Books Like “The Merry Wives of Windsor”

The second Mrs. Tanqueray

Arthur Wing Pinero

1894

Aubrey Tanqueray's Chambers in the Albany-a richly and tastefully decorated room, elegantly and luxuriously furnished: on the right a large pair of doors opening into another room, on the left at the further end of the room a small door leading to a bedchamber. A circular table is laid for a dinner for four persons which has now reached the stage of dessert and coffee. Everything in the apartment suggests wealth and refinement. The fire is burning brightly. Aubrey Tanqueray, Misquith, and Jayne are seated at the dinner-table. Aubrey is forty-two, handsome, winning in manner, his speech and bearing retaining some of the qualities of young-manhood. Misquith is about forty-seven, genial and portly. Jayne is a year or two Misquith's senior; soft-speaking and precise-in appearance a type of the prosperous town physician. Morse, Aubrey's servant, places a little cabinet of cigars and the spirit-lamp on the table beside Aubrey, and goes out.

Una Perfecta Desconocida/Perfect Stranger

Danielle Steel

1981

Rafaela, hija de un prestigioso banquero y esposa adorada de un rico hombre de negocios, era una mujer enamorada. Sin embargo, su felicidad se ve truncada cuando su marido sufre un feroz ataque de apoplejía.

Novels (Emma / Mansfield Park / Northanger Abbey / Persuasion / Pride and Prejudice / Sense and Sensibility)

Jane Austen

1818

This collection from Everyman's Library provides the complete works of one of the most popular authors in English literature. Each of Jane Austen's masterpieces is enchantingly funny, touchingly and wittily told, and filled with a dazzling gallery of characters. These beautiful, clothbound classics are essentials for any home library. Titles included: Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abby, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sandition and Other Stories, Sense and Sensibility

Man and Wife

Wilkie Collins, Norman Page, Harry A. Webber

1870

Man and Wife was Wilkie Collins' ninth published novel. It is the second of his novels (after No Name) in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his novels to explore social abuses, which according to critics] tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time the novel was written, any couple who were legally entitled to marry and who asserted that they were married before witnesses, or in writing, were regarded in Scotland as being married in law. The novel has a complex plot, common in Collins' work.[3] In a Prologue, a selfish and ambitious man casts off his wife in order to marry a wealthier and better-connected woman, by taking advantage of a loophole in the marriage laws of Ireland.The initial action takes place in the widowed Lady Lundie's house in Scotland. Geoffrey Delamayn has promised marriage to his lover Anne Silvester (governess to Lady Lundie's stepdaughter Blanche), who has incurred the enmity of her employer. The spendthrift Geoffrey is about to be disinherited and wishes to escape from his promise and marry a wealthy wife. Nevertheless, he is obliged to arrange a rendezvous with Anne, in the character of his wife, at an inn, and documents this in an exchange of notes with her. Subsequently, urgent matters force him to send his friend Arnold Brinkworth, Blanche's fiancé, to Anne in his place. To gain access to her, Arnold must ask for "his wife". Although nothing improper passes between them, they appear to the landlady and to Bishopriggs, a waiter, to be man and wife.Thus, both Geoffrey and Arnold might be deemed to be married to Anne, depending on the weight put on the spoken and written evidence. Most of the novel concerns Anne's, Geoffrey's and Arnold's attempts to clarify their marital status:

The Tempest or The Enchanted Island

William Shakespeare

1670

A mystical Island, the deity of Ariel, and a stranded crew; shipwrecked among an enchanted island mist. This version has been decoded from the commonly known, yet unauthorized play by Shakespeare. This text is therefore presented as a significant literary discovery, as punctuation has been significantly resolved.

A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen

1889

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen portrays Nora, the wife, as a "doll," beautiful, unsophisticated, childlike, well-meaning, but ignorant of the adult world and affairs. All of her friends see her as a doll. Her husband Torvald treats her as one, calling her childish names. He tries to control all of her behavior, not because he is mean, but because he loves her and he realizes that she is unable to do so. IN "A Doll's House, Torvald" tells Nora what to eat so that her teeth will not be spoiled from sugar and how much she should spend because she does not understand much about money. And it is the latter, the money, that gets Nora into trouble. Torvald was sick some years back and needed to travel and stay in a warmer climate for some months, but the couple had no money. She, out of childish but ignorant love, borrowed money from an unscrupulous man who insisted that she have her father countersign the loan. Her father was dying, so she forged his signature on the loan document. She was certain that this was not wrong because her intentions were pure, she wanted to save her husband's life. She did not tell her husband about the loan because she childishly wanted to surprise him someday in the future and show him that she acted wisely and that she, who he thought of as childlike, saved his life. She laughed about her cleverness often when she was alone. Now the unscrupulous lender is demanding something from Nora, or he will reveal the forgery to her husband and his employer, and this will affect her marriage and her husband will lose his job. The tragedy in Henrik Ibsen's "The Doll's House" probably would not have occured if the people would have treated women properly as human beings rather than dolls.

