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Originally published serially in 1912, “The Lost World” is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale of discovery and adventure. The story begins with the narrator, the curious and intrepid reporter Edward Malone, meeting Professor Challenger, a strange and brilliant paleontologist who insists that he has found dinosaurs still alive deep in the Amazon. Malone agrees to accompany Challenger, as well as Challenger’s unconvinced colleague Professor Summerlee, and the adventurer Lord John Roxton, into the wilds of South America and the Amazon in search of Challenger’s fantastical beasts. There, cut off from the rest of civilization and high atop an isolated plateau, the explorers find themselves in an amazing land of extinct dinosaurs, a native tribe, and a group of ape-like creatures. The party is drawn into a violent battle when they are taken captive by the ape men and must use their cunning and resourcefulness to escape and save the lives of their party and the other captured native tribesmen. Immensely popular and influential, “The Lost World” is a classic tale of science-fiction adventure that continues to inspire and captivate to this day. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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Anne Bronte’s first novel, first published in 1847, “Agnes Grey” tells the story of its title character, a young girl who works as a governess for families of the English gentry. Bronte based this novel on her own experiences as a governess and depicts the loneliness, isolation, and vulnerability of the position. The novel begins with the Grey family falling on hard financial times and a young Agnes taking a job as a governess to both help her family and show her maturity and independence. She begins work with the wealthy Bloomfield family and is shocked to find them cruel, shallow, and unfair. The position does not last long and soon she is back home with her own family and planning to try again. She finds a place in the Murray household, which is even wealthier than her previous employer. While her situation has improved, she is still marginalized and lonely. In the end, Agnes finds happiness and fulfillment on her own terms. “Agnes Grey” is a stern rebuke of the shallowness of the upper class of Bronte’s time and a beautifully written account of the challenges faced by young women born without many opportunities.

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Knut Hamsun believed that modern literature should express the complexity of the human mind and nowhere is that philosophy more evident than in this stunning modern masterpiece, “Hunger.” First published in 1890 in Norwegian and based on Hamsun’s own experiences with poverty prior to his success as an author, “Hunger” tells the story of an unnamed vagrant who stumbles around the streets of Norway’s capital city of Kristiania (now Oslo) looking for food. This starving young man attempts to create an outward illusion of sanity and rationality, but his inner mind is becoming increasingly disturbed and delusional. He is kind to others and generous with the little he has, but he also refuses to find work to help support himself and becomes sicker and sicker in both his mind and body as he starves. His deterioration, both mental and physical, is captured in stunning and shocking detail. While the ending is one of hope and optimism, “Hunger” is a searing portrait of poverty and despair, as well as a biting social commentary on modern urban life and how desperate things can become for the poor in large cities. Nobel Prize winning Hamsun is at his best in this classic of modern literature. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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First serialized in “The Atlantic Monthly” and then published as a novel in 1896, Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The Country of the Pointed Firs” is the story of a female writer seeking isolation and inspiration for her writing in the small coastal New England town of Dunnet Landing in the late 1800’s. Originally from Boston and drawn back to the quiet town after a visit years earlier, the narrator is at first frustrated by the constant interruptions of the small village’s inhabitants and seeks out the solitude she needs to concentrate on her work. However, she becomes increasingly drawn into the lives of her neighbors and finds herself becoming more and more a part of their community and emotionally invested in these new relationships. Considered by many to be Jewett’s finest work, the novel is rich with the dialect of the region and the culture of the time. “The Country of the Pointed Firs” is an intimate and very human examination of the relationships amongst the inhabitants of a decaying and isolated rural village and their vanishing way of life. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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First published in 1897, “Captains Courageous” follows the adventures of Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled, rich young man who is accidentally washed overboard from a luxury ocean liner and is rescued by the Portuguese captain of a fishing boat and his hard scrabble crew. Kipling, drawing on his own experiences living in Vermont, fills this classic coming of age story with period details of late nineteenth-century American fishing, whaling, and railroad travel. Forced to work for his place on the ship, fifteen-year-old Harvey must overcome his own stubbornness and privileged up-bringing as he learns to survive, and even thrive, in the harsh, demanding, and often dangerous life at sea. Through hard work and discipline, Harvey learns the values of self-reliance and friendship as he becomes a skilled fisherman and an accepted and equal member of the crew. The novel is both a thrilling test of Harvey’s character and an examination of class and privilege in nineteenth-century America. Exhilarating and ultimately redemptive, the novel was heralded by Theodore Roosevelt in his 1900 essay “What We Can Expect of the American Boy” as describing in the “liveliest way just what a boy should be and do.” This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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Considered to be one of Balzac’s most important works, “Pere Goriot” is the story of its title character Jean-Joachim Goriot, a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin, and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac. We are introduced to the characters at Maison Vauquer, a boarding house owned by the widow Madame Vauquer. Central to the theme of the book is the struggle to achieve upper-class status in society. Rastignac is eager to achieve this upper-class standing but is unfamiliar to the ways of Parisian society. Vautrin tries to convince Rastignac to pursue an unmarried woman named Victorine, a dubious suggestion which involves the disposal of her brother who blocks access to the woman’s fortune. The failings to achieve this upper-class status are exemplified by Goriot who has bankrupted himself in supporting his two well-married daughters, who despite the fact reject him. A classic and tragic story, “Pere Goriot” is one of the most pivotal works in Balzac’s sweeping novel sequence “La Comedie Humaine”, which endeavors to depict the social panoramic of the human condition. This edition follows the translation of Ellen Marriage, includes an introduction by R. L. Sanderson, and a biographical afterword.

