Tantor unabridged classics | Park County Library System

Author

Verne, Jules, 1828-1905

Earliest Publication Date

1962

Summary

"Professor Aronnax sets off in search of a giant sea monster, only to find the monster is really a steel-plated submarine. Captured by the mysterious Captain Nemo, Aronnax witnesses the exploration of the Nautilus, the remarkable submarine Nemo has invented. But Aronnax comes to learn that Nemo is near insanity and must escape. It's an incredible journey into a mysterious world of excitement and danger!"--Page 4 of cover

2) Anne of Green Gables

Author

Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud), 1874-1942

Earliest Publication Date

1908

Summary

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"Anne of Green Gables' tells the tale of a little red headed orphaned girl, mistakenly sent to the Cuthbert's' farm on Prince Edward Island. Anne's strong character and vivid imagination both help and hinder her as she makes her way through childhood in the pretty little town of Avonlea. This early work by Lucy Maud Montgomery was originally published in 1908 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. Lucy Maud Montgomery...

3) A room with a view

Author

Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970

Earliest Publication Date

1922

Summary

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This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the...

4) Around the world in 80 days

Author

Verne, Jules, 1828-1905

Earliest Publication Date

1905

Summary

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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.

5) Desert gold

Author

Grey, Zane, 1872-1939

Earliest Publication Date

1941

Summary

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"A border town like Casita is no place for a drifter--especially a rich man's son looking for adventure. From the moment Dick Gale steps into this stinking, sun-baked hellhole of gambling and corruption, revolution, and revenge, he gets more than a bargained for. His old friend Thorne is in love with a beautiful senorita who has been targeted by the Mexican rebel Rojas. A bold, sneering devil of a man, feared, envied, and idolized by his people, Rojas...

6) Far from the madding crowd

Author

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

Earliest Publication Date

1895

Summary

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'I hate to be thought men's property in that way'. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her confident presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and when tragedy ensues,...

7) Great expectations

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1939

Summary

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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...

8) Hard times

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1951

Summary

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"Hard Times is perhaps the archetypal Dickens novel, full as it is with family difficulties, estrangement, rotten values and unhappiness. It was published in 1854 and it is the story of the family of Thomas Gradgrind, and occurs in the imaginary Coketown, an industrial city inspired by Preston. Gradgrind is a man obsessed with misguided 'Utilitarian' values that make him trust facts, statistics and practicality more than emotion and is based upon...

9) Kidnapped

Author

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894

Earliest Publication Date

1932

Summary

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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.

10) Kim

Author

Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

Earliest Publication Date

1901

Summary

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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...

11) Little men

Author

Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888

Earliest Publication Date

1913

Summary

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With two young sons of her own, and twelve rescued orphan boys filling the unusual school at Plumfield, Jo March now Mrs Jo Bhaer couldn't be happier. But the boys have a habit of getting into scrapes, and their mischievous antics call for the warm and affectionate support of the whole March family to help avoid disaster.

12) Little women

Author

Alcott, Louisa May, 1832-1888

Earliest Publication Date

1915

Summary

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For generations, children around the world have come of age with Louisa May Alcott's March girls: hardworking eldest sister Meg, headstrong, impulsive Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. With their father away at war, and their loving mother Marmee working to support the family, the four sisters have to rely on one another for support as they endure the hardships of wartime and poverty. We witness the sisters growing up and figuring out what role...

13) Madame Bovary

Author

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880

Earliest Publication Date

1902

Summary

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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...

14) Oliver Twist

Author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870

Earliest Publication Date

1941

Summary

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Adentures of an orphan boy who lives in the squalid surroundings of a nineteenth-century English workhouse until he becomes involved with a gang of thieves.

15) O pioneers!

Author

Cather, Willa, 1873-1947

Earliest Publication Date

1933

Summary

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"O Pioneers! (1913) is the story of Alexandra Bergson, a fiercely independent and clear-headed young woman whose passionate faith in the Nebraska prairie makes her a wealthy landowner." "Willa Cather's second novel is imbued with the democratic utopianism of Walt Whitman and the serene regionalism of Sarah Orne Jewett, but it is not merely an elegy for the lost glories of America's pioneer past. In its rage for order and efficiency, O pioneers! also...

16) Persuasion

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1976

Summary

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"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...

17) Peter Pan

Author

Barrie, J. M. (James Matthew), 1860-1937

Earliest Publication Date

1950

Summary

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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...

18) Pride and prejudice

Author

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817

Earliest Publication Date

1917

Summary

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When Elizabeth Bennet meets Fitzwilliam Darcy for the first time at a ball, she writes him off as an arrogant and obnoxious man. He not only acts like an insufferable snob, but she also overhears him rejecting the very idea of asking her for a dance! As life pits them against each other again and again, Darcy begins to fall for Elizabeth's wit and intelligence and Elizabeth begins to question her feelings about Darcy. But when Darcy saves her youngest...

19) Riders of the purple sage

Author

Grey, Zane, 1872-1939

Earliest Publication Date

1905

Summary

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Mormon elders in the town of Cottonwoods pressure the widow Jane Withersteen to remarry so that her lands and herds will remain in their control. Gradually they frighten away most of her cowboys, and rustlers steal away her cattle, but the gunfighter Lassiter stands by her as the inevitable confrontation draws near.

20) Roughing it

Author

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

Earliest Publication Date

1872

Summary

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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...