David Copperfield by Charles
Dickens
Dickens's heavily autobiographical novel describing a young
man's rise in the world is a classic coming-of-age story.
David Copperfield, the
narrator, is orphaned at a tender age and raised first by his brutal stepfather
(who halts his schooling and sends him to work in a factory -- as did Dickens's
own father), then by a kindly aunt. He trains for a career in law, but
eventually becomes a writer. An ill-advised marriage brings him considerable
unhappiness, but not long after his wife's death he is reunited with his
childhood sweetheart.
A sprawling portrait of life in Victorian England,
David Copperfield is perhaps Dickens's most popular work, and it contains many of the
characters -- Mr. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, and Little
Emily -- who gave Dickens his reputation as the finest literary portraitist of his
age.
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Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
The tale of the orphan, Pip, and his mysterious benefactor
provides a grotesque but pointed comedy that explores the many levels of English
society with insight and sympathy as well as a satiric eye.
Considered by many
to be Dickens's best novel, Great Expectations is the story of a young man who
rises out of a rough, deprived childhood to a life in which his expectations--or
some of them--are fulfilled: he is a gentleman and a success, though he soon
finds that happiness doesn't necessarily accompany money and position.
The novel
is full of fascinating scenes and characters, among them the coldhearted
Estella, the vengeful and dotty Miss Havisham, Joe Gargery the noble blacksmith,
the ever-lovable Herbert Pocket, and of course Magwitch, the grotesque and
terrifying but ultimately benevolent convict, one of Dickens's most vital
creations. As the compelling plot progresses, Pip's fortunes rise and fall, and
he slowly gains in wisdom, learning to value what is important and to abandon
most of his illusions.
But the moral of the story is never heavy-handed or
didactic, and in telling his tale, Dickens epitomizes all the best qualities for
which he became famous: a comic vision, an inventive imagination, and a
bountiful appreciation for the wonderful variety and boundless possibility
inherent in the most ordinary humans.
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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by Washington Irving
The story of Icabod Crane, set
in the Hudson River valley of the 1700s. Washington Irving, called the
"first American man of letters," is best known for his short stories
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."
Here's what one Amazon
Reviewer wrote about the former:
"Washington Irving had
a way with words that none could compare with. His simple and not
very scary at all tale of one of the most famous "ghosts" in history
is both delightful in it's humor and wit and charming in it's
character description. If you are looking for something to send
shivers up your spine and make you quake in fear, you have looked to
the wrong story master. Irving was a story teller of everyday people
in everyday situations. The comical and the endearing. He made his
observations on life and living it and left the afterlife to
speculation. That is why The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a
true literary classic!"
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Man
and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy by George Bernard
Shaw
"Man and Superman" shows Shaw's wit at its most brilliant and his
speculations at their boldest. The play, as Shaw explains in the
preface, is on the Don Juan theme. Taking all the ingredients of the
legend, as used by Mozart in "Don Giovanni," Shaw reordered them to
write a four-act play in which, characteristically, he turned the
story on its head so that Don Juan becomes 'the quarry instead of
the huntsman'.
While "Man and Superman" contains
high comedy of the order of Congreve, it is also a powerful drama of
ideas in which Shaw explores the role of the artist, the function of
women in society and his theory of Creative Evolution, a theme to
which he returned twenty years later in his great dramatic cycle
"Back to Methuseleh."
George Bernard Shaw demanded truth
and despised convention. He punctured hollow pretensions and smug
prudishness - coating his criticism with ingenious and irreverent
wit. In "Man and Superman" the great playwright satirizes accepted
attitudes toward woman's place in society, military heroism,
marriage, the pursuit of man by woman. From a social, literary, and
theatrical standpoint, this play is among the foremost dramas of the
ages - as intellectually stimulating as it is thoroughly enjoyable.
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Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Dickens's huge, rambling novel tells
the story of the Nickleby
family after the death of the father, when the family is tyrannized by their
nefarious Uncle Ralph. Nicholas becomes a schoolmaster at a brutal Yorkshire
school run by the evil-hearted Wackford Squeers, who treats his young charges
with neglectful brutality.
Nicholas and the orphan boy, Smike, run away and join
a troupe of traveling actors. Hearing that his sister Kate is in danger,
Nicholas travels to London and foils his uncle's vile plans for her. The frail
and saintly (if simpleminded) Smike dies, after which it is revealed that he was
Uncle Ralph's son. Uncle Ralph hangs himself, leaving the tormented Nickleby
family in peace at last.
One reviewer at Amazon
had this to say about The Life and Adventures of Nicholas
Nickleby:
"Nicholas Nickelby, one of my all time favorites, is a wonderful
novel, typical Dickens, chock full of characters, plots, satire, and
story. Nicholas and his immediate family are the 'black sheep' of
the Nickelby name. Humble, gentle, and common in the eyes of their
well-to-do relative, Uncle Ralph Nickelby, who denounces Nicholas as
a boy, and man, who will never amount to anything.
"In typical Dickens fashion, Nicholas encounters adversity first
at a boarding school, then in society, as he forges a name for
himself. Along the way he befriends many, enrages some and
invokes the wrath of his Uncle Ralph, determined to prove himself
right in bemoaning the shortcomings of his nephew.
"For anyone forced to read Dickens early in life, if you appreciate
quality satire and an engaging look at the London society of more
than 125 years ago, visit this novel sometime, it is one of Dicken's
finest."
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The
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde's classic work is about a man who sells his soul for
eternal youth: only his portrait ages, while he remains forever
handsome and young.
Wilde's allegory, first published in
1890, provides an interesting take on the Faust myth and also a
probing examination of human values. Wilde himself described it
as the story of "an idea that is old in the history of
literature, but to which I have given new form."
He was shocked and angered by the
response to it by the English press, which considered the novel
decadent, corrupting, and--worst of all--French-influenced.
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Within You Is The Power
by Henry Thomas Hamblin
The object of this book is to help men and women to bring
their inward powers of mind and spirit into expression, wisely and in harmony
with universal law; to build up character, and to find within themselves that
wondrous Self, which is their real self.
"The enlightened message of this book moves
forward in time with grace and ease, and serves to help bring the inner power of
mind and spirit into expression, wisely and in harmony with Universal Law," explains Donald G. Carty.
"More now than ever
before we need
to be inspired and energized by the Power lying hidden in each of us, so that we
may rise from
the ashes of our dead hopes to build anew our life in greater beauty and in more
harmony."
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