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 Ursula Swiss German Classics written by Gottfried Keller and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the cycle "Zurich Novellas" by Gottfried Keller: In 1877 Gottfried Keller published his "Zurich Novellas" (Züricher Novellen), a series of short novels dealing with the history of Zurich and Switzerland. "Ursula" is a love story between a Swiss soldier and the daughter of a farmer during the time of the Swiss Reformation lead by Ulrich Zwingli and at the beginning of the Anabaptist movement in Europe in the 16th century. --- "Gottfried Keller was one of the foremost Swiss novelists and one of the most original figures of German literature since Goethe, a master of style worthy to be classed with the great names of all ages." (John Albrecht Walz)

Download or read book The Hunger Pastor German Classics written by Wilhelm Raabe and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-07 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilhelm Raabe's novel entitled Der Hungerpastor (1864) is a classic example of the so-called "poetic realism" to which many - primarily bourgeois - German writers were devoted between 1850 and 1890. --- Wilhelm Raabe (1831 - 1910) became famous following the publication of his first novel, Die Chronik der Sperlingsgasse (The Sparrow Lane Chronicle), in 1856. His late works are known for their social criticism, while earlier novels, such as The Hunger Pastor, were intended to be primarily educational. --- With the figure of Hans Unwirrsch in The Hunger Pastor, Raabe completely lives up to his motto - "Look up to the stars. Pay attention to the streets." The budding pastor, who was born into poverty, "hungers" for knowledge and a respected place in society, but he constantly stumbles over obstacles that his own life, as well as the lives of his family and friends, place before him. --- Raabe's rambling style makes his works difficult reading for many contemporary readers. In this version of The Hunger Pastor, several chapters have therefore been summarized by the translator, while the most important ones are published in their original length. --- Despite some anti-Semitic elements, which were commonly found in the works of some 19th century bourgeois writers in Germany, The Hunger Pastor is and remains a German literature classic.

Download or read book A Village Romeo and Juliet Swiss German Classics written by Gottfried Keller and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love is necessarily an important element in all imaginative literature, but with Gottfried Keller it does not overshadow all other aspects of life. Great passion we do not find in his works. In "A Village Romeo and Juliet", it is not ill-consuming love that makes the two young people seek death, but the bitter realization of life's law, as they understood it, which made it impossible for them ever to be united. The story is a fine illustration of what a great artist may make out of his raw material. Keller had read in a newspaper a report of the suicide of two young people, the sort of tragedy that we may read almost daily in newspapers; he seized upon the possibilities of the situation and the result was this story, perhaps the best he ever wrote. --- Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) was one of the foremost Swiss novelists and one of the most original figures of German literature since Goethe, a master of style worthy to be classed with the great names of all ages. (John Albrecht Walz)

Download or read book The Governor of Greifensee Swiss German Classics written by Gottfried Keller and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gottfried Keller (1819-1890), one of the greatest German authors in Switzerland, was a confirmed bachelor, not by choice but by necessity. He had been in love several times, but all he received in return was friendship and respect. --- In 'The Governor of Greifensee', one of Keller's Zurich Novellas, the hero, Salomon Landolt, the noble and impartial judge and governor, hits upon the grotesque plan of inviting all his former sweethearts to a festival at his castle. The five ladies accept the invitation not knowing that the others would be there. They are sincerely glad to see their old friend again; for it was not he who had deserted or injured any of them, they all for one reason or another had rejected the hand of the worthy suitor. --- It was Keller's own experience. The novel is a fine example of Keller's humor and art of story-telling. The five love affairs of the governor are told with exquisite grace and subtle characterization.

Download or read book Bug Jargal French Classics written by Victor Hugo 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: "Bug-Jargal" (1826; first published as a short story in 1819) is an early novel by French writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885). It describes the friendship between the enslaved African prince Bug-Jargal and Leopold D'Auverney, a French military officer, during the slave revolt in Santo Domingo of August, 1791, that would eventually lead to the creation of the republic of Haiti in 1804. --- Bug-Jargal, black slave and son of a king, is a man "of the noblest moral and intellectual character, passionately in love with a white woman, yet tempering the wildest passion with the deepest respect... There is no reader of the tale, who can forget the entrancing interest of the scenes in the camp of the insurgent chief Biassou, or the death-struggle between Habibrah and D'Auverney, upon the brink of the cataract. The latter, in particular, is drawn with such intense force, that the reader seems almost to be a witness of the changing fortunes of the fight, and can hardly breathe freely till he comes to the close." (The Edinburgh Review)

