The first novel published by the future author of Ulysses, a largely autobiographical account of a young boy emotionally and intellectuelly coming of age with an intensely Roman Catholic upbringing in the city of Dublin at the beginning of the 20th century, a city and a country then under foreign rule.
(85,500 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below.
All of the footnotes have all been added specially for this site. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Chapter I (...)
LATEST ARTICLES
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"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce (1916)
9 October 2023, by James Joyce -
"Plain Tales From the Hills" by Rudyard Kipling (1882)
2 October 2023, by Rudyard KiplingThe first work published by Rudyard Kipling, an outstanding and deceptively light-hearted collection of stories about life in India/Pakistan under British control in the latter part of the 19th century.
(73,000 words)
An e-book is available for downloading below. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. LISPETH. 2. THREE AND—AN EXTRA. 3. THROWN AWAY. 4. MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS. 5. YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER. 6. FALSE DAWN. 7. THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 8. CUPID’S ARROWS. 9. HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 10. (...) -
"Colonel Chabert" by Honoré de Balzac (1832)
25 September 2023, by Honoré de BalzacThe Colonel Chabert had played a heroic role in Napoleon’s victory at the battle of Eylau but had been left for dead on the battlefield under his horse, his body thrown into a collective burial pit, and he’d been declared legally deceased. However, he managed to revive and to survive although a great many months had passed before he’d sufficiently recovered to be able to consider returning to the post-Napoleonic Paris and recover his estate and his belongings. But as he’d been declared (...)
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"The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac (1831)
18 September 2023, by Honoré de BalzacA young painter – who we soon discover to be the future world-famous Nicolas Poussin [1] – pays a visit to the studio of a celebrated master, Porbus, where he is admitted behind a rather strange old man who has also come to visit the master, whose works he proceeds to ruthlessly criticize for their lack of life and truthfulness. This visitor turns out to be an unknown master painter himself, who passionately describes the magnificent masterpiece that he has almost but not quite finished (...)
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"Mountain Cristal (Bergkristall)" by Adalbert Stifter (1853)
11 September 2023, by Adalbert StifterTwo children go over into the neighbouring valley high up in the Austrian Alps to visit their grandmother on the day before Christmas and get lost on their way back when a terrible snowstorm unexpectedly hits the whole region and covers up not only their tracks but all the recognizable landmarks that usually guide them on their way.
A story about life in the mountains, a story about the diverse and ever-changing environment in the mountains, a story about Christmas in the mountains and (...) -
"Ivanhoe’ by Walter Scott (1819)
6 September 2023, by Walter ScottWalter Scott’s best-known work, a historical novel that established him as the most celebrated European novelist for a good long time, recounting the complex struggles in 12th-century England between the Norman rulers – Richard Coeur-de-Lion and his ambitious brother John – and their numerous enemies and opponents, notably the Saxon nobility that still dreamed of reestablishing their authority and also highly-organized bands of outlaws in parts of the realm such as the forests of (...)
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"Sons and Lovers" by D. H. Lawrence (1913)
4 September 2023, by D. H. LawtenceThe third and best-known novel (with Lady Chatterly’s Lover) of the brilliant English novelist, poet, short-story writer, travel writer, literary critic, globe-trotter, iconoclast and eternal exile D. H. Lawrence, this is an intense and sensitive family drama set in the coal-mining area of Nottingham in central England at the turn of the 20th century.
A finely-drawn psychological drama centered on the life of the youngest son of the family, Paul Morel, his conflictual relations with his (...) -
"Kim" by Rudyard Kipling (1901)
28 August 2023, by Rudyard KiplingKim is a street urchin speaking Hindi/Urdu with a smattering of English in the northern part of India who meets a travelling Tibetan monk and follows him on his search for the fabled river created where Buddha’s fabulous arrow fell. Kim too is on a search for a Red Bull that his scarcely-remembered father told him to look for in a document that he preciously carries in an amulet around his neck. Both of them successfully achieve their goals while wandering all over northern India as well (...)
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"The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler (1903)
21 August 2023, by Samuel ButlerThe narrator recounts the harsh upbringing of his godson Ernest Pontifex, son of a Church of England minister, the oppressive everyday religiosity of his family life, his difficult schooling, his career at Cambridge, his ordination, his floundering attempts to live in a working-class neighbourhood to better be able to bring them the good word, his fall into the depths and then his struggle to start a new life and to conciliate his new set of beliefs to the world around him.
Although (...) -
"Just So Stories" by Rudyard Kipling (1902)
9 August 2023, by Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling’s delightful collection of little stories for young children – first written as bedtime stories for his little daughter – explaining how whales, camels, elephants and other creatures first got to become the way they are, and also just how numbers, letters and the alphabet were first invented.
A treat for young and old alike.
(29,000 words) An e-book is available for downloading below. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT 2. HOW THE CAMEL GOT HIS HUMP 3. (...)