Red Classics brings you a timeless collection from one of literature's great heroes, Thomas Hardy.
Hardy possesed the inherent ability to express the sentiments of Victorian rural society through his carefully constructed stories. Often caught in a struggle against their passions and circumstances, his characters were an expression of his own repulsion of the injustice and hypocrisy that was rife at the time.
| The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy |
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In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
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| Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy |
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Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
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| Tess of the D'Ubervilles Thomas Hardy |
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When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.
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| Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy |
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Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless exploration of sexual and social relationships and his prophetic critique of marriage scandalised the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist.
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| Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert |
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Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating.
Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi'.
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| The Man Who Was Thursday Chesterton G K |
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Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are?
Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'.
In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty.
When Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to outwit his enemies.
But he has still to face the greatest terror that the Council has - its leader: a man named Sunday, whose true nature is worse than Syme could ever have imagined . . .
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| The Thirty Nine Steps Buchan John |
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Richard Hannay has just returned to England after years in South Africa and is thoroughly bored with his life in London. But then a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences. An obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, Hannay goes on the run in his native Scotland where he will need all his courage and ingenuity to stay one step ahead of his pursuers.
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| Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers |
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Childers's lone masterpiece, The Riddle of the Sands, considered the first modern spy thriller, is recognisable as the brilliant forerunner of the realism of Graham Greene and John le Carre. Its unique flavour comes from its fine characterization,richly authentic background of inshore sailing and vivid evocation of the late 1890s - an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and intrigue that was soon to lead to war.
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| The Prisoner of Zenda Hope Anthony |
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Rudolph Rassendyll's life is interrupted by his unexpected and personal involvement in the affairs of Ruritania whilst travelling through the town of Zenda. He is shortly on the way to Streslau, the capital, where he finds himself engaged in plans to rescue the imprisoned king.
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| The Lost World Doyle Arthur Conan |
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A land before time - a journey beyond belief . . .
Unlucky in love, but desperate to prove himself in an adventure, journalist Ed Malone is sent to test the infamous and hot-tempered Professor Challenger on his bizarre South American expedition findings - not least his sketches of a strange plateau and the monstrous creatures that appear to live there.
But rather than being angry at his questions, Challenger invites him along on his next field trip. Malone is delighted: until it becomes clear that the Professor was telling the truth about the terrible lost world he has discovered.
Will they all survive the terrifying creatures on the island? And will anyone ever believe what they saw there?
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| She Shelley Mary |
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On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out for himself if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does - in an unexpected form. Blending breathtaking adventure with a brooding sense of mystery and menace, She is a story of romance, exploration discovery and heroism that has lost none of its power to enthrall.
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| The Three Musketeers Dumas Alexandre |
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D'Artagnan, arriving in Paris from Gascony with no horse and few worldly goods wishes to join the King's Guards. He finds himself in the company of three musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the most renowned fighters of their day. The adventures they share, fighting for the honour of the Queen against the machinations of 'Milady', are rich in drama, colour and romance, which is why The Three Musketeers has remained so popular since its first serialisation in 1844.
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| The Friend of Madame Maigret Simenon Georges |
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Maigret becomes increasingly frustrated as his attempts to prove that a brutal, repulsive murder has been committed at a local bookbinder prove fruitless. The mystery revolves around a series of seemingly unconnected incidents and characters, creating an intricate and complicated narrative set amongst the backdrop of the Marais district of Paris. Eventually it is the intelligent and compassionate Madame Maigret who provides the vital clue.
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| Maigret and the Idle Burglar Simenon Georges |
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Set against a high-profile hunt for the latest criminal gang to hit Paris, Maigret is determined to track down the murderer of a quiet crook of the old school, for whom he cannot help feeling affection and respect. In Maigret's careful recreation of the life of this gentle and eccentric burglar, Simenon beautifully depicts Maigret's insight, compassion, and melancholic nostalgia.
