The World's classics

What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune?' When "Henry Esmond" appeared in 1852, noted writers and critics of the time acclaimed it as the best historical novel ever written. Set in the reign of Queen Anne, the story follows the troubled progress of a gentleman and an officer in Marlborough's army, as he painfully wrestles with an emotional allegiance to the old Tory-Catholic England until, disillusioned, he comes to terms of a kind with the Whiggish-Protestant future. This change also entails a very uncomfortable switch in his affections. The love story of Henry Esmond is charged with sombre, unconscious emotions, yet is skilfully embedded into historical events which are convincing but never too prominent.

The Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 1: The Warden The tranquil atmosphere of the cathedral town of Barchester is shattered when a scandal breaks concerning the financial affairs of a Church-run almshouse for elderly men. In the ensuing furore, Septimus Harding, the almshouse's well-meaning warden, finds himself pitted against his daughter's suitor Dr John Bold, a zealous local reformer. Matters are not improved when Harding's abrasive son-in law, Archdeacon Grantly, leaps into the fray to defend him against a campaign Bold begins in the national press. An affectionate and wittily satirical view of the workings of the Church of England, The Warden, the first of the Barchester Chronicles, is also a subtle exploration of the rights and wrongs of moral crusades and, in its account of Harding's intensely felt personal drama, a moving depiction of the private impact of public affairs.

This inspiring life-story by a towering figure of our era is an epic of genius in relation to the twentieth century. In these pages, Frank Lloyd Wright's personal revelations illumine an astonishing variety of experiences, opening with his life as a child with his Welsh forebears in the Midwest, his running away to plunge into the creative ferment of the Chicago of the Nineties, the beginning of one of the world's most productive careers, through his long dramatic life which culminated in his transforming influence on the modern world. His autobiography is a book of triumph over nearly incredible adversity. It is filled with memorable descriptions: of the young architect's apprentice with the pioneer Louis Sullivan; the fire which destroyed his renowned home, Taliesin, in the tragedy that took several lives, and his courageous re-building of his Imperial Hotel, in which he reveals why it rode out the disastrous 1923 earthquake in Tokyo, unharmed, while the city lay bout it in ruins; his romantic meeting with the woman whose devotion was to transform his life; the ordeals to which he and Olgivanna Lloyd Wright were early subjected and out of which they built a new life; the story of how they established the Taliesin Fellowship, the now renowned school of architecture to which students come from every part of the world; his friendships with Carl Sandburg, Alexander Woollcott, Lloyd Lewis, Ferdinand Schevill, among his others; his journeys to Japan and Russia; his creation of building after building-low cost houses, skyscrapers, churches, celebrated dwellings such as Hollyhock House, La Miniatura, Fallingwater, the Jacobs House (cost $5,500, including the architect's fee in 1936), etc.-which revolutionized the architecture of our century. During what he called "a very bad time in my life" Mrs. Wright urged him to begin work on his life-story and encouraged him through the years to complete it; and it is to her that he dedicated this final, definitive edition. Shortly after the preceding version of his autobiography appeared thirty-five years ago, Frank Lloyd Wright began to revise it, adding material over a period of sixteen years. This is the first edition of the corrected manuscript. Besides all his revisions of the earlier (and unillustrated) version, this new edition includes eighty-two illustrations, photographs of his family and of the people involved in his life, as well as his architectural masterpieces produced over a span of seventy years (including houses built as recently as 1976). This volume consists of six books, of which Book Six, titled BROADACRE CITY, comprises one of the most important additions to this comprehensive edition: the master's concepts of the future city and government-a major presentation of his ideas, prophecies being increasingly borne out in our time and destined to have an enduring influence in the future. Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography is an incomparable book, a frankly revealing and uncompromising personal achievement to stand with his great buildings.

