A Work in Progress

One More for the Road

I've been noticing lately all over the blogosphere everyone is giving their wrap up posts for Carl's RIP II Challenge.  Knowing my (lack of) success with most challenges, I wisely set a very small goal for myself.  Read one book, and read short stories each weekend.  I can't really call this challenge a success either, as I am still reading Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho.  I only have about 250 pages left (keep in mind it is a fairly thick book).  I am still caught up in Emily St. Aubert's adventures in castle Udolpho where she is now well and truly an orphan and locked away by the evil Count Montoni.  There are all sorts of loose threads that are keeping me turning those pages to find out what happens, but it is going to take me a bit longer than expected to finish the book.

I am pleased with the stories that I've read, however.  I've enjoyed them so much I plan on continuing to read short stories each weekend (though probably not ghost stories though I might read an occasional one as I find I greatly enjoy them).  In the last two months I've read:

• The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe
• Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier
• There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury and Transformation by Mary Shelley
• The Haunted Chamber by Ann Radcliffe
• The Tower by Marghanita Laski and The Cheery Soul by Elizabeth Bowen
• The Blue Lenses by Daphne du Maurier
• The Horla by Guy du Maupassant
• The Mortal Immortal and The Evil Eye by Mary Shelley
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

I thought I would wrap things up with one more ghost story from The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining (which I've decided I really need to own, but for the time being I am reading a library copy).  A story by Daphne du Maurier called "The Pool" appears in the anthology, and I couldn't resist reading another one by her.  I think I need to search out all her stories as she is an exceptional short story writer.

"The Pool" is only vaguely creepy, but it does have supernatural overtones to it.  It's almost really a coming of age tale.  What is it with children and ghost stories?  I know there must be some Freudian or psychological reason for children being more open to the "unknown", and hence being the central characters.  What is it we lose when we become adults?  Do we just decide we won't believe in these sorts of things?  We become closed off to it all?  Deborah is anything but closed off.  She and her younger brother are visiting their grandparents in the countryside at the height of summer.  Deborah must be about thirteen.  She looks scornfully at her brother and the adults who are so firmly grounded in the everyday world.  It is nature she communes with.  She's alive and open to the natural world around her.  All during the school year she has been saving a token that she will offer to the (sacred?) pool, as she does each year.  This is her payment to enter into the the mystical world found under the pool, peopled with "shadows"--fantastic beings, which is as enchanting as it is frightening.  But everything changes after one particularly hot and stormy night. 

I will likely be dipping into the Radcliffe and this short story anthology some more this evening as I wait for the trick or treaters to make their rounds.  Happy Halloween everyone.

Reading Notes

I've won a book.  Simon at Stuck in a Book has offered a (hard to find) copy of Frank Baker's Miss Hargreaves.  It is one of Simon's "top 50 books you must read but may not have heard about".  I've heard (well, after reading about it on Simon's blog) many good things about the book and am looking forward to reading it.  We are doing a swap and I have a book picked out to send in return.  Miss H. has made the book blogger rounds, so I will be in good company.  If I can bear to part with her later, she may once again be set off into the world...

You know when you finish a really good book that you have been completely absorbed in for ages--it can be hard to settle down with another book at first.  I'm jumping about a bit, but I did start George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.  This was the last novel Eliot wrote.  Apparently it caused quite a scandal when it was published in 1867 (so many of the good books seem to have caused scandals, have you noticed?).  Only a few chapters in and I am already warming up to the book.  I think it will be quite easy to lose myself in this one as well.  I am hoping to read a minimum of two chapters a day, so I can easily finish it before the end of the year, even though it is a bit on the lengthy side.  There is a bit of a group forming, if you want to read along.  I am quite curious what everyone thinks so far about Gwendolyn?!

I am still in a the mood to read something Scandinavian, but I don't want a novel so soon after finishing Kristin Lavransdatter, so Nancy Marie Brown's The Far Traveler is just the ticket.  It is a nonfiction book detailing the search for Gudrid, a 10th century Viking woman mentioned in Icelandic sagas who sailed on multiple voyages--perhaps even as far as to Rome.  I am several chapters into the book and I love the writing style.  It is chatty and informative without being dry or overly technical.  Brown pieces together the life Gudrid may have lived through the literature of the time, historical records and archaeological investigations.  It's a very interesting slice of history.

