Sagas
Amadis of Gaul
Amadis of Gaul (Amad?s de Gaula, in Spanish) was not the first, but certainly one of the best known knight-errantry tales of the 16th century. Not only is its authorship doubtful, but even the language in which it was first written - Portuguese or Spanish. It is imagined to have been composed in the 14th century, but the known first printed edition came to light in Zaragoza in 1508, and the oldest extant version is in Spanish. The plot is the story of the brave knight Amadis, and starts with the forbidden love of his parents and his secret birth, followed by his abandonment near water. He is found and raised as the son of a knight. Upon reaching adulthood, he goes in a quest for his own identity, and investigates his origins through fantastic adventures: plenty of wizards, princesses, damsels in distress and other knights people the world of Amadis. Amadis of Gaul, together with Palmerin of England and Tirante the White, are the only books saved from the fire by Quixote's curate, when purging the knight's library: Tirante, for its quaintness; Palmerin, because he thought it had been written by the king himself; and Amadis, for being the best of its kind. Even if Cervante's praise works more as censure, it's a fact that Amadis represents the style as no other, and was the father of a numerous flock, becoming a landmark work among the knight-errantry tales and marking the story of European literature. (Summary by Leni) Dedicated Proof-Listeners: Miss Stav, Becky Cook, & Rapunzelina
Colin
From the acclaimed author of Mapp and Lucia comes the gothic tale of a cursed aristocratic family and two brothers vying to claim its dark legacy. On a visit to the Sussex town of Rye, Queen Elizabeth I found herself captivated?and soon seduced?by a penniless young shepherd named Colin Stanier. According to family legend, their encounter was orchestrated by the devil himself. Colin had made a Faustian bargain to win success in all of life?s endeavors; a bargain that would be kept in the family by generations of eldest sons, so long as they maintain the Satanic covenant. ? Centuries later, Raymond Stanier is the rightful inheritor of the family mansion and fortune. But his younger twin brother, Colin, who bears a striking resemblance to the portrait of his namesake, is willing to lie, seduce, and perhaps even kill to take the family seat for himself. ? This saga of ambition, evil, and sensuality moves between generations and across the world from Rye to London, Naples, and Capri. ?A story of greed and treachery, sibling rivalry, simmering passions and strange desires, Colin is compulsive reading? (Peter Burton). ?This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Forsyte Saga (The Man of Property, Indian Summer of a Forsyte, in Chancery, Awakening, to Let): Masterpiece of Modern Literature From the Nobel-Prize Winner, The
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Forsyte Saga (The Man of Property, Indian Summer of a Forsyte, In Chancery, Awakening, To Let)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning English author John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of a large commercial upper middle-class English family, similar to Galsworthy's own. The Man of Property is the first novel of the The Forsyte Saga. Soames Forsyte, a solicitor and "man of property," is married to the beautiful, penniless Irene, who rebels against his values. In a short interlude Indian Summer of a Forsyte, Galsworthy delves into the newfound friendship between Irene and Old Jolyon Forsyte. In Chancery is the second novel of the Forsyte Saga trilogy, the subject is the marital discord of both Soames and his sister Winifred. The subject of the second interlude The Awakening is the naive and exuberant lifestyle of eight-year-old Jon Forsyte. To Let, the final novel of the Forsyte Saga, chronicles the continuing feuds of the two factions within the troubled Forsyte family. John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Table of Contents: Book 1: The Man of Property Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte Book 2: In Chancery Interlude: Awakening Book 3: To Let
Forsyte Saga Complete Edition: The Forsyte Saga + a Modern Comedy + End of the Chapter + on Forsyte ‘Change (A Prequel to Forsyte Saga): Complete Nine Novels, The
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Forsyte Saga Complete Edition: The Forsyte Saga + A Modern Comedy + End of the Chapter + On Forsyte 'Change (A Prequel to Forsyte Saga)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Forsyte Saga is a series of three novels and two interludes published between 1906 and 1921 by Nobel Prize-winning English author John Galsworthy. They chronicle the vicissitudes of the leading members of a large commercial upper middle-class English family, similar to Galsworthy's own. The second trilogy of the Forsyte Saga is A Modern Comedy, written in the years 1924 to 1928. This comprises a novel, The White Monkey, an interlude, A Silent Wooing, a second novel, The Silver Spoon, a second interlude, Passers By, and a third novel Swan Song. The third trilogy of the Forsyte Saga is End of the Chapter, comprising Maid in Waiting, Flowering Wilderness, and Over the River (also known as One More River), chiefly dealing with Michael Mont's young cousin, Dinny Cherrell. The three trilogies are published under the collective title of The Forsyte Chronicles. In 1930 Galsworthy published On Forsyte 'Change which deals in the main with the older Forsytes before the events chronicled in The Man of Property. John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Table of Contents: The Forsyte Chronicles: The Forsyte Saga Book 1: The Man of Property Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte Book 2: In Chancery Interlude: Awakening Book 3: To Let A Modern Comedy (Second Trilogy of the Forsyte Saga) Book 1: The White Monkey Interlude: A Silent Wooing Book 2: The Silver Spoon Interlude: Passers By Book 3: Swan Song End of the Chapter (Third Trilogy of the Forsyte Saga) Book 1: Aid in Waiting Book 2: Flowering Wilderness Book 3: Over the River (One More River) On Forsyte 'Change
