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A Bundle of Letters
Henry James 试读
The fair New Yorker is, sometimes, very amusing; she asks me if every one in Boston talks like me--if every one is as "intellectual" as your poor correspondent. She is for ever throwing Boston up at me; I can't get rid of Boston. The other one rubs it into me too; but in a different way; she seems to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels toward Mecca, and regards it as a kind of focus of light for the whole human race. Poor little Boston, what nonsense is talked in thy name But this New England maiden is, in her way, a strange type: she is travelling all over Europe alone--"to see it," she says, for herself.
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A Busy Year at the Old Squires
Charles Asbury Stephens 试读
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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A Castle in Spain A Novel
James De Mille 试读
A Castle in Spain a Novel was written by James De Mille (23 August 1833 – 28 January 1880) in 1869. He was a professor at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and an early Canadian popular writer who published numberous works of popular fiction from the late 1860s through the 1870s.
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A Cathedral Courtship
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin 试读
American born Catherine and her aunt Celia saw its famous cathedral during his visit to britain. In Winchester Cathedral visit, an architect (Jack Copley) fell in love with Catherine two lovely women. Of course, in those days you don't need to introduce yourself. Fortunately, Catherine gave a copy of Jack their trip, he can from the town to Catherine town. This is an amazing length Jack is willing to go to be with her. First published in 1893, this is a wonderful story.
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A Chair on the Boulevard
Leonard Merrick 试读
Why would I have the two trouble? Complain about each other. " You think you are agree to wear? I had a very bad time, I can assure you. If you have experienced it, you wouldn't say so gently day. "The more I think you shameless interference, let me very much. How the dark to light the candle -- it makes me upset.
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A Chance Acquaintance
William Dean Howells 试读
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). While known primarily as a novelist, his short story "Editha" (1905) - included in the collection Between the Dark and the Daylight (1907) - appears in many anthologies of American literature. Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Ibsen, Zola, Verga, and, especially, Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of many American writers. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence.
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A Changed Man; and other tales
Thomas Hardy 试读
1913 short story collection, by the English novelist, short story writer, and poet who was awarded the Order of Merit in 1910.
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Doc. Gordon
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman 试读
Originally published in 1936, here is a charming novel of a rural doctor's life, trials, and tribulations. Barter, conniving horse traders, and more face "Doc." Gordon on his rural rounds MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (1852-1930) was born in Randolph, Massachusetts and died in Metuchen, New Jersey. Among her published regional short fiction and novels are A Humble Romance and Other Stories, A New England Nun and Other Stories, Jane Field, and The Portion of Labor. In 1926 she received the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinction in fiction. That same year, she and Edith Wharton were among the first women to be elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
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He Giveth His Beloved Sleep
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 试读
The book is He Giveth His Beloved Sleep. It has a lyric sound of this poem. It was like a profound lullaby. It is super short so you may not want to get the poem. It is written a poem like as about The Sleep oF all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar Along the Psalmist's music deep Now tell me if that any is For gift or grace surpassing this He giveth His beloved, sleep.
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Jesus Himself
Andrew Murray 试读
Jesus the son of God in obedience to God's will and gave himself as an offering for sin is death to fulfill God's righteousness, and reflects the world God of mercy and love, is the ultimate expression of the love of god. Jesus Christ for our sins and suffering and death, and resurrection that we are justified, the love of God was unparalleled in the glory of the cross of the great.
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Lena Rivers
Mary Jane Holmes 试读
Mary Jane Holmes was a 19th century author. She was born in Massachusetts and taught school at age 13. After marring she moved to Kentucky. In 1854 she wrote her first novel, Tempest and Sunshine. Her novels center around domestic life. Lena River was written in 1856. Lena is not the typical heroine of the 19th century. She has spunk and a temper. She is beautiful and there are tears and laughs in her story. The supporting characters give this book a lot of humor. Grandma Nichols is the ultimate redneck. If you must have political correctness in your books then this book is not for you. The humor and language surrounding the black slaves is correct if read in the context of the time period in mind.
