Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1681957078
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
Running Away Doesn't Always Remove the Problem “It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.” - Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands This second novel of Conrad details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter.
An Outcast of the Islands
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1681957078
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
Running Away Doesn't Always Remove the Problem “It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.” - Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands This second novel of Conrad details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter.
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1681957078
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 299
Book Description
Running Away Doesn't Always Remove the Problem “It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.” - Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands This second novel of Conrad details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter.
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1896, inspired by Conrad's experience as mate of a steamer, the Vidar.The novel details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter. The story features Conrad's recurring character Tom Lingard, who also appears in Almayer's Folly (1895) and The Rescue (1920), in addition to sharing other characters with those novels. It is considered to be underrated as a work of literature for many. Conrad romanticizes the jungle environment and its inhabitants in a similar style to his "Heart of Darkness".This novel was adapted into the film Outcast of the Islands in 1951 by director Carol Reed, featuring Trevor Howard as Willems, Ralph Richardson as Lingard, Robert Morley, and Wendy Hiller.Peter Willems’s life enters a downward spiral when he is caught and, despite his motives, subsequently dismissed for embezzling from his employer. Saved from financial ruin once again by his benefactor, Captain Lingard, Willems finds himself at another post, and facing similar problems when he finds it difficult to work Almayer, the outpost’s chief. Willems’s life becomes even further complicated when he falls in love with Aissa, a young, local woman.An Outcast of the Islands is Joseph Conrad’s second novel, and in addition to featuring characters and events he introduced in his first book, Almayer’s Folly, deals with many of the same themes that Conrad also explores in his later works, Nostromo, and Heart of Darkness. A third novel, The Rescue, published in 1920, makes up the loose trilogy. An Outcast of the Islands was adapted for film in 1951.An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1896, inspired by Conrad's experience as mate of a steamer, the Vidar. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK The novel details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter. The story features Conrad's recurring character Tom Lingard, who also appears in Almayer's Folly (1895) and The Rescue (1920), in addition to sharing other characters with those novels. It is considered to be underrated as a work of literature for many. Conrad romanticizes the jungle environment and its inhabitants in a similar style to his "Heart of Darkness". AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK This novel was adapted for the screen in 1951 by director Carol Reed, featuring Trevor Howard as Willems, Ralph Richardson as Lingard, Robert Morley, and Wendy Hiller. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK The work was quoted in T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men ('Life is very long.'). AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK
Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1896, inspired by Conrad's experience as mate of a steamer, the Vidar.The novel details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter. The story features Conrad's recurring character Tom Lingard, who also appears in Almayer's Folly (1895) and The Rescue (1920), in addition to sharing other characters with those novels. It is considered to be underrated as a work of literature for many. Conrad romanticizes the jungle environment and its inhabitants in a similar style to his "Heart of Darkness".This novel was adapted into the film Outcast of the Islands in 1951 by director Carol Reed, featuring Trevor Howard as Willems, Ralph Richardson as Lingard, Robert Morley, and Wendy Hiller.Peter Willems’s life enters a downward spiral when he is caught and, despite his motives, subsequently dismissed for embezzling from his employer. Saved from financial ruin once again by his benefactor, Captain Lingard, Willems finds himself at another post, and facing similar problems when he finds it difficult to work Almayer, the outpost’s chief. Willems’s life becomes even further complicated when he falls in love with Aissa, a young, local woman.An Outcast of the Islands is Joseph Conrad’s second novel, and in addition to featuring characters and events he introduced in his first book, Almayer’s Folly, deals with many of the same themes that Conrad also explores in his later works, Nostromo, and Heart of Darkness. A third novel, The Rescue, published in 1920, makes up the loose trilogy. An Outcast of the Islands was adapted for film in 1951.An Outcast of the Islands is the second novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1896, inspired by Conrad's experience as mate of a steamer, the Vidar. