Catalog Search Results
181) The way we live now
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Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. Persuaded to put money into a notional plot to run a railroad from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, the capricious gambler Felix Carbury soon becomes one of his victims. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit - which also draws in characters as diverse as his own...
182) Agnes Grey
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If you have at all dabbled in classic English literature, you may have had a hard time telling Charlotte from Emily, so now when a third sister, Anne, enters the fray, we understand if you're experiencing complete Brontë déjà-vu.
With its official subtitle "A Novel" and "Agnes Grey" itself sounding like the nickname of a retirement home patron who's at least 50% dust, Anne's somewhat drab title game might come down to this being her debut novel.
A...
183) The odd women
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Description
When their father's death leaves them with no money and a dim future, the Madden sisters, Alice, Virginia, and Monica, must negotiate the gender roles and class constraints of Victorian London in the 1890s. Virginia and Alice have aged out of the possibility of marriage and seemingly the idea of love itself and find themselves with few prospects and little hope. Remaindered in the marriage equation, these "odd women" face a great deal of scrutiny,...
184) Passing
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Appears on these lists
Description
First published in 1929, Passing is a candid exploration of shifting racial and sexual boundaries. Clare is married to a white man unaware of her heritage; her childhood friend Irene, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community.
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"When The Souls of Black Folk was first published in 1903, it had a galvanizing effect on the conversation about race in America--and it remains both a touchstone in the literature of African America and a beacon in the fight for civil rights. Believing that one can know the "soul" of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois combines history and stirring autobiography to reflect on the magnitude of American racism and to chart...
186) Caleb Williams
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Description
'He appears to be persecutor and I the persecuted: is not this difference the mere creature of the imagination?' Caleb is a guileless young servant who enters the employment of Ferdinando Falkland, a cosmopolitan and benevolent country gentleman. Falkland is subject to fits of unexplained melancholy, and Caleb becomes convinced that he harbours a dark secret. His discovery of the truth leads to false accusations against him, and a vengeful pursuit...
187) The black tulip
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Description
Overview: Cornelius von Baerle lives only to cultivate the elusive black tulip and win a magnificent prize for its creation. But when his powerful godfather is assassinated, the unwitting Cornelius becomes caught up in a deadly political intrigue. Falsely accused of high treason by a bitter rival, Cornelius is condemned to life in prison. His only comfort is Rosa, the jailer's beautiful daughter, who helps him concoct a plan to grow the black...
188) Phineas Finn
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Series
The Palliser novels volume 2
Description
The second novel in Trollope's Palliser series, Phineas Finn's engaging plot embraces matters as diverse as reform, the position of women, the Irish question, and the conflict between integrity and ambition. Through the engaging figure of the handsome Irishman Phineas Finn, Trollope explores the realities of political life, and the clash between compromise and conviction, that is as topical today as it was in the 1860s. In his introduction, Simon...
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Description
In this scathing book, the author produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential...
190) Villette
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Left by harrowing circumstances to fend for herself in the great capital of a foreign country, Lucy Snowe, the narrator and heroine of Villette, achieves by degrees an authentic independence from both outer necessity and inward grief. Charlotte Brontë's last novel, published in 1853, has a dramatic force comparable to that of her other masterpiece, Jane Eyre, as well as strikingly modern psychological insight and a revolutionary understanding of...
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Description
The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward, who is greatly impressed by Dorian's physical beauty and becomes strongly infatuated with him, believing that his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Talking in Basil's garden, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that...
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In Anna of the Five Towns (1902) Arnold Bennett depicts the severe economic and moral pressures of life in the Potteries in the late nineteenth century, as they affect the emotional fortunes of his heroine. When Anna Tellwright comes of age, she learns from her miserly father that she is rich, and discovers for herself that she is loved by two men: popular, charismatic, and successful Henry Mynors, and awkward Willie Price. The novel presents her...
193) The collected poems
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Description
A Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely motionless at a slight angle to the universe' E.M. Forster E.M. Forster's description of C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933) perfectly encapsulates the unique perspective Cavafy brought to bear on history and geography, sexuality and language in his poems. Cavafy writes about people on the periphery, whose religious, ethnic and cultural identities are blurred, and he was one of the pioneers in expressing a...
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Sherlock Holmes mysteries volume 4
Description
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is now best remembered for its concluding story in which the great detective appears to plunge to his death into the waters at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in a struggle with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. However, the collection also brings the reader back to the beginnings of Holmes' career, involving a mutiny at sea and a treasure hunt in a Sussex country house, and a first encounter with Holmes'...
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Mr and Mrs Brown are keen to make it to Thompson Hall for a cosy family Christmas – the first they will be spending in England instead of France for several years. When Mr Brown is taken ill in Paris en route home, it seems their Christmas wishes may not be coming true. 'Christmas at Thompson Hall' is a festive short story full of humorous mishaps from the much-loved Victorian author, Anthony Trollope.
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The Riddle of the Sands is set during the long suspicious years leading up to the First World War. Bored with his life in London, a young man accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic. A vivid exploration of the mysteries of seamanship, the story builds in excitement as together the two adventurers discover a German plot to invade England.
197) The symposium
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"Among the most powerful and moving of Plato's dialogues, the Symposium is one of the greatest literary works on the nature of love in Western thought." "During a lively dinner party, a series of speakers offer their views on eros or desire. They see love as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and a means of ethical education. Through jokes and flirtation they reveal their attitudes to love and personal relationships....
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Appears on list
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A ne'er-do-well exploits his gentle daughter's beauty for social advancement in this masterpiece of tragic fiction. Hardy's 1891 novel defied convention to focus on the rural lower class for a frank treatment of sexuality and religion. Then and now, his sympathetic portrait of a victim of Victorian hypocrisy offers compelling reading.
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At this challenge, Mary Shelley began work on the 'ghost story' that was to evolve into the most celebrated horror novel in literary history. Frankenstein was published the next year and become the rage of London. In the generations since, the story of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created has been read by millions all over the world. It has inspired hundreds of imitations, but it has never been equaled for its masterful manipulation of the...
200) Little women
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Little Women series volume 1
Appears on list
Description
The classic story of the March family whose 4 daughters are growing up in New England in the mid-1800s. There are numerous sequels, for example, Little Men and Jo's Boys. Annotation. Little Women is the heartwarming story of the March family that has thrilled generations of readers. It is the story of four sisters--Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth-- and of the courage, humor and ingenuity they display to survive poverty and the absence of their father during...




