Everyone probably has Glenn Close and John Malkovich in mind, but for those who have not seen the movie, this epistolary fiction describes how a young girl, Cécile de Voanges, walks on the road to perdition, and is just a toy in the Vicomte de Valmont's and the Comtesse de Merteuil's hands. Readers:Narrator, Mme de Volanges: Nadine Eckert-BouletCécile de Volanges: SaabMarquise de Merteuil: AvailleVicomte de Valmont: Martin GeesonPrésidente de Tourvel: Elizabeth KlettChevalier de Danceny: Max...

The classic early American epistolary novel about the seduction and ruin of a passionate young woman. Based on the true story of Elizabeth Whitman, whose lonesome death in childbirth in a Connecticut inn sparked widespread discussion and outrage, the novel went through many editions and innumerable printings in the century after its initial publication in 1797.

The largest surviving body of Pliny's work is his Epistulae (Letters), a series of personal missives directed to his friends, associates and the Emperor Trajan. These letters are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the 1st century CE. Especially noteworthy among the letters are two in which he describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79, during which his uncle Pliny the Elder died (65 and 66 in this edition), and one in which he asks the Emperor for instructions regarding official policy concerning Christians (Trajan Letter 97)...

These moralistic stories within stories date back to the Sanskrit text Panchatantra . They were first translated into Arabic by a Persian named Ruzbeh who named it Book of Kalilah and Dimna and then by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa and later Joseph Harris in 1679 and then remodeled in 1818. Max Mueller noted that La Fontaine was indebted to the work and other scholars have noted that Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont and John Fletcher were both familiar with the fables. The Fables of Pilpay are a series of inter-woven fables, many of which deploy metaphors of anthropomorphized animals with human virtues and vices.

This is a collection of thirteen letters from Angelina Grimké on the subjects of abolitionism and human rights in the United States.

or Socialism a Reality In the year 2050, Wolfgang travels to the socialist city of New York. He writes enthusiastically to his friend Hannevig describing the wonders of the journey and vastness of the city. He then turns his eye and pen to the effects of true equality of the sexes and freedom from work. Unfortunately for the New Yorkers, they do not create the desired utopia but just the opposite.

“I had a friend who loved me;” but he has gone, and the “great gulf” is between us. After his death, I received a packet of manuscript with these few words:—“What I have written may appeal to you because of our friendship, and because, when you come to read them, you will seek to grasp, in these apparent confidences, an inner meaning that to the end will elude you. If you think others, not the many but the few, might find here any answer to their unuttered questionings, any fellowship of sympathy in those experiences which are the milestones of our lives, then use the letters as you will, but without my name...

As a teenager, Benjamin Franklin apprenticed with his brother James at the shop where The New-England Courant was printed. Since James would not publish any of Benjamin's works, fifteen-year-old Benjamin sent letters to The New England Courant under the pseudonym Silence Dogood. A total of fourteen letters were sent, one each fortnight, between April and December of 1722. (Introduction by Darcy Smittenaar)

As the title suggests, this work does flirt with the supernatural. Yet it is essentially a political novel—a utopian experiment in a fictitious Balkan country, the Land of the Blue Mountains. The story spans the years from 1892 to 1909. It includes a beautiful love story and an adventure tale—a double rescue requiring strength, cunning, and cutting-edge technology. These various aspects are unified by the character of the hero, a purely admirable individual whom we love and admire from the very first and who acquires immense power...

Stephen Glennard's career is falling apart and he desperately needs money so that he may marry his beautiful fiancee. He happens upon an advertisement in a London magazine promising the prospect of financial gain. Glennard was once pursued by Margaret Aubyn, a famous and recently deceased author, and he still has her passionate love letters to him. Glennard removes his name from the letters and sells them, making him a fortune and building a marriage based on the betrayal of another.

The "Letters from a Prairie Garden," are genuine letters and not fiction. They went through the mail. An explanatory word about their origin may not be amiss. Some years ago a famous artist came to a certain mid-western city on business connected with his profession. He had an acquaintance who lived in the hotel where the writer lived at that time and with whom he talked over the phone. The writer frequently happened to be talking at the same time, and the wires crossing, he heard me laugh repeatedly, and he nicknamed me "the woman who laughs...

Three fellow travelers on a train enter into a discussion concerning what they would call an ‘indiscreet letter.’ The discussion albeit short, produces some rather interesting revelations during the journey and at journey’s end.

