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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...
2) Roughing it
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Originally published over one hundred years ago, "Roughing It" tells the (almost) true story of Mark Twain's rollicking adventures across the United States. A hilarious account of how the author tried finding wealth in the rocks of Nevada, it was published before his most famous works and shows why he would grow to become one of the most beloved American writers of all time. The story follows many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to...
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A memoir of the steamboat era on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War. The first half details a brief history of the river from its discovery by Hernando de Soto in 1541 and describes Twain's career as a Mississippi steamboat pilot, the fulfillment of a childhood dream. The second half of Life on the Mississippi tells of Twain's return, many years after, to travel the river from St. Louis to New Orleans. By then the competition from...
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World's best reading
Everyman's library volume no. 531
American Authors in Prose and Poetry volume 4
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Everyman's library volume no. 531
American Authors in Prose and Poetry volume 4
More Series...
Summary
Collects brief fictional works and legends by the nineteenth-century New England literary master.
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Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant...
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An enduring tale of love, desire, and the universal longing both to leave one's home and to return to it, this novel is one of Hardy's greatest and most affecting works. Hardy's passionately drawn characters and his vivid rendering of their valiant but ultimately ineffective struggle in destiny's web result in a masterpiece of melancholy brilliance.
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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..."...
9) Kim
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Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...
10) The Virginian
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His background is shadowy, his presence commanding. He brings law and order to a frontier town and wins the love of a pretty schoolteacher from the East. He is the Virginian -- the first fully realized cowboy hero in American literature, a near-mythic figure whose idealized image has profoundly influenced our national consciousness. This enduring work of fiction marks his first appearance in popular culture -- the birth of a legend that lives with...
11) The sea wolf
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A thrilling epic of a sea voyage and a complex novel of ideas. The Sea Wolf is a standard-bearer of its genre. The vivid story of a gentleman scholar's rescue and subsequent ordeal at the hands of a hunting schooner's brutal captain and devious crew. It remains one of Jack London's finest achievements.
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In this classic adventure novel, first published in 1873, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a 20,000 pound wager set by his friends at the Reform Club - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman and his manservant immediately set off.
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The RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES relates several of Holmes' adventures where he confronts many an odious character ... The eponymous blackmail artist in THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON, is requested to call at 221B Baker Street, where we find that Holmes has been hired by Lady Eva Blackwell to retrieve some compromising letters ... And in THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ, Inspector Stanley Hopkins visits Holmes and tells him of the murder...
14) Howard's End
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The disregard of a dying woman's bequest, a girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage of an idealist and a materialist intersect at an estate called Howards End. There, the lives of three families become entangled. The Wilcoxes, who own the estate, are a wealthy family who made their fortune in the American colonies. The Schlegel siblings-Margaret, Helen, and Tibby-are lively socialites whose spirited and active lifestyles are...
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In this hard-hitting novel, first published in 1924, the murky personal relationship between an Englishwoman and an Indian doctor mirrors the troubled politics of colonialism. Adela Quested and her fellow British travelers, eager to experience the "real" India, develop a friendship with the urbane Dr. Aziz. While on a group outing, Adela and Dr. Aziz visit the Marabar caves together. As they emerge, Adela accuses the doctor of assaulting her. While...
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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.
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"[T]hree men embark on an epic journey under the sea with the mysterious Captain Nemo aboard his submarine the Nautilus. Over the course of their fantastical voyage, they encounter the lost city of Atlantis, the South Pole and the corals of the Red Sea, and must battle countless adversaries both human and monstrous."--
19) Moby Dick
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?Call me Ishmael? is the iconic opening line of Herman Melville?s classic American novel, Moby-Dick. Ishmael is a seaman aboard the whaling vessel, Pequod, under the vengeful captain, Ahab. Maniacally seeking retribution from the great white sperm whale called Moby-Dick--the whale responsible for the captain?s missing leg--Ahab leads the crew on a quest to kill the infamous beast.
20) The good earth
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Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer prize-winning novel of a China that was now in a contemporary classics edition. Though more than sixty years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there, " wrote Pearl Buck. In the Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when the...