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Literary Corner

Tales of mystery and imagination, Edgar Allan Poe


Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was orphaned early in life. He was taken into the house of Edgar Allan, who became his godfather and took him along to live in England from 1815-1820. There Poe studied at a classical academy. After the death of Mrs. Allan, Poe and his godfather severed relations. In 1831, after attending several schools, among them West Point, Poe moved to New York. His early publications won him fame and the position as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. Later he moved to Philadelphia and worked on Burton's Gentleman's Magazine.

In 1836 Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. She died eleven years later of tuberculosis. Poe's next professional engagement was with the Evening Mirror in New York starting in 1845. His own paper, The Broadway Journal, was a financial desaster. After the death of his wife, Poe turned to alcohol abuse. These drinking binges left him so exhausted that he fell seriously ill by October 1849. A few days later he died.


Tales of mystery and imagination


Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a book of short stories, was written by Edgar Allan Poe. Here is the plot about some stories and questions at the end of each page.


The Murders in the Rue Morgue

The Tell-Tale Heart

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Hey everyone! I'm Gema and this is my first official contribution to this blog, and I’m very excited because in this space I can write about my favourite books and you can read them, if you want of course... and if you want to say something you can do on the main page and you can also recommend a book to put on the blog.  
Here's a link that takes you to a page full of interesting books. Have a look and tell me what you think!


http://www.readbookonline.net/
 
We would be delighted if you could complete the questionnaire you will find on surveys section about your reading preferences.

Thank's and have fun!

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Hello everybody, it's Daniel and I'd be pleased to explain you what the Project Gutenberg is.

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to archive and digitalize cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. The project tries to make the public domain texts as free as possible, in open formats that can be used on almost any computer. Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many other projects that are independent organizations wich share the sime ideals, and have been given permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark. [...]
Found on Wiki

History:

Project Gutenberg began in 1971 when Michael Hart was given an operator's account with $100,000,000 of computer time in it by the operators of the Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois.
This was totally serendipitous, as it turned out that two of a four operator crew happened to be the best friend of Michael's and the best friend of his brother. Michael just happened "to be at the right place at the right time" at the time there was more computer time than people knew what to do with, and those operators were encouraged to do whatever they wanted with that fortune in "spare time" in the hopes they would learn more for their job proficiency.
At any rate, Michael decided there was nothing he could do, in the way of "normal computing," that would repay the huge value of the computer time he had been given ... so he had to create $100,000,000 worth of value in some other manner. An hour and 47 minutes later, he announced that the greatest value created by computers would not be computing, but would be the storage, retrieval, and searching of what was stored in our libraries.
He then proceeded to type in the "Declaration of Independence" and tried to send it to everyone on the networks ... which can only be described today as a not so narrow miss at creating an early version of what was later called the "Internet Virus."
A friendly dissuasion from this yielded the first posting of a document in electronic text, and Project Gutenberg was born as Michael stated that he had "earned" the $100,000,000 because a copy of the Declaration of Independence would eventually be an electronic fixture in the computer libraries of 100,000,000 of the computer users of the future.


So, in Project Gutenberg you'll find any public book - I mean, cultural patrimony books, as Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, etc. Hope it will be useful to you!


Let us know about your experience with Project Gutenberg. Maybe your contribution will help other people to use that massive piece of work.
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Review nº 1: Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice found there - by Lewis Carrol
One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with it:—it was the black kitten's fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it COULDN'T have had any hand in the mischief.
Well, that's the beginning of this wonderfull, mad book, Through the Looking-Glass, the new ream of marvels wich Alice visits on this occasion. The first place she'll found is the Looking-Glass House, in the drawing-room: but her curiosity is strongly exited about the rest -you can just see a little peep of the passage in 'Looking-glass House' if you leave the door of the drawing room wide open; and it's very like our passage as far as you see, only you know it might be quite different on beyond.
And very different on beyond it proves to be when Alice walks dreaming through the looking-glass and explores it. There, things in the Looking-glass House are exactly reversed; so, if you want to go anywhere you have to turn round and walk the other way! People live backwards too, and their memory also works foward; thus there's an ufortunate person whom find undergoing sentence in prison "the trial doesn't even begin until Wednesday, and the crime comes last of all".
What do I think about this book? I've just read that and I can say it's amazing, absolutelly crazy and nonsense - it's so hard to explain! When you're reading, you feel you're really inside pure fantasy - I said before, it's completely MAD!
So, if you want to read it, you can find it HERE. I know you will enjoy it!

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Hi people! I'm Gema
Well, my intention is to make you enjoy reading books, so this is Review nº2 ... I recommend this novel of Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby or The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, because I think that the story is great! And I suppose that you like this!
This novel is about a young man ( Nicholas) who must support his mother and his young sister Kate after his father dies. His uncle Ralph, who thinks Nicholas will never amount to anything, plays the role of an antagonist.

Characters:

Nicholas Nickleby: The hero of the novel but he isn't a typical hero: he can be violent and emotional. In his preface to the novel, Dickens writes "There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a remark. If Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or agreeable, he is not always intended to appear so. He is a young man of an impetuous temper and of little or no experience; and I saw no reason why such a hero should be lifted out of nature." He devotes himself primarily to his friends and family and fiercely defies those who wrong the ones he loves.

Ralph Nickleby: The antagonist. Nicholas’s uncle. He seems to care about nothing but money and takes an immediate dislike to Nicholas, however; he does harbour something of a soft spot for Kate. Ralph’s anger at Nicholas’s beating of Wackford Squeers leads to a vow to destroy the younger man, but the only man Ralph ends up destroying is himself. 

Kate Nickleby: Nicholas's younger sister. Kate is a fairly passive character, typical of Dickensian women, but she shares some of her brother’s fortitude and strong will. She does not blanch at hard labour to earn her keep and defends herself against the lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk (Ralph's friend)

Mrs. Nickleby: Nicholas and Kate’s mother, who provides much of the novel’s comic relief. The muddleheaded Mrs. Nickleby does not see the true evil her children encounter until it is directly pointed out to her. She is stubborn, prone to long digressions on irrelevant or unimportant topics and unrealistic fantasies.

Smike: A poor drudge living in Squeers’s "care". Smike is a pathetic figure, perpetually ill and somewhat dim-witted, who has been in Squeers’s care since he was very young. Nicholas gives him the courage to run away, but when that fails Nicholas saves him again and the two become best friends. He falls in love with Kate, but his heart is broken when she falls in love with Frank Cheeryble.

Well, with this brief information you have an idea about the novel... don't lose more time and read it!


http://www.readbookonline.net/read/586/10091/


Another day I'll upload the movie, so read it now!


And remember that you can read more book in the above link!


Have you read it? Will you tell us about it? If not, enjoy it and comment on homepage.


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Hello, it's Daniel again and I just want to bring you one of the last Poe's poems, the unforgettable Annabel Lee, by Edgar Allan Poe. 



Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea. (found on PoemHunter.com)


Do you also fancy poetry? Will you tell us about your favourite authors? British or American?

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