The Ark
1) Mortal Coils
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Mortal Coils Aldous Huxley - Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1921.
As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney.
In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S....
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The Voyage Out is the debut novel written by Virginia Woolf, and it was first published in 1915. The novel is a precursor to Woolf s later, more experimental works and marks the beginning of her literary career. Set in the early 20th century, The Voyage Out tells the story of Rachel Vinrace, a young English woman who embarks on a sea voyage from London to South America with her aunt and uncle. During the voyage, Rachel encounters a diverse group of...
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An angel comes to Earth in this fantastical tale by H. G. Wells When a fallen angel appears in the skies of southern England, the vicar of a small town mistakes the winged being's dazzling plumage for that of a bird and shoots him down. This is only the first misfortune to befall "Mr. Angel," as he comes to be known. "Neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief," this celestial visitor quickly draws the ire of the village...
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Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, preparing to host an evening party. The nice day reminds her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh, and she "had not the option" to be with a close female friend, Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning.
Septimus...
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First published in 1818, "Nightmare Abbey" Is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock and his third long work of fiction. It is a Gothic satirical tale that follows Christopher Glowry, Esquire, a melancholic widower who lives with his only son Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey, a run-down mansion that has been in his family for generations. It explores in a comical way the romantic movement in contemporary English literature and its preoccupation with morbidity,...
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The Riddle of the Sands is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television. The novel "owes a lot to the wonderful adventure novels of writers like Rider Haggard, that were a staple of Victorian Britain". It was a...
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The Possessed is a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1871—2. It is considered one of the four masterworks written by Dostoyevsky after his return from Siberian exile, along with Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Demons is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large scale tragedy. Joyce Carol Oates has described it as "Dostoyevsky's...
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Owen Wister's seminal novel The Virginian (1902) is historically the first successful novel that initiated a whole movement of novels set in the American "Wild West." Such novels have later been known to all as "Westerns" mainly thanks to the popularity of their cinematographic adaptations. In The Virginian, the protagonist is an unnamed young cowboy working in a Wyoming ranch. He displays all the good qualities of a Western hero, being physically
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"A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen is a groundbreaking and thought-provoking masterpiece that challenges societal norms and explores the complex dynamics of marriage and identity. Set in 19th-century Norway, the play revolves around Nora Helmer, a seemingly content wife and mother, and her husband Torvald.
As the plot unfolds, the audience is drawn into a web of secrets, lies, and personal revelations. Nora's journey from a docile, doll-like existence...
10) Chance
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Young Flora de Barral, is the daughter of a man whose sudden bankruptcy and conviction, have forced her to face a harsh and uncertain reality. Chance is a clever examination of risk and the impact of unforeseen circumstance.
Chance features Conrad's signature narration as it describes the experiences of major and minor characters, including Flora de Barral. She is a young woman who has suffered the consequences of her father's many misdeeds. This...
11) Cape Cod
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Robert Pinsky is Professor of English at Boston University and an editor of the weekly online magazine Slate. He is the author of many books of poetry and literary criticism. He served two terms as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, 1997-2000.
This new paperback edition of Henry D. Thoreau's compelling account of Cape Cod contains the complete, definitive text of the original. Introduced by American poet...
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When Father goes away with two strangers one evening, the lives of Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis are shattered. They and Mother have to move from their comfortable London home to go and live in a simple country cottage, where Mother writes books to make ends meet.
However, they soon come to love the railway that runs near their cottage, and they make a habit of waving every day to the Old Gentleman who rides on it. They befriends the porter, Perks,...
13) Ann Veronica
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Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter...
14) Daniel Deronda
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Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively "Mary Anne" or "Marian"), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for...
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Widely believed to be among Melville's most popular works, "Redburn, His First Voyage" follows the young Wellingborough Redburn on his first journey at sea. A boy just on the verge of manhood, Redburn's decision to become a sailor is apparently at odds with his gentle upbringing, which has made him in many ways unprepared for the hardships of his chosen profession. He is unmercifully initiated into the life of a sailor by his fellow crewmen, a trying...
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The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies...
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A masterpiece of stories by H. G. Wells, masterfully tied together by time and place. First, a shop owner named Mr. Cave, enraptured by a crystal egg, struggles to find a way to keep his magical possession... Then we are, taken to a time when cave people struggled to find their place on the planet and keep their lives. The forward to the far future where, in the place the cave people once camped, a young couple's back are, bowed beneath the tyranny...
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This antiquarian volume contains an essay by Arnold Bennett on the subject of mental efficiency. This text is typical of the numerous self-improvement essays and books that Bennett wrote alongside his famous fiction work, and it is a text that, although old, still contains much that will amuse and edify the modern reader. A must-have for fans and collectors of Bennett's work, this book would make for a worthy addition to any collection. The chapters...
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"It is among such communities as these that happiness will find her last refuge on earth ..." Against this backdrop Hardy tells a vivid story of life in rural Wessex which centres on the independent and beautiful Bathsheba Everdene. She decides to manage the farm she has inherited and finds herself in a powerful position for a woman of the 1840s. But power brings tragic complications when she has to decide between three rival suitors.