Showing results by narrator "Marty Krz" in All Categories

Freckles is the only name he has ever known. His right hand is missing at the wrist, and he is haunted by not knowing how it happened. Raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage, he speaks with a slight Irish accent and sings with a beautiful voice. Now, exhausted after many days of walking, he applies for a job with the Grand Rapids Lumber Company, guarding timber in the Limberlost Swamp from timber thieves. His Swamp Angel declares her love for him and promises that she will find his parents and prove that Freckles comes from "a race of men that have been gentlemen for ages."

After the death of their father, Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes. The ruler is their unyielding uncle by marriage, Creon, who assumed command after the death of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles, and Polynices in a fratricidal struggle to take control of the city. Creon has the body of one brother buried with full civic honors but forbids the burial of the body of the other, whom he regards as a traitor. Antigone's challenge to Creon's decree, which she considers unjust, results in the extinction of the family line of Oedipus.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science-fiction drama that was first presented in Czech in 1921. It introduced the term "robot", which is derived from a Czech word meaning "worker," to international vocabulary. The action opens in a factory that has successfully produced thousands of robots, who are essentially mindless drones. An idealistic humanitarian activist launches a plan to imbue some of the robots with human traits. The robots which have been humanized then assume leadership over the other robots and seek to organize them in a revolution to take over the world.

Maurice Coons (also known as Armitage Trail), is best known for this 1929 pulp fiction novel which is based on the life of Al Capone. The book is the basis of two films films of the same name. One starring Paul Muni in 1932 and later on starring Al Pacino in 1983. The story starts out with the beginnings of young Tony Guarino as a small time but savvy gangster who goes off to fight in the Great War and comes back as Tony Camonte, the city's next big cheese.

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.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished king, after years of wandering, accompanied by his faithful daughter Antigone, finds himself in Athens. Receiving a warm if guarded welcome from Theseus, King of Athens, he prepares to settle himself to spend his last days in peace. However, unwelcome visitors from his tortured past continue to haunt him until the very end.

Together with The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most magical plays. One night, two parties creep from Athens into the surrounding forest. One includes sweethearts Lysander and Hermia, fleeing from Athenian law and the disapproval of Hermia’s father to get married. In pursuit is Demetrius, the suitor of Hermia favored by her father, and the doleful Helena, formerly affianced to Demetrius.

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.

In As You Like It, a wicked Duke expels his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. The banished Duke takes refuge with his followers in the Forest of Arden, where they live as free a life as did Robin Hood and his merry men.

This coming-of-age novel explores themes including religious skepticism, socialism, ennui, English society, sexual relationships, and metaphysics, as George searches for an ideal to which he can devote his life. Like all Wells’s novels, Tono-Bungay abounds with social critique.

In order to prevent a war between two neighboring groups, Ozma and Dorothy travel to a remote corner of Oz to lend their wisdom and their aid. Despite their good intentions, the Skeezers and the Flatheads are determined to have their war and imprison the two girls in an enclosed underwater city.

A Munchkin named Bini Aru discovers a way to transform people and objects by speaking the magic word "pyrzqxgl." When Ozma proclaimed that no one was allowed to practice magic in Oz except for Glinda and The Wizard, Bini hid his notes in his laboratory. When his son Kiki finds these notes, he transforms himself into a hawk and sets off on an adventure. Landing in Ev, he runs into Ruggedo, the former Nome King who was exiled and now sees his opportunity for revenge through Kiki's power.

Despite Dorothy's many tales of her adventures in Oz, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry never quite believe her stories. Upon finding out the tornado that destroyed their farmhouse in book 1 (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) is the cause of her Uncle Henry's horrible debt, Dorothy is determined to help her family. She makes plans with Ozma to bring her aunt and uncle to Oz where they may live happily ever after. Unbeknownst to Ozma and our friends in Oz, the Nome King is plotting to take over the Land of Oz and retrieve his magic belt that Dorothy took from him in book 3, Ozma of Oz.

Dorothy and Uncle Henry go to California to visit family at Hugson's Ranch where Dorothy is introduced to her second cousin, Zeb. While Dorothy, Zeb, and Dorothy's cat, Eureka, are enjoying a horse-drawn buggy ride one afternoon, an earthquake hits, creating an enormous crack in the ground beneath their buggy. They all go tumbling into the crevice, down to the Land of the Mangaboos.

Although his work has somewhat fallen into obscurity, Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) is considered to be one of the greatest of Russian dramatists. He was one of the pioneers of a realistic style, which later found exponents in celebrated European dramatists like Ibsen and Strindberg. Of Ostrovsky's 47 plays, one of the best known is The Storm, the portrait of an idealistic young woman trapped in a world of crushing and venal orthodoxy. The Storm formed the basis of Janacek's opera, Katya Kabanova.

The collection contains eight of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. Each exhibits the vigour, humour, and optimism of the young master before he turned to the gloom and bitterness of the great tragedies.

A young man receives a great windfall but is prevented from fully exploiting his good fortune until he has met certain exacting preliminary conditions. In this case, Montgomery Brewster, an eligible but impecunious young bachelor, receives a bequest of $1,000,000 from a relative. Shortly afterward he is notified that he has been nominated as the beneficiary of another and much larger bequest, but under a strict qualification: He must dispose of the initial bequest in total within a year.

Antonio, a wealthy and popular merchant, is in financial difficulty. He approaches a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who agrees to provide 3000 ducats, with a very curious bond – a pound of the merchant’s flesh, to be levied if Antonio fails to make a timely repayment. Feeling confident that his argosies will arrive in time to cover the debt, Antonio agrees to this bizarre transaction.

Wells had a keen interest in the political and social issues of his day, one of the most significant of which was the outbreak of the First World War. This book, written in 1916, presents the story of Mr Britling, a political commentator, living in comfortable security in his country estate at Matchings Easy, in Essex. He entertains a varied assembly of guests, including Mr Direck, an American journalist, and Herr Heinrich, a German philology student who acts as a family tutor, and the general atmosphere is a hectic social whirl.

Moby Dick, which has been considered the great American novel, was first published in 1851. For material, Melville drew on his experience on whaling ships between 1841 and 1844, the sinking of the whaling vessel Essex in 1820, and extensive perusal of literature on whaling and many other subjects.