Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) was celebrated in his native Italy as a short-story writer before he achieved international acclaim towards the end of his career for ground-breaking modern plays such as Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921), Henry IV (1922) and Tonight We Improvise (1930).
He was one of the most prolific short-story writers of all time, with a total of 237 stories published during his long and fruitful career.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934.
This powerful (…)
Articles les plus récents
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"War": Luigi Pirandello’s memorable story about parenthood in wartime (1918)
1 March 2020, by Luigi Pirandello -
The Lyrical Ballads (1798) version of Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" – the original and arguably most authentic text
19 February 2020, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge“Lyrical Ballads”, no doubt the most famous book of poetry in the English language, was jointly published in 1798 by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).
This book, generally considered to have ushered in the age of romanticism in English literature, contained two of the greatest poems in the language, Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey [1] and Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The version of Coleridge’s masterpiece that is generally available (…) -
"The Mutiny of the Elsinore" (1913) - an adventure novel on the high seas by Jack London
3 February 2020, by Jack LondonJohn Pathurst is a rich, very successful and very blasé 30-year-old writer who has taken passage on a big four-masted sailing-ship carrying coals from Baltimore to Seattle, with the aim of resting his jaded nerves. Right away there are signs that the trip is not going to be an easy one – the crew is a gang of drunken, incompetent landlubbers, his quarters are not the best on the ship much to his annoyance, the captain and first mate are strange fellows indeed and, especially, there is a (…)
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Gavin Lyall (1964)
1 February 2020, by Gavin LyallThe most dangerous game of the title of this very classy adventure novel with a strong espionage tinge is far more dangerous than any bear or other wild beast – it’s a man with a gun who knows how to use it.
With Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male (1939), it is our choice for the best man-hunt story – in the literal sense – of all time.
(74,000 words) An e-book of this well-paced and well-written thriller is available for downloading below. THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME
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They were ripping (…) -
The adventures of the Marquise and the Baroness — three of Guy de Maupassant’s most amusing (and amoral) stories
1 February 2020, by Guy de MaupassantThe Marquise de Rennedon and her intimate friend the Baroness de Grangerie are two of Maupassant’s most memorable heroines. They both feature in these three sparkling, amusing and amoral stories about their amorous adventures. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE SECRET (1885) The Baroness of Grangerie is resting when the Marquise de Rennedon rushes in to tell her how utterly fed up she had become not only with her husband’s ugliness but especially with his insane jealousy and surveillance. But she (…) -
"Who Goes There?" (1938) - an iconic sci-fi story by John Campbell
16 January 2020, by John CampbellA scientific expedition in Antarctica discovers the remnants of an alien spaceship that had crashed there millions of years ago, and decides – unwisely – to melt the frozen remnants of one of the forms found nearby. When the alien being revives and reveals incredible shape-changing abilities and other stupendous powers, the race is on not only to save themselves but also and especially to save the whole human race from destruction.
(22,500 words)
First published in the August 1938 issue (…) -
"The House That Stood Still" (1950) by A.E. van Vogt
4 January 2020, by A. E. van VogtWe are in California in a coastal town in the late forties, and a hard-working young lawyer (and ex-Marine) hears screams somewhere in the building as he is leaving his office around midnight. Rushing upstairs to deal vigorously with the problem, he gets rapidly involved with a group of cultists, with the powers that control the city, with the multi-millionaire whose ancient house overlooking the Pacific is at the centre of all of the many dramas in the story, with a series of murders, with (…)
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"Rogue Male" by Geoffrey Household (1939)
1 January 2020, by Geoffrey HouseholdRogue Male is without a doubt in our humble opinion the master reference, the model, the bestest with the mostest – in a word, the greatest suspense thriller with a man-hunt theme ever written!
It starts off with a terrific scene of an expert hunter closing in on the biggest and by far the most dangerous game of them all, man – and then goes off on a long and very gripping account of the hunt the other way around once the tables have been reversed, and finishes with a terrific climax (…) -
"La petite Roque" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant
1 January 2020, by Guy de MaupassantTABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE STORY OF A FARM GIRL (1881) Rosa, a young servant on a rather prosperous farm is pursued by Jacques, a labourer on the farm. She is a strong girl and easily fends him off but one thing leads to another and even a marriage promise. But Rosa’s life falls apart a few months later when she is in an interesting situation and Jacque’s commitment rapidly fades. (6,900 words)
2. IN THE SPRING (1881) The narrator goes out on a fine spring day and right beside him in (…) -
"Ward No. 6" and other stories by Anton Chekhov
24 December 2019, by Anton ChekhovTABLE OF CONTENTS
1. OLD AGE (Старость) (1885) The architect Uzelkov returns on mission to the town that he had left twenty years before after his divorce there, and is invited to dinner by the wily lawyer who had handled his divorce and who reveals to him during the dinner what really went on with his former wife in those far-off days. (2,200 words)
2. ART (Художество) (1886) Seryozhka has a great talent for creating magnificent holy icons out of snow and ice on the frozen river for the (…)