The Cliff
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
David Copperfield is a novel in the bildungsroman genre by Charles Dickens, narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. It was first published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and as a book in 1850.
David Copperfield is also an autobiographical novel: "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events following Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite....
Author
Language
English
Description
An alternative version - the one Tolstoy originally intended, but has been hitherto unpublished - of Russia's most famous novel; with a different ending, fewer digressions and an altered view of Napoleon - it's time to look afresh at one of the world's favorite books. 'War and Peace' is a masterpiece - a panoramic portrait of Russian society and its descent into the Napoleonic Wars which for over a century has inspired reverential devotion among its...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The stunning collection of short fiction that established Nathaniel Hawthorne as one of the most powerful and provocative artists in nineteenth-century America Dr. Heidegger invites four friends to witness an experiment. As the impoverished merchant Mr. Medbourne, the gout-ridden sinner Colonel Killigrew, the ruined politician Mr. Gascoigne, and the aged widow Wycherly watch, Heidegger places an old rose in a vase filled with water drawn from the...
5) Walden
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Walden first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and-to some degree-a manual for self-reliance.
Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months,...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.2 - AR Pts: 12
Language
English
Description
To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue...
7) Pollyanna
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 3.8 - AR Pts: 2
Language
English
Description
In early twentieth-century Vermont, orphaned, eleven-year-old Pollyanna comes to live with her austere and wealthy Aunt Polly, and uses her philosophy of gladness to bring happiness to her aunt and other unhappy members of the community.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In The Pickwick Papers we are introduced not just to one of the greatest writers in the English language, but to some of fiction's most endearing and memorable characters, starting with the illustrious, immortal and colossal-minded Samuel Pickwick himself. It is a rollicking tour do force through an England on the brink of the Victorian era. Reform of government, justice and commercial life are imminent, as are rail travel, social convulsion and...
10) Brave new world
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.5 - AR Pts: 11
Language
English
Formats
Description
A satirical novel about the utopia of the future, a world in which babies are decanted from bottles and the great Ford is worshipped.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lympne because I...
12) Hard times
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Every great hero has an origin story and for the legendary Sherlock Holmes, it was "A Study in Scarlet," Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novel which introduced the world's leading (and only) consulting detective to the reading public. Though not an immediate sensation (the novel was received with moderate acclaim), it has gone on to become one of the most revered detective novels in history and its protagonists - Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes - are...
14) Crome Yellow
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Crome Yellow (1921) is a novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Inspired by his stay at Garsington Manor with members of the Bloomsbury Group, Crome Yellow, Huxley's debut novel, satirizes the society of England's intellectual and political elite. In addition to its autobiographical content, the novel investigates such themes as spirituality, the nature and composition of art, and the fear of a dystopian future.
Invited to spend part of the summer...
15) Political Ideals
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In dark days, men need a clear faith and a well-grounded hope; and as the outcome of these, the calm courage which takes no account of hardships by the way. The times through which we are passing have afforded to many of us a confirmation of our faith. We see that the things we had thought evil are really evil, and we know more definitely than we ever did before the directions in which men must move if a better world is to arise on the ruins of the...
16) Tales of Unrest
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Featuring five works of short fiction from the critically acclaimed author, Joseph Conrad, Tales of Unrest is a fascinating exploration of human struggle and philosophy. Karain: A Memory adopts elements of a traditional ghost story, setting an eerie mood as it explores the duality common among colonial and post-colonial people. The Idiots depict a family driven to murder after a couple stains to raise their intellectually disabled children. With the...
17) The Alchemist
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. However, his reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare. The Theatre in London had had been denied to "The Admiral's Men" in 1597, but the troupe...
Author
Language
English
Description
Here is a charming collection of stories, mostly set in New England in the 1800s, that depict how Christmas was celebrated then.
Seems that Christmas was not always a tree with dozens, if not hundreds, of gifts spread around the tree. Consumerism not being then what it is today, the gift might simply be a letter from a long-missing loved one, or simply the return through a blizzard of a husband who had left only hours ago on a mission of mercy. The...
19) Abraham Lincoln
Author
Language
English
Description
Lincoln's connection to black history may go much further than his role in slavery. In the 2001 book 'Black People and Their Place in History', historian Leroy Vaughn, alleges that Lincoln's father was African American and his mother had Ethiopian ethnicity, both of which may have explained his "very dark skin and coarse hair." The fact is his rivals campaigned using propaganda that depicted Lincoln as "Abraham Africanus the First," an African man.
It...
20) Benito Mussolini
Author
Language
English
Description
"It's better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."
"I am the most terrible animal that's ever existed."
"Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice, it is a fallacy. You in America will see that someday."
"It's good to trust others but, not to do so is much better."
"I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral guidance." (Mussolini)
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, born on July 29, 1883, who went...