And on the light and very entertaining side, I've also started Georgette Heyer's Cotillion.  The kind people at Sourcebooks offered a reader's copy to me.  Since I enjoyed An Infamous Army so much, I couldn't pass up the chance to read another Heyer novel.  This appears to be a bit lighter than An Infamous Army.  The heroine, young Kitty Charing, stands to inherit a rather large fortune provided she marries one of her benefactor's nephews.  This promises to be a fun read and already I can sense Heyer's witty style coming through.    

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Reading the short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", by Washington Irving has been one of those experiences where I think to myself, why did I wait so long to read this author?  I have the Modern Library edition,which contains many other stories by Irving and I will definitely be reading more by him.

According to the introduction, "Washington Irving is believed by many to have created the genre of short story in America, mixing superstition and history, the European tradition of fairy tales and folktales, and local Indian legends.  The often humorous and ironic tone in these stories, which is the familiar form of legend, is woven into a tapestry with the very real corporeal world."   Irving's story is wonderfully descriptive and atmospheric.  The perfect story to read when there is a chill in the air, fallen leaves beneath your feet and Halloween just around the corner.  I'm glad that I saved it to very nearly last in my short story reads for Carl's RIP Challenge. 

Although I don't recollect ever having read the story when I was young, it is one of those fables that seems to be told to every school child at some point in their education.  The story is set in a Dutch settlement in New York state called Sleepy Hollow.  Surely everyone has heard of the Headless Horseman who lost his head to a cannonball in the Revolutionary War and haunts Sleepy Hollow?  Priggish school master, Ichabod Crane, teaches the school children in this tiny glen, where ghost stories and tall tales are ubiquitous. 

"Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him."

He falls for the lovely Katrina Van Tassel, a wealthy farmer's daughter.  I wasn't sure which attracted him more--Katrina's beauty, or the bounteous farm she would inherit (his stomach seemed to know no depths).  His rival for her affections, Brom Bones, is "the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood".  When Ichabod disappears near the bridge to the Old Dutch Church after a dance at Van Tassel's farm, where the Headless Horseman is known to make his nightly run, it's uncertain just who he met.

I found the descriptions of Ichabod highly amusing.  For those who have read or are in the process of reading Don Quixote you might see a few things in common between Ichabod and the famous knight.  Here he is contemplating how to woo the fair Katrina. 

"From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor."

This is an absolutely wonderful short story.  I don't know whether this is true or not, but I read that "it is among the earliest American fiction still read today".  You can read the story online here. 

An Epic Tale

Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter is truly an epic family saga, and I mean saga in the best possible way.  It is not melodramatic, though it is full of drama.  This trilogy, made up of The Wreath, The Wife, and The Cross follows the life of one very strong, though very human woman in 14th century Medieval Norway.  It is easily one of the best novels I have read this year and probably the best historical novel I have ever read (and I've read some very good ones).

If you have been following my posts (I have a category link on my lower left sidebar if you want to go back and read previous entries) you already have a good idea of what the novel is about, though I have tried not to go into great detail about the story.  After reading the novel in its entirety I can easily see why this won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.  The story is completely absorbing.  Undset created completely three dimensional characters.  Kristin and Erlend are the central characters and they are very human, complete with all the foibles and weaknesses that we all have.  They could be proud and stubborn to the point of annoyance, but you still get a sense of their inner lives and the love that runs deep and wide between them.

What I found so impressive with the story were the emotions Undset could draw from me, the reader.  I'm not even sure I can articulate what I felt as I was reading it.  She managed to portray the life of one woman and all those other lives she touched upon, from her youth as a maiden through her death when she finally found peace with her life and the pain she may have caused others.  It's interesting to look in at someone else's life and see how mistakes can be repeated through the generations.  Kristin understood the guidance her parents tried to give her, and yet she chose her own path to the good or detriment of many.  And once those mistakes were made she had to live with them.  And she had to try and reconcile her actions with the Christian faith that counted so heavily in everyone's lives at the time.  I think that what makes this story a classic are the grand, universal themes of the novel and how despite this being 14th century Norway, they can be transposed to any other time and place.