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| Maigret in Court Simenon Georges |
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In a great courtroom drama, Maigret has to explain why he does not belive that Gaston Meurant was capable of slitting his aunt's throat for money and smothering a small child. But in saving him from the gallows, Maigret must expose some dark secrets about Meurant's life. A painful story of an oppressive domestic tragedy and the compassionate insight of a remarkable detective.
'A truly wonderful writer ... marvellously readable - lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with that world he creates of run-down hotels, cold, dark barges, quayside canal-taverns, lurking prostitutes, pot-bellied burghers, taciturn youths, slippery barmen'
Muriel Spark, Sunday Times
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| Lock 14 Simenon Georges |
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One rainy night, a canal worker stumbles across the strangled body of Mary Lampson in a stable near Lock 14. The dead woman's husband seems unmoved by her death and is curt and unhelpful when Maigret interviews him aboard his yacht. But gradually Maigret is able to piece together their story - a sordid tale of whisky-fuelled orgies and nomadic life on the canals. Can the answer to this crime be found aboard the yacht? Or is the murderer among the bargees, carters and lock-keepers who work the canal? In Lock 14, Simenon plunges Maigret into the unfamiliar canal world of shabby bars and shadowy towpaths, drawing together the strands of a tragic case of lost identity.
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| The Man on the Boulevard Simenon Georges |
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Madame Thouret had no trouble identifying her husband's body. What puzzled her was that he was wearing light brown shoes and a garish tie she'd never seen before. Maigret masterfully reconstructs the secret life of a vulnerable man who has made a desperate attempt to evade the failure and isolation of his rigidly conventional life. 'A truly wonderful writer ... marvellously readable - lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with that world he creates of run-down hotels, cold, dark barges, quaysidecanal-taverns, lurking prostitutes, pot-bellied burghers, taciturn youths, slippery barmen' Muriel Spark, Sunday Times
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| The War of the Worlds Wells H G |
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The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag - only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilisation is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear.
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| War & Peace Tolstoy Leo, Briggs Anthony (trans) |
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St Petersburg, 1805: a city of glittering parties and socialites. Into this scene step three young people seeking fulfilment in their different ways. Pierre is looking for life's meaning, but his cheating wife is driving him insane. Cynical Audrey is unable to find true love. And Natasha's impulsive and affectionate nature could threaten her future happiness. But their lives - and the lives of so many of their fellow countrymen - are about to change forever. Napoleon's army is approaching, and soon battle and terror will engulf them. They must learn to survive when their world is thrown into total war. 'Extraordinary vitality wonderfully satisfying' Daily Telegraph 'If you haven't already read War and Peace, there's no better time to do so' Vogue
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| My Friend Maigret Simenon Georges |
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A small-time crook has been murdered on a Mediterranean island. He was a nasty piece of work - a drunken thug, pimp and thief. Yet just before he died he was heard boasting in a crowded bar about his policeman `friend' Maigret. When Inspector Maigret hears about this, he decides to take a little island holiday to find out what's going on. Nobody there seems to have a motive for killing Pacaud - not the old English lady and her male `secretary' nor the ageing prostitute and the Dutch anarchist. But plenty of them have secrets they'd prefer to keep hidden . . .
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| The Bar on the Seine Simenon Georges |
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Inspector Maigret has a nasty job to do. He must visit a prisoner he arrested to tell him he will be executed at dawn. But the condemned man tells Maigret a story about something he saw years before. About a body dumped in a canal. About blackmail. About seeing the murderer again not long ago . . . There's probably no point in checking it out now, but the determined policeman still finds himself in a seedy bar to investigate. Is the murderer still one of its regulars? Maigret has a funny feeling about this case . . .
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| The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By Simenon Georges |
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Kees Popinga is a clerk in a respectable shipping company. But just before Christmas, the firm goes bust, taking his life savings with it. Suddenly the mild-mannered family man snaps. He disappears to Amsterdam and Paris on a debauched spree. But when a prostitute is found murdered, Kees is the prime suspect. He is now a wanted criminal on the run. Has this model citizen really become a paranoid killer? Or is he just playing a bizarre game of cat and mouse with the policeman who hunts him?
