Showing results by author "Grant Allen" in All Categories

Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover-or rediscover-just how transformative an act of reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss.

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was born on February 24th, 1848 at Alwington, near Kingston, Canada West (now part of Ontario). He was the second son of the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland and Catharine Ann Grant, the daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. Grant Allen is rarely heard of today, although an occasional short story can be heard on the radio or reprinted among magazine enthusiasts but in his time he did much to entertain the masses and push several genres along a richer journey they are still proceeding on today.

The Woman Who Did, written in 1893 wholly and solely to satisfy the author's conscience, was perhaps the most controversial book of the late 19th century. Certainly, it was a succès de scandale and a commercial triumph. The heroine, Herminia Barton, chooses to live unmarried with her lover. When he dies, she endures many a trial for her beliefs - particularly after the stigma of bearing his child - being cast out from both families.

What a coincidence. The mummies wake up once a millennium, and who should stumble into the pyramid but our hero? This is a fun little story about a British ne'er-do-well who has found possible wealth and prosperity by becoming engaged to the rather plain - and plain is a nice word for it - daughter of a new English nobleman. But wait. He wanders into the pyramid when the mummies have their 24 hours of life once a millennium, and he falls madly in love with the Pharaoh's daughter, who is some 6,000 years old.

Set against the international background of the late Victorian rich and privileged The African Millionaire is a far-fetched and farcical romp in which gullible Sir Charles Vandrift MP is slowly but steadily parted from his vast wealth by a series of confidence tricks and deceptions.

Charles Vandrift is a shrewd businessman who is never taken in by hocus-pocus. So when he hears of the Great Mexican Seer, a man who has taken all Nice by storm, he cannot wait to unmask him as a fraud. But is the Seer more than a commonplace conjurer?

This is the podcast where we discuss our different top-ten lists, and convince one another why we’re right.

Kurz vor Weihnachten 1889: Die junge Maisie Llewelyn erhält von der Millionärin Mrs. West eine Einladung nach Wolverden Hall in Kent, einem der schönsten und besterhaltenen Herrenhäuser der elisabethanischen Zeit.

Die Gruselkabinett Box 36 beinhaltet die Hörspiele "Der Judas-Kuss", "Das Zeichen der Bestie", "Der Wolverden-Turm", "Der gewaltige Gott Pan".