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John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian characters and incidents -- the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...
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Wilkie Collins was the first great detective novelist. His dark and complex mysteries influenced the work of other writers, such as Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, with whom he developed a close personal friendship. Swinburne found his work worthy of serious criticism, and T. S. Eliot credits him even more than Poe with the invention of the modern detective novel and the popular thriller. Before such works as The Woman in White, The Moonstone,...
3) Tom Jones
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Tom Jones was abandoned as a baby by his mother. When Tom falls in love with Sophia Western, their union is vehemently opposed by her wealthy father. In despair, Tom joins the army for a brief duration, finds a servant in a barber-surgeon named Partridge, beds two older women, and very nearly kills a man in a duel. Eventually the secret of Tom's birth is revealed, giving him one more chance at love with Sophia.
4) The warden
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Reverend Septimus Harding is warden of the alms-house at Barchester providing charity for twelve of the town's neediest and an income for himself to the town's way of thinking. John Bold, even though he is in love with the Reverend's daughter, decides to look into this apparent misuse of church funds.
Author
Series
Chronicles of Barsetshire volume 3
Oxford world's classics
Barsetshire novels volume 3
Everyman's library volume no. 360
Oxford world's classics
Barsetshire novels volume 3
Everyman's library volume no. 360
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English
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Description
Doctor Thorne is a tale of love, envy, violence, greed, and vanity...but mainly love. Doctor Thorne lives with his beautiful niece, Mary, who has every virtue save money for a dowry. Only Mary's uncle, Doctor Thorne, knows the truth of her mysterious origins and can resolve the many problems facing his ward.
6) Lady Anna
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English
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"Lady Anna" was written in 1871 and first published in 1874. It tells the story of Lady Lovel, whose ambitious marriage to the ill-reputed Earl Lovel left her with a child of questionable legitimacy. When her daughter, Lady Anna, is nearly twenty one, the Earl dies and his fortune is left to a distant nephew. Lady Anna must now decide to marry the young Frederick Lovel for money, or to disregard her mother's vicious meddling and marry her true love...
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Follows the fortunes of two families in nineteenth century rural England. At its core are family relationships father, daughter and step-mother, father and sons, father and step-daughter all tested and strained by the romantic entanglements that ensue. Despite its underlying seriousness, the prevailing tone is one of comedy. Gaskell vividly portrays the world of the late 1820 s and the forces of change within it, and her vision is always humane and...
Author
Series
Oxford world's classics
Everyman's library volume 200
Everyman's library volume 241
Great illustrated classics
Everyman's library volume 200
Everyman's library volume 241
Great illustrated classics
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English
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At the center of Martin Chuzzlewit is Martin himself, very old, very rich, very much on his guard. What he suspects (with good reason) is that every one of his close and distant relations, now converging in droves on the country inn where they believe he is dying, will stop at nothing to become the inheritor of his great fortune. Having unjustly disinherited his grandson, young Martin, the old fellow now trusts no one but Mary Graham, the pretty girl...
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"Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is...
11) Summer
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English
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"Charity Royall, a New Englander of humble origins, begins a torrid love affair with aristocratic Lucius Harney against all societal norms." *** "The novel Wharton called her 'hot Ethan' is set in the Massachusetts Berkshires and delves into the thwarted dreams and sexual passions of a repressed rural woman." *** "Charity Royall, brought down from the Mountain when she was an infant, is a ward of Lawyer Royall. Lucius Harney becomes Charity's lover...
12) North and south
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English
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Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny, it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the...
13) My Ántonia
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"Widely recognized as Willa Cather's finest book and one of the outstanding novels of American literature, My Antonia details of the life of early American pioneers in Nebraska. Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of...
14) Jude the obscure
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English
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Thomas Hardy's deterministic art achieves fanatic intensity and raw perfection in the characterization of Jude Fawley, an impoverished stone mason who aspires to the ministry. Throughout his agonized existence, the cloistered halls and facades of Christminister--where Jude wishes to study--tempt and mock him to rid himself of ignorance. His failure to fulfill the expectations of either of the two women he loves, and the violent deaths of his children...
15) Mary Barton
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English
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When John Barton's wife dies, he is forced to raise his daughter, Mary, alone, while he grieves the love of his life. Though he is a hard-working man, John struggles to provide for his family. Realizing how unfair his financial situation is, John becomes very resentful towards the unethical distribution of wealth between the social classes. Against John's wishes, when Mary comes of age, she decides to help support their family by working in a dressmaking...
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Overview: Alexandre Dumas's novel of justice, retribution, and self-discovery - one of the most enduringly popular adventure tales ever written - appears here in a newly revised translation. "This novel tells the story of Edmond Dantes, wrongfully imprisoned for life in the supposedly impregnable sea fortress the Chateau d'If. After a daring escape, and after unearthing a hidden treasure revealed to him by a fellow prisoner, he devotes the rest...
17) Bleak House
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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 embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...
18) Cranford
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English
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Cranford, in 1842, is a market town in northwest England. It is a place governed by etiquette, custom and above all, an intricate network of ladies. It seems that life has always been conducted according to their social rules. For spinsters Deborah Jenkyns, the arbiter of correctness, and Matty, her demurring sister, the town is a hub of intrigue. Handsome new doctor Frank Harrison has arrived from London; a retired Captain and his daughters move...
19) Hard times
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"Hard Times is perhaps the archetypal Dickens novel, full as it is with family difficulties, estrangement, rotten values and unhappiness. It was published in 1854 and it is the story of the family of Thomas Gradgrind, and occurs in the imaginary Coketown, an industrial city inspired by Preston. Gradgrind is a man obsessed with misguided 'Utilitarian' values that make him trust facts, statistics and practicality more than emotion and is based upon...
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