Henry Murger wrote a series of popular short stories in the late 1840s describing the poverty of the young artists of his generation in Paris, basing them on his personal experiences. These were adapted for the stage by Théodore Barrière in 1857. The play follows the fortunes of several young people, including Marcel (a painter), Musette (his promiscuous lover), Rodolphe (a writer), and Mimi (his faithful but fatally ill companion). Unable to support themselves from their art, they are doomed...
Based on the 1885 novel by Henry James, this play tells the story of Hyacinth Robinson, the bastard son of a French woman and an English lord. Robinson has become a bookbinder in the London working-class slums. He embraces radicalism, and joins a conspiracy of anarchists plotting to assassinate high-ranking members of the establishment. But when he's actually given a terrorist mission to carry out, Hyacinth suddenly finds himself conflicted–he no longer sympathizes with radical politics,...
This adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas tale tells the story of two brothers, born as Siamese twins, but separated not long after birth. They're raised by two different families, but are still able to «feel» the emotions of the other, even at a distance. On the island of Corsica they become entwined in the long-running feud between the Orlandi and the Colonnas–a dispute that had its beginnings in a dispute over the ownership of a chicken! Most of the two families have now been eliminated...
First performed in Galati, Romania, in 1996, Victor Cilinca's Polonius is a play of political machination, social aspiration, treachery, and self-deception, set during the events of Hamlet. The play's relevance has escalated since it was first performed, with its barbed commentary on the media's role in shaping our society being more incisive now than ever before. Translated into English by Petru Iamandi and Richard Wright, Cilinca's Polonius reflects our world through a...
Based on the Marquis de Sade's infamous novel of the same name, this new dramatic version of JUSTINE closely follows the original story, both in spirit and in action. De Sade, with his relentless logic, attempts to prove that «virtue» as practiced by most people actually contradicts nature. The innocent maiden Justine suffers one humiliation and setback after another in her futile quest to preserve her virtue and her virginity. No one–not the nobility, not the Church, not even her...
French dramatist Adolphe d'Ennery (1811-1899) follows the Faust story originally developed by Goethe, but with a leavening of humor that the German playwright lacked. Especially entertaining is the character of the female demon Sulphurine, who's created by Faust's servant Wagner to be his slave. Needless to say, this she-devil is no one's mistress! Faust initially repels the advances of Mephistopheles, but suddenly finds himself in love with the young woman Marguerite, whom...
Damaged by Dames and Drinking is a lavishly illustrated collection of haiku, one line poems and streetwise observations on bartenders, the drinking life and New York City. A collection of poems that begin with a jolt: "Alcohol's magic is murder by degrees/ slow enough to be irresistible." The short poems explore dark dive bars and in brief thumbnail sketches, the women who work in them. Many of whom agreed to be photographed for this book. Yet it is the poems that speak...
Foreign agents operate in countries of interest in times of peace, belligerence, and war. Their purpose is to seek pertinent information and pass it on to the country of their allegiance, and be open to opportunistic means of causing havoc and unrest among the local populace.<br><br>In 1941, Germany's vision of world domination sparks several baffling murders in the city of Los Angeles, The striking figure of Erika Willets, whose biography is as imposing as her physical...
In Baby Bones, Author Donan Berg's latest, newly elected Sheriff Jonas McHugh dashes up the embankment to avoid contaminating the skeleton with his vomit. On the day the Silver County, Iowa, Auditor certified his special election victory, Jonas would've never envisioned, in all of his thirty-five years, the challenges—his K-9 partner eats poison; picket line violence strikes Jove Foods, a major employer; a Jove employee fishing discovers a skeleton with fetus remains; a...
A shadowy form moved in a crouch along the creek bank, a stout club upraised and silhouetted against the sparkling surface of the stream. It approached the forms of the man and the woman as they lay quietly on the rug in the moonlight near the water's edge. The woman's head rested on the man's chest as he lay on his back, as if in a deep sleep. The blows from the club came quickly and viciously, crushing the flesh and bone of the man's head and face, and then the...
Georgina Harris, a voracious reader and daughter of a prominent Law Professor at the University of Cambridge, must learn to find her own way in life, after both her parents are killed in a horrific car accident. She moves to Oxford to live with her Aunt Jemima, and accepts a job at Balzac's Bookshop; and at the same time is introduced to Philip Morris: a wealthy liquor merchant, who is completing a Doctorate on the effects of solitude on Swedish citizens, at the University of Oxford. Then,...
JANE EYRE (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16 October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name “Currer Bell.” The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Primarily of the Bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr....