Jean-Christophe, Volume I by Romain Rolland: Jean-Christophe, Volume I, written by Romain Rolland, is the first installment of a monumental novel series that follows the life and journey of the titular character. This captivating work spans multiple volumes and explores the protagonist's artistic pursuits, personal struggles, and philosophical reflections. Set against the backdrop of late 19th and early 20th-century Europe, the novel delves into themes of creativity, individuality, and the clash between art and society. With rich character development and lyrical prose, Romain Rolland weaves an intricate narrative that immerses readers in the emotional and intellectual world of Jean-Christophe. Key Points: Epic Novel Series: Jean-Christophe is a sprawling and ambitious novel series that chronicles the life of the central character across multiple volumes, offering readers a comprehensive and immersive literary experience. Exploration of Art and Individuality: The novel delves into the protagonist's artistic journey and the challenges he faces as he seeks to express his individuality in a society that often stifles creativity. Rich Characterization: Romain Rolland crafts complex and multi-dimensional characters, breathing life into Jean-Christophe and the supporting cast, allowing readers to deeply engage with their joys, sorrows, and personal growth throughout the narrative.

Jean-Christophe Krafft, born into a Belgian-German family of musicians, seems destined for music from an early age: he is sensitive to sound, learns to play the piano, and, with the help of his grandfather, soon writes his first compositions. This leads him to become a court musician of the Grand Duchy on the Rhine, where he lives. Along the way, he experiences love, setbacks, poverty, but also success. After a violent incident forces him to flee, he finds shelter in Paris, where he meets a friend for life: Olivier. But his idealistic worldview and stubborn character repeatedly get him into trouble, forcing him to seek refuge in Switzerland. Jean-Christophe is the story of a man, chronicled from his birth to his death. Romain Rolland, strongly motivated by his own biography of Beethoven, always envisioned it as a novel that flows “like a river”: meandering, propelled by its own force, not to be channeled by plot. This is embodied in Jean-Christophe through extensive digressions on the author’s views on nationality, politics, music, and culture in early twentieth century Europe. Jean-Christophe thus became the first roman-fleuve, or river-novel, a term most famously applied to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. For this contribution to literature, Romain was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. Jean-Christophe was published in ten volumes in the original French, while Gilbert Cannan’s English translation appeared in 3 volumes, roughly encompassing Jean-Christophe’s youth and adolescence, his adulthood, and the latter years of his life. This Standard Ebooks edition brings all volumes of Cannan’s translation together. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Recasting the history of African American literature, Shadow Archives brings to life a slew of newly discovered texts—including Claude McKay’s Amiable with Big Teeth—to tell the stories of black special collections and their struggle for institutional recognition. Jean-Christophe Cloutier offers revelatory readings of major African American writers, including McKay, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, and Ralph Ellison, and provides a nuanced view of how archival methodology, access, and the power dynamics of acquisitions shape literary history. Shadow Archives argues that the notion of the archive is crucial to our understanding of postwar African American literary history. Cloutier combines his own experiences as a researcher and archivist with a theoretically rich account of the archive to offer a pioneering study of the importance of African American authors’ archival practices and how these shaped their writing. Given the lack of institutions dedicated to the black experience, the novel became an alternative site of historical preservation, a means to ensure both individual legacy and group survival. Such archivism manifests in the work of these authors through evolving lifecycles where documents undergo repurposing, revision, insertion, falsification, transformation, and fictionalization, sometimes across decades. An innovative interdisciplinary consideration of literary papers, Shadow Archives proposes new ways for literary scholars to engage with the archive.

1908. New Venice - the pearl of the Arctic' - a place of ice palaces and pneumatic tubes, a steampunk paradise of long nights and vistas of ice. But as the city prepares for spring, there is an overriding sense that something is about to explode. Local 'poletics' are wracked by tension as local Eskimos circle the city, with suffragette riots led by an underground music star, with drugs round-ups by the local police force known as 'The Gentlemen of the Night' heightening the anxiety. What transpires is a literary adventure unlike any before in the beginning of a great new series.'

A young French doctor braves the wilds of 17th century Abyssinia to cure the country's sick king and gain an ally for Louis XIV. On his success rides a knighthood and the hand of a beautiful woman. Adventure, love and cultural differences by a French doctor who served with Médecins sans Frontières.

Based on the true story of Jacques Coeur, The Dream Maker recounts the life and times of a Steve Jobs of the Middle Ages. Born to a modest fur trader, Coeur rose to become the King of France's visionary First Banker who, with his tours of the Far East, his criticism of the Crusades, and his efforts to develop trade, contributed to bringing France out of darkness toward the Renaissance and modernity. Coeur was, at one time, the wealthiest man in France, but at the height of his success, disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of his enemies threatened. His ill-considered infatuation with Agnès Sorel, King Charles VII's favorite mistress, and her mysterious and premature death, precipitated Coeur's fall from grace. In Rufin's delicious prose this remarkable true story becomes a gripping tale of adventure, a novel of ideas, and a moving love story.