By: George Orwell
In this satire of the Russian Revolution, Manor Farm is transformed into Animal Farm, a democracy proclaiming All Animals Are Created Equal. After totalitarian rule is re-established, the reality becomes But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
By: Authur Conan Doyle
In this unabridged collection are four more individual cases for Mr Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr Watson. Once more, they are solved by this bloodhound of a genius.
By: Pearl S. Buck
The story begins on the wedding day of farmer Wang Lung and follows his simple, often one-sided view of the Chinese culture, times, and his connection with the land. The land is a recurring theme throughout the novel, seemingly nurtured by the...
By: Mary W. Shelley
Dr. Frankenstein learns the secret of imparting life to inanimate matter. To test his theories, he collects bones from the charnel-houses to construct a 'human' being, and then gives it life. The creature, endowed with supernatural size and strength,...
By: Homer
To the ancient world, the Iliad and the Odyssey were history, myth, religion and poetry; so too for modern scholars, they are invaluable resources for anthropological, psychological, and even philosophical speculations. But ancient epics raison...
By: Fyodor M. Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky studies the psychological impact upon a desperate and impoverished student when he murders a despicable pawnbroker, transgressing moral law to ultimately benefit humanity.
By: Alexandre Dumas
1902. A Frontispiece and numerous other portraits with descriptive notes by Octave Uzanne. Written by the son of Alexandre Dumas, The Lady of the Camellias is the story of Marguerite Gautier, a young courtesan, or kept woman, in Paris in the mid...
By: Jane Austen
Mansfield Park is the longest of Jane Austen's six major novels. Fanny Price moves from poverty to the opulence of Mansfield Park at the age of ten when she is adopted by rich relations. But as she grows up she finds she is constantly contending with...
By: Henry James
Dealing heavily with the then very timely political issue of feminism and the changing role of women in society, Henry James's The Bostonians is the story of Civil War veteran Basil Ransom's conflict with his cousin Olive Chancellor for the...
By: Charlotte Bronte
After a sad and neglected childhood as an orphan, Jane Eyre was hired by Edward Rochester as governess for his ward. Jane was pleased with the quiet country life at Thornfield, with the beautiful old manor house and gardens, with the book-filled...
By: Charles Dickens
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By: D. H. Lawrence
Sons and Lovers, Lawrences third published novel, was written by the author at the height of his literary powers. The story of class differences (the relationship between a middle-class woman and a miner) in the tough world of coal mining brought a...
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, the novel that established F. Scott Fitzgerald as the voice of his generation, was written while he was in the army, extensively revised, and finally published in 1920 when he was only 23 years old. The young 'romantic egoist'...
By: Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh's classic novel retold, and now a major motion picture from Miramax. Academy Award and Tony Award Winner Jeremy Irons--who has starred in films such as Lolita, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Reversal of Fortune--narrates, invoking...
By: Charles Dickens
The 'two cities' are Paris in the time of the French Revolution, and London. Dr. Manette, a French physician, having been called in to treat a young peasant and his sister, realizes that they have been cruelly abused by the Marquis de St. Evremonde...
By: Alexandre Dumas
Deep inside the dreaded Bastille, a twenty-three-year-old prisoner called merely 'Philippe' has languished for eight long, dark years. He does not know his real name or what crime he is supposed to have committed. But Aramis, one of the original...
By: Harriet Beecher Stowe
An international bestseller that sold more than 300,000 copies when it first appeared in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin was dismissed by some as abolitionist propaganda; yet Tolstoy deemed it a great work of literature 'flowing from love of God and...
By: Kurt Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of...
By: John Bunyon
Bunyan’s allegory uses the everyday world of common experience as a metaphor for the spiritual journey of the soul toward God. The hero, Christian, encounters many obstacles in his quest: the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting...
By: Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native may be Thomas Hardy’s finest writing. His descriptive and lyrical powers are at their height, his evocation of the wilds of Egdon Heath unmatched, his dissection of Eustacia and Clym’s marriage unimpeachable....
By: Jane Austen
Is she queer?--Is she prudish?' These are not quotations from contenders in the brouhaha over Jane Austen's sexuality. They are questions the rakish Henry Crawford in 'Mansfield Park' asks as he wonders about the nerdiest of all heroines, Fanny...
By: Charles Dickens
In 'The Pickwick Papers', Dickens' reached his peak of humor. First commissioned to match illustrations that had benn done, 'The Pickwick Papers' took on a life of its own. Serialized in 20 monthly installments from March 1836 to November 1837, it...
By: Charles Dickens
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By: Charles Dickens
Thomas Gradgrind is an eminently practical man who believes in facts and statistics and has brought up his two children, Louisa and Tom, accordingly, suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They are raised without love and affection, and...
By: Mark Twain
Generations of readers have enjoyed the ingenuous triumphs and feckless mishaps of boyhood days on the Mississippi. This classic of American wit and storytelling introduced Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Aunt Polly, the Widow Douglas, and many other...
By: Mary Sheldon
The late screen legend Audrey Hepburn uses music from Maurice Ravel's 'Mother Goose' as the framework for her reading of these favorite fairy tales.
By: Walter Scott
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By: Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel about a spirited and oddly appealing ex-prostitute and thief, now reformed, is not only a disturbingly realistic look at London’s underworld, but one of the first works of fiction to explore the interior...
By: Joseph Conrad
Compelling story of Kurtz and the exploitation of the Dark Continent. Audio Best of the Year -- Publishers Weekly
By: Anne Bronte
Drawing on her own experiences, Anne Bronte wrote her first novel out of an urgent need to inform her contemporaries about the desperate position of unmarried educated women driven to take up the only 'respectable' career open to them--that of...