This article contains summaries and commentaries of the 100 stories within Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron.
"Snow white" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was Sneewittchen; the modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1857 version of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde is "a new and original play of modern life", in four acts, first given on 19 April 1893 at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirises English upper-class society. It has been revived from time to time since his death in 1900, but has been widely regarded as the least successful of his four drawing room plays.
The Listerdale Mystery is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in June 1934. The book retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). The collection did not appear in the US; however, all of the stories contained within it did appear in other collections only published there.
Parker Pyne Investigates is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in November 1934. Along with The Listerdale Mystery, this collection did not appear under the usual imprint of the Collins Crime Club but instead appeared as part of the Collins Mystery series. It appeared in the US later in the same year published by Dodd, Mead and Company under the title Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
Lady Tremaine is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film Cinderella (1950) and its direct-to-video sequels Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007). In the original film, Lady Tremaine is voiced by American actress Eleanor Audley, who would later voice Maleficent, the evil fairy, in Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Madame Leota in The Haunted Mansion. For the sequels and subsequent film and television appearances, Audley was succeeded by American actress Susanne Blakeslee who also currently voices Maleficent, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, and the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She is given the title of Lady in the original film.
Daughter of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce is a series of two novels set in the fictional Tortall universe. It is centered on Alianne of Pirate's Swoop, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Tortall's legendary lady knight, Alanna the Lioness, who was the subject of The Song of the Lioness quartet. The novels take place approximately 24 years after the last book in the quartet, Lioness Rampant.
Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, known in Japan as Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror, is a Japanese anime horror anthology television series produced by Toei Animation.
The Golden Ball and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1971 in an edition priced at $5.95. It contains fifteen short stories, all of which were originally published from 1925 through 1934. The stories were taken from The Listerdale Mystery, The Hound of Death and Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories.
Gata Salvaje is a telenovela which aired first on Venevisión in Venezuela on May 16, 2002. It was released some days later on the Spanish language US TV network Univision from mid-summer 2002 until May 2003. Later, it aired in Mexico on Canal de las Estrellas from January 2003 to December 2003.
Crest of the Royal Family is a shōjo manga by Chieko Hosokawa. It has run in the monthly magazine Princess since 1976. In 1991, it received the 36th Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo. As of 2015, the collected volumes had sold 40 million copies in Japan, making it the fourth best-selling shōjo manga ever. With 68 volumes, it is one of the longest-running manga series of all time. The manga has been adapted into 2 anime drama CD's released in 1990 by Pony Canyon and an anime OVA produced by Toei Animation. It was adapted into a stage musical in 2016.
Armida Abbandonata is an opera in three acts by the Italian composer Niccolò Jommelli. The libretto, by Francesco Saverio De Rogatis, is based on the epic poem Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso. The opera was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 30 May 1770. The young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was in the audience. He described the work as "beautiful but too serious and old-fashioned for the theatre". Nevertheless, despite a lukewarm reception at its premiere, Armida abbandonata was widely performed throughout Italy in the following years.
The Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a 1910 short comedy by George Bernard Shaw in which William Shakespeare, intending to meet the "Dark Lady", accidentally encounters Queen Elizabeth I and attempts to persuade her to create a national theatre. The play was written as part of a campaign to create a "Shakespeare National Theatre" by 1916.
The Parasol is one of a cartoon series of oil on linen paintings made by the painter Francisco Goya. This series of paintings was specifically made in order to be transformed into tapestries that would be hung on the walls of the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid, Spain. The tapestries showed serene events in everyday life, which made them a nice addition to the dining room of Prince and Princess of Asturias—the future King Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma. The queen called on Goya because she wanted to decorate the dining room with cheerful scenes; The Parasol and the other tapestry paintings were Goya's response to this request. The painting is currently located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid as is another in the series, Blind man's bluff.
The Lady Refuses is a 1931 American pre-Code melodrama film, directed by George Archainbaud, from a screenplay by Wallace Smith, based on an original story by Guy Bolton and Robert Milton. It stars Betty Compson as a destitute young woman on the verge of becoming a prostitute, who is hired by a wealthy man to woo his ne'er-do-well son away from the clutches of a gold-digger. The plot is regarded as risqué enough to appear in at least one collection of pre-Code Hollywood films.
The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales is a collection of six short stories, written by Jay Williams, in 1979, and published by Hippo from Scholastic. Each story features nods in some way to classic fairy tales.
An Inspector Calls is a 2015 British thriller television film written by Helen Edmundson, based on the 1945 J. B. Priestley play of the same name. It is directed by Aisling Walsh, produced by Howard Ella and stars David Thewlis as the titular character. The film was first broadcast on 13 September 2015 on BBC One.
Lady Frederick is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written early in his career. The play was first seen in London in 1907, and was very successful, running for 422 performances. The title role was played by Ethel Irving. In New York it was first performed in 1908, with Lady Frederick played by Ethel Barrymore, who reprised her role in the play's film adaptation, The Divorcee.
Gerald Cranston's Lady is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Emmett J. Flynn and starring James Kirkwood, Alma Rubens, and Walter McGrail. It is based on the novel of the same title by Gilbert Frankau published the same year as the film was released.
Annowre (Anouwre) is an evil enchantress who desires King Arthur in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d' Arthur. Malory based her on a nameless character from the earlier Prose Tristan, who was named as Elergia in the Italian La Tavola Ritonda.
