"Opinions sur le roman" by René Boylesve is a collection of literary essays written in the early 20th century. It assembles the novelist’s reflections on the craft, scope, and social place of fiction, especially the French novel of moeurs. The focus is on aesthetics, style, and truthfulness in portraying human life, set against the era’s tendency to confuse art with politics, morality, and other pursuits. The opening of this collection presents an editorial foreword explaining that Boylesve had meant to publish his ideas on the novel, and that this posthumous volume gathers scattered papers—responses to surveys, articles, notes, and letters—largely in chronological order, with some pieces omitted or previously printed. A brief aphorism declares his preference for art over nature, and the first essays argue that genuine works grow from rooted provincial milieus rather than Parisian sensationalism; that contemporary literature suffers from “confusion” (mixing art with politics, science, or morality); and that the French tradition from Balzac and Flaubert demands aesthetic discipline and truthful depiction. He rejects the novel as a didactic or propagandistic tool, insisting its primary aim is to please through the beauty of accurate human portrayal. He laments the drift of criticism toward dogmatism or impressionism and urges critics to “situate” books and love literature. Further pieces contest the fashionable cult of nature’s vague ecstasies, defend reading over theater’s sociable distractions, and reaffirm the novel of moeurs as the most durable way to know man. He explains he writes from natural vocation, favors understated emotion, warns against sanitized “girls’ novels,” and frames his own short stories as comedies of ordinary life where “nothing happens.” The section ends by noting a contemporary coolness toward Molière, signaling a broader literary peril. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Lo rector de Vallfogona (El rector de Vallfogona en català normatiu) és un drama en tres actes i en vers, original de Frederic Soler, estrenat per primera vegada al Teatre Romea de Barcelona, la nit del 14 de novembre de 1871. L'acció passa al poble de Vallfogona, durant el regnat de Felip IV de Castella. L'obra gira al voltant de la figura de Francesc Vicent Garcia i Ferrandis, l'autèntic Rector de Vallfogona. (This summary is from Wikipedia.)

Bettina's best desserts by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron is a cookbook written in the early 20th century. It assembles an inviting range of home-style sweets—grouped by fruits, cakes, custards, gelatins, and frozen treats—punctuated with friendly notes that help a household cook choose reliable, pleasing desserts for family or “company.” The opening of this cookbook sets a cheerful, domestic tone with a brief rhymed foreword and an illustrated contents, then moves directly into clearly organized recipe sections starting with Apple Desserts. Each recipe lists portions, precise measurements, and straightforward steps, often with quick tips, serving suggestions, and economical variations (for example, pairing warm fruit puddings with hard sauce or cream). Subsequent early sections sample apricot, banana, and blueberry preparations, cake-based desserts, and cherry favorites, followed by guidance for cream puffs and eclairs with multiple fillings and a solid lineup of custards. It then introduces frozen desserts with practical, step-by-step instructions for using a hand-crank freezer and packing ice and salt, plus companion sauces to “dress up” plain ice cream. Brief parenthetical asides about pleasing husbands and children add a light, conversational touch while keeping the focus on dependable, doable desserts. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"Masquerades" by Shane Leslie is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. A suite of “studies in the morbid,” it marries ecclesiastical parable, Irish gothic, and medieval cruelty with satiric bite and luxuriant prose. Central figures include a world-weary pontiff battling temptation, a pragmatic London governess out of her depth in Connemara, and a ruthless Spanish noble presiding over a siege. The tone is ornate, fatalistic, and darkly ironic. The opening of the collection moves from a baroque Vatican vision to Irish eeriness and bohemian tragedy. In the first tale, a Pope endures a day of ritual burdens, confesses to an Inquisitor, and in a night vision faces three classic temptations—power, spectacle, and the ache of home—resisting with doctrine until the Inquisitor wryly concludes the Tempter is “damned home-sick.” Next, a level-headed governess accepts a post in wild Connemara, meets a fox-obsessed squire and his feral, lovable children, and, after ominous hints in the family Bible, witnesses uncanny packs of foxes haunting the house when the master dies, culminating in a shocking wake. “Inspiration” follows an undertaker’s clerk turned dramatist, lifted by the sacrifice of Queenie—his true muse—into fame, only to discard her, lose his gift, and find her dead, prompting a bitterly literal order for a coffin to bury his “Inspiration.” The final story begun here introduces Don Balthasar, a connoisseur of cruelty besieging a castle where a loyal seneschal, starved of options, is coerced by two soldiers to trade his daughter and wife for their continued defense—the narration breaking off as he wrestles with duty, faith, and despair. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"The hermit of Turkey Hollow" by Arthur Cheney Train is a legal mystery novella written in the early 20th century. It follows a small-town murder in the Mohawk Valley, where Skinny the Tramp is accused of killing a reclusive hermit, and an ambitious district attorney faces off against the crafty defense lawyer Ephraim Tutt over a pivotal alibi. The opening of the story contrasts a hermit’s hard-nosed materialism with a tramp’s mystical talk of souls and moths, then sketches Turkey Hollow, the hermit’s shanty crowned by a grand old clock, and the village of Pottsville with its sheriff, gossip, and fraternal lodges. After a storm, Skinny chases a rainbow to the hermit’s hut, glimpses a crock of gold, and moments later a witness hears a cry and a gunshot; the hermit is found dying with a gold coin in his hand. Skinny shows up in town breathless at four o’clock, pockets full of similar coins, and is captured amid a jeering crowd, while the newly minted prosecutor Hezekiah Mason—ethically compromised and eager for fame—builds a circumstantial case. The local lodge hires Ephraim Tutt, whose investigator scouts the scene and the players. In court, after Mason’s grandstanding, a key witness quietly fixes the moment he found the body by the hermit’s clock—exactly four o’clock—setting up the defense’s timing-based alibi as the central issue of the case. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