I read the final novel, The Cross, in just a week.  All the loose threads from the first two novels were neatly woven together.  Any confusions I had about the high politics of Norway and the character's involvement in them were made clear.  The novel is beautifully written, or at the very least beautifully translated.  Any fear I had about reading a book written originally in Norwegian in the 20s and set in Medieval times were ungrounded.  You get a distinct sense of time, place, people and traditions all wrapped in an excellent story.  I very highly recommend this novel and plan on rereading it myself.

Book Notes and Three Winners

First the winners.  Again, thanks very much for stopping by!  I greatly enjoy blogging, and that's due in large part from the many kind people I've (virtually) met here.  I love giving away books, but I wish I had one to give everyone instead of only drawing three names out of the bowls!  Maybe the publisher will happen by, see what interest there is in their books and will send me a dozen or so of each and then I can pass them out to everyone.  Well, wishful thinking anyway!

So.  The names.

The bowls.  (My scientific method...put names in bowls, close eyes, mix names about, pull one out).

And the winners.

The Best American Travel Writing 2007: Padma

The Best American Essays 2007: Susan

The Best American Short Stories 2007: Nicola

If you would send me your mailing address I will pop the books in the mail this week. 

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Now the Book Notes.

Actually just a couple of things.  I am thisclose to finishing Kristin Lavransdatter.  Fifty pages.  If I could have kept my eyes open longer last night I would be finished now.  I contemplated lying in bed this morning and reading, but I thought I really should draw names and post instead of making people wait.  And the book is excellent.  One of my favorite reads this year, but I'll post more about it later.

After this weekend I'll be able to cross off two titles from the list of books I want to complete before the end of the year.

I did say that I might be picking up and reading other books along the way, and it looks like there's an opportunity to read George Eliot's Daniel Deronda in a group.  I really like reading books in a group, so I am seriously contemplating joining in.  My copy of the book is 715 pages.  I had been thinking I wouldn't start anymore long books this year, but my will power is pretty feeble when faced with a book I really want to read.  Sylvia will be joining Susan and Sarah.  Anyone else want to be tempted?  Since I've pulled my copy out of the stack I have a feeling I will indeed be tempted, too (though I expect to read slowly and probably finish far behind everyone else).  First things first, I have KL waiting for me, and I'll be reading a few ghost stories this weekend as well. 

The Island of Cast Aside Books, or a Meme

Okay, so maybe not an island, but how about a shelf.  My nightstand has a slanted shelf under the table that generally holds those books that "I'm going to get back to later".  Some of the books have been there so long I've taken out the bookmarks and put them back on my bookshelves.  Both Susan and SamH have posted about their abandoned books.  So I thought I would do the same.  The meme premise:

I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

Usually I have problems finishing nonfiction (as you'll see later) reads.  This year, however, the two books that come to mind quickest are novels.

Mystery of the art of Death, Ariana Franklin.  A mystery.  A Medieval setting. The sleuth is a woman.  Normally this would be totally appealing to me.  And the book was appealing, but maybe a third of the way through I just lost interest.  I've only heard good things about it, so I think it was me.  The female protagonist felt sort of cold, and I didn't really warm up to her.  I might have to give it another try, though, as I have a feeling I just didn't stick with it long enough.  Or I was in a grouchy mood.  It's hard to say.

The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley.  This book sounds so good.  And everyone tells me it is good.  And the 100 or so pages that I read were good.  It was mostly just a victim of too many books being read at once and not enough time to spend on it.  I've read a lot of really long books this year, and I tried to read this at the same time.  It just wasn't going to happen, so it got shifted out of the pile.  I'll definitely give it a go again later.

I know there have been more books that have gotten reshuffled back into the book piles, but these I actually read significant portions of.  The rest of the books are from last year (or maybe even earlier?).