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| Emma Austen Jane |
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She's beautiful, rich and clever, and has decided she's perfectly happy with the single life. What Emma does love, however, is interfering in other people's business (and she is always convinced she's right). When she ignores the advice of her friend Mr Knightley and insists on matchmaking for her friend Harriet, her carefully laid plans go disastrously wrong. Is Emma so wrapped up in other people's love lives that she fails to spot happiness when it's right under her nose? Perhaps, when it comes to affairs of the heart, she can't control everything after all . . .
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| Jane Eyre Bronte Charlotte |
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Charlotte Bronte's first published novel, Jane Eyre was immediately recognised as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847. Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. How she takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, meets and loves Mr Rochester and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage are elements in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than that traditionally accorded to her sex in Victorian society.
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| Mansfield Park Austen Jane |
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Fanny Price has always felt like an outsider. She was adopted by her uncle as a child and now lives in luxury at Mansfield Park, but doesn't fit in somehow. Shyer and much sweeter than the glamorous cousins she has grown up with, she feels she can only stand by and watch from the sidelines, never living her own life. Fanny won't admit - even to herself - who she really loves. Her uncle conducts the search for a husband as if it were a business deal, and when the time for Fanny to marry comes, will she be handed over on a handshake? Or will she have the strength to make her own mistakes - and finally find true happiness?
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| North & South Gaskell Elizabeth |
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When her father leaves the Church, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. In North and South Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
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| Northanger Abbey Austen Jane |
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Young, impressionable Catherine believes that life should be a wonderful adventure right out of her favourite novels. Lost in her stories, she sees diabolical villains and swooning heroines everywhere she looks. Only her new friends, Henry and Eleanor Tilney, are able to teach her about realities of life. But when Catherine is invited to be a guest of General Tilney and his family at the mysterious Northanger Abbey, she still can't help wondering what horrifying secret her host is hiding in its dark rooms . . . Will Catherine ever be able to tell the difference between truth and fantasy? And is she too busy looking for heroes and villains to see the chance of genuine romance when it comes her way?
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| Persuasion Austen Jane |
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Eight years ago, Anne rejected the man she loved because her friends and family persuaded her that he wasn't rich or important enough. In all that time, she's never found anyone to match Captain Wentworth - and now he's back: successful, sophisticated and still single. Unfortunately for Anne, it's his turn to reject her. With her snobbish father and spoiled sister always ready to embarrass her in polite society, and her refusal of Wentworth still fresh in everyone's mind, Anne wonders if she'll ever find the courage to follow her heart again. And if she does, what can she do to regain the affections of her Captain?
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| Pride & Prejudice Austen Jane |
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Lizzy's embarrassing mother is determined to pair her off as soon as possible. But when she's introduced to the highly eligible bachelor Darcy, Lizzy decides he is far too aloof for her liking. He, for his part, seems totally indifferent to her. Then she discovers that he's been meddling in her family's affairs, and is determined to dislike him more than ever. But what are Darcy's real motives? Is he more interested in Lizzy than he'll care to admit? And could pride stop them both from admitting what they really feel?
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| Sense & Sensibility Austen Jane |
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Sister Marianne and Elinor couldn't be more different. Marianne is desperately romantic and longing to meet the man of her dreams, while Elinor takes a far more cautious approach to love. When the two of them move to the country with their family, miles away from London, there is little prospect of them finding anyone at all, But then they meet their new neighbours - including kind Edward Ferrers and the good-looking, dangerous Willoughby - and it seems happiness may be just round the corner after all. Things aren't always as they appear to be, though. Soon, both sisters will need to decide who to trust in their search for love: their family, their new friends, their heads - or their hearts?
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| A Confederacy of Dunces Toole John Kennedy |
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The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged as well. Ignatius ignores them as he heaves his vast bulk through the city s fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him. Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with . . .