"The conquest of happiness" by Bertrand Russell is a philosophical self-help treatise written in the early 20th century. It examines why so many modern people feel unhappy and offers practical, commonsense ways to reshape outlook and habits. Drawing on observation, autobiography, and social critique, it targets psychological pitfalls—self-absorption, fashionable pessimism, status-driven competition, thrill-chasing, worry, and envy—while urging a turn toward external interests, courage, and quiet, sustaining pleasures. The opening of the book sets a modest, practical aim in the preface, then begins Part I (Causes of Unhappiness) by observing widespread modern misery and narrowing the focus to what individuals with basic security can change. First, it links chronic unhappiness to self-absorption, illustrated by the “sinner,” the narcissist, and the megalomaniac, and contrasts this with a happier orientation toward impersonal interests; Russell briefly recounts his own shift from youthful despair to outward-looking engagement. He challenges “Byronic” or literary pessimism as a mood disguised as reason and recommends purposeful action over brooding. He critiques the business-world race for success, arguing it hollows work, family, and leisure, then contrasts empty excitement with the fructifying value of monotony, nature, and learned endurance of boredom. On fatigue, he distinguishes physical from nervous strain and offers techniques for worry—time-bounding problems, deciding once, rehearsing worst cases, and facing fears—to restore equanimity. Finally, he portrays envy as pervasive and self-wounding, proposing admiration and a refusal to live by comparisons; the section closes mid-argument as he urges enjoying what one has without measuring it against others. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Hot Music by Vic Whitman is a pulp detective short story written in the early 20th century. It follows a radio police announcer who tackles a pair of linked jewel thefts tied to a hot dance band, using musical clues, keen observation, and a clever on-air signal to spring a trap. The story centers on Officer Dave Cates, whose broadcast shift is interrupted by Miriam Meusel reporting a robbery that echoes an earlier theft from the widow Mrs. Van Goss. Suspects circle: wealthy idler Arthur Hughes (who lingered in Meusel’s apartment), suave band manager Gerald Terhune (secretly Meusel’s husband with a key), and temperamental bandleader Leo Archer. Small details—dust on the fire escape, resin on the floor by Meusel’s prized violin, Archer’s need for “strong excitement” to compose—steer Cates toward Archer, who had learned of key access via Terhune and used a bellhop to borrow the key book. Believing the jewels are stashed in Archer’s office safe, Cates rigs a trap at the Charity Ball: from a hidden balcony microphone he sends a prearranged cue while a plant spreads a rumor that the loot’s been found. Archer bolts mid-performance of his new number, “Hot Music,” and is caught at his office with all the jewels. With the case closed, Cates claims the reward and turns to a future with dancer Anabelle Talbot, the bungalow dream finally within reach. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Raktakarabi (Bengali: রক্তকরবী, lit. 'Red Oleanders') is a symbolic play by Rabindranath Tagore. It was written at Shillong in 1923/1924 (1330 BS), and was originally titled Yaksapuri. It was published in the Ashwin 1331 (September/October 1924) edition of Prabasi. The play is set in a world where a greedy king forces his subjects to mine for gold. One of the main characters is Nandini, a woman whose sole ornament is jewels made from red oleanders, which she wears as a tribute to Ranjan, the man she loves. In a 2016 review of a production of Raktakarabi at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, the play is called 'Tagore's finest protest against totalitarianism'. According to writer Pratap Narayan Biswas, the story of Raktakarabi is inspired by a play by August Strindberg and the character of Raktakarabi, Nandini, is similar to the character of that play. According to literary critics, Tagore expressed his socialist spirit through this play. However, according to Mazharul Haque Lipu of Bangla Tribune, it is different from the socialist concept of Karl Marx. The play has been staged multiple times in India and Bangladesh as well as adapted into films and TV dramas. Shaukat Hossain Sajib, Director from Prachyanat School of Acting and Design, said about the play "...while doing the play Raktakarbi, I never felt that it was written 100 years ago, rather it felt more modern than our current thinking. Therefore, we feel that Yakshapuri is 50 years from now". Writer Syed Mujtaba Ali commented that the play was "good but complex" after hearing it from Tagore's mouth. According to Professor Fazlul Haque Saikat of Bengali Department from National University, it is a theoretical play that highlights the conflict between agricultural and mechanized civilization. According to Sanjay Sarkar of Sampratik Deshkal, the play shows how the greed of money and wealth is destroying nature, so Tagore's thought about environment is also revealed here. (This summary is from Wikipedia.)