Opowiadania nowojorskie

by Henry James, Barbara Kopeć-Umiastowska (Translator)

Dziewięć opowiadań. Różnorodne portrety ludzi i miasta: od cierpko humorystycznego Epizodu międzynarodowego, opisującego podróż dwóch młodych Anglików za ocean, po Niezły narożnik, którego bohater powraca do Nowego Jorku po trzydziestu trzech latach nieobecności, by spotkać swojego sobowtóra; od Johna Lennoxa w Historii pewnego arcydzieła, poznającego dzięki obrazowi prawdę o swojej narzeczonej, po odkrywającą swoją kobiecą tożsamość Catherine Sloper, bohaterkę Placu Waszyngtona - opowiadania, które wielu uważa za jedno ze szczytowych osiągnięć pisarza. Opowiadania nowojorskie to podróż ścieżkami pamięci po mieście, którego już nie ma, migawki robione na przestrzeni czterdziestu lat. James, mistrz detalu i półcienia, rejestruje tu grę przelotnych spojrzeń i drobnych gestów, kreśli subtelny obraz relacji międzyludzkich i jak zwykle okazuje się wirtuozem niedopowiedzeń.

Utwory Jamesa o Nowym Jorku ujawniają przede wszystkim gniew, niepodobny do żadnego innego Jamesowskiego gniewu, gniew wywołany tym wszystkim, co mu odebrano - jak postąpiono, w imię komercji i materialnego postępu, z miastem, które kiedyś znał. Nie jest to wszakże zwykły gniew z powodu destrukcji rzeczy pięknych i znajomych; to uczucie znacznie dziwniejsze i bardziej skomplikowane, zasługujące na większą uwagę.
(z przedmowy)

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, New York, American, 19th Century, Ebooks

584 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

All fiction of Henry James set in New York collected here - in addition to the famous novella Washington Square, eight lesser known tales: The Story of a Masterpiece, A Most Extraordinary Case, Crawford's Consistency, An International Episode, The Impressions of a Cousin, The Jolly Corner, Crapy Cornelia and A Round of Visits. Also included in this New York Review Books edition is Colm Tóibín's extensive Introduction providing context and critical commentary on each story as well as Henry James' connection with the city of New York. Since so much has been written about Washington Square, I will focus on three of the seven other tales:

THE STORY OF A MASTERPIECE
Henry James had a lifelong interest in the power of art and its impact on men and women, portrait painting a prime example. Think of Nick Dorner’s portrait of actress Miriam Rooth in The Tragic Muse or The Madonna of the Future with Mr. Theobald’s painting of Madonna and Child. Well, with this early Henry James published when the great author was age twenty-five, we’re provided a foretaste, a tale where a portrait of young, beautiful, bride-to-be Marian Everett takes center stage.

John Lennox, wealthy, thirty-five-year-old New Yorker, a man steeped in all things cultural and a patron of the arts, admits to the painter himself, Stephen Baxter, that the portrait of his future wife Marion is excellent on all counts but he still has serious objections: “I approve you; I can’t too much admire the broad and firm methods you’ve taken for reaching this same reality. But you can be real without being brutal – without attempting, as one might say, to be actual.”

But is John Lennox really in any position to judge the work of art? After all, as the lover and future husband of the portrait’s subject, he obviously lacks what philosophers term objective disinterest or aesthetic distance. Also, through Baxter's painterly genius, Henry James highlights how, in many critical and important ways, the portrait is more alive, more “real” than the flesh-and-blood person. And it’s this underlying reality of Marion and how the painter has captured her “horrible blankness and deadness” John Lennox particularly objects to - how, as the portrait makes abundantly clear, his future wife lacks any true depth and heart, or, in our modern parlance, Marian’s beauty is all surface, she's nothing more than a glamor girl.

The drama of the tale escalates, raising additional, equally pressing questions pertaining to art and aesthetics. Vintage Henry James to be savored sentence by glorious sentence.


The Painter at His Easel - Honore Daumier

THE JOLLY CORNER
A ghost story. Actually, after The Turn of the Screw, many consider this the very best Henry James ghost story. I concur – the tale gathers serious momentum and an eerie psychic power with every turn of the page (no pun intended). We have a beginning innocent enough: after an absence of thirty-three years, Spencer Brydon returns to New York, the city of his youth, adolescence and early manhood. The city surprises him, including how when visiting an apartment property he owns under construction, he learns he might just be a building foreman at heart and quite possibly could have become a New York real estate tycoon if he chose to remain rather than flee the city. A close lady friend of his tells him much of the same; matter of fact, she confesses that she twice had a dream where Spencer is a New York billionaire.

