Angel classics

In 1870s Berlin, an aristocratic officer in a glamorous cavalry regiment and a seamstress supporting herself and her invalid foster-mother with piecework, defy convention by falling in love. What might have been a simple tale of conflict between love and duty becomes, in Fontane's hands, something more sophisticated. The contrast between the lovers' whole-hearted view of each other and the world's trivializing view of their relationship underlies a tautly sprung narrative which is tenderly moving without being sentimental; gently ironic and full of social comedy. Fontane's brilliant use of dialogue creates a vigorous and loving portrait of the new German capital and its inhabitants. ""The immense pleasures of the novel lie in the author's cool-headed approach to what, in other hands, could have been a forgettable melodrama. . . . The book is filled with comparable moments of small facts transfigured into something magical.""-The New Yorker March 7, 2011 As much a psychological as a social realist, the author is interested in the emotional conflicts that arise between individual desire and social conditioning, class expectations and personality.

The Dykemaster is the tale of a visionary young north Friesian Deichgraf of the 18th century, creator of a new form of dyke. The short-sighted and self-seeking community with which he is at odds turns him into a phantom, seen riding his grey along the dyke whenever the sea threatens to break through. The rationalistic storyteller, in a highly sophisticated narrative structure, belongs to a later age, and what he relates is a veiled critique of the dyke officials of his. Own day.

The Silver Dove, published four years before Bely's masterpiece Petersburg, is considered the first modern Russian novel. Breaking with Russian realism, and a pioneering Symbolist work, its vividly drawn characters, elemental landscapes, and rich style make it accessible to the Western reader. Dissatisfied with the life of the intelligentsia, the poet Daryalsky joins a rural mystic sect, the Silver Doves. The locals, in particular the peasant woman Matryona, are fascinated by the dashing stranger. Daryalsky is in turn taken in by the Doves' intimacy with the mystical and spiritual--and by Matryona. Under the influence of Kudeyarov, the ruthless cult leader, Daryalsky is used in a bid to produce a sacred child. But in time the poet disappoints the Doves and must face their suspicions and jealousies--and his own inevitable dire fate.

"Immensee (1850), a love-story whose powerful atmosphere is heightened by all-pervasive symbols and folksong-like verse, has long been a favourite of both the German- and English-speaking worlds. Journey to a Hallig (1871) is the free-roving story of a journey in more than one sense, both a magical evocation of the German North Sea coast in high summer and a layered account of an inner journey back into an old man's past. Hans and Heinz Kirch (1882), one of Storm's masterpieces, is a tragic tale of father-son conflict set among the Kleinburger mercantile community of the German Baltic seaboard." "Denis Jackson's introduction and end notes, and maps to two of the stories, will enhance the reader's enjoyment of this poetic, eloquent fiction which is so strongly rooted in time and place."--BOOK JACKET.

Phèdre falls in love with her husband Thèsée's son Hippolyte - and through her passion she dooms the young man, the woman (Princess Aricie), her husband, her nurse confidante OEnone (who drives the plot with her unwise advice to Phèdre), and ultimately herself (she takes poison after confessing her crime to Thèsée). Agony-themed stage plays reached their zenith with the masterful pen of French playwright, Jean Racine. Passion, wickedness, deceit, and conspiracy flowed like honey into the tragedy.