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Zamenhof
Released to the public for the first time in in 1887, Esperanto had its specific origins in the fertile brain of a single individual, Zamenhof, and in the particular circum-stan-ces into which he was born and came of age. It is the story of these origins that Aleksander Korzhenkov's biography sets out to tell. -- That biography was originally published in Esperanto; the present version, in Ian Richmond's excellent translation, is an abridged version of the original text, prepared for English readers by the author. -- Zamenhof was a child of his times - buffeted by the social upheavals of Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century, eager to find solutions to social ills, but alive to new ways of thinking that accompanied this change. Seeking to solve the specific problems of his own day, he created a language equally well suited to addressing those of ours. (Humphrey Tonkin)
Little What's-His-Name (Le Petit Chose. French Classics)
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)
Michael Kohlhaas: A Tale from an Old Chronicle (German Classics)
"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 give...
The Last Mistress
"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,...
Bug-Jargal (French Classics)
"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)
Trials and Tribulations. A Berlin Novel (Irrungen, Wirrungen) (German Classics)
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 on...
Pan Tadeusz (Pan Thaddeus. Polish Classics)
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)
Ghost Stories
"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)
Colas Breugnon (A Burgundian Story; French Classics)
"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 ...
The Honesties of Love
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.