All this “What if I remained in New York?” prompts Spencer to project a second self, one who, in fact, has always lived in the home of his childhood, the house he calls with a measure of affection “the Jolly Corner.” Spencer is staying at a nearby hotel but has been in the habit of spending hours every evening, midnight to 2 a.m., investigating the many empty rooms, hallways and stairways of his boyhood mansion. After awhile, feeling especially bold, Spencer places the candle down and explores the rooms of his house in the dark – and the more accustomed his eyes become to the lack of light, the more courage fills his breast. We read: “It made him feel, this acquired faculty, like some monstrous stealthy cat; he wondered if he would have glared at these moments with large shining yellow eyes, and what it mightn’t verily be, for the poor hard-pressed alter ego, to be confronted with such a type.”

Now all those many hours of the night in isolation, pursuing mystical, otherworldly dimensions, calling up past memories as if they are a swarm of ghosts, dealing with a father’s curse in not making this house your home, opening doors and peering into blackish rooms as if they are subconscious and unconscious spaces in your own mind or part of some mysterious Egyptian tomb, well, such practices can have unexpected and even undesired consequences. Read all about it in this Henry James dusky jewel.


from the portfolio of Henry James's The Jolly Corner - etching by Peter Milton

A ROUND OF VISITS
In addition to being thirty pages long (in this sense, similar to The Story of a Masterpiece and The Jolly Corner), A Round of Visits has a well-crafted seven part structure, a story published in 1910 about Mark Monteith making his return trip to New York after a ten year absence abroad only to find his good buddy Phil Bloodgood having made off with his life savings. Sound familiar, as in New York during the 1980s, when Wall Street scandals and financial swindles were all the rage? Henry James himself was deeply upset when he returned to New York and could see the city of his youth had been transformed into one unending nasty, noisy, stinking, foul, money-grubbing urban sewer.

Am I being too harsh here? Hardly. Commenting on A Round of Visits and another New York tale penned by the author, Colm Tóibín cites James biographer, Leon Edel, who writes: “The women particularly in these tales are devoid of all sympathy, fat and fatuous, ugly, rich, cruel, they seem to have lost the meaning of kindness.” Welcome to the Big Apple. As they say, a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to life there. And to top off, when Mark Monteith steps into the New York streets, he steps into a blinding blizzard and comes down with the flu. Oh, my, can things get any worse? Actually, they can. Especially when your round of visits takes you to another old friend who reeks of money and success. But how legal, really, is all his moneymaking? You’re given something of an answer when the police pay him an unexpected visit.

Of course, A Round of Visits, similar to the other Henry James New York tales, is told in James’s exquisite language. I’ll let the author have the last words – here’s the first two sentences from Part II: “Everything, as he passed through the place, went on – all the offices of life, the whole bustle of the market, and withal, surprisingly, scarce less that of the nursery and the playground; the whole sprawl in especial of the great gregarious fireside: it was a complete social scene in itself, on which types might figure and passions rage and plots thicken and dramas develop, without reference to any other sphere, or perhaps even to anything at all outside. The signs of this met him at every turn as he threaded the labyrinth, passing from one extraordinary masquerade of expensive objects, one portentous “period” of decoration, one violent phase of publicity, to another: the heavy heat, the luxuriance, the extravagance, the quantity, the colour, gave the impression of some wondrous tropical forest, where vociferous, bright-eyed, and feathered creatures, of every variety of size and hue, where half smothered between undergrowths of velvet and tapestry and ramifications of marble and bronze.”


Henry James - portrait by John Singer Sargent

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toibin's Introduction to this volume is helpful; the collection of 9 works centered in New York worth the reading. I was particularly amused with the reading of International Episode, my favorite in the collection. James knew well how to present tension and conflicts in relationships or the pursuit of such.

[Meltem Sağlam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dört öyküden oluşan bir kitap. Öykülerde, yazarın büyük eserlerindeki/romanlarındaki karakterlerin habercisi karakterler var. Özellikle ‘Tuhaf Bir Durum’ öyküsünün ana karakterleri Caroline ve Ferdinand, ‘Bir Kadının Portresi’ndeki İsabel ve Ralph karakterlerinin prototipi gibi.

Hemen hemen tüm kitaplarında olduğu gibi, bu öykülerinde de Henry James, cesur, özgür ve akıllı -ya da akıllı olduğunu düşünen- kadınları anlatmaya, insanlar arasındaki iletişim ve etkileşimin hayatlarına etkilerini incelemeye devam ediyor.

İlk dönem eserlerinden olan bu öyküleri, romanları kadar etkilemedi. Ancak bu büyük yazarın öykülerini de severek okuduğumu söylemek isterim.