Snow, Orhan Pamuk.  This seems to be the sort of book that moves slowly, but is well written.  I just didn't stick with it long enough.  I do want to read his work and hope to get back to this one.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel.  I don't know what happened here.  I tried.  I just couldn't get into it.  Maybe I'll try again later. 

The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, Claire Tomalin.  I had this little reading plan/idea where I thought I was going to read books by and about Mary W. and then about her daughter.  And I have all these books lined up and ready to go.  I still want to do it.  The Tomalin biography is interesting, and Mary was very interesting.  I just am horrible about sticking with NF books.  The second another interest pops its head, I am off starting a new book.  Fickle.  What can I say.

Don't Let's Go to the Dog's Tonight, Alexandra Fuller.  See above.  Fickle.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi.  Again.  Fickle.

Generally my problem has less to do with losing interest (except in the rare case) or not liking a book, but by simply having too many started and not having time to pick it up and read it.  Sometimes it languishes so long it ends up on "the shelf" and after it has languished there for a while, or a year or two, it gets incorporated back into the book piles.  Although I do hate abandoning books and shifting them around, I try not to feel too guilty.  There's always another book around the corner. 

And just a reminder--I will be drawing names tomorrow for my book giveaway.  Last call if you want your name to go into the bowl, too.   

Scandinavian Literature: A Thursday Thirteen (Plus One)

I've already written (probably more times than you care to hear) about how much I am enjoying Kristin Lavransdatter (I think I have even talked a coworker into reading it now!).  It has piqued my curiosity about other books by other Scandinavian writers (both contemporary and classic).  At first when I was searching I didn't seem to be coming up with many results, but the more I looked, the longer my list became.  So here are some titles I've come up with that I either own or that appeal to me, and I might search them out.  And I did cheat a little--some authors are not Scandinavian, but the setting for their books is.

1. Pan and Victoria by Knut Hamsun -- He is another Norwegian author to win the Nobel.  I think he is actually famous for Hunger, but I don't think I am ready to jump into that one yet (after reading the description).  I have checked out Victoria, however.
2. Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason -- This is an Icelandic police procedural that I have been wanting to read.
3. Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset -- Yes, I plan on reading more by Undset!
4. Four Major Plays by Henrik Ibsen -- I'm not sure what I want read by Ibsen, but I should read something!  My library also has several film versions of his plays.
5. Summer Book by Tove Jansson -- I've read wonderful things about this book at Stuck in a Book, which prompted me to order it.  I think she has a Winter Book, too. 
6. Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen -- I have several of her books--she was an amazingly interesting person, and I'd like to read some of her fiction.
7. Greenlanders by Jane Smiley -- I recently mooched this one.
8. Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh -- (I don't like the cover design of the book, but the story sounds good).
9. The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness -- I found this one in a used bookstore not too long ago.  Laxness is another Nobel winner.
10. Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum -- A Norwegian detective series featuring Inspector Sejer.
11. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell -- This is a mystery series set in Sweden.
12. Before You Sleep by Linn Ullmann -- A novel about four generations of a Norwegian family.
13. Torso by Helene Tursten -- Another mystery series, this one set in Sweden and with a female detective.  I've already requested this one from my library, though it sounds like it could be a bit gory.
14. Royal Physician's Visit by Per Olov Enquist -- This novel is based on actual historical events concerning the royal family of Denmark in the 1700s.

I'm not sure when it comes to international fiction how much of it ever gets translated into English, which makes you wonder what great books you are missing (not that there isn't plenty to choose from in English, but it is always interesting reading foreign authors).  How do publishers decide?  There does seem to be a nice variety of mysteries, thrillers, and police procedurals that get translated into English, which I find very interesting (I didn't even list all the authors I found).  If I am missing some major (or minor, or even some unknown) author please let me know.  I am, as always, on the look out for good books to read.  I also would like to read some Scandinavian sagas, but to be honest I haven't a clue where to even begin.  Suggestions welcome.

