Having fought in World War I, 35-year-old Chris Baldry finally returns home. Believing he’s 20 years old, he is shocked when he finds out the he actually has a wife and that his childhood sweetheart is already married with another man. He slowly realizes the passing of time but he can’t remember anything from his last 15 years. Is there a solution?
This classic Icelandic saga hails from the 13th century and provides a stunning look into a culture long past. Divided into three parts, this prose epic deals with friendship, tragedy and retribution and is a breathtaking look at Medieval Norse culture.
The Scarlet Letter is set in 1850s Puritan Boston and tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Throughout the book, Hawthorne explores themes of legalism, sin, and guilt.
One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Thomas Paine sensed the need for someone to defend social uprisings like the French Revolution…this is how Rights of Man was born. The book was revolutionary at the time speaking of the right of the people to revolt if the government doesn’t meet their demands. As important, the book dismisses the political Adam and the notion of ruling by heredity.
An autobiographical tragic novel that follows the unhappiness of Werther after he falls desperately in love with Charlotte Buff, a young woman who is married to another.
Lady Chester lives in a semi-detached house (a duplex, in American terminology). Her husband, Arthur is sent away on a diplomatic mission. So she is also forced to live a ‘semi-detached’ life along with her neighbors, the Hopkinsons. How will she handle her new life?
The novel illustrates the development of a young man upon taking a captaincy in the Orient, with the shadow line of the title representing the threshold of this development.
Like many of Conrad’s writings, the action in The Secret Sharer is set on a boat at sea and revolves around a central character torn apart. He is the new ship captain and has to win the trust of his crew. To make things difficult however, he accepts to hide a man accused of murder in his cabin. The two characters strike up a strange bound.
A French lowborn, Julien Sorel, wants more for himself than what life gave him. So he starts to slowly climb the social ladder using his keen intelligence, from an acolyte of the Church and tutor of a wealthy family to a private secretary of a diplomat. However, his past mistakes will forever haunt him.
The Possessed or also called "Demons" is Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel about life in Russia at the end of the 19th century. In this highly political novel, Dostoevsky portrays the revolutionaries as demons or devils as they plot ruin and eventually turn on each other.
An enigmatic figure by the name of Gil-Martin convinces Robert that he is an Elect - a soul bound to go to heaven no matter the deeds in life. How will Robert choose to live the rest of his days? As a pious and modest man waiting for his heavenly reward or as an despotic, vile and sinful person?
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel written by Oscar Wilde, and at the time of publication in 1891, it offended the moral sensibilities of the British. The novel tells the story of Dorian Gray, who sells his soul so that his beauty will never fade.
The adventures of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London, that go on a journey with no destination. The novel focuses on the people they meet and connect on the way.
Charlotte Bronte's The Professor is the story of William Crimsworth, his maturation, his loves and his eventual career as a professor at an all-girls school.
After the death of her father, Isabel Archer, a young American lady with many hopes and dreams decides to visit her aunt in England. Isabel wants to be independent and rejects the marriage proposals of two wealthy men. Her cousin wants to help her so he convinces his father on his deathbed to leave much of the estate to Isabel. Can the Lady finally fulfill her dreams?
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan is one of the most significant works of English literature. Originally published in 1678, this allegory is the classic story of Christian (an everyman character) and his search for redemption. This edition has be edited by Dr. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut with simplified (yet still elegant and complicated) language for both children and adults.
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot follows the life of Maggie Tulliver, a young passionate and intelligent girl who seeks love and approval. Unfortunately, by growing up and facing the everyday life struggles, she learns that there is not black or white in life, no good or bad. Either decision she makes, somebody will eventually get hurt.
In The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt takes a page from the post- Civil War American history book and tries to bring it back to life so that the reader can truly understand the roots of race segregation. Set in the fictional southern town of Wellington, the action is based upon the real 1898 Wilmington insurrection that shook the American society to the ground. The novel takes the reader to uncharted territories where the emerging white aristocracy is trying to get rid of the ‘blacks’.
A collection of short comic stories by Nikolai Gogol that focus on the ugly and the sad elements in life.
The Monster is the story of an African-American who saves his master’s son from a fire and is severely disfigured in the process. The Blue Hotel tells the troubles of a man after staying at a hotel while His New Mittens presents the world as a young child sees it.
Rancher Bill Belllounds has a plan: he wants to marry his boy, Jack with Columbine, a girl found in the wilderness and brought up by Ol’ Bill. However, his plan is ruined by the coming of one Mysterious Rider nicknamed Hell Bent Wade. That’s when Jack’s true character begins to surface.
Lucy Dupree is new in the fabulous city of New York and wants to meet the big boys of Wall Street. So she asks Allan Montague, a childhood friend, for help. This is how she is introduced to two major brokers who control the market. The two try to destroy each other in order to win Lucy even if that means crushing the market. Upton Sinclair's The Money Changers takes a surprisingly modern look at Wall Street.
The Monk: A Romance by Matthew Gregory Lewis is a gothic romance that combines a morality tale with a horrifically violent plot. When a monk condemns a young girl who has become pregnant out of wedlock, she curses him to fall to his own immorality. He later falls in love and it proves his undoing in this intricate and compelling narrative.
Gregor awakens one morning and has been transformed into a monstrous, insect-like creature. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is one of the strangest pieces of 20th century literature and required reading in many high school and college English courses.
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories is a collection of nine short stories meant to divulge the human’s wicked nature. The Mysterious Stranger is more of a novella in which Satan observes - yet doesn’t intervene - the human kind. He speaks of our precarious morality and fear and also about our innate compulsion of following the boldest and at the same time the most impulsive individual, thus acting more like sheep than wolves. Isn’t there any hope?