[Enea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoy terminé esta voluminosa antología que leí con el motivo de escribir un trabajo para la cátedra de Literatura Norteamericana. Tengo una idea clara de lo que quiero hacer pero todavía no es clara la manera en que Henry James entiende la ciudad de Nueva York. O, al menos, me es esquiva. De la ciudad sus personajes siempre se escapan. Esa, probablemente, sea la lectura.

Quienes no conocen al autor es de las figuras más importantes de la literatura norteamericana. Sus escritos están en transición entre el siglo XIX y el XX y, dicen, media entre el Realismo y el Modernismo. Si hay algo modernista en James, es un atisbo apenas de lo que haría el resto.

Hoy en día lo recordamos por desarrollar una técnica que se conoce como "Punto de vista". Esto es mostrar y narrar lo que sucede desde los personajes, promoviendo contradicciones y no explicando.

Además, hay una sensación de secreto que se desenvuelve muy lentamente, que se vislumbra en una mirada, en una palabra dentro de las tramas que construye James. Por lo general son desamores, matrimonios por conveniencia y engaños por dinero o clase social. Solamente dos navegan por otros mares. Primero, Historia de una obra maestra, aparte del amorío, problematiza la representación en la pintura y la ficción, etc. Segundo, El alegre rincón, que, aparte del amorío, es un relato de fantasmas de los que se hizo muy asiduo en su producción final. "Otra vuelta de tuerca" es el trabajo más conocido.

Leer a James no es fácil. Tampoco es difícil desde la confusión o densidad de los temas que trabaja. La dificultad de James radica en la construcción de frases largas, con muchas subordinadas y aclaraciones. Un párrafo de una hoja entera es algo común. Justo el último que leí tenía una página y media de descripción de los pensamientos de un personaje a partir de una mirada. Es denso pero no aburrido. Y requiere cierta atención para no perderse la floritura de las descripciones y profundidades psicológicas.

Dicho esto, esta antología armada por Toíbín contiene todos los relatos, nouvelles y una novela de juventud, Washington Square, que ocurren en Nueva York. No voy a hablar relato por relato porque no tengo ganas la verdad.

La joya sigue siendo la novela. Después, todos hacen méritos. Qué sé yo. Es un clásico.
Tiene varios relatos que no estaban traducidos.

La edición es muy linda. De buena calidad del papel y una tipografía grande. Tiene algunas erratas... para un libro de casi 700págs. se lo perdono. Me salió un ojo de la cara, eso sí. Pero no lo habría leído en la computadora y, de todas maneras, no lo encontré.

Algunos comentarios:

"La coherencia de Crawford" trata sobre un hombre de clase alta que traba una relación con una chica medio mersa. Tiene unas reflexiones y guiños muy graciosas.

"Un episodio internacional" es la manera que tiene James de poner a jugar su idea de "lo americano" y "lo inglés" (o europeo).

"Impresiones de una prima" es excelente. El diario de una solterona que ve a su prima, joven y millonaria, ser estafada y caer enamorada. Al final, descubre algo sobre ella también.

"El alegre rincón" es misterioso. En su lectura y en la aprobación sin miramientos de la crítica.

"Una ronda de visitas" es un trabajo muy formal para una trama bastante sencilla pero que se pone entretenida al final. No voy a contarlo porque lo echaría a perder.

[Bere Tarará · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James es un maestro al crear personajes y al expresarse a través de ellos, a excepción del "Alegre rincón", todos los relatos me atraparon

[Martin Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta recopilación de cuentos de Henry JAMES ofrece una visión de las complejidades de las relaciones humanas y la dinámica social de finales del siglo XIX e inicios del XX. Cada historia presenta una instantánea de personajes que navegan por el amor, la traición, la ambición y las expectativas sociales.

Si bien la prosa de JAMES es elegante y sus caracterizaciones son muy precisas, los temas y perspectivas presentados en estas historias ya suenan anticuados, particularmente en lo que respecta a los roles de género y las distinciones de clases. Esto es bastanto obvio considerando la época en que fueron escritas, pero no puedo dejar de mencionarlo. En particular, la representación de personajes femeninos refleja normas tradicionales que ya están muy superados en contraste con los ideales feministas contemporáneos.

Sin embargo, la fuerza de la narración de JAMES reside en su capacidad para profundizar en las complejidades de las emociones y motivaciones humanas. La interacción de deseos, ambiciones y dilemas morales en estas historias crea un tapiz narrativo convincente que captura la esencia de la sociedad del siglo XIX y principios del XX. En general, esta colección de cuentos confirman la habilidad de Henry JAMES como escritor y agudo observador de la naturaleza humana. Si bien algunos aspectos pueden parecer obsoletos desde una perspectiva moderna, las historias siguen siendo atractivas para aquellos interesados en explorar los matices sociales y psicológicos del pasado.

