Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (+Video)

Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)

Born in Steventon, Hampshire, England. Later she lived in Bath, Southampton, Chawton, and Winchester. She wrote Love and Friendship, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), Persuasion and Northanger Abbey (1818).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.

Rafael Sabatini - Captain Blood

Rafael Sabatini (1875 – 1950)

Born in Jesi, Italy. In 1905 he settled in England, wrote in English The Tavern Knight (1904), The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), Captain Blood (1922), others.

PETER BLOOD, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater. Sternly disapproving eyes considered him from a window opposite, but went disregarded. Mr. Blood's attention was divided between his task and the stream of humanity in the narrow street below; a stream which poured for the second time that day towards Castle Field, where earlier in the afternoon Ferguson, the Duke's chaplain, had preached a sermon containing more treason than divinity.

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the Empty House

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930)

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, but later gave it up. He wrote A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891–3), The White Company (1890), The War in South Africa (1902). 

It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances.  The public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation; but a good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all the facts... The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life.  Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and feeling once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly submerged my mind. Let me say to that public which has shown some interest in those glimpses which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions of a very remarkable man that they are not to blame me if I have not shared my knowledge with them, for I should have considered it my first duty to have done so had I not been barred by a positive prohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawn upon the third of last month.

Kate Chopin - The Awakening (+VideoBook)

Kate Chopin (1850 – 1904)

Born in St Louis, Missouri, USA. Educated in St Louis, she wrote At Fault (1890), Bayou Folk (1894), A Night in Acadie (1897), The Awakening (1899).

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: Allez vous-en!  Allez vous-en!  Sapristi!  That’s all right!

Benjamin Franklin - The Autobiography

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

Born in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1723 he moved to Philadelphia where by 1730 he had become sole owner of a successful business. In 1757-1762/1764-1775 he worked as a diplomat in England, helped negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain to be signed in 1783. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Published Poor Richard's Almanac, The Way to Wealth, The Autobiography.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it.