Books with title Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh

In Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu’s most celebrated novel, Maud Ruthyn, the young, naïve heroine, is plagued by Madame de la Rougierre from the moment the enigmatic older woman is hired as her governess. A liar, bully, and spy, when Madame leaves the house, she takes her dark secret with her. But when Maud is orphaned, she is sent to live with her Uncle Silas, her father’s mysterious brother and a man with a scandalous-even murderous-past. And, once again, she encounters Madame, whose sinister role in Maud’s destiny becomes all too clear. With its subversion of reality and illusion, and its exploration of fear through the use of mystery and the supernatural, Uncle Silas shuns the conventions of traditional horror and delivers a chilling psychological thriller.It was winter–that is, about the second week in November–and great gusts were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering among our tall trees and ivied chimneys–a very dark night, and a very cheerful fire blazing, a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry wood, in a genuine old fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscoting glimmered up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump of wax candles on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim and pale, others pretty, and some very graceful and charming, hanging from the walls. Few pictures, except portraits long and short, were there. On the whole, I think you would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and every way capacious, but irregularly shaped.A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe, younger still; slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden hair, dark grey-eyed, and with a countenance rather sensitive and melancholy, was sitting at the tea-table, in a reverie. I was that girl. The only other person in the room–the only person in the house related to me–was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of Knowl, so called in his county, but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage, who had refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose ranks, it was said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this family lore I knew but little and vaguely; only what is to be gathered from the fireside talk of old retainers in the nursery.I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With the sure instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness, although it was never expressed in common ways. But my father was an oddity. He had been early disappointed in Parliament, where it was his ambition to succeed. Though a clever man, he failed there, where very inferior men did extremely well. Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and a collector; took a part, on his return, in literary and scientific institutions, and also in the foundation and direction of some charities. But he tired of this mimic government, and gave himself up to a country life, not that of a sportsman, but rather of a student, staying sometimes at one of his places and sometimes at another, and living a secluded life. Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife died, leaving me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told, changed him–made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his temper also, except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger brother–my uncle Silas–which he felt bitterly.

About the Book Drama texts refer to the mode of fiction represented in the performance of a play in a theater, on radio or on television. Drama is viewed as a genre of poetry, with the dramatic mode being contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (335 BC). The term "drama" itself derives from the Greek word meaning "action”. In the English language the word "play" or "game" was a standard term used to describe drama until William Shakespeare's time. The enactment of drama in a theater, performed by actors on a stage before an audience is often combined with music and dance. In opera, the drama is generally sung throughout, whilst in musicals it includes both spoken dialogue and songs.Also in this Book Collections of American literature are anthologies that have been compiled in order to demonstrate the works of a number of American authors. During the 19th century there was a blossoming of US literature, including writers, poets and works such as: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick and Billy Budd; Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson; Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer; Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady; and Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Jack London. And in this Book In historical fiction the plot is set in the past, and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the period portrayed. Some authors choose to include famous historical figures in their fictional plots, so that audiences can imagine how those individuals might have responded to the plots and environments established by the author. The Western literary component of this genre is founded in the early 19th century works of such authors as Sir Walter Scott, Honoré de Balzac, James Fenimore Cooper, and Leo Tolstoy.About us Leopold Classic Library has the goal of making available to readers the classic books that have been out of print for decades. While these books may have occasional imperfections, we consider that only hand checking of every page ensures readable content without poor picture quality, blurred or missing text etc. That's why we: republish only hand checked books; that are high quality; enabling readers to see classic books in original formats; that are unlikely to have missing or blurred pages. You can search "Leopold Classic Library" in categories of your interest to find other books in our extensive collection. Happy reading!