Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

"Men in pajamas sitting abaft the funnel and swapping lies of the purple seas." Thirty one early short stories by the master story teller Kipling. (Summary by David Wales and title page)

The girlfriends are coming to visit the chaps at college, but of course they can't stay unless there is a proper chaperone. So what could be more reasonable that getting a friend from the Drama Club to dress up and pretend to be Charley's Aunt? Simple and sure to work! What could go wrong? Howsabout the real aunt arriving? This play has been revived and adapted numerous times including as films, a Broadway musical, and even an opera. (NOTE: the script contains an almost overwhelming number of stage directions by the author telling each actor what emotion to show, where to move, and even how to...

This book (eleven short stories) was also published under the title of “The Old Home House”. Joseph Crosby Lincoln (1870 – 1944) was an American author of novels, poems, and short stories, many set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. Lincoln's work frequently appeared in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and The Delineator.... Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt ...

A series of essays offering a humorous look at commonplace items and occurrences. (Summary by Nick Bulka)

While hunting, the boy Anchises stumbles upon Venus's forest retreat and is so kindly entertained by the goddess that he becomes the proud father of Aeneas, the hero of Vergil's Aeneid. The poem is an epyllion like Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" and Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," a short erotic poem with a mythological subject. The style is Spenserian, the stanzas rhyming ababbccc.When Brittain's Ida was published in 1628, the publisher ascribed it to Edmund Spenser. However, in 1926 Ethel Seaton discovered and published Fletcher's original manuscript, whose opening stanzas make clear that ...

The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley. (Summary excerpted from Prefatory Remarks from the book by W. M. Thackeray)

Imagining a holiday postcard message penned by the author …My Dear Listeners Ended up having a great 10 days up here on the Norfolk Broads, even after everyone in the original party called off at the last minute! Met up with Mr Bradley, a splendid chap (who is also an East End London policeman and is thus the ‘Bobby’ of this tale) who joined me on ‘The Shamrock’, a small lug-sail boat that I’d hired to cruise around the Broads. Pleased to report that my friend Bunce rolled up the following evening whilst the ‘Bobby’ & I were in the middle of a boozy singsong session with the ...

The wild and raw adventures of Catherine Hayes, who was burned for murder at Tyburn in 1742 - Summary by Mark Leder

The story revolves around Montgomery Brewster, a poor man who inherits a large sum of money. However, there is a catch — he has to spend every penny within 30 days, and end up with nothing at that time. Should he make the deadline, he stands to gain an even larger sum; should he fail, he remains penniless.Brewster finds that spending so much money is more difficult than he first thinks, especially when the lawyers are trying to make him fail so that they can claim the money. What makes it worse is that he starts to be a little too successful with some ventures, actually making money from ...

Semi-autobiographical series of incidents in the life of an intellectual American family in the late 19th - early 20th Century as seen by favored daughter, Sylvia Marshall. Her father is an economics professor in a Midwestern state university and she is following in his inquisitive footsteps. Canfield writes this in a matter-of-fact manner with Tarkingtonesque good humor. ( Summary by BellonaTimes )

Young, self conscious, timid stenographer for a New York businessman with a beautiful daughter (the flapper). He emulates stronger types, but alas.....is not them. He grows up in this humorous volume from 1913. - Summary by joseph tabler

A collection containing a parody on Problem Plays, as well as humorous anecdotes from Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock. (Summary by TriciaG)Cast for Section 1:Narrator/Stage Directions – Tricia GSir John – Algy PugLady Cecily – Liberty StumpValet – Bob GonzalezMr. Harding – John HoerrFrench Maid – Annabelle LiPostal Messenger & “A Man” – David LawrenceMrs. Harding – Bev J. StevensAudio edited by Tricia G

The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert developed his unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert ...

Another delightful example of an English writer poking fun at his countrymen, or maybe all races' reactions to someone from a different background.A series of adventures of a well educated foreigner in London which originally appeared weekly in Punch, sometimes with illustrations, dealing with the difficulties of fully understanding a different culture.The hero's perfect English reminds one of a quote from "My Fair Lady" ..."His English is too good, he said, "that clearly indicates that he is Foreign. Whereas other people are instructed in their native language English people aren't." (Summary...

"Sometimes, in a mood of Spanish castles, there flits across my fancy the vision of an ancient city on a hill-top, with lofty battlements thrust upward from the rock and towers that stand on tip-toe…. Our stage is the square of this ancient city, seen dimly in the night.... The time of our play is remote and I choose to think the world is flat, that comets are of evil prophecy and witches still ride on the windy moon...." Published in the same book as "Wappin' Wharf: A Frightful Comedy of Pirates", this story is subtitled "A Frightful Comedy of Beggars". The play describes skulduggery at the...

The estimable gentleman, Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, ESQ., B.A., travels from his native India to England, with his impeccable English and manners, which immediately mark him as a foreigner, and embarks on an enviable program of escapades. These stories are the product of the fertile imagination of Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., a nom de plume for the humorist F. Anstey, which is a further nom de plume for Thomas Anstey Guthrie. Whether rescuing a nubile maiden from a charging bull or falling in love with said nubile maiden, Mr. Bosh, B. A. cannot help but perform with the requisite humor to ...

Es findet ein großes Diner statt im Hause des Kommerzienrates Rosenthal v. Muffelseck, und unter den geladenen Gästen befindet sich auch der Geheimrat von Schatz. Der Geheimrat ist Gastrosoph, d.h., er sieht ein Gastmahl wie dieses als eine hohe Kunst, die mit einem Theaterstück vergleichbar ist. Zwischen den Geschmacksexplosionen bei Tische wendet er sich außerdem noch seiner Tischnachbarin, der schönen Gräfin Erlach zu, deren Hand er sich fast so sehr wünscht wie den nächsten Gang. Die Gräfin ist jedoch weniger an einer Partie für sich selbst interessiert als daran, die Tochter des...

"Alice au Pays des Merveilles," publié originellement par Lewis Carroll en 1865 comme "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," fut traduit en 1869 par Henri Bué. Histoire de fantaisie, il s'agit d'une jeune fille, Alice, qui tombe dans un trou de lapin, et se trouve tout d'un coup dans un monde de merveilles. Là, elle rencontre plusieurs personnages curieux, comme le chat du Cheshire, le Chapelier, le Lièvre de Mars, Humpty Dumpty, la Fausse-tortue, la Reine de Coeurs, parmi d'autres. Pas destiné d'origine à se faire livre d'enfants, Alice s'embrouille dans un monde cauchemardesque, peuplé ...

Pretty but socially clueless Bernice lets her know-it-all cousin push her around, but eventually, something's gotta give! (Introduction by BellonaTimes)

The Bachelors' Club is a sanctuary for an elite group of London's unmarried men to gather. To qualify as a Bachelor, each had to undergo a strict background check to ensure that they were not only unmarried, but a zealot in the movement that held marriage to be an undue punishment...upon women. As our story goes, we learn many revealing things about these men's convictions and pasts, as well as insightful commentaries on life and society in 1890 that is markedly similar to today. Summary by Keith Salis