Maple spring publishing jan 2026 (4 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - A furtive and bizarre murder in the vicarage of the quaint English town of St. Mary Mead has the authorities baffled. The victim is the disagreeable Colonel Protheroe, who is universally disliked."Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe," declares the the vicar, in whose study the colonel is found dead, "would be doing the world at large a favour!"Many others in the village have said that they would like to see the colonel dead, but a number of people have a more specific interest in his death: the colonel's young wife, Anne; her lover, the artist Lawrence Redding; Archer, a local man given a harsh sentence by the colonel for poaching. Even the colonel's daughter, Lettice, desperate for money, says, "If only father would be decent and die, I'd be all right."These complexities lead to any number of dead ends for local investigators. The only one able to see through the many blinds and obscurities is Miss Marple, an elderly but sharp-eyed spinster.In this, the first of sixteen Miss Marple novels and numerous short stories, Agatha Christie takes us through a maze of false leads and erroneous suppositions before the mystery is solved.Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and subsequently collected under the title The Thirteen Problems.The Murder at the Vicarage, first published in 1930, is one of Christie's most popular books, displaying her genius as a master and innovator of the mystery genre.Christie's books have sold a billion copies in English and another billion in translations. She has been ranked as the most translated of all individual authors. Her play The Mouse Trap has been performed almost continuously in London's West End since 1952.Agatha Christie was born in Devonshire, England, in 1890, to an upper-middle-class family. Married twice, she had one daughter. For her achievements as a novelist, in 1971 she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). She died in 1976.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Dashiell Hammett's TheMaltese Falcon, first published in 1930, is one of the greatest crime novels of all times, inspiring numerous spinoffs in film, television, and theater.The hero, Sam Spade, is a hard-bitten and ethically ambiguous detective who is approached by the beautiful and mysterious Miss Wonderly to track down her missing sister. Spade's partner, Miles Archer, steps in, only to be shot that very night. Spade's honor as a detective requires him to track down Archer's killer.Spade's journey takes him through San Francisco of the 1920sdark, foggy, and sinister, in one of the city's many moods. Spade knows that Miss Wonderly is not who she claims to be. Unraveling this mystery, he encounters Joel Cairo, an effeminate Greek antiquities dealer; Casper Gutman, a fat man in search of a priceless figurine of a black falcon; and Wilmer, a brutal young gunslinger.The Maltese Falcon has captured the public imagination through the famous 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart. But the novel itself is a masterpiece of mystery fictionand of the lean, hard-boiled prose style that came to characterize the American detective novel. It remains as compelling as it was the day it was published.Born in 1894 to a working-class family in Maryland, Dashiell Hammett drifted through odd jobs before taking a job at the Pinkerton Detective Agency, where he learned the ins and outs of detective work that would furnish the material for his crime novels. Between 1929 and 1934, he published five of thesethe most famous being The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man (itself the inspiration of several Hollywood films).In later years, Hammett's abilities waned, affected by alcohol, smoking, and tuberculosis. In the 1950s, his leftist politics would put him at odds with the House Un-American Activities Committee. He died in 1961.But Hammett's stark, unsentimental complexity continues to influence crime fiction to this very day. He was the first and most influential creator of the tough but charismatic detective that continues to fascinate the world's readers nearly a century later.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is consistently ranked among the greatest novels of the twentieth century.Set in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, the book tells of the hapless and tormented Bundren family. Addie, the long-suffering matriarch, is lying on her deathbed, tended by her daughter, Dewey Dell. Outside, her son Cash is crafting the coffin she will soon need.The novel tells not only of Addie's death but of the family's arduous trek thirty miles away to bury her among her ancestors in accordance with her wishes. The journey, by wagon, takes them over a flooding bridge, where the coffin containing Addie's unembalmed body is nearly washed away.Faulkner, telling the story through the stereoscopic view of fifteen different characters, paints a starkly beautiful portrait not only of a family's confrontation with death but their twisted and ambivalent relations with one another: Anse, the shiftless and selfish father; the oldest son, Darl, tormented by love for a mother that is not reciprocated; the second son, Jewel, favored by Addie but who does not love her; Dewey Dell, the pregnant unwed teen; and the youngest, Vardaman, who views the panoply with the naive but acute perception of a little boy.The title comes froma line in Homer'sOdysseythat is spoken byAgamemnonin the underworld: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades."Published in 1930, As I Lay Dying marks the beginning of Faulkner's mature period, which includes Sanctuary, Light in August, and Absalom! Absalom! and solidifies his position as what many consider to be the greatest American author of the twentieth century. Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man, called him "the greatest artist the South has produced." William Faulkner (18971962) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. In his famous acceptance speech, he said, "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.".…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The Secret of the Old Clock, published in 1930, marked the debut of the classic line of Nancy Drew mysteries. It led to an initial series of 64 novels in all, in which the ever-teenage Nancy solves over 500 mysteries.In this book, sixteen-year-old Nancy, the daughter of prominent attorney Carson Drew, is drawn into the case of a disputed will by the late Josiah Crowley, a well-to-do but eccentric old man. The will grants all of Crowley's wealth to the grasping and arrogant Topham family, but there are other claimants.Nancy is drawn into the case when she rescues a small girl, Judy, from a near-miss by a suspicious moving van. Nancy meets Judy's caretakers, the elderly Turner sisters, who are relatives of Josiah Crowley. Crowley led them to believe that he remembered him in his will, but that is not the will that was found.Other Crowley relatives surface: the Hoover sisters, the Mathews brothers, the invalid Abby Rowen. All of them are severely needy, and all had been told that they were remembered in Crowley's will.Nancy's sleuthing reveals that the clue to the true will lies in an old clock of Josiah Crowley's, now in the possession of the Tophams. Nancy's search for the clock leads her into further revelationsand danger.The Nancy Drew mysteries debuted in a fast-changing America, where women were rapidly discarding traditional roles and asserting themselves. Nancy models this new American woman: strong-willed, intelligent, indomitable, as well as educated and sophisticated.In the nearly 100 years since their premiere, the Nancy Drew mysteries have become an integral part of the American feminine mythos.The Secret of the Old Clock, like the others in the series, is attributed to the pseudonymous Carolyn Keene. In fact Nancy was the creation of publisher Edward Stratemeyer, who engaged a number of ghostwriters to develop the books. Mildred Wirt Benson is credited with writing The Secret of the Old Clock.The evergreen popularity of the Nancy Drew series led to many film and television adaptations. Today, nearly 100 years after their launch, the Nancy Drew books remain classics of young adult fiction.…