LITMIR.BIZ

Seven of the best Lawrence stories, each turning on some facet of sexual feeling, attitude, or convention. «The Prussian Officer» focuses on an aristocratic captain's homoerotic obsession for his young orderly. «The Shadow in the Rose Garden» and «The White Stocking» deal with sexual jealousy. «Daughters of the Vicar» brilliantly describes two exceedingly class-conscious mating rituals. «The Christening,» «Second Best» and «Odour of Chrysanthemums» etch memorable portraits of a family’s shame at an illegitimate birth, a country courtship, and a brutish marriage abbreviated by death. Note.

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One of the great masterpieces of world literature, Don Quixote de la Mancha is a picaresque romance that has amused and delighted generations of readers. This dual-language edition, featuring selections from the famed novel, brings vigorously to life the satiric adventures of the idealistic would-be knight and his faithful servant Sancho Panza. Presented in the original Spanish, with excellent new literal English translations on facing pages, the passages have been carefully selected to capture the wonderful flavor and romance of the complete work. Readers will delight in scenes describing the comical manner in which Don Quixote was knighted, his valiant battle with the windmills (mistakenly perceived by the errant knight as giants), the misfortunes suffered by the undaunted knight and his squire at an inn, Sancho's report of his meeting with the lovely Dulcinea, the fight with the wineskins, and much more. Stanley Appelbaum, translator of this volume, has also provided an informative Introduction and ample footnotes, making this edition not only an enjoyable reading experience, but a valuable learning and teaching aid for students and teachers of Spanish literature. 

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By 1792, the idealism of the French Revolution has degenerated into a Reign of Terror. Ruthless mobs rule the streets of Paris, and each day, hundreds of royalists are sacrificed to the guillotine, with hundreds more condemned to follow. Their only hope lies in rescue by the Scarlet Pimpernel, the daring leader of an English faction that spirits aristocrats across the Channel to safety. This historical adventure tale first appeared in 1905, but its irresistible blend of romance, intrigue, and suspense renders it timeless. Readers thrill to the gallantry of the Pimpernel, whose nom de guerre derives from the wildflower he employs as a calling card. A scourge to the French authorities, the Pimpernel is the darling of the people — particularly Marguerite Blakeney, who scorns her foppish husband, Sir Percy, as ardently as she admires the Pimpernel. The basis of a classic film, this ever-popular story has recently been adapted as a musical, to the delight of Broadway audiences.

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This poignant study of spiritual regeneration recounts the sins of a Russian nobleman, Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, and his attempts in later life to redress his transgressions. Tolstoy conducts readers on a harrowing voyage through Russia's corrupt courts and foul prisons that culminates in a ruthless march to Siberia. A powerful depiction of the injustices of the legal system, the novel assails the vices of petty officialdom and the hypocrisy of organized religion.Today Resurrection is less widely known and honored than the author's earlier works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but the story was an immense success upon its serial publication in 1899. A panoramic view of Russian social life at the end of the nineteenth century, this darkly compelling tale offers a vivid portrait of the conflict between wealthy aristocrats and starving peasants that erupted into the 1917 revolution.

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In common with much of his other writing, this work by the eminent English novelist and essayist E. M. Forster (1879-1970) displays an unusually perceptive view of British society in the early 20th century. Written in 1908, A Room with a View is a social comedy set in Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England. Its heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, struggling against straitlaced Victorian attitudes of arrogance, narrow-mindedness and snobbery, falls in love-while on holiday in Italy-with the socially unsuitable George Emerson. Caught up in a claustrophobic world of pretentiousness and rigidity, Lucy ultimately rejects her fiancé, Cecil Vyse, and chooses, instead, to wed her true love, the young man whose sense of freedom and lack of artificiality became apparent to her in the Italian pensione where they first met. This classic exploration of passion, human nature and social convention is reprinted here complete and unabridged.

