Otázka: My favourite american writers
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): inunetka
JOHN STEINBECK
John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was the third of four children, and the only son born to John Ernst Sr. and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. A fourth child, Mary, was born in 1909. Olive Steinbeck had been a teacher in one-room schools in Big Sur, California, before her marriage to John Sr. After their marriage, the Steinbecks moved to Salinas in 1894, where John Sr. became a manager at the Sperry Flour Mill and later served as treasurer of Monterey County. Steinbeck died following a heart attack on December 20, 1968. He was sixty-six years old. His ashes were buried in Salinas, California.
Of Mice and Men
It’s a tender story of two homeless and wandering farm workers. One of them is the feebleminded Lenny who likes everything that is physically soft – mice, rabbits, velvet. He must touch everything, but with his enormous strength he kills involuntarily. The other is George, his friend and protector, who often feels that Lenny is a drag on him. Once Lenny kills a woman ( accidentally ) and George has to shoot him in order to save him from the furious farmer. Before doing so, George tells him about their future – they will buy a little house and Lenny will look after rabbits. With Lenny dies, George’s ability to dream dies as well. They needed good care of his friend. Furthermore, George is marked by the fact that he killed a man.
The Grapes of wrath
Tom Joad and his family are forced from their farm in the Depression-era Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out for California along with thousands of others in search of jobs, land, and hope for a brighter future. Considered John Steinbeck’s masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath is a story of human unity and love as well as the need for cooperative rather than individualistic ideals during hard times.
Tortilla Flat
Dubious Battle
Of Mice and Men
The Long Valley
The Grapes of Wrath
Winter of Our Discontent
Travels with Charley
JACK LONDON
Jack London is one of the greatest American novelists and short story writers. He was born on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco. Jack was raised by his mother Flora Wellman and his stepfather John London. He left school hen he was 14, eventually he returned to high school and graduated. At age of 19 Jack London was admitted to the University of California, Berkley, but he stayed there for only 6 months. Jack London worked many different jobs during his lifetime including seaman, factory worker, railroad hobo, and even gold prospector in Klondike. In 1900 Jack London married Bess Maddern and he had two daughters with her. They separated in 1903. After the separation from his first wife, Jack London married his secretary Charmain Kittredge. Jack London wrote hundreds of short stories, and over 50 books. Often troubled by physical ailments, during his thirties London developed kidney disease of unknown origin. He died of renal failure on November 22, 1916 on the ranch
The call od the wild
Buck, the lead character, is a much loved and pampered dog living a comfortable life on a ranch under the loving care of his owner, a wealthy judge who makes his pet want for nothing. Then one day, Buck’s life takes a dramatic turn when he’s sold off by an unscrupulous servant to pay a debt. He travels in a cage for the first time and is sold in Alaska, where dog-sleds are the primary mode of transportation. Buck has to quickly adapt to his new life as a sled dog and learn how to survive in a dog-eat-dog world where the competition is tough and often deadly. The basic comforts he had hitherto taken for granted, namely abundant food and warm shelter, are replaced by the bare necessities for survival which have to be fought for tooth and claw. Buck learns quickly, his physique and natural intelligence standing him in good stead, all the while improving as a sled dog and ultimately deposing the pack leader, his arch enemy: Spitz. His life changes sharply yet again, as he is sold off to Hal and his wife, people who know nothing about sledding or caring for animals till at last he is rescued by a kind and loving man, his last master: John Thornton. At last Buck finds a master who loves him besides caring for or pampering him. However this happiness is not built to last, his master is murdered by the vicious Yee-Hats, a tribe of brutal savages. In the midst of his anguish, Buck has to find his true self, he has to listen to the Call of the Wild and to answer it to go leaping towards his destiny
White fang
This is the story about an animal who is three quarters wolf and a one quarter dog who goes from life as an Indian sled dog to a fighting dog owned by a cruel man, to a loving owner who tries to show this maddened savage creature the meaning of love and kindness. What is really unique about White Fang is that it tells of what might be going on in such a creature’s head. It tells of what it is like living in a den out in the wild, tells of how White Fang first comprehends the wild and what he learns about the law of life. It explains what his first impression of humans, and of the harsh environment of all the other puppies and dogs in the camp. It is beautifully written and I would suggest it to anyone who likes long, thought provoking stories about dogs and wolves and the Northlands.
John Barleycorn
The People of the Abyss
Martin Eden
Overland Monthly
Edgar Allan Poe
He was born January 19 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[2]He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.
The Black Cat
The narrator was once a good person and an animal lover, and he married a wife of a similar disposition, but he has turned to drink and begun to abuse his wife, his pets, and particularly his cat named Pluto. He finally hangs the cat, which coincides with the burning down of his house and the resulting loss of his property, but after some months he adopts a similar cat, which differs from Pluto only in the patch of fur on its chest. He comes to hate the cat, and when he finally attacks it, his wife gets in the way, and he kills her instead, hiding the body behind a wall. However, he accidentally walls up the cat as well, when the police come to investigate, the cat cries out and reveals the corpse’s hiding place.
The Gold Bug
On the narrator’s visit to Legrand’s hut, he startles his friend by noting that Legrand’s depiction of a new species of bug looks like a skull. A month later, Legrand’s servant Jupiter asks him to accompany them on a trip to the hills on Legrand’s island, although Jupiter and the narrator both believe that he is losing his sanity. Jupiter blames it on the bug’s having bitten Legrand, but Legrand successfully leads them to a buried treasure and reveals how he had used the parchment of his sketch of the bug to find the treasure.
The Pit and the Pendulum
An unnamed narrator is sentenced to death by the Inquisition and awakens to find himself in a dungeon being watched closely by his captors, who intend to punish him by causing him mental torture and physical peril. Battling unreasoned fear, the narrator faces a number of death traps, including the eponymous pit and the swinging pendulum.
The Tell-Tale Heart
The narrator claims that he is not insane and offers the tale of why he killed the old man as proof. In the tale, he cannot stand the sight of the old man’s eye, so he decides to carefully and methodically kill him, explaining that no madman would be as careful as he is. As he stifles the man, he hears what he perceives as the beating of the old man’s heart. He dismembers the body and hides it beneath the floorboards, but when the policemen come, he is agitated by the sound of the loudly beating heart and is finally driven to reveal the truth to the policemen.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
After a particularly grisly double murder occurs in the Rue Morgue, leading to the arrest of Adolphe Le Bon on insufficient evidence, C. Auguste Dupin and his friend the narrator decide to investigate. Dupin is particularly skilled in analytical matters and feels that he can do a better job than the Paris Police, who are cunning but not insightful. The murder apparently takes place in a house where no one could have escaped and was committed by a perpetrator or perpetrators that were overheard but not seen and appear to have had no motive. Dupin, however, is able to retrace the steps of the murder by thinking creatively and questioning the assumption that the murderer is human.
The Black Cat And Other Stories
The Raven and Other Poems
The Tales
The Man that Was Used Up
The Masque of the Red Death
The Premature Burial
Thou Art the Man
Hop-Frog
