Washington Irving weaves a bewitching tale with hints of the gothic to expose a darkness pervading social stratification in 19th-century America. In Irving’s best-known short story, a teacher vying for the hand of a wealthy socialite...
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- Author: Irving, WashingtonSummary:
- Author: Pyle, HowardSummary:
Robin Hood follows one of our favorite heroes as he embarks on various adventures and antics, recruiting the Merry Men from what appears to be every corner of Europe and pursuing his quest to "steal from the rich and give to the poor."...
- Author: Wells, H. G.Summary:
Humanity's worst fears come true in this grand science fiction adventure. Through telescopes fixed on faraway planets, scientists begin noticing strange events on the surface of Mars. Soon after, a mysterious object lands in the middle...
- Author: Dickens, CharlesSummary:
Bleak House opens in the twilight of foggy London, where fog grips the city most densely in the Court of Chancery. The obscure case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in which an inheritance is gradually devoured by legal costs, the romance of...
- Author: Lofting, HughSummary:
The life of quiet bachelor Dr. Dolittle is turned upside down when Polynesia the parrot teaches him how to speak to animals, prompting him to shift his medical focus on the creatures he’s always adored. His veterinary practice takes him...
- Author: Flaubert, GustaveSummary:
One of literature's great tragic heroines, beautiful Emma Bovary fights boredom with passionate excess, throwing herself into love affairs with a momentum that threatens to drag all around her into tragedy. Selfish, reckless, at times...
- Author: Swift, JonathanSummary:
Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters with the crude...
- Author: Twain, MarkSummary:
Tom Sawyer is a high-spirited but basically good kid growing up on the Mississippi River, pining for Becky Thatcher and getting into run-of-the-mill trouble. But when Huck Finn appears on the scene, boyish misadventure gets taken up a...
- Author: Austen, JaneSummary:
Fanny Price, is a young girl from a large and relatively poor family, who is taken from them at age 10 to be raised by her rich uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas, a baronet, and Lady Bertram, of Mansfield Park. She had previously lived with...
- Author: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel deSummary:
The greatest book about why you shouldn’t read books, weirdly written at a time when there weren’t that many books to read. Quest along with Don Quixote and the long-suffering Sancho Panza as they break peoples’ china, get beaten up by...
- Author: Joyce, JamesSummary:
The 15 unforgettable short stories that form this collection paint the portrait of a city through the eyes of its middle class residents. Beginning with stories of the very young and moving through adulthood into the tales of the very...
- Author: Hawthorne, NathanielSummary:
Widowed Hester Prynne, isolated in a new country, seeks comfort in the arms of a lover. When she gives birth to a child, her shame is made public, and in the unforgiving moral atmosphere of colonial Massachusetts, she is made to suffer...
- Author: Montgomery, L. M.Summary:
Anne, a young orphan from the fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia (based upon the real community of New London), is sent to Prince Edward Island after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew...
- Author: Dumas, AlexandreSummary:
Growing up in genteel poverty in 17th-century France, young d'Artagnan dreams of becoming a hero and sets out to join the elite company of the King's trusted Musketeers. Beautiful and deadly women, priceless treasures and scandalous...
- Author: Conrad, JosephSummary:
On board the British ship the NELLIE, Marlow told a group of men his story... He told them of his strange, eventful, yet horrific journey into Africa as an agent for the Company, which traded in ivory. He had witnessed the terrible...
- Author: Tolstoy, LeoSummary:
This epic saga of Russian life in the days of the Napoleonic wars centers on the loves and losses of five aristocratic families. Famous for its length, the novel uses the backdrop of great sociopolitical upheaval to throw into sharp...
- Author: Haggard, H. RiderSummary:
A group of adventurers led by English fortune hunter Allan Quartermain follow a mysterious map on a quest to uncover the legendary mines of the biblical King Solomon. The first masterpiece of the "Lost World" genre, and inspiration for...
- Author: Kafka, FranzSummary:
Described by Nobel laureate Elias Canetti as, "one of the few great and perfect works of the poetic imagination," this short fable about a man who wakes up one morning transformed into a giant insect is deeply funny in its tragedy and...
- Author: Baum, L. FrankSummary:
Spoiler alert: there are no songs, and the slippers are silver. Luckily, there’s still a Yellow Brick Road and flying monkeys. Colorful characters, frightening villains and amazing landscapes make this beloved childhood classic a treat...
- Author: Northup, SolomonSummary:
A sobering reminder of America’s abhorrent past of slavery, the legacy of which has reverberated its legacy well into the present day, Solomon Northup’s memoir is a fully engrossing chronicle of a free man living in New York State who...