New and Interesting

This has been a great book week so far, made even more satisfying by the fact that I haven't actually spent any money on my new acquisitions (not counting my Tin House subscription, but I paid that ages ago, so now I get to look forward to bookish mail quarterly!).  The new issue of Tin House is titled "Fantastic Women".  Why just women?  The editor has this to say, "...frankly, it seems more and more women writers are creating work that not only pushes the envelope, but folds realistic fiction into an origami dragon.  They are transporting us into worlds we've never seen before and, forgive the generalization, digging deeper into the psychic bedrock than their male counterparts."  I'm looking forward to reading the stories.  You can read Kelly Link's contribution here.  By the way the cover art is by artist Julie Heffernan, which I think is very cool in a fantastical sort of way.

A while back I mentioned that I won a copy of Every Past Thing by Pamela Thompson from Library Thing's "early reviewer program".  Due to a post office mix up the books were just recently mailed, so I finally received my copy.  I've been itching to read this book, so I was happy to see it finally turn up!  In the interim I also won a copy of Master of the Sea by former Brazilian president Jose Sarney, which I still look forward to receiving.  It is supposed to be a "picaresque epic of the sea".  I've been very fortunate to get a book in the last few rounds of LT's program.  I think I am going to bow out in the future; well, try and bow out from requesting a book for a few rounds anyway.  This is the sort of thing that gets me into trouble with my regular reading plans, besides I feel a little greedy as there are many members who have never won a book and now I've gotten three.

Nancy Marie Brown's book, The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman has finally surfaced at my library.  Another book I've been itching to get my hands on.  I've already started it and it looks quite promising.  Reading Kristin Lavransdatter (which I should finish this week) has put me in the mood to read more Scandinavian literature and history.  This book combines several interests of mine--women's history (it is about a Viking woman called Gudrid who crossed the North Atlantic perhaps eight times in the 11th century), sea travel, and Scandinavian history.  NYTBR called it a "snappily written biography of a time and place".  And I love the book jacket design, too.

Finally I have had a small bookmooching frenzy of late.  I have several Virago Modern Classics coming my way, which I am sure I'll post about when they get here.  As I am not finding any locally these days, I am trying to keep an eye on Bookmooch.  I also received a copy of Penelope Lively's The Photograph.  After reading Dorothy's recent post about Lively I had to find a book by her.  I turned to the library for a copy of Moon Tiger, dragged it all the way home, read the book description more thoroughly, when it dawned on me that I might just own the book.  After much digging around I found my copy, so now both sit high up on my book piles.  All in all a pretty decent book week and it's only Wednesday!

A Magical Story

Young adult author Lynn Brittney has written a wonderfully creative Christmas adventure story called Christine Kringle.  While Kriss Kringle (Santa Claus) brings gifts to small children here in the US, did you know that Babbo Natale delivers his gifts in a shiny, red Ferrari (what else would an Italian Gift Bringer drive?).  Australia's Santa, fondly known as OzNick likes to wear colorful Hawaiian shirts and the preferred mode of transportation for Hawaii's Kanakaloka is a canoe. It is a little known fact that each country actually has its own Gift Bringer (did you really think one Santa could possibly deliver all those gifts in one night?) with traditions to match.

This year the Yule Dynasty, as the various Santas are collectively known, are converging on Finland for their annual convention before the hectic season begins.  For Kriss Kringle there is a most serious matter at hand.  Christine, his only daughter, is hoping to take over this important job from her father, as there is no male heir in the Kringle family.  Tradition declares that the job is always passed along through the male line.  Of course Kristine is only fourteen, and she still has a lot to learn, but it's time to put the motion forward.  It's not unheard of that a woman might be a Gift Bringer.  Just look at La Befana, or St. Lucia.  But you know how hard it is to get people to budge when a tradition is so firmly entrenched.

Just as Kriss makes his plea to the Yule Dynasty, mayhem erupts.  The small town of Plinkbury in England has done the unthinkable.  They are calling Christmas off.  Dynasty members are stunned.  No tree in the square.  No lights on the buildings.  Not a single carol will be sung.  What's worse, Plinkbury has lost its Christmas spirit.  It doesn't even have the will to fight back.  It'll take a plan hatched by Kriss and Ma Kringle (and tweaked just a wee bit by "the sisterhood") and undertaken by Christine and her fellow teenage friends Little K and young Nick (the only convention attendees sure not to be missed) to set things to rights in Plinkbury.

