Translated in 1915 by C. J. Hogarth. Written in 1845 and published in 1846, Poor Folk or Poor People is a natural beginning point for anyone who wants to read Dostoevsky. The novel occupies a position of particular interest and importance in both the history of Russian literature and Dostoevsky's work as a whole. Several lines of development in Russian prose intersect: sentimentalism, naturalism, the physiological sketch, and the phenomenon of Gogol, with whom Dostoevsky maintains a dialogue throughout the novel. This is the first novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845. He was in financial difficulty because of his extravagant living and his developing gambling addiction; although he had produced some translations of foreign novels, they had little success, and he decided to write a novel of his own to try to raise funds. Inspired by the works of Gogol, Pushkin, and Karamzin, this novel is written in the form of letters between the two main characters, Makar Devushkin and Varvara Dobroselova, who are poor second cousins. The novel showcases the life of poor people, their relationship with rich people, and poverty in general, all common themes of literary naturalism. A deep but odd friendship develops between them until Dobroselova loses her interest in literature, and later in communicating with Devushkin after a rich widower Mr. Bykov proposes to her. Devushkin, a prototype of the clerk found in many works of naturalistic literature at that time, retains his sentimental characteristics; Dobroselova abandons art, while Devushkin cannot live without literature.
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People call Megan Wilson a slut behind her back. They call Ace Trainer a bad boy. People have labeled and blindly judged other people so many times, that they tend to forget that those other people too are in fact, just people in the end. And people cannot be categorized.
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(1900) 'Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way, By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, Be gentle when the heathen pray, To Buddha at Kamakura!' A white youth in India, becomes friends with an old ascetic priest, the lama. The boy juggles Imperialist life with his spiritual bond to the lama, who searches for redemption from the Wheel of Life. Kim captures the opulence of India's exotic landscape, overlaid by the uneasy presence of the British Raj. ~ I first read this book when I was ten years old and have read it again and again over the years. (That's been 62 years of reading Kim.) It is, in fact, possibly my favorite novel. At first I read it because it has an exciting plot, a spy novel, in effect; very enticing for a kid. As an adult, the political climate of those times became clear to me and was an invaluable help to my history studies in high school and college. Kim is a boy whose parents are Irish but they both die when he is young and from his earliest years he is brought up as a native of the poorest caste. He knows Indian culture of the streets through and through and he has some most interesting acquaintances. He befriends an aged Tibetan lama and following the lama on his quest for a sacred river becomes both Kim's raison d'etre and the framework for the plot. Rudyard Kipling's politics have been sneered at in the last 50 years because they are no longer politcally correct but I feel they should be viewed as of the time in which he lived. From his novels and poetry, one feels that Kipling loved and respected the native peoples of India and did not feel superior to them in the way that most English did at that time. He was, however, very loyal to his own native country of England, whatever its politics. I highly recommend this book for both children and adults.--Submitted by Motibutton
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(1720) Being an Account of the Famous Enterprises of Captain Avery, the Mock King of Madagascar. WITH His Rambles and Piracies; wherein all the Sham Accounts formerly publish'd of him, are detected. In Two LETTERS from himself; one during his Stay at Madagascar, and one since his Escape from thence.
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(1850) "The Scarlet Letter", a classic romantic novel of suspense and intrigue, takes on the themes of pride, sin and vengeance with a burning passion that made it the controversial novel of its time. In a devout Puritan town, a young married woman named Hester Prynne conceives a child. There is a catch, however; her husband has been missing for years. Hester is sent to prison, where she gives birth and calls the child Pearl, for she is her mother's only treasure. As her punishment, Hester is brought into the marketplace and is forced to wear a SCARLET LETTER upon her breast, which she proudly embroiders with gold thread. Hester is satisfied, and ready to lead a quiet life with Pearl as a seamstress as she had before, but her composure leads us to wonder: who is the child's father, and how will he cope with his guilt? And when the clever husband returns, shall the father survive his venomous wrath?--Submitted by Lee Eliot
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She was a wolf of one of the stronger wolf pack. But when she turned 17 everything changed
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Set in the halcyon days of pre-World War I innocence, Virginia Woolf's third novel follows the progress of a young man as he moves from adolescence to adulthood in a hazy rite of passage. Wandering through the windswept shores of Cornwall to the sun-scorched landscape of Greece, his character is revealed in a stream of loosely related incidents, thoughts, and impressions.
