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English novelist, historian and science writer Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) abandoned teaching and launched his literary career with a series of highly successful science-fiction novels. The Time Machine was the first of a number of these imaginative literary inventions. First published in 1895, the novel follows the adventures of a hypothetical Time Traveller who journeys into the future to find that humanity has evolved into two races: the peaceful Eloi — vegetarians who tire easily — and the carnivorous, predatory Morlocks.After narrowly escaping from the Morlocks, the Time Traveller undertakes another journey even further into the future where he finds the earth growing bitterly cold as the heat and energy of the sun wane. Horrified, he returns to the present, but soon departs again on his final journey.While the novel is underpinned with both Darwinian and Marxist theory and offers fascinating food for thought about the world of the future, it also succeeds as an exciting blend of adventure and pseudo-scientific romance. Sure to delight lovers of the fantastic and bizarre, The Time Machine is a book that belongs on the shelf of every science-fiction fan.

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A generous and remarkable young prince, together with his loyal and brave servant, find more adventure than they bargained for in The Suicide Club, Robert Louis Stevenson's engrossing trilogy of short stories about a bizarre club for people with a strong desire to end their lives.In these interrelated tales, Prince Florizel of Bohemia and his aide, Colonel Geraldine, travel incognito through some of the most dangerous haunts of 19th-century London. «The Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts» introduces Florizel to the formidable Suicide Club, an organization for people who wish to end their lives, but don't have the courage to accomplish the act themselves. The «Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk» reveals the grim contents of a large piece of luggage that travels hundreds of miles to its final destination; and in «The Adventure of the Hansom Cab,» a bloody resolution seals the fate of a notorious and elusive assassin.Brimming with heart-stopping drama, this rare, lesser-known work by a master storyteller will appeal to a wide circle of readers, including fans of the great 19th-century English writer as well as lovers of a good mystery story.

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The world's most famous detective uses his celebrated skills of deduction in A Study in Scarlet, the tale that introduces Dr. John Watson. Recently discharged from the military, Watson takes a room with an amazing young man — the arrogant crime expert, Sherlock Holmes. Their investigation of a bizarre crime proves to be an auspicious beginning for one of the most illustrious crime-solving partnerships of all time.The second tale, The Sign of Four, is an incredible story of greed and revenge in which Holmes and Watson accompany a beautiful young woman on a mission that leads to a terrifying, one-legged man in the dark heart of London.A thrilling experience for legions of Holmes fans, these exciting tales will also serve as an excellent introduction to readers who have never made the acquaintance of this incomparable detective and his colleague.

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Includes the unabridged text of Shakespeare's classic play plus a complete study guide that helps readers gain a thorough understanding of the work's content and context. The comprehensive guide includes scene-by-scene summaries, explanations and discussions of the plot, question-and-answer sections, author biography, analytical paper topics, list of characters, bibliography, and more.

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This 1872 sequel to Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland finds the inquisitive heroine in a fantastic land where everything is reversed. Looking-glass land, a topsy-turvy world lurking just behind the mirror over Alice's mantel, is a fantastic realm of live chessmen, madcap kings and queens, strange mythological creatures, talking flowers and puddings, and rude insects.Brooks and hedges divide the lush greenery of looking-glass land into a chessboard, where Alice becomes a pawn in a bizarre game of chess involving Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Lion and the Unicorn, the White Knight, and other nursery-rhyme figures. Promised a crown when she reaches the eighth square, Alice perseveres through a surreal landscape of amusing characters that pelt her with riddles and humorous semantic quibbles and regale her with memorable poetry, including the oft-quoted «Jabberwocky.»This handsome, inexpensive edition, featuring the original John Tenniel illustrations, makes available to today's readers a classic of juvenile literature long cherished for its humor, whimsy, and incomparable fantasy.

