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Summary
In the most seminal slave narrative ever written, Frederick Douglass writes, "From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom." Reading this narrative is to witness...
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A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's great historical novel, set against the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author's novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores...
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The original play by Shakespeare's drama telling how Demetrius and Lysander love Hermia, Hermia loves Lysander but is betrothed to Demetrius, much to her dismay. And no one loves Helena, though her heart belongs to Demetrius. When Hermia and Lysander escape escape through the forest to elope, Demetrius chases them, and Helena chases Demetrius. With the magic of the forest bewitching the hand of fate, perhaps their dream of love will come true.
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This new translation by Francis Steegmuller was published as a part of the centenary celebration of the original publishing of Madame Bovary. Perhaps no book in the history of the novel has been more enjoyed and praised by critics, fellow craftsmen and general readers of all sorts than this tale of a provincial woman who could not bear the discrepancy between her romantic dreams and the dull routine of her daily life. There is a special poignancy...
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"The book relates the tale of Hank Morgan, an engineer from 19th century Hartford Connecticut, who is inexplicably transported to the early medieval England of King Arthur. While there he uses his knowledge of modern technology to appear as though he is a magician. Despite his best intentions, Hank?s attempts to modernize the past bring about a tragic end. A bittersweet depiction of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of a 19th century American..."...
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David Copperfield enjoys an idyllic life with his gentle, widowed mother and his loving nurse, Peggotty. Then tragedy strikes when Mr. Murdstone weds David's mother and drives her to an early grave. Despised by his stepfather, the boy is forced to live in misery and poverty until he runs away to throw himself upon the mercy of his eccentric aunt. Charles Dickens's classic tale of growing up.
9) Ethan Frome
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A marked departure from Edith Wharton's usual ironic contemplation of the fashionable New York society to which she herself belonged, Ethan Frome is a sharply etched portrait of the simple inhabitants of a nineteenth-century New England village. The protagonist, Ethan Frome, is a man tormented by a passionate love for his ailing wife's young cousin. Trapped by the bonds of marriage and the fear of public condemnation, he is ultimately destroyed by...
10) Pollyanna
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Unwanted and unloved, Pollyanna Whittier comes to her aunt's home without a warm welcome. Pollyanna's irrepressible spirits make punishments seem like treats and her cheerfulness brings happiness to her aunt and other members of the community.
11) My Ántonia
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A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl.
13) Heidi
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Appears on these lists
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A Swiss orphan is heartbroken when she must leave her beloved grandfather and their happy home in the mountains to go to school and to care for an invalid girl in the city. This edition of the classic tale includes illustrations and notes about the life of the times.
14) Dubliners
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Fifteen stories evoke the character, atmosphere, and people of Dublin at the turn of the century.
15) Kidnapped
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In 1751 in Scotland, cheated out of his inheritance by a greedy uncle who has him kidnapped and put on a ship to the Carolinas, seventeen-year-old David Balfour escapes to the Highlands with the help of the Jacobite Alan Breck Stewart and there encounters further danger and intrigue as he attempts to clear his name and regain his property.
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Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...
17) The jungle book
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Mowgli, left alone in the jungle as a toddler after his parents are run off by Shere Khan, a Bengal tiger, grows to adulthood with the help of kind animals, always knowing his own showdown with the tiger is yet to come.
19) Northanger Abbey
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In 18th century Bath, a girl bursting with freshness and passion for macabre Gothic novels experiences intrigue, adventure, and romance, especially when the romantic Henry Tilney invites her to his ancestral home.
20) Peter Pan
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Classic fiction. Neverland is home to Peter Pan, a young boy who has never grown up. On one of his visits to London, Peter makes the acquaintance of young Wendy Darling, whom he invites to travel with him to Neverland and become the mother of his gang of Lost Boys. Flying through the night sky to Neverland, Wendy and her brothers John and Michael soon become caught up in marvelous adventures with the Indian Princess Tiger Lily, the loyal fairy Tinker...