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK The novel details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter. The story features Conrad's recurring character Tom Lingard, who also appears in Almayer's Folly (1895) and The Rescue (1920), in addition to sharing other characters with those novels. It is considered to be underrated as a work of literature for many. Conrad romanticizes the jungle environment and its inhabitants in a similar style to his "Heart of Darkness". AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK This novel was adapted for the screen in 1951 by director Carol Reed, featuring Trevor Howard as Willems, Ralph Richardson as Lingard, Robert Morley, and Wendy Hiller. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK The work was quoted in T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men ('Life is very long.'). AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS FULL BOOK
The Outcast
Author: Sadie Jones
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307375455
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
The village was asleep, with all the people behind the walls and through the windows and up the stairs of the little houses blind and deaf in their beds while anything might happen. Lewis headed down the middle of the road and he kept falling and had to remember to get back on his feet. He reached the churchyard and stood in the dark with the church even darker above him. –from The Outcast by Sadie Jones It’s 1957. Nineteen-year-old Lewis Aldridge is returning by train to his home in Waterford where he has just served a two-year prison term for a crime that shocked the sleepy Surrey community. Wearing a new suit, he carries money his father Gilbert sent — to keep him away, he suspects — and a straight razor. No one greets him at the station. Twelve years earlier, seven-year-old Lewis and his spirited mother Elizabeth are on the same train, bringing Gilbert home from war. Waterford is experiencing many such reunions, alcohol lubricating awkward homecomings and community gatherings. The most oppressive of these are the mandatory holiday parties hosted by the town’s leading industrialist Dicky Carmichael, Gilbert’s employer. With the Carmichael estate backing onto the Aldridge property, the attractive and popular Tamsin Carmichael and her precocious kid sister Kit are Lewis’s playmates, along with a gaggle of neighbourhood boys who (like Lewis) are fascinated by Tamsin. The children play thrilling and cruel games, mirroring the adults’ inebriated dysfunction. Though pleased to be reunited with Elizabeth, Gilbert is appalled by the coddling his son has received in his absence. No longer permitted to skip church for picnics by the river, Elizabeth and Lewis are steered back under the ever-judgmental gaze of Waterford society. Lewis continues to flourish, a naturally capable golden child. But iconoclastic Elizabeth, disappointed by Gilbert’s insistence on conformity, seeks refuge in the bottle. Then a sunny riverside picnic ends with Elizabeth dead and ten-year-old Lewis the only witness. A shattered Gilbert is incapable of providing comfort to his young son and the community of Waterford turns away from the traumatized child, now rendered a pariah by tragedy. Lewis is sent to boarding school, summoned home only for holidays. Gilbert remarries five months later to Alice, a compliant beauty who is not up to the task of parenting a damaged child. Years pass and Lewis, now a troubled teenager, is lost in dangerous and self-harming behaviours. When an incident with a local bully causes Lewis to be even further estranged from the community, Gilbert and Alice stand idly by as Lewis is tormented by the tyrannical Dicky. Enraged, Lewis commits a shocking crime against the whole of Waterford and is sent to prison. Two years later, upon his shamed return, the town continues to treat Lewis as an outcast. Only Tamsin’s little sister Kit, now a young woman, sees in him the golden boy he once was. She had become infatuated with Lewis years earlier when he had casually protected her from bullies and broken bicycle chains. But she now faces a much darker and more dangerous sort of bullying at the hands of her father. It is up to Lewis once again to rescue her, redeeming himself through tremendous courage and terrible sacrifice. And perhaps Kit holds the power to rescue him, too. Winner of the Costa First Novel Award and a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize, Sadie Jones’s The Outcast introduces us to a clear and brave new voice in British fiction. The novel is a clarion call to us all, daring us to stand up to the bullies of our world, in whatever form they may take and — above all else — to love our children.