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Martin Chuzzlewit
Charles Dickens 试读
The distinctive combination of manic comedy, bitter satire and fierce melodrama separates this novel from most of Dickens's other works. The storyline alternates between Britain and the United States in ways which highlight the failings of both societies.
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McTeague
Frank Norris 试读
McTeague (1899) chronicles the demise of a San Francisco couple at the end of the nineteenth century. Inspired by an actual crime that was sensationalized in the San Francisco papers, it tells the story of charlatan dentist McTeague, his wife Trina, and their spiralling descent into moral corruption. Norris is often considered to be the `American Zola', and this is one of the most purely naturalistic American novels of the nineteenth century. With its compelling portrayal of human nature at its most basic level, McTeague is a gripping and passionate tale of greed, degeneration and death. It is also one of the first major works of literature to set in California, and it provided the story for Erich von Stroheim's classic of the silent screen, Greed.
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Me and Nobbles
Amy Le Feuvre 试读
An enchanting classic story about imaginative Master Bobby and beloved "friend," Nobbles."'My name is Robert Stuart Allonby. ' And he would raise a pair of wonderful brown eyes as he spoke, in anxious doubt as to whether his name would be liked. Bobby showed a good deal of anxiety about different things.His favourite sentence was always, 'I wonder, Nurse --' and very often, noting the impatient frown on his nurse's face, he would stop there, and turn away to his favourite corner in the window-seat, which he shared with 'Nobbles, 'the comfort of his life. Forever striving to find the secret so he can enter the golden gates leading to the splendid golden city.
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Mrs. Peter Rabbit
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
Charming story of Peter Rabbit and his bride as they start their new life together in the Old Briar-Patch. Set in large, easy-to-read type, enhanced with 8 new illustrations. Peter Rabbit had lost his appetite. Now when Peter Rabbit loses his appetite, something is very wrong indeed with him. Peter has boasted that he can eat any time and all the time. In fact, the two things that Peter thinks most about are his stomach and satisfying his curiosity, and nearly all of the scrapes that Peter has gotten into have been because of those two things.
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass 试读
Frederick Douglass (c.1818 1895) was born into slavery but escaped in 1838, quickly becoming involved in the abolitionist movement. Following publication in 1845 of this autobiography he risked recognition and recapture by his owner, and so fled the United States. This reissue is of the Dublin edition of 1845, with a preface by Douglass explaining his reasons for his journey to Britain. Opening with a touching explanation of how he doesn't know his birthday, Douglass describes his early life and the growing awareness of the injustices he suffered. The beatings he witnessed and received himself are described in painful detail. Later, Douglass highlights the hypocrisy of the 'slaveholding religion of this land', condemning it as 'the grossest of libels'. The eloquence of the writing, with an immediacy and honesty found shocking at the time, make this an invaluable first-hand record of one of humanity's most shameful acts.
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New Atlantis
Francis Bacon 试读
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) wrote New Atlantis around 1632. He wrote of his aspiration for establishing an ideal commonwealth. This section from the introduction gives a summary of Bacon's reasons for writing this short essay. "The generosity and enlightenment, the dignity and splendor, the piety and public spirit, of the inhabitants of Bensalem represent the ideal qualities which Bacon the statesman desired rather than hoped to see characteristic of his own country and in Solomon's House we have Bacon the scientist indulging without restriction his prophetic vision of the future of human knowledge. No reader acquainted in any degree with the processes and results of modern scientific inquiry can fail to be struck by the numerous approximations made by Bacon's imagination to the actual achievements of modern times." Even in Bacon's idealistic viewpoint he still saw science in a practical manner. Science was the way to man's advancement. Bacon's ideals have yet to be achieved, but they do give us goals to reach for.
