Bøger af Alba Longa

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) was born in Minnesota and educated at Princeton. His first novel, "This Side of Paradise" (1920), made him instantly famous. Shortly after he married the glamorous Zelda Sayre, and together they embarked on a life of big spending and party going. He published stories in fashionable periodicals such as the "Saturday Evening", "Vanity Fair" and "The Smart Set", in which he chronicled the mood and manners of the times; these were collected as "Flappers and Philosophers" (1920) and "Tales of the Jazz Age" (1922). "The Beautiful and Damned"(1922), a novel about a wealthy, doomed and dissipated marriage, was followed by "The Great Gatsby" (1925), the story of shady, mysterious financer Jay Gatsby, whose romantic and destructive passion for Daisy Buchanan played against a backdrop of Long Island glamour and New York squalor; the story is narrated by the innocent outsider Nick Carraway. "Tender is the Night" (1934) records, through the story of American psychiatrist Dick Diver and his schizophrenic wife Nicole, his own sense of impending disaster. He died in Hollywood, of a heart attack, after working as a screenwriter, leaving his last novel, "The Last Tycoon", unfinished.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930)is chiefly remembered for his celebrated creation of detective Sherlock Holmes, whose brilliant solutions to a wide variety of crimes began in "A Study in Scarlet" (1887) first published in the "Strand Magazine" and collected in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1894), "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" etc. His friend, Dr Watson, with whom he shares rooms in Baker Street, attends him throughout most of his adventures. The success was immediate and lasting, and Arthur Conan Doyle rose rapidly to prominence as a result. The stories of Edgar Allan Poe and of Emile Gaboriau were the major sources of inspiration. Gaboriau provided the sensational and the rational elements, but the art came from Edgar Allan Poe. The first six adventures are not true detective stories, though the detective is essential to them. They are fantasies and fairy stories, and their greatness lies not in applying and developing the methods of Gaboriau and Poe, but in their relation to the style, atmosphere, and ethos of the period. The reality of Sherlock Holmes was a quality which struck readers and critics alike. T.S. Eliot also succumbed to the spell: "The greatest of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries was that when we talk of him we invariably fall into the fancy of his existence."

Durante más de tres decenios, un puñado de falsificadores geniales, todos ellos al propio tiempo pintores de renombre, trabajó tanto y tan bien que hoy en día nadie puede poner la mano en el fuego y decir, sin pestañear, que posee el original de tal o cual cuadro, de cualquier pintor célebre, de ésta o de no importa qué otra época. Los expertos científicos, duchos en las técnicas más modernas de datación y atribución, los galeristas más prestigiosos, los historiadores del arte, subastadores y demás interventores en el medio, todos han dejado pasar falsos que consecuentemente han sido catalogados como auténticos y vendidos como tales. Descubriéndose más tarde la existencia de dos y hasta tres o más apócrifos de muchos de ellos. Una férrea censura se ha impuesto a los medios de comunicación, un auténtico veto ha caído desde las instancias superiores que ha convertido el tema en un sagrado tabú. Porque si llegara a divulgarse cundiría el pánico, al expandirse la desconfianza respecto a lo que el sistema ha convertido en la moneda suprema de cambio, que no sólo no se desvaloriza nunca, sino que, durante los últimos años, ha incrementado su valor con arreglo a una progresión geométrica. El valor refugio que ha reemplazado con creces al oro. Las élites que detentan el poder absoluto perderían cantidades colosales de dinero y su influencia quedaría mermada, en perjuicio de sus inconfesables proyectos. Con un perfecto dominio de la técnica del thriller y del suspense, Alba Longa nos cuenta la historia en la que él mismo se vio envuelto y, en cuyo transcurso, poco faltó para que le costara la piel. LA MANSIÓN DE ENFRENTE está ambientada en una cosmopolita Niza que se apresta a vivir los acontecimientos más dramáticos de su historia.

