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True to our reputation for
OVER-DELIVERING OUTSTANDING VALUE, we have created this SPECIAL
PACKAGE especially for you! It contains... 40 PUBLIC DOMAIN CLASSICS
-- All of which come with FULL RESALE RIGHTS!
And wait 'til you see the
price... You are really going to think we've lost our marbles,
because each of these classic novels, penned by some of the greatest
authors ever, is going to cost you less than a dollar!
THE
CLASSICS
PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS:
1. Wuthering Heights -
Emily Bronte
Drawing on the Gothic tradition, Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS is
the tale of Catherine Earnshaw, a wilfull and romantic girl brought
up to be a lady, and Heathcliff, the mysterious gypsy orphan.
Bronte's use of a series of unreliable narrators to unfold their
story heightens the mythic quality of the passionate attachment that
is at the heart of the book--a relationship that remains tempestuous
to its end, and leaves its mark on future generations of their
complicated families.
The novel's innovative structure, full of
sophisticated flashbacks and shifts in time, was ahead of its time,
and the brilliant evocation of the Yorkshire moors, with their
contrasting great houses--dark and terrible Wuthering Heights,
serene and civilized Thrushcross Grange--is a brilliant example of
scene-setting. WUTHERING HEIGHTS is Emily Bronte's only
novel--and it is widely
acknowledged to be one of the greatest works of English literature.
2. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
About this title: This is part of a series called "Bloom's ReViews",
which are college-level study guides prepared under the aegis of
Harold Bloom, distinguished Yale professor and author of "The
Western Canon". Each guide includes an introductory essay by Bloom
as well as extracts from renowned scholars on key topics in the
work. Good for independent study and the writing of papers for
courses.
3. Moby Dick -
Herman Melville
Misunderstood and unappreciated in its time, Melville's monumental work has
become the classic epic of American literature. He tells the dual story of the
initiation of young Ishmael, a schoolteacher, into the life of a seaman, and the
tragedy of Captain Ahab's obsession with the white whale.
Throughout the book you find hints of Melville's
exploration of the perennial themes of
good vs. evil and the fundamental isolation of the human condition. MOBY-DICK is
a layered, complex, allusive book that is part rip-roaring adventure tale, part
quest, part travel chronicle, part picaresque coming-of-age novel. At the end of
the wrenching narrative, Ishmael sets himself the task of telling the tale that
would make Melville's reputation as one of the greatest American writers.
4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -
Mark Twain
Twain spent seven years writing HUCKLEBERRY
FINN--the book Hemingway claimed is the basis for all American
fiction. The story of Huck's and Jim's quest for freedom on a raft
on the Mississippi provides a panoramic view of Southern society,
which Twain saw as beset by greed, violence, and coldhearted
brutality in the guise of virtue. At the end of the book, Huck
definitively abandons the hypocrisy and cant on which he has been
raised when he makes the shocking decision to go to hell rather than
betray his friend Jim and send him back to slavery.
The book has
been banned from time to time, beginning with its publication in
1885, when it was deemed too subversive for children, until the late
20th century when, despite its compassionate attitude toward blacks
and its violent denunciation of slavery, it has been branded racist
because of Twain's use of dialect and "offensive" language. In
addition to its message of tolerance and understanding, HUCKLEBERRY
FINN continues to be read, talked about, and loved by readers of all
ages because it's a cracking good coming-of-age story full of vivid
characters and hilarious events --and because Twain's relentlessly
clear-eyed angle of vision sees beneath the foibles and absurdities
of humanity to the common ground that we all share.
5. For the Term of His Natural Life -
Marcus Clarke
Set in the colonial Australia, For the Term of His Natural Life is a powerful
tale of human brutality and enduring love. Marcus Clarke peoples his novel with
some of the most memorable characters in literature. Rufus Dawes, a man
condemned to transportation for a murder he did not commit. Sylvia Vickers,
loved by Rufus Dawes, and married to the sadistic jailer Maurice Frere. Shrewd
Sarah Purfoy who risks everything for the murderer John Rex.
As memorable as
Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, For the Term of His Natural Life is a classic
across time and borders. For the Term of His Natural Life has achieved
widespread international acclaim and deserves to be called a classic.
6. Little Women - Louisa
May Alcott
About this title: This story of the four March sisters is based on
the author's own childhood. The novel is divided into two parts.