This is a sequel to Letters of a Woman Homesteader in which Elinore Rupert (Pruitt) Stewart describes her arrival and early years on a Burntfork Wyoming ranch in 1909-1913. The letters are written to her elderly friend, Mrs. Coney, in Denver. In the present collection of letters, Elinore describes a lively excursion on horseback and wagon into the Wyoming wilderness during July-October 1914. Her traveling companions are her husband “Mr. Stewart,” their three oldest children, and kind-hearted, opinionated neighbor Mrs...

This is the story of Caroline and Sibella, two female friends. Strong and smart women who try to make it in a man's world while keeping their values and loyalties intact. The only way to do that is to hide a few secrets. Yet secrets cannot remain hidden for ever, and everything has a price. This is both a social novel and a gothic novel. A true page turner with all the elements of a good 18th century novel: a woman locked in an estate, a hidden pregnancy, some politics of marriage, villains, sentimentality and thought provoking philosophy. Summary by Stav Nisser.

This is the story of the three Cleveland siblings: Fanny, the innocent yet very sympathetic sister; Louisa, the strong willed sister whose miserable marriage to Sir William is the center of the novel; and Sir George who tries to get over the loss of his lover by touring the world. Louisa is not an amoral woman, she is beautiful and very lively, values which 18th century society promotes, yet she suffers only affliction from her "respectable" college educated husband. In the main plot, and all the sub plots , the book tests many prominent values of the time and brings to light their negative implications...

Emily Dickinson is one of the most intriguing of American poets. Since she grew increasingly reclusive, very few of her poems were published until after her death. This collection includes two letters Dickinson wrote to her friends on the occasion of the deaths of her friend, Mr. Humphrey, and her brother, Austin. The rest of collection consists of her poetry on the subject of death.

This is a 1903 translation of Étienne Pivert de Senancour's immensely influential work Obermann. Although it was almost completely ignored by the reading public when it was first published during the period of Napoleonic Wars in 1804, it was rediscovered almost 30 years later by the Romantics, praised by none less than Balzac and George Sand, as well as Franz Liszt and other illustrious persons of that time period. Obermann is an epistolary novel in the form of a journal intime, in which the inner life of the main character is the most important element, rather than the physical action...

In this epistolary novel, we find a young woman named Evelina, who was raised in rural seclusion until her eighteenth year because of her uncertain parentage. Through a series of harrowing and humorous events that take place in London and an English resort town, Evelina learns how to navigate the complex layers of 18th century society and earn the love of a distinguished and honorable nobleman. This comedy of manners often satirizes the society in which it is set; Evelina is a significant precursor to later works by Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, whose novels explore many of the same issues. (from Evelina’s wikipedia entry, modified by ettelocin)

The novel takes place 10 years after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 when Quebec becomes a British colony. Written as a collection of letters, the story follows the relationships between Edward Rivers (a British soldier), his friend, John Temple (rather a cad), Emily Montague (a young British woman), and her dearest friend, Arabella Fermor (a flirtatious drama queen). Giving glimpses into the new frontier discoveries of Canada, one not only peeks into the personal relationships of these characters but gets swept away by the enticing descriptions of the "new world." This is Volume 1 out of 4.

The Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Les Lettres Portugaises) were first published anonymously in Paris in 1669. The five passionate letters in book form were a publishing sensation since their appearance, with five editions in the first year, followed by more than forty editions throughout the 17th century. A Cologne edition of 1669 stated that the Marquis de Chamilly was their addressee, but, aside from the fact that she was female, the author's name and identity remained unknown. The letters were...

Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy." George Horace Lorimer was an American journalist and author. He is best known as the editor of The Saturday Evening Post.

George MacDonald was an influential Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. MacDonald’s works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) claimed the admiration of such authors as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Madeleine L’Engle. The Wise Woman fairy tale was one of MacDonald’s more popular works. This delightful story describes how a woman of mysterious powers pays visits to two very different young girls: one a princess, the other a shepherd’s daughter. Neither girl is left unchanged by the startling events that are unleashed as a result: and the reader is confronted by astonishing fairy-worlds in which the girls are forced to choose between good and evil...

Georgianna Cavendish, duchess of Devonshire was one of the leading ladies of her time. There for, her novel, which contains many autobiographical plots, has been published anonymously. The author was thought to have been Sophia Briscoe, a contemporary novelist, or Fanny Burney, author of Evelina which was published at about the same time. However the duchess admitted to writing the story of Julia Grenville, a welsh beauty who marries an older man. She very quickly discovers her husband is a libertine and a rake, and that she has no idea how to behave in London society...