Wordsworth classics | Park County Library System

Author

Earliest Publication Date

2014

Summary

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos produced "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", or "Dangerous Liaisons", in an effort to "write a work which departed from the ordinary, which made a noise, and which would remain on this earth after his death". He did just that. First published in 1782 in four volumes, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" was an immediate success, and has since inspired a large number of literary commentaries, plays, and films. The novel is an epistolary piece,...

2) David Copperfield

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1907

Summary

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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.

3) Emma

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1948

Summary

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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...

4) Macbeth

Author

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616

Earliest Publication Date

1909

Summary

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Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

5) Northanger Abbey

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1950

Summary

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"Northanger Abbey is a novel written by Jane Austen and published posthumously in 1818. The story follows the journey of Catherine Morland, a young and naive girl from a rural family, as she travels to Bath with some family friends. There, she meets Henry Tilney, a charming and witty gentleman, and his sister, Eleanor. Catherine is invited to stay at their family home, Northanger Abbey, where she imagines it to be a gothic mansion full of secrets...

6) Our mutual friend

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1922

Summary

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John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...

7) The complete Richard Hannay stories

Author

Buchan, John, 1875-1940

Earliest Publication Date

2010

8) The Life and adventures of Robinson Crusoe: written by himself

Author

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731

Earliest Publication Date

2000

9) The pickwick papers

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1911

Summary

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The Pickwick Club was founded by the most learned minds in London for the purpose of making a scientific tour of the world. No sooner have the distinguished members begun their historic journey than they are set upon by a charming but notorious con man. So begins a series of hilarious misadventures that takes the incorrigibly innocent Pickwicks wandering around England, coming in contact with some of the most colorful and comical characters in all...

10) Uncle Tom's cabin, or, Negro life in the slave states of America

Author

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896

Earliest Publication Date

2002