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307375455
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
The village was asleep, with all the people behind the walls and through the windows and up the stairs of the little houses blind and deaf in their beds while anything might happen. Lewis headed down the middle of the road and he kept falling and had to remember to get back on his feet. He reached the churchyard and stood in the dark with the church even darker above him. –from The Outcast by Sadie Jones It’s 1957. Nineteen-year-old Lewis Aldridge is returning by train to his home in Waterford where he has just served a two-year prison term for a crime that shocked the sleepy Surrey community. Wearing a new suit, he carries money his father Gilbert sent — to keep him away, he suspects — and a straight razor. No one greets him at the station. Twelve years earlier, seven-year-old Lewis and his spirited mother Elizabeth are on the same train, bringing Gilbert home from war. Waterford is experiencing many such reunions, alcohol lubricating awkward homecomings and community gatherings. The most oppressive of these are the mandatory holiday parties hosted by the town’s leading industrialist Dicky Carmichael, Gilbert’s employer. With the Carmichael estate backing onto the Aldridge property, the attractive and popular Tamsin Carmichael and her precocious kid sister Kit are Lewis’s playmates, along with a gaggle of neighbourhood boys who (like Lewis) are fascinated by Tamsin. The children play thrilling and cruel games, mirroring the adults’ inebriated dysfunction. Though pleased to be reunited with Elizabeth, Gilbert is appalled by the coddling his son has received in his absence. No longer permitted to skip church for picnics by the river, Elizabeth and Lewis are steered back under the ever-judgmental gaze of Waterford society. Lewis continues to flourish, a naturally capable golden child. But iconoclastic Elizabeth, disappointed by Gilbert’s insistence on conformity, seeks refuge in the bottle. Then a sunny riverside picnic ends with Elizabeth dead and ten-year-old Lewis the only witness. A shattered Gilbert is incapable of providing comfort to his young son and the community of Waterford turns away from the traumatized child, now rendered a pariah by tragedy. Lewis is sent to boarding school, summoned home only for holidays. Gilbert remarries five months later to Alice, a compliant beauty who is not up to the task of parenting a damaged child. Years pass and Lewis, now a troubled teenager, is lost in dangerous and self-harming behaviours. When an incident with a local bully causes Lewis to be even further estranged from the community, Gilbert and Alice stand idly by as Lewis is tormented by the tyrannical Dicky. Enraged, Lewis commits a shocking crime against the whole of Waterford and is sent to prison. Two years later, upon his shamed return, the town continues to treat Lewis as an outcast. Only Tamsin’s little sister Kit, now a young woman, sees in him the golden boy he once was. She had become infatuated with Lewis years earlier when he had casually protected her from bullies and broken bicycle chains. But she now faces a much darker and more dangerous sort of bullying at the hands of her father. It is up to Lewis once again to rescue her, redeeming himself through tremendous courage and terrible sacrifice. And perhaps Kit holds the power to rescue him, too. Winner of the Costa First Novel Award and a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize, Sadie Jones’s The Outcast introduces us to a clear and brave new voice in British fiction. The novel is a clarion call to us all, daring us to stand up to the bullies of our world, in whatever form they may take and — above all else — to love our children.
Joseph Conrad's Eastern Voyages
Author: Ian Burnet
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 1915310318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
The life of Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski reads like an adventure story, an adventure story written by somebody like Joseph Conrad. The young Conrad dreamed of a life at sea and eventually became a British merchant seaman, working his way up from apprentice to captain on classic three-masted square-rigged barques. He would also become one of the most important novelists in the English language, and almost half of his life's work is set in Southeast Asia. Conrad's favorite destination was the vibrant, bustling port of Singapore as well as the remote ports of the Dutch East Indies, and his early works - Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Lord Jim and The Rescue - are based on the people and places he encountered in his own voyages on the Vidar, a trading vessel that plied the waters of the Indonesian archipelago from its base in Singapore. In Joseph Conrad's Eastern Voyages, Ian Burnet places Conrad's Malay novels into their proper narrative sequence and explores the backstory of his characters helping the reader to visualize the cultural and historical context of Conrad's time in late 19th-century Southeast Asia.
