are many reasons for keeping alive the remembrance of such heroic deeds. It is due to the memory of those men who took their lives in their hands, and, in many cases, laid their bones in the desert; it is an act of gratitude on our part, who have entered on their labours; and it is a kind of information indispensable to every Australian who desires to know the history of his country." - Summary from the Author's Preface

LibriVox volunteers bring you seven different recordings of The Oxen, by Thomas Hardy. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of December 17th, 2006.

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 ...

A dragon who flies out of a magical book; one whose purr quiets a fussy baby; another who eats an entire pack of tame hunting-hippopotomuses: These eight dragon tales are filled with the imaginative wit of children's author Edith Nesbit. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

Robinson Crusoe, único superviviente de un naufragio, es arrastrado por las olas a la playa de una isla desierta. Robinson, confiando en su ingenio, hará de todo para poder sobrevivir. Pero un día descubre que no está completamente solo en la isla... (Tux)

Esta obra narra la vida de David Copperfield desde su infancia hasta la madurez. El padre de David muere seis meses antes de que él naciera, y siete años después, su madre se vuelve a casar, pero David y su padrastro no se llevan bien, y DAvid es enviado por ello a un internado. A medida que David va labrando su vida, nos encontramos con una deslumbrante variedad de amigos, compañeros, familiares, el amor, los celos,la miseria, la avaricia, la traición, unos personajes inolvidables y otros que no querremos recordar, hasta el descubrimiento, al final de su vida, de una felicidad completa. ...

It is the early days of The Great War. As the curtain rises, Sara Lee is sitting by the fire in her aunt and uncle’s home, knitting a baby afghan. Her beau’s name is Harvey. He has his eye on a little house that is just perfect for two and he will soon propose to Sara Lee. But in this play, the mise en scène is about to change. A fairyland transformation will take place and Sara Lee will step into a new and different story, where she is the princess in a forest of adventure. There is a prince, too, whose name is Henri. He is as strange as the forest itself. And then just as suddenly, the ...

The Holy Sonnets—also known as the Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets—are a series of nineteen poems by the English poet John Donne (1572–1631). The sonnets were first published in 1633—two years after Donne's death. Summary from Wikipedia.

As much as any other work of literature, Henri Murger’s 1851 collection of witty sketches Scènes de la vie de bohème shaped the later romanticized image of the bohemian artist: independent, insouciant, exuberantly lustful, devoted to Art for Art’s sake no matter how cold and hungry the artist might be. Four young Parisian artists, Schaunard the composer, Marcel the painter, Rodolphe the poet, and Colline the philosopher, form an informal Bohemian alliance dedicated to Art and the joy of Life. Pretty and faithless young mistresses come and go from their beds, most notably Mimi, Phémie, ...

The finished draft of a short novel by Mary Shelley. Its adult theme, concerning a father's incestuous love for his daughter and its consequences, meant that the manuscript was suppressed by Shelley's own father, and not published until 1959, more than a hundred years after her death.

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. (Summary by Wikipedia)CastEbenezer Scrooge: Andy MinterFred: mbBob Cratchit: David RichardsonGentleman: Martin LangerJacob Marley: Algy PugGhost of Christmas Past: Tricia GFan/Tiny Tim: rashadaYoung Scrooge/Peter Cratchit: Paul AndrewsSchoolmaster/Man 2: Peter ...