This is one of Trollope's best novels, in the present writer's opinion. Among several intermingled plots, the story arc of Arabella Trefoil is the most rewarding. The husband-hunting Arabella is absolutely one of Trollope's best characters. She is grand-daughter to a great Duke, yet her social position is precarious, because her father was a wastrel younger son who married a woman of low birth (her father was "in trade!"). He engrossed her large fortune and squandered it, leaving his estranged wife and daughter nearly destitute, and yet with an expensive social position to maintain. Read this book for Trollope's masterly delineation of how these circumstances harrow the soul and deform the character of a young woman. With no fortune except a relentless will, Arabella must marry well to save herself from the abyss of middle-aged spinsterhood, poverty, and social death. Arabella has learned to regard the men in her life as stupid but powerful enemies against whom any cruel or dishonest treatment is thoroughly justified. Men are to be flattered, fooled and captured, or dealt with according to the laws of war. Trollope makes clear that Arabella is what her avaricious, hypocritical, patriarchal social class has made her into, and she is a sympathetic character despite her hardened heart. When she is introduced, she is nearly thirty and is nearing the end of the line as a marriageable girl. "I'll tell you what it is, mamma. I've been at it till I'm nearly broken down. I must settle somewhere;—or else die;—or else run away. I can't stand this any longer and I won't. Talk of work,—men's work! What man ever has to work as I do?" The eponymous American Senator is Elias Gotobed, of the fictional American state of Mickewa, who visits England apparently in order to inflict his opinions on everyone he meets. Trollope's senator is a self-righteous, pontificating horse's ass who offends against hospitality by lecturing and berating his hosts and their other guests at the dinner table about their laws and customs, and by meddling in local quarrels which are none of his business. In the end, the honour of England is avenged against the obnoxious Solon of Mickewa and he beats a retreat to the States with a flea in his ear. One wonders who the model(s) for this character might have been. A third storyline involves the romantic vicissitudes of Mary Masters, a country lawyer's daughter and a typical Trollopeian nice, well-principled young girl. All these stories are woven together expertly and seamlessly. This is a book to read and re-read. There are many hunting scenes, and the conversations of the horsey set are strikingly well-observed and most enjoyable, whether you approve of blood sports or not.

When William Whittlestaff becomes guardian to the penniless daughter of an old friend, he finds himself gradually falling in love with her. But Mary is herself in love with John Gordon, who has gone to seek his fortune in the Kimberley diamond fields.

The Palliser Novels, book 4: Phineas Redux

The House of the Dead (Russian: Записки из Мёртвого дома, Zapiski iz Myortvovo doma) is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1860–2 in the journal Vremya by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. The novel has also been published under the titles Memoirs from the House of The Dead, Notes from the Dead House (or Notes from a Dead House), and Notes from the House of the Dead. The book is, essentially, a disguised memoir; a loosely-knit collection of facts, events and philosophical discussion organised by "theme" rather than as a continuous story. Dostoevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a prison following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts.

The book is unusually divided into four seasons instead of chapters and represents a semi-fictional autobiographical work by George Gissing in which the author casts himself as the editor of the diary of a deceased acquaintance, selecting essays for posthumous publication. Observing how suitable many of the reflections were to the month with which they were dated.

A politically-charged satire on Anglo-Irish landlords, Castle Rackrent is a critically-acclaimed and thoroughly enjoyable novel. The social commentary critiques not only class but also gender roles, acutely discussing the marginalization of women in the eighteenth century. In Castle Rackrent, published in 1800, the Irish Catholic bourgeoisie rise to power.

The book is narrated by the Reverend Micah Balwhidder, a Presbyterian minister in the Ayrshire town of Dalmailing, and covers the years 1760 to 1810, the period of Robert Burns and the Industrial Revolution, when the economic and moral shape of Scottish life was changing in ways both explicit and invisible. The novel charts all this: the work of smugglers at Troon, new births in the parish, old deaths, the efforts of the press-gangs, the rise of the local economy, the business of {u2018}cadgers by day and excisemen by night{u2019}, the opening of a new dance school at Irville, {u2018}run by Mr Macskipnish{u2019}, visits to Glasgow and Edinburgh, the day of the country fair, described with a rare vernacular beauty. It{u2019}s a precursor to Dickens in terms of detail and to Flaubert in terms of style. --www.list.co.uk.

Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

Cet ouvrage, ou plutot ce recueil, que le public trouvera peut-etre encore trop volumineux, ne contient pourtant que le plus petit nombre des lettres qui composaient la totalite de la correspondance dont il est extrait. Charge de la mettre en ordre par les personnes a qui elle etait parvenue, et que je savais dans l'intention de la publier, je n'ai demande, pour prix de mes soins, que la permission d'elaguer tout ce qui me paraitrait inutile; et j'ai tache de ne conserver en effet que les lettres qui m'ont paru necessaires, soit a l'intelligence des evenements, soit au developpement des caracteres.

My Past and Thoughts (Russian: Былое и думы, romanized: Byloje i dumy) is an extensive autobiography by Alexander Herzen, which he started in the early 1850s and continued to expand and revise throughout his later life. Serialized in Polyarnaya Zvezda, the book in its full form came out as a separate edition after its author’s death. In Herzen’s lifetime the major parts of the book were translated into English (1855), German (1855) and French (1860-1862). My Past and Thoughts gives a panoramic view on the social and political life in Russian Empire as well as the European West of the mid-19th century. It is considered to be the classic of Russian literature. (Source: [Wikipedia](

Cecilia is an heiress, but she can only keep her fortune if her husband will consent to take her surname. Fanny Burney's unusual love story and deft social satire was much admired on its first publication in 1782 for its subtle interweaving of comedy, humanity, and social analysis.

The history of France in 1792 has been too fully written, and too generally read to leave the novelist any excuse for describing the state of Paris at the close of the summer of that year. It is known to every one that the palace of Louis XVI was sacked on the 10th of August. That he himself with his family took refuge in the National Assembly, and that he was taken thence to the prison of the Temple.

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Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

Life's Handicap contains twenty-seven stories about the experience of the British in India. Contents: The Lang Men O' Larut, Reingelder and the German Flag, The Wandering Jew, Through the Fire, The Finances Of the Gods, The Amir's Homily, Jews In Shushan, The Limitations of Pambe Serang, Little Tobrah, Bubbling Well Road, 'The City of Dreadful Night', Georgie Porgie, Naboth, The Dream of Duncan Parrenness, The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney, The Courting of Dinah Shadd, On Greenhow Hill, The Man Who Was, The Head of the District, Without Benefit of Clergy, At the End of the Passage, The Mutiny of the Mavericks, The Mark of the Beast, The Return of Imray, Namgay Doola, Bertran And Bimi, Moti Guj--Mutineer, L'envoi.

The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. It provides a unique insight into Zola's career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public.

Collection contains: Анна на шее Дама с собачкой Душечка [Дуэль]( Крыжовник Мужики О любви Страх Супруга Учитель словесности Человек в футляре

Set in the Potteries, the region in which Bennett spent much of his youth, this is the story of a miser's daughter who inherits a fortune. She stands out as a spirited, complex modern woman in a stifling and repressive society.

Dockwrath, attorney by profession and a tenant of Orley Farm, is convinced that there are suspicious circumstances regarding the inheritance of the estate, and he is determined to prove it.

Richard Hannay is now in his fifties but once more must throw himself into an adventure to uphold a an oath he made in his youth to protect the son of a man he once knew, the son being an heir to the secret of a great treasure.

Вишнёвый сад Дядя Ваня Иванов Три сестры Чайка

Collection contains: The party Lights The princess After the theatre [Три года]( The artist's story Home A case history All friends together The bishop A marriageable girl

Willa Cather's assessment of The Country of the Pointed Firs has done much to ensure a growing recognition of its qualities. In this novella, a writer moves to the quiet Maine village of Dunnel Landing, seeking a hermitage away from the busy city. Instead of isolation she discovers a rich community that exercises and extends her powers as an observer and conversationalist. She returns to the city refreshed, her vision broader and her relationships strengthened. This volume combines Jewett's classic novella and its four short sequels with nine more of her best stories, illustrating the range of her literary style and exemplifying her interest in the position of women in nineteenth-century America. Terry Heller's introduction examines Jewett's work within the mainstream of American literature. Useful annotation, plus a helpful list of the plant and herb lore to which Jewett makes frequent reference, further illuminate her stories for the reader.