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Switched at birth by a young slave woman attempting to protect her son from the horrors of slavery, a light-skinned infant changes places with the master's white son. This simple premise is the basis of Pudd'nhead Wilson, a compelling drama that contains all the elements of a classic nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a ghastly crime, an eccentric detective, and a tense courtroom scene.First published in 1894, Twain's novel bristles with suspense. David «Pudd’nhead» Wilson, a wise but unorthodox lawyer who collects fingerprints as a hobby, wins back the respect of his townspeople when he solves a local murder in which two foreigners are falsely accused. Witty and absorbing, this novel features a literary first — the use of fingerprinting to solve a crime. This gem was Twain's last novel about the antebellum South; and despite its frequent injections of humor, it offers a fierce condemnation of racial prejudice and a society that condoned slavery.

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Initially published in 1912 and the first of Zane Grey's many bestsellers, this stirring tale of adventure in the high country established the prototype for western novels of the twentieth century. The plot's focus is a proud young heroine who's determined to defend her Utah ranch. She stands alone against the villains who rustle and stampede her cattle—until a stranger rides into the territory. Notorious as the scourge of Mormon transgressors, the stranger stays on to assist in the inevitable showdown, and romance blooms amid the canyons and cottonwoods. A classic of American frontier fiction, Riders of the Purple Sage teems with color, authenticity, and thrills.

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In the back streets of nineteenth-century London, a group of revolutionaries plot an incident intended to turn English complacency on its ear. Their objective: the destruction of one of the nation's proudest monuments of scientific achievement, the Greenwich Observatory. Unbeknownst to the schemers, however, their ringleader is an agent provocateur, driven by a complex array of ambiguous motives and conflicting loyalties.As this masterpiece of atmospheric realism and psychological depth unfolds, readers will savor the ironic narrative technique for which Conrad is justly famed, as well as the compelling characterizations that breathe life into his cast: Adolph Verloc, proprietor of an obscure Soho shop, whose double life encompasses a quiet family circle, friendship with a band of anarchists, and allegiance to a foreign government; Verloc's wife, Winnie, whose desperation to maintain a home for her simple-minded brother overrules her suspicions about her husband's activities; and Stevie, the man-child whose innocence proves the means of his undoing.One of the first and greatest espionage thrillers, The Secret Agent remains as engrossing and effective as when it was first published in 1907.

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An "A" for «adultery» marks Hester Prynne as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston. Although forced by the puritanical town fathers to wear a badge of shame, Hester steadfastly resists their efforts to discover the identity of her baby's father. Masterful in its symbolism and compelling in its character studies, Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of punishment and reconciliation examines the concepts of sin, guilt, and pride. The Scarlet Letter was published to immediate acclaim in 1850. Its timeless exploration of moral and spiritual issues, along with its philosophical and psychological insights, keep it ever relevant for students of American literature and lovers of fiction. A definitive survey, this Dover Thrift Study Edition offers the novel's complete and unabridged text, plus a comprehensive study guide. Created to help readers gain a thorough understanding of the content and context of The Scarlet Letter, the guide includes: • Chapter-by-chapter summaries• Explanations and discussions of the plot• Question-and-answer sections• Hawthorne biography• List of characters and more Dover Thrift Study Editions feature everything that students need to undertake a confident reading of a classic text, as well as to prepare themselves for class discussions, essays, and exams. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

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Hailed by critics as one of the greatest sea stories ever written, this rousing adventure offers a fascinating combination of gritty realism and sublime lyricism in its portrayal of an elemental conflict. Jack London began his career at sea, and his shipboard experiences imbue The Sea-Wolf with flavorful authenticity.In the story, the gentleman narrator, Humphrey Van Weyden, is pitted against an amoral sea captain, Wolf Larsen, in a clash of idealism with materialism. The novel begins when Van Weyden is swept overboard into San Francisco Bay, and plucked from the sea by Larsen's seal-hunting vessel, the Ghost. Pressed into service as a cabin boy by the ruthless captain, Van Weyden becomes an unwilling participant in a brutal shipboard drama. Larsen's increasingly violent abuse of the crew fuels a mounting tension that ultimately boils into mutiny, shipwreck, and a desperate confrontation.Read and loved around the world, this 1904 maritime classic has influenced such writers as Hemingway, Orwell, and Kerouac.

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