Книги, похожие на «Francine Prose, The Mirror: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him»

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.When Mr. Satterthswaite visits a new exhibit at the Harchester Galleries there is one painting with a male figure that bares a more than unusual likeness to a mysterious acquaintance of his, a Mr. Quin. And with one bold move purchases the canvas on the spot, and in another invites the artist of ‘The Dead Harlequin’ to dine with him that night. The dinner gets off on the wrong foot with the artist emphatically disagreeing with most points and an empty place at the table ready for the mysterious Mr. Quin to arrive. Conversation soon turns to the setting of ‘The Dead Harlequin,’ the doomed and ghostly house, Charnley, where so many have perished under tragic circumstances. But when a new guest is announced, it is not the expected Mr. Quin, but, famed stage comic actress Aspasia Glen, and she wants, above all else, that very painting. But, in the very moment he begins to explain she can’t have it a frantic telephone call from Alix Charnley herself interrupts them with the very same request. What is the meaning of the painting, and can it shed any light upon the grave happenings at Charnley.

From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the second volume of her collected short stories.Lessing is unrivalled in her ability to capture the complexities of relationships, and the stories in this wonderful collection have lost none of their original power.Two marriages, both middle class, liberal and ‘rather literary’, share a shocking flaw, a secret ‘cancer’. A young, beautiful woman from a working-class family is courted by a very eligible, very upmarket man. An ageing actress falls in love for the first time but can only express her feelings through her stage performances because her happily married lover is unobtainable. A dedicated, lifelong rationalist is tempted, after the death of his father, by the comforts of religious belief.In this magnificent collection of stories, which spans four decades, Lessing’s unique gift for observation, her wit, her compassion and remarkable ability to illuminate human life are all remarkably displayed.