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Lectures delivered at Cambridge University between 1913-1914. by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, M.A. Fellow of Jesus College King Edward VII Professor of English Literature ~ TO JOHN HAY LOBBAN ~ Preface: By recasting these lectures I might with pains have turned them into a smooth treatise. But I prefer to leave them (bating a very few corrections and additions) as they were delivered. If, as the reader will all too easily detect, they abound no less in repetitions than in arguments dropped and left at loose ends--the whole bewraying a man called unexpectedly to a post where in the act of adapting himself, of learning that he might teach, he had often to adjourn his main purpose and skirmish with difficulties--they will be the truer to life; and so may experimentally enforce their preaching, that the Art of Writing is a living business. Bearing this in mind, the reader will perhaps excuse certain small vivacities, sallies that meet fools with their folly, masking the main attack. That, we will see, is serious enough; and others will carry it on, though my effort come to naught. It amounts to this--Literature is not a mere Science, to be studied; but an Art, to be practised. Great as is our own literature, we must consider it as a legacy to be improved. Any nation that potters with any glory of its past, as a thing dead and done for, is to that extent renegade. If that be granted, not all our pride in a Shakespeare can excuse the relaxation of an effort--however vain and hopeless--to better him, or some part of him. If, with all our native exemplars to give us courage, we persist in striving to write well, we can easily resign to other nations all the secondary fame to be picked up by commentators. Recent history has strengthened, with passion and scorn, the faith in which I wrote the following pages. ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH November 1915. ~
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(1890) A collection of tales inspired by Kipling's days living and working in India.
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The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story by Joseph Conrad and Ford M. Hueffer (Ford Madox Ford), published in 1901. "Sardanapalus builded seven cities in a day. Let us eat, drink and sleep, for to-morrow we die." To BORYS & CHRISTINA *******
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This book is about the quest to the centre of the earth. The expedition is led by Professor Otto Liedenbrock and includes Axel and their Icelandic guide Hans. Liedenbrock stumbles upon this discovery when he was going through a runic script. In the runic script he discovers a coded message written by an Icelandic alchemist Arne Saknussemm, saying that he has been to the centre of the earth. He goes on to describe how exactly he did it. So Professor Otto Liedenbrock, Axel, and Hans go to Sneffels where they are let down by cloudy skies. But on the last day the sun comes out and they enter the correct crater. Once in they face many mishaps like being in a chamber filled with combustible gas and face several prehistoric creatures. After the journey they return to Hamburg to great acclaim--Professor Liedenbrock is hailed as one of the greatest scientists of history, Axel marries his sweetheart Gra黚en, and Hans eventually returns to his peaceful life in Iceland.--Submitted by Anonymous ~
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(1896) A sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and a prequel to Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894). Tom Sawyer attempts to solve a mysterious murder in this burlesque of the immensely popular detective novels of the time. The story is told using the first-person narrative voice of Huck Finn.