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No. 13 Washington Square
LeRoy Scott 试读
Leroy Scott (1875-1929) was an American author.It was a raw, ill-humored afternoon, yet too late in the spring for the ministration of steam heat, so the unseasonable May chill was banished from Mrs. De Peyster s sitting-room by a wood fire that crackled in the grate crackled most decorously, be it added, for Mrs. De Peyster s fire would no more have forgotten itself and shown a boisterous enthusiasm than would one of her admirably trained servants.
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Old Christmas
Washington Irving 试读
Washington Irving's delightful account of a festive Christmas holiday includes five incomparable essays. Written well over a century ago, Irving's sketches "celebrate the celebration" with heartwarming descriptions of Yuletide events. Irving recalls with warmth and wonder his many colorful experiences of a traditional Victorian Christmas while a guest at an English estate -- from the Christmas Eve trip by a stagecoach filled with "rosy-cheeked boys" returning from school, and scenes of domestic hilarity during holiday games, to solemn services at the village church and the return home to a sumptuous holiday dinner. Enhanced with more than 100 charming illustrations by noted nineteenth-century artist Randolph Caldecott, this engaging book helped nurture America's recognition of the holiday. Perfect for gift-giving, the collection elicits from a master American storyteller a magical remembrance of Christmas past.
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Old Mother West Wind
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
It's been a century since readers first ventured into the Green Forest to encounter Reddy Fox, Grandfather Frog, Jimmy Skunk, and other winsome characters. This special edition commemorates the 100th anniversary of Thornton W. Burgess's first published work, Old Mother West Wind, and its 1911 follow-up, Mother West Wind's Children. Replete with the original illustrations, these gentle stories offer children enduring lessons about ecology and respect for wildlife.
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Phineas Finn The Irish Member
Anthony Trollope 试读
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. He wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. In 1867 Trollope left his position in the British Post Office to run for Parliament as a Liberal candidate in 1868. After he lost, he concentrated entirely on his literary career. While continuing to produce novels rapidly, he also edited the St Paul's Magazine, which published several of his novels in serial form. His first major success came with The Warden (1855) - the first of six novels set in the fictional county of Barsetshire. The comic masterpiece Barchester Towers (1857) has probably become the best-known of these. Trollope's popularity and critical success diminished in his later years, but he continued to write prolifically, and some of his later novels have acquired a good reputation. In particular, critics generally acknowledge the sweeping satire The Way We Live Now (1875) as his masterpiece. In all, Trollope wrote forty-seven novels, as well as dozens of short stories and a few books on travel.
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Pierre; or The Ambiguities
Herman Melville 试读
IN old times authors were proud of the privilege of dedicating their works to Majesty. A right noble custom, which we of Berkshire must revive. For whether we will or no, Majesty is all around us here in Berkshire, sitting as in a grand Congress of Vienna of majestical hill-tops, and eternally challenging our homage. But since the majestic mountain, Greylock—my own more immediate sovereign lord and king—hath now, for innumerable ages, been the one grand dedicatee of the earliest rays of all the Berkshire mornings, I know not how his Imperial Purple Majesty (royal-born: Porphyrogenitus) will receive the dedication of my own poor solitary ray. Nevertheless, forasmuch as I, dwelling with my loyal neighbors, the Maples and the Beeches, in the amphitheater over which his central majesty presides, have received his most bounteous and unstinted fertilizations, it is but meet, that I here devoutly kneel, and render up my gratitude, whether, thereto, The Most Excellent Purple Majesty of Greylock benignantly incline his hoary crown or no.
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Pinocchio The Tale of a Puppet
Carlo Collodi 试读
Once in a small village there lived a lonely woodcutternamed Geppetto-who always dreamed of having a little boy of hisown.So one day he carved a puppet from a piece of wood and namedhim pinocchio.When the little puppet magically comes to life it's adream come true.Except Pinocchio turns out to be not such a nicelittle boy after all!In fact, Pinocchio enjoys playing tricks onpeople and getting into mischief and telling lies.For Pinocchioplaying and loafing is much more fun than working or studying orgoing to school. But as Pinocchio discovers,boys who spend all their time havingfun earn nothing but trouble!
