HESPERUS CLASSICS

Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief is a serial novel by James Fennimore Cooper first published by Graham's Magazine in 1843. The novel explores the upper crust of New York Society from the perspective of a woman's handkerchief.

"When Germain - a shy but handsome widower - is sent by his father-in-law to find himself a wife, he sets out on his journey with a heavy heart. The prospective spouse is said to be rich, with land and a tidy dowry. But Germain fears for the fate of his three angelic children - and for the state of his own bruised heart. Everything changes during his voyage - through a dark wood and around a haunted marsh - when Germain falls passionately in love with an impoverished young shepherdess. Should he follow his heart, and woo the girl he now loves? Or please his family by marrying a rich but disdainful widow?" "A love song to the French countryside - a romance of two simple hearts - The Devil's Pool is above all a paean to an antique language and way of life which, even by 1844, was being eroded by industrialisation and the inexorable expansion of a national identity."--BOOK JACKET.

"Looking for acceptance from his new congregation, the Revd Ernest Lindley cannot long ignore the fact that his parishioners are far from welcoming. Rather than confront such hostility, the Lindleys instead become ever more isolated: he 'pale and miserable and neutral'; she 'bitter and beaten by fear'. And having raised their children to be similarly dispassionate, it surely seems inevitable that their daughters should enter suitable, but loveless, marriages. Whilst Mary becomes the dutiful wife, younger sister Louisa vows to experience love for herself - little knowing that such desires will divide an already broken family." "Elsewhere in the parish, Alfred Durant, recently returned from the navy, struggles to adjust to life in the pits, as well as coping with the imminent death of his beloved mother. His involvement with the Lindley family only serves to bring him further disquiet."--BOOK JACKET.

Seyonne was not always a slave. Once his people were the guardians of magic such as the land had never seen, protectors and defenders. But the Derzhi came, and enslaved them. Now, years of degradation and misery have blurred Seyonne’s memory, an sapped his strength. To his people, he is already dead. And to him, death is all that is left – until he finds hope in a most unlikely place . . . Sold once again, Seyonne is bought by Aleksander, the heir to the Derzhi Empire. His new master is cold, and heedlessly cruel. But within Aleksander, the seeds of greatness wait. All it would take is guidance from one such as Seyonne once was . . . But time is short, for demons have also noticed Aleksander – and what they cannot control, they will destroy . . . (from the back cover)

.I Pendant un demi-siecle, les bourgeoises de Pont-l'Eveque envierent a Madame Aubain sa servante Felicite. Pour cent francs par an, elle faisait la cuisine et le menage, cousait, lavait, repassait, savait brider un cheval, engraisser les volailles, battre le beurre, et resta fidele a sa maitresse qui n'etait pas cependant une personne agreable. Elle avait epouse un beau garcon sans fortune, mort au commencement de 1809, en lui laissant deux enfants tres jeunes avec une quantite de dettes. Alors, elle vendit ses immeubles, sauf la ferme de Toucques et la ferme de Geffosses dont les rentes montaient a cinq mille francs tout au plus, et elle quitta sa maison de Saint-Melaine pour en habiter une autre moins dispendieuse ayant appartenu a ses ancetres et placee derriere les Halles. Cette maison, revetue d'ardoises, se trouvait entre un passage et une ruelle aboutissant a la riviere. Elle avait interieurement des differences de niveau qui faisaient trebucher. Un vestibule etroit separait la cuisine de la salle ou Madame Aubain se tenait tout le long du jour, assise pres de la croisee dans un fauteuil de paille. Contre le lambris peint en blanc, s'alignaient huit chaises d'acajou. Un vieux piano supportait sous un barometre un tas pyramidal de boites et de cartons, Deux bergeres de tapisserie flanquaient la cheminee en marbre jaune et de style Louis XV. La pendule, au milieu, representait un temple de Vesta; et tout l'appartement sentait un peu le moisi, car le plancher etait plus bas que le jardin.

Charlotte Heywood, a young woman from the country, encounters a sophisticated, if cynical, world in the rapidly developing resort town of Sanditon.

Contains: [Bartleby, the Scrivener]( Benito Cereno

"Taking as his setting the glamour and heady sophistication of fin-de-siecle. Parisian salon society, Proust here presents a series of sketches and short stories depicting the lives, love, manners and motivations of a host of characters. Amorous entanglements, idle vanities and feigned morality are all viewed with a characteristically knowing eye. By turns cuttingly satirical and bitterly moving, Proust's portrayals are layered with imagery and feeling, whether they be of the aspiring Bouvard and Pecuchet, the deluded Madame de Breyves, or of Baldassare Silvande saturated with regret, memory and tragic understanding in the face of death."--Jacket.

"London, circa 1880: a lovelorn policeman, a pocket knife, and the unsolved crime of a young husband, murdered on his honeymoon." "Narrated as the deathbed confession of a London policeman, Who Killed Zebedee? exposes the seamier side of Victorian Britain: a realm of cheap hotels, underpaid servants and desperate measures. With a policeman as his narrator, and a female cook as the detective's accomplice, Collins places the world of lower-middle-class England at the centre of his fiction. The accompanying tale, John Jago's Ghost, set in America, portrays with similar empathy the hard-working lives of New England farmers. Both a historic record of life in rural America, and a courtroom drama with an exciting twist, John Jago's Ghost examines the rivalry between two men for the control of Morwick Farm and the love of a pretty girl."--Jacket.

The Golden Mary is sailing towards the Californian coast. There is a motley group of passengers – a man hoping to make money in the gold rush, an estranged fiancé, a mother and her child heading to meet the father. The ship is tragically struck by an iceberg and sinks. Luckily all the crew and passengers are moved safely to two lifeboats. The people though alive are far from safety as they float stranded on the open sea with minimum food and water between them. While they wait for rescue, they tell each other stories.

"What do you do when you find yourself imprisoned in your room for 6 weeks? Xavier de Maistre, a 27-year-old Frenchman found himself in this uneasy situation when he was arrested in Turin after a duel, in the Spring of 1790. But with only a butler and a dog for company, Xavier de Maistre managed to fill his time by embarking on a journey around his bedroom, later writing an account of what he had seen. Whether venturing from his bed to his sofa, or even to his mirror, he wears his “traveling outfit”—his favorite pink and blue pajamas. Out of his forced reclusion comes a captivating fantasy—a novel take on travel literature that would inspire many later writers, including Marcel Proust. This edition also contains de Maistre’s A Nocturnal Expedition around My Room. Xavier de Maistre was a military man, who supplemented his army career with short works of fiction."--Publisher description.

The poor relation's story / by Charles Dickens The child's story / by Charles Dickens Somebody's story / by William Moy Thomas The old nurse's story / by Elizabeth Gaskell The host's story / by Edmund Ollier The grandfather's story / by Reverend James White The charwoman's story / by Edmund Saul Dixon The deaf playmate's story / by Harriet Martineau The guest's story / by Samuel Sidney The mother's story / by Eliza Griffiths

xviii, 74 pages ; 20 cm