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 1915310318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
The life of Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski reads like an adventure story, an adventure story written by somebody like Joseph Conrad. The young Conrad dreamed of a life at sea and eventually became a British merchant seaman, working his way up from apprentice to captain on classic three-masted square-rigged barques. He would also become one of the most important novelists in the English language, and almost half of his life's work is set in Southeast Asia. Conrad's favorite destination was the vibrant, bustling port of Singapore as well as the remote ports of the Dutch East Indies, and his early works - Almayer's Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, Lord Jim and The Rescue - are based on the people and places he encountered in his own voyages on the Vidar, a trading vessel that plied the waters of the Indonesian archipelago from its base in Singapore. In Joseph Conrad's Eastern Voyages, Ian Burnet places Conrad's Malay novels into their proper narrative sequence and explores the backstory of his characters helping the reader to visualize the cultural and historical context of Conrad's time in late 19th-century Southeast Asia.
Carol Reed
Author: Peter William Evans
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719063671
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
This major study ranges over British director Reed's entire career, combining observation of general trends and patterns with detailed analysis of twenty films, both acknowledged masterpieces and lesser-known works. Films examined include Bank Holiday, A Girl Must Live, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, Night Train to Munich, The Way Ahead, Outcast of the Islands, Trapeze and Oliver!.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719063671
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
This major study ranges over British director Reed's entire career, combining observation of general trends and patterns with detailed analysis of twenty films, both acknowledged masterpieces and lesser-known works. Films examined include Bank Holiday, A Girl Must Live, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, Night Train to Munich, The Way Ahead, Outcast of the Islands, Trapeze and Oliver!.
The Outcast Blade
Author: Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0316193445
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
As the Byzantine and German emperors plot war against each other, Venice's future rests in the hands of three unwilling individuals: The newly knighted Sir Tycho. He defeated the Mamluk navy but he cannot make the woman he loves love him back. Tortured by secrets, afraid of the daylight, he sees no reason to save a city he hates. The grieving Lady Giulietta. Virgin. Mother. Widow. All she wants is to retire from the poisonous world of the Venetian court to mourn her husband in peace. But her duty is to Venice: both emperors want her hand in marriage and an alliance with Europe's richest city. She must choose, knowing that whichever suitor she rejects will become Venice's bitterest enemy. Lastly, a naked, mud-strewn girl who crawls from a paupers' grave on an island in the Venetian lagoon and begins by killing the men who buried her. Between them, they will set the course of history.
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0316193445
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
As the Byzantine and German emperors plot war against each other, Venice's future rests in the hands of three unwilling individuals: The newly knighted Sir Tycho. He defeated the Mamluk navy but he cannot make the woman he loves love him back. Tortured by secrets, afraid of the daylight, he sees no reason to save a city he hates. The grieving Lady Giulietta. Virgin. Mother. Widow. All she wants is to retire from the poisonous world of the Venetian court to mourn her husband in peace. But her duty is to Venice: both emperors want her hand in marriage and an alliance with Europe's richest city. She must choose, knowing that whichever suitor she rejects will become Venice's bitterest enemy. Lastly, a naked, mud-strewn girl who crawls from a paupers' grave on an island in the Venetian lagoon and begins by killing the men who buried her. Between them, they will set the course of history.
The Other Side of the Island
Author: Allegra Goodman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781595141965
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Born in the eighth year of Enclosure, ten-year-old Honor lives in a highly regulated colony with her defiant parents, but when they have an illegal second child and are taken away, it is up to Honor and her friend Helix, another "Unpredictable," to uncover a terrible secret about their Island and the Corporation that runs everything.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781595141965
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Born in the eighth year of Enclosure, ten-year-old Honor lives in a highly regulated colony with her defiant parents, but when they have an illegal second child and are taken away, it is up to Honor and her friend Helix, another "Unpredictable," to uncover a terrible secret about their Island and the Corporation that runs everything.
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689866364
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
The long-awaited new novel by the two-time Newbery Medalist stars Margaret Rose Kane, Connor Kane's older half-sister in "Silent to the Bone," who tells the story of the summer she was 12 years old.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689866364
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
The long-awaited new novel by the two-time Newbery Medalist stars Margaret Rose Kane, Connor Kane's older half-sister in "Silent to the Bone," who tells the story of the summer she was 12 years old.