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Literally meaning “heart”, the Japanese word “kokoro” can be more distinctly translated as “the heart of things” or “feeling.” Natsume Soseki’s 1914 novel, which was originally published in serial format in a Japanese newspaper, “Kokoro” deals with the transition from the Japanese Meiji society to the modern era. Divided into three parts “Sensei and I,” “My Parents and I,” and “Sensei and His Testament,” the novel explores the themes of loneliness and isolation. In the first part we find the narrator attending university where he befriends an older man, known only as “Sensei,” who lives a largely reclusive life. In the second part of the novel the narrator graduates from college and returns home to await the death of his father. The third part of the novel recounts a letter that the narrator receives from the “Sensei,” which describes the circumstances that caused his loss of faith in humanity and the guilt he feels over the death of a childhood friend which drives him to the reclusive life that he has led. A deeply thematic novel “Kokoro” provides an excellent introduction to one of Japan’s most beloved authors, Natsume Soseki. This edition follows the translation of Edwin McClelland.

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First published in 1920, “Main Street” is a biting and satirical look at small town America. Set in the 1910s it follows the struggles of its heroine, Carol Milford, to adapt to small town life. Carol, a young and progressive librarian living in St Paul, Minnesota, falls in love with and marries Will Kennicott, a doctor who dreams of returning to the small town of his childhood. Carol agrees and they move to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, a town modeled on Sinclair’s own hometown of Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Carol is disappointed by the town’s drab appearance and it’s provincial, small-minded inhabitants. Brimming with optimism and tenacity, she sets out to convince the town to modernize and embrace her progressive values. Her ideas are not received as she hoped and instead she is resisted at every turn and derided by her fellow townsfolk. For all its seeming bleakness, Carol is ever optimistic and refuses to give up or believe the fight isn’t worth fighting. “Main Street” exemplifies Lewis’ “vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters”, which was cited by the Nobel Prize for Literature committee when he was awarded the prize in 1930. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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“The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”, when originally published from 1759 to 1767, was an experimental novel far ahead of its time. The titular character, Shandy narrates the story of his life, beginning with his conception and focusing on his family, particularly his unconventional father Walter and his gentle Uncle Toby. One of the recurrent jokes in the novel, Shandy cannot explain anything concisely and Sterne utilizes many narrative devices to accommodate Shandy’s digressions on countless subjects, especially human disconnection and his doubts about truly knowing himself. His disorderly account is rich in minor characters, especially Dr. Slop, Toby’s servant Corporal Trim, and the parson Yorick. Though the novel is ostensibly about Shandy and his life, most of the work focuses on the characters surrounding him and their reactions to their daily lives and struggles. While criticized by Sterne’s peers, the novel was immediately and wildly popular in London, perhaps because it was full of coarse humor and satire and did not fear to discuss taboo and scandalous subjects. Generally considered one of the greatest comic novels of English literature, it was widely influential on modern and post-modern writers and philosophers. This edition includes an introduction by Wilbur L. Cross and a biographical afterword.

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American author, journalist, and social activist Jack London is best known for his stories set during the Klondike gold rush. During the late 19th century London traveled to the Klondike region of the Yukon in northwestern Canada to strike it rich. While he didn’t find a great fortune in gold he came away with the experiences that would inspire some of his greatest writing. Set in the harsh wilderness of the Yukon territory, “The Call of the Wild” is a story embodied with a realism indicative of London’s prospecting experience. The tale follows the struggle of Buck, the domesticated pet of Judge Miller and his family, who is snatched from a pampered lifestyle in California’s Santa Clara Valley. When Buck is stolen by the gardener’s assistant, Manuel, who sells him to finance his gambling addiction, he faces an arduous journey to the Yukon territory where he must adapt to the brutal reality of life as a sled dog. One of the finest examples of London’s literary talent, “The Call of the Wild” exhibits why he would become one of the most popular writers of his day. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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