New Releases by Henry Van Dyke

A lost midcentury classic—the farcical misadventures of a queer Black teen sharing a house with two adoptive mothers, a lascivious cook, and a reticent ghost. In a small Michigan town, in the late 1950s, the widow Etta Klein—wealthy and Jewish—has for more than thirty years relied for aid, comfort, and companionship on her Black housekeeper Harriet Gibbs. Between “Aunt Harry” and Etta, a relationship has developed that is closer than a friendship, yet not quite a marriage. They are inseparable, at once absurdly unequal and defined by a comic codependence. Forever mourning the early death of her favorite son, Sargent, Etta has all but adopted Aunt Harry’s nephew, the precocious, gay seventeen-year-old Oliver, who has been raised by both women. Oliver is facing down his departure to college—and fending off the advances of Etta’s cook, Nella Mae—when the household is disrupted by the arrival of a self-proclaimed “warlock,” one Maurice LeFleur, who has convinced Etta and Harry that he might be able to contact Sargent in the afterlife . . . Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes was the debut of the extraordinary Henry Van Dyke, whose witty and outrageous novels look back to the sparkling, elaborate comedies of Ronald Firbank and forward to postmodern burlesques like Fran Ross’s Oreo. There is nothing else quite like them in American fiction.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Enchanting, tragic, and hilarious fairy tales for adults and children grace these pages. An initial glance might lead you to assume that these are satirical versions of classic Christmas ghost stories. However, beneath the humorous stories involving ghosts, repentant sinners, miracles, and good peasants who find well-deserved happiness, lies a psychological undercurrent that sharpens the sense of intrigue and plot movement. Often this is aided by the unrelenting social exposure of the authors who always understood how intangible the “bourgeois paradise” truly was. Even today, idyllic dreams of tolerance, equality, and the triumph of justice have failed to materialize. Perhaps that is why people continue to read these classic stories while the snow falls outside and the lights glow on the Christmas tree. Contents: Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol The Chimes G.K. Chesterton A Christmas Carol L.M. Montgomery The Red Room A Christmas Mistake A Christmas Inspiration The Josephs'' Christmas Aunt Cyrilla''s Christmas Basket The Osbornes'' Christmas Bertie''s New Year Ida''s New Year Cake The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road Clorinda''s Gifts The Falsoms'' Christmas Dinner The Unforgotten One Christmas at Red Butte Uncle Richard''s New Year''s Dinner L. Frank Baum A Kidnapped Santa Claus Little Bun Rabbit Mark Twain A Letter from Santa Claus Louisa May Alcott A Merry Christmas Leo Tolstoy A Russian Christmas Party Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Christmas Bells The Three Kings Nikolay Gogol Christmas Eve William Dean Howells Christmas Everyday The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express Joseph Rudyard Kipling Christmas in India Elizabeth Harrison Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe John Milton On the Morning of Christ''s Nativity Hans Christian Andersen The Fir Tree Selma Lagerlof The Holy Night Hans Christian Andersen The Little Match Girl Clement Moore The Night Before Christmas Henry van Dyke The Other Wise Man Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester Anton Chehov Vanka

"The Blue Flower" by Henry Van Dyke. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

This winter, we are offering to you our own Christmas box – filled up to the top with the best Christmas novels, classics to read during holidays, magical Christmas tales, legends, most famous carols and the unique poetry of the giants of literature dedicated to this one and only holiday: The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry) The Holy Night (Selma Lagerlöf) A Merry Christmas & Other Christmas Stories (Louisa May Alcott) A Letter from Santa Claus (Mark Twain) Silent Night The Night After Christmas The Child Born at Bethlehem The Adoration of the Shepherds The Visit of the Wise Men As Joseph Was A-Walking The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) Where Love Is, God Is (Leo Tolstoy) The Three Kings (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) A Christmas Carol (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (L. Frank Baum) Christmas At Sea (Robert Louis Stevenson) The Savior Must Have Been A Docile Gentleman (Emily Dickinson) The Heavenly Christmas Tree (Fyodor Dostoevsky) The Little City of Hope (F. Marion Crawford) The First Christmas Of New England (Harriet Beecher Stowe) Christmas in the Olden Time (Walter Scott) Christmas In India (Rudyard Kipling) A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) The Twelve Days of Christmas The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (L. Frank Baum) Ring Out, Wild Bells (Alfred Lord Tennyson) Little Lord Fauntleroy (Frances Hodgson Burnett) Black Beauty (Anna Sewell) The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton) Granny''s Wonderful Chair (Frances Browne) The Romance of a Christmas Card (Kate Douglas Wiggin) Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) The Wonderful Life - Story of the life and death of our Lord (Hesba Stretton) The Christmas Angel (A. Brown) Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope) Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells) The Lost Word (Henry van Dyke) The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (E. T. A. Hoffmann) The Little Match Girl The Elves and the Shoemaker Mother Holle The Star Talers Snow-White The Christmas Hirelings The Blue Carbuncle An Exciting Christmas Eve The Spirit of Christmas…

This is a unique work told in chapters, each by a different author and told from the perspective of another character in the story. The story revolves around Talberts''s family, leading citizens of a small New York town. A few weeks of their personal affairs make for an amazingly eventful plot.