[Bieiris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este libro tiene cerca de las seiscientas páginas, no trescientas y pico, desafortunadamente, como indica Goodreads. Y se siente de verdad, porque de tan aburrido que puede llegar a ser, resulta enervante. He tardado meses en acabarlo y creo que lo he conseguido exclusivamente por dignidad.

La única historia que me ha gustado algo es "An International Episode", además de "Washington Square", que había leído hace años. El resto, muy bien escrito y tedioso hasta decir basta. Lo cual no deja de ser interesante, el hecho, digo, de que un estilista tan bueno como James logre soliviantar de esta manera la paciencia de sus lectores. O no, porque he visto que soy la única en esta web que le ha dado dos estrellas a sus historias neoyorkinas.

Miraré el lado bueno, ¡un pendiente que borro de la lista!

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a particularly beautiful-looking book, another NYRB bought mint condition for two bucks. Some months back I was reading it quite a bit when in a friend's bathtub or on the toilette. Now that I am temporarily out of New York, wrapping up some traveling studies etc, I am glad as hell to own this gem and kan't wait to read it again.

[Rye · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Washington Square was uptown . . .

[Ynna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nine stories including the novella Washington Square which was marvelous and solidly five stars. The collection's opener, The Story of a Masterpiece was fantastic as well.

Henry James is a master of capturing the intricacies of human relationships, specifically the tension between men and women who should not be together but find themselves hopelessly in love. James' dialogue is always sharp and the women consistently make me laugh out loud.

"Marian, where is your heart?"
"Where--what do you mean?" Miss Everett had said.
"I think of you from morning till night. I put you together and take you apart, as people do in that game where they make words out of a parcel of given letters. But there's always one letter wanting. I can't put my hand on your heart."
"My heart, John," said Marian, ingeniously, "is the whole word. My heart's everywhere."(The Story of a Masterpiece)

"I have done a mighty good thing for him in taking you abroad; your value is twice as great, with all the knowledge and taste that you have acquired. A year ago, you were perhaps a little limited--a little rustic; but now you have seen everything, and appreciated everything, and you will be a most entertaining companion. We have fattened the sheep for him before he kills it!"(Washington Square

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contained within are the stories:
- The Story of a Masterpiece
- A Most Extraordinary Case
- Crawford’s Consistency
- An International Episode
- Washington Square
- Impressions of a Cousin
- The Jolly Corner
- Crapy Cornelia
- A Round of Visits

I enjoyed this book for the winter months since most of the stories are bleak and melancholy with a certain since of yearning that is felt more keenly in the winter than any other time. The best of the bunch, for me, were Jolly Corner and International Episode as my least favourite the Story of a Masterpiece and Crawford’s Consistency.

[César Ojeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hay que decir que no todos los relatos reunidos en este volumen son brillantes, sin embargo, debo mencionar que, un caso de lo más extraordinario, un evento internacional y Washington Square son extraordinarios. James tiene una manera única de crear a sus personajes y sus escenarios, los diálogos son precisos y, aunque los finales suelen ser abruptos, debo decir que he disfrutado el tiempo que he invertido a este gran libro.

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The voluminous vocabulary and impeccable word choice of Henry James is any good literature professor’s recurring course load. The New York Stories’ characters and clinches–from a skeevy wife hunter prowling Washington Square to an apologetic defrauder blowing his brains out during a round of visits–don’t require any education to admire. James was a writer befitting all levels of entertainment.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

James gifts for character and storytelling work well in short form. These stories don't tell us much about New York back in the day as they focus on the relationships between characters and their interior lives. But they are fun to read.

[Nel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/4

[Max-Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry James may have grown to hate New York City, especially after his return at the beginning of the 20th century, but you can't tell me he did not love the city's nature.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This James fellow is definitely an up-and-comer. Docked a notch for the anti-Semitism of "Impressions of a Cousin."

[Sue Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this glimpse of NY society the way it was. The last two stories were harder to read and very dark.

[Jacek Białobrzeski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ach, ten język, ta wrażliwość. Niestety, większość dzisiejszych autorów nie ma takich umiejętności nawet w połowie. Natomiast troszkę jednak autor jest monotematyczny.

[Caroline Waters]

behemoth. what would henry james think of times square naked cowboy?

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of 1s to 5s for me. Overall gets a 4 because of Colm Toibin’s intro, and because it’s fun to read about old New York!

