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Author
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Summary
Young Henry Fleming had always dreamt of performing heroic deeds in battle. But as a raw recruit in the American Civil War, the reality if one of mental and physical torment. Throughout his first ordeal in action, Henry experiences both fear and self-doubt, and has no idea whether war will make him a coward - or a hero.
84) Penguin Island
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When a bumbling holy man mistakenly baptizes a colony of penguins, God endows the animals with souls and their formerly peaceful community declines into a maelstrom of violence and sin. This witty allegory lampoons French history from ancient to modern times, taking satirical swipes at socialists, royalists, industrialists, militarists, and even the Dreyfus affair, and concluding with a remarkably prescient view of the future. Indeed, more than a...
86) Emma
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"The culmination of Jane Austen's genius, a sparkling comedy of love and marriage--now in a stunning 200th-anniversary Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Beautiful, clever, rich--and single--Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to...
88) Treasure Island
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When a mysterious seafarer puts up at the Admiral Benbow, young Jim Hawkins is haunted by his frightening tales; the sailor's sudden death is the beginning of one of the most exciting adventure stories in literature. The discovery of a treasure map sets Jim and his companions in search of buried gold, and they are soon on board the Hispaniola with a crew of buccaneers recruited by the one-legged sea cook, Long John Silver. As they near their destination,...
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Published in 1891, this collection of 26 bone-chilling short stories is set during the American Civil War. It is divided, as the title suggests, between tales of soldiers and tales of civilians. Many have a strong element of horror or the supernatural, such as the justly famous "The Incident at Owl Creek Bridge."
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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...
Author
Series
Remembrance of things past volume III-IV
In Search of Lost Time
À la recherche du temps perdu volume 3
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In Search of Lost Time
À la recherche du temps perdu volume 3
More Series...
Summary
The third installment of the French author's multivolume autobiographical novel, originally published in 1920-1921, in which the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of Parisian literary and aristocratic salons of the late 19th century.
96) The garden party
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A frivolous, wealthy family's garden party continues uninterrupted by the death of a working-class neighbor. Includes an analysis of the story and a biography of the author.
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For its time, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) had a sexual frankness about adultery, illegitimacy, and seduction that had a disastrous effect on Meredith's reputation as a novelist for many years. Meredith defied Victorian convention and expectations in his three-part story of Richard Feverel's childhood, adolescence, and manhood. Abandoned by his mother, who leaves to be with her lover, Richard's father must raise the boy himself and does so...
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Fresh from his escapades with Tom Sawyer, with six thousand dollars in the bank and the Widow Douglas as his guardian, Huck Finn faces a new challenge: his father, Pap, who is so determined to get his hands on Huck's fortune that he kidnaps Huck and threatens to kill him. Escaping from Pap, Huck meets the runaway slave, Jim, who plans to head north and buy his wife and children our of slavery. Huck joins Jim on a salvaged raft, and together the two...
100) The young lions
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Series
Modern library of the world's best books volume 112
Summary
Irwin Shaw's classic novel stands among the best fictional depictions of World War II Told from the points of view of one German and two very different Americans, this sweeping fresco brings home the reality of the most important historical event between the Great Depression and September 11, 2001: the Second World War. Considered by critics to be one of the most lucid visions of war in American fiction, The Young Lions remains a benchmark of twentieth-century...