Stories in Short
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Stories in Short’
A duke with a passion for the art of enchantment is stranded by his enemies on a deserted island.
The play begins in Milan, where Prospero, the Duke, is buried among the parchments of his library, studying the magical arts. His brother Antonio, however, feels that what Milan needs is not a wizard but a decent Duke, and Antonio thinks he knows just who that should be.
Allan Quartermain goes in search of a lost tourist and a legendary hoard of diamonds.
‘King Solomon’s Mines’ was published in 1885, and written in open admiration of Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’. It is recognised as spawning the ‘lost world’ genre of novels and movies, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories to ‘Indiana Jones’.
Two noble youths of ancient Thebes fall for the same princess.
Chaucer’s twenty-four ‘Canterbury Tales’, told by pilgrims travelling from London to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury in the late 14th century, open with the Knight’s Tale. A curious blend of Norman chivalry and classical mythology, it reminds us that any civilisation worthy of the name is firmly founded on Greco-Roman culture.
At twenty-five and owner of his own business, Walter Wilding thought his world was secure, but it was about to be rocked to its foundations.
‘No Thoroughfare’ came out in 1867 as both a novel and a play, and was co-authored by Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins. It is essentially a thriller, but it has some familiar Dickensian touches, such as the moral that character is what matters, not parentage or wealth.