Risultati letto da "Walter Covell" in Tutte le categorie

Many consider "The Canterville Ghost" the most famous ghost story of all time. It is a parody featuring a dramatic spirit named Sir Simon and an American ambassador named Mr. Hiram B. Otis. Mr. Otis travels to England with his family and moves into a haunted castle. Lord Canterville, the previous owner of the castle, warns Mr. Otis that the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville has haunted the castle ever since he killed his wife, Eleonore, centuries ago.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote many types of fiction: mystery, detection, science fiction,and historical adventures. He created many memorable characters, wrote dozens of short stories and more than two dozen novels, Yet everything he wrote fell under the the shadow of Sherlock Holmes.

In the tradition of his very popular Candide, Zadig is what might be called a "philosophical tale." Zadig, a handsome young man with a fine education, is puzzled by the uncertainties of his destiny. He attains great success in government but is unsuccessful in love. Despite his wisdom and shrewdness, he meets with a number of misfortunes. The central question of the story is, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

One of the greatest of French novelists, Balzac, trained as a lawyer, was a great judge of human nature. In 1833 he conceived the idea of linking together his novels so that they would comprehend the whole society in a series of books. This plan eventually led to 90 novels and novellas (including more than 2,000 characters) that he called "The Human Comedy". Balzac's huge and ambitious plan drew a picture of the customs, atmosphere, and habits of the bourgeois France.

Based on Japanese literature and foldlore, Kwaidan contains 17 stories. The story of Loichi, the blind biwa player who was called to perform for the dead; of Muso, the journeying priest who encountered a man eating goblin; of the samurai who outwitted the ghost of a dead man. All these plus 14 other spooly tales are included in this collection.

A devastating depiction of obsessive love and a haunting portrait of a captivating but dangerous woman. When the young Chevalier des Grieux first sets eyes on the exquisitely beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut they fall passionately in love. But his happiness turns to bitter despair when he...

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in Boscombe Valley to investigate the death of Mr. Charles McCarthy. Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, whose meagre abilities are often upstaged by Holmes's brilliant deductions, has concluded that it is a murder, and that McCarthy's son James is the killer. The facts point to something much more complicated, however,and Holmes employs his keen powers of deduction to unravel a tangle of questions and put Lestrade to shame yet again.

"The Phantom Lover" is one of Veron Lee's most famous works. It is a strange but very effective story, about a powerful bond that is so strong it reaches even across death. In many ways it reminds one of Henry James story "The Turn of the Screw". Is it a story of mental illness and weird imaginings - or of life beyond the grave? Either way, it is a look at the interrelatedness of the past and the present, the living and the dead.

Dr. Watson is startled to find his friend Sherlock Holmes there, disguised as an old man apparently trying to extract information from the addicts in the den. Holmes is on the scent of a man who is living a double life. This story in unique among Holmes tales in two ways. First, it turns out that no crime has been committed and there is no villain Secondly, and unlike in his other stories, Holmes does not explain how he solved the mystery, but leaves it to the intelligent reader to work it out.

If you look at any listing of the 10 most important books of detective stories published in the United States, chances are you will find Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries on most of them. It is generally recognized as one of the most important contributions to American detective fiction between Poe and Hammett. In fact, there are some critics who call it the single finest collection of American detective stories ever written. This story is from that famous collection.

Professor Van Dusen solves a variety of different mysteries together with his friend, Hutchinson Hatch, a reporter for a fictional newspaper called The Daily New Yorker. The professor is known as the "Thinking Machine", and he solves problems by the remorseless application of logic. In this story, he thinks his way out of a maximum-security prison.

The Four Million was written in 1906 when roughly four million people lived in New York City. It opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only "400" people in New York City who were really worth noticing.

A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly the most famous supernatural story in English. However, it was not the only supernatural story of the season that Charles Dickens wrote. In Victorian England, Christmas was the time to explore the supernatural in stories, and Charles Dickens was one of the best at it. Included in this volume are a full-cast dramatization of A Christmas Carol, plus three more of Dickens' best stories of the season.

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is one of 13 stories in the collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

"The Boy Who Drew Cats" is a Japanese folk tale collected by Lafcadio Hearn in Japanese Fairy Tales. This is his most anthologized story. It concerns a boy who drew cats everywhere. Everyone in the town thought this was a waste of time until a goblin invaded their temple. They boy, and his cat, then come to the rescue.

Wilkie Collins was the author of two of the greatest mysteries ever written, The Moonstone and The Woman in White. However, like Poe before him and Conan Doyle after, he shifted easily from rational domains to the "superrational". Like them, he often preferred to indulge his occult predilection, a lifelong interest. "The Dream Woman" is one his most anthologized stories of the supernatural.

This collecton features some of Twain's best known stories as well as some lesser-known gems, such as "A Mysterious Visit", "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut", and "The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz-Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton".

Watson visits Sherlock Holmes at Christmastime and finds him contemplating a battered old hat, brought to him by the commissionaire Peterson after it and a Christmas goose had been dropped by a man in a scuffle with some street ruffians. Peterson takes the goose home to eat it, but comes back later with a precious carbuncle that his wife found in the bird's crop.

In "The Invisible Man", a murderer manages to get in and out of a house, even though it is under constant observation. In some ways, the story parallels Poe's "The Purloined Letter" but adds its own unique touches, particularly in the character and methods of priest-sleuth Father Brown.

Louis XIII had to be a Solomon. His queen produced twin male heirs - two sons of equal age with equal pretensions. Louis feared for France. One prince means peace and safety for the state, two are a recipe for civil war and anarchy. One son had to go. Louis could not kill him, but he could hide him in an iron mask. Such is the quality of paternal mercy.