And we're just now getting to the fun part.  Flying Ferrari's, living lights, magical chocolates, and the ladies of Bella Shuttleworth's Christmas Convention Club are just a few ingredients that it will take to shake Plinkbury up and remind the town what Christmas really means.

There were lots of creative and magical elements to the story (you might be curious about elves or how Santa really does get down that chimney?).  I don't read a lot of young adult literature, but this was a delightful and surprising sort of book.  I tend to shy away from overtly seasonal types of stories for fear they will be trite or overly sentimental, but this was really a pleasure to read, action-filled and entertaining.  This would definitely appeal to young (and maybe even not so young) adults.  Although Lynn is a British author, copies can be ordered here in the US from Amazon.  You can check out Lynn's website here.  Thanks to Lynn to sending me a copy of Kristine Kringle to read.  I enjoyed her YA Shakespearean adventure story, Nathan Fox, earlier this year.

Two More Gothic Stories

Something that I've discovered as I read my selections for Carl's RIP Challenge is that I greatly enjoy Gothic Literature.  When I am caught up with my reading piles, I plan on reading more Gothic novels.  This past weekend I decided it was time to finish reading the last two stories in the slim collection that Hesperus Press has published called Transformation by Mary Shelley.  I read the title story last month.  I'm only giving brief story descriptions, so there should be no problems with plot spoilers this time around.

"The Mortal Immortal", the second story in the collection, is a suspenseful tale of (as the title implies) immortality.  The story begins on July 16, 1833, the 323rd anniversary of the birth of the story's narrator, Winzy. When he was a young man he was a student and assistant of the alchemist, Cornelius Agrippa.  Although his friends warned him off helping Agrippa, who dabbled in the dark arts, Winzy was attracted by the promise of money.  He wanted nothing more than to marry his childhood sweetheart, the lovely Bertha.  Her situation was such that he could never hope to gain approval from her adoptive parents as he was poor. 

In his despair he drinks part of a potion, before it slips out of his hand and shatters on the floor, that Agrippa has spent years formulating and concocting, thinking it was made for the drinker to fall out of love.  If anything, the reverse occurs.  He is more in love with Bertha than ever, but in the end she forsakes her fortune and agrees to marry him even if it means living in poverty.  The years pass happily for Winzy and Bertha, until it becomes apparent that while Bertha is steadily aging, Winzy is as youthful as the day they were married.

The last story, "The Evil Eye", does not have a supernatural theme to it, but it relies more on folklore and superstitious beliefs.  It's a rather complicated story and has a very exotic setting, which is very unlike her other stories.  According to the footnotes the story was influenced by several contemporary examples of Eastern narratives including in part Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.  The narrative is almost too complicated to describe, but the story revolves around a particular friendship of two men, which in Greece is called 'probatimo'.  It's a special vow (even celebrated in the church with a ceremony), where two people of the same sex will swear a sort of alliance/friendship.

So we have two friends, Katusthuis Ziani and Dmitri.  Dmitri (of the Evil Eye) was once a happily married man when his wife was murdered and his daughter was stolen.  After years of searching for her with no success, he turns to a life of reckless abandon living as a bandit.  When he discovers that his younger, half brother is due to inherit everything after the death of his parents, he decides to take revenge on him and turns to his sworn friend, Ziani, for help.  The story starts to parallel itself as Dmitri will rob his brother of his only son, much like what he himself has endured when he lost his family.  Shelley throws in an interesting twist at the end as a chase ensues to retrieve the stolen child.

I've read that Mary Shelley wrote short stories to help make ends meet.  She admitted that she would just dash them off, so they may not get the same attention critically as her novels do.  She seems to have used her stories, however, to work out themes and characterizations which would appear more fully realized in her later novels.  I've only read Frankenstein and now these three stories by Shelley, but there does seem to be similarities between her stories and novel.  One reviewer I read also notes how certain events in Shelley's very colorful life seem show up in various forms in her narratives.  It's always an interesting question--wondering how much an author draws from her own life and merges it into fiction.  Mary Shelley was indeed an interesting woman and writer and is an author I'd like to read more of and about.