Risultati di "ciesse" in Tutte le categorie

In "An Anonymous Story," Chekhov continues to explore his favorite themes of superfluous men, ironic rakes, exploited women, and the dangers of social conventions to human happiness. The Anonymous Narrator is a feckless, would-be revolutionary who gets himself hired on as a flunky in the household of the young useless aristocrat Orlov, hoping to spy out some useful information for the Cause. Orlov seduces the beautiful Zinaida Fyodorovna away from her husband but quickly tires of her. The Narrator, another in the long line of Russian literary superfluous men, allows Orlov to use him to deceive...

The House of the Dead is a novel published in 1861 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. Dostoyevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a camp following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts. The narrator, Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labour. Life in prison is particularly hard for Aleksandr ...

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) was the first widely-read English novel in the genre “Erotica.” It was written by John Cleland as he was serving hard time at a debtor’s prison in London. Over the centuries, the novel has been repeatedly banned by authorities, assuring its preeminent role in the history of the ongoing struggle against censorship of free expression.Until Fanny Hill, previous heroines had conducted their amorous liaisons “off-stage.” Any erotic misadventures were described euphemistically. As women who had gone astray, they always repented, which made ...

The Kama Sutra, or Aphorisms on Love, has survived at least 1400 years as a dominant text on sexual relations between men and women. Vatsyayana claimed to have written the Kama Sutra while a religious student, “in contemplation of the Deity” - but references to older works, shrewd disputations by Vatsyayana of those authors' recommendations, and careful cataloging of practices in various of the Indian states indicate much more emphasis on kama, or sensual gratification.Part of the book discusses the 64 arts of love employed by masters of coitus. Learning each of these and when and how to ...

Also known as the "Roman Elegies," Erotica Romana is von Goethe's literary tribute to human sexuality and eroticism. Written in 24 elegies to emulate classical Roman elegy writers such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Catullus, von Goethe creates a lyrical work of art that has often been subject to censorship. (Summary by Adam E. Maroney)

Egmont Colerus prangt den Hedonismus an, in dem es durch Wollust, Übermaß, Exzess und Dekadenz zum Untergang kommt. Er schildert anschaulich, durch die miteinander verwobenen Geschichten der Hauptfiguren (Bettler, Handwerker, Herrscher und Priester), die Wandlung einzelner Charaktere die zum Untergang des bestehenden Systems führt. Dabei kommt es zu einem überraschenden Ende.(Zusammenfassung von lorda)

"The history of Amphitryon and Alcmene, or rather the myth of the birth of Hercules, is certainly very old, and is to be found in the literature of different nations." Under Moliere's touch, it becomes "One of the most charming and natural comedies composed in French verse.... Sprightliness and vivacity abound in this comedy...." - Summary by Translator Henri Van LaunCast list:Mercury, in the form of Sosia: NemoNight: Eva DavisJupiter, in the form of Amphitryon: Larry WilsonAmphitryon, general of the Thebans: Tomas PeterArgatiphontidas, Theban Captain: Jim LockeNaucrates, Theban Captain: ...

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.

Laurence Hope was the nom de plume of Adela Florence Nicolson, a British poet who wrote verses inspired by India, where she lived. This collection, her first, was originally published in 1901. (summary by Newgatenovelist)

THE PERMANENT HUSBAND, also published as The Eternal Husband, is a psychological novella by the acclaimed Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The plot revolves around the intense and complex relationship between Velchaninov and Trusotsky. Velchaninov, the protagonist, is a former lover of the recently deceased wife of Trusotsky, the title character. Some critics have ranked this novella among Dostoeyevsky’s best works because of its style and structure. Alfred Bem has called it "one of the most complete works by Dostoyevsky in regards to its composition and development. – Adapted from ...

Crime and Punishment is the second of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia, and is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. The novel focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov, in an attempt to defend his actions, argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime while ridding the world of a vermin, ...

Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Marcus Antonius and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony from the time of the Parthian War to Cleopatra's suicide. The major antagonist is Octavius Caesar, one of Antony's fellow triumviri and the future first emperor of Rome. The tragedy is a Roman play characterized by swift, panoramic shifts in geographical locations and in registers,...

A fairy tale with real life consequences, All's Well That Ends Well concerns a poor physician's daughter who goes to Paris to heal the King and asks of him a husband; not himself, but the Count Rousillon, in whose house her good father had lived. He weds her but does not bed her, flees to the wars where he is followed by his wife in a pilgrimage of which he is the object. How she uses his lust for a virtuous young woman to trick him into bedding her and giving her a child is but the real life drama to which, or so it would appear, a good woman is forced to commit herself to get herself a ...

The worshipers of this ancient tentacled horror are still with us, waiting for this terrible being to awake and take vengeance again on an earth filled with nonbelievers. Lovecraft delves into this eons old cult in the greatest detail of any of his stories about Cthulhu and gives us hints about how it is worshiped and the abominable rituals involved. Creepy. Very creepy. - Summary by phil chenevert

H. P. Lovecraft’s name is synonymous with horror fiction. His major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. This collection contains 24 Lovecraft works that are in the public domain. You'll find more versions of these stories throughout LibriVox's short story collections and short horror story collections. (adapted from Wikipedia)

A well-to-do French farm family is destroyed by a flood. The story, thrilling to the very end, is told from the point of view of the family's 70-year-old patriarch. The story speaks of the helplessness of mankind in the face of the forces of nature. (Summary by Karen Merline)

La vida transcurre plácida en un pequeño pueblo francés donde el tio Merlier gestiona hábilmente su molino. Los preparativos para el enlace entre su hija Francisca y el joven Domingo se verán interrumpidos por la llegada de un batallón francés que decide atrincherarse en el molino para frenar el avance de las tropas prusianas. Cuento largo en el que Zola plasma los dilemas y sufrimientos que la población civil tiene que soportar en medio de una guerra, en este caso un intrascendente episodio del conflicto franco-prusiano. (Introducción por Epachuko)

"Through the Gates of the Silver Key," published complete in this issue, is an utterly amazing novelette. It is much more than a mere piece of fiction, for it so far transcends human experiences, and even the wildest dreams of human beings, that the ideas and thoughts set forth in the tale are titanic. One searches the dictionaries in vain for words to describe this brilliant and astounding tale, which for sheer imaginative daring goes beyond anything ever printed before. It is the joint product of two of your most popular authors. - Summary by Weird Tales, July 1934

In a rundown farmhouse near isolated, rural Dunwich, a bizarre family conjures and nurtures an evil entity from another realm, with the purpose of destroying the world and delivering it to ancient gods to rule, and only an aged university librarian can stop them. The Dunwich Horror was first published in 1929 in Weird Tales. (Summary by Mark Nelson)

"Herbert West—Reanimator" is a story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft that was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. You want zombies? Listen to this because Lovecraft was one of the very first and he got zombies right: scary, evil, implacable and out to get you. (Summary by Phil Chenevert)