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For Young People of All Ages (1882) Dedicated to Those Good-Mannered and Agreeable Children, Susie and Sarah Clemens, This Book Is Affectionately Dedicated by Their Father I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like manner had it of HIS father-and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it COULD have happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and credited it. The Prince and the Pauper was Mark Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. Supposedly, part of what compelled him to write it was his new marriage. His wife was encouraging him to write more "high-brow" literature. One wonders why a person would take the advice to change a formula that has been successful. The Prince and the Pauper is well written and a charming story that has many appealing themes. Yet, it was not nearly as well known or as well read as Twain's famous novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Despite what Twain's wife thought, it possibly was rejected by Twain's readers because it wasn't American and not about the entertaining white trash that lived in river towns. Some critics believe that the story reflected Twain's own duality. His beginnings had started out humble, and he had moved up in the world with his writing success. He seemed constantly plagued by fears that people would discover that he was a fraud and ridicule his origins. He often questioned whether he was a fraud. The Prince and the Pauper is a Cinderella story. It is both a rags-to-riches and a riches-to-rags story since it is told by two perspectives, the beggar who becomes a prince and the prince who becomes a beggar after they change places. Both boys struggle in their new roles. Tom Canty, the beggar child who finds himself a prince, worries about making a fool of himself and at first chafes at the restrictions his luxurious life imposes. Yet, in time, he begins to enjoy it particularly when he finds himself empowered to change harsh laws. He fears acknowledging his family and friends because he doesn't want to lose his position, and yet he is guilt-ridden when he denies knowing his mother. Prince Edward VI, who originally switches places with the beggar boy he rescued to enjoy a few hours of freedom, doesn't enjoy the new life imposed upon him. Yet, through all the difficulties he endures, he sees the world from a different viewpoint that he never would have had the opportunity to see. He witnesses the injustices of the king's laws firsthand. He sees the suffering of the people he will one day rule, and also experiences the difficulties first-hand himself. He learns lessons to be a better ruler from his experience. The book teaches several spiritual lessons: how perception often determines our reality, that the grass is not always greener on the other side, and compassion for your fellow man. Even those who are ignorant of history will be able to appreciate the time period The Prince and the Pauper is set in. Henry VIII and his daughter Bloody Mary are famous and well-known. The Tudors were a brief but exciting period in English history, even without the nudity so prevalent in the popular television series that recently told their story. The war about which religion would guide England is not really touched upon in The Prince and the Pauper, though there is a heart-wrenching scene where two Baptist women are burned at the stake. Oddly enough, though, a religious theme is hinted at-making one wonder if Twain's marriage had more than one influence. In the story, a child lectures his elders about lessons in compassion. He sleeps in a manger. He has a mock coronation and is ridiculed. He is denied by his friends. Sound familiar? Though this story did not take place in America, the social and political commentary are timeless. Though times may be a little less barbaric than they were during Henry VIII's rule, many social problems continue to plague humanity even up to these times. Poverty, child abuse, domestic abuse, injustice, out-of-touch government officials, corruption, prejudice, intolerance these are problems that still exist. Though it may be depressing to think not much has changed in several hundred years, it is one of the reasons why classic literature still speaks to us. It would be interesting to see if the classics would continue to endure if humanity suddenly resolved many of its problems. ~~ Young Prince Edward lived a life of luxury with servants to grant his every wish. Tom Canty spent his days begging on the streets, and his nights in a hovel with his tyrannical father. When the two boys meet, a simple switch of clothing sets them on a path they'd never dreamt possible. The prince, mistaken for Tom, is forced to live a pauper's life, while Tom unwillingly takes on the life of a prince. And in the end, each boy finds the king inside himself. ~ A long time ago, in the land of England that is ruled by the vicious King Henry VII, two young boys find themselves trapped in each other's worlds. One, a prince, the other a pauper, adjust to the very different situations of which they are now entrapped. Written in 1881, Mark Twain captures the world of Tudor England with astounding accuracy.--Submitted by S. Russell The Prince and the Pauper, written by Mark Twain tells the story of two unsatisfied boys switching lives and the consequences they receive. It takes place in the United Kingdom, in the 16th. century. The young prince of Whales, was tired of his boring life, he wanted more adventure. With the help of Tom Canty, a beggar's son, he realized his dream was not at all, what he had expected. This book teaches to be content with what you already have, and to be wise in what you long for.--Submitted by jen akosa
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(1914) TO CHARLES CANNAN. My Dear Cannan, It is told of a distinguished pedagogue that one day a heated stranger burst into his study, and, wringing him by the hand, cried, "Heaven bless and reward you, sir! Heaven preserve you long to educate old England's boyhood! I have walked many a weary, weary mile to see your face again," he continued, flourishing a scrap of paper, "and assure you that but for your discipline, obeyed by me as a boy and remembered as a man, I should never--no, never--have won the Ticket-of-Leave which you behold!" In something of the same spirit I bring you this small volume. The child of encouragement is given to staggering its parent; and I make no doubt that as you turn the following pages, you will more than once exclaim, with the old lady in the ballad-- "O, deary me! this is none of I!" Nevertheless, it would be strange indeed if this story bore no marks of you; for a hundred kindly instances have taught me to come with sure reliance for your reproof and praise. Few, I imagine, have the good fortune of a critic so friendly and inexorable; and if the critic has been unsparing, he has been used unsparingly. Wargrave, Henley-on-Thames, June 7, 1888 ~
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