Showing results by narrator "Alan Weyman" in All Categories

The collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies.

A Gallery of Children is A. A. Milne's first published book of prose. It was released after his poetry collection, When We Were Very Young, and prior to Winnie the Pooh. With his characteristic blend of nonsense, wit and warmth, Milne offers 12 short stories of childish endeavour and mishap. They will delight and amuse listeners both young and not-so-young.

Rosmersholm is a play surrounding the deep and intense political and cultural change in Norway in the middle of the 1880s, a period during which the traditional ruling class were forced to relinquish their right to impose their ideals on the rest of society. We follow Johannes Rosmer, a pastor who has resigned from his position; Rebecca West, a woman who sees Rosmer's potential and believes she can help him to realize his dream of creating a world of "happy, noble people"; and Headmaster Kroll, Rosmer's former best friend.

As the generating force of its plot, Twelfth Night uses a device which has since become a staple in comedy: gender confusion. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, a country ruled by the melancholy Duke Orsino. The twins are separated and Viola is led to believe that her brother has perished. She disguises herself as a male under the name of Cesario and makes her way to the ducal court, where Orsino employs her as a messenger, to communicate his love to the reclusive lady, Olivia—who is not willing to return his affection.

This collection of 35 short poems was first published in 1927, and is a sequel to When We Were Very Young, which was the first anthology of verse dealing with the domestic adventures of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.

The focus in Melincourt is the operation of the "rotten borough" which corrupted the English electoral system until the reform bill of 1832. A rotten borough was a constituency that had been established by royal prerogative but had subsequently lost most of its population. Nevertheless, it still retained the right to have two representatives in the House of Commons. On the other hand, many population centers which had expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution were not entitled to any electoral representation.

Talking animals, cunning ruses, comeuppances (or escapes from them), good and bad fortune, and a degree of ruthless cruelty are the stuff of folktales everywhere. No less so in these ten tales collected by George W. Bateman in East Africa towards the end of the nineteenth century and published in 1901. Some people think that these tales were the inspiration for some of the Disney stories. The present narrator sees the very little resemblance, but no doubt you'll make up your own mind about it!

Calidore is a fragment of an unfinished romance and may be considered unique among Peacock's work. Composition probably commenced after the publication of Peacock's largest novel, Melincourt, in 1817. The action concerns the adventures of a young man, Calidore, who finds himself in Wales, en route to London in search of "a wife and a philosopher".

Thomas Love Peacock is today remembered as the author of seven satirical novels which many regard merely as literary curiosities. However, he was also a man of considerable learning, a skilled poet, and an astute literary critic. This collection includes Recollections of Thomas Love Peacock, an affectionate reminiscence by Sir Edward Strachey; Some Recollections of Childhood, a window into Peacock's early youth; "Four Ages of Poetry", in which he pokes fun at his contemporaries; and "The Last Day of Windsor Forest", an old man's recollection of a memorable episode.

In Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, a distinguished writer's holiday from the burdens of his work turns out very differently from what he expected. By means of the story, Mann explores the relationships between disciplined intellect and ungoverned passion, and between decaying age and youthful beauty, against a background that resonates today in a time of pandemics. It was first published in German (as Der Tod in Venedig) in 1912.

A group of highly opinionated individuals gather at a remote country estate in Hampshire and indulge in lengthy conversations about issues of the day over extravagant dinners. The young and idealistic Algernon Falconer resides in the opulent country house with seven young "handmaidens', whom he calls "Vestals." A learned and garrulous local clergyman, Dr. Opimian, becomes a friend and confidant of Mr. Falconer and decides that the young man would make a suitable husband for Morgana Gryll, a niece of one of his friends.

Ebenezer Mac Crotchet, Esq., who has a mixed Scottish and Jewish parentage, has inherited some sterling qualities but is determined to destroy, as much as possible, all vestiges of his extraction. His villa has become a resort for literary and scientific men, with the result that the author easily provides himself with enough characters to introduce his favourite remarks on a wide range of topics, including Ancient Greek, transcendentalism, contagion, education, political economy, and meteorology.

Unlike most of Peacock's novels, The Misfortunes of Elphin has a distinct plot, built around the adventures of prominent figures of Arthurian legend, like Taliesin, the bard, the princes Elphin, and Seithenyn and King Arthur himself. The drama comes to a satisfactory resolution when Arthur's wife, Gwenyvar, who has been kidnapped by the ambitious King Melvas, is restored to her husband, after some skilful negotiation by Seithenyn and a cunning abbot.

Unlike Peacock's other novels, Maid Marian has a substantial plot, based on the romantic legend of Robin Hood. As is usual with Peacock, the violence is presented in a rather humorous fashion and the characters indulge lavishly in eating and drinking. Beneath the veneer of this well-known and innocuous narrative, Peacock finds ample opportunity to satirize the foibles of church and secular government.

Hamlet and Macbeth are two of Shakespeare's best-known plays and contain some of the most famous speeches in world literature. These one-act versions of the plays, which were edited by J. P. Crabb (the details of whose life and other works have disappeared into obscurity) retain the significant monologues and dialogues while presenting a streamlined view of the action.

The Green Cockatoo is a short play set in a busy tavern on the night of the storming of the Bastille. Rich Parisian nobles come to watch some actors play at being rogues, thieves, and other criminals, but they quickly find reality and fantasy blending together in the most alarming of ways.

Headlong Hall was the first of his seven novels, all of which display the same structure. There is a faint semblance of a plot, which is merely a device to bring together a bunch of voluble eccentrics, who converse on a wide range of topical issues. Headlong Hall is the rural seat of the ebullient Squire Headlong, who invites a number of philosophers, a clergyman, a musician, a novelist, and a phrenologist, to dine with him and share their views.

These three tales were written for the popular literary gift annual The Keepsake in 1828, 1829, and 1831. Their "sensational" themes include exotic locations, dire misfortune, long-lost kin, stolen identity, evil redeemed, plots resolved by strange coincidences, and in one case at least, an encounter with a supernatural being. Gothic fare.

In the 28 poems of which Maud: A Monodrama consists, a somewhat mentally fragile young man narrates step by step (almost in stream-of-consciousness) the progress and aftermath of his feelings for Maud, whose father, the owner of the neighboring estate and Hall, he blames for his own father's death and his family's ruin. Many of the themes of the work are related to Tennyson's own experiences and those of his close family.

A tender and elegiac tale, William and Mary was first published in The Century Magazine in December 1920 (vol. 101).