Many critics were indeed 'disgusted' by the horrors that Marcus Clarke revealed in His Natural Life. So powerful was his representation of the brutality of transportation that more than a century later historians still struggle to disentangle fact from Clarke's tragic fiction. The novel charts the misfortunes of Richard Devine, falsely accused of murder, through the worst Australian penal settlements, the notorious Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur, and Norfolk Island, retaining his humanity and spiritual dignity through all the degradations that cruelty and inhumanity could devise. Clarke's novel is indeed a phantasmagoria of horrors - of murder, mutiny, flogging, child-suicide, homosexual rape, and cannibalism; yet it is also a powerful story of moral courage and heroic resistance to dehumanization. His Natural Life, usually published as For the Term of His Natural Life but here restored to the title Clarke gave it, is the grand epic of the transportation system, and has been described as the greatest nineteenth-century Australian novel.

The novel tells of the experiences of a young architect, Arthur Westray, who is despatched to the sleepy Dorset town of Cullerne to oversee restoration work on the once splendid, but now sadly deteriorated, Cullerne Minster. The project would seem to offer little by way of excitement: Cullerne is quietly dying, and Westray fears that any restoration efforts are doomed through lack of finance. He soon finds himself, rather unwillingly, caught up in the current of Cullerne life, and hears rumours about a mystery surrounding the claim to the title of Lord Blandamer, whose family vault is sited in Cullerne Minster, and whose arms—the Nebuly Coat—adorn the Minster's great transept window. When the new Lord Blandamer arrives, promising to pay all the costs of the restoration, the inhabitants rejoice—all except Westray, who suspects that the new Lord is not what he seems, and the gone-to-seed organist, Sharnall, who seems close to sovling the mystery of the Blandamer inheritance.

Published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is a thriller set in the latter half of the First World War, and the third of John Buchan’s books to feature Richard Hannay. Richard Hannay is called back from serving in France to take part in a secret mission: searching for a German agent. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland to track down the spy at the center of a web of German agents who are leaking information about the war plans. He hopes to infiltrate and feed misinformation back to Germany. His journey takes him from Glasgow to Skye, onwards into the Swiss Alps, and on to the Western Front. During the course of his work he’s again reunited with Peter Pienaar and John Blenkiron, who both appear in Greenmantle, as well as Sir Walter Bullivant, his Foreign Office contact from The Thirty Nine Steps. The title of the novel comes from a character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress to which there are many references in the book, not least of all as a codebook which Hannay uses to decipher messages from his allies. The book finishes with a captivating description of some of the final battles of the First World War between Britain and Germany in Eastern France.

No Name is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. A country gentleman is killed in an accident and his wife dies shortly after him. The blow is double for their daughters, who discover that they were born before their parents were married. Their sudden illegitimacy robs them of their inheritance and their accustomed place in society.

[Silver Blaze]( [Adventure of the Speckled Band]( [Sign of Four]( [Scandal in Bohemia]( [Adventure of the Naval Treaty]( [Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle]( Adventure of the Greek Interpreter [Red-Headed League]( [Adventure of the Empty House]( [Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter]( His Last Bow

During the first two months of the year 1844, the greatest possible excitement existed in Dublin respecting the State Trials, in which Mr O'Connell, his son, the Editors of three different repeal newspapers, Tom Steele, the Rev. Mr Tierney a priest who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the Repeal Movement and Mr Ray, the Secretary to the Repeal Association, were indicted for conspiracy. Those who only read of the proceedings in papers, which gave them as a mere portion of the news of the day, or learned what was going on in Dublin by chance conversation, can have no idea of the absorbing interest which the whole affair created in Ireland, but more especially in the metropolis.

While performing a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Una and Dan accidentally summon Puck who enables them to witness tales of English history.

These two novels contain characters who are either representative types, or thinly veiled caricatures of Peacock's contemporaries, who gather in country houses to eat, drink and discuss. These tales poke fun at contemporary attitudes and ideas, such as the Romantic literary movement.

Not so much a sequel as a small collection of short stories, only five of which feature Mowgli and friends. The best known of the stories is 'How Fear Came', which tells the story of how the tiger got his stripes.