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| A Spy in the House of Love Nin Anais |
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Beautiful, bored and bourgeoise, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near-strangers. Fired into faithlessness by a desperate longing for sexual fulfilment, she weaves a sensual web of deceit across New York. But when the secrecy of her affairs becomes too much to bear, Sabina makes a late night phone-call to a stranger from a bar, and begins a confession that captivates the unknown man and soon inspires him to seek her out . . .
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| Alice in Wonderland Carroll Lewis |
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'I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole without the least idea what was to happen afterwards,' wrote Dodgson, describing how Alice was conjured up one 'golden afternoon' in 1862 to entertain his child-friend Alice Liddell. In the nonsensical Wonderland and the back-to-front Looking-Glass kingdom, order is turned upside-down: a baby turns into a pig; time is abandoned at a tea-party; and a chaotic game of chess makes 7-year-old a Queen.
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| Chess: A Novella Zweig Stefan |
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On a cruiseship bound for Buenos Aires, a wealthy passenger challenges the world chess champion to a match. He accepts with a sneer. He will beat anyone, he says. But only if the stakes are high. Soon, the chess board is surrounded. At first, the challenger crumbles before the mind of the master. But then, a soft-spoken voice from the crowd begins to whisper nervous suggestions. Perfect moves, brilliant predictions. The speaker has not played a game for more than twenty years, he says. He is wholly unknown. But somehow, he is also entirely formidable . . .
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| Frankenstein Shelley Mary |
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Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with the secret of resurrecting the dead. But when he makes a new man out of plundered corpses, his hideous creation fills him disgust. Rejected by all humanity, the creature sets out to destroy Frankenstein and everyone he loves. And as the monster gets ever closer to his maker, hunter becomes prey in a lethal chase that carries them to the very end of the earth.
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| Great Expectations Dickens Charles |
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Pip doesn't expect much from life . . . His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip's narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?
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| Lolita Nabokov Vladimir |
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Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? . . . Or is he all of these?
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| Love in the Time of Cholera Marquez Gabriel Garcia |
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Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman can replace her in his heart. But now her husband is dead. Finally - after fifty-one years, nine months and four days - Florentino has another chance to declare his eternal passion and win her back. Will love that has survived half a century remain unrequited?
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| Marry Me Updike John |
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Sally is big, blonde and pampered. She s married to Richard. But she loves Jerry. Jerry loves Sally in return, but he s also still in love with his wife Ruth. Who s been sleeping with Richard - As a hot, feverish summer of snatched weekends, secret phone calls and illicit lovemaking on the beach comes to a head, it turns out everyone knows more than they ve been letting on. And that no one knows quite when to stop.
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| Mozart's Journey to Prague - Morike Eduard |
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Mozart is creative, brilliant and charming. But is he also a thief? Making his way to Prague for the opening of Don Giovanni, the great composer playfully tries to steal an orange from a Bohemian family s garden. But no sooner has he taken the fruit than he is caught by a furious gardener. Desperate to escape, Mozart frantically scrawls an apologetic note to the owners of the tree. Soon, he finds himself not only forgiven but welcomed by a family who have adored the beauty of his music and are stunned to find the celebrity wandering lost in their orangery. And when they reveal it is their daughter s wedding, there can only be one guest of honour: the musical genius Amadeus.
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| Old Goriot Balzac Honore de |
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Eugene wants to get on in the world. So he has come to Paris, where the streets teem with chancers, criminals and social climbers - and everyone is out for what they can get. When he finds a place to stay at a shabby boarding house, he sees a potential plan to make a fortune: the two beautiful, aristocratic women who mysteriously come at night to visit the lonely old lodger Goriot. Could they bring him the status and acceptance he craves? In the city nothing is as it seems though. Soon Eughne gets out of his depth in a world of greed and obsession that he could never have imagined. One that can only end in terrible tragedy.
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| Orlando: A Biography Woolf Virginia |
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Orlando has always been an outsider . . . His longing for passion, adventure and fulfilment takes him out of his own time. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey - a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or . . . woman?
