Download or read book Krambambuli The District Doctor Two Novellas German Classics written by Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Austrian writer Baroness (Freifrau) Marie von Ebner Eschenbach (1830-1916) was one of the foremost novelists in the German tongue, and one of the best short-story writers in the world. The Austrian aristocracy with their Slavo-German dependents in the Moravian villages constitute the world of her fiction. Country and city are her theatres, noble and peasant keep the balance. All forms of the short-story are at her command: letters, diaries, dialogues, and that most difficult of all forms, the story within a story. --- Where can be found a more concrete and genial characterization of the leading political lords and ladies, more lifelike portraits of officialdom and of the much abused peasantry than in her historic tale "The District Doctor" (1883), which has as its background the bloody peasant uprisings in Galicia in 1846? Where do we find human sympathy ethically and artistically more refined than in her little masterpiece "Krambambuli" (1883), the story of a dog with spotless pedigree who, like Rudiger in the Nibelungen, perishes in the vain attempt to serve two masters? --- Of the qualities that make up a great writer she has the deep and high truth of substance. She does not view the world in the rosy light of the idyll. She never seeks to avoid the ugly. But more, she puts a high moral interpretation on human life. Her ethics is proof against all egotism and will bear comparison with that of the great moralists, ancient and modern."

Download or read book The Sandman The Elementary Spirit Two Mysterious Tales German Classics written by E. T. A. Hoffmann and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No literature can produce a more original writer than Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776 1822), a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann). His works are very numerous and were published at Berlin in fifteen volumes. He is the subject and hero of Jacques Offenbach's famous but fictional opera The Tales of Hoffmann.---Of the two tales in this book, "The Sandman" is from the collection "Night Pieces," and The Elementary Spirit is from his "Later Works." In these stories, Hoffmann's purpose is to point out the ill-effect of a morbid desire after an imaginary world, and a distaste for realities. Different as their adventures are, there is a striking similarity in the characters of Nathaniel (in "The Sandman") and Victor (in "The Elementary Spirit"). However wild may be the subjects of Hoffmann, and however rambling his method of treating them, his style is remarkably lucid.---The story of the Sandman had its origin in a discussion which actually took place between La Motte Fouque (a German writer of the romantic movement, 1777 1843) and some friends, at which Hoffmann was present. Some of the party found fault with the cold, mechanical deportment of a young lady of their acquaintance, while La Motte Fouque zealously defended her. Here Hoffmann caught the notion of the automaton Olympia, and the arguments used by Nathaniel are those that were employed by La Motte Fouque."

Download or read book The Cold Heart Nose the Dwarf Two German Tales written by Wilhelm Hauff and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilhelm Hauff was a writer of extraordinary fancy and invention, but working for a more obvious purpose, and producing narratives more related in character to popular legends. He was born in 1802, at Stuttgard, and in early life showed a great predilection for telling childish narratives. Being designed for the theological profession, he went to the University of Tubingen in 1820. --- On leaving the university, Hauff became tutor to the children of the Wurttemberg minister of war, General Ernst Eugen Freiherr von Hugel, and for them wrote his Tales, which he published in his "Almanach of Tales for the year 1826". --- Only a few of his famous tales take place in Germany, among them the "Nose, the Dwarf" and "The Cold Heart." --- Hauff needs only to be known to become popular in any country. His works, which are somewhat numerous, were published in a complete edition by the poet Gustav Schwab, in 1830. Wilhelm Hauff died in 1827, before he had completed his twenty-sixth year.

Download or read book God s Beloved German Classics written by Bernhard Kellermann and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What we find in the insane asylum of 'God's Beloved' are strange human communities, presented in the characteristic atmosphere of their milieu. Kellermann was a seeker after new forms of expression for psychical reaction; but he presented himself as a pure nature of great delicacy and lucidity." (Kuno Francke)

Download or read book Persuasion Northanger Abbey Two Novels written by Jane Austen and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology contains two of Austen's works, "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey."

