Jonathan Swifts classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726. seven, years after Defoes Robinson Crusoe (one of its few rivals in fame and breadth of appeal). As a parody travel-memoir it reports on extraordinary lands and societies, whose names have entered the English language: notably the minute inhabitants of Lilliput the giants of Brobdingnag, and the Yahoos in Houyhnhnmland. where talking horses are the dominant species. It spares no vested interest from its irreverent wit. and its attacks on political and financial corruption, as well as abuses in science, continue to resonate in our own times.
Deepest night, Montana. An eerie light proclaims the arrival ofa mysterious watcher in the woods. And one solitary man begins adesperate battle against something unknown -- and unknowable. Broad daylight, Los Angeles. An ordinary morningerupts in cataclysmic violence. A young family is shattered in aheartbeat. Fate will lead this family to an isolatedMontana ranch, but their sanctuary will become their worstnightmare. For there they will face a chillingly ruthless enemy,from which no one -- living or dead -- is safe.
Con Vallian knew the best way to stay out of trouble was to mindhis own business. Then he stopped for a cup of coffee at astranger's campfire and found himself guiding a family ofgreenhorns across the prairie -- fighting a pack of rustlers on onehand and some mighty unpredictable Indians on the other!
It is a Wednesday in mid-June 1923 andMrs Dalleway is to have a party. As Shespends the day in preparation, worryingabout the evening's success, she looks backover her life at the choices that have led herhere. Then an unexpected visitor calls ... PENGUIN POPULAR CLASSICS are the per-fect introduction to the world-famousPENGUIN CLASSICS series - which en-compasses the best books ever written,from Homer's Odyssey to Orwelrs 1984and everything in between. For a full listand ideas on what to read next, visitwww.penguinclassics.com
Born into poverty and obscurity, DavidCopperfield fights hard to find his place inlife. Only the intercession of a stern butkindly aunt sets him out on the road to goodfortune, but it is a route lined with roguesand friends in equal measure. PENGUIN POPULAR CLASSICS are the per-fect introduction to the world-famousPENGUIN CLASSICS series - which en-compasses the best books ever written,from Homer's Odyssey to OrweJi's 1984and everything in between. For a full listand ideas on what to read next, isitwww.penguinclassics.com
None of the great Victorian novels is more vivid and readable than The Mayor of Casterbridge. Set in theheart of Hardy's Wessex. the partly real, partly dreamcotintry' he founded on his native Dorset, it charts therise and self-induced downfall of a single man ofcharacter. The fast-moving and ingeniously contrivednarrative is Shakespearian in its tragic force, andfeatures some of the authors most striking episodesand brilliant passages of de*ion.
Set during the Napoleonic wars, Vanity Fair (1847-8) famously satirizes worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, pampered child of a rich City merchant. Despite the differences in their fortunes and characters, they find their lives entangled from childhood. As Becky's maneuvering ingratiates her with high society, the financial ruin of Amelia's father forces Amelia into poverty. Destiny, of course, has further adventures in store for both women, whose lives Thackeray (1811-63) uses as theatres for the whims and foibles of their contemporaries. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 作者简介： WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born in India to a long line of Yorkshire gentry recently mixed with equally ancient gentry. In 1817, two years after the death of his father a prosperous official of the East India Company, the boy was sent back to England. There he underwent
Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert"s contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist"s meticulous account of provincial manners. For the writer,subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert s protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Rornantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protestor against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert s admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert s meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of mode
Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into thewoods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were neverseen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, twodecades later, they are about to change again. For Paul Copeland,the county prosecutor of Essex, New Jersey, grief at the loss ofhis sister has only recently begun to subside. Cope, as he isknown, is now dealing with raising his 6-year old daughter aloneafter his wife has died of cancer. Balancing family life and arapidly ascending career as a prosecutor distract him from his pasttraumas, but only for so long. When a homicide victim is found withevidence linking him to Cope, the well-buried secrets of theprosecutor's family are threatened. Is this body one of the camperswho disappeared with his sister? Could his sister be alive? Copehas to confront so much he left behind that summer 20 years ago:his first love, Lucy, his mother who abandoned the family, and thesecrets that his parents might have been hiding even fro
50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world’s finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O’Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common–the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world’s fiction. 作者简介： Milton Crane is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at George Washington University and the University of Chicago. His is the author several books and articles on English literature, as well as the editor of the Bantam anthology, 50 Great American Short Stories.
Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land -- the Polynesian island of Puka Puka. Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of daring and courage -- a magnificent saga of men against the sea. Washington Square Press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Kon-Tiki has been prepared by an editorial committee headed by Harry Shefter, professor of English
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- 19
ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP. A timeless, terrifying tale of one man's obsession to create life -- and the monster that became his legacy. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information； A chronology of the author's life and work； A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context； An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations； Detailed explanatory notes； Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work； Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction； A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience. Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics
Exiled by superstition and betrayal from Lantern Yard, and cut off from faith and human love, for fifteen years the solitary simple-hearted weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom in Raveloe and devoted himself to the amassing of a hoard of golden guineas. Silas's chance of redemption, when it appears one New Year's Eve, is intimately connected with the fate of Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire. Clandestinely married, then blackmailed by his dissolute brother Dunstan, Godfrey like Silas has been trapped by his past, from which he is seeking to escape. Humorous, richly symbolic, subtly characterized and meticulously plotted, George Eliot's 'sudden inspiration' in this slim novel of rural England cut across her plans for Romola, her vast Italian Renaissance epic.
In The Sackett Brand, Louis L'Amour spins the story of acourageous man who must face overwhelming odds to track down akiller. Tell Sackett and his bride Ange came to Arizona to build ahome and start a family. But on Black Mesa something goes terriblywrong. Tell is ambushed and badly injured. When he finally managesto drag himself back to where he left Ange, she is gone. Desperate,cold, hungry, and with nothing to defend himself, Tell is stalkedlike a wounded animal. Hiding from his attackers, his rage andfrustration mount as he tries to figure out who the men are, whythey are trying to kill him, and what has happened to his wife.Discovering the truth will be risky. And when he finally does, itwill be their turn to run.
...that was the way Jack London saw life, and the more he lived it the more enamored of it he became. "All I saw," he once wrote, "was glamor of conquest, of scarlet adventure and yellow gold. ...The life was brave and wild, and I was living the adventure I had read so much about." Brilliant, poetic, swift with violence and action, his stories clearly illustrate the unique spirit of his unbridled genius. Critics admitted that the young firebrand -- "while frightfully primitive" -- was challenging Poe, Kipling and Melville as a one-in-a-million storyteller. The tales in this volume have been thrilling readers for nearly half a century.
A word from Louis L'Amour: " Almost forty years ago, when myfiction was being published exclusively in 'pulp' westernmagazines, I wrote several novel-length stories, which my editorscalled 'magazine novels'. In creating them, I became so involvedwith my characters that their lives were still as much a part of meas I was of them long after the issues in which they appearedbecame collector's items. Pleased as I was about how I brought thecharacters and their adventures to life in the pages of themagazines, I still wanted the reader to know more about my peopleand why they did what they did. So, over the years, I revised andexpanded these magazine works into fuller-length novels that Ipublished in paperback under other titles. " These particular earlymagazine versions of my books have long been a source of greatspeculation and curiosity among many of my readers, so much so oflate, that I'm now pleased to collect three of them into book formfor the first time. " I hope you enjoy them."
A Tdle of Two Cities(1859) Dickens greatest historical novel, traces the private ires of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dickens based his historical detail on Carlyles great work - The French Revolution - and also on his own observations and investigations during numerous visits to Paris. The best story have written was Dickens own verdict on A Tale of Two Cities. and the reader is cinlikely to disagree with this judgement of a story which combines historical tact with the authors unsurpassed genius for poignant tales of human suffering,self-sacrifice, and redemption.
The Brothers Grimm rediscovered a host of fairy tales, telling of princes and princesses in their castles, witches in their towers and forests, of giants and dwarfs, of fabulous animals and dark deeds. This selection of their tales was made and translated by Lucy Crane, and includes firm favourites such as Rapunzel, The Goose Girl, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White. It is Illustrated throughout by Walter Crane's charming line drawings.
Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor takes center stage inbestseller Kellerman's elaborate, suspenseful, albeit improbable,thriller. Connor, who assisted Kellerman's main series detective,psychologist Alex Delaware, in 2003's A Cold Heart, proves anengaging protagonist, fully capable of carrying a story on her own.She's investigating a seemingly random drive-by shooting thatclaimed four teenage victims when a precocious 22-year-old graduatestudent intern, Isaac Gomez, presents her with evidence that aserial killer has struck on the same day, June 28, every year forthe past six years. Though his proof relies entirely on astatistical analysis he's performed, his unquestioned brillianceprompts Connor to do a little extracurricular digging that turns upsuggestive clues supporting Gomez's theory. Meanwhile, afterdoggedly pursuing even the slightest lead in the drive-by shootingcase, Connor suspects that one of the victims, perhaps the one whowasn't claimed by any next-of-kin, was deliberately targeted. While
The Mill on the Floss, based on George Eliot's own experiences of provincial life, is a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age. As the headstrong Maggie Tulliver grows intowomanhood, the deep love which she has for her brother Tom turns into conflict, because she cannot reconcile his bourgeois standards withher own lively intelligence. Maggie is unable to adapt to her community or break free from it, and the result, on more than one level is tragedy.
Who will be with you in the darkesthour? Amy Redwing has devoted her life to rescuing dogs. But the uniquebond she shares with Nickie, a golden retriever she saves in themost dangerous encounter of her life, is deeper than any she hasever known. In one night, their loyalty will be put to the test,and each will prove to the other how far they will go – when thestakes turn deadly serious.
