Welsh Fiction

All he ever wanted was to go home. Leaving his life as a noble hostage behind him, Gryff has fled from one danger to another, never safe, always longing for a forbidden return to his conquered Welsh homeland. Held captive by villainous men, his unlikely savior is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen - and the most deadly. Her silence is unnerving, her generosity unexpected, and her pointed warning that she will not be an object of lust is perfectly clear.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

Bereft of his beloved wife, Glencora, and his role as prime minister, Plantagenet Palliser enters the realm of family politics as he struggles to guide and connect with his three wayward children. Lord Silverbridge, the Duke's first born and natural inheritor, expelled from Oxford, a gambler at the racetrack and an elected Conservative, further troubles his father when he becomes engaged to Isabel Boncassen. Lady Mary, his daughter, falls in love with a penniless young gentleman named Frank Tregear, while his second son, Gerald, displays similar behavior to his brother.

John Keats was largely unappreciated during his lifetime and died in Rome at the age of 26. Most of his 150 poems were written in just nine extraordinary months in 1819. This selection contains some of his finest works, including the principal "Odes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Old Meg", and "Much Have I Travelled".

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a poet, novelist, and literary critic. He created the enchanting world of fairyland inhabited by characters like the snow-queen, the mermaid's son, ogres, dwarfs, monsters, magicians, and giants. The Pink Fairy Book contains 41 tales from Africa, Japan, Scandinavia, and Europe. They range from familiar stories like "The Snow-Queen" and "The Fir-Tree" to the obscure tales of the Tanuki. This collection contains stories like "The Cats' Elopement", The "Princess in the Chest", "Snowflake", and more....

The Mill on the Floss, first published in 1860, tells the story of Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom as they grow from children to young adults in the small rural town of St. Ogg's, England. Intelligent and passionate, Maggie yearns to develop her mind and break free of the constraints of her provincial village. Though she loves her brother above anyone else, Tom's rigid, pragmatic personality often conflicts with Maggie's headstrong nature, with increasingly tragic consequences.

One morning Gwen Thomas takes a short walk with her Siberian husky in the outskirts of the Welsh town she calls home. She is drawn to a desolate area where, some 20 years ago as a teenager, she was brutally attacked and her friend killed. Disorientated by a sudden rush of memories, she has a fall. Later, recovering in hospital, she begins to recollect the events that led up to her friend’s death.

At the end of his life, William Blake (1757-1827) gave up hope of being widely understood, but the twentieth century brought to his work a new and intense interest and acclaim.

Un jour de printemps, Mrs Dalloway, maîtresse de maison londonienne, s'apprête à donner une réception à Westminster. Tandis qu'au fil de la journée, Big Ben sonne les heures, les personnages s'affairent, vivant chacun à leur manière leur rapport au temps et aux autres. À travers les souvenirs et les réflexions des personnages se dévoilent apparences et faux-semblants et le temps ne devient plus qu'une succession d'événements minuscules et de bouleversements camouflés.

The Man of Property, the first novel in Galsworthy's epic social satire The Forsyte Saga, introduces us to Soames Forsyte, a solicitor and prominent man of his important family. Accustomed to getting whatever he wants, he sets his sights with absolute determination on the beautiful Irene in spite of her pennilessness and her indifference to him.

"Le Portrait de Dorian Gray" a été rédigé en 1890, puis complété en 1891. Ce roman fantastique est à la fois un manifeste esthétique et un récit moral. Bien qu'Oscar Wilde y développe l'idée d'un art dégagé de toute éthique, le jeune Dorian Gray va faire face à sa conscience morale à travers son portrait qui porte à sa place les traces de sa perversité et la décadence que le temps inflige aux esprits les plus purs.

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh. But his fiancée, Trudi, is only interested in planning their wedding, and soon Lennox is cast adrift, alone in Florida. A coke-fuelled binge brings him into contact with another victim of sexual predation, 10-year-old Tianna, and Lennox flees across the state with his terrified charge, determined to protect her at any cost.

At the opening of The Claverings (1866) the beautiful Julia Brabazon jilts her lover Harry Clavering in order to make a marriage of convenience with a wealthy but dissolute earl. Harry licks his wounds, leaves London to train as a civil engineer, and falls in love with his employer's daughter, to whom he soon becomes engaged. But when Julia returns unexpectedly as a wealthy widow, the flame of Harry's old love is rekindled.

Dans l'Angleterre victorienne, Oliver Twist, jeune orphelin angélique, est recueilli par l'assistance ; il est placé chez M. et Mme Sowerberry, fabricant de cercueils et croque-mort de son état. Là, il ne connaît que privations et mauvais traitements. Oliver endure tout, jusqu'au jour où une provocation d'un apprenti le pousse à se battre puis à s'enfuir vers Londres.

Young Alice leads an ordinary sort of life until, one day, she follows a rabbit down a hole and embarks on a series of adventures with some of the most weird and wonderful characters anyone has ever encountered! She soon discovers that nothing is ordinary in Wonderland, least of all the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess, and the Mock Turtle.

Here is a delightful look at childhood, written by master poet and storyteller Robert Louis Stevenson. In this collection A Child's Garden of Verses of 64 poems, Stevenson recalls the joys of his childhood, from sailing boats down a river, to waiting for the lamplighter, to sailing off to foreign lands in his imagination. Nothing has ever been written that appeals to a child's nature more than A Child's Garden of Verses. It is written in a simple verse that a child can readily understand.

Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervor and erotic sensuality, delight in life’s pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne’s ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.

Our agent, a man named Mr Verloc, minds his own business while he keeps his shop in London's Soho, alongside his wife, who attends to her aged mother and disabled brother. Their lives are turned upside down when Verloc is reluctantly employed to plant a bomb and destroy an observatory in London. What was once the perfect bomb plot inevitably turns awry and Verloc, his family and his associates are forced to face the consequences.

At thirty-three, nurse Heather is desperately waiting for her romantic life to begin. Then she meets handsome, strong Anthony and is sure she’s found the one. Brushing any doubts aside, she projects all her hopes for true love onto him. Meanwhile, at a yoga retreat in Spain, happy-go-lucky Joe can’t believe his luck when he meets vivacious, witty Amy. She’s the sharpest, most beautiful woman he has ever dated, and the fact that she’s interested in him feels like a dream come true.

When the naive David Balfour sets out on his quest for a long-lost relative, a terrifying chain of events is set in motion. He is plunged into a world of infamy and violence from which there seems no escape - until, that is, he meets the enigmatic and valiant Highlander, Alan Breck....