The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James

1881

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916), was born in New-York. His father was a writer in theology and his elder brother, William, was a philosopher. From 1865 he was a regular contributor of reviews and short stories to American periodicals. His first piece of fiction, "Watch and Ward", appeared in 1871, followed by "Transatlantic Sketches" and "A Passionate Pilgrim" in 1875. His first important novel was "Roderick Hudson (1876). For more than 20 years he lived in London, and in 1898 moved to Lamb House, Rye, where his later novels were written. At first he was concerned with older civilization of Europe, and to this period belong his novels "Daisy Miller" (1879) and "Portrait of a Lady"(1881). In "The Tragic Muse" (1890), "The Spoils of Poynton"(1897), and "The Awkward Age" (1899), he analyses English character. With "The Wings of the Dove" (1902), "The Ambassadors" (1903), and "The Golden Bowl" (1904), he returned to the theme of the contrast of American and European character. In 1915, Henry James became a British subject, and in 1916 was awarded the OM.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Aric Cushing, Logan Thomas, SparkNotes, Bryan Hunt, A. J. Alexander, Steven Stern, Aileen Oracion, Twisted Classics, Anne Geer, Sara Barkat, Period Time Publishing, Félix Gerónimo, Agustín López Tobajas, Nicolae Sfetcu, Erminia Passannanti

1892

En 1885, un año después de haberse casado con Charles Walter Stetson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman dio a luz a su hija, Katharine, y al poco tiempo entró en una profunda depresión. El doctor Silas Weir Mitchell, un reputado neurólogo a quien había acudido en busca de ayuda, le diagnosticó agotamiento de los nervios y le prescribió una cura de descanso, un controvertido tratamiento en el que era pionero. «Vive una vida tan hogareña como te sea posible, realiza no más de dos horas de actividad intelectual al día y no toques nunca más una pluma, un pincel o un lapicero»: estas fueron las instrucciones que le dio el médico a la autora. Durante unos meses siguió estos consejos, pero su depresión se agravó, y, según sus propias palabras, se acercó tanto a la frontera de la profunda ruina mental que llegó a vislumbrar el otro lado. Solo haciendo caso omiso de los consejos del médico y volviendo al trabajo logró recuperarse de su depresión. Esta experiencia la marcó hasta tal punto que en 1890 escribió "El papel pintado amarillo", un estremecedor relato que constituye una demoledora crítica al tratamiento prescrito por el doctor Mitchell.

The Taming of the Shrew

William Shakespeare

1631

The Wonder of Shakespeare One who reads a few of Shakespeare's great plays and then the meager story of his life is generally filled with a vague wonder. Here is an unknown country boy, poor and poorly educated according to the standards of his age, who arrives at the great city of London and goes to work at odd jobs in a theater. In a year or two he is associated with scholars and dramatists, the masters of their age, writing plays of kings and clowns, of gentlemen and heroes and noble women, all of whose lives he seems to know by intimate association. In a few years more he leads all that brilliant group of poets and dramatists who have given undying glory to the Age of Elizabeth. Play after play runs from his pen, mighty dramas of human life and character following one another so rapidly that good work seems impossible; yet they stand the test of time, and their poetry is still unrivaled in any language. For all this great work the author apparently cares little, since he makes no attempt to collect or preserve his writings. A thousand scholars have ever since been busy collecting, identifying, classifying the works which this magnificent workman tossed aside so carelessly when he abandoned the drama and retired to his native village. He has a marvelously imaginative and creative mind; but he invents few, if any, new plots or stories. He simply takes an old play or an old poem, makes it over quickly, and lo! this old familiar material glows with the deepest thoughts and the tenderest feelings that ennoble our humanity; and each new generation of men finds it more wonderful than the last. How did he do it? That is still an unanswered question and the source of our wonder.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee

1962

Billy Rose Theatre, Theater 1963, Richard Barr, Clinton Wilder, presents Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, George Grizzard in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" with Melinda Dillon, directed by Alan Schneider, production designed by William Ritman

Sons and Lovers

D. H. Lawrence

1913

Sons and Lovers is D.H. Lawerence's masterpiece novel that has been listed as one of the top ten novels of the 20th century. The novel centers around the life of Paul Morel. Born into an unhappy marriage, Paul is determined to please his mother, even when it means destroying his own life in the process. This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence

1900

Trapped in a marriage which has become sterile and joyless since her husband's return from the trenches of the First World War, partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Connie seizes the chance of sexual fulfilment she had thought lost to her forever.

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

1843

This classic tale has been formatted to make it more dyslexia-friendly, with larger text (font size 14), larger line spacing (1.5 lines), an easy to read font (Ariel) and is also printed on cream paper. For more on our large print and dyslexia-friendly books, and our bulk discounts for schools visit: firestonebooks.com