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Pollyanna
Eleanor H.Porter 试读
'Most generally there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it'When her father dies, Pollyanna is sent to live with her stern Aunt Polly. She is poor, orphaned and alone but Pollyanna just feels lucky to have an aunt at all. The truth is that her dear father, before he died, taught her a trick for life – the 'Glad Game' – the aim of which is to find the good in every bad situation. Before long, Pollyanna’s sunny outlook has brightened up the whole town. But when a horrible accident occurs can the Glad Game save Pollyanna?Includes exclusive material: In The Backstory you can test your knowledge of the book and find out if you’re as optimistic as Pollyanna!Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
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Pragmatism
D. L. Murray 试读
To begin with, we must radically disabuse our minds of the idea that thinking starts from certainty. Even the self-evident and self-confident 'intuitions' that impress the uncritical so much with their claim to infallibility are really the results of antecedent doubts and ponderings, and would never be enunciated unless there were thought to be a dispute about them. In real life thought starts from perplexities, from situations in which, as Professor Dewey says, beliefs have to be 'reconstructed, ' and it aims at setting doubts at rest. It is psychologically impossible for a rational mind to assert what it knows to be true, and supposes everyone else to admit the truth of.
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Ramona
Helen Hunt Jackson 试读
IT was sheep-shearing time in Southern California, but sheep-shearing was late at the Senora Moreno's. The Fates had seemed to combine to put it off. In the first place, Felipe Moreno had been ill. He was the Senora's eldest son, and since his father's death had been at the head of his mother's house. Without him, nothing could be done on the ranch, the Senora thought.
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Robin Hood
J.Walker McSpadden 试读
Escape to Sherwood Forest's idyllic charms and join the jolly fellowship of the green wood with these rollicking, tales of the celebrated archer and gentleman thief. Lively episodes introduce each of the famous merry men and other colorful characters, including the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, lovely Maid Marian, and King Richard the Lionhearted.
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Rural Rides
William Cobbett 试读
Son of an innkeeper, former soldier, champion of the working class, early anticorporate activist, and future Member of Parliament-Will Cobbett's unique eye offers us a perspective on 19th-century England we won't find anywhere else. Cobbett roamed Southern England on horseback in the years between 1821 and 1832, gathering his "economical and political observations relative to matters applicable to, and illustrated by, the state of" that charming part of the world, one in the throes of massive change in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
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Ruth
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 试读
"If you want to whip me, uncle, you may do it. I don't much mind." Put in this form, it was impossible to carry out his intentions and so Mr. Benson told the lad he might go-that he would speak to him another time. Leonard went away, more subdued in spirit than if he had been whipped. Sally lingered for a moment. She stopped to add: "I think it's for them without sin to throw stones at a poor child, and cut up good laburnum branches to whip him. I only do as my betters do, when I call Leonard's mother Mrs. Denbigh." The moment she had said this she was sorry it was an ungenerous advantage after the enemy had acknowledged himself defeated. Mr. Benson dropped his head upon his hands, and hid his face, and sighed deeply. -Chapter XIX: "After Five Years" As interest in 19th-century English literature by women has been reinvigorated by a resurgence in popularity of the works of Jane Austen, readers are rediscovering a writer whose fiction, once widely beloved, fell by the wayside. British novelist ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (1810-1865)-whose books were sometimes initially credited to, simply, "Mrs. Gaskell"-is now recognized as having created some of the most complex and progressive depictions of women in the literature of the age, and is today justly celebrated for her precocious use of the regional dialect and slang of England's industrial North. Ruth-Gaskell's third novel, first published in three volumes in 1853-is notable as one of the rare instances in the fiction of the era of a positive portrayal of unwed motherhood and for its thematic condemnation of the social stigma of illegitimacy. The tale of a young woman seduced and abandoned by her lover, then taken in and protected by a kindly minister and his sister, it is remarkably progressive for the period. Friend and literary companion to the likes of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bront-the latter of whom Gaskell wrote an acclaimed 1857 biography-Gaskell is today being restored to her rightful place alongside them
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Scenes from a Courtesans Life
Honoré de Balzac 试读
Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust?mile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels.