Download or read book Michael Kohlhaas A Tale from an Old Chronicle German Classics written by Heinrich Von Kleist 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: "Michael Kohlhaas" is a novella written by famed writer Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). The story is based upon the historical figure of Hans Kohlhase, a 16th century merchant who turned violent after being attacked and victimized by the authorities. As a result, he gathered around him a band of criminals and spread terror throughout the whole of Saxony. --- "The novella is a good example of Kleist's excellent narrative art: The action can be summed up in a few words, such as the formula for this story, given expressly on its first page: 'His sense of justice made him a robber and a murderer.' There is no leisurely exposition of time, place, or situation; all the necessary elements are given concisely in the first sentences. The action develops logically, with effective use of retardation and climax, but without disturbing episodes; and the reader is never permitted to forget the central theme. The descriptive element is realistic, with only pertinent details swiftly presented, often in parentheses, while the action moves on. The characterization is skilfully indirect, through unconscious action and speech. The author does not shun the trivial or even the repulsive in detail, nor does he fear the most tragic catastrophes ... The whole work in all its parts is firmly and finely forged by a master workman. --- Kleist has remained a solitary figure in German literature. Owing little to the dominant literary influences of his day, he has also found few imitators. Two generations passed before he began to come into his heritage of legitimate fame. Now ... his place is well assured among the greatest dramatic and narrative authors of Germany." (John S. Nollen)

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 Germinie Lacerteux French Classics written by Edmond De Goncourt and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his will, Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896) left a bequest in honor of his brother Jules de Goncourt (1830-1870) to establish and support a French literary salon, the Academie Goncourt, and later the famous Prix Goncourt, an award that to this day remains France's most significant literary prize. --- The Goncourt brothers, who co-authored a series of novels on social themes, were among the founders of literary "Naturalism" in France. Emile Zola would emerge as this movement's most important representative in his cycle of novels "Les Rougon- Macquart". --- Among the novels co-written by the Goncourt brothers, "Germinie Lacerteux" (1865) is especially noteworthy. The double-live of the novel's Parisian domestic servant, who is ground down and destroyed by the conditions she lives in, but who for decades keeps these conditions hidden from her employer, continues to captivate book-lovers in France and the rest of the world to this day.

Download or read book The Last Mistress written by Andrew Muir and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2011-03-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Last Mistress" is the story of Richard Brown, who leaves an English boarding school at the end of World War II to find his way in the world. Believing that he might have a vocation to take Holy Orders, he decided to travel to Jerusalem and then onto Rome. A brief stay in Paris opens a new world to him. On arrival in Palestine, he gets caught up in the war between Jews and Arabs and is conscripted into the Palestine Police. Posted on the border between Palestine and Lebanon, he gets the opportunity to visit Beirut and enjoy its pleasures before being demobilized and sent back to London. --- His journey through life does not stop there. Graduating from Imperial College, London University, he enters the business world, and as a high-flying investment banker he decides that the sky's the limit. He travels around the world, continuing with his lighthearted erotic romp through life before a tragic event brings him back to earth and allows him to find his true vocation. --- Though by no means an autobiography, much of the background, especially the events in Palestine, are factual and well authenticated. However, as with his previous novels, the author draws on his personal experiences and titillates us with descriptions of gastronomic delights and seductive and sensual pleasures of love.

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 Honesties of Love written by Bruce Kellner and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2012 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comedy of bad manners, the ill-matched parents of too-young newly-weds Billy and Ann Richardson politely collide in a series of encounters guaranteed to insure catastrophe, when a wry college professor, a glamorous real estate agent, a randy plumber, and a frustrated housewife politely face off on some social and sexual battlefields. The confrontations may begin politely, but they are guaranteed to end in chaos when a husband and a wife - not each other's - find themselves embroiled in an affair that proves to be equally passionate and ridiculous. What begins as a test between social classes ends in a series of sexual confrontations. Billy and Ann find themselves forced to grow up in a hurry to begin to accept their parents as people who are just as vulnerable as everybody else. -- Far from the pastoral romance of "Winter Ridge" (published by Mon-dial in 2008) and the grim landscape of "The Prettiest Girls in Euphoria, Kansas" (Mondial, 2010), Bruce Kellner's novel "The Honesties of Love" turns a baleful eye on the minefield of marriage.

