Showing results for "Samuel Johnson" in Genre Fiction

Rasselas and his companions escape the pleasures of the "happy valley" in order to make their "choice of life". By witnessing the misfortunes and miseries of others they come to understand the nature of happiness and value it more highly. Their travels and enquiries raise important practical and philosophical questions concerning many aspects of the human condition, including the business of a poet, the stability of reason, the immortality of the soul, and how to find contentment.

The narrator introduces himself as being 228 years old and goes on to document his interactions with Dr. Samuel Johnson. Being older and in a time when respect for elders was everything, the narrator expects Dr. Johnson to appreciate his writing, which the man does not. While the tale goes on to document other awkward meetings with Dr. Johnson, he ultimately dies younger than the narrator - who goes on to continue writing and living an unfulfilled life.

From the author of The Good Wife of Bath comes this brilliant recreation of the vibrant, optimistic but politically treacherous world of London's Restoration theatre, where we are introduced to the remarkable playwright Aphra Behn, now a feminist icon but then an anomaly, who gravitated to the...

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

A few weeks after finishing their final exams, high school sweethearts have an argument at a party. Joe wants to go - Jen begs him to stay. They fight in the corridor, following their usual script, and then he walks out and leaves her. A few hours later she dies. Three years on, after burning up his own dreams for the future, Joe is working in dead-end jobs and mentoring a wayward teenager not dissimilar from his younger self.

As a barrister in 1818 London, William Snopes is a strong advocate who chooses to defend the poorer classes against the powerful. That changes the day a struggling heiress, Lady Madeleine Jameson, arrives at his door.