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Sketches of Young Couples
Charles Dickens 试读
Sketches of Young Couples is Dickens at his best. Charles Dickens is considered one of the greatest English authors of all time. Dickens often used the pen name Boz. Much of his work first appeared in periodicals and magazines in serialized form. Unlike many writers of his time Dickens wrote the entire novel before serializing it. He made frequent use of the cliffhanger to keep the public interested. Dickens begins with a letter to the Queen concerning the practice of Bissextile, or Leap Year where a woman is allowed to propose marriage to a man and he must accept. Dickens says that Queen Victoria's announcement that she will marry Albert has given young ladies ideas. He claims that there is a plot in England and Ireland thus men are no longer safe. The humor in this piece is wonderful.
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Songs of Kabir
Kabir 试读
A New York Review Books Original. Transcending divisions of creed, challenging social distinctions of all sorts, and celebrating individual unity with the divine, the poetry of Kabir is one of passion and paradox, of mind-bending riddles and exultant riffs. These new translations by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, one of India’s finest contemporary poets, bring out the richness, wit, and power of a literary and spiritual master.
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Sonnets from the Portuguese
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 试读
"I love your verse with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett . . . and I love you too," Robert Browning wrote in January 1845, thus initiating the most celebrated literary correspondence of the nineteenth century. During their courtship, Elizabeth privately wrote a series of forty-four sonnets to Robert, which she disclosed to no one -- not even to him -- until three years after their marriage. The poems were later collected in a volume entitled Sonnets form the Portuguese. In this elegant new edition, the poems are accompanied by relevant excerpts from Elizabeth and Robert's love letters.
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Swanns Way
Marcel Proust 试读
Marcel Proustas "In Search of Lost Time" is one of the most entertaining reading experiences in any language and arguably the finest novel of the twentieth century.
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That Very Mab
May Kendall 试读
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923.This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introducedtypographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may haveoccasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poorpictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the originalartifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believethis work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuingcommitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. Weappreciate your understanding of the imperfections in thepreservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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The Absentee
Maria Edgeworth 试读
The Absentee centers around Lord and Lady Clonbrony, a couple more concerned with London society than their duties and responsibilities to those who live and work on their Irish estates. Recognizing this negligence, their son Lord Colambre goes incognito to Ireland to observe the situation and trace the origins of his beloved cousin Grace. To put matters straight he finds a solution that will bring prosperity and contentment to every level of society, including his own family. In her Introduction, Heidi Thomson explores the political and social themes of the book and places it in its historical context. With Castle Rackrent and The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth helped create the "regional" novel, rich in atmosphere and local character, and influenced writers as disparate as Sir Walter Scott, William Thackeray, and Ivan Turgenev.
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The Adventures of Grandfather Frog
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
Determined to see the Great World beyond the familiar vistas of the Smiling Pool, Grandfather Frog leaps forth only to tumble haplessly into the pitfalls of greed, boastfulness, and carelessness. This time-honored classic mixes exciting adventure and good-natured humor with gentle homily. 6 illustrations adapted from originals by Harrison Cady.
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The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
Poor Mrs. Quack the Duck has suffered terrible misfortunes at the hands of hunters with guns. Peter Rabbit, Jerry Muskrat, and the other animals of the Green Forest band together to help her find a safe place to live and to locate the missing Mr. Quack. 6 new illustrations.
