Prospero’s Isle

Latest articles

• "Twilight Story" by Stefan Zweig (1908)

  23 September by Stefan Zweig

  A fifteen-year-old English boy on holiday in the grand Scottish castle of his relatives wanders into the grounds late at night, fascinated by its somewhat eerie atmosphere. Where he’s abruptly accosted in the dark by a passionate young woman who vigorously embraces him before fleeing. Unable to (...)

• "Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll (1871)

  18 September by Lewis Carroll

  Lewis Carroll’s wonderful sequel to "Alice in Wonderland" where Alice meets Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Red and Black Queens and Knights, Tiger-Lily, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Frog and the Gnat and the Lion and the Unicorn and talking flowers and so many other aspects (...)

• "The Nightingale’s Benefit Performance" by Anton Chekhov (1883)

  16 September by Anton Chekhov

  A group of people gathers on a grassy hillside to listen to a concert. It begins with the singing of the cuckoo, then a wide variety of creatures join in, and after an intermission the star of the evening gives a performance that reduces the audience, human and natural, to a stunned and (...)

• "Unexpected Acquaintance with a Craft" by Stefan Zweig (1934)

  11 September by Stefan Zweig

  Returning to Paris after a two-year absence, the narrator decides to just do nothing other than soak up the atmosphere of the boulevards and watch the crowds passing by there. Which enables him to identify a pickpocket and to study the fellow’s expert technique. When he follows the man on his (...)

• "The Story of the Good Kasperl and the Pretty Annerl" by Clemens Brentano (1817)

  28 August by Clemens Brentano

  A remarkable old woman of eighty-eight who has walked for a very long time to come to the Duke’s residence to plead for mercy and forgiveness for her grandson Kasperl and her goddaughter Annerl, both of whom have come to a sad end, recounts in an irresistibly authentic way that cannot fail to (...)

• "The Marquise of O..." by Heinrich von Kleist (1808)

  23 August by Heinrich von Kleist

  In this stark investigation of the feminine condition in a rigid society ruled by pitiless moral strictures, the young widow Marquise of O... finds herself in an unexpected condition with no idea of how or why this situation came to be, and courageously puts an ad in the local paper proposing (...)

• "Springtime in the Prater (Praterfrühling)" by Stefan Zweig (1900)

  16 August by Stefan Zweig

  A young woman in an elegant building in the most select part of Vienna is quite beside herself with annoyance because the new gown that she has ordered for Derby Day has failed to arrive on time, obliging her to miss the fancy event. Finally she decides to put on her oldest dress and just go (...)

• "Forgotten Dreams" (1900), Stefan Zweig’s remarkable first published story

  25 July by Stefan Zweig

  An elegant lady relaxing on the terrace of her magnificent mansion on the Riviera is called upon by a man she had known in her younger days. About to leave for America, he has come to ask her for an explanation of why she had decided to marry into money rather than take her chances with him (...)

• "The Window" and other Gallic stories by Guy de Maupassant

  21 July by Guy de Maupassant

  Seven more of the master’s best stories, most with a rather racy, distinctively Gallic touch and all with a distinctively direct, straightforward and rather elegant Maupassantian touch.
  They have all been translated specially for this site. TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. THE WINDOW The narrator recounts (...)

• "The Love of Erika Ewald" (1904), an early masterpiece by Stefan Zweig

  14 July by Stefan Zweig

  Erika Ewald is a young, lonely and innocent young woman who falls increasingly under the charm of a very gifted violinist whom she accompanies on the piano, and finally things come to a brink during a Sunday outing to the outskirts of Vienna where the owner of an establishment where they stop (...)

• "The Flight That Failed" (1942) by A. E. van Vogt and E. M. Hull

  6 July by A. E. van Vogt

  An aircraft pilot on a critical war-time mission across the Atlantic is suddenly warned by a mysterious passenger that the flight is in mortal danger from enemy warcraft that have been informed of the flight’s secret contents and of its flight plan. The passenger turns out to possess (...)

• "Investigations of a Dog" (1922) by Franz Kafka

  27 June by Franz Kafka

  A solitary dog recalls the investigations he had undertaken in his youth to understand the whys and the wherefores of such questions as food, hunger, language and communication with other members of his community. In the course of his investigations he had encountered strange and quasi-mystical (...)

• "The Debt Paid Late (1941)" – one of Stefan Zweig’s best stories now available on-line in English

  17 June by Stefan Zweig

  A middle-aged woman writes to an old friend to recount how during a brief holiday in the Tyrolean mountains she’d encountered an actor that they both had utterly worshipped in their adolescence and who’d since fallen on hard times. She reveals to her old friend how the actor had played a key role (...)

• "On a Spring Evening" and other stories by Guy de Maupassant

  10 June by Guy de Maupassant

  More of the master’s best stories, all with a distinctive and distinctively Gallic touch, vous comprenez?
  All of these stories have been translated specially for this site. TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. ON A SPRING EVENING (1881) Jeanne and Jacques have grown up together, have fallen in love and are (...)

