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Classic fiction

  • Author:
    Joyce, James
    Summary:

    Features selected readings from the works of James Joyce, whose works came to define the modernist movement in literature.

  • Author:
    Rohmer, Max
    Summary:

    The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu is the first title in the famous series of "Yellow Peril" novels published by English writer Sax Rohmer, aka Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883–1959), between 1913 and 1959. The novel, like its many sequels, pits the "evil genius" of the Far East against the British Duo, Denis Nayland Smith and his sidekick Dr. Petrie.

  • Author:
    Wilde, Oscar
    Summary:

    This final play from the pen of Oscar Wilde is a stylish send-up of Victorian courtship and manners, complete with assumed names, mistaken lovers, and a lost handbag. Jack and Algernon are best friends, both wooing ladies who think their names are Ernest, that name which inspires absolute confidence. Wilde's effervescent wit, scathing social satire, and high farce make this one of the most cherished plays in the English language ...

  • Author:
    Homer
    Summary:

    The Iliad is an epic Greek poem written by philosopher Homer, and is considered one of the oldest pieces of western literature still in existence. The story takes place during the last weeks of the ten year Trojan War, with a focus on the quarrels between King Agamemnon and the legendary warrior Achilles. However, this tale's most famous scene is when the Greek's give a gift to the Trojans of a large wooden horse, but one that is filled with soldiers, that allows the Greeks to infiltrate the high walls of the city of Troy. Many Scholars believe the Iliad was originally composed in an oral tradition, intended to be heard, not read, making this epic classic a must have for audiobook listeners!

  • Author:
    Bernhardt, Sarah
    Summary:

    Fifteen-year-old Esperance Darbois, the only daughter of philosophy professor François Darbois, is determined to become an actor, though her family insists it will sully their reputation and harm her marriage prospects.

  • Author:
    Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
    Summary:

    Prince Myshkin, the last of his royal bloodline, suffers from epilepsy and a trusting nature. His saintlike purity of soul makes him suspect in the eyes of sinful St. Petersburg, but he finds a friend in passionate Rogozhin, and through Rogozhin’s stories becomes tragically involved in the lives of a beautiful kept woman and an innocent young girl.

  • Author:
    Hugo, Victor
    Summary:

    Written in 1831 before Hugo was forced to flee from Louis Napoleon's France. In this novel, Hugo paints a vivid portrait of medieval Paris. Quasimodo, the one-eyed, hunchbacked refugee; Esmeralda, the dancing gypsy girl, threatened by the gallows; and a world where chaos is in charge--Hugo captures them all in this timeless, almost Gothic, piece of literature.

  • Author:
    Wharton, Edith
    Summary:

    Lily Bart enjoys an equitable standing within the New York City elite. Although she desires a comfortable life and has received generous proposals from wealthy suitors, Lily remains single with hope for an honest and loving marriage. However, her life takes an unexpected twist when a nasty bit of gossip instigates her long descent down the social ladder. With her reputation plummeting, Lily escapes the city by joining an acquaintance on a European cruise. But this, too, causes irreparable damage to her reputation, and soon Lily finds herself disowned and friendless.

  • Author:
    Milne, A. A.
    Summary:

    A. A. Milne's companion volume to Winnie-the-Pooh. In it, you will rediscover Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, and all their friends as well as be introduced to the irrepressible and very bouncy Tigger.

  • Author:
    Doyle, Arthur Conan
    Summary:

    At Baskerville Hall on the grim moors of Devonshire, a legendary curse has apparently claimed one more victim. Sir Charles Baskerville has been found dead. There are no signs of violence, but his face is hideously distorted with terror. Years earlier, a hound-like beast with blazing eyes and dripping jaws was reported having torn out Hugo Baskerville's throat. Is Sir Henry Baskerville, younger heir to the estate, now in danger? Enter Sherlock Holmes, summoned to protect Sir Henry from the fate that threatens the Baskerville family. As Holmes and Watson begin to investigate, a blood-chilling howl from the fog-shrouded edges of the great Grimpen Mire signals that the legendary hound of the Baskervilles is poised for yet another murderous attack.

  • Author:
    Leblanc, Maurice
    Summary:

    In the third installment of the Arsène Lupin series, we find our gentleman burglar up against Isidore Beautrelet, a young but gifted amateur detective who is determined to foil Lupin once and for all. As he hunts down the Hollow Needle, a needle that contains secrets that have been passed down from French kings since Julius Caesar, Beautrelet is never too far behind.

  • Author:
    Fielding, Henry
    Summary:

    A foundling of mysterious parentage, Tom Jones is brought up by the benevolent and wealthy Squire Allworthy as his own son. Tom falls in love with the beautiful and unattainable Sophia Western, a neighbor's daughter, whose marriage has already been arranged. When Tom's sexual misadventures around the countryside get him banished, he sets out to make his fortune and find his true identity. Against the vivid background of eighteenth-century London, Tom encounters passion, corruption, danger, and intrigue before finally claiming his fortune, legitimacy, and true love. Fielding's bawdy, colorful, high-spirited novel paints human vices and virtues with unprecedented honesty and good humor, making Tom Jones as fresh and entertaining today as it was two hundred years ago.

  • Author:
    Johnson, Samuel
    Summary:

    Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, leaves the easy life of the Happy Valley, accompanied by his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah, and the much-travelled philosopher Imlac. Their journey takes them to Egypt, where they study the various conditions of men's lives.

  • Author:
    Jackson, Shirley
    Summary:

    The greatest haunted house story ever written, the inspiration for a 10-part Netflix series directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, and Timothy Hutton
    First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

  • Author:
    Hawthorne, Nathaniel
    Summary:

    Presents four short stories by the 19th century New England writer.

  • Author:
    Fitzgerald, F. Scott
    Summary:

    The year is 1922, and young Nick Carraway moves to the village of West Egg, where he discovers that his neighbor is the eclectic millionaire Jay Gatsby. As he and Gatsby become acquainted, Nick is thrown into a world full of dazzling parties, unrequited love, and unchecked idealism. Gatsby, surrounded by riches, yearns for the love of a woman who chose another man. He waits for her every night, using a green light at the end of his dock to call out to her from across the water. Daisy, stuck in a loveless marriage, dreams of what could have been-and gets a taste for it after she is re-acquainted with Gatsby through Nick. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest novels ever written, this 1925 masterpiece is a portrait of the Roaring Twenties that's full of literary intrigue, resounding metaphors, and decadent glimpses into the glitz and glam of early twentieth-century America. As relevant today as ever, it offers a cautionary tale of the American Dream, warning against the temptation to believe that enough money paired with equal desire can achieve anything-even reverse the deepest regrets.

  • Author:
    Galati, Frank
    Summary:

    Presents a dramatization of John Steinbeck's novel about the plight of American farmers who were forced off their farms by drought and foreclosure during the Great Depression.

  • Author:
    Steinbeck, John
    Summary:

    Set against the backdrop of America's Great Depression and Dust Bowl, a family of farmers from Oklahoma head west in search of work, only to discover thousands like them are also on the move. Following a violent altercation with some locals, they head back on the road with their dream of a promised land in tatters. And life is set to get much worse for the Joads ...

  • Author:
    Poe, Edgar Allan
    Summary:

    The grand-prize winner of a writing contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, The Gold-Bug was one of Poe's most popular stories during his lifetime. Similar to his ratiocination tales-early versions of what we now call detective fiction-The Gold-Bug is full of mystery and adventure and includes a cryptogram, invisible ink, a scarab-like bug, and pirate treasure.

  • Author:
    Hesse, Hermann
    Summary:

    The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature Set in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

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