Edith Wharton was a novelist of manners of late 19th Century New York “Society”, who spent much of her life in France. In this novel she tells the story of Undine Sprague, the thrice- (or more) married, upwardly mobile beauty from “Apex City”, transplanted to New York, and finally to France, leaving the dead and wounded in the wake of her “experiments in happiness”.

George Darrow, Anna Leath’s first love, is finally coming from London to propose to her. However, he drifts to an affair with Sophy Viner, Anna’s daughter’s naïve and young governess. Sophy’s relationship with Darrow and Anna’s family can threaten his success. In this novel, as in many of Wharton’s other well known novels, we see the eternal love triangle. With her sly and lovely writing style, Wharton delivers to us in this wonderful novel a cast of unforgettable characters and many unforgettable scenes which we can vividly imagine. What would Darrow choose: success or love? Would Anna marry him despite his affair with Sophy? (Summary by Stav Nisser.)

“Bunner Sisters,” like “The Age of Innocence” is set in 1870s New York, however the lives of Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner reflect impoverished New York. The sisters run a “very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a sidestreet already doomed to decline.” Shabby as it is, the sisters are happy in their small orderly community of supportive women. The story tells of the destruction of this life, and how the once content sisters are thrown into the realistic world outside of their little shop.

"The Glimpses of the Moon" (1922) is about Nick and Susy Lansing, both of whom live a decadent life in Europe by sponging off wealthy friends. They marry out of convenience and have an "open" relationship, but are unprepared for where their feelings will take them.

When published in 1907, this novel about the lives of a wealthy mill owner, her socially progressive husband and friends caused a stir due to its treatment of drug abuse, mercy killing, divorce and second marriages.

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.

Kate Orme, shocked by the discovery of her fiance's complicity in a tragedy, and by society's willingness to overlook such transgressions, nevertheless marries him. Years later, her son faces a moral crisis similar to the one that showed her his father's moral weakness. (Introduction by Christine Dufour)

This is Edith Wharton's earliest published collection of short stories (1899). Like much of her later work, they touch on themes of marriage, male/female relationships, New York society, and the nature and purpose of art. One of the stories, "The Twilight of the God," is written as a short play. The role of Warland is read by mb, and the role of Oberville by Bruce Pirie.

This is Edith Wharton's second published collection of short stories (1901). One of these seven stories, "Copy: A Dialogue," is written as a short play. The role of Hilda is read by Arielle Lipshaw, and the role of Ventnor by Mark F. Smith.

Edith Wharton's 1907 novella explores the milieu of Americans living abroad in Paris. New Yorker John Durham travels to Paris to woo an old flame, Fanny Frisbee, now the Marquis de Malrive. Fanny is separated from her husband and wants to marry John and return to America, but she doubts whether her Catholic husband will grant her a divorce. When John meets Fanny's sister-in-law, the enigmatic Madame de Treymes, he hopes she may be able to help them in their quest for happiness. (Introduction by Elizabeth Klett)

Tales of Men and Ghosts was published as a collection in 1910, though the first eight of the stories had earlier appeared in Scribner's and the last two in the Century Magazine. Despite the title, the men outnumber the ghosts, since only "The Eyes" and "Afterward" actually call on the supernatural. In only two of the stories are women the central characters, though elsewhere they play important roles. Wharton enjoys subjecting her subjects -- all of them American gentlemen and gentlewomen, in the conventional senses of the word -- to various moral tests and sometimes ironic tests...

Edmond Hamilton (1904 – 1977) had a career that began as a regular and frequent contributor to Weird Tales magazine. The first hardcover publication of Science Fiction stories was a Hamilton compilation, and he and E.E. “Doc” Smith are credited with the creation of the Space Opera type of story. He worked for DC Comics authoring many stories for their Superman and Batman characters. Hamilton was also married to fellow author Leigh Brackett. – Published in the May, 1962 issue of Amazing Stories “The Stars, My Brothers” gives us a re-animated astronaut plucked from a century in the past and presented with an alien world where the line between humans and animals is blurred.

Father and Son (1907) is a memoir by poet and critic Edmund Gosse, which he subtitled “a study of two temperaments.” The book describes Edmund’s early years in an exceptionally devout Plymouth Brethren home. His mother, who dies early and painfully of breast cancer, is a writer of Christian tracts. His father, Philip Henry Gosse, is an influential, though largely self-taught, invertebrate zoologist and student of marine biology who, after his wife’s death, takes Edmund to live in Devon...

A collection of informal essays about books in his library. He combines commentary, translations, and humorous asides about authors and their subjects.

While hunting, the boy Anchises stumbles upon Venus's forest retreat and is so kindly entertained by the goddess that he becomes the proud father of Aeneas, the hero of Vergil's Aeneid. The poem is an epyllion like Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" and Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," a short erotic poem with a mythological subject. The style is Spenserian, the stanzas rhyming ababbccc. When Brittain's Ida was published in 1628, the publisher ascribed it to Edmund Spenser. However, in 1926 Ethel Seaton discovered and published Fletcher's original manuscript, whose opening stanzas make clear that this is the work of Fletcher, who entitled it "Venus and Anchises."

