Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in World Literature

Zuleika Dobson, internationally famous prestidigitator visits her grandfather, the Warden of Judas College, Oxford. But Zuleika, "though not strictly beautiful" is a devastatingly attractive young woman, and proves utterly irresistible among the all-male undergraduate body - including the snobbish and trend-setting young Duke of Dorset. Thus begins a chain of events that culminates in a very watery end to the Eights Week boat races...

Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison, part of which he spent in Reading Gaol. About five months after Wilde arrived at Reading Gaol, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, was brought to Reading to await his trial for murdering his common-law wife (and promptly presenting himself and confessing to a policeman) on 29 March 1896; on 17 June, Wooldridge was sentenced to death and returned to Reading for his execution, which took place on Tuesday, 7 July 1896 - the first hanging at Reading in 18 years. The poem is dedicated to him.

Oscar Wilde was always willing to express his opinions on a wide variety of subjects, including his own writings. The following selection of letters was prepared and edited by his executor Robert Ross, who is best known for expurgating and publishing Wilde's last major work, De Profundis.

Anatol, one of Arthur Schnitzler's earliest works, concerns the life of a shallow and immature playboy, who has multiple dalliances with various women but suffers from a crippling fear of commitment underneath his womanising facade. The play offers sharp social commentary on the themes of toxic masculinity and fidelity, and has been adapted in English to two different musicals: The Game of Love and The Gay Life.

Arthur Ransome brilliantly wrote about Oscar Wilde in A Critical Study, published in 1912, and then went on to write the popular and better known children's series, Swallows and Amazons, in 1930. Ransome considers Oscar Wilde a visionary of whom every classical scholar must know. Oscar Wilde changed the culture of his own day and, by doing so, changed ours. Wilde tried various literary activities, poetry, drama, dialogues and essays, a novel, and even wrote about interior decoration. To him, art was supreme, and he pursued that ideal in every expression that he encountered.

Last Poems is the second volume of A. E. Housman's verse to be published in the poet's lifetime. Compiled to present to a dying friend, they poignantly explore in the same gentle, lyrical manner many of those themes of life, death, love, and loss that run throughout his hugely popular first collection, A Shropshire Lad.

Hedda and George Tesman have just returned from their six-month honeymoon tour of the Tyrol. George, a studious and somewhat dull academic has spent most of the time continuing his research. Hedda, the daughter of the celebrated, aristocratic General Gabler, recently deceased, has been accustomed to the finer things in life. She is already bored in her marriage and diverts herself with her father's pistols and the attentions of family friend, Judge Brack.

King Claudius, when a young man, wrote a five-act tragedy which was damned, and all reference to it forbidden under penalty of death. The King has a son - Hamlet - whose tendency to soliloquize has so alarmed his mother, Queen Gertrude, that she has sent for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to devise some Court revels for his entertainment. Rosencrantz is a former lover of Ophelia, to whom Hamlet is betrothed, and they lay their heads together to devise a plan by which Hamlet may be put out of the way. Some Court theatricals are in preparation.

This is is the second of the verse novels by C.J. Dennis and was published in 1916. It describes the adventures of Ginger Mick, a rough and ready associate of Bill, the major character of The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke. After starting life on the criminal fringes of the dubious neighbourhood of Spadger's Lane, Mick signs up for service in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, where he dies a hero's death.

Cutting Room is set in the "Town Welfare Department" of a town in the Midlands, Burtonwood, during public sector cuts. Four characters (David, Lucy, Ian, and an intern, Anne) have to take calls from members of the public complaining about the loss of public services, with the boss Harry coming in occasionally to offer cheerful but often useless encouragement. As the cuts continue, tensions run high, with Ian in particular taking his anger and frustration out on the secretary, Tilly. At the play's conclusion there is a surprising twist.

Ten years after a tragic incident on the lake, an AA meeting in a small, religious town in the deep south of the USA descends into bitterness and chaos when a flood hits. Trapped within the local church, tempers escalate and well-buried secrets begin to emerge. Personalities clash, reputations are dissected and questioned, and everybody's demons are laid bare.

Floyd Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile, and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th century". Though he was primarily a newspaper and magazine editor, most prominently of the radical left-wing magazine The Masses, he also published many best-selling feminist works. As a staunch advocate of feminism, socialism, psychoanalysis, and progressive education, his writing greatly shocked the American bourgeoisie at the time, to the point where it became so controversial, he was put on trial twice for his subversive literature.

Doreen is a verse-novel by renowned Australian poet, C.J. Dennis (1876-1938). As one of the sequels to the 1915 verse-novel, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, it continues to follow the family capers of Bill and Doreen along with their young son. Originally published in 1917, Doreen is a classic work of Australian poetry.

Read by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti. "Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Comes from this poem.

Cole, an old sea captain, lives on a ship with his daughter and her immigrant husband. The trio prepares for a deluge, while Cole meets Daphne, a mermaid who seduces and tempts him. As tensions rise with the rolling tides, Cole must make a difficult choice: take a leap into the unknown, or stay on the safe side. This is a story about connection and separation, about tolerance and the decision to cut ties.

Pudgy, scowling Ogden Ford, spoiled child of divorced parents with far more money than is good for them, is "the Little Nugget" - the El Dorado of the American kidnapping industry. When Ogden's father sends him to an isolated English preparatory school, Mr. Peter Burns, gentleman of leisure - persuaded by his brand new fiancee - becomes a master at the school in order to steal the Nugget and take him back to his doting mother.

Hands Around, also known as La Ronde or Reigen, is possibly Schnitzler's most provocative and controversial work. In a series of 10 conversations occurring before or after a sexual encounter, between 10 pairs of characters from all walks of life, Hands Around offers a playful scrutiny of the sexual morals and class ideology of the era.

Spring Awakening (German: Frühlings Erwachen) was the first major play by Frank Wedekind. It was written in the early 1890s but, due to opposition from censorship authorities, was not presented on stage until 1906. The play explores two contentious themes: the development of adolescent sexuality and the repressive nature of the German education system.

André Gide met Wilde many times and was one of the small number of celebrities who maintained contact with him until his death in Paris in 1900.

Seven Little Australians is the story of the mischievous seven children of the Woolcot family - Meg, Pip, Judy, Bunty, Nell, Baby, and the General, whose father little understands them and whose young stepmother is hardly an adult herself. The Australian bush sets an iconic backdrop for the misadventures of this energetic mob.