Download or read book Two People written by Donald Windham and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Two People" is about a love affair in Rome between a middle-aged American and a much younger Italian, but the word "people" in the title is both singular and plural, dealing with two cultures as well as with two individuals. First published in 1965, when the word "gay" in its sexual implications was little used or even recognized by heterosexuals, "Two People" anticipated many novels about same-sex relationships that followed. Neglected for over forty years, this moving novel has now been republished in a more tolerant climate.

Download or read book The Poor Musician German Classics The Life of Grillparzer written by Franz Grillparzer and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Poor Musician" is an autobiographical novella by Austria's famous dramatist and poet Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872): Rounded and compacted, and yet saturated with the sad tragedy of his own isolation -- it is the most artistic work we have from his pen. For the student of Grillparzer-psychology it is a veritable treasure trove. "The Poor Musician" was the one piece of his creative genius that unflinchingly grappled with the great problem of resignation; the one piece that pictured resignation; but also the one piece that made resignation itself tragic. --- The poor, half-witted fiddler, shipwrecked in life, coddling his woe as the last sweet treasure it has left him, pouring it forth in the midnight solitude of his chamber in music that is music to none but the illusioned player -- such is resignation.

Download or read book Trials and Tribulations A Berlin Novel Irrungen Wirrungen German Classics written by Theodor Fontane and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gentle melancholy of two people coming together in a way which can never lead to full satisfaction, the quiet tragedy of a separation not forced by external powers but by the constant pressure of circumstances-this is what sounds through this splendid story. "Trials and Tribulations" is built entirely on this motive. An honest sturdy young officer and a decent pretty girl get to know each other on an excursion. Unconsciously they drift into a relation where heart meets heart, the breaking of which causes the deepest pain. But both see clearly from the beginning that there is no other end. For they know that the world is stronger than the individual, and the many small moments than the one supreme. They know it, for they are, like their creator, resigned realists. They shut their eyes only in order not to see the end too near. (Richard M. Meyer)---The interest of Fontane's novels lies rather in character than in action. While he portrays many types characteristic of Berlin and the surrounding region, and is very successful in rendering local color and the atmosphere of the particular circle described in each book, his penetration into universal human nature is sufficiently deep to raise him far above provincialism. His effort is to represent people vividly and naturally in their normal relations, not to strain after sensational or even dramatic situations. "Trials and Tribulations" ("Irrungen Wirrungen", 1887) gives an excellent idea of his power. In a gently moving story, told without the forcing of emotion or the contriving of exciting scenes, he deals with the pathos of the relation between a man and a woman, alike in an attractive simplicity of character, but forced apart by difference of rank. The situation is laid before us without expressed censure or protest, and is allowed to have its effect by the sober truth of its presentation. Fontane's is an honest and sincere art, none the less great because unpretentious. (W.A.N.)

Download or read book The Jewess of Toledo German Classics written by Franz Grillparzer and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Franz Grillparzer (1791 - 1872) was an Austrian dramatic poet. "The Jewess of Toledo" may perhaps be said to mark the climax of his productive activity. Written in 1851, it was first performed in Prague in 1872, after Grillparzer's death. It is an eminently modern drama of passion in classical dignity of form. The play is properly called "The Jewess of Toledo"; for Rachel, the Jewess, is at the centre of the action, and is a marvelous creation – "a mere woman, nothing but her sex". The King of Castile, however, though relatively passive, is the most important character. He is attracted to Rachel by a charm that he has never known in his coldly virtuous English consort, and, after an error forgivable because made comprehensible, is taught the duty of personal sacrifice to morality and to the state.

Download or read book The Monk s Marriage Swiss German Classics written by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825-1898) was a poet and novelist, born in Zürich, Switzerland. Meyer was preeminently the artist among German novelists; his style is polished and finely balanced; his scenes are delineated with infinite care, and his subjects always have a certain inner harmony with the spirit of the author's own time. In "The Monk's Marriage" Meyer reached the highest development of the "frame-story." It has been universally admired for the genius and audacity of its invention, for its artistic elaboration, and for the wonderful pen-portrait of Dante, "the wanderer through Hell," whose personality dominates the whole story as he narrates it. This introduction of Dante was a bold stroke, justified only by success. The plot of the tale itself is based upon an account (in Machiavelli's "History of Florence") of a family feud which began the bitter factional strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in Florence. The frame is a masterpiece, generally more admired than the story. The tale is characteristically Italian, with its sudden changes of fortune, the breathless development of the plot, the volcanic outburst of passion. The plot, one of the few in Meyer's works in which love is the dominant note, is well developed and told with consummate art. The language is noticeable for its stately dignity, such as befits the character of the narrator, the great Dante. The story has one of "those murderous finales which are Meyer's delight," as Gottfried Keller once wrote to Theodor Storm. And yet, The "Monk's Marriage" ranks as one of the best, if not the best, of Meyer's Novellen.

