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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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Paradise Lost is the greatest epic poem in English literature, and Milton's Satan one of its most compelling figures. The controversy has been exceeded only by its tremendous influence: countless masters of English verse have paid homage to Milton and Paradise Lost. A profound meditation on the role of man under God, Pardise Lost is essential reading.
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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.
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"...tells the story of the shipwrecked Edward Prendick, who finds himself rescued by the mysterious character of the title. On the island, he discovers that his saviour is a mad scientist, intent on creating human-animal hybrids and testing where the boundaries of morality lies."--Page 8.
14) 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...
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After failing to maintain a successful practice as a surgeon, Lemeul Gulliver departs London for the excitement of the open seas. Shipwrecked on his voyage, Gulliver awakens on an unfamiliar island, where he is held captive by a race of people a fraction of his size. From here, Gulliver's fantastical adventures continue, as he goes on to visit other bizarre nations, where his language, customs, and way of life render him a complete misfit. Through...
16) 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.
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A portrait is a key example of the Keunstlerroman (an Artist's Buldungsroman) in English literature. Joyce's novel trace the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions in which he has been raise.
18) My Ántonia
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A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl.
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"Moby Dick by Herman Melville is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew...