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When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy, who sweeps in and immediately takes the ton by storm. Sophy discovers that her aunt's family is in desperate need of her talent for setting everything right: Ceclia is in love with a poet, Charles has tyrannical tendencies that are being aggravated by his grim fiancee, her uncle is of no use at all, and the younger children are in desperate need of some fun and freedom. By...
2) 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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The Moonstone was published in 1868 and concerns the huge yellow diamond of the title that was once stolen from an Indian shrine. Rachel Verrinder receives the stone as a gift and does not realise that it has been passed to her in a sinister form of revenge by John Herncastle who, it transpires, acquired the moonstone by means of murder and theft. The jewel also brings bad luck. The stone disappears on the very night it is given to Rachel, though,...
4) Pinocchio
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The adventures of the puppet boy created by an old Italian woodcarver from a piece of wood that talked. Includes vocabulary notes in the margin, a brief biography of the author, and instructions for making a hand puppet.
7) Lady Susan
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Lady Susan is a short, epistolary novel by Jane Austen. Lady Susan Vernon is a selfish, attractive, and unscrupulous woman, who tries to trap the best possible husband while maintaining a relationship with a married man. As a widow, she seeks a match for herself, as well as husband-hunting for her daughter. Lady Susan is not only beautiful but intelligent and witty; she's highly attractive to men and her suitors are always significantly younger. Inspired...
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Classic fiction. After her parents' bitter divorce, young Maisie Farange finds herself shuttled between her selfish mother and vain father, who value her only as a means for provoking each other. Maisie - solitary, observant and wise beyond her years - is drawn into an increasingly entangled adult world of intrigue and sexual betrayal, until she is finally compelled to choose her own future. What Maisie Knew is a subtle yet devastating portrayal of...
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Notable for the first appearance of P.G Wodehouse's popular reoccurring characters, Bertie and Jeeves, The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories features thirteen funny and sentimental works of short fiction. The first story in the collection, Bill the Bloodhound follows a young detective named Henry Rice, who is in love with Alice, a woman who sings in a chorus. When Alice declines Henry's marriage proposal, she admits that while she finds Henry...
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Appears on list
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In this classic adventure novel, first published in 1873, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a 20,000 pound wager set by his friends at the Reform Club - and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman and his manservant immediately set off.
12) Light in August
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A novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, featuring some of Faulkner's most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horesemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancentry.
13) The sea wolf
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A thrilling epic of a sea voyage and a complex novel of ideas. The Sea Wolf is a standard-bearer of its genre. The vivid story of a gentleman scholar's rescue and subsequent ordeal at the hands of a hunting schooner's brutal captain and devious crew. It remains one of Jack London's finest achievements.
14) Oliver Twist
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Adentures of an orphan boy who lives in the squalid surroundings of a nineteenth-century English workhouse until he becomes involved with a gang of thieves.
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David Copperfield enjoys an idyllic life with his gentle, widowed mother and his loving nurse, Peggotty. Then tragedy strikes when Mr. Murdstone weds David's mother and drives her to an early grave. Despised by his stepfather, the boy is forced to live in misery and poverty until he runs away to throw himself upon the mercy of his eccentric aunt. Charles Dickens's classic tale of growing up.
16) White Fang
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In the desolate, frozen wilds of north-west Canada, a wolf-cub soon finds himself the sole survivor of the litter. Son of Kiche - half-wolf, half-dog - and the ageing wolf One Eye, he is thrust into a savage world where each day becomes a fight to stay alive.
17) Peter Pan
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Classic fiction. Neverland is home to Peter Pan, a young boy who has never grown up. On one of his visits to London, Peter makes the acquaintance of young Wendy Darling, whom he invites to travel with him to Neverland and become the mother of his gang of Lost Boys. Flying through the night sky to Neverland, Wendy and her brothers John and Michael soon become caught up in marvelous adventures with the Indian Princess Tiger Lily, the loyal fairy Tinker...
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Great Expectations is among the most masterful of Charles Dickens's novels. Displaying extraordinary tragicomic range, Dickens blends an atmosphere of brooding violence and guilt with sharp and often disturbing humor to create a drama charged with the thrilling intensity of a detective story and the poignancy of a spiritual autobiography. Much of the novel's power comes from Dickens's unequaled skill at making even the most wildly eccentric of characters...
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This is the story of the savage, tormented foundling Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other. A book of great power and strength, it is filled with the raw beauty of the moors and an uncanny understanding of the terrible truths about men and women. It is an understanding made even more extraordinary by the fact that...
20) Dracula
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First published in 1897, Dracula by Bram Stoker has become the standard against which all other vampire stories are compare and the inspiration for countless film and stage adaptations. Indeed, the name "Dracula" has been synonymous with the Undead for at least a century, and the original novels till has the power to chill. Come then to Castle Dracula, hidden in the forbidding peaks of the Carpathian Mountains, where an undying creature of evil casts...