Orphan Island
Author: Laurel Snyder
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062443437
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
A National Book Award Longlist title! "A wondrous book, wise and wild and deeply true." —Kelly Barnhill, Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon "This is one of those books that haunts you long after you read it. Thought-provoking and magical." —Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series In the tradition of modern-day classics like Sara Pennypacker's Pax and Lois Lowry's The Giver comes a deep, compelling, heartbreaking, and completely one-of-a-kind novel about nine children who live on a mysterious island. On the island, everything is perfect. The sun rises in a sky filled with dancing shapes; the wind, water, and trees shelter and protect those who live there; when the nine children go to sleep in their cabins, it is with full stomachs and joy in their hearts. And only one thing ever changes: on that day, each year, when a boat appears from the mist upon the ocean carrying one young child to join them—and taking the eldest one away, never to be seen again. Today’s Changing is no different. The boat arrives, taking away Jinny’s best friend, Deen, replacing him with a new little girl named Ess, and leaving Jinny as the new Elder. Jinny knows her responsibility now—to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been. But will she be ready for the inevitable day when the boat will come back—and take her away forever from the only home she’s known? "A unique and compelling story about nine children who live with no adults on a mysterious island. Anyone who has ever been scared of leaving their family will love this book" (from the Brightly.com review, which named Orphan Island a best book of 2017).
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062443437
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
A National Book Award Longlist title! "A wondrous book, wise and wild and deeply true." —Kelly Barnhill, Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon "This is one of those books that haunts you long after you read it. Thought-provoking and magical." —Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series In the tradition of modern-day classics like Sara Pennypacker's Pax and Lois Lowry's The Giver comes a deep, compelling, heartbreaking, and completely one-of-a-kind novel about nine children who live on a mysterious island. On the island, everything is perfect. The sun rises in a sky filled with dancing shapes; the wind, water, and trees shelter and protect those who live there; when the nine children go to sleep in their cabins, it is with full stomachs and joy in their hearts. And only one thing ever changes: on that day, each year, when a boat appears from the mist upon the ocean carrying one young child to join them—and taking the eldest one away, never to be seen again. Today’s Changing is no different. The boat arrives, taking away Jinny’s best friend, Deen, replacing him with a new little girl named Ess, and leaving Jinny as the new Elder. Jinny knows her responsibility now—to teach Ess everything she needs to know about the island, to keep things as they’ve always been. But will she be ready for the inevitable day when the boat will come back—and take her away forever from the only home she’s known? "A unique and compelling story about nine children who live with no adults on a mysterious island. Anyone who has ever been scared of leaving their family will love this book" (from the Brightly.com review, which named Orphan Island a best book of 2017).
Cries from the Lost Island
Author: Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0756415780
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
"Sixteen-year-old Hal Stevens is a budding historical scholar from a small town in Colorado. A virtual outcast at high school, he has only two friends: Roberto the Biker Witch and Cleo Mallawi. Cleo claims to be the reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra. She also believes she's being stalked by an ancient Egyptian demon, Ammut, the Devourer of the Dead. But when Hal and Roberto find Cleo murdered in the forest near her home, it appears she may have been telling the truth. Her last request sends them journeying to Egypt with famed archaeologist Dr. James Moriarity, where it quickly becomes clear that Cleo has set them on the search of a lifetime: the search for the lost graves of Marc Antony and Cleopatra."--
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0756415780
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
"Sixteen-year-old Hal Stevens is a budding historical scholar from a small town in Colorado. A virtual outcast at high school, he has only two friends: Roberto the Biker Witch and Cleo Mallawi. Cleo claims to be the reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra. She also believes she's being stalked by an ancient Egyptian demon, Ammut, the Devourer of the Dead. But when Hal and Roberto find Cleo murdered in the forest near her home, it appears she may have been telling the truth. Her last request sends them journeying to Egypt with famed archaeologist Dr. James Moriarity, where it quickly becomes clear that Cleo has set them on the search of a lifetime: the search for the lost graves of Marc Antony and Cleopatra."--