Global Last ebooks – Rows2

Le meraviglie del duemila (scritto anche Le meraviglie del 2000) è un romanzo del 1907 scritto da Emilio Salgari. Rientra nel filone del romanzo scientifico ed è considerato il testo più importante della protofantascienza (More) italiana. Narra di un viaggio nel futuro. Due uomini, grazie alla scoperta di un principio attivo di una strana pianta esotica che sospende le funzioni vitali, riescono a viaggiare nel tempo per ben cento anni, spostandosi dal 1903 al 2003.
Si trovano quindi a vivere in una società profondamente modificata e potranno così conoscere un mondo popolato da macchine volanti, treni sotterranei e velocissimi, città sottomarine e molte altre meraviglie tecnologiche.

Giovanni Verga è lo scrittore italiano considerato come il maggior esponente della corrente letteraria del verismo, non solo per i suoi famosi romanzi “I Malavoglia” e “Mastro Don Gesualdo”, ma soprattutto per le sue novelle, fra (More) cui la “Cavalleria Rusticana” che venne poi sviluppata in forma teatrale dallo stesso Verga e diventò un’opera lirica di Pietro Mascagni. Questo libro contiene tutte le raccolte di novelle scritte da Verga.

Beau Geste is a 1924 adventure novel by P. C. Wren.
Michael “Beau” Geste is the protagonist. The main narrator (among others), by contrast, is his younger brother John. The three Geste brothers are a metaphor for the British (More) upper class values of a time gone by, and “the decent thing to do” is, in fact, the leitmotif of the novel. The Geste brothers are orphans and have been brought up by their aunt at Brandon Abbas. The rest of Beau’s band are mainly Isobel and Claudia (only daughter of Lady Patricia, and in a way, also reason enough for Michael to join the French Foreign Legion), and Lady Patricia’s relative Augustus (always considered “the heir” of Sir Hector Brandon).
When a precious jewel known as the “Blue Water” goes missing, suspicion falls on the young people, and Beau leaves Britain to join the Foreign Legion (la Légion étrangère), followed by his brothers, Digby (his twin) and John. There, after some adventure and separation from Digby, the sadistic Sergeant Major Lejaune gets command of the little garrison at Fort Zinderneuf in French North Africa, and only an attack by Tuaregs prevents a mutiny and mass desertion (only the Geste brothers and a few loyals are against the plot). Throughout the book and adventures, Beau’s behaviour is true to France and the Legion, and he dies at his post. At Brandon Abbas, the last survivor of the three brothers, John, is welcomed by their aunt and his fiancée Isobel, and the reason for the jewel theft is revealed to have been a matter of honour, and to have been the only “decent thing” possible.

The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twain’s first attempt at historical fiction. The book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive (More) father in Offal Court, London, and Prince Edward son of Henry VIII of England. Due to a series of circumstances, the boys accidentally replace each other, and much of the humor in the book originates in the two boys’ inability to function in the world that is so familiar to the other (although Tom soon displays considerable wisdom in his decisions). In many ways, the book is a social satire, particularly compelling in its condemnation of the inequality that existed between the classes in Tudor England. In that sense, Twain abandoned the wry Midwestern style for which he was best known and adopts a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens.

Set in a time of oppressive colonisation, when large areas of the world were still unknown to Europe, and Africa was literally on maps and minds as a mysterious shadow, Heart of Darkness famously explores the rituals of (More) civilisation and barbarism, and the frighteningly fine line between them. We get the tale through a classic unreliable narrator, relating as Marlow, a ship’s captain, tells how he was sent by the Company to retrieve the wayward Kurtz, and was shaken to discover the true depths of darkness in that creature’s, and in his own, soul. Conrad based the work closely on his own terrible experience in the Congo. This work has been reinterpreted and adapted into many modern forms, the most well known being the film Apocalypse Now.

El libro de la Vida es el primero que escribe santa Teresa de Jesús, el más espontáneo y fresco, fiel reflejo de su personalidad y su experiencia humana y sobrenatural.
El texto está cuajado de advertencias sobre la perseverancia, (More) sobre etapas en que se vuelve muy atrás, sobre no querer uno levantar el vuelo sólo. Y continuas llamadas a la humildad, comienzo de toda la oración y también fruto de la misma. El libro se publicó varios años después de la muerte de Santa Teresa.

El “Cantar de Mio Cid” se ha convertido en una de las gestas más afamados de la Edad Media, y el único cantar épico de la literatura española conservado casi completo. Su base argumental es una parte de la vida del caballero (More) castellano Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, quien trata de recuperar la honra perdida a través de diversas hazañas.