Download or read book Ghost Stories written by Rudyard Kipling and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is not exactly a book of downright ghost-stories as the cover makes belief. It is rather a collection of facts that never quite explained themselves. All that the collector is certain of is, that one man insisted upon dying because he believed himself to be haunted; another man either made up a wonderful lie and stuck to it, or visited a very strange place; while the third man was indubitably crucified by some person or persons unknown, and gave an extraordinary account of himself." (Rudyard Kipling) --- The tales are quite as grisly as any one will demand, although Mr. Kipling makes fun of all of them, and insinuates that they can be traced back to some variety of Indian fever or to the high spirits which are absorbed from bottles with popular labels. (N.Y. Herald)

Download or read book The Trembling of a Leaf written by William Somerset Maugham and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1916, William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) travelled to the Pacific to research his novel "The Moon and Sixpence," based on the life of Paul Gauguin. This was the first of those journeys through the late-Imperial world of the 1920s and 1930s which were to establish Maugham forever in the popular imagination as the chronicler of the last days of colonialism in India, Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific, although the books on which this reputation rests represent only a fraction of his output.---Maugham reused elements of his Pacific diaries in "The Trembling of a Leaf" (1921), which contains one of his most recognized stories, "Rain," adapted to the stage by John Colton and Clemence Randolph in 1922.

Download or read book For a Night of Love written by Émile Zola and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For a Night of Love" ("Pour une nuit d'amour"; published in 1883); one of the most controversial novellas of its time: "The narrative begins with a carefully accentuated picture of a serene life: that of a timid lad sequestered in a country town; this serenity is but the prelude to events of the most appalling tragedy-a tragedy which does not merely strike or wound, but positively annihilates... It is not needful to do more than say that it is one of the most repulsive productions ever published by its author, and a vivid exception to the general innocuous character of his short stories." (Edmund Gosse, 1892) --- "...the poetic suggestion lurking in the tale 'Pour une nuit d'amour, ' which Poe might almost have written, can only be traced with difficulty, for it is wrapped in a ghastly realism." (Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1904) --- "It is interesting to notice from a note presumably furnished by Zola himself that the source of the plot of the psychopathic novel 'For A Night of Love' is in Casanova." (Alison M. Lederer, 1911)

Download or read book Minna Von Barnhelm Or the Soldier s Fortune written by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2009 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a German writer, philosopher, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and other writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. --- The importance of Lessing's masterpiece in comedy, "Minna von Barnhelm," is difficult to exaggerate. It was the beginning of German national drama; and by the patriotic interest of its historical background, by its sympathetic treatment of the German soldier and the German woman, and by its happy blending of the amusing and the pathetic, it won a place in the national heart from which no succeeding comedy has been able to dislodge it. (Ernest Bell)

Download or read book Jean Gourdon s Four Days written by Émile Zola and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2009 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Four Days of Jean Gourdon" (Les Quatre Journees de Jean Gourdon; 1874, in: Nouveaux Contes a Ninon) deserves to rank among the very best things to which Zola has signed his name. It is a study of four typical days in the life of a Provencal peasant of the better sort, told by the man himself... --- In the first of these it is "Spring" Jean Gourdon is eighteen years of age, and he steals away from the house of his uncle Lazare, a country priest, that he may meet his coy sweetheart Babet by the waters of the broad Durance... Next follows a day in "Summer," five years later; Jean, as a soldier in the Italian war, goes through the horrors of a battle and is wounded. This episode, which has something in common with the "Sevastopol" of Tolstoy, is exceedingly ingenious in its observation of the sentiments of a common man under fire... The "Autumn" of the story occurs fifteen years later. Jean and Babet have now long been married. They are rich, healthy, devoted to one another, respected by all their neighbours; but there is a single happiness lacking - they have no child. Only now, when the corn and the grapes are ripe, this gift also is to be theirs... The optimistic tone has hitherto been so consistently preserved, that one must almost resent the tragedy of the fourth day. This is eighteen years later, on a Winter's night: The river Durance rises in spate... --- It is impossible to give an impression of the charm and romantic sweetness of this little masterpiece. It raises many curious reflections to consider that this exquisitely pathetic pastoral, with all its gracious and tender personages, should have been written by the master of Naturalism, the author of "Germinal" and of "Pot-Bouille" ("Piping Hot "). (Edmund Gosse)"