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| Seize the Day Bellow Saul |
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Tommy Wilhelm is a worried man. Once charming, he has failed to make it big as an actor in Hollywood, left his family and lost his job as a salesman. Now he lives in the Hotel Gloriana in New York City, while his successful father lectures him about changing his life. But Wilhelm clings to the hope that his luck is about to turn - and has given his last $700 to the mysterious, philosophizing Dr Tamkin to invest. Is the smooth-talking Tamkin ripping Wilhelm off? Or does he offer him one last chance to make it out of this mess?
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| The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Twain Mark |
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Wild child Huck has to get away. His violent drunk of a father is back in town again, raising Cain. He won t rest until he has Huck s money. So the enterprising boy fakes his own death and sets out in search of adventure and freedom. Teaming up with Jim, an escaped slave with a price on his head, the two fugitives go on the run, travelling down the wide Mississippi River. But Huck finds himself wrestling with his conscience. Should he save Jim, or turn his friend over to a terrible fate?
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| The Bridge of San Luis Rey Wilder Thornton |
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An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five people into the abyss. It seems a meaningless human tragedy. But one witness, a Franciscan monk, believes the deaths might not be as random as they appear. Convinced that the disaster is a punishment sent from Heaven, the monk sets out to discover all he can about the travellers. The five strangers were connected in some way, he thinks. There must be a purpose behind their deaths. But are their lost lives the result of sin? . . . Or of love?
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| The Day of the Locust West Nathanael |
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Tod Hackett is a brilliant young artist - and a man in danger of losing his heart. Brought to an LA studio as a set-designer, he is soon caught up in a fantasy world where the cult of celebrity rules. But when he becomes besotted by the beautiful Faye, an aspiring actress and occasional call-girl, his dream rapidly becomes a nightmare. For, with little in the way of looks and no money to buy her time, Tod s desperate passion can only lead to frustration, disillusionment and rage . . .
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| The Death of Ivan Ilyich Tolstoy Leo |
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Ivan Ilyich is wasting away. He lies alone, dosed up on opium and deceived by doctors, haunted by memories and regrets. His friends come to see him, their faces masks of concern. His faithful servant tends to his every need. But as he forces down false remedies and listens to empty promises, Ivan grows aware of one terrible truth. His wife and his children are not awaiting his recovery. They are waiting for him to die . . .
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| The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald F Scott |
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Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach - Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.
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| The Master & Margarita Bulgakov Mikhail |
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The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices - including a demonic, gun-toting tomcat - he immediately begins to create havoc. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves - A masterpiece of magical surrealism, a triumph of the imagination Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Century.
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| The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Poe Edgar Allen |
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Sixteen-year-old Arthur is looking for adventure. So he stows away on a whaling ship bound for the South Pacific. But he gets more excitement than he could ever have imagined when, soon after setting sail, the crew rebel against their captain and murder everyone who will not join them. As the leaderless ship sails deep into high southern latitudes, the ravenous sailors begin to regret their treachery. Storms overwhelm the decks, and the nightmare vision of a corpse-ridden ghost ship taunts them as they starve. It seems they are being punished for their sins . . .
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| The Secret History Tartt Donna |
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A misfit at an exclusive New England college, Richard finds kindred spirits in the five eccentric students of his ancient Greek class. But his new friends have a horrific secret. When blackmail and violence threaten to blow their privileged lives apart, they drag Richard into the nightmare that engulfs them. And soon they enter a terrifying heart of darkness from which they may never return.
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| The Sheltering Sky Bowles Paul |
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Some journeys are best left unmade. Kit and Port Moresby are Americans abroad. Struggling to save their marriage, they resolve to trade civilization for the wilderness of the Sahara. At first, the pair are seduced by the desert s beauty. But beneath the exquisite landscape lurk the dark undercurrents of an alien culture, and the relentless dangers of a hostile natural world. And as they travel deeper, they might not only lose their way. They could lose their lives . . .