Fanny Herself is the story of Fanny Brandeis, a sensitive, young Jewish girl coming of age in the Midwest at the turn of the 20th century. It is generally considered to have been based on Ferber’s own experiences growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin. Fanny’s inner struggle between her compassionate, artistic side and her desire for financial independence as a successful young businesswoman is the recurring theme of the novel. Ferber’s engaging style of writing will quickly draw you into her story...

Dawn O’Hara, the Girl Who Laughed was Edna Ferber’s first novel. Dawn, a newspaperwoman working in New York, finds herself back home in Michigan on doctor’s orders. Years of living in boarding-houses and working to pay for the care of her brilliant but mentally ill husband, Peter Orme, have taken their toll. At twenty-eight, Dawn feels like an old woman with no future. But, the loving care of her sister Norah and her family along with the attentions of the handsome German doctor, Ernst Von Gerhard, slowly bring Dawn back to life...

"And so," the story writers used to say, "they lived happily ever after." Um-m-m—maybe. After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth; and was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her finger-nails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son? It is a great risk to take with one's book-children...

This sparkling collection of 7 short stories by Ferber including some that are considered her all time best like The Woman Who Tried To be Good and The Maternal Feminine. Writing for and about women, Edna Ferber touches the very heart and soul of what it means to be human; to make good choices and bad; to be weak and strong. This was a very popular book when published in 1913

This is the final volume in the trilogy following the smart, stylish, divorced and independent businesswoman Emma McChesney in her career from stenographer, then drummer (traveling salesman) to owner of her own company. (The first was Roast Beef, Medium and the second Personality Plus). Edna Ferber first gained success with these stories and later went on to write Show Boat, Giant and other well known books. First published in 1915, Emma's son, Jock, has moved to Chicago with his new wife. Emma decides to sell in South America and proves she has not lost her magic touch...

The story of Selina DeJong and her son Dirk, whom she affectionately calls So Big. After the death of her husband, Selina raises So Big on her own while managing her deceased husband's farm in Illinois. When So Big grows up, he moves to Chicago, where he finds himself drawn to the fast-money stock-broker lifestyle of the 1920s. So Big is conflicted: he wants to live in the world of speculation and finance, but he's aware that his mother are disappointed that he hasn't lived up to the hard-working, hardscrabble values instilled by his mother. - Summary by Alexandra Atiya

The Autobiography of a Slander exposes the consequences of reckless words or, even worse, intentionally disparaging words. In this moral tale, told from the point of view of "the slander", Edna Lyall (pseudonym used by Ada Ellen Bayley) reveals her ideals and goals in life and relationships.

A collection of 23 poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The following is a recording of the first volume of poetry published by Edna St. Vincent Millay. When the author had graduated from high school, she couldn’t afford to go to college. In the summer of 1912, Vincent’s sister, Norma, found work as a waitress at a hotel near where they lived. One night, Norma insisted that Vincent attend a masquerade ball, given at the hotel, if only to get Vincent out of the house and to meet people. Vincent finally gave in, and while there, sang songs and recited “Renascence,” the first poem in this collection...

A collection of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian novel by Edward Bellamy, first published in 1888. It was the third largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up more than a century later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts) but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the U...

"Want to be a school-master, do you? You? Well, what would you do in Flat Crick deestrick, I'd like to know? Why, the boys have driv off the last two, and licked the one afore them like blazes. You might teach a summer school, when nothin' but children come. But I 'low it takes a right smart man to be school-master in Flat Crick in the winter. They'd pitch you out of doors, sonny, neck and heels, afore Christmas."

The Masters had ruled all space with an unconquerable iron fist. But the Masters were gone. And this new, young race who came now to take their place–could they hope to defeat the ancient Enemy of All?

This is a collection of ten Christmas Stories, some of which have been published before. I have added a little essay, written on the occasion of the first Christmas celebrated by the King of Italy in Rome.

Edward Everett Hale (1822 – 1909) was an American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman. Hale first came to notice as a writer in 1859, when he contributed the short story "My Double and How He Undid Me" to the Atlantic Monthly. He soon published other stories in the same periodical. His best known work was "The Man Without a Country", published in the Atlantic in 1863 and intended to strengthen support in the Civil War for the Union cause in the North. Though the story is set in the early 19th century, it is an allegory about the upheaval of the American Civil War...

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-1873) was an English novelist, poet, playright, and politician. Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, and the infamous incipit “It was a dark and stormy night.” Despite his popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as a byword for bad writing. San Jose State University holds...

Zanoni, a timeless Rosicrucian brother, cannot fall in love without losing his power of immortality; but he does fall in love with Viola Pisani, a promising young opera singer from Naples, the daughter of Pisani, a misunderstood Italian violinist. An English gentleman named Glyndon loves Viola as well, but is indecisive about proposing marriage, and then renounces his love in order to pursue occult study. The story develops in the days of the French Revolution in 1789. Zanoni has lived since the Chaldean civilization...