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)

Download or read book The Downfall La Debacle The Rougon Macquart written by Emile Zola and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-07 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "The Downfall" Zola tells the story of a terrific land-slide which overwhelmed the French Second Empire: It is a story of war, grim and terrible; of a struggle to the death between two great nations. In it the author has put much of his finest work, and the result is one of the masterpieces of literature. The hero is Jean Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise. After the terrible death of his wife, as told in "La Terre" ("The Soil"), Jean enlisted for the second time in the army, and went through the campaign up to the battle of Sedan. After the capitulation he was made prisoner, and in escaping was wounded. When he returned to active service he took part in crushing the excesses of the Commune in Paris... The Downfall has been described as "a prose epic of modern war," and vast though the subject be, it is treated in a manner that is powerful, painful, and pathetic.

Download or read book Colas Breugnon A Burgundian Story French Classics written by Romain Rolland and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Colas Breugnon" is a charming romance of life in Burgundy three hundred years ago. It is an "autobiographical" novel, the story being told in the first person by Colas, who reviews his fifty years of life, and describes all its joys and sorrows. The story is gay and humorous, and full of wise observations about life. --- "Colas Breugnon is the jovial Burgundian, the lusty wood-carver, the practical joker always fond of his glass, the droll fellow. Before everything, Colas Breugnon is a free man. He loves his king, but only so long as the king leaves him his liberty; he loves his wife, but follows his own bent; he is on excellent terms with the priest of a neighboring parish, but never goes to church; he idolizes his children, but his vigorous individuality makes him unwilling to live with them. He is friendly with all, but subject to none; he is freer than the king; he has that sense of humor characteristic of the free spirit to whom the whole world belongs. From the artistic point of view, 'Colas Breugnon' may perhaps be regarded as Rolland's most successful work. This is because it is woven in one piece, because it flows with a continuous rhythm, because its progress is never arrested by the discussion of thorny problems. It is written throughout in the same key. The first sentence gives the note like a tuning fork, and thence the entire book takes its pitch. Throughout, the same lively melody is sustained. The writer employs a peculiarly happy form. His style is poetic without being actually versified; it has a melodious measure without being strictly metrical. This work is unlike any of Rolland's other writings. It is not an historic study, a critical appreciation, a philosophic essay, nor yet even, in the strictest sense of the word, a novel. It is rather a volume of reminiscences as told by a man of fifty; and the very aimlessness with which this man talks is in itself a pleasure; for Breugnon is himself the one subject of the book, holding our attention by the display of a wayward, sympathetic, and aggressive personality." (Stefan Zweig)

Download or read book Pan Tadeusz Pan Thaddeus Polish Classics written by Adam Mickiewicz and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historical prose translation of the famous Polish verse epic. In the book, Tadeusz tells the story of two feuding noble families; it takes place in a fictional idyllic village, in 1811 and 1812, after the division of Poland-Lithuania between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. --- "No European nation of our day has such an epic as Pan Tadeusz. In it Don Quixote has been fused with the Iliad. ... Pan Tadeusz is a true epic. No more can be said or need be said." (Zygmunt Krasinski) --- "No play of Shakespeare, no long poem of Milton or Wordsworth or Tennyson, is so well known or so well beloved by the English people as is Pan Tadeusz by the Poles. To find a work equally well known one might turn to Defoe's prosaic tale of adventure, Robinson Crusoe; to find a work so beloved would be hardly possible." (George Rapall Noyes)

Download or read book Little What s His Name Le Petit Chose French Classics written by Alphonse Daudet and published by Mondial. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Little What's-His-Name (Le Petit Chose) - Alphonse Daudet's (1840-1897) first published, though not his first written, novel - appeared in 1868. The first part was composed in that Southern France it describes so charmingly; its first chapters form one of the most touching of autobiographies. In the second part Daudet has to tell of the struggles of an idealistic young poet in the selfish, devouring whirlpool of Paris. The whole book seems to bear the impress of the circumstances under which it was written. It is full of the milk of human kindness. --- When Daudet wrote Le Petit Chose in his early manhood, he succeeded in producing one of the most delightfully idyllic of his works, one that will probably continue to be read as long as any of the more powerful novels of his prime. It is one of the most perfect representations in literature of childhood's hopes and fears and of youth's aspirations and defeats. It is perfect because it is real. --- Enjoy to the full one of the purest and most exquisite stories of youthful experience to be found in French or in any other literature. (W. P. Trent)