"Book One" focuses on the sisters' struggles with poverty while
growing up in New England during the Civil War. As their father, a
minister, serves in the war, the girls are raised by their loving
and wise mother, Marmee. "Book Two" takes place after the war has
ended and the father has returned to the family. The sisters deal
with love, marriage, an unexpected tragedy, and Jo's determination
to become a professional writer.
7. The Lord of the Rings -
J R R Tolkien
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is regarded by many to be the most important
and influential work of fantasy of the 20th century. It generated
the fantasy novel industry practically single-handedly, inspiring a
multitude of novels concerning elves and dwarves on quests to
conquer ultimate evil despite overwhelming odds. Although Tolkien
had always intended for THE LORD OF THE RINGS to be published as a
single volume, its division into a trilogy created the iconic format
for epic fantasy literature.
In the first book of the series, THE
FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the Dark Lord Sauron, an utterly evil and
powerful being, is stirring again after a long period of dormancy.
He will soon dominate all of Middle-earth if he is not stopped. The
key to Sauron's defeat is Frodo, nephew and heir to Bilbo
Baggins--the hero of THE HOBBIT. The magic ring that Bilbo picked up
on his adventures is in fact the One Ring, into which Sauron
deposited much of his power. If the Ring is destroyed in the volcano
at the heart of Sauron's realm of Mordor, Sauron too will be
destroyed. Unfortunately, the longer someone bears the Ring, the
stronger grows its ability to corrupt the bearer and those around
him. As Frodo and his companions begin the long journey to Mordor,
will they be able to keep their Fellowship intact and their purpose
pure
or will the Ring's evil nature triumph over them all?
8. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham
About this title: Philip Carey is an orphan, reared by his aunt and
uncle, handicapped by his club foot. When he reaches the age of
eighteen, he sets out in the world--first to study at Heidelberg,
then to try an accounting job, then trying to launch an artistic
career. Finally he returns to London to train as a doctor, and meets
Mildred, a young woman with whom he becomes obsessed. He finally
gets his M.D. degree and considers traveling the world as a ship's
doctor, but falls in love with Sally Athelney and settles down
happily to practice medicine in a small fishing village. Maugham
said of this highly autobiographical novel, "Turning my wishes into
fiction, I drew a picture of the marriage I should like to make."
"Of Human Bondage" is considered his masterpiece.
9.
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Jim Hawkins, who narrates Stevenson's classic tale, is rewarded for
his assistance to an old pirate, Billy Bones, with a map showing the
way to buried treasure. He and his associates set sail for the
island on a ship manned by a band of pirates--a fact they discover
en route. The pirate king is the notorious one-legged cook Long John
Silver, one of Stevenson's most delightfully conceived villains. The
pirates are vanquished, the treasure is retrieved, and Stevenson's
novel is widely loved, and admired as one of the great adventure
novels of all time.
10. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Though TOM SAWYER, Twain's "other" coming-of-age tale, has much in common with
HUCKLEBERRY FINN, including some of the characters, its hero is not the maverick
iconoclast that Huck Finn is. As Twain traces the comic adventures of the
inventive young Tom, he effectively and lovingly recreates the pastoral world of
his own Hannibal, Missouri, childhood, including a portrait of his brother Henry
(who died young in a shipboard explosion) as Tom's younger brother, Sid. Because
Tom Sawyer's comic battles with prim conformity are always innocent and
uncontroversial, the novel is not a ground-breaking masterpiece like HUCKEBERRY
FINN. It is essentially a book for young readers--and a great one.
11. The War of the Worlds -
H.G. Wells
The book was written in two parts: "The Coming of the Martians", which details
the Martians' landing and conquering; and "The Earth Under the Martians", which
is a post-apocalyptic account of the Martians' reign and their subsequent
vanquishing by microbes which they are unprepared for. Mars, and the possibility
of life on it, had apparently intrigued Wells for some time. In an interesting
aside, as Bernard Bergonzi notes in his "Early H. G. Wells", the author also had
some fun writing scenes in which the aliens destroyed characters modeled on his
neighbors. Adapted by Orson Welles and Howard Koch for the notorious 1938
Halloween radio broadcast, this story sent hundreds of frenzied families onto
the highways in an attempt to escape the alien threat.
