Basil Davenport
1) The prairie
Author
Summary
Taking place just a few years after the Louisiana Purchase, The Prairie follows Ishmael and Esther Bush as they travel west from the Mississippi River with their fourteen children, Ellen Wade, a doctor, and Esther's brother. While searching for a place to camp, the group meets Natty Bumppo, a legendary man now in his late eighties. Referred to as "the trapper" Natty helps the family settle somewhere safe. Later, as he roams through the forest, he...
2) Vanity fair
Author
Series
Everyman's library volume no. 298
Barnes and Noble classics
The Harvard classics shelf of fiction volume 5-6
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Barnes and Noble classics
The Harvard classics shelf of fiction volume 5-6
More Series...
Summary
This classic story of two nineteenth-century social climbers is the basis for countless films and TV series, and one of the UK's "Best-Loved Novels." Before the Real Housewives, there were Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Ruthless and cunning, Becky may have been born in a lower class, but now that she's graduated from school, she's ready to climb up to a better life-and do whatever it takes to get there. Her friend Emmy, however, is the opposite. She...
4) Ivanhoe
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Summary
Ivanhoe, a trusted ally of Richard-the-Lion-Hearted, returns from the Crusades to reclaim the inheritance his father denied him. Rebecca, a vibrant, beautiful Jewish woman is defended by Ivanhoe against a charge of witchcraft--but it is Lady Rowena who is Ivanhoe's true love. The wicked Prince John plots to usurp England's throne, but two of the most popular heroes in all of English literature, Richard-the-Lion-Hearted and the well-loved famous outlaw,...
Author
Summary
Jane Austen's first published novel, sparkling with wit and artistry, captures the inequities of birth, class, and marriage faced by the sisters Dashwood. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility has delighted generations of readers with its masterfully crafted portrait of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Forced to leave their home after their father's death, Elinor and Marianne must rely on making good marriages as their means of support....
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Appears on list
Summary
This is the story of the savage, tormented foundling Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other. A book of great power and strength, it is filled with the raw beauty of the moors and an uncanny understanding of the terrible truths about men and women. It is an understanding made even more extraordinary by the fact that...
7) Jane Eyre
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Summary
In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Charlotte Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, brilliant, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic, ever since...