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A novelist and short-story writer, Willa Cather is today widely regarded as one of the foremost American authors of the twentieth century. Particularly renowned for the memorable women she created for such works as My Ántonia and O Pioneers!, she pens the portrait of another formidable character in The Song of the Lark. This, her third novel, traces the struggle of the woman as artist in an era when a women's role was far more rigidly defined than it is today.The prototype for the main character as a child and adolescent was Cather herself, while a leading Wagnerian soprano at the Metropolitan Opera (Olive Fremstad) became the model for Thea Kronborg, the singer who defies the limitations placed on women of her time and social station to become an international opera star. A coming-of-age novel, important for the issues of gender and class that it explores, The Song of the Lark is one of Cather's most popular and lyrical works.

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With its rousing cry of «One for all, and all for one,» Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure novel has captivated generations of readers since its initial publication in 1844. Action, intrigue, and romance abound in this swashbuckling epic, which traces a country lad's path to the French court of the early 1600s and the glorious fraternity of the king's men, the Musketeers.A son of impoverished nobility, D'Artagnan arrives in Paris to find the Musketeers disbanded by the cunning Cardinal Richelieu, who hopes to seize power from the weak-willed Louis XIII. The daring and ambitious youth proves his mettle in the company of the famous Musketeers — Porthos, Athos, and Aramis — and joins them in a heroic struggle to defend the king and his lovely queen, Anne of Austria.Dumas transformed the concept of the historical novel by writing in a modern, conversational style. His accessible, fast-paced narratives combine real and fictional characters to recapture the events, manners, and mood of seventeenth-century France. Emerging in the chaotic aftermath of the Revolution, Dumas's novels provided his contemporaries with a welcome sense of identity and national pride. His most popular work, The Three Musketeers, continues to charm modern readers with its timeless tales of romantic valor.

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A psychological self-portrait, a clear-eyed social study, and a profound meditation upon the artistic process, Marcel Proust's monumental, encyclopedic masterpiece A la recherché du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) changed the course of 20th-century literature. Swann's Way, the first volume, introduces the novel's major themes and its unnamed narrator, an introspective man drawn, in his youth, to fashionable society, like the author himself. Through his narrator's consciousness, Proust offers readers a comprehensive portrait of the high society of Paris from the 1870s through the First World War.Swann's Way begins with the narrator's reminiscences of early childhood — including, famously, his evocative memory of eating a pastry called a madeleine — and his fascination with what seemed the separate worlds of his family's various neighbors and acquaintances. He then turns his focus to the wealthy connoisseur Charles Swann and his obsessive relationship with the vulgar but radiant courtesan Odette, chronicling in detail the milieu in which it is enacted and its unfortunate effects on him.Du côté de chez Swann first appeared in 1913. It is a bitingly satiric, often comic evocation of French society that addresses a range of philosophical questions about perception, memory, desire, art, family, and politics. On its own or as part of a larger work, it is a rich search for a reality that transcends the passage of time.

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One of the most enduringly popular adventure tales, Treasure Island began in 1881 as a serialized adventure entitled «The Sea-Cook» in the periodical Young Folks. Completed during a stay at Davos, Switzerland, where Stevenson had gone for his health, it was published in 1883 in the form we know today.Set in the eighteenth century, Treasure Island spins a heady tale of piracy, a mysterious treasure map, and a host of sinister characters charged with diabolical intentions. Seen through the eyes of Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy of the Hispaniola, the action-packed adventure tells of a perilous sea journey across the Spanish Main, a mutiny led by the infamous Long John Silver, and a lethal scramble for buried treasure on an exotic isle.Rich in atmosphere and character, Treasure Island continues to mesmerize readers with its perceptive views of the changing nature of human motives.

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Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920) was an immediate, spectacular success and established his literary reputation. Perhaps the definitive novel of that «Lost Generation,» it tells the story of Amory Blaine, a handsome, wealthy Princeton student who halfheartedly involves himself in literary cults, «liberal» student activities, and a series of empty flirtations with young women. When he finally does fall truly in love, however, the young woman rejects him for another. After serving in France during the war, Blaine returns to embark on a career in advertising. Still young, but already cynical and world-weary, he exemplifies the young men and women of the '20s, described by Fitzgerald as «a generation grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.»

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