Top Five Classics | Park County Library System

1) A Christmas carol

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1913

Summary

"In one of the most popular holiday stories of all time, meet Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who hates Christmas and all the people asking for money that the holiday brings. One fateful Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, who warns him about the consequences of his path of greed. This visit is followed by appearances from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, bearing their own messages...

2) Carry on Jeeves

Author

Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975

Earliest Publication Date

1957

Summary

First published in 1925, "Carry On, Jeeves" is P. G. Wodehouse's third collection of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster stories. All of the stories included in this volume first appeared in periodicals like the "Saturday Evening Post" including some that are reworked versions of stories that appeared in the 1919 collection "My Man Jeeves". In this volume, readers will find some of Wodehouse's most famous tales of the hapless and wealthy Bertie, his equally...

Author

Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912

Earliest Publication Date

1897

Summary

First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compare and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name "Dracula" has been synonymous with the Undead for at least a century, and the original novels till has the power to chill. Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts...

4) Edgar Allan Poe: complete tales and poems

Author

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849

Earliest Publication Date

2012

Summary

This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems features all 157 Poe works, including all of his short stories and poems. 69 Tales, including: • The Tell-Tale Heart • The Murders in the Rue Morgue • The Fall of the House of Usher • The Masque of the Red Death • The Pit and the Pendulum • The Purloined Letter • The Black Cat • Hop-Frog • The Cask of Amontillado 74 Poems, including: •...

5) Emma

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1948

Summary

"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...

6) Great expectations

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

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...

Author

Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855

Earliest Publication Date

1933

Summary

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Charlotte Bronte's novel about the passionate love between Jane Eyre, a young girl alone in the world, and the rich, brilliant, domineering Rochester has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic, ever since...

Author

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891

Earliest Publication Date

1926

Summary

?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.

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1976

Summary

"Don't let anyone tell you how to live or who to love. Of all of Jane Austen's great and delightful novels, Persuasion is widely regarded as the most moving. It is the story of a second chance. Anne Elliot, daughter of the snobbish Sir Walter Elliot, is a woman of quiet charm and deep feeling. At nineteen, she fell in love with and became engaged to a stubborn and fearless naval officer, Captain Wentworth. But the young man had no fortune and Anne...

10) Pride and prejudice

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1917

Summary

Pride and Prejudice, one of the most famous love stories of all time, has also proven itself as a treasured mainstay of the English literary canon. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and upside down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity. Misconceptions and hasty judgements...

11) Robinson Crusoe

Author

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731

Earliest Publication Date

1920

Summary

"Shipwrecked off the coast of Trinidad, Robinson Crusoe - a young man with a thirst for adventure - finds himself washed up on a remote tropical island with nothing but a few tools and animals for company. Castaway for thirty years, he must battle cannibals, mutineers and the elements in a tale so convincing that many readers at the time believed it to be non-fiction. A true page-turner, Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring novels in the English...

12) Sense and sensibility

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1896

Summary

Jane Austen's first published novel, sparkling with wit and artistry, captures the inequities of birth, class, and marriage faced by the sisters Dashwood. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility has delighted generations of readers with its masterfully crafted portrait of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Forced to leave their home after their father's death, Elinor and Marianne must rely on making good marriages as their means of support....

13) The adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1931

Summary

"The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen In recent years, neither the persistent effort to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel's wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of...

14) The adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930

Earliest Publication Date

1920

Summary

"Deluxe gift edition ... with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, and a silk ribbon bookmark. Discover Sherlock Holmes's most memorable and intriguing cases, including adventures with mysterious masked strangers, ingenious heists, murderous plots, and hidden jewels. From Holmes's lodgings at 221B Baker Street, the famous detective and his faithful sidekick Dr. Watson unravel the shadiest crimes taking place on the streets of London and...

15) The call of the wild ; and, White Fang

Author

London, Jack, 1876-1916

Earliest Publication Date

1905

Summary

"In The Call of the Wild, a dog named Buck is kidnapped from this idyllic California home to work as a sled dog in the unforgiving Alaskan environment. In White Fang, a wolf dog navigates the world of wild animals and the world of humans--finding violence and loyalty in both. These two action-packed stories by Jack London depict the harshness of nature and the powerful drive to survive despite i all."-- Backcover.

16) The case book of Sherlock Holmes

Author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930

Earliest Publication Date

1927

Summary

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson invite their readers to follow their adventures one last time, as they solve more mysteries from the criminal underworld. This last collection about the famous and eccentric duo takes you on an adventure full of mysterious lodgers, missing diamonds, lions, vampires, and lover's quarrels. One last time, let yourself be swept away by the curious cases and Holmes' grandiose talent of deduction. This collection includes:...

17) The complete Sherlock Holmes

Author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930

Earliest Publication Date

1927

Summary

This comprehensive edition collects the most celebrated stories from the Sherlock Holmes canon, along with lesser-known tales that will satisfy completists and new readers alike. Included are all four full-length Holmes novels and more that forty short masterpieces.

18) The hound of the Baskervilles

Author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930

Earliest Publication Date

1902

Summary

A huge, savage dog haunts the Baskerville family and is already responsible for two deaths. Is the fiendish hound a supernatural creature fulfilling an old family curse...or part of a sinister plot to conceal a mysterious secret?

19) The sign of four

Author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930

Earliest Publication Date

2001

Summary

Sherlock Holmes is asked to investigate a series of strange happenings that seem to be related to the disappearance of a man ten years earlier who had come to visit his daughter in London after a long sojourn in India.

20) Wuthering Heights

Author

Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848

Earliest Publication Date

1932

Summary

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...

;