Grettir the Outlaw: A Story of Iceland
It was night?drawing on to midnight?in summer, that I who write this book arrived at the little lonely farm of Biarg, on the Middle River, in the north of Iceland. It was night, near on midnight, and yet I could hardly call it night, for the sky overhead was full of light of the clearest amethyst, and every stock and stone was distinctly visible. Across the valley rose a rugged moor, and above its shoulder a snow-clad mountain, turned to rosy gold by the night sun. As I stood there watching the mist form on the cold river in the vale below, all at once I heard a strange sound like horns blowing far away in the sky, and looking up, I saw a train of swans flying from west to east, bathed in sunlight, their wings of silver, and their feathers as gold. I had come all the way from England to see Biarg, for there was born, about the year A.D. 997, a man called Grettir, whose history I had read, and which interested me so much that I was resolved to see his native home, and the principal scenes where his stormy life was passed. The landscape was the same as that on which Grettir's childish eyes had looked more than eight hundred and fifty years ago. The same outline of dreary moor, the same snowy ridge of mountain standing above it, catching the midnight summer sun, the same mist forming over the river; but the house was altogether different. Now there stood only a poor heap of farm-buildings, erected of turf and wood, where had once been a noble hall of wood, with carved gable-ends, surrounded by many out-houses. Before we begin on the story of Grettir, it will be well to say a few words about its claim to be history. Iceland never was, and it is not now, a much-peopled island. The farmhouses are for the most part far apart, and the farms are of very considerable extent, because, owing to the severity of the climate, very little pasturage is obtained over a wide extent of country for the sheep and cattle. The population lives round the coast, on the fiords or creeks of the sea, or on the rivers that flow into these fiords. The centre of the island is occupied by a vast waste of ice-covered mountain, and desert black as ink strewn with volcanic ash and sand, or else with a region of erupted lava that is impassable, because in cooling it has exploded, and forms a country of bristling spikes and gulfs and sharp edges, very much like the wreck of a huge ginger-beer bottle factory. What are now farmhouses were the halls and mansions of families of noble descent. Indeed, the original settlers in Iceland were the nobles of Norway who left their native land to avoid the tyranny of Harold Fairhair, who tried to crush their power so as to make himself a despotic king in the land.
Iceland; Horseback Tours in Saga Land
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North and South
The book discusses various classes and regions of Victorian England and industrial revolution of the mid-19th century. Margaret Hale moves with her family from the rural South of England to the industrial North. She gets to know about the living conditions of workers and meets a rich mill owner, John Thornton. The novel has several emotional, captivating and exciting moments. A must-read!
SEVEN ICELANDIC SHORT STORIES: 7 Contemporary and Ancient Icelandic Short Stories
Of the seven Icelandic short stories which appear here, the first was probably written early in the thirteenth century, while the rest all date from the early twentieth century.?Since the 12th C. the Icelandic people have continued to tell stories and to compose poems with the greyness of commonplace existence made more bearable when listening to tales of the heroic deeds and sagas of the past. In those past evenings, the living-room (baostofa), built of turf and stone, became a little more cheerful, and hunger was forgotten, while a member of the household read, or sang, about far-away knights and heroes, and the banquets they gave in splendid halls. In their imagination people thus tended to make their environment seem larger, and better, than life, as did Hrolfur with his fishing-boat in the story When I was on the Frigate.?So take some time out and travel back to a period before television and radio, a time when tales were passed on orally when families would gather around a crackling and spitting hearth and a family member would delight and captivate the gathering with stories passed on to them from their parents and grandparents and from time immemorial. The Norsemen who colonized Iceland in the last quarter of the ninth century brought with them the language then spoken throughout all of Scandinavia. This ancestor of the modern Scandinavian tongues has been preserved in Iceland with the oldest preserved Icelandic prose written almost 1000 years ago. Limited communications between Iceland and other countries, frequent migrations inside the island, and, not least important, a long and uninterrupted literary tradition has meant the Icelandic language has not developed any dialects in the ordinary sense.??33% of the net profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities, schools and special causes.
