18 books like The Gadfly
Lili
Derrière le portrait d'une jeune Chinoise dans les années 1980, l'histoire d'une prise de conscience sociale qui aboutit aux événements de la place Tian'anmen en 1989. [SDM].
Shares: Revolutionaries, History
Spartacus
Spartacus, a fictionalization of a slave revolt in ancient Rome in 71 B.C., is well known today partly because of the 1960 movie starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. It was originally published in 1951 by the author himself, after being turned down by every mainstream publisher of the day because of Fast's blacklisting for his Communist Party sympathies.
The story of Spartacus, born a…
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Pan Michael An historical novel
The third and final book of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy takes a closer and more intimate look at one of the series’ protagonists: Pan Michael Volodyovski. The Polish Commonwealth has been through intense periods of war, and the peace that follows leaves one of its greatest heroes, Pan Michael, finally free to marry his beloved Panna Anusia. But in a twist of fate, she falls ill and dies, leaving…
Shares: Historical Fiction, History
St. George and St. Michael
It was the middle of autumn, and had rained all day. Through the lozenge-panes of the wide oriel window the world appeared in the slowly gathering dusk not a little dismal. The drops that clung trickling to the dim glass added rain and gloom to the landscape beyond, whither the eye passed, as if vaguely seeking that help in the distance, which the dripping hollyhocks and sodden sunflowers…
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The deluge
This is Volume 2 of the Curtin translation, first published in 1898. This is NOT the more modern Kuniczak translation of 1991 that many people prefer, despite what you can see as the book cover on the screen.
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
Home as found
"No society, dear!--Why you were at the Henderson's, and the Morgan's, and the Drewett's; three of the greatest _réunions_ that we have had in two winters!"'
"I did not know that you meant those unpleasant crowds, by society".
"Unpleasant crowds! Why, child, that is society, is it not?'
"Not what I have been taught to consider such; I rather think it would be better to call it company".
"And is…
Shares: Historical Fiction
The Border Empire
Wes Stone was a lawman—until the Sandlin gang gunned down his legendary father. Now, he's giving up his badge for vengeance...
Shares: Historical Fiction
The Princess Casamassima
The illegitimate and impoverished son of a dressmaker and a nobleman, Hyacinth Robinson has grown up with a strong sense of beauty that heightens his acute sympathy for the inequalities that surround him. Drawn into a secret circle of radical politics he makes a rash vow to commit a violent act of terrorism. But when the Princess Casamassima—beautiful, clever and bored—takes him up and introduces…
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Che
"Author obviously admires Guevara and thus tends to exaggerate his role in the Cuban Revolution; however, he has managed a degree of objectivity sufficient for production of the best biography of the guerrilla thus far. Author's research is wide and deep, his work is careful and meticulous, and he always remains close to the facts. Few will continue to venerate the memory of Guevara after reading…
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Il barone rampante
Il romanzo racconta le vicende di Cosimo di Rondò, vissuto nella seconda metà del XVIII secolo in piccolo paese della Liguria. Cosimo, per sfuggire ad un punizione, decide di salire su un albero e non scenderne mai più: si costruisce un mondo aereo dove diversi personaggi della cultura e della politica (Napoleone compreso) lo vanno a trovare, testimoniandogli la loro ammirazione. Vive anche una…
Shares: Continental european fiction, Historical Fiction, History
White Nights
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a poignant short story about love, loneliness, and fleeting human connections. Set in St. Petersburg during the ethereal "white nights" of summer, it follows a dreamy, solitary narrator who meets a young woman named Nastenka. Over four nights, he shares his fantasies and feelings, while she confides her longing for a lost lover.
As the narrator falls in love…
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Kristin Lavransdatter III
In her great historical epic Kristin Lavransdatter, set in fourteenth-century Norway, Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset tells the life story of one passionate and headstrong woman. Painting a richly detailed backdrop, Undset immerses readers in the day-to-day life, social conventions, and political and religious undercurrents of the period. Now in one volume, Tiina Nunnally's award-winning definitive…
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Seven Gothic tales
Originally published in 1934, Seven Gothic Tales, the first book by "one of the finest and most singular artists of our time" (The Atlantic), is a modern classic. Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and…
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La tulipe noire
On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees, spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like large mirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Eastern cupolas are reflected, - the city of the Hague, the capital of the Seven United Provinces, was swelling…
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London
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A Bitter Cut
Lady Kiera Darby plans to spend the summer reconnecting with friends and family in anticipation of the betrothal of her beloved brother. But when a future in-law is implicated in a murder, the party takes a deadly turn. . . .July 1833. Lady Darby and her dashing husband, Sebastian Gage, are settling into their newly renovated home at Bevington Park in Warkwickshire with their young daughter. With…
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Memoirs of a Revolutionist
Published in Atlantic monthly Sep. 1898-Sep. 1899 under title The autobiography of a revolutionist. Graphic details of Russian conditions and of an eventful life.
— A.L.A. Catalog 1904
“Kropotkin’s story is a singularly rich, diversified, and romantic one, and it is attractively told. Nothing more interesting in its way has ever been written than the chapters relating his prison life and escape.…
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Satanstoe ; or, The littlepage manuscripts, a tale of the colony
Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world.
Shares: Historical Fiction, History