Everyone knows that an Effington always gets her way ... but this time it's not going to be easy! Lady Elizabeth Effington simply could not suitably feel the joy of the Christmas season. Ten years had passed since she had boldly declared her love for Sir Nicholas Collingsworth.
For more than twenty years, Richard Sharpe, the brave and dashing officer who rose from rags-on-the-street to a commission in his majesty's army, has been thrilling audiences on page and screen. Sharpe's Ransom, the year is post-war 1815, and Richard Sharpe has retired to France with a new wife and son! As it turns out, peace offers no safety from war. An old enemy appears on Christmas Eve to take Sharpe's family hostage. To save them, Sharpe must appeal to the local villagers, reluctant to trust an Englishman who fought against them not so long ago.
Charles Dickens once commented that in each of his Christmas stories there is “an express text preached on . . . always taken from the lips of Christ.” This preaching, Linda M. Lewis contends, does not end with his Christmas stories but extends throughout the body of his work. In Dickens, His Parables, and His Reader, Lewis examines parable and allegory in nine of Dickens’s novels as an entry into understanding the complexities of the relationship between Dickens and his reader.
When Christmas comes for the four March girls, there is no money for expensive presents and they give away their Christmas breakfast to a poor family. But there are no happier girls in America than Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They miss their father, of course, who is away at the Civil War, but they try hard to be good so that he will be proud of his 'little women' when he comes home. This heart-warming story of family life has been popular for more than a hundred years.
