The Power-House is a spy novel written by John Buchan in 1913. It is set in London, and tells the story of a lawyer and MP who discovers an incredible plot aimed at destroying the foundations of Western democracies through an anarchist organisation called The Power-House. “The power-house” was first serialised in Blackwood's magazine and then was released as a book in 1916. Preceding the famous The Thirty-Nine steps, little known, The Power-House is a fascinating spy novel. Filled with considerations about civilization and chaos, Nietzschean references, predictions about the (...)
Critiques
Greenmantle
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
John Buchan's Greenmantle is a 1916 adventure and espionage novel. In this second book of the Richard Hannay series (following The Thirty-Nine steps), Hannay is called to the Foreign Office by Sir Walter Bullivant at the beginning of the story. His mission: thwart German plans to wreak havoc in the Near East and Middle East through religious uprising. Hannay will gather his friends, and together they will travel to the Bosphorus, and fight bigger than life characters along the way. Discover Greenmantle with its original preface and biography in this new edition by (...)
The false Burton Combs
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The false Burton Combs is a crime story written by Caroll John Daly and published in the “Black mask magazine” in December 1922. The narrator, a tough guy, “kind of private eye”, is approached by a man who wants him to travel to Nantucket under his identity. Once on the island, he will be Burton Combs. And problems will start arising...With its cortege of evil mid-aged women, femmes fatales, cold-blooded killers, without forgetting a trial, and a final twist at the end, The false Burton Combs is known as the first ever “hard-boiled” story, preceding Hammett's (...)
The Man in the Moone
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The Man in the Moone is a novel by Francis Godwin probably written in the 1620s and published for the first time under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales after his death in 1638. The Man in the Moone can be considered as one of the major works of the late English Renaissance. Its influence over future utopian, picaresque and science-fiction writers is major. In this fascinating book, a Spaniard flees following a duel, is stranded in Saint-Helens on his return home from the East Indies, and then escapes the British fleet off Tenerife through a gansa-propelled flying-machine which he had (...)
The Tempest
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The Tempest is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1610 or 1611, believed to be the last play of the Bard. To us, it might be his best: the most astonishing alchemy of tragedy and comedy, of morals and magic, and a treasure cove of some of the most memorable Shakespearean scenes. Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda, are stranded on an island with for only companions the monster Caliban and the spirit Ariel. When a ship carrying his brother responsible for his plight passes by, Prospero uses his magical powers to start a tempest, ending with the shipwrecked (...)
A Modest Proposal
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
A Modest Proposal or “A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people from being a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public” is a satire (or a satirical essay) written by Jonathan Swift in 1729. In this essay, Swift suggests fighting poverty, hunger, and disenfranchisement in Ireland by having the poor families sell their new born babies as food items to the rich. If one is surprised by the outlandishness of the proposal today, one can imagine what the early Eighteenth century reader might have thought. This was a powerful way for (...)
The Alchemist
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The Alchemist is a comedy written by Ben Jonson and performed in 1610 by the King's men. Created four years after Volpone, The Alchemist is widely considered to be Ben Jonson's best comedy. Following an outbreak of plague in London, a gentleman's house falls into the hands of two would-be small-time crooks, Face and Subtle. They then start preying on unsuspecting victims who turn out to be nearly as crooked and vicious as the two original crooks themselves. And there is obviously a story about vulgar metal turned into gold... Discover The Alchemist with its original (...)
The Portrait of Mr W.H.
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The portrait of Mr W.H. is a short story written by Oscar Wilde and published in Blackwood's magazine in 1891. The story is the attempt by Oscar Wilde to uncover the identity of W.H., the mysterious individual to whom Shakespeare dedicates his Sonnets. Is Wilde's The portrait of Mr W.H. a beautiful theory, the most spectacular literary essay ever written, or has Wilde found the answer to one of the most famous English mysteries? Discover The portrait of Mr W.H. with its original preface and biography in this new edition by Les Éditions de Londres.
Frankenstein
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
Frankenstein is a novel written by Mary Shelley, published in 1818 by a small London publishing house, Lackington, Hughes, Harding. Mary Shelley was nineteen when she wrote the novel, following “late in the night” literary games with her lover and future husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron at the latter's residence near Lake Geneva during the summer of “the year without summer” (the consequence of the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora). “Frankenstein” is a gothic novel with romantic overtones whose creature became more famous than its author. Discover (...)
The Canterville Ghost
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 17 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
The Canterville Ghost is a short story written by Oscar Wilde and first published in 1887 in “The court and society review”. It is, together with Lord Arthur Savile's crime, one of Wilde's most famous short stories. An American family decides to move into an English manor which happens to be haunted by a four-century old ghost. Many events occur, ranging from the dark comical to the outright funny. At the end...a great twist... One of the best displays of Wilde's extraordinary talent. Discover The Canterville Ghost with its original preface and biography in this new (...)
Jacques l'étripeur
Par Les Éditions de Londres, 15 novembre 2013 dans Critiques
Le jour, Jacques est boucher dans un beau quartier de Toulouse, où il taille des steaks pour les rombières argentées. Le soir, il rentre chez lui dans la cité des Izards, où il mange végétarien en catimini. Eh oui, car la bidoche, il n'en peut plus : l'odeur, le touché, la vue ; cela l'obsède et le dégoûte. Jusqu'au jour où il tombe sur un documentaire à la télé qui va changer sa vie, et lui redonner l'envie de la barbaque. Jacques l'Étripeur est une nouvelle de la série “ Jacques l'Éventreur”, pour laquelle les auteurs (...)