The Able McLaughlins: A Library of America eBook Classic
The riveting Pulitzer Prize?winning novel, available as an e-book for the first time.Wully McLaughlin returns to his family?s Iowa homestead at the end of the Civil War to find his sweetheart, Chirstie McNair, alone and in distress, her mother dead and her wayward father gone. Perplexed by a new aloofness in Chirstie, Wully soon discovers that she has been raped and is pregnant. To the shock of his parents and the tight-knit Scottish community in which they live, he marries Chirstie and claims the child, and the shame of its early birth, as his own. But the lingering presence of Chirstie?s attacker sets in motion a series of events that pit the desire for revenge against a reluctance to perpetuate the cycle of violence.?Often compared to Willa Cather?s?One of Ours?and Edna Ferber?s?So?Big?for its earthy realism, its portrait of an immigrant community, and its depiction of Midwestern farm life, Margaret Wilson?s provocative debut novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 1924, is ripe for rediscovery. In a recent reappraisal Judy Cornes commends the novel?s ?feeling for time and place: a sense of the unrelenting forces that both history and nature impose on the individual. . . .?The Able McLaughlins?remains an engrossing story with characters who constantly engage our attention.?
The Fall of the Nibelungs
"The Fall of the Nibelungs" is Margaret Armour's plain prose translation from the middle high German of the "Nibelungenlied", a poetic saga of uncertain authorship written about the year 1200. The story is believed by many to be based on the destruction of the Burgundians, a Germanic tribe, in 436 by mercenary Huns recruited for the task by the Roman general Flavius A?tius. The introduction to the 1908 edition summarizes the story, "And so 'the discord of two women,' to quote Carlyle, 'is as a little spark of evil passion, which ere long enlarges itself into a crime; foul murder is done; and now the sin rolls on like a devouring fire, till the guilty and the innocent are alike encircled with it, and a whole land is ashes, and a whole race is swept away.'", a story not for the faint of heart. Summary by Phil Schempf. Dedicated proof-listeners: Carolin Ksr & DaveC
The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald: Being the Icelandic Korm?ks-Saga (Classic Reprint)
Excerpt from The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald: Being the Icelandic Korm?ks-Saga The story of a poet, poor and proud, with all the strength and all the weakness of genius. He loves a fine lady, a spoiled child; who bewitches him, and jilts him, and jilts him again. He fights for her, rhymes for her, and rises for her sake to the height of all that a man in his age could achieve. Then, after years, he has her at his feet, and learns her heartlessness and worthlessness. He bids her farewell, but dies in the end with her name on his lips. This is the motive of the book - very modern, we should call it; dramatic and imaginative, in the sense that it is told by one who was an artist in his craft of saga-telling. The diction is of the simplest. There is no fine writing, but the plot is balanced like a Greek play. The action drives along, in spite of episode, to its close. The ethical result is conveyed without a word of moralizing. The characters are broadly drawn, in types for all time. Without needless detail, there are touches enough of realism. It reads like a novel, and yet it is a true story. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Saga of G?sta Berling
The first new English translation in more than one hundred years of the Swedish Gone with the Wind A Penguin Classic In 1909, Selma Lagerl?f became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Saga of G?sta Berling is her first and best-loved novel--and the basis for the 1924 silent film of the same name that launched Greta Garbo into stardom. A defrocked minister, G?sta Berling finds a home at Ekeby, an ironworks estate that also houses and assortment of eccentric veterans of the Napoleanic Wars. His defiant and poetic spirit proves magnetic to a string of women, who fall under his spell in this sweeping historical epic set against the backdrop of the magnificent wintry beauty of rural Sweden. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The Saga of Grettir the Strong: Grettir’s Saga
"The Saga of Grettir the Strong: Grettir's Saga" by Unknown. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten?or yet undiscovered gems?of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); With Excerpts From the Poetic Edda
"The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); with Excerpts from the Poetic Edda" by Anonymous (translated by William Morris, Eir?kr Magn?sson). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten?or yet undiscovered gems?of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.