"The Story of the Other Wise Man" captures the true spirit of Christmas. While three wise men reached their destination to meet and offer gifts to the new baby Jesus, the other wise man did something more important; he stopped to help others who were poor and less fortunate. This is a large print edition, with easy-to-read text of Van Dyke''s classic work (with the original illustrations). During the time of the birth of Jesus, a fourth Wise Man, Artaban, sells all his possessions to buy three precious jewels which he hopes to present to the newborn Christ Child. Although he planned to journey with the other three Magi to Bethlehem, he is delayed and fails to rendezvous with them. Artaban spends his whole life searching for the Christ, and in his search he gives away one, then two, and finally all three of his jewels to help others, but in the end his quest is fulfilled in unexpected ways. Although written more than a century ago, this is still a topical Christmas story for young and old that captures the true spirit of Christmas.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Henry Jackson van Dyke (November 10, 1852 - April 10, 1933) was an American author, educator, and clergyman. Henry van Dyke was born on November 10, 1852, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1869, Princeton University, in 1873 and from Princeton Theological Seminary, 1877. He served as a professor of English literature at Princeton between 1899 and 1923. Among the many students whom he influenced was, notably, future celebrity travel writer Richard Halliburton (1900-1939), Editor-in-Chief, at the time, of the Princeton Pictorial. Van Dyke chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906. In 1908-09 Dr. van Dyke was a lecturer at the University of Paris. By appointment of President Woodrow Wilson, a friend and former classmate of van Dyke, he became Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. Shortly after his appointment, World War I threw Europe into dismay. Americans all around Europe rushed to Holland as a place of refuge. Although inexperienced as an ambassador, van Dyke conducted himself with the skill of a trained diplomat, maintaining the rights of Americans in Europe and organizing work for their relief. He later related his experiences and perceptions in the book Pro Patria (1921). Van Dyke resigned as ambassador at the beginning of December 1916 and returned to the United States. He was subsequently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors. Van Dyke was a friend of Helen Keller. Keller wrote: "Dr. van Dyke is the kind of a friend to have when one is up against a difficult problem. He will take trouble, days and nights of trouble, if it is for somebody else or for some cause he is interested in. ''I''m not an optimist, '' says Dr. van Dyke, ''there''s too much evil in the world and in me. Nor am I a pessimist; there is too much good in the world and in God. So I am just a meliorist, believing that He wills to make the world better, and trying to do my bit to help and wishing that it were more.''" He died on April 10, 1933. He is buried in Princeton Cemetery.A biography of Van Dyke, titled Henry Van Dyke: A Biography, was written by his son Tertius van Dyke and published in 1935. Robert Venables (ca. 1613-1687), was a soldier during the English Civil War and noted angler. Venables was a lieutenant-colonel in the parliamentary army and was wounded at the siege of Chester in 1645. He was appointed governor of Liverpool in 1648 and then served with success in Ireland from 1649 until 1654. Venables was sent as joint commander with Admiral William Penn on the Caribbean expedition against the Spanish in the West Indies in 1654. The English forces were routed at the Siege of Santo Domingo in 1655, but managed to successfully take the Spanish colony of Jamaica for England later in the same year. On his return to England he was sent to the Tower of London for failing to wrest the larger prize of Hispaniola from Spanish control, and cashiered in October the same year. Venables was briefly appointed governor of Chester in 1660. After the Restoration he bought the estate of Wincham, retired from public life, and remained a nonconformist. He published a treatise on fishing, The Experienced Angler, in 1662

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

1922. From the Preface: Many books are dry and dusty, there is no juice in them; and many are soon exhausted, you would no more go back to them than to a squeezed orange; but some have in them an unfailing sap, both from the tree of knowledge and from the tree of life. By companionable books I mean those that are worth taking with you on a journey, where the weight of luggage counts, or keeping beside your bed, near the night-l& books that will bear reading often, and the more slowly you read them the better you enjoy them; books that not only tell you how things look and how people behave, but also interpret nature and life to you, in language of beauty and power touched with the personality of the author, so that they have a real voice audible to your spirit in the silence. Here I have written about a few of these books which have borne me good company, in one way or another, and about their authors, who have put the best of themselves into their work. Such criticism as the volume contains is therefore mainly in the form of appreciation with reasons for it. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Written almost a century ago, these daily selections from the works of Henry van Dyke have fresh appeal for readers of today. Featured here are choice excerpts from his sermons, short stories, and literary essays. Van Dyke''s unique historical perspective and experiences as an author, minister, and outdoorsman enabled him to address a wide range of issues and offer thoughtful observations on faith and life.

Readers of all ages will delight in these rich stories of christmas celebrations that span the centures.