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The Adventures of Prickly Porky
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
Entertaining collection of exciting animal adventures from a master storyteller introduces an appealing little porcupine and his neighbors of Green Forest. Learn what makes Old Granny Fox lose her dignity, how Prickly Porky makes friends, why Old Man Coyote loses his appetite, and more.
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The Adventures of Unc Billy Possum
Thornton Waldo Burgess 试读
When Unc' Billy Possum learns how easy it is to get into trouble, it takes some doin' to get himself out of his predicament. Master storyteller Thornton Burgess beguiles young readers and nature lovers with another tale about the delightful creatures of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows.
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The Ambassadors
Henry James 试读
Lambert Strether, a mild middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is dispatched to Paris from the manufacturing empire of Woollett, Massachusetts. The mission conferred on him by his august patron, Mrs. Newsome, is to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure, and to bring him home. But Strether finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman; and as the Parisian spring advances, he himself succumbs to the allure of the 'vast bright Babylon' and to the mysterious charm of Madame de Vionnet.
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The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
James Weldon Johnson 试读
This remarkable novel documents the life of an American of mixed ethnicity who moves freely in society -- from the rural South to the urban North and eventually, Europe. A revolutionary work which not only probes the psychological aspects of passing for white but also examines the American caste and class system.
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The Awkward Age
Henry James 试读
The story of young Nanda Brookenham's struggle to preserve her honesty in the brilliant but corrupt world of her parents is a drama of innocence betrayed yet preserved. Written when James was recovering from the shock od failure as a playwright, THE AWKWARD AGE is one of his greatest masterpieces. Conceived like a play terms of scenes and conducted largely through witty dialogue, the novel bears the triumphant signs of his painful apprenticeship in the theatre.
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The Book of Nonsense
Edward Lear 试读
Edward Lear, the 20th child of a London stockbroker, entered the household of Lord Stanley as little more than a servant, but his sense of humour soon made him welcome above stairs and he began to amuse the children with comic drawings and rhymes. This book was first published in 1846.
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The Book of Snobs
William Makepeace Thackeray 试读
We have all read a statement, (the authenticity of which I take leave to doubt entirely, for upon what calculations I should like to know is it founded ) -- we have all, I say, been favored by perusing a remark, that when the times and necessities of the world call for a Man, that individual is found. Numberless instances might be adduced to show that when a nation is in great want, the relief is at hand just as in the Pantomime (that microcosm) where when clown wants anything -- a warming-pan, a pump-handle, a goose, or a lady's tippet -- a fellow comes sauntering out from behind the side-scenes with the very article in question.
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The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole 试读
First published pseudonymously in 1764, The Castle of Otranto purported to be a translation of an Italian story of the time of the crusades. In it Walpole attempted, as he declared in the Preface to the second edition, `to blend the two kinds of romance: the ancient and the modern'. He gives us a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests. Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate success and Walpole's own favourite among his numerous works. His friend, the poet Thomas Gray, wrote that he and his family, having read Otranto, were now `afraid to go to bed o'nights'. The novel is here reprinted from a text of 1798, the last that Walpole himself prepared for the press.
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The Chimes
Charles Dickens 试读
Here are not many people -- and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down again -- there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don't mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the thing has actually been done, once or twice), but in the night, and alone. A great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by this position, in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be argued by night, and I will undertake to maintain it successfully on any gusty winter's night appointed for the purpose, with any one opponent chosen from the rest, who will meet me singly in an old churchyard, before an old church-door and will previously empower me to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning. For the night-wind has a dismal trick of wandering round and round a building of that sort, and moaning as it goes and of trying, with its unseen hand, the windows and the doors . . .
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The Chouans
Honoré de Balzac 试读
Balzac's literary output began with chronicles and sketches on widely varied social and artistic topics. The journals to which he contributed were increasingly looking for short fiction, which Balzac was able to provide. A collection Scnes de la vie prive (Scenes from Private Life) came out in 1829, and was well received: these were tales told with a journalistic eye which looked into the fabric of modern life and did not shun social and political realities. Balzac had found a distinctive voice.
