Here is the beloved, high-adventure story of David Balfour,whose uncle cheats him out of his inheritance and has him kidnappedand sold into slavery. An odyssey ensues, including a shipwreck,narrow escapes, and desperate fighting.
Tender is the Night is a story set in tile hedonistic high society of Europe during the 'Roaring Twenties'.A wealthy schizophrenic. Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. Tile resulting saga of the Divers troubled marriage and their circle of friends.includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people.unhappy love affairs, a duel. incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstronl of interpersona conflict. Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth which springs frorn the quality of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the book is based.
With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story 'Family Happiness', Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In 'The Kreutzer Sonata' he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in 'The Devil' a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality.
‘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.
With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Patsy Stoneman, University of Hull Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs - of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundred and fifty years later: the complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes.
Introduction and Notes by Ian F.A. Bell. Professor of English Literature. University of Keele Washington Square marks the culmination of James's apprentice period as a novelist. With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870s, a period of great change in the life of the city. This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s, similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion. Through the relationships between Austin Sloper, a celebrated physician, and his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and Catherine's suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression.
Indisputably the greatest fiction detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes lives on-in films, on television, and, of course, through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's inimitable craft. These 22 stories show Holmes at his brilliant best.
What does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she manoeuvres in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love Captain Wentworth did in the wars. Even though she is nearly thirty, well past the sell-by bloom of youth, Austen makes her win out for herself and for others like herself, in a regenerated society.
Introduction and Notes by David Blair. University of Kent at Canterbury It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawk-eye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe. Cooper’s novel is full of vivid incident- pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality- but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the
Cervantes’tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant,tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squire, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the "books of chivalry", this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. On his "heroic" journey Don Quixote meets characters of every class and condition, from the prostitute Maritornes, who is commended for her Christian charity, to the Knight of the Green Coat,who seems to embody some of the constraints of virtue. Cervantes’ greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels, an suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out
‘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
The brutal world of the Klondike miners and their dogs is brilliantly evoked and Jack London's rendering of the sentient life of Buck and White Fang as they confront their destiny is en-thralling and convincing.The deeper resonance of these stories derives from the author's use of the myth of the hero who survives by strength and courage,a powerful myth that still appeals to our collective unconsceious.
So begins the ageless epic of Aeneas and his men, who areseemingly destined to wander the ancient world endlessly, theplaythings of wrathful gods. Fleeing the ruins of Troy, Aeneas mustfight his battles with little notion that Jupiter has ordained thatthe Trojan champion shall promulgate a race that will be theforebears of Rome.
The epic tale of a young man's quest to capture a hidden treasure on the open seas -- one of the best-loved adventure stories of all time. 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 interactio;n 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 enables readers to appreciate, understand, and en
The life and times of Everyone's favorite thief Filled with action, villains, and surprises, the legend lives on.Days of old bursting with pageantry, knights, and beautiful maidensreturn in a superb edition of this favorite classic story.
One of the great classics of Western literature,Les Miserables is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical de*ion. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean. the street urchin Gavroche.the rascal Thenardier. the implacable detective lavert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosotte, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis persoae. The reader is also treated to the unforgettable de*ions of the Battle of Waterloo and Valjean's flight through the Paris sewers.
在线阅读本书 Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for cruelexperiments, finds a deserted island where he can create hideouscreatures with manlike intelligence. But as the rigid order onMoreau's island dissolves, the consequences of his experimentsemerge-and his creations revert to beasts more shocking than naturecould devise.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the classic detective chiller. It features the world's greatest detective,Sherlock Holmes,in his most challenging case. The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast with blazing eyes and dripping jaws'which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated gaskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Now the hound seems to be stalking young Sir Henry,the new master of the Baskerville estate. Is this fiendish spectre the manifestation of the family curse?Or is Sir Henry the victim of a vile and scheming murderer?Only Sherlock Holmes can solve this devilish affair. The Hound of the Baskervilles is introduced by David Stuart Davies,Editor of Sherlock Holmes-The Detective Magazine and several books concerning Sherlock Holmes.
One of the most significant works ever to emerge from SovietRussia, this novel is both a graphic picture of World War II workcamp life and a testimony to the human spirit.
Fanny Price is a poor relation living with the Bertrams, acutely conscious of her status and yet daring to love their son Edmund— from afar. But with five marriageable young people on the premises, any peace at Mansfield cannot last...
Tom,a poor orphan,is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep,Grimes,to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot.While engaged in this dreadful task,he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie,the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief.He runs away,and,hot and bothered,he slips into a cooling stream,falls asleep,and becomes a Water Baby. In his new life,he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures,including an engaging old lobster,other water babies,and at last reaches St Branden's lsle where he encounters the fierce Mrs Bedonbyasyoudid and the motherly Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby.After a long and arduous quest to the Othe-end-of-Nowhere young Tom achieves his heart's desire.
Since his first appearance in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam Classics presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle’s classic hero—a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures in crime! Volume I includes the early novel A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes to the world. This baffling murder mystery, with the cryptic word Rache written in blood, first brought Holmes together with Dr. John Watson. Next, The Sign of Four presents Holmes’s famous “seven percent solution” and the strange puzzle of Mary Morstan in the quintessential locked-room mystery. Also included are Holmes’s feats of extraordinary deception in such famous cases as the chilling “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the baffling riddle of “The Musgrave Ritual,” and the ingeniously plot
BUCK'S FIRST DAY...WAS LIKE A NIGHTMARE HE HAD BEEN SUDDENLY JERKED FROM THE HEART OF CIVILIZATION AND FLUNG INTO THE HEART OF THINGS PRIMORDIAL. NO LAZY, SUNKISSED LIFE WAS THIS, WITH NOTHING TO DO....HERE WAS NEITHER PEACE, NOR REST, NORA MOMENT'S SAFETY.ALL WAS CONFUSION AND ACTION,AND EVERY MOMENT LIFE AND LIMB WERE IN PERIL....FOR THESE DOGS AND MEN WERE NOT TOWN DOGS AND MEN. THEY WERE SAVAGES, ALL OF THEM....