Benjamin Britten the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of the twentieth century". In 1967 the BBC commissioned Britten to write an opera specially for television. "Owen Wingrave" was based, like "The Turn of the Screw", on a ghost story by Henry James. By the 1960s Britten found composition much slower than in his prolific youth; he told the 28-year-old composer Nicholas Maw, "Get as much done now as you can, because it gets much, much more difficult as you grow older." He did
The Thief (novella) police. After a long fire-fight, the police manage to pin Polly down to the ground. The novel ends with the police going through the items kept in the "nether-regions", until they find a object which resembles a human hand. The Thief (novella) The Thief is a 2006 novella by British author Ruth Rendell, published in the Quick Reads series. As an entry in said series, it is of novella length. "The Thief" is about Polly, who steals small items from people who upset or anger her, and the frightening path down which such thefts lead her. In the novel, Polly