[Reenie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, both the previous collection of Henry James that I read, and the similarly themed New York Stories of Edith Wharton were better than this collection. Apart from An International Episode, which was in the other set of novellas and is still quite amusingly delightful the second time around, and Washington Square, which was excellent, I wasn't really particularly impressed with most of the stories here (although the last, A Round of Visits was very good).

It may be significant that more of the best stories were the longest (and that the novellas in the other collection were generally longer and generally much better than the stories here), but I've not really read enough to decide whether Henry James was just better when given more space and words to play with in developing his ideas, or whether it's something specific to some of these 'New York' stories. He really didn't spend that much of his life in New York, and the time he did spend, as I gather, was before the age of 13 and then much much later and rather briefly. As stories of New York go, then, these don't really have much insight into the city and the people in it (unlike Edith Wharton, who actually knew many of the intricacies of the society) - the city for James, though perhaps personally very significant, as Colm Toibin tries to argue in the introduction, seems to be mostly something to get away from or be horrified by. That might tell you something about James, but there's not enough of a sense of actually his having experienced the city in depth to tell you anything about New York.

So all in all, there were some very good stories in here, but a bunch that weren't really so good, and overall I'm left wondering whether there was really such a necessity for an anthology that neither shows off the best of the author nor the best of insight into the city. If you're interested in Henry James, there are collections with a better general quality of story around, and if you're interested in the New York of the general period and part of society, you'd do better reading the New York Stories of Edith Wharton.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have for some time been curious about the prospect of returning to Henry James now that I believe myself to be something like a sophisticated adult who knows a thing or two about the jerry-rigging of a quality sentence. I have also long wanted to read Washington Square, having been taken very much by Agnieszka Holland's film adaptation - an adaptation about which I would dare say it would be difficult to do adequate justice in superlatives, though I am not sure many have tried. It is a wonderful short(ish) novel, and may be the highlight of this collection both for the incredible pathos it excites and for demonstrating James' ability to flawlessly delineate singular and extremely different characters through both their interactions and a consideration of their obsessions and calculations. James writes rapturous prose but, especially in the early works, it is not overly belabored, showy, or excessively pretty. Nobody writes better about how romantic love can be an anarchic force threatening to throw lives of the rails ... even, indeed, to kill. Something happens in 1909. I happened to get very ill during the time I was reading the latter part of the book. It was an appropriate state in which to confront the final three stories. It could be argued that they feel, unlike the earlier pieces, like they had been written on opiates. I certainly at times felt like I was reading them on opiates. These pieces seem to dissolve - to melt on the page. They are more about writing, and less about stories. They are more masterful, but less human, and like much masterful literature, there is little succor to be found in them. I feel like I have been put through the wringer. Things have conspired in such a way that as I finish this book I feel truly like I have 'lived' something.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

In which I discover, notwithstanding my love of The American, that I really do prefer later James. The early stories are good, too, although not indispensable. 'Impressions of a Cousin' is interesting for James-followers, since it's written as a diary, hardly his usual form; and the main characters are fascinating. For all that, it's a bit long for the material. 'An International Episode' is great, of course; I'd read it before and it held up the second time around. I think it's the best written of the earlier stories here, the most thoughtful and the most charming. I have no idea why people like 'Washington Square' at all. The prose is dull and dry, the story, such as it is, is tiresome and depressing. I say this as someone who loves, loves depressing books; something about WS, though, was too grim altogether. I didn't like 'The Bostonians,' don't like WS... I'm concerned that when I get round to re-reading A Portrait I won't like that either. Fingers crossed I'm wrong.
That leaves the three later stories, The Jolly Corner, Crapy Cornelia, and A Round of Visits. They're all about the past in some way, and the general impression they leave is that nostalgia is often justified, usually pleasant and always harmful. The prose is difficult and abstract, but far more interesting and stimulating than the earlier stories. Fascinating stuff.

[John Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won’t rate this book. I enjoyed the stories, particularly “Washington Square” which I’ve read before, save one (“The Impressions of a Cousin”) which isn’t a bad story, but one in which James gives full vent to his anti-Semitism in the character Mr. Caliph. It quite put me off. So while I enjoyed much of this collection, and I consider him a great writer, I’m left feeling really unhappy with a foul taste in my mouth. I could chalk this up to a lot of factors (time, culture) but I frankly don’t want to. No stars. #books #books2020 #bookstagram #reading #readersofinstagram

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the introduction by Colm Toibin and Washington Square and prepare to have your mind a little blown.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Washington Square even more the second time. It's the best in this collection. Some of the others were not so enchanting.

[Gil Reavill · Rating 5 out of 5]

looking for something to adapt...