Bonnie Jo Campbell

On stage, Roebuck Ramsden, an old man of money and affairs, emerges. The maid, dressed in a beautiful mourning suit, announces Octavius Robinson, a young poet. Ramsden cautions the young poet about his companion, John Tanner.

A mother pig sends her THREE LITTLE PIGS out into the world to pursue their fortunes, with each constructing a home. The first tiny pig constructs a straw home, but a wolf destroys it and devours the pig.

The narrative is set in 1819 in a run-down boardinghouse on the left side of the Seine in Paris. Mme. Vauquer, a stingy widow, governs her tenants. Mlle. Michonneau, the old woman, Poiret, a puppet-like person, and Victorine Taillefer are among them.

The Gilded Age, first published in 1873, is a caustic satire as well as a fascinating depiction of post-Civil War America—a corrupt era in which greedy land speculators, cutthroat bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously exploited the country’s postwar optimism.

“His Last Bow” by Arthur Conan Doyle is an espionage thriller, not a detective mystery. The narrative might have been written to bolster public morale during World War I. It is recounted in the third person, rather in the first person like in a Sherlock Holmes tale.