Shards of Ephemera is a wry morality tale concerning the playful parting gambit of Tammy A., a gold-digging, thoroughly American adventuress whose life is about to be surprisingly changed when she bewitches a dissolute scion solely to gain entrée to his mysterious moneybags father, who is now reclusive in his estate on the most fabled and golden of coasts. Tammy is an enchanting backwoods girl with grand ambitions to escape her past, and one abundantly endowed with, among numerous other attributes, the precocious aplomb to accomplish just that, to leave her origins far behind without a trace. So while her presumptive peers were dreaming still about puerile romances and prom nights, she was already frolicking among the wealthy and glamorous at the world's most glittering playgrounds. Tammy is the consummate femme fatale, and anyone whom she chose to bewitch was doomed to an afterlife of ruin, ignominy, and remorse. Her success was dazzling, legendary, her landscape littered with corpses, stuff immortalized in lyrics, sonnets, and ballads, even a few underground graphic novels. It's said that the persona of , of recent notorious celluloid celebrity, was inspired by her exploits. There is no telling what Tammy might have further achieved in the hardboiled, demimonde world of hers and how many more lurid tabloid scandals provoked, but the truth was that by the ripe old age of twenty-four and after having already amassed riches beyond her wildest fantasies, not only did a vague languor start settling in, which was distressing enough, but to her rising chagrin and just as potentially calamitous to her walk of life, most of the nuggets of gold she unwittingly, paradoxically mined of late were from a hitherto unsuspected or blithely repressed tender quarry within her own heart. Yep, it was too woefully true, especially for the motley horde of paparazzi, troubadours, harlequins, hangers-on, and others scrambling in her wake, whose livelihoods depended on her and the buzz she created: the ruthless edge and cutthroat zeal, the ineffable force of nature that vaulted her foremost in the scintillating pageant were dissipating, imperceptibly but inexorably. Tammy was canny enough to know that once she started feeling anything but pitilessness toward her intended prey and purpose, she herself was doomed. And so she quietly retreats from her perilous world of intrigue and seduction. But while sojourning in a certain place on her increasingly restive quest to escape ennui, serendipitously, in the elegant bar of a palatial hotel Tammy's curiosity is piqued by a drunken loner babbling aloud, an apparent habitué of the establishment by the manner with which he is obsequiously coddled by the staff. After discreetly inquiring, she learns that this woebegone oaf is the disgraced, outcast scion of one of the country's grandest fortunes, an empire built, literally, on peddling rags. This debauched pariah, whose name is Eberley, resides in a penthouse suite many stories above the bar all arranged by his curmudgeonly father to keep him, it is openly whispered, as far away as possible. Voilà, here are both temptation and opportunity impossible to resist, one final dare, a last hurrah! Although in his lethargic, laconic, oafishly oblivious and absurd kind of way the outcast proves to be obdurately resistant to easy seduction, which Tammy discovers much to her vexation, after much ado she succeeds in gaining entrée to the reclusive magnifico his father and emperor of empire who is, as she gradually corroborated from many sources during her arduous interlude spent in prodding the oaf his son, a treasury unto himself, as impervious to the vicissitudes of fortune as an oil-rich, rags-to-riches nation-state. But what ironically ensues is unlike anything Tammy anticipated or ever dreamed experiencing. The ailing empire-builder is a self-made maverick of the old school boorish and gruff, one who always wickedly delights in fl

The Orphan in Eighteenth-Century Fiction explores how the figure of the orphan was shaped by changing social and historical circumstances. Analysing sixteen major novels from Defoe to Austen, this original study explains the undiminished popularity of literary orphans and reveals their key role in the construction of gendered subjectivity.

If there is one film in the canon of Carl Theodor Dreyer that can be said to be, as Jacques Lacan might put it, his most �painfully enjoyable,� it is Gertrud. The film's Paris premier in 1964 was covered by the Danish press as a national scandal; it was lambasted on its release for its lugubrious pace, wooden acting, and old-fashioned, stuffy milieu. Only later, when a younger generation of critics came to its defense, did the method in what appeared to be Dreyer's madness begin to become apparent. To make vivid just what was at stake for Dreyer, and still for us, in his final work, James Schamus focuses on a single moment in the film. He follows a trail of references and allusions back through a number of thinkers and artists (Boccaccio, Lessing, Philostratus, Charcot, and others) to reveal the richness and depth of Dreyer's work--and the excitement that can accompany cinema studies when it opens itself up to other disciplines and media. Throughout, Schamus pays particular attention to Dreyer's lifelong obsession with the �real,� developed through his practice of �textual realism,� a realism grounded not in standard codes of verisimilitude but on the force of its rhetorical appeal to its written, documentary sources. As do so many of the heroines of Dreyer's other films, such as La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928), Gertrud serves as a locus for Dreyer's twin fixations; written texts, and the heroines who both embody and free themselves from them. Dreyer based Gertrud not only on Hjalmar Soderberg's play of 1906, but also on his own extensive research into the life of the �real� Gertrud, Maria van Platen, whose own words Dreyer interpolated into the film. By using his film as a kind of return to the real woman beneath the text, Dreyer rehearsed another lifelong journey, back to the poor Swedish girl who gave birth to him out of wedlock and who gave him up for adoption to a Danish family, a mother whose existence Dreyer only discovered later in life, long after she had died.

Dadi Janki; the unusual subject of this biography; presides over a unique global spiritual empire run and led by women. Born in 1916 into a traditional Hindu family; she was expected to follow the standard pattern for Indian women of the day; which was to succumb to an arranged marriage at the earliest possible opportunity and then disappear from view. But she had other ideas. Since the age of two; she has only ever wanted to connect to one being; and that is God. She never sought nor desired any other relationship and she managed to escape her unwanted marriage in order to dedicate her life to spiritual study; service and contemplation. She joined the Brahma Kumaris; then in its infancy; in 1937; and for many years; ran centres in India. In the early 1970s; the decision was taken to try and introduce the movement to the West and Dadi Janki arrived in London with no real idea how she would do it. Her task was made especially difficult as she arrived not speaking any English; with no money; no influence and nowhere to live. But with God as her constant companion; she never gave up and within 20 years of being in London; had established the Brahma Kumaris as a respected; influential; worldwide organization. This is the story of how she did it. Selected Stories of Honoré de Balzac by Honoré de Balzac: In this collection, Honoré de Balzac presents a selection of his acclaimed short stories, showcasing his incredible talent for vivid storytelling and character development. With its rich language and engaging narratives, this book is a must-read for fans of classical literature. Key Aspects of the Book "Selected Stories of Honoré de Balzac": Collection of Short Stories: The book features a collection of acclaimed short stories by Honoré de Balzac. Vivid Storytelling and Character Development: The stories showcase Balzac's incredible talent for vivid storytelling and character development. Useful for Literature Enthusiasts: The book is useful for fans of classical literature and those interested in the works of Balzac. Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright who is regarded as one of the greatest writers of Western literature. His book, Selected Stories of Honoré de Balzac, is highly regarded for its captivating storytelling and rich language.