EUGÈNE SUE (1804-1857), fils d´un chirurgien de la garde de Napoléon Ier et dont les parrains et marraines ne sont autres que Joséphine et Eugène de Beauharnais. Il fait des études médiocres au collège puis au lycée, avant d'enter, poussé par son père et toute une lignée familiale de médecins, comme sous-aide chirurgien à l'hôpital de la maison du roi. Mais bientôt il démissionne et son père le force à s'embarquer sur le Breslau, comme sous-aide chirurgien. Il n'a pas encore 28 ans lorsque son grand-père, puis son père, meurent, lui léguant une fortune colossale qu'il dilapidera en sept ans. Il devient socialiste militant et écrit dans des journaux d'extrême-gauche, tout en appelant à la révolte et l'anarchie... Il écrit alors un roman-feuilleton à caractère social: Les Mystères de Paris (1842-1843). Pour se documenter, il se déguise et visite les bas-fonds de la capitale dans ses recoins les plus sordides.Du socialisme, il évolue peu à peu vers le fouriérisme et publie Le Juif errant (1844-1845), tableau idyllique d'une société communautaire. Il se présente aux élections, est finalement élu, la seconde fois, député républicain et socialiste de la Seine. Il vit dans un luxe insolent et signe des contrats d'édition fabuleux. Mystères du peuple, est vendu par souscription depuis 1849 et envoyé aux lecteurs par la poste pour déjouer la censure. L'ouvrage est mis à L'Index par Rome et son auteur est souvent inquiété par la police. Eugène Sue ne survivra pas à la saisie des 60 000 exemplaires chez son éditeur. Il meurt le 3 août 1857.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), né à Rouen, second fils d´Achille Cléophas Flaubert, médecin réputé. En 1841, il tentera des études de Droit à Paris, mais il abandonnera le projet aussitôt et, après une vie mondaine qui le mènera à rencontrer des personnages illustres tels que Victor Hugo ou l´sculpteur James Pradier, il entamera des voyages à travers la France el le moyen orient, la Grèce et l´Egypte. En 1856, il s´installe à Paris, 42 boulevard du Temple et il fréquente les salons mondains les plus en vue, ou il fera la connaissance, entre autres, de George Sand. Il reçoit la Légion d´honneur en 1866. Bouvard et Pécuchet est son oeuvre inachevée et posthume (1881) dans laquelle Flaubert raconte les péripéties de deux anciens copistes dont la soif du savoir les pousse à concevoir un projet farfelu: se retirer dans la campagne normande et se lancer dans une étude théorique et pratique d´un nombre étonnamment large de sciences. Cependant le manque de génie et la superficialité des personnages feront en sorte que leur quête tourne à la catastrophe et à la farce. L´ironie de Flaubert vise à la construction d´une sorte d´encyclopédie de lapalissades et d´idées reçues.

GEORGE SAND, pseudonyme d'Amandine-Aurore Lucille Dupin, baronne Dudevant (1804-1876). Après la séparation de son mari, le baron Dudevant, un officier de l´armée retiré, elle rentre à Paris en 1831 avec l´intention de commencer une vie indépendante en tant qu´écrivain. À l´époque c´était compliqué pour une femme de devenir un auteur à succès, raison pour laquelle elle décide d´adopter ce pseudonyme masculin. Ainsi démarre une carrière prolifique marquée par deux grandes lignes narratives: la première est constituée par une série de récits romantiques dans lesquels sont décrits les combats de la femme contre les contraintes sociales, particulièrement celle du mariage; la seconde fait la description de la vie idyllique dans la campagne du Berry.

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).

William JAMES (1842-1910). American psychologist and philosopher whose writings on religion and mystical experience have influenced the human potential movement. While James was not especially interested in such notions as "God" or "Absolute Truth", he stressed personal growth and self-improvement, and valued the mystical or transcendental experiences as a means to that end. For him, cosmic consciousness was a continuum "into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea reservoir." James helped to found the American "Society for Psychical Research" in 1884 and was a pioneer of psychedelic research. He came to believe that hauntings, phantasms, and trance experiences were essentially natural phenomena that would eventually be explained scientifically. James was the author of several books, including "Principles of Psychology" (1890), "The Varieties of Religious Experience" (1902), and "The Meaning of Truth" (1909).