Project Gutenberg.
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Fashioned from the same experiences that would inspire the masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain’s most brilliant and most personal nonfiction work. It is at once an affectionate evocation of the vital river life in the steamboat era and a melancholy reminiscence of its passing after the Civil War, a priceless collection of humorous anecdotes and folktales, and a unique glimpse into Twain’s life before...
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Charmingly imperfect Catherine Morland is invited to Northanger Abbey, the home of new friends. Hearing exaggerated reports of her wealth, the head of household General Tilney encourages a marriage between his son Henry and Catherine. Before matters can be settled, Catherine must learn to distinguish between books and real life, false friends and true.
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Mansfield Park is a study of three families-the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices-with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny Price, at its center. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford, the unfortunate consequences of whose...
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Anne Shirley is now sixteen and preparing to take up her new role as a teacher in the local school. She has her best friend Diana Barry by her side and Gilbert Blythe, her childhood enemy, who is now a trusted ally and a fellow teacher. As impulsive as ever, Anne launches into her new career with characteristic vigor.
11) Common sense
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Thomas Paine arrived in America from England in 1774. A friend of Ben Franklin, he was a writer of poetry and tracts condemning the slave trade. In 1775, as hostilities between Britain and the colonies intensified, Paine wrote "Common Sense" to encourage the colonies to break the British exploitative hold through independence.
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This is the story of the savage, tormented foundling Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other. A book of great power and strength, it is filled with the raw beauty of the moors and an uncanny understanding of the terrible truths about men and women. It is an understanding made even more extraordinary by the fact that...
13) Emma
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As daughter of the richest, most important man in the small provincial village of Highbury, Emma Woodhouse is firmly convinced that it is her right--perhaps even her "duty"--To arrange the lives of others. Considered by most critics to be Austen's most technically brilliant achievement, "Emma" sparkles with ironic insights into self-deception, self-discovery, and the interplay of love and power.
15) Oliver Twist
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Oliver Twist is a classic tale of a boy of unknown parentage born in a workhouse and brought up under the cruel conditions to which pauper children were exposed in the Victorian England. With this novel, Dickens did not merely write a topical satire on the workhouse system and the role of the 1834 New Poor Law in fostering criminality. He created a moral fable about the survival of good, a romance, and a gripping story in which he exploited suspense...
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Dostoevsky studies the psychological impact upon Raskolvikoc, a desperate and impoverished student, when he murders a despicable pawnbroker. He transgresses moral law, thinking he ultimately benefits humanity. Crime and Punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses on the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil and who cannot escape his own conscience.
17) Little women
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The classic story of the March family whose 4 daughters are growing up in New England in the mid-1800s. There are numerous sequels, for example, Little Men and Jo's Boys. Annotation. Little Women is the heartwarming story of the March family that has thrilled generations of readers. It is the story of four sisters--Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth-- and of the courage, humor and ingenuity they display to survive poverty and the absence of their father during...
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"Young Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip, is meant to become an apprentice for his brother-in-law, a poor blacksmith. But his destiny changes upon meeting three unusual people: an escaped convict, a tragic woman, and a captivating young girl. Pip's life is altered in an instant when a secret benefactor gives him a large sum of money. Pip has "great expectations" for his new life as successful and wealthy life as a young gentleman. Has his life actually...
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Of all Jane Austen's books, Pride and Prejudice has earned a special place in the hearts of the reading public as her best-loved and most intimately known novel. From its famous opening sentence the story of the Bennet family and of the novel's two protagonists, Elizabeth and Darcy, told with a wit that its author feared might prove 'rather too light and bright, and sparkling', delights its most familiar readers as thoroughly as it does those who...
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A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge opens on a Christmas Eve as cold as Scrooge's own heart. That night, he receives three ghostly visitors: the terrifying spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Each takes him on a heart-stopping journey, yielding glimpses of Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit, the horrifying spectres of Want and Ignorance,...