Subject: Classic Fiction
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Aaron's Rod D. H. Lawrence
Lawrence's satirical work in which he presents a bitter view of humanity and of the relationship between men and women. Aaron Sisson, a union official in an English mining town, leaves for Italy, deserting his wife and children to pursue politics and his original interest in music. Lawrence seems to foretell the... read more »
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Abbé Mouret's Transgression Émile Zola
Serge Mouret, the younger son of Francois Mouret, is ordained to the priesthood and appointed Cure of Les Artaud, a squalid village in Provence, to whose degenerate inhabitants he ministers. He has inherited the family taint of the Rougon-Macquarts, which in him takes the form of a morbid religious enthusiasm... read more »
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A Change of Air Anthony Hope
From the author of The Prisoner of Zenda. A highly clever performance with little touches that recall both Balzac and Meredith...is endowed with exceeding originality. In this 1893 novel, a young poet, Dale Bannister, suddenly finds himself possessed of fame and fortune. He moves to the town of Denborough, where he... read more »
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A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
With Dickens' famous words, Merry Christmas, everyone! "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" unfolds a tale that renews the joy that is Christmas. Regardless of whether you read it out loud with your family and friends, or open the pages on a chill winter night to savor the story in isolation, Charles Dickens' A Christmas... read more »
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A Christmas Greeting Hans Christian Andersen
During a visit with Chalse Dickens in England, there sprung forth--as the flowers spring forth in the forest--these short stories for the festive season, five of which were previously unpublished upon release. A Christmas greeting sent to Dickens. *Contents*: The Old House, The Drop of Water, The Happy Family, The... read more »
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A Daughter of the Snows Jack London
Set in the Yukon, it tells the story of Frona Welse, a Stanford graduate and physical Valkyrie, who takes to the trail after upsetting her wealthy father's community by her forthright manner and befriending the town's prostitute. She is also torn between love for two suitors: Gregory St Vincent, a local man who... read more »
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A Lady of Quality Frances Hodgson Burnett
Being A Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, As Related To Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff But Not Presented To the World of Fashion ... and Now for the First Time Written Down by Frances Hodgson Burnett - the first of series of successful historical novels by Burnett. read more »
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Almayer's Folly Joseph Conrad
Lush prose and penetrating psychological insight infuse Conrad's first novel with the qualities that have made him one of the most popular and most studied writers in English literature. The novel chronicles the tragic decline of a Dutch merchant isolated in 19th-century Borneo, the machinations of his bitter... read more »
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Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
A magnificent drama of vengeance, infidelity, and retribution, Anna Karenina portrays the moving story of people whose emotions conflict with the dominant social mores of their time. Sensual, rebellious Anna falls deeply and passionately in love with the handsome Count Vronsky. When she refuses to conduct the... read more »
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An Unsocial Socialist George Bernard Shaw
Sidney Trefusis is a proselytizing socialist. Armed with irony and paradox, he is determined to overthrow a society riddled with class and sexual exploitation. Henrietta, his adoring wife, 'loves' him: he must abandon her. Son of a millionaire, he gives up everything to pose as an 'umble peasant'. But when this... read more »
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
Perhaps Joyce's most personal work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man depicts the intellectual awakening of one of literature's most memorable young heroes, Stephen Dedalus. Through a series of brilliant epiphanies that parallel the development of his own aesthetic consciousness, Joyce evokes Stephen's youth... read more »
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A Sentimental Journey Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne's revolutionary novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman plays with time, space, narrative conceits, and the very concept of the novel itself-it has dramatically affected the course of English-language fiction in the centuries since, with works from writers such as James Joyce and... read more »
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A Simple Soul Gustave Flaubert
A story about a girl named Felicité. She is a servant who has lived with the same family ever since she was betrayed by her lover. She has a strong sense of loyalty and self sacrifice: she lives to help others. Flaubert provides us with a full character which exhibits a quiet, uneducated saintliness that weathers a... read more »
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At Fault Kate Chopin
Thérèse Lafirme, a beautiful and resourceful Creole woman, is widowed at age thirty-two and left alone to run her Louisiana plantation. When Thérèse falls in love with David Hosmer, a divorced businessman, her strong moral and religious convictions make it impossible for her to accept his marriage proposal. Her... read more »
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At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Honoré de Balzac
The plot for At the Sign of the Cat and Racket, if such a stately name can be given to so delicate a sketch, is of course open to downright British judgment to pronounce the self-sacriiice of Lebas more ignoblethan touching, the conduct of Théodore too childish to deserve the excuses sometimes possible for... read more »
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Bel Ami Guy de Maupassant
Bel-Ami is the story of a ruthlessly ambitious young man (Georges Duroy, christened "Bel-Ami" by his female admirers) making it to the top in fin-de-sihcle Paris. It is a novel about money, sex, and power, set against the background of the politics of the French colonization of North Africa. It explores the dynamics... read more »
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Bleak House Charles Dickens
Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively... read more »
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Bouvard and Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert
Nowhere do Flaubert's explorations of the relation of signs to the objects they signify reach a more thorough study than in this work. Bouvard and Pécuchet systematically confuse signs and symbols with reality, an assumption that causes them much suffering, as it does for Emma Bovary and Frédéric Moreau. Yet... read more »
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Can You Forgive Her? Anthony Trollope
With 'Can You Forgive Her?' Trollope begins his masterful series of Parliamentary novels, but here he is concerned with the politics of love and the demands of society. Alice Vavasor, lovely, intelligent and just a bit prudish, is torn between two men -- the upright if plodding John Gray, and the evasive yet... read more »
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Cashel Byron's Profession George Bernard Shaw
After poleaxing his mathematics master with a perfect right, Cashel Byron, the unloved son of a successful actress, runs away to Australia. He returns to England and becomes the most famous prizefighter of his age, only to be floored himself by the lovely and impossible Lydia Carew. Can Lydia, with her reputation... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 1 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 1 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 2 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 2 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 3 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 3 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 4 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 4 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 5 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 5 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 6 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 6 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 7 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 7 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 8 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 8 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Clarissa - Volume 9 Samuel Richardson
This is Volume 9 of Samuel Richardson's classic novel; Clarissa. Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an... read more »
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Coningsby Benjamin Disraeli
This is one of Disreali's best novels, not as a story, but as a study of men, manners, and principles. The plot is slight -- little better than a device for stringing together sketches of character and statements of political and economic opinions; but these are always interesting and often brilliant. The motive... read more »