Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures, accidentally witnessing a murder, establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused, as well as being hunted by Injun Joe, the true murderer, eventually escaping and finding the treasure that Joe had buried. Huckleberry Finn recounts the further adventures of Huck, who runs away from a drunken and brutal father, and meets up with the escaped slave Jim. They float down the Mississippi on a raft, participating in the lives of the characters they meet, witnessing corruption, moral decay and intellectual impoverishment. Sharing so much in background and character, these two stories, the best of Twain, indisputably belong together in one volume. Though originally written as adventure stories for young people, the vivid writing provides a profound commentary on provincial American life in the mid-ninetee
‘I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot’，Virginia Woolf stated of her eighth novel，The Waves。 Widely regarded as one of her greatest and most original works，it conveys the rhythms of life in synchrony with the cycle of nature and the passage of time。 Six children-Bernard，Susan，Rhoda，Neville，Jinny and Louis-meet in a garden close to the sea，their voices sounding over the constant echo of the waves that roll back and forth from the shore。 The subsequent continuity of these six main characters，as they develop from childhood to maturity and follow different passions and ambitions，is interspersed with interludes from the timeless and unifying chorus of nature。 In pure stream-of-consciousness style，Woolf presents a cross-section of multiple yet parallel lives，each marked by the disintegrating force of a mutual tragedy。 The Waves is her searching exploration of individual and collective identity，and the observations and emotions of life，from the simplicity and surgin
What's the truth behind the legend of the hound of theBaskervilles? Is it really a devil-beast that's haunting the lonelymoors? Enter Sherlock Holmes to find the answer, in this, the onlyfull-length novel ever written by the creator of one of the mostpopular and enduring detective series ever written.
The science fiction stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stand alongside those of Jules Verne and H。G。Wells。The protagonist， the cave-man in a lounge suit， is the maddening， irascible and fascinating Professor George Edward Challenger。 The stories range from The Lost World，a sort of Jurassic Park，high above the Amazon rain-forest，to the ecologically significant When the World Screamed。Other fine examples of Doyle's imagination at its best are The Land of Mist and The Disintegration Machine。 This collection is a must for all readers who love science fiction and for those who are interested in the early development of the genre。
‘Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security', lane Austen's sardonic humour lays bare the stratagems, the hypocrisy and the poignancy inherent in the struggles of two very different sisters to achieve respectability. Sense and Sensibility is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two qualities. Elinor's character is one of Augustan detachment, while Marianne, a fervent disciple of the Romantic Age, learns to curb her passionate nature in the interests of survival. This book, the first of Austen's novels to be published,remains as fresh a cautionary tale today as it ever was.
Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm。 His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it，despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health。 But Dombey also has a daughter，whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned。 'Girls' said Mr Dombey，'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son'。 When Walter Gay，a young clerk in her father's office，rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London，his unforgettable friends believe he is well on his way to receiving her hand in marriage and inheriting the company。 It is to be a very different type of story。 Dombey and Son moved grown men to tears （Thackeray despaired of‘Writing against such power as this’），but its rich，comic characters and their joyful explosions of language draw laughter with equally ujnerring magic。
Based on Charlotte Bronte's personal experience as a teacher in Brussels. Villette is a moving tale of repressed feelings and subjection to cruel circumstance and position, borne with heroic fortitude. Rising above the frustrations of confinement within a rigid social order, it is also a story of a woman’s right to love and be loved.
The Time Machine (1895) and The Invisible Man (1897) are now more than a century old. Yet they endure as literarytexts, radio plays, and movies, because they appeal directly to twoof our deepest desires: immortality and omnipotence. The timemachine would allow us to escape death and gain knowledge of thefate of the earth, while invisibility would enable us to go andcome as we please, under the noses of friends and enemies. At thesame time, both fictions show us the dangers of fulfilled wishes:The Time Traveller discovers the future of humanity is not brightbut hideously dark, while the Invisible Man drowns in the madnessbrought about by his own experimentation. Of course, what Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) wanted to expressin these fantasies and what generations of readers have made ofthem are two radically different things. Erroneously labeled“science fiction,” and tricked out in their film versions with allkinds of fanciful devices with flashing lights and ominous buzzersWells never mentions
The incomparable Miriam Margolyes applies her story-telling and histrionic gifts to this classic satire of two young English women,one bad but clever and the other good but stupid,who come to no good during the Napoleonic Wars.The abridgers have cut a bit too much at the expense of the characterizations.Although sounding somewhat forced,Margolyes,as always,gives an excellent performance.Y.R. AudioFile 2001,Portland,Maine——Copyright AudioFile,Portland,Maine ——This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Agnes Grey is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-nineteenth century. This is a deeply personal novel written from the author's own experience and as such Agnes Grey has a power and poignancy which mark it out as a landmark work of literature dealing with the social and moral evolution of English society during the last century.