Download or read book Jacob s Room written by Virginia Woolf and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2008 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jacob's Room" is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1922. It centres, in a very ambivalent way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders. Set in pre-war England, the novel begins in Jacob's childhood and follows him through college at Cambridge, and then into adulthood. The story is told mainly through the perspectives of the women in Jacob's life, including the repressed upper-middle-class Clara Durrant and the uninhibited young art student Florinda. His time in London forms a large part of the story. Towards the end of the novel he travels to Italy, then Greece... "Jacob's Room" is a departure from Woolf's earlier two novels, "The Voyage Out" (1915) and "Night and Day" (1919), which are more conventional in form. It is seen as an important modernist text.

Download or read book The Trail of the Hawk written by Sinclair Lewis and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-07 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trail of the Hawk, by Sinclair Lewis, is the chronicle of an inveterate Rolling Stone… Carl Ericson, a born rebel against conventions, finds himself from boyhood up at war with the combined forces of family, school and society, all three of which unite in trying to mould him into the average colourless human being. Consequently throughout his earlier years he is in perpetual disgrace, at home, at school and at college… Thus it happens that we find Carl in early adolescence a friendless and penniless wanderer, undaunted and thrilling with a sense of freedom and the boundless opportunity of satisfying his unquenchable curiosity about life. … The first of the three parts into which this chronicle is divided, "The Adventure of Youth," … covers the formative years and helps to explain why Carl is what he is, and not otherwise. … Part II, "The Adventure of Adventuring," … is an undiluted joy. It is improbable, to be sure, almost burlesque, yet so joyous, so spontaneous, so kaleidoscopic in its varied scene and shifting action, that one must accept it with indulgent credulity. … Packer in a department store, waiter in a third-class restaurant, mechanic in an automobile factory, chauffeur, professional tramp and candidate for the bread line, porter in a Bowery saloon, facing the problem of saving four dollars out of a weekly salary of eight, in order to gratify a new ambition, namely to see the Panama Canal, — such is a brief epitome of one phase of our Rolling Stone's career, a phase that all unconsciously is shaping him for bigger things. … and the following year finds him in California, a partner in a profitable automobile repair shop. Then the big news reaches him of the first successful flights of Curtis and the Wright Brothers, and Carl recognises by instinct that here is the outlet for his pent-up energies, the one career for which his whole undisciplined nature has been crying out. Much has been written about aviation, both from the technical and the popular standpoint ; but it would be hard to find anywhere else in fiction any description that would give to the inexperienced a kindred thrill of breathless flight, of danger that is a fearful joy, and of confident omnipotence that is superhuman. And then, when this unrivalled "Hawk of the Air-men" is at the zenith of his powers, comes his third adventure, "The Adventure of Love." … Of course, the inevitable happens: the Hawk has his wings clipped, flights are a thing of the past, a onfining, although lucrative office position and a conventional apartment on the Upper West Side begin to prey upon his nerves; and soon the happy couple are quarrelling acrimoniously and often. But … you cannot cage a hawk for long … (Frederic Taber Cooper) --- “The Trail of the Hawk” is a truly lifelike chronicle of the fortunes of 'Widow Ericson's boy Carl,' of Joralemon, Minn., who becomes 'Hawk' Ericson, the daring aviator, and marries a very nice girl indeed. They had promised to find new horizons for each other, and when the resources of a New York flat in the way of horizons are exhausted, they sail for South America… (Atlantic Monthly)