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An enchanting tale of romance, scandal, and intrigue in the gossipy English town of Hollingford around the 1830s, Wives and Daughters tells the story of Molly Gibson, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a widowed country doctor. When her father remarries, she forms a close friendship with her new stepsister, the beautiful and worldly Cynthia, until they become love rivals for the affections of Squire Hamley's sons, Osbourne and Roger. When sudden illness...
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Rudolf Rassendyll is abruptly transported from his comfortable life in London to fast-moving adventures in Ruritania, a land steeped in political intrigue. Rassendyll bears a striking resemblance to Rudolph Elphberg, who is about to be crowned King of Ruritania. When the rival to the throne, Black Michael of Streslau, attempts to seize power by imprisoning Elphberg in the Castle of Zenda, Rassendyll is obliged to impersonate the King to uphold the...
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One of the supreme masterpieces of Romantic fiction and Scottish literature, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a terrifying tale of murder and amorality, and of one man's descent into madness and despair. James Hogg's sardonic novel follows a young man who, falling under the spell of a mysterious stranger who bears an uncanny likeness to himself, embarks on a career as a serial murderer. The memoirs are presented by a narrator...
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Believed to have been written in 1603, Shakespeare's Othello is a tragedy that puts the playwright's prodigious creative gifts on full display. Based loosely on a Renaissance-era Italian tale, Othello follows the stormy relationship of the Moorish general Othello and his lovely wife Desdemona. Addressing timeless themes of love and betrayal, as well as surprisingly contemporary concepts such as race-based stereotypes, Othello
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Pamela Andrews is a fifteen-year-old maidservant at an estate in Bedfordshire. When Lady B, her employer, dies, her son Mr. B takes an interest in the innocent young girl, quickly turning from generosity to outright attempts at seducing her. As Pamela rejects his advances, she considers returning home to live in poverty with her parents. When he catches wind of her plan, however, Mr. B accuses Pamela of having an affair, notifying her parents and...
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"Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea-captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain. This is indeed a work full of 'sudden passion', in which Conrad...
10) Ulysses
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The unique Dublin Illustrated Edition, endorsed by The James Joyce Centre, meticulously recreates the 1922 text. Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses' stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose -- full of puns, parodies, and allusions, as well as its rich characterisations and broad humour -- made the book a highly regarded novel in the Modernist...
11) Babbitt
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Babbitt turns the spotlight on middle America and strips bare the hypocrisy of business practice, social mores, politics, and religious institutions. In his introduction and notes Gordon Hutner explores the novel's historical and literary contexts, and highlights its rich cultural and social references. --from publisher description
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"Published in 1859, we are immediately intrigued by the narrative - a young and genial tutor of arts, Walter Hartright, encounters a woman dressed head to toe in white who is lost in the streets of London. After reporting her to the authorities Walter is informed that the lady was an escapee from a mental asylum. However, when Walter takes a new position in teaching art he encounters a girl named Laura, whose looks are stunningly similar to those...
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A portrait is a key example of the Keunstlerroman (an Artist's Buldungsroman) in English literature. Joyce's novel trace the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions in which he has been raise.
14) Little Dorrit
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The daughter of an imprisoned debtor suffers injustices of nineteenth-century English society.
15) Jude the obscure
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Thomas Hardy (2nd June 1840 – 11th January 1928), celebrated poet and writer, was born in a modest thatched cottage near Dorchester in the West country, to a builder father. His mother came from a line of intelligent, lively and ambitious women so ensured her son had the best formal education available for their modest means although this ended when he was 16. He became a draughtsman specialising in the building of churches was able to give
...16) North and south
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North and South tells the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner newly settled in the northern industrial town of Milton, whose ready sympathy with the discontented millworkers sits uneasily with her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. The novel poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience, ranging from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny and industrial action. Margaret's...
17) Kim
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Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...
19) Agnes Grey
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Originally quite scandalous and based on the author's own troubled life, this biting social commentary reveals the hardships of a governess's life.
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Anthony Trollope's 1875 novel, "The Way We Live Now", is a biting satire of the wealthy and powerful in Victorian England. Augustus Melmotte, a wealthy financier moves to London and begins to gather investors for an American railway venture. When his daughter Marie takes up with the dissolute gold-digging aristocrat Felix Carbury, Melmotte steps in to block the union. Multiple subplots involving schemes to move up in society and thwart others from...
