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The Count of Monte Cristo is Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of revenge and adventure. The young sailor Dantes is fallaciously charged with treason and loses his fiancé, his dreams and his life when he is locked up for thirteen years on the island prison of Chateau d'If. Mentored by another prisoner, Dantes finally escapes the prison, reinvents himself as the Count of Monte Cristo and begins to exact his revenge on the people who set
...Pride and Prejudice is one of the most beloved novels of all time. Elizabeth Bennett, the book's poverty-bound heroine has charmed readers with her wit and sincerity since the book was first published in 1813. Its hero, the handsome and wealthy Mr. Darcy, infuriates Elizabeth — and women readers around the world — with his rude arrogance, but all fall in love with him anyway.
A comedy of manners, romance, and neighborhood
...Who doesn't love a good mystery novel? Curl up with The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a tale from the pen of Agatha Christie, a writer who is regarded by critics and fans alike as one of the masters of the form. This classic manor-house mystery introduces Christie's much beloved character, the detective Hercule Poirot.
In the puritanical Boston of the 17th Century, a woman gives birth after committing adultery. That woman, Hester Prynne, choses to create a new life for herself in the face of adversity rather than succumb to what is expected of her. She will not name the father. Her decision opens up the tension between religious life and the true grace of God, and between personal guilt, religious sin and legal guilt.
The novel is prefaced by a "real" account
...The itinerant sailor Ishmael begins a voyage on the whaling ship Pequod whose captain, Ahab, wishes to exact revenge upon the whale Moby-Dick, who destroyed his last ship and took his leg. As they search for the savage white whale, Ishmael questions all aspects of life. The story is woven in complex, lyrical language and uses many theatrical forms, such as stage direction and soliloquy. It is considered the exemplar of American Romanticism,
...6) Dracula
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula, may not be the first vampire novel, but it is certainly the most famous. These scenarios couldn't be more different than the conservative Victorian era during which the book was published — though critically praised from the start as being ahead of its time it was not an immediate bestseller.
The story is told through a series of letters recounting a young Jonathan Harker, a lawyer who visits Count
...Originally published in 1826 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer recounts some of Mark Twain's own childhood adventures along the Mississippi River — and introduces us to some of the most memorable characters in all of American literature: Tom Sawyer, Tom's Aunt Polly, his favorite girl Becky Thatcher, and his mischievous friend Huckleberry Finn.
The spirit of this uniquely American book is ultimately tolerant and bold, down to earth and confident.
...Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's early tragedies. The two young title characters fall madly in love, but are the children of feuding houses whose hatred for each other works to a devastating end. The play was immensely popular in Shakespeare's lifetime and is the most enduring of his plays along with Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet is considered one of the archetypal love stories.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz chronicles the adventure of Dorothea in the land of Oz. A cyclone picks her up from her Kansas home, where she lives with her aunt and uncle, and deposits her in the fantastical land. She begins a journey along the yellow brick road to seek help from the Wizard of Oz. On her way she meets her fair share of witches (good and bad) and a scarecrow without a brain, a tinman without a heart and a cowardly lion. They
...10) Black Beauty
Anna Sewell's only published novel, Black Beauty, is an extraordinary classic that deals with animal life and focuses on the importance of good animal treatment. The idea of writing a book about animal rights has been inspired by Sewell's own physical disability which has made her dependent on horse-drawn transportation. The narrator in Black Beauty is himself a personified horse who tells his life story and describes the world through his own
...The Woman in White is credited with being the first of the sensation novels, and one of the finest examples of the genre. A young woman's husband defrauds her of her fortune, her identity and eventually her sanity. She is saved by her sister and a loyal man who loves her, and her two rescuers attempt to expose her husband. They meet a woman dressed all in white whose fate seems curiously intertwined with that of the young woman. In the tradition
...The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.
When Death has a story to tell, you listen.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never...
13) Don Quixote
Brimming with romance and adventure, Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote is considered by many to be the greatest work in the Spanish literary canon. Both humane and humorous, the two volume oeuvre centres on the adventures of the self-styled knight errant Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Quixote's credulous and chubby squire. Together the unlikely pair of heroes bumble their way from one bizarre adventure to another fueled in their quests by Quixote's
...14) Ulysses
James Joyce's novel Ulysses is said to be one of the most important works in Modernist literature. It details Leopold Bloom's passage through Dublin on an ordinary day: June 16, 1904. Causing controversy, obscenity trials and heated debates, Ulysses is a pioneering work that brims with puns, parodies, allusions, stream-of-consciousness writing and clever structuring. Modern Library ranked it as number one on its list of the twentieth
...15) Animal Farm
George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution has become an intimate part of our contemporary culture, with its treatment of democratic, fascist, and socialist ideals through an animal fable.
The animals of Mr. Jones's Manor Farm are overworked, mistreated, and desperately seeking a reprieve. In their quest to create an idyllic society where justice and equality reign, the animals of Manor Farm revolt against their human rulers,
...Recently the basis for a major motion picture starring Hollywood golden boy Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was written in 1922 by the golden boy of early twentieth-century American fiction, F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of such era-defining masterworks as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. The tale follows the travails and triumphs of the title character, who is born in the body of an elderly man and becomes
...17) Macbeth
Macbeth is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and one of his best-known plays. Often referred to as an archetypal tale, it warns against lust for power and the betrayal of friends. Shakespeare based the play loosely on a King Macbeth of Scotland. The play is traditionally considered "cursed", and thus many actors refer to it as "The Scottish Play" to avoid naming it.
Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were—Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. Mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother Mrs. Rabbit who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collects Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first twelve short stories about his famous London detective. It begins with the first meeting of Holmes and his sidekick Watson, who narrates the stories. Doyle was the first to employ the sidekick technique, thereby creating a character in just as much suspense and awe as his readership at the mental escapades of the erratic, terrifyingly intelligent Holmes.
A cautionary tale wrapped up in a Christmas bow, Charles Dickens' novella, A Christmas Carol, has touched readers for decades with its study of moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge, who on Christmas Eve is forced to examine his bitter, greedy life with help from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
Through the Ghosts Scrooge sees all of the opportunities he has missed, all the unhappiness he has created, and all the misery and tragedy
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