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The Club of Queer Trades
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 试读
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, better known as G.K. Chesterton, was an English writer. He wrote on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox." Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories-first carefully turning them inside out." -wikipedia
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The Country of the Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett 试读
This collection of stories is based on the personal experiences of Sarah Jewett as she grew up in rural Maine and traveled with her doctor father. The closely-knit sketches of a small fishing village in Maine seaport town in the 1890's are narrated by a summer resident. In the title story first published in 1886, a writer retreats to spend a quiet summer in a remote seaport, where she discovers a strong and cohesive community even as the town faces economic decline.
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The Custom of the Country
伊迪丝·华顿 试读
Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both appalled and fascinated its first reviewers, and established her as a major novelist. The Saturday Review wrote that she had 'assembled as many detestable people as it is possible to pack between the covers of a six-hundred page novel', but concluded that the book was 'brilliantly written', and 'should be read as a parable'. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the Midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary, and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father's money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. Wharton was re-creating an environment she knew intimately, and Undine's education for social success is chronicled in meticulous detail. The novel superbly captures the world of post-Civil War America, as ruthless in its social ambitions as in its business and politics.
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The Egoist
George Meredith 试读
The Egoist (1879) by George Meredith is a sophisticated, brilliantly written dissection of a self-absorbed young man of society and the very different women who fall within his sphere.In this comedy with serious overtones, Sir Willoughby -- a highly eligible bachelor, and the Egoist in question -- courts, proposes and loses brides repeatedly, and then wonders at his own inexplicable predicament.The answer might be encapsulated in the following epitaph:"Through very love of self himself he slew."A masterpiece of insight, wit, and style.
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The Federalist Papers
James Madison,John Jay,Alexander Hamilton 试读
Three of the founding fathers brilliantly defend their revolutionary charter: the Constitution of the United States, a milestone in political science and a classic of American history.
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The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
Daniel Defoe 试读
ritten in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe’s themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward. This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe.From the Trade Paperback edition.
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The Golden Bough
James George Frazer 试读
A monumental study of comparative folklore and religion, THE GOLDEN BOUGH was originally published in two volumes in 1890, grew to 12 volumes for the third edition in 1915, then abridged by the author into this one-volume edition in 1922. Drawing on the beliefs and customs of ancient European civilizations and primitive cultures throughout the world, James Frazer's work continues to be an important reference.
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The Haunted Hotel
Wilkie Collins 试读
It seems the mystery of the Haunted Hotel cannot be solved, or can it? Lord Montbarry is married to Countess Narona who unintentionally usurps the position of wife from Agnes Lockwood. Strange and unexplained events occur, as Agnes' maid's husband goes missing and Lord Montbarry turns up dead in Venice. Supposedly a victim of pneumonia his family think something suspicious has caused Montbarry's death as Countess Narona inherits thousands of pounds of his money.
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The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoyevsky 试读
The Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. Embroiled in the intrigues which centre around the ruling classes, he emerges as a combination of the Christian ideal and Dostoevsky's own views. The world created by the ruling classes cannot accommodate the goodness of this idiot.
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The Jungle Book
Rudyard Kipling 试读
The Jungle Books tell the story of the irrepressible Mowgli, who is rescued as a baby from the jaws of the evil tiger, Shere Khan. Raised by wolves and guided by Baloo the bear, Mowgli and his animal friends embark on a series of hair-raising adventures through the jungles of India.
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The Last Man
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 试读
Little more than seventy years after the British settled Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) in 1803, its indigenous population had been virtually wiped out. Yet this genocide - one of the earliest of the modern era - is virtually forgotten in Britain today. The Last Man is the first book specifically to explore the role of the British government and wider society in the destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians.