It tells of an ordinary American family overtaken by the devastating epidemic of the Spanish influenza of 1918. The book begins on the day before the armistice in a small midwestern town, and the events are seen from the perspective, in turn, of eight-year-old Peter Morison--called Bunny; of his older brother, Robert; and of their father. They are witnesses to a domestic tragedy that is written with beauty and a quite magnificent tenderness. William Maxwell has been described by The Washington Post as "one of America's most distinguished and distinctive stylists." John Updike has said that "Maxwell's voice is one of the wisest in American fiction; it is, as well, one of the kindest." The Times Literary Supplement declares that "Maxwell offers us scrupulously executed, moving landscapes of America's twentieth century, and they do not fade." The Saturday Review said,"They Came Like Swallows is one of those rare tales in which child-hood is reflected in the simplicity and intensity of its own experience."

    Steinbeck tackles two important literary traditions here; American naturalism, with its focus on the conflict between natural instincts and the demand to conform to society's norms, and the short story cycle. Set in the heart of 'Steinbeck land', the lush Californian valleys.

    This monumental eBook features beautiful illustrations, informative introductions.CONTENTS:The Early NovelsCLAUDE’S CONFESSIONTHE DEAD WOMAN’S WISHTHE MYSTERY OF MARSEILLETHERESE RAQUINMADELEINE FERATThe Rougon-Macquart CycleTHE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONSTHE KILLTHE FAT AND THE THINTHE CONQUEST OF PLASSANSABBE MOURET’S TRANSGRESSIONHIS EXCELLENCY EUGENE ROUGONTHE DRAM SHOPA LOVE EPISODENANAPIPING HOTTHE LADIES’ PARADISETHE JOY OF LIFEGERMINALHIS MASTERPIECETHE EARTHTHE DREAMTHE HUMAN BEASTMONEYTHE DOWNFALLDOCTOR PASCALThe Three CitiesLOURDESROMEPARISThe Four GospelsFRUITFULNESSLABOURTRUTHThe Short StoriesSTORIES FOR NINONNEW STORIES FOR NINONPARISIAN SKETCHESTHE ATTACK ON THE MILLTHE FLOODCAPTAIN BURLETHE MILLER’S DAUGHTERTHE DEATH OF OLIVIER BECAILLENAÏS MICOULINJ’Accuse !I ACCUSE...!The CriticismÉMILE ZOLA by Henry JamesTHE ZOLA CONTROVERSY by G. K. ChestertonM. ZOLA by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-CouchAn Extract from ‘MY LITERARY PASSIONS’ by William Dean HowellsÉMILE ZOLA by William Dean HowellsZOLA by Henryk SienkiewiczBORLASE AND SON by James JoyceThe BiographyWITH ZOLA IN ENGLAND by Ernest Alfred VizetellyResourcesTHE ROUGON-MACQUART FAMILY TREEINDEX OF CHARACTERS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIESINDEX OF LOCATIONS IN THE ROUGON-MACQUART SERIES

    The books are loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novels are classics - the publisher unable to keep up with the demand when the first book in the series was published. Themes of romance, family drama, gender constraints and the validation of virtue over wealth are explored in these timeless stories.

    Dumas transforms minor historical figures into larger- than-life characters: the Comte d’Artagnan, an impetuous young man in pursuit of glory; the beguilingly evil seductress “Milady”; the powerful and devious Cardinal Richelieu; the weak King Louis XIII and his unhappy queen—and, of course, the three musketeers themselves, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, whose motto “all for one, one for all” has come to epitomize devoted friendship. With a plot that delivers stolen diamonds, masked balls, purloined letters, and, of course, great bouts of swordplay, The Three Musketeers is eternally entertaining.

    Closely Watched Trains is the subtle and poetic portrait of Miloš Hrma, a timid young railroad apprentice who insulates himself with fantasy against a reality filled with cruelty and grief. Day after day as he watches trains fly by, he torments himself with the suspicion that he himself is being watched and with fears of impotency. Hrma finally affirms his manhood and, with a sense of peace and purpose he has never known before, heroically confronts a trainload of Nazis.Milan Kundera called the novel "an incredible union of earthly humor and baroque imagination." After receiving acclaim as a novel, Closely Watched Trains was made into an internationally successful film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1967. This edition includes a foreword by Josef Škvorecký.

    In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin, the archetypal Russian antihero, Lermontov's novel looks forward to the subsequent glories and passion of Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.

    That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as "The Honest Trader". But the brutal onset of World War I takes Charlie far from home and into the path of a dangerous enemy whose legacy of evil follows Charlie and his family for generations.Encompassing three continents and spanning over sixty years, As the Crow Flies brings to life a magnificent tale of one man's rise from rags to riches set against the backdrop of a changing century.

    Running through it is the theme of evil, deftly woven into a story as memorable for its action as for its astonishingly vivid set of characters. In fin de siecle Paris, Arthur and Margaret are engaged to be married. Everyone approves and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves—until the menacing and repulsive Oliver Haddo appears.

    A Shaper. In a warm womb of metal, his patients dream their neuroses, while Render, intricately connected to their brains, dreams with them, makes delicate adjustments, and ultimately explains and heals. Her name is Eileen Shallot, a resident in psychiatry. She wants desperately to become a Shaper, though she has been blind from birth. Together, they will explore the depths of the human mind -- and the terrors that lurk therein

    But what happens to human feeling in a completely commodified world? In The Post-Office Girl, Stefan Zweig, a deep analyst of the human passions, lays bare the private life of capitalism.Christine toils in a provincial post office in post–World War I Austria, a country gripped by unemployment. Out of the blue, a telegram arrives from Christine’s rich American aunt inviting her to a resort in the Swiss Alps. Christine is immediately swept up into a world of inconceivable wealth and unleashed desire. She feels herself utterly transformed: nothing is impossible. But then, abruptly, her aunt cuts her loose. Christine returns to the post office, where yes, nothing will ever be the same again.Christine meets Ferdinand, a bitter war veteran and disappointed architect, who works construction jobs when he can get them. They are drawn to each other, even as they are crushed by a sense of deprivation, of anger and shame. Work, politics, love, sex: everything is impossible for them. Life is meaningless, unless, through one desperate and decisive act, they can secretly remake their world from within.Cinderella meets Bonnie and Clyde in Zweig’s haunting and hard-as-nails novel, completed during the 1930s, as he was driven by the Nazis into exile, but left unpublished at the time of his death. The Post-Office Girl, available here for the first time in English, transforms our image of a modern master’s achievement.

    They tell of Tom's encounters with Goldberry, with Old Man Willow, who tries to trap Tom inside his trunk, with the Badger-folk, and with the ghostly Barrow-wight, as well as with a princess, trolls, dwarves and legendary beasts.

    Barrie. Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, is one of the immortals of children's literature. J.M. Barrie first created Peter Pan as a baby, living in secret with the birds and fairies in the middle of London, but as the children for whom he invented the stories grew older, so too did Peter, reappearing in Neverland, where he was aided in his epic battles with Red Indians and pirates by the motherly and resourceful Wendy Darling. With their contrary lures of home and escape, childhood and maturity, safety and high adventure, these unforgettable tales are equally popular with children and adults.

    Paul J. Gillette, this dramatic collection of de Sade writings includes "Justine," "Juliette," "120 Days of Sodom," "Philosophy In The Bedroom" and many works often scattered among "pastiche" versions of de Sades oeuvre. Free of the author's repetitions, polemics and syntactically complex 18th century phrases, this edition captures the drama of de Sade's forays into human sexuality including such practices as voyeurism, fetishism, and, most famously, sadism. Vilified by critics in the 1800s as "Monstrous… depraved… An odious book by an even more odious man," de Sades depiction of his personal adventures has been studied and enjoyed by readers in light of the 20th and 21st centuries. Readers will also discover a mind as free as de Sades adventures were uninhibited, for he discusses natural evolution 25 years before Darwin's birth; postulates the existence of the unconscious mind a century before Sigmund Freud; and probes social mores decades before the work of Margaret Mead. He also espouses political ideas that were put into practice by such diverse figures as Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Fidel Castro. Born into French nobility in 1740, Marquis de Sade continues to open minds to new human experience more than 250 years later in this dramatic new release from Holloway House Publishing.

    Both have recently lost someone close to them as the first chapter opens. They meet and at once believe they have found a soul mate in each other. As their relationship progresses we come to understand more of each character's past. Most importantly we learn about Wemyss' late wife, Vera. What at first appears to be a different and quirky romance turns out to be an indictment of egoism and dominance in relationships.