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eBook – The Empire Striketh Back

eBook –  The Empire Striketh Back Full title :  William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back By : Ian Doescher  Iillustrations :  Nicolas Delort Score : 9/10 Year : 2014 Publisher : Quirk Books  eISBN :  978-1-59474-716-8 Based on  978-1-59474-715-1 (hard cover) Pages : 176 *  Language : English From Goodreads : Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back  (and not reviewed as yet,  William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return.) Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!  *** As he explains at the end, Ian Doescher
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Book – Short stories (Oscar Wilde)



Book – Short stories 
Author: Oscar Wilde
Score : 9/10 
Year : 1887 & 1888 (stories) ; 1989 (this edition)
Publisher : Pocket 
ISBN : 978-2-266-13554-2
Pages : 141 (bilingual French and English)

Language:  English (and a few French phrases in the Model Millionaire )


This book is bilingual, presenting one page in each language, opposite one another, thus making it appear that each story is quite long, when it isn't. 

There are a few French-only pages, too :
Page 4, are notes on Pronunciation (of a English words, that is)
5, How to use the bilingual series of books
7 Introduction 
9 Chronology (of Oscar's life and a publications)

Then, the stories

11 The Canterville Ghost 
99 The model Mollionaire
117 The happy prince

Details hereafter. 
  • The first story, The Canterville Ghost, is rather cute and funny, despite Christian overtones. The story is contemporary to its first publication (1887) but ends a few years after that. An american family, the Otis family, buys Canterville Chase from Lord Canterville despite his warnings at the presence of a ghost of one of his ancestors who haunts the house. 
The family moves from america to Britain to inhabit the house, and soon after, the ghost tries his best to scare them... 

Oscar Wilde's writing is fluid and full of dark humour at includes commentary on differences of classes, and those between americans and brits. 
  • The model Millionaire : A note of Admiration, the second short story, also from 1887, is a very funny, a wittily-written commentary on classes, and is even funnier than the previous. For instance, the very sub-title and the first page of it are hilariously composed, starting with Unless one is wealthy, there is no use in being a charming fellow. Followed by Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed, and many such phrases of delightful humour - all the way through to the very end. 
  • The happy prince, from 1888, is a mix of bittersweet tragedy and hilarious comedy, also with social commentary and interesting use of mythology, and allegorical love stories. I loved most of it, except for the christian slant at the end, which I filter-out into more humanist nature.  
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