• "Peter Pan" by J. M. Barrie (1911)

  6 June by J. M. Barrie

  One of the most charming stories ever written with young people in mind, the account of how Wendy and her brothers meet up with a little boy who refuses to grow up, Peter Pan, who teaches them how to fly so that they can escape with him and his fairy companion Tinker Bell to Neverland, the land (...)

• "Nothing To Be Done!" and other previously-untranslated Chekhov stories

  31 May by Anton Chekhov

  Twelve tales with a distinctive mix of humour and cynicism that have been translated into English here for the first time ever.
  1. THE CONFESSION (1883) Grigory Kuzmich is delighted to have been appointed treasurer and is pleasantly surprised to find that everyone’s suddenly very amiable with (...)

• "Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman" by Stefan Zweig (1925)

  26 May by Stefan Zweig

  In this story within a story a woman recounts a decisive moment in her life when she had tried to help a young nobleman whose passion for the roulette table had lead him to the brink of self-destruction.
  Soberly recounted with sensitivity and in-depth psychological penetration: one of the most (...)

• "Literary Lapses" by Stephen Leacock (1910)

  18 May by Steven Leacock

  A collection of stories by the Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), a distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science at Montreal’s McGill University and author of the best-selling comical classics Sunshine Stories of a Little Town and Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. (...)

• "The Ice Palace" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922)

  13 May by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Sally Carrol leaves her sleepy southern town where she had declared: “I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale…” to visit her fiancé up north shortly before their planned marriage. It’s January and it’s very cold up there where a (...)

• "Green Scythe" and other stories by Anton Chekhov

  9 May by Anton Chekhov

  More outstanding stories by the most prolific short-story writer in the history of world literature. CONTENTS
  1. GREEN SCYTHE (1882) The narrator and his friends love to spend their summers on the Black Sea with with the vivacious Olya. Life is gay there but there’s a problem: Olga had promised (...)

• "Fear (Angst)" (1922) by Stefan Zweig

  29 April by Stefan Zweig

  A well-to-do married woman who has faulted with a seductive young pianist is aggressively blackmailed by a coarse young woman who threatens to denounce her to her husband. The blackmail is increasingly successful, the lady is overcome with fear and anguish and finally she sees only one fatal (...)

• "Lost Business" and other previously-untranslated Chekhov stories

  20 April by Anton Chekhov

  A further selection of the best stories of the great Russian writer that have so far remained untranslated into English. CONTENTS
  1. LOST BUSINESS (1882) The narrator recounts how on a lovely spring day he’d gone to see his beloved Varya to empty his heart and soul to her. He’d mumbled a few (...)

• "The Winged Man" (1966), a novel by A. E. van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull

  12 April by A. E. van Vogt

  The crew of a modern U.S. submarine finds itself suddenly transported 24,999 years into the future where they have been time-transported by one group of engineered mutants (winged men) to blast the stronghold of another group of mutants (fish-men) to smithereens with their torpedoes as a (...)

• Fourteen previously-untranslated Chekhov stories

  5 April by Anton Chekhov

  We have selected here fourteen of the best stories in the body of to-date-untranslated stories of the great Russian short-story writer, playwright and doctor that have been overviewed elsewhere on this site.
  Most – but not all – of them are written in the light, humorous tone that characterised (...)

• The 204 untranslated Chekhov stories to date: overviews, comments and ratings

  29 March by Ray

  Research in the extensive Russian-language documentation of the works of Chekhov has enabled us to collate that information with our own detailed inventory of the master’s works in English to identify the large body of Chekhov stories that has remained untranslated into English to date.
  We have (...)

• "Anabasis, or The Retreat of the Ten Thousand", by Xenophon

  21 March by Xenophon

  The dramatic account by Xenophon (430-355 BC), an Athenian philosopher, author, soldier and student of Socrates, of the expedition – that he participated in and eventually led – of an elite force of Greek soldiers into the heart of Persia on behalf of one of the contestants to the throne there, (...)

• "Casanova’s Homecoming" (1918) by Arthur Schnitzler

  14 March by Arthur Schnitzler

  The celebrated seducer, adventurer, diplomat and author Casanove is in his fifties, is practically penniless and has only one dream – to be allowed to return to his beloved Venice from which he had escaped over the rooftops of its central prison some twenty years previously.
  We follow his (...)

• "Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich" (1914) by Stephen Leacock

  11 March by Steven Leacock

  A charming set of sometimes-scathing and always-smile-raising satirical sketches of life in the wealthy sectors of a typical American town ca. 1914 [1], by Canada’s foremost humorist [2], author of the immortal Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. (60,000 words)
  An e-book is available for (...)

• "White Nights" (1848) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  7 March by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  A very lonely and very penniless young man wanders around the streets of Saint Petersburg dreaming about life in general and the people he sees around him in particular. One eventful evening he rescues a damsel in distress and strikes up the most significant relationship of his life – that does (...)

• "A Klondike Wooing" and other stories of the Far North by Jack London

  4 March by Jack London

  More tales of adventure, drama, skulduggery and comedy during the great Klondike Gold Rush in 1897-98 around Dawson City in Canada’s Northwest Territories. An e-book is available for downloading below. TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. THE TEST: A KLONDIKE WOOING (1898) Lucky Jack has struck it rich in the (...)