Written and privately published in Florence in 1928, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was denied unexpurgated publication in England until 1960. D.H Lawrence’s uncompromisingly candid novel deals in poetic and sexually explicit language with the passionate relationship between Lady Constance Chatterley and her husband’s powerfully masculine gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. Trapped in a marriage, which has become sterile and joyless since her husband’s return from the trenches partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Connie seizes the chance of sexual fulfilment she had thought lost forever. Sir Clifford Chatterley is enlightened enough to allow Connie a measure of freedom, but when, pregnant with Mellors’ child, she confesses to the affair, the reality of her association with his gamekeeper is more than he can bear. A watershed in twentieth-century literary fiction because of its sensational content, the novel has earned for itself an enduring readership and lasting notoriety.
Dickens's first historical novel is set against the infamous ‘No Popery' riots that were instigated by lord George Gordon in 1780, and terrorised London for days. Prejudice, intolerance, misplaced religious and nationalistic fervour, together with the villains who would exploit these for political ends, are Dickens's targets. His vivid account of the riots at the heart of the novel is interwoven with the mysterious tale of a long unsolved murder, and a romance that combines forbidden love, passion, treachery and heroism. A typically rich cast of comic characters from the snivelling Miss Miggs and the posturing Simon Tappertit to the half-witted Barnaby Rudge of the title ensures high entertainment.
The Turn of the Screw is the classic ghost story for which Henry James is best remembered。Set in an English country house，it is a chlilling tale of the supernaural told by a master of the genre。 The Aspern Papers in a tale of Americans in Europe，a theme in which Henry James is at his most assurd and accomplished。The author cleverly evokes the drama of the comedie humaine against the majestic of a VVenetian Palace。
Mary Lennox was horrid Selfish and spoilt, shewas sent to stay with her hunchback uncle inYorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the way into a secretgarden and begins to tend it, a change comesover her and her life. She meets and befriends alocal boy, the talented Dickon, and comes acrossher sickly cousin Colin who had been kepthidden from her. Between them, the threechildren work astonishing magic in themselvesand those around them. The Secret Garden is one of the best-lovedstories of all time.
With an Introduction by Richard Jenseth, St Lawrence University The Red Badge of Courage is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It reports on the American Civil War through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy turned soldier. It evokes the chaos and the dull clatter of war: the acrid smoke, the incessant rumours of coming battles, the filth and cold, the numbing monotony, the unworldly wailing of the dying. Like an impressionist painter, Crane also captures the strange beauty of war: the brilliant red flags against a blue sky, steel bayonets flashing in the morning sun as soldiers step off into battle. In the midst of this chaotic outer world, he creates an intricate inner world as he takes us inside the head of Henry Fleming.
Henry James's last completed novel，The Golden Bowl，is the story of two flawed marriages. The lives and relationships of Maggie Verver and her widowed American millionaire father，Adam，are changed and challenged by the beautiful and charming Charlotte Stant，who is the former lover of Maggie's husband，the impoverished Italian，Prince Amerigo. The narrative is underpinned by complex symbolism. The gilded crystal bowl with its almost invisible flaw is the vehicle which James uses to reveal past misdemeanours and make his characters face their own defects in this classic tale of redemption.
The original vampire Since its publication in 1897, Dracula continues to terrify readerswith its depiction of a vampire with an insatiable thirst for bloodand the group of hunters determined to end his existence before hedestroys a young woman's soul.
The classic story of kindness, love, honor and poverty is not as depressing as some of Hugo's other works. Its historical sweep, during the brewing of the French Revolution, is large, and its emotional sweep even larger. British actor Michael York throws his considerable histrionic skills into the task--each character is carefully articulated, both by tone and pacing. Having played classic French characters before--notably D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers and its sequel--York knows how to manipulate scene and feeling in this type of ambiance, and he performs effortlessly and superbly. D.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm。 His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it，despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health。 But Dombey also has a daughter，whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned。 'Girls' said Mr Dombey，'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son'。 When Walter Gay，a young clerk in her father's office，rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London，his unforgettable friends believe he is well on his way to receiving her hand in marriage and inheriting the company。 It is to be a very different type of story。 Dombey and Son moved grown men to tears （Thackeray despaired of‘Writing against such power as this’），but its rich，comic characters and their joyful explosions of language draw laughter with equally ujnerring magic。
Library Journal praised this edition of Sherwood Anderson's famed short stories as "the finest edition of this seminal work available." Reconstructed to be as close to the original text as possible, Winesburg, Ohio depicts the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Hidden passions inform and shape the lives of the residents of a placid, archetypal ,small American, town, in a series of stories that has become a classic of American literature. Reissue. From the Inside Flap Before Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Richard Ford, th
This collection of 100 of O Henry’s finest stories is a showcase for the sheer variety of one of America’s best and best-loved short story writers。 The variety of the stories is amazing; O Henry is as at home describing life south of the Rio Grande as he is chronicling the activities and concerns of ’the four million’ ordinary citizens who inhabited turn--of-the-century New York。They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humour that have made O Henry’s stories popular for the last century。
