検索キーワード： 制作 "Jimcin Recordings" 文芸小説

Maurice Leblanc, a writer of detective fiction during the same period as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, created Arsene Lupin, a sort of French Robin Hood. An inventive genius, a master of disguise, and an accomplished actor, Lupin operates in the choice chateaux and salons. He scorns sham and with great disdain leaves his card in a baron's residence. The card reads, "Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine."

By the time Dostoevsky was 40, he had spent four years in prison and a further four years in the army as punishment for his part in a political conspiracy. His health was broken. He was gaunt, fervid, anxiety-ridden, and close to bankruptcy. It was in this state he wrote Notes from the Underground, a masterpiece of the psychology of theoutsider.

Raskolnikov, a student in St. Petersburg, murders an old woman, a money-lender, to prove his theory that violence purifies the strong. But no sooner is the deed done than Raskolnikov begins to feel remorse. What follows is one of the greatest psychological studies in world literature.

Emile Zola, along with fellow novelists Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert, was an early realist in French literature. In novels such as Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Zola's Nana, sex and violence were examined with vivid clarity. These realists soon adopted the word naturalism to describe their writings.

Les Miserables is set in the Parisian underworld. The protagonist, Jean Valjean, is sentenced to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. After his release, Valjean plans to rob monseigneur Myriel, a saint-like bishop, but cancels his plan. However, he forfeits his parole by committing a minor crime, and for this crime Valjean is haunted by the police inspector Javert. Valjean eventually reforms and becomes a successful businessman, benefactor, and mayor of a northern town.

Kipling was a British author and poet, born in India. He is best known for the many children's tales, his Indian spy novel Kim (1901), a number of poems, and many short stories. This gentle supernatural story is one of his best.

Louis XIII had to be a Solomon. His queen produced twin male heirs - two sons of equal age with equal pretensions. Louis feared for France. One prince means peace and safety for the state, two are a recipe for civil war and anarchy. One son had to go. Louis could not kill him, but he could hide him in an iron mask. Such is the quality of paternal mercy.

Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is of the best "macabre" tales ever written. It is presented here in its entirety along with eight other incredible tales.

Hester Prynne commits adultery in a Puritan settlement and, as a result, is "branded" for the rest of her life by having to wear a scarlet letter "A" on her breast. Throughout the story, a complex relationship develops between Hester, her lover, her husband, and her daughter.

The Cossacks is one of the finest depictions of Cossack society in Russian literature. Against that primitive background, Tolstoy examines two psychological problems. The first is that of a young man who wants to love and wants to fit into society. The other is that of the difficulty of a primitive society in accepting the domination of a higher culture. This is a brilliant exploration of the themes of individuality and social identity.

Wilke Collins was the author of two of the greatest mysteries ever written, The Moonstone and The Woman in White. However, like Poe before him and Conan Doyle after, he shifted easily from rational domains to the 'superrational'. Like them, he often preferred to indulge his occult predilection, a lifelong indulgence.

John Harmon returns from exile expecting to receive an inheritance, but knows that he must marry a stranger, Bella Wilfer, in order to collect. He fakes his own death and takes on a new identity in order to observe her first. Some of the memorable characters in this, the last completed Dickens novel, include Bella who, unlike other Dickens heroines, cannot be accused of unnatural virtue; the insolent barrister Eugene Wrayburn; the amiable Boffin; and the rascal Silas Wegg.

The Pupil is an excellent tale from James' middle period. Pemberton, a young American with an Oxford education and but little money, takes a job tutoring Morgan Moreen, the 12-year old son of an American couple living in Europe in a style above their income. The family of the pupil is both comic and unfortunate, and the child himself is vividly drawn. The pupil's parents waffle about paying Pemberton the salary to which they'd agreed in their view, he should be satisfied by his life with them, and by the joy of tutoring young Morgan?

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was one of the major figures of 19th-century supernaturalism. He helped move supernaturalist fiction away from the gothic's emphasis on external sources of terror and toward a focus on the effects of terror, thus helping to create the psychological basis for supernaturalist and horror literature that continues today. "The Familiar" is one of his most terrifying tales.

When young Edwin Drood disappears, suspicion centers on John Jasper, a drug-addicted choirmaster who hungers after Drood's fiancé. So does Neville Landless, a Ceylonese who has previously quarreled violently with the missing man. The mystery if further enhanced because it was left unfinished at the author's death. Thus the book has challenged the imagination of generations of readers.

William Dean Howells was born in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, of Welch, Irish, and German forebears. Along with Mark Twain, he was one of the great novelists of his time. This book, the realisic saga of the rise and redemptive fall of an American tycoon, is considered to be his best novel.

A Christmas Carol is undoubtedly the most famous supernatural story in English. However, it was not the only supernatural story of the season that Charles Dickens wrote. In Victorian England, Christmas was the time to explore the supernatural in stories, and Charles Dickens was one of the best at it. Included in this volume are a full-cast dramatization of A Christmas Carol, plus three more of Dickens' best stories of the season.

Joseph Conrad was a native of Poland, yet many critics regard him as one of the greatest English novelists. This is all the more remarkable, since he did not learn to speak English fluently until he was in his 20s. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1886. He wrote many books and stories, but the two that remain most popluar are Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. Lord Jim is both an adventure story and a story of tragedy and repentence.

Typhoon is the story of an old steamer and a veteran captain. The captain is normally calm and in control but the ship's sudden envelopment by a typhoon brings out both the best characteristics and the worst of the captain and his crew. This story is a penetrating look at the human spirit in the face of disaster - a recurring theme in Conrad's works.

Sons and Lovers was the first of Lawrence's major works, and is still considered to be one of his best. The 1913 novel, partly autobiographical and set in the coalmining village of Bestwood, is notable for being the first English novel to be genuinely working-class in origin and focus.