12. Sons and Lovers -
D. H. Lawrence
Based very closely on D.H. Lawrence's own life, SONS AND LOVERS (1913) tells the
story of young Paul Morel, son of the troubled union of an educated, upwardly
mobile mother and an ill-tempered, unlettered coal miner father who speaks in a
broad dialect. Although in later life Lawrence regretted his brutal portrait of
his father, the hero of the novel is most definitely his mother's boy, becoming
increasingly dissatisfied with his mean, impoverished home in a Nottinghamshire
coal town. He is drawn to a young woman named Miriam (based on Lawrence's old
flame Jessie Chambers), with whom he reads poetry and speaks French; his
voracious mother fears that Paul's attraction to Miriam will jeopardize her own
relationship with him, and does everything she can to come between them. Paul
then begins an affair with Clara, a married woman and a feminist. In the end,
Paul finds the resolution to reject his background for good; knowing he must
forget both Miriam and Clara, he sets out with renewed resolution on a quest for
a life of his own. Unique for its sexual frankness and working-class background,
SONS AND LOVERS is Lawrence's first major achievement, and a groundbreaking step
forward in the history of English realistic fiction.
13. Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard -
Joseph Conrad
A pessimistic novel about political power in a Latin American country, and the
inhumanity and brutality that result when ideals and reality clash. NOSTROMO is
considered by many to be Conrad's greatest novel. It was one he hesitated to
write, he says in the introduction, "as if warned by the instinct of
self-preservation from venturing on a distant and toilsome journey into a land
full of intrigues and revolutions." But, he concludes, "It had to be done."
14. Utopia -
Sir Thomas Moore
16th-century classic by English ecclesiastic and scholar envisioned a tolerant,
patriarchal island kingdom free of private property, violence, bloodshed and
vice. Forerunner of many later attempts.
He that knows one of their towns knows them all--they are so like one another,
except where the situation makes some difference. I shall therefore describe one
of them, and none is so proper as Amaurot; for as none is more eminent (all the
rest yielding in precedence to this, because it is the seat of their supreme
council), so there was none of them better known to me, I having lived five
years all together in it.
15. War and Peace -
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE is an epic war novel, an exploration of family ties,
and a manifesto of Tolstoy's beliefs. Against the background of Napoleon's
invasion of Russia in the early 1800s, WAR AND PEACE spans the social spectrum,
depicting three families--their love affairs, intellectual struggles, and
personal conflicts--and the cataclysmic effects of great events on their lives.
At the heart of the book are Pierre Bezukhov, whose search for religious
certainty (and his failure to find it) and for what constitutes a good life
parallel Tolstoy's own; the noble Prince Andrei, who serves in the devastating
Battle of Borodino; and ardent young Natasha Rostov, who is loved by both men.
Tolstoy originally foresaw an entirely different narrative arc for his novel,
and at one time planned to call it ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, but by 1867, the
book's design, with its simple final title, was clearly set out, and the novel
was published in 1869 after nearly 10 years of writing, rewriting, and
rethinking. Tolstoy's story moves easily between love scenes, the grim details
of battle, and the daily lives of both peasants and aristocrats. His stated
purpose in the novel was to demonstrate his theory of history, which is that it
is determined not by the decisions of the great and powerful, but by the sum
total of many small individual acts of ordinary individuals. Because of its
overpowering authority, its famous length (most editions run to over 1000
pages), and the comprehensiveness of Tolstoy's vision of humanity, WAR AND PEACE
is generally considered to be one of the world's great books.
16. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde -
Robert Louis Stevenson
In Robert Louis Stevenson's nightmarish, suspenseful, and deeply disturbing
novel, Dr. Jekyll experiments with a drug that splits his personality into good
and evil elements. Gradually, he loses control of the process and finds himself
slipping more and more frequently into the guise of the evil and depraved Hyde.
Finally, Hyde is accused of murder, and the good doctor, tormented by the
struggle between good and evil that he embodies, is forced into an act of
violence by his tortured conscience.
Narrated by several onlookers, as well as
by Jekyll himself, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, one of the earliest "horror" tales
(1886), is arguably the most famous horror story ever written; the concept of
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" to signify a split personality has become deeply
embedded in the public consciousness, even for those who have never read the
book. It has, of course, been dramatized numerous times in numerous ways; it has
prompted many interpretations since its publication in 1886, including the view
that it was a precursor of Freud's work on the ego and the libido. Stevenson
wrote the novel in a fever, finishing it in less than three days while he was
deathly ill with tuberculosis. He lived, however, eight more years, dying in
Samoa at the age of 44.
17. The Portrait of a Lady -
Henry James
"The mere slim shade of an intelligent but presumptuous girl...a certain young
woman affronting her destiny" is how Henry James describes his first perception
of Isabel Archer, who grew into one of his most magnificent heroines. An
American heiress newly arrived in Europe, Isabel does not look to a man to
furnish her with her destiny; instead she desires, with grace and courage, to
find it herself. Two eligible suitors approach her and are refused. She then
becomes utterly captivated by the languid charms of Gilbert Osmond. To him, she
represents a superior prize worth at least 70 thousand pounds; through him, she
faces a tragic choice.
The greatest of the novels of James's early period,
PORTRAIT OF A LADY was deeply influenced by both Turgenev and George Eliot.
18. Women in Love -
D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence considered WOMEN IN LOVE, his sequel to THE RAINBOW, to be his
best novel. It traces the stories of Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, particularly
their romantic entanglements and dilemmas. Ursula marries Rupert Birkin--Lawrence's
alter ego--a thoroughly modern and enlightened young man who believes in ideal
love based on passion, equality, and mutual respect. Gudrun falls for Gerald
Crich, a formidably competent businessman, owner of the local mine. Gerald is a
weak, possessive reactionary who is unable to work out his feelings for Gudrun,
and who, when Rupert offers his friendship--the kind of profound male friendship
that Lawrence considered necessary to a man's life--rejects it. Lawrence's
heavily symbolic story is an overt statement of his beliefs about men and women
in modern society. Written in 1916, it didn't find a publisher until 1920, and
was considered by many readers and reviewers to be depraved. Lawrence attributed
much of the despair and bitterness of the novel to the travails of World War I,
a war to which he was violently opposed.
19. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Kafka's immortal absurdist tale of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up to find he has
been transformed into a cockroach.
Kafka's stories--bleak, painfully comic, enigmatic--are invariably about man's
alienation from daily life, but he creates a rich variety of worlds, from the
absurdity of the hunger artist in his cage, to Gregor Samsa's vividly imagined
transformation into a cockroach, to the profoundly ironic view of capital
punishment in "In the Penal Colony."
20. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy's great novel, one of his last works of fiction, tells the
story of a harmless flirtation that gradually develops into a
destructive passion: the love affair between Anna Karenina and Count
Vronsky. Anna turns to Vronsky, a dashing military man, as a refuge
from her passionless marriage to a pompous, chilly bureaucrat -- a
move that results in social ostracization, the loss of her position
in the world, and the relentless self-doubt that destroys her
confidence and leads to her sad end. A parallel plot follows the
contrasting fortunes of Levin (Tolstoy's alter ego, with his deep
love of the land) and Kitty, whose marriage thrives and prospers
because of mutual commitment, sympathy and respect.
In ANNA
KARENINA, Tolstoy reaches deep into his own experiences and his
observations of family and friends to create a picture of Russian
society that reaches from the high life in St. Petersburg and Moscow
to the idyllic rural existence of Kitty and Levin. Sketched on a
smaller canvas than the vast panorama of WAR AND PEACE, ANNA
KARENINA is a profound examination of human psychology. At its heart
is its heroine, the flawed, vulnerable, lovable Anna--a woman whom
Tolstoy never judges adversely, despite her follies, but whom he
views with compassionate understanding throughout. Published two
decades after Flaubert's groundbreaking MADAME BOVARY, Tolstoy's
novel is a further exploration of adultery and its effects not only
on individuals but on the society at large. Vladimir Nabokov called
it "one of the greatest love stories in world literature," a view
that has been echoed by critics since its publication in the 1870s.
21. Crime & Punishment - Fyodor M Dostoevsky
About this title: This 1866 novel is Dostoevsky's great fictional
study of the criminal mind, in the character of the student
Raskolnikov, who murders an aged pawnbroker. Initially, Raskolnikov
believes that the killing was entirely justified, but as the novel
proceeds he becomes tortured by his guilt, and begins to question
all his most passionately held beliefs. Eventually, while the wily
police inspector Porfiry Petrovich simply waits, Raskolnikov--prompted
by Sonia, a prostitute who is devoted to him--breaks down and
confesses. Despite its bleak subject matter, the novel holds out the
possibility of redemption; it is also an indictment of the social
conditions in which the action unfolds.
22. The Island of Dr. Moreau -
H.G. Wells
Prendrick, a survivor of a shipwreck, is picked up by a
schooner bound for Noble's Isle. On the island, Prendrick encounters the Beast
People, roughly human but with animalistic traits. It turns out that Dr. Moreau,
a scientist who came to the island years before, has been developing animals
into humans with the help of his assistant Montgomery.
When Moreau is killed,
the Beast People revert and their world becomes utterly chaotic. Prendrick,
while imagining himself to remain a cut above the Beast People, becomes somewhat
bestial himself. He is rescued from the island, but cannot shake off the
perverse vision of the Beast People as he continues his life among men.
23. Heart of Darkness -
Joseph Conrad
In HEART OF DARKNESS, Conrad's most existential hero, Marlow, is the commander
of a riverboat looking for ivory to trade in the Belgian Congo. His journey into
the heart of the Congo is both a thrilling adventure and a symbolic excursion
into the depths of the human psyche to confront the evil that exists there.
Marlow's encounter with the mysterious and corrupted Kurtz, who dies proclaiming
the "horror" of what he found in the Congo, is the novel's defining moment, when
Marlow recognizes his kinship with Kurtz's corruption. This insight enables
Marlow to retreat from Kurtz's world and return to England. Kurtz, in his
attempts to reconcile his noble ideas with his greed, can't survive.
In Conrad's haunting tale, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical
and psychological journey in search of the enigmatic Kurtz. Travelling to the
heart of the African continent, he discovers how Kurtz has gained his position
of power and influence over the local people. Marlow's struggle to fathom his
experience involves him in a radical questioning of not only his own nature and
values but the nature and values of his society.
24. Emma -
Jane Austen
About this title: First published in 1816, Jane Austen's EMMA is
about an unconventional heroine--and one whom Austen thought no one
but herself would like. Emma Woodhouse is bright, beautiful, and
rich; she is also snobbish and judgmental, and she can be cruel,
with a tendency to interfere in other people's lives. The novel
chronicles Emma's attempts to make a match between a hapless vicar
who is, in fact, enamored of Emma herself, and her friend Harriet, a
poor and simple young woman in love with a farmer. Unlike many of
Austen's heroines, Emma is possessed of very little good sense; her
absurd machinations complicate the lives of everyone involved--and,
needless to say, get nowhere. Emma, however, learns from her
mistakes and gains some badly needed insight into herself as she
discovers her feelings for the older, steady, aristocratic Mr.
Knightley. The novel moves toward a not unexpected but perfectly
satisfying conclusion, and in the process introduces Austen's usual
cast of amusing, pretentious, hypocritical, and/or dim-witted
characters, including the appalling, nouveau riche Mrs. Elton, and
Emma's widowed father, one of the most insufferable (and delightful)
neurotics in literature.
25. Ulysses - James Joyce
About this title: The novel takes place in the course of one day
(June 16, 1904) in the life of the city of Dublin, and follows the
course of several interacting characters who embody a series of
parallels to Homer's epic. The three main characters are Leopold
Bloom, his faithless wife Molly, and Stephen Dedalus of PORTRAIT OF
THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN. The novel is a vivid picture of
estrangement, alienation, and the disintegration of a society. Joyce
uses the capaciousness of the novel as a vehicle for his ideas about
art, literature, Ireland, and the nature of heroism, among other
things, and its stream-of-consciousness narration and complex
wordplay make it one of the most challenging literary experiences in
English, as well as an icon of modernism. ULYSSES had a tortured
publishing history, finally appearing (on Joyce's 40th birthday)
under the aegis of Sylvia Beach at her Paris bookshop Shakespeare &
Company. It was met with shock, horror, vituperation, and disgust,
but--by a few readers, including T.S. Eliot and Yeats (and by
posterity)--as a work of undisputed genius.
26. Jane Eyre -
Charlotte Bronte
About this title: Charlotte Brontė's first novel, published in 1847,
was based in part on the author's own days in a brutal boarding
school where two of her sisters died of tuberculosis; her
characterization of the place in her first published work was an act
of revenge. The novel's heroine is a plain, impoverished, but
spirited young governess who not only wins the heart of her
employer--the jaded, Byronic Mr. Rochester--but manages to defy the
social conventions of her time to become a strong and fulfilled
adult. Told by Jane herself as she looks back over her life, JANE
EYRE became the prototype for the classic Gothic novel set in a
wild, windswept location where a naļve heroine must cope with ghosts
and the supernatural.
It has also inspired countless romance novels and created the
bitter, brooding hero who is brought back to life by the goodness
and innocence of the woman who loves him. Brontė's tale, however,
transcends the genres it inspired. Jane's search for love and for
meaning also includes a refusal to accept less than she feels is her
due. Brontė sees that quest as a moral one, and a critical
exploration of the paradoxes of the English class system and of
Victorian gender relations is an integral part of the book. But the
main reason for its position as an enduring classic is that JANE
EYRE is a stirring and satisfying tale, a page-turner. It was a
bestseller in its day and remains popular today--the quintessential
coming-of-age story that still has resonance for young women who are
struggling to find the balance between romantic love and personal
freedom.
27. Paradise Lost - John Milton
Milton takes the traditional epic and transforms
it with the clarity of his moral vision and with the power of his
language, turning it into triumphant blank verse--seldom used in his
day except in drama--that is moving, exciting, and full of the
grandeur of Milton's poetic vision. In the early parts of "Paradise
Lost", he manages to convey sympathy with Satan's heroic energy. As
the epic narrative progresses, however, our allegiance shifts subtly
to Christ's message of love and a vision of Paradise free of Satan's
destructive strivings.
28. The Lost World
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
In the late 1800s, a newspaper reporter attempts to impress his lady friend by
joining an expedition led by Professor Challenger, which takes him along the
Amazon in a search for a hidden valley populated by still-living dinosaurs.
Unrelated to the Michael Crichton novel and film of the same name (which,
incidentally, are named in homage to this book), this classic--but strikingly
politically incorrect by today's standards--science fiction novel was filmed in
the 1920s, and has been remade at least four more times (with little success).
The account of a scientific expedition by four intrepid Englishmen from the
gaslit safety of Victorian London to a remote plateau in the South American
jungle. In this region beyond time, they encounter hideous survivors from the
dawn of history -- swarms of titanic reptiles and prehuman ape-men -- and must
use cunning and superior intellect to escape.
29. The Iliad
- Homer
Pope spent his formative years as a poet translating Homer, beginning with "The
Iliad", his translation of which Samuel Johnson called "the greatest version of
poetry the world has ever seen". This edition makes available for the first time
in paperback Pope's notes in their entirety, enabling us to listen in as one
poetic genius illuminates the work of another.
30. The Odyssey - Homer
Perhaps the most celebrated of all Western narratives, the Odyssey tells the
story of Odysseus's roundabout voyage home to Ithaca where his beloved Penelope
awaits. In stories along the way, he famously encounters Circe, the Sirens, the
Cyclops, and many, many others. This translation renders the classic more
economically than others.
31. Madame Bovary
- Gustave Flaubert
Flaubert's portrait of an adulteress who seeks freedom from a prosaic,
disappointing life and ultimately is destroyed by her selfishness was considered
scandalous when it was published. Flaubert chose his subject to illustrate his
belief that any aspect of life, however trivial or vulgar, could be a subject
for literature, and could be raised to the status of art by the quality of the
writing.
32. Sense and Sensibility -
Jane Austen
In SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, Jane Austen writes about two ways of looking at the
world in the personalities of two sisters, Elinor the determinedly practical and
Marianne the madly romantic. Forced to live in reduced circumstances with their
widowed mother and younger sister, the Dashwood girls must rely on marrying well
if they are to survive in the world, and the way in which this goal is
eventually accomplished provides the plot of this delightful novel, the first of
Jane Austen's to be published (1811).
As SENSE AND SENSIBILITY progresses to the
requisite happy ending, Elinor and Marianne and their suitors are subjected to a
volley of misunderstandings, jealousies, and manipulations--and to Jane Austen's
mercilessly satirical look at provincial life. As she herself stated, "Three or
four families in a country village is the very thing to work on"--and in doing
so, Austen perfected the comedy of manners, zeroing in on her characters and
their relationship to the society in which they live--an achievement that
brought her closer to the later novels of the Victorian era and the 20th century
than to those that preceded her.