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| The Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe Johann Wolfgang |
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You only find true love once. When Werther dances with the beautiful Lotte, it seems as though he is in paradise. It is a joy, however, that can only ever be short-lived. Engaged to another man, she tolerates Werther s adoration and encourages his friendship. She can never return his love. Broken-hearted, he leaves her home in the country, trying to escape his own desire. But when he receives a letter telling him that she is finally married, his passion soon turns to destructive obsession. And as his life falls apart, Werther is haunted by one certainty: He has lost his reason for living.
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| The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Stevenson Robert Louis |
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Everyone has a dark side. Dr Jekyll has discovered the ultimate drug. A chemical that can turn him into something else. Suddenly, he can unleash his deepest cruelties in the guise of the sinister Hyde. Transforming himself at will, he roams the streets of fog-bound London as his monstrous alter-ego. It seems he is master of his fate. It seems he is in complete control. But soon he will discover that his double life comes at a hideous price . . .
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| Things Fall Apart Achebe Chinua |
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Okonowo is the greatest warrior alive. His fame has spread like a bushfire in West Africa and he is one of the most powerful men of his clan. But he also has a fiery temper. Determined not to be like his father, he refuses to show weakness to anyone - even if the only way he can master his feelings is with his fists. When outsiders threaten the traditions of his clan, Okonowo takes violent action. Will the great man's dangerous pride eventually destroy him?
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| Venus in Furs Sacher-Masoch Leopold Von |
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Sometimes there are no limits to what you ll do for the person you love . . . From the first moment Severin sees Wanda, draped in furs, he is captivated by her beauty, and her cruelty. He will do anything to please her, and soon desire becomes obsession as they enter into a world of domination, pleasure and pain to which it seems there are no boundaries. But as Wanda s fantasies become increasingly brutal and she takes another lover, their games begin to get dangerously out of control.
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| Wuthering Heights Bronte Emily |
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In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere . . . As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge - and continues to torment those in the present. How love can transgress authority, convention, even death. And how desire can kill.
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| Dracula Stoker Bram |
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Purity is priceless . . . Count Dracula's castle is a hellish world where night is day, pleasure is pain and the blood of the innocent prized above all. Young Jonathan Harker approaches the gloomy gates with no idea what he is about to face . . . And back in England eerie incidents are unfolding as strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck . . . But can Harker's fiance be saved? And where is the evil Dracula?
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| Notes from the Underground Dostoyevsky Fyodor |
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How far would you go to escape the real world?
The underground man had always felt like an outsider. He doesn't want to be like other people, working in the 'ant-hill' of society. So he decides to withdraw from the world, scrawling a series of darkly sarcastic notes about the torment he is suffering. Angry and alienated, his only comfort is the humiliation of others.
Is he going mad?
Or is it the world around him that's insane?
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| The Yellow Dog Simenon Georges |
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The small French town of Concarneau is a summer resort. In winter it becomes the deserted, rain swept scene for a series of murder attempts that attract the interest of Maigret. While his assistant Leroy uses "science" and "deductions" to trace the murderer, Maigret's instincts unerringly guide him to the real killer past a labyrinth of fascinating characters: a paranoid failed medical doctor turned real-estate shark; a passive, working class waitress whose heart secretly burns a torch of passion; an aristocratic politician who pressures Maigret to "make some arrests"; and a snarling stray dog that knows the murderer's real identity.
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| A Man's Head Simenon Georges |
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Set in the in the atmospheric and squalid streets of Paris, Maigret sets out to prove the innocence of a man condemned to death for a brutal murder. In another one of Maigret's unconventional and audacious plans, he arranges the escape of the condemned man in an attempt to prove his theory. The presumed murderer goes on the run across Paris and its suburbs, dropping misleading clues along the way and leading Maigret into the labyrinthine twists of the mystery. Maigret is in for more than he bargained for, as he encounters rich American expatriates, dangerous foreigners and their hidden motives.
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