Los pazos de Ulloa es una novela de Emilia Pardo Bazán (1852-1921) publicada en 1886.
Es una de las novelas que mejor ejemplifica la corriente naturalista, al reflejar la aceptación de las teorías positivistas aplicadas a la (More) literatura por el escritor francés y padre del naturalismo Émile Zola.

Un joven caballero es invitado al viejo caserón de un amigo de la adolescencia, Roderick Usher, artista enfermizo y excéntrico que vive completamente recluido en compañía de su hermana, Lady Madeline, también delicada de salud. (More) Usher vive presa de una enfermedad indefinible, lo que hace a todos temer por su vida. La que acaba muriendo es su hermana. Sus restos mortales son depositados en una cripta, pero no tardan en producirse terribles acontecimientos que desembocarán en un trágico final.

Este relato narra la historia de un hombre herido que pasa la noche en un castillo abandonado recientemente. El castillo era suntuoso y estaba decorado con hermosos tapices y cuadros. El hombre coge un pequeño libro que encuentra (More) debajo de la almohada en el que hay una breve descripción de los cuadros y las obras de arte. Se fija en un retrato oval de una señora y procede a leer su historia.

The Black Arrow tells the story of Richard (Dick) Shelton during the Wars of the Roses: how he becomes a knight, rescues his lady Joanna Sedley, and obtains justice for the murder of his father, Sir Harry Shelton. Outlaws in (More) Tunstall Forest organized by Ellis Duckworth, whose weapon and calling card is a black arrow, cause Dick to suspect that his guardian Sir Daniel Brackley and his retainers are responsible for his father’s murder. Dick’s suspicions are enough to turn Sir Daniel against him, so he has no recourse but to escape from Sir Daniel and join the outlaws of the Black Arrow against him. This struggle sweeps him up into the greater conflict surrounding them all. The story of the Wars of the Roses is told in miniature by The Black Arrow.

H.G. Wells’ 1897 science fiction novella The Invisible Man tells the story of a scientist named Griffin who theory is this: if the refractive index of a person’s body is adjusted to exactly that of air, then his body will not (More) absorb or reflect light and he will become invisible. Griffin subjects himself to a procedure to do this, becoming an invisible man. But he cannot manage to reverse it and become visible once more, resulting in his mental unhinging.

H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in 1898, when there was much speculation about life on the planet Mars. The book is considered to be one of the first science fiction novels. In the story, an English gentleman narrates the (More) events of a violent and fast paced Martian invasion.The frightening images of people fleeing from gigantic tripod machines and the prospect of life under Martian rule have served as a bottomless well of inspiration for popular culture. The novel has served as a template for many derivative or inspired works, including comics, countless books, a tv series, several films, a bestselling musical, and the famous Orson Wells broadcast. Overall, The War of the Worlds has become an early milestone in and inspiration for the invasion genre.

Canne al vento è un romanzo di Grazia Deledda. Il titolo del romanzo più famoso di Grazia Deledda allude al tema profondo della fragilità umana e del dolore dell’esistenza e in questa direzione mobilita le riflessioni e le (More) fantasie di un eroe protagonista, come un primitivo, un semplice, assai simile al pastore errante dell’Asia leopardiano o a uno degli umili manzoniani. Il rapporto di similitudine tra la condizione delle canne e la vita degli uomini, celebrato nel titolo del romanzo, proviene da un’opera (Elias Portolu) del 1903: Uomini siamo, Elias, uomini fragili come canne, pensaci bene. Al di sopra di noi c’è una forza che non possiamo vincere. Nel 1926 ottenne il premio Nobel per la letteratura. È stata definita la scrittrice del verismo romantico.

To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel (More) includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships. One of the book’s several themes is the ubiquity of transience.

Mark Twain’s work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte who is identified further as Joan’s page and secretary. The work is fictionally presented as a translation from (More) the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, “Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France”.

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is (More) commonly known to be the definitive work on military strategy and tactics of its time. It has been the most famous and influential of China’s Seven Military Classics, and “for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name.”[1] It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

A collection of twelve short stories featuring Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, originally published as single stories in Strand Magazine and subsequently collected into a single volume.
There is not always a crime committed nor (More) a culprit to find, and when there is, Holmes does not invariably get his man. However, his extraordinary powers of deduction generally solve the mystery, often to the discomfiture of the official police force. Holmes is a man of many facets, and I do not share the common perception of Holmes as cold and humourless: his sense of fun can be sparkling, and there are moments of rare pathos.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on (More) Dartmoor in Devon in England’s West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound.

Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character of the late 19th and early 20th century created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a brilliant London-based “consulting detective” famous for his intellectual prowess (More) and renowned for his enormous scope of observation, his astute logical reasoning and forensic science skills in solving difficult crimes. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, including The Final Problem in which Holmes confronts his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, originally published in 1894, which are preceded by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and followed by The Hound of the Baskervilles.