33. Beyond Good and Evil
- Friedrich Nietzche
Over a hundred years have elapsed since Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) rose to
fame from the lowlands of provincial academia. Though Nietzsche's reputation has
sometimes bordered on notoriety, his influence has not diminished.
The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the
famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect,
what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange,
perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems as
if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful,
lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to
ask questions ourselves?
34. Kidnapped
- Robert Louis Stephenson
In Stevenson's classic adventure tale, David Balfour is kidnapped by his
grasping uncle who has usurped his inheritance. The ship on which David is to be
transported is wrecked, and he escapes with the Jacobite rebel Alan Breck. The
two flee across the Highlands, eventually exposing the evil uncle and finding
freedom as well as wealth.
35. The Red Badge of Courage
- Stephen Crane
About this title: THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, the harrowing tale of a
young soldier in battle during the Civil War, is a masterpiece of
19th-century naturalism. Crane attended a military prep school and
was obsessed with war all his life, but he wrote the novel without
ever having witnessed a battle--a fact he was always slightly
defensive about. Before he began to write, however, he read
extensively about the Civil War, particularly the memoirs of
survivors that were popular in the late 19th century.
36.
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe was nearly 60 years old when he published ROBINSON CRUSOE, his
first novel, in 1719. The story of an English mariner, sole survivor of a
shipwreck, who manages to survive for 28 years on a deserted island in the South
Pacific, ROBINSON CRUSOE is a stirring depiction of loneliness and isolation as
Crusoe builds a house, teaches himself to grow corn and barley, and bakes bread.
The book was based on the true tale of a sailor named Alexander Selkirk, but
Defoe inserts his own preoccupations into the story. Long fascinated by travel,
questions of identity, and the minutiae of daily life, Defoe makes Crusoe's saga
of survival into the story of a man who takes control of his own life and
overcomes hardships and difficulties in order not only to survive but to
prosper. With the introduction of the faithful Friday, who has been taken
prisoner by a band of cannibals, Defoe goes further, and explores the concepts
of personal liberty and colonialism. The novel is a perennial favorite,
providing not only food for thought but a rousing adventure that has influenced
dozens of books, movies, and TV shows. People who have never read the novel and
never will are very aware of the existence of Robinson Crusoe and his desert
island.
37. T
he Adventures of Robin Hood -
Howard Pyle
One of the most beloved legends of all, Howard Pyle's Robin Hood brings the
brave, good-humoured outlaw and his cohorts to life as they romp in Sherwood
Forest.
IN MERRY ENGLAND in the time of old, when good King Henry the Second ruled the
land, there lived within the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham
Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. No archer ever lived that could
speed a gray goose shaft with such skill and cunning as his, nor were there ever
such yeomen as the sevenscore merry men that roamed with him through the
greenwood shades. Right merrily they dwelled within the depths of Sherwood
Forest, suffering neither care nor want, but passing the time in merry games of
archery or bouts of cudgel play, living upon the King's venison, washed down
with draughts of ale of October brewing.
38. The Hound of The Baskervilles -
Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead of
mysterious causes, Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson must
investigate the age-old rumors that a hound haunts the Baskerville
estate and the eerie lands of the Dartmouth moors.
39. The Last of the Mohicans -
James Fenimore Cooper
The classic frontier adventure story: Deep in the forests of New York State,
the woodsman Hawkeye (a.k.a. Natty Bumppo) and his loyal Mohican friends become
involved in the bloody French and Indian War. This is a fanciful and romantic
tale of the Mohicans, a disappearing tribe of Native Americans in the frontier.
The romantic action centers on a frontier scout during the French and Indian
Wars, who plays a part in the wresting of a continent from nature and the
original inhabitants.
40. The Thirty Nine Steps -
James Buchan
In this 1915 story--possibly the first modern spy novel--Buchan's perennial
protagonist, Richard Hannay, averts the assassination of a world leader.
I returned from the City about three o'clock on that May afternoon pretty well
disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up
with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like
that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me
liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn't get
enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda- water that
has been standing in the sun.
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