Showing results by narrator "Wanda McCaddon" in All Categories

Thomas Hardy’s moving story of star-crossed lovers shows human beings at the mercy of forces beyond their control, setting a tragic drama of human passion against a backdrop of space and scientific discovery. Unhappily married, Lady Constantine defies social standards when she falls in love...

On Midsummer’s Eve, Dan and Una enact A Midsummer Night’s Dream three times over—right under Pook’s Hill. That is how they meet Puck, “the oldest Old Thing in England,” and the last of the People of the Hills. Through Puck, they are introduced to the nearly forgotten pages of old...

This impressionistic novel by Virginia Woolf marks the author’s first move toward the experimentation for which she would later become recognized. Through a montage of passing images, conversations, and stream-of-consciousness monologues, it tells the story of Jacob Flanders, an idealistic and...

A traveling tinker, John Bunyan accepted long imprisonment rather than give up preaching the Gospel. He explained the life of the Spirit in language the common people could understand and in pictures that stuck in the mind. When he wrote Pilgrim's Progress, his fame spread rapidly, and within 50 years of his death, the book was reputed to be in most English homes. John Brown's biography of John Bunyan remains the standard, despite the lapse of over 100 years since it was first published. The author was one of Bunyan's successors as minister of the church in Bedford.

Henry James' classic morality tale tells of a triangle of friends and lovers doomed to treachery by overreaching desire. In early-twentieth-century London, Kate Croy is secretly engaged to Merton Denscher, a journalist possessed of all the qualities of an ideal husband except for money. By...

Daughter of the Duke of Milan and wife of the conniving Count Girolamo Riario, Caterina Sforza was the bravest warrior Renaissance Italy ever knew. She ruled her own lands, fought her own battles, and openly took lovers whenever she pleased. Her remarkable tale is told by her lady-in-waiting, Dea, a woman knowledgeable in reading the "triumph cards", the predecessor of modern-day Tarot.

One of the most important books on William Shakespeare, this superb biography is both authoritative and extremely readable. It is the first modern biography of Shakespeare since the Victorian Age to pay full attention to his life and times, to his works, and to the numerous and subtle connections among them.

February, 1571. Ursula is once more plunged into affairs of the state when she escorts her foster daughter Margaret to the Netherlands to meet her suitor. The queen’s spymaster, Sir William Cecil, learns that the wealthy Italian banker Roberto Ridolfi will be hosting their forthcoming wedding - a man who he fears may once again be plotting to put Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne.

There was only one mystery Agatha Christie could not solve: her own. Why did she disappear in 1926? The New York Times, seven decades after her disappearance, identified Agatha Christie "as the town's [Harrogate's] most famous non-resident". It is an indication that the mystery of the lost days has never ceased to fascinate Christie fans. Time has not diminished their desire to find a solution. In this psychological mystery, Dr. Carole Owens, a practicing psychotherapist, takes on Agatha Christie as a patient to diagnose her problem and at long last solve the mystery of The Last Days of Agatha Christie.

Set in nineteenth-century England, this great novel of domestic realism sympathetically portrays a young woman’s vain efforts to adapt to her provincial world. Maggie Tulliver, whose father owns a mill perched on the banks of the River Floss, is intelligent and imaginative beyond the...

Harry Blamires, a noted British Christian thinker who started writing through the encouragement of C. S. Lewis, his tutor at Oxford, makes a perceptive diagnosis of some of the weaknesses besetting the church today. He argues that the distinctively Christian intellect is being swept away by secular modes of thought and secular assumptions about reality. Blamires calls for the recovery of the Christian mind and challenges “not only secularism’s assault upon personal morality and the life of the soul, but also secularism’s truncated and perverted view of the meaning of life...."

In the year 1792, Sir Percy and Lady Marguerite Blakeney are the darlings of British society---he is known as one of the wealthiest men in England and a dimwit; she is French, a stunning former actress, and "the cleverest woman in Europe"---and they find themselves at the center of a deadly political intrigue.

This wonderful classic combines three unbeatable elements: a sea story, lively and dynamic characters, and a protagonist who undergoes a transformation. Harvey Cheyne is the pampered son of a multimillionaire who falls off an ocean liner and is rescued by a small fishing boat. After being...

Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell's best-known work, is a humorous account of a nineteenth-century English village dominated by a group of genteel but modestly circumstanced women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister, Miss Matty.

"There is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood." Thus wrote George Eliot about Romola, the book which is central in her career as a novelist and amongst her most colorful, fluent, and persuasive works. Set in...

Bookish, sensitive, and given to wild enthusiasms, Rickie Elliot is virtually made for a life at Cambridge, where he can subsist on a regimen of biscuits and philosophical debate. But the love-smitten Rickie leaves his natural habitat to marry the devastatingly practical Agnes Pembroke, who...

Silas Marner, a gentle linen weaver, is framed by his best friend for a heinous theft. Exiled from his small community, Marner retreats into bitter and miserly reclusion, caring only for the gold he receives for his work. When his small treasure horde is stolen, Marner feels betrayed by life yet...

Baron Herbert’s return from crusade should have been a joyous occasion. Instead, he grows increasingly morose, withdraws from his family, and refuses to share his wife’s bed. When his sons begin to die in strange accidents, some ask whether Herbert harbors a dark sin for which God has cursed him. Or perhaps there is a malign presence at this stormblasted castle, oddly named Doux et Dur.

This magnificent story of 1,000 years of English history is told through the lives and deeds of Kings and Queens, from the Normans to the Windsors. Understand how the power of the crown has changed as a result of both the character and ability of each monarch and evolving historical circumstances. Eight specialist contributors depict the whole spectrum of royal life in a succinct and fascinating way. Newly revised in 1998, this edition offers expanded coverage of the House of Windsor, including recent events that have greatly affected the Royal Family.

In the late summer of 1274, King Edward has finally been anointed England’s ruler, and his queen contemplates a pilgrimage in gratitude for their safe return from Outremer, a journey that will include a stay at Tyndal Priory. Envoys are sent to confirm that everything will be suitable for the king’s wife, and Prioress Eleanor nervously awaits them, knowing that regal visits bring